The Containment of Dionysos: Religion and Politics in the

Bacchanalia Affair of 186 BCE

Matthias Riedl

Abstract
The suppression of the Bacchanalia in Rome 186 BCE was the first major religious persecution
in Europe. The essay provides a new analysis, referring to the political theory of Eric Voegelin. It
shows that the suppression was a reaction of the Roman commonwealth to a cult which
challenged the meaning of political existence within the republic. Ultimately, the Bacchanalian
affair is a collision of two types of religiosity, the political religiosity of the public cult and the
orgiastic and apolitical religiosity of the Bacchic underground. Both types are based on particular
religious experiences, the experience of gods preserving and fostering the political community
and the experience of a god promoting the fulfillment of bodily desires. As the essay shows at the
example of Euripides Bacchae, the worship of Bacchus-Dionysus had always represented the
apolitical dimension of human existence; already in the ancient myths the alien god figures as
the opponent of rulers and politicians. Finally, this reconsideration of the Bacchanalia helps to
understand why the early Christians were likened to the Bacchants.
Keywords: Bacchanalia, Cosmion, Dionysos, Eric Voegelin, Livy, Roman cult, Roman
Republic, Early Christianity, Religious Persecution, Orgiastic Sexuality.

Introduction
In 186 bce, the Roman Senate decided to take measures against the worshippers of the
god Bacchus and thereby initiated the largest systematic persecution of a religious group
hitherto seen in Europe. According to Livys account in the 39th book of his Ab urbe
condita, 7000 people fell victim to the campaign; the majority of them were executed (Ab
urbe condita 39.17.4-39.18.9).1 Livy also reports that the measures caused great terror inside
and outside of the city, numerous suicides, and a mass flight from Rome. According to
Cicero, the measures even included military operations, which make them appear almost
crusade-like (De legibus 2.15.37). The measures against the Bacchic cult lasted five years
altogether. In the end, the cult was not completely eliminated but reduced to a
manageable size and subjected to strict regulations. For the first time, the Roman Senate
had massively interfered in the religious affairs of the foederati. Even though this essay
does not comment on the old debate about the interrelation between monotheism and
religious persecution initiated by David Hume and reopened more recently by Jan
Assmann (2009) it provides ample evidence that polytheistic societies are very well
capable of systematic religious exclusion and persecution.
The initial impetus for writing this contribution came from a rather minor
philological discovery: one of the earliest pieces of Latin apologetic literature, the
dialogue Octavius, written by Minucius Felix in the early 3rd century, contains

