​2,211 years ago. Rome, 186 BC. 7,000 men and women of all classes (including slaves) faced the death penalty for their participation in the secret nocturnal cult festival known as the Bacchanalia, where drunken orgies, sexual perversions, poisoning, forgery, human sacrifice and political conspiracies were all alleged to take place.

​“At night both men and woman, their minds having been set aflame with wine, of greater tender youths, had destroyed all distinction of shame, all kinds of corruption began to happen, since at the time they were prone to obtaining their natural pleasure. There was not only one kind of crime; but here was a great deal of arbitrary rape of females, also false witnesses, forged signing of wills and evidence, all were issued from the same place: from the same place also came poisoning and internal assassinations, so that not even bodies existed for burial…The violence was covered because of the howling and crash of drums and cymbals so no citizens cries were to be heard during their violent rape and slaughter.” – Livy

Sacrifice to Bacchus (1634) by Massimo Stanzione

The cult sprang from increased Greek cultural influence (especially Dionysus, their version of the wine god Bacchus, or vice versa) with the Roman conquest of the Hellenic cities of southern Italy (’Magna Graecia’), the appointment of Greek slaves as educators to the children of elites, and the huge of influx of wealth after the defeat of Carthage in 201 BC. The rigid Senatorial class were was disturbed by the dangerously egalitarian aspects of the Bacchic cult, seeing the phenomenon as something that could break their grip on the Republic.

​To crack down on this potentially society-upending movement, the Roman Senate issued the legal decree the Senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus:

​Amazingly, a brass rubbing of the decree still exists; translated to English it says:

​"The Consuls Quintus Marcius, the son of Lucius, and Spurius Postumius, the son of Lucius, consulted the senate on the Nones of October (7th), at the temple of the Bellona. Marcus Claudius, son of Marcus, Lucius Valerius, son of Publius, and Quintus Minucius, son of Gaius, were the committee for drawing up the report. Regarding the Bacchanalia, it was resolved to give the following directions to those who are in alliance with us: No one of them is to possess a place where the festivals of Bacchus are celebrated; if there are any who claim that it is necessary for them to have such a place, they are to come to Rome to the praetor urbanus, and the senate is to decide on those matters, when their claims have been heard, provided that not less than 100 senators are present when the affair is discussed.

No man is to be a Bacchantian, neither a Roman citizen, nor one of the Latin name, nor any of our allies unless they come to the praetor urbanus, and he in accordance with the opinion of the senate expressed when not less than 100 senators are present at the discussion, shall have given leave. Carried.

No man is to be a priest; no one, either man or woman, is to be an officer (to manage the temporal affairs of the organization); nor is anyone of them to have charge of a common treasury; no one shall appoint either man or woman to be master or to act as master; henceforth they shall not form conspiracies among themselves, stir up any disorder, make mutual promises or agreements, or interchange pledges; no one shall observe the sacred rites either in public or private or outside the city, unless he comes to the praetor urbanus, and he, in accordance with the opinion of the senate, expressed when no less than 100 senators are present at the discussion, shall have given leave. Carried.

No one in a company of more than five persons altogether, men and women, shall observe the sacred rites, nor in that company shall there be present more than two men or three women, unless in accordance with the opinion of the praetor urbanus and the senate as written above. See that you declare it in the assembly (contio) for not less than three market days; that you may know the opinion of the senate this was their judgment: if there are any who have acted contrary to what was written above, they have decided that a proceeding for a capital offense should be instituted against them; the senate has justly decreed that you should inscribe this on a brazen tablet, and that you should order it to be placed where it can be easiest read; see to it that the revelries of Bacchus, if there be any, except in case there be concerned in the matter something sacred, as was written above, be disbanded within ten days after this letter shall be delivered to you. In the Teuranian field."

​When members of the elite began to participate in the Mysteries, information was presented to the Senate by the impoverished noble Publius Aebutius and his lover, the courtesan Hispala Faecenia,

The author Livy, writing over 150 years later, claims that Hispala said the following words in her testimony:

​”Paculla Minia, a Campanian, when priestess, made an alteration in every particular, as if by the direction of the Gods. For she first introduced men; changed the time of celebration, from day to night; and, instead of three days in a year, appointed 5 days of initiation in each month. From the time that the rites thus made common, and men were intermixed with women, and the licentious freedom of the night was added, there was nothing wicked, nothing flagitious, that had not been practiced among them. There was more frequent pollution of men with each other than with women. If any were less patient in submitting to this dishonour, or more averse to the commission of vice, they were sacrificed as victims. To think nothing unlawful was the grand maxim of their religion. The men, as if bereft of reason, uttered predictions, with frantic contortions of their bodies; The women, in the habit of Bacchantes, with their hair dishevelled, and carrying blazing torches, ran down to the Tiber, where, dipping their torches in the water, they drew them up again with the flame unextinguished, being composed of native sulphur and charcoal. Their number was exceedingly great now, almost a second state in themselves, and among them were many men and women of noble families.”

