Portions of the pediments of this temple have been found in the excavations; but no sign has been found of the pediments mentioned by Pausanias, representing on the east Apollo and the Muses, and on the west Dionysus and the Thyiades (Bacchantes), and designed by Praxias, the pupil of Calanias.
His singular dramas, The Bacchantes (1822), Sigurd Ring, which was posthumous, and The Martyrs (1821), are esteemed by many critics to be his most original productions.
It was on Cithaeron that Actaeon was changed into a stag, that Pentheus was torn to pieces by the Bacchantes whose orgies he had been watching, and that the infant Oedipus was exposed.
Parnassus was one of the most holy mountains in Greece, hallowed by the worship of Apollo, of the Muses, and of the Corycian nymphs, and by the orgies of the Bacchantes.