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terminological references to Livys account of the Bacchanalian affair. The references
appear in the speech of the pagan Caecilius, the ideal type of a literate and conservative
member of the upper class, who despises the Christians and accuses them of
undermining and destroying the political, moral, and religious foundations of Roman
society (Octavius 8.4). 2 3 From the obvious terminological parallels between both texts one
may conclude that some pagans of the early 3rd century compared the Christians to the
Bacchants of the early 2nd century BCE, since they applied the same charges to the
Christians which according to Livys report were applied to the worshippers of
Bacchus. Both groups were accused by their opponents of practicing occulta and nocturna
sacra, amounting to a coniuratio, a conspiracy against the republic.4
After browsing some of the relevant literature, however, it soon turned out that
the parallel between Livy and Minucius had been seen before (Benko, 1984: 10-12).5
Moreover, other authors had showed that terminological resemblances between the
charges against the Bacchants and the Christians could be detected in other works as
well, including the famous correspondence between Pliny and Emperor Trajan
concerning the appropriate treatment of Christians (Grant, 1948; Barnes, 1968: 50;
Pailler, 1988: 759ff.; Nagy, 2002). Some scholars drew far-reaching conclusions from the
textual evidence: the persecution of the Bacchants in 186 BCE, described by Livy as a
legitimate, reasonable, and absolutely necessary act, served, on one hand, as a model for
popular accusations against the Christians and, on the other hand, as a precedent for legal
measures against the Christians (Cohn, 1993: 10ff.). This result, however, raises other
questions: why was this equation made between a group which (justifiably or not) was
infamous for its orgiastic worship and another one which was proud of its chastity and
moral superiority? Was it mere malignity or ignorance that the Christians, just like the
Bacchants, were accused of sexual excesses including all kinds of imaginable perversions?
Some scholars have proposed more or less convincing explanations, none of which
appear to be ultimately satisfying.
From a purely historical perspective that is only interested in the course of
events, the significance and long-term relevance of the Bacchanalian affair are not readily
apparent. Scholars, who define religion as an epiphenomenon of social, economic, and
political history (Rpke, 2001: 50) might be able to discern the Realpolitik-dimension of
the affair; yet they fail to see that the extremely harsh reaction of the Roman
establishment against the Bacchants cannot be explained without some consideration of
the significance of the god Bacchus.6 In other words, many modern scholars ignore what
was common wisdom among contemporaries, namely that Dionysos-Bacchus represents
an anthropological reality and that the Dionysiac worshipper, the Bacchant or the Maenad,
is a real, not a conventional figure (Dodds, 1951: 273).7
As I hope to show, the clash of orgiastic religiosity and politics at the occasion of
the Bacchanalian affair provides a glimpse at some general conditions of mans existence
in society. Only if this deeper meaning of the affair is fully considered can one
understand why these events were preserved in the collective memory of Roman society
for five centuries and actualized at numerous occasions the reaction toward the new
community of the Christians being only one of them. In this essay, I propose the
following theses:
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1) The Bacchanalian affair plays an important role in the process of the Roman
discovery of the political as a distinct sphere of human existence.
2) The Roman discovery of the political happens, at least partly, as a result of a
massive confrontation with the apolitical dimension of human existence, manifest in
the religious attitude of the Bacchants.
3) Livy understood the significance of these events, as his account of the speech of
Consul Postumius shows.
4) Already centuries before the Bacchanalian affair, Dionysos-Bacchus symbolized the
apolitical dimension of human existence, as is manifest in Euripidess tragedy The
Bacchae.
5) These findings shed new light on the pagan perception of early Christianity and
better explain why Christian communities were accused of sexual excesses and
abnormalities.
The first part of this essay outlines Livys narrative of the Bacchanalia and the historians
own interpretation of the events. The second part introduces Eric Voegelins theory of
political order, as found in the introduction to his History of Political Ideas, and shows the
aptness of his theoretical framework to elucidate the deeper meaning of the Bacchanalian
affair. Finally, the conclusion provides an answer to the initial problem: why did pagan
Romans regard Christians and Bacchants as communities of the same type?

Livys narrative
Livy wrapped the historical facts in a kind of novel with all the ingredients that up to this
day make a good story: sex, crime, and an obscure religious cult.8 Modern historians are
divided on the question of how much of the plot is fiction, although the main characters
are certainly based on historical figures (Walsh, 1996: 195-197). In any case, the story is a
carefully composed meaningful entity (cf. Adamik 2007); it goes as follows:
Publius Aebutius was a young member of an equestrian family. After the death of
his father he was brought up under the protection of his stepfather, who embezzled the
property of his ward. In order not to be held accountable by the judicial authorities, the
stepfather and the mother of Publius sought to destroy the virtue and reputation of the
young man by urging him to become an initiate to the Bacchanalia. However, a wellknown prostitute, the freedwoman Hispala Faecenia who had a love-affair with the
young Publius, warned him about the cult. As a girl she had been initiated to the
Bacchanalia together with her mistress and had observed the horrible rites practiced in
the cult. Upon her urgent advice, Publius refused initiation into the mysteries of the
Bacchanalia and, consequently, was expelled from the house of his stepfather. Publius
consulted the consul Spurius Postumius Albinus who then decided to investigate the
case.
The outcome of the inquiry was the following: the Bacchus cult, deriving from
the Greek Dionysian festivals, had first come to Etruria and from there to Rome, where
the rites were performed in the grove of Stimula. In the beginning it seems to have
caused no major misgivings. Hispala reports to the consul Postumius that the
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Bacchanalia had started as a cult for women, and it was the rule that no man should be
admitted. There had been three fixed days in a year on which initiations took place at
daytime into the Bacchic mysteries; and it was the custom for the matrons to be chosen
as priestesses in rotations (Ab urbe condita 39.13.). The troubles began when a woman
named Paculla Annia became priestess and altered the rites. According to Livy, the
Bacchanalia eventually turned into violent sex-orgies, including the rape of female and
male adolescents (Ab urbe condita, 39.11.6-7, 39.13.14.).9 The historian lets Hispala go on
with her report:
[Paculla Annia] had performed the ceremonies by night instead
of by day, and in place of three days in a year she had
appointed five days of initiation in each month. From the time
when the rites were held promiscuously, with men and women
mixed together, and when the licence offered by darkness had
been added, no sort of crime, no kind of immorality was left
unattempted. There were more obscenities practiced between
men than between men and women. Anyone refusing to
submit to outrage or reluctant to commit crimes was
slaughtered as a sacrificial victim. To regard nothing as
forbidden was among these people the summit of religious
achievement (Ab urbe condita 39.13.9-11).

