Bacchanalia Case Study

The Senate’s decree issued in 186 B.C. (Senatus auctoritas de Bacchanalibus) makes it clear that Bacchanalia were to be permanently prohibited not only in the city of Rome, but also in Italy as a whole. However, there is evidence, which proves that despite Bacchanalia’s suppression, there was still some space for conciliation regarding the cult’s celebrations. Literary sources and archaeological finds suggest that the Bacchic cult continued to exist around Italy even after its restriction. Additionally, the Senate itself gave permission to the Bacchanals to perform their ceremonies and rites, under certain regulations and conditions. Bacchus was a sanctioned member of the Roman Pantheon; hence, festivals and rituals dedicated to the deity could

Robert Rousselle, in Liber-Dionysus in Early Roman Drama he states in numerous Roman plays Bacchus was called Liber, like in Pacuvius’ Antiopa and in plays written by Plautus . He explains that Roman citizens became familiar with the content of Bacchanalia through these plays, and that the Senate was aware of it as well, long before the incidents of 186 B.C . To Rousselle’s view, the Roman authorities were alarmed by the rising popularity of Bacchanalia and worried that it would replace the traditional cult of Liber, thus they decided to supress the former. Rousselle explains the cult of Liber was not affected by the persecutions of 186 B.C. . Hence that makes it possible for the initiates of the Bacchic mysteries to have turned to Liber, after the Senate’s legislation against the

She is standing next to a seated woman or priestess and next to her, a young boy is reading from a scroll, maybe it is a prayer or the mystical words of the initiation ritual. Otto Brendel states that “the Bacchic initiation ceremony does involve the reading of a sacred text where the initiate swears allegiance to the god Dionysus” . On the right side of the seat, there another woman, maybe she is already and initiate, holding a tray of cake, possibly it is an offering to the god. The cakes could be the honey-cakes that Ovid mentions in Fasti. Michael Grant supports that the young boy reading is in fact young Dionysus and the seated woman is his mother Semele, however others state that the boy could be Dionysus representative or a young priest