In theBacchae, the last work of his old age, Euripides reverted to a more archaic, more conventional, more Aeschylean type of drama. The conventional treatment of the chorus in this play is particularly remarkable; for the Euripidean choral odes had shown a tendency to become detached from the main concerns of the drama, to verge on becoming the ἐμβόλιμα associated with the successors of Sophocles and Euripides. But in the Bacchae, the structure as a whole is more coherent than in other late plays, and the chorus plays an unusually important and integral part in the drama.

It is well to examine, however, the nature of the relevance of the chorus in this play, and its involvement in the action of the play. We can note at the outset that we must distinguish between the chorus as participants in the dramatic action, and the use of choral odes to treat important themes in the play. The chorus of the Bacchae participates directly in the action of the play at only two points: 604ff., and 1024ff. Otherwise the chorus sings its odes and utters, at 263–5, 328–9, and 775–7, remonstrances or warnings derived from the vast store of Greek traditional wisdom which the chorus characteristically propounds. We can, therefore, contrast the chorus in the Bacchae with that in, for example, the Ion, where the intense devotion of the chorus to their mistress leads them to disregard Xuthus' injunction of silence, and to reveal his plan to Creusa.