Livy also tells us that consul Postumius presented the results of his investigation to the
senators, who for two reasons were seized with extreme panic (pavor ingens).
Collectively, they were afraid on account of the community (publico nomine) that these
conspiracies and nocturnal meetings might lead to some secret treachery or hidden peril;
and privately (privatim), each one feared on his own behalf, afraid that he might have
some connection with this horrid business (Ab urbe condita 39.14.4). The Senate reacted
quickly. Postumius and his co-consul Quintus Marcius Philippus were officially
empowered to conduct an extraordinary inquiry (quaestio extra ordinem):
The Senate decreed that the priests of these rites, male and
female, were sought out, not only in Rome but in all markettowns and centres of population, so that they should be
available for the consuls; furthermore, that it should be
proclaimed in the city of Rome (and edicts should be sent
throughout Italy to the same effect) that no one who had been
initiated into the Bacchic rites should attempt to assemble or
meet for the purpose of holding these ceremonies or to
perform any such religious rite. More especially, it was decreed
that an inquiry should be held regarding those persons who had
assembled or conspired for the furtherance of any immoral or
criminal design (Ab urbe condita 39.14.7-8).

Livy describes the immediately following persecutions, which were enacted as quaestio
extraordinaria on the basis of the decree as necessary emergency measures. The great
number of victims and the rashness with which the Roman authorities reacted seem to
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explain the great terror (terror magnus) that came over Rome and Italy.10 However, after
these immediate steps the Senate issued another, more carefully composed decree, which
was supposed to regulate future worship of Bacchus. Livy summarizes it as follows:
For the future it was provided by decree of the Senate that
there should be no Bacchanalia in Rome or in Italy. If any
person regarded such ceremonies as hallowed by tradition and
as essential for him and believed himself unable to forgo them
without being guilty of sin, he was to make a declaration before
the city praetor, and the praetor would consult the Senate. If
permission were granted to the applicant, at a meeting attended
by at least a hundred members of the Senate, he would be
allowed to perform the rite, provided that not more than five
people took part; and there was to be no common fund of
money, no president of the ceremonies, and no priest (Ab urbe
condita 39.18.8-9).

The text of this second decree is preserved on a bronze tablet that was found in the 17 th
century in Tiriolo in Southern Italy and is now on display in the Kunsthistorische Museum in
Vienna (Riccobono, 1968). The original text of the decree does not differ much from the
contents of the decree as rendered by Livy (Ab urbe condita 39.14,7-9), which attests to the
historians accuracy. In addition, archaeological evidence shows that exactly at the same
time temples dedicated to Bacchus were violently destroyed (Beard, North, and Price
1998: 93).11 Another, somewhat neglected source is Ciceros construction of ideal
religious laws in the second book of his De legibus. The fact that Cicero incorporates the
senatorial decree in his construct shows that already before Livy the legal measures
against the Bacchants had a paradigmatic significance (De legibus 2.9.21 and 2.15.37; cf.
Altheim, 1956: 62).
Livys narrative concludes with the significant rewards given to the heroes of the
story, Aebutius and Hispala, for their efforts to protect the city against great harm.

