The poet of "The Bacchanals," now a voluntary exile at Pella, seems to have reinvigorated himself under a new sky, and to exult in his freedom. He had gone from a land tamed and domesticated by the hand of man, to a land in which nature was still imperfectly subdued. In the place of vineyards, oliveyards, and gardens, forests and mountains greeted his eyes. Broad rivers were in the room of the narrow and uncertain streams that watered Attica. The snows on Mount Parnes disappeared when the sun rode in Cancer; but they never departed from the sides and summits of Ossa and Olympus. There is a Salvator-like grandeur in the scenery described in "The Bacchanals." The action of the play lies indeed in Bœotia; but, instead of loamy fields and sluggish rivers, we are placed among rocks where the eagle builds her eyrie, or among forests tenanted by the wolf and bear.
The religious elements in "The Bacchanals" are worth noticing, since they differ widely from those commonly found in other plays of its author. The presiding god is a terrible as well as a powerful being. He admits of no half-service; he cannot abide sceptics; he makes short work with opponents. All such free and easy dealing with the gods as are met with in "The Phrenzy of Hercules" or the "Electra" disappears. Perhaps the Macedonians were not sufficiently civilised to relish tampering with old beliefs. There may also have been a change in the feelings of the aged poet himself. He may have said to himself, "What has it profited me to have so long striven to make others see