​The Bacchanalia cult in Rome was based in the grove of Stimula on the western slope of the Aventine Hill, close to The Tiber. The Aventine was ethnically mixed and particularly identified with Rome's lower plebeian class, together with strange new foreign cults. Livy claimed the faction held particular appeal to those of uneducated and fickle mind (levitas animi) – the young, plebeians, women and homosexuals but also some belonging to Rome's highest class.

The sect was held to be a threat to the security of the state, so investigators were appointed, rewards offered to snitches and the official suppression of the cult swept throughout Italy. According to Livy, many committed suicide to avoid punishment; the penalty for those who led the cult was death. He also stated that there were far more executions than imprisonments.

​Methods of Execution

Public execution for men: Convicted male ringleaders found guilty of capital crimes (such as forced initiation, violence, or conspiracy) were put to death in public spaces in Rome and across Italy. Probably by beheading.

Private domestic punishment for women: Rather than public execution, convicted female cult members were handed over to their male household heads (patria potestas) or close relatives to receive private punishment behind closed doors.

Forced suicide: Anticipating arrest, trial, and formal sentencing under the Senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus, many chose to take their own lives rather than face the ordeal of formal state prosecution.

Despite this, the Bacchanalia lingered in the still Greek-influenced south of Italy and was revived in a less threatening form in the later years.

Mark Antony famously identified with the wine god, and was known as the "New Dionysus" to legitimise his rule and charm the Greek and Eastern provinces he controlled. He went as far as to dress in Dionysian garb, complete with ivy crowns and thyrsus staffs. When he toured Greece and Asia Minor, cities ecastically welcomed him with processions of ‘satyrs’ and bacchantes, hailing him as "Dionysus the Benefactor" and "Bringer of Joy".

The wily Octavian harked back to 186 BC in framing Antony's adoption of divine kingship as a total betrayal of Roman values, setting the stage for the final civil war and Antony's defeat at Actium (30 BC).

Memories of the cult’s supposed excesses were reflected in criticism of the new Christian faith. Minuncius Felix Octavius, writing in 197 AD, claimed they were falsely accused of recognising:

“One another by secret signs and marks; they fall in love almost before they are acquainted; everywhere they introduce a kind of religion of lust, a promiscuous ‘brotherhood’ and ‘sisterhood’ by which ordinary fornication, under cover of a hallowed name, is converted to incest. An infant, cased in dough to deceive the unsuspecting, is placed beside the person to be initiated. The novice is thereupon induced to inflict what seem to be harmless blows upon the dough, and unintentionally the infant is killed by his unsuspecting blows; the blood – oh, horrible – they lap up greedily; the limbs they tear to pieces eagerly.”

The Bacchantes (1961)

The opening ritual from The Bacchae, directed by Brad Mays, 2000

​"All the World's a Stage" – Enter Dionysus (1984): Terence Stamp stars as Dionysus in a recorded extract of Euripides' ancient Greek tragedy The Bacchae

Note: the Romans also persecuted the Celtic Druids for a variety of reasons, some political, some ethical, although the condemnation of ritual human sacrifice is a tad hypocritical coming from those who lapped up Gladiatorial combat.

SOURCES INCLUDE

​The Cult of Bacchus and Pliny’s Christian Conundrum: https://anerdyethos.wordpress.com/2013/04/01/the-cult-of-bacchus-and-the-christian-conundrum/

​Bacchanalia – the first persecutions?: https://imperiumromanum.pl/en/curiosities/bacchanalia-the-first-persecutions/

​The Cult of Bacchus: http://avirtualmuseum.org/exhibits/roman_wineii/bacchic/bacchus_intro.html

​The thrill and the ecstasy: the mysteries of the Dionysian cult in ancient Rome:https://www.planetpompeii.com/en/blog/the-thrill-and-the-ecstasy-the-mysteries-of-the-dionysian-cult-in-ancient-rome.html

​How the Cult of God Bacchus was Banned in Ancient Rome:https://greekreporter.com/2023/08/18/god-bacchus-ancient-rome/

​THE BACCHANALIAN AFFAIR: https://lawexplores.com/the-bacchanalian-affair/

​The Suppression of the Bacchanalia: https://necropolisnow.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-suppression-of-bacchanalia.html

​The Bacchanalia: A Greek Dionysian Mystery Cult in Ancient Rome: https://brewminate.com/the-bacchanalia-a-greek-dionysian-mystery-cult-in-ancient-rome/

​The Octavius of Minucius Felix: https://www.tertullian.org/fathers2/ANF-04/anf04-34.htm#P5579_831897

​Under the Spell of the Druids: https://www.historytoday.com/miscellanies/under-spell-druids

​Why Did the Romans Destroy the Druids?: https://medium.com/@ancient.rome/why-did-the-romans-destroy-the-druids-1861c20e3942

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