Livys Interpretation
Alongside the narrative, Livys account includes two interpretive sections, which perfectly
complement each other. The first one is the historians summary of the events at the
beginning of his account (Ab urbe condita 39.8.1-39.9.1). The second, more elaborate one
is the oration of Consul Postumius before the peoples assembly made to justify the
persecutions (Ab urbe condita 39.15.2-39.16.13). We do not know if Livy based the oration
on older sources or if he made it up completely.12 Yet, there can be no doubt that the
unprecedented dimension of the persecutions made such a speech necessary. The task
was not easy. On one hand, the consuls had to stir up the citizens fear of the Bacchants
as an obscure, alien, and hostile group threatening their social and individual existence.
On the other hand, it was foreseeable that the persecutions would bring about great
anxiety in the city. Apparently, many feared not only the violent measures but even more
the revenge of Bacchus. In order to secure their own position, the consuls had to calm
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the people and justify their actions. Whether older sources were available or not, Livy
knew exactly what the consuls had to say in such a situation. In any case, Livy does not
show any disagreement with the measures taken by the consuls and the reasons given in
Postumius oration. It might be useful to provide a synoptic outline of the major
elements of these two passages, in order to show that both make four common claims:
1) The Bacchanalia are a political problem.
2) The Bacchanalia are not sanctioned by tradition.
3) The Bacchanalia destroy the moral personality.
4) The Bacchanalia must be destroyed immediately.
Ad 1) Livys summary: The Bacchanalia have to be seen as domestic and secret
conspiracies (intestinae/clandestinae coniurationes). This argument implies that the
Bacchanalia are first and foremost a political problem which requires a political solution.
Postumius speech: The Bacchanalia are no longer just a problem of private
religion, even though it is yet confined to private outrages (privatae noxia). Ultimately, the
impious conspiracy (impia coniuratio) of the Bacchants aims at taking over the complete
control of the republic (ad summam rem publicam spectat). Therefore the republic must act.
Yet, the consul has to fight the popular fear that measures against a cult will raise the
anger of the gods. Previous interpreters of this text have overlooked that, in the course
of his argumentation, Postumius (or, respectively, Livy) redefines the concept of
superstition. It is no longer, as described by Cicero, just an unjustified fear of the gods,
the general misjudgment of somebody who does not know how to properly distinguish
the profane from the sacred and believes that his well-being completely depends on the
gods (De natura deorum 1.117 and 2.72). Superstitio now denotes more specifically the
attitude of somebody who is unable to differentiate between divine agency and politics as
the sphere of human agency:
Nothing is more deceptive in its appearance than a depraved
religion (prava religio). When the agency of the gods (deorum
numen) is made an excuse for criminal acts, there comes into the
mind the fear that in punishing human misconduct (fraudes
humanae) we may be doing violence to something of divine
sanction (divini iuris aliquid) that is mixed up with the offences.
But you are freed from such religion by countless decisions of
the pontiffs, resolutions of the Senate, and, for good measure,
responses of the soothsayers. () I have thought it right to
give you this warning, so that no superstition (superstitio) may
agitate your minds when you observe us suppressing the
Bacchanalia and breaking up these criminal gatherings (Ab urbe
condita 39.16.6-10; translation slightly altered, M.R.).13

Postumius, of course, does not think of a completely secular sphere of political action.
He adds that all measures against the Bacchants are favored and willed by the gods (omnia
diis propitiies volentibus faciemus); however, this claim presupposes that the gods grant to the
humans a sphere of independent action, even including religious affairs. This is an
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important step in the differentiation between the divine and the human spheres of order,
resembling the rationale behind Solons reforms in Athens four centuries earlier: disorder
in the realm of the political is rather the result of human misconduct than that of divine
destiny and, accordingly, must be set right by human action.14
Necessarily, the acts of the authorities must be in accordance with the general
norms of the religio-political order of the city. But since the gods are interested in the
public good of the city, which is threatened by the Bacchants, they will approve. This
leads to the next issue in Livys interpretation, the nature of the Bacchic cult.
Ad 2) Livys summary: The Bacchus cult is an alien religion, imported from Greece via
Etruria, which, first, spread like an epidemic thereby infecting the peoples minds with
error, and, secondly, is not performed openly in public but secretly and at night.
When Livy emphasizes that the cult does not belong to the religious traditions of the
ancestors, he implies that the suppression of the cult will neither affect the mos maiorum
nor cause the anger of Romes tutelary deities.
Postumius speech: The religion more maiorum as the fundament of the civic
order will only prevail if it is carefully protected against foreign religious practices. The
dimension of the anti-Bacchic measures might have a new quality, but they are in
accordance with the traditional policies to ban the sacra externa from the Forum.
For men of deepest insight in all matters of divine and human
law came to the decision that nothing tended so much to the
destruction of religion (nihil aeque dissolvendae religionis esse) as a
situation where sacrifices were offered not with the traditional
ritual (patrio ritu) but with ceremonies imported from abroad
(externo ritu)(Ab urbe condita 39.16.9).

Yet, Postumius goes much further. The exordium of the consuls oration includes the
customary appeal to the gods, which, in this situation, is given a special meaning:
It is a prayer that reminds us that these are the gods who,
according to the institutions of your ancestors, are to receive
your worship, your veneration, your prayers not those gods
who would drive on to every sort of crime, to every form of
lust, those persons whose minds have been taken captive by
degraded and alien rites (pravae et externae religiones) () (Ab urbe
condita 39.15.3-4).

This sentence is of special importance, since it shows that Livys Postumius not just
wants to ban a specific form of Bacchic worship, but the god Bacchus himself. He is an
alien god and he is unlike the domestic gods: he does not care for the welfare of Rome as
he provokes individual desires that have a destructive effect on the moral order of the
republic. Bacchus does not fit the do-ut-des principle of Roman civil religion. Postumius
rejects Bacchus on the same grounds as Cicero rejects the careless gods of the
Epicureans: where the gods do not care for the welfare of the humans, there can be no
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pietas, no sanctitas, no religio (De natura deorum 1.3, 1.115, 1.123). The consuls enmity
against Bacchus does not contradict the finding that his speech reflects a differentiation
between human and divine things. As he puts it, it is in the hands of the citizens whether
they accept the new god or if they follow the traditions of their ancestors.
Ad 3) Livys summary: The rites have eventually turned into wild, unrestrained sex
orgies. It is important to render Livys exact words, since they refer to elements of Stoic
ethics. To my knowledge, no previous commentator has taken this into account.15
The pleasures of drinking and fasting were added to the
religious rites to attract a larger number of followers. When
wine had inflamed their feelings, and night and the mingling of
the sexes and of different ages had extinguished all power of
moral judgment, all sort of corruption began to be practised,
since each person had ready to hand the chance of gratifying
the particular desire (voluptas) to which he was naturally inclined
(quo natura pronioris libidinis esset) (Ab urbe condita 39.8.5).

These words make very clear that Livy saw the sexual excesses as the core of the
Bacchanalian scandal. As Hispala says, the feeling of absolute license (licentia) and the
negation of sacrilege (nefas) were the guiding principles of the orgies and, at the same
time, the essence of the cult (summa inter eos religio) (Ab urbe condita 39.13.10-11). Livy is
referring to the Stoic doctrine of the inclinationes naturales, innate instincts, which are
necessary to enable the individual as well as the human species to survive. Yet, in the
adult human, they can turn into amoral and harmful lust (libido) when they are not
controlled by reason. It was common wisdom in Roman political theory (up to
Augustines De civitate Dei) that the Stoic sage, who has full rational control of his desires,
is a rare specimen if he exists at all. Therefore, reason must be institutionalized in laws
and socially supported by moral norms in order to restrain the passions of the people,
especially of adolescents.16 In other words, Livys interpretation can be summed up as
follows: If the laws of the republic are no longer observed and, additionally, reason is
corrupted by alcohol and ecstatic music, unrestrained lust will rule. And precisely this lust
is the religious experience behind the Bacchic cult. The other crimes related to the
Bacchanalia are secondary, yet still serious: Humans who try to resist initiation must be
murdered in order to secure the secrecy of the cult; forgery of testaments is necessary to
finance the ceremonies.
Postumius speech: Unrestrained lust (libido) is a rage (furor) that snatches man
into a whirlpool (gurges) of desires. He then is no longer with himself (suum) but with the
ones who conspire to commit every evil deed and every crime. In other words, the
Bacchanalia mean the absolute destruction of the moral personality, the dissolution of
the rational individual into the Dionysian collective. The consul goes so far as to say,
whatever wrongdoing (peccatum) there has been in these years, whether in the form of
lust (libido), or of fraud (fraus), or of violent crime (scelus), all of it, you may be sure, has its
origin in this one shrine (Ab urbe condita 39.16.2.).

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Ad 4) Livys summary: First only a few persons were initiated, but then the initiations
began to be widespread among men and women. This assessment provides two
reasons why the cult has to be suppressed at this particular point of time. A) The
initiation of men, which violated not only Roman but also Bacchic traditions, is already
morally dubious. However, as Livy adds a little later, the very size of the city concealed
it, giving ample room for such evils and making it possible to tolerate them. B) Now,
the number of initiates has become so big that it can neither be neglected nor tolerated.
As Hispala makes clear in her report to the consul, the huge crowd (multitudo ingens) of
the Bacchants is about to establish a parallel society (alter populus) (Ab urbe condita
39.13.14).17
Postumius speech: The consul gives exactly the same two reasons for the
necessity of immediate measures: A) The cult was known in Italy for quite a while but
came to Rome only recently. First, most initiates were female, but now males scarcely
distinguishable from females participate in the rites. The consul, however, says that
already in its earlier form the cult was morally corrupt and that the female Bacchants are
the source of the evil. B) The number of initiates is increasing so dramatically that the
development has to be stopped right now; there are already thousands of them in the
city. As they are about to organize they aim at destroying the social order and,
consequently, individuals as soon as they no longer enjoy the protection of the civic
community:
Unless you are on your guard, Citizens of Rome, this present
meeting, held in the daylight (diurna contio), legally summoned
by a consul, can be paralleled by another meeting held in the
night (nocturna contio). Now, as individuals, they are afraid of
you, as you stand assembled in your entirety; but presently,
when you have scattered to your houses in the city or to your
homes in the country, they will have assembled, and will be
making plans for their own safety and at the same time for your
destruction; and then you as individuals, will have to fear them
in their entirety (Ab urbe condita 39.16.4; translation slightly
altered, M.R.).

The meaning and significance of the Bacchanalian affair

In 1938, after Eric Voegelin had escaped the new Nazi regime in Austria and immigrated
to the USA, he started out to write a History of Political Ideas. For several reasons, not to be
discussed here, the largest portion of this work was only published posthumously in the
edition of Voegelins Collected Works. The introduction to the History contains the outline
of a unique theory of the political, which, despite the recently renewed interest in the
concept of the political, has not yet received the scholarly attention it deserves. 18 This
theory also provides a convincing alternative to Carl Schmitts agonistic concept of the
political.19 According to Voegelin, the political is the meaningful dimension of a society.
It therefore is not primarily a shelter against an enemy who seeks to annihilate ones
physical existence but, first and foremost, functions as a shelter against the frightening
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experience of contingency. The following quotations contain the tenets that are relevant
to the interpretation of the Bacchanalian affair:
To set up a government is an essay in world creation. Out of a
shapeless vastness of conflicting human desires rises a little
world of order, a cosmic analogy, a cosmion, leading a
precarious life under the pressure of destructive forces from
within and without, and maintaining its existence by the
ultimate threat and application of violence against the internal
breaker of its law as well as the external aggressor. The
application of violence, though, is the ultimate means only of
creating and preserving a political order, it is not its ultimate
reason: the function proper of order is the creation of a shelter
in which man may give to his life a semblance of meaning
(Voegelin 1997: 225).
Interpreted in these terms, the political cosmion provides a
structure of meaning into which the single human being can fit
the results of the biologically and spiritually [productive,
procreative] energies of his personal life, thereby [relieving] his
life from the [disordering aspects] of existence which always
spring up when the possibility of the utter senselessness of a
life ending in annihilation is envisaged (Voegelin 1997: 226).
The coexistence of, and comparison between, the political and
the apolitical attitudes toward life reveals the creation of the
political cosmion as the experiment to overcome the essential
incompleteness and relativity of human life by means of an
image of divine completeness and absoluteness (Voegelin 1997:
227).
The political idea is not an instrument of description of a
political unit but an instrument of its creation. () The
linguistic symbols [contained] in a system of political ideas, by
calling a ruler and a people by name, call it into existence. The
evocative power of language, the primitive magic relation
between a name and the object it denotes, makes it possible to
transform an amorphous field of human forces into an ordered
unit by an act of evocation of such units (Voegelin 1997: 228).

Applied to the Bacchanalian affair, Voegelins theory leads to the following results: in the
Bacchanalian affair, the cosmion of the Roman Republic defended itself against an
enemy which was, as religio externa, an external aggressor and, as intestina coniuratio, a threat
from within. Yet, whatever crime and violence might have originated from the Bacchic
shrine, the real threat was a different one: the Bacchanalia questioned the meaning of the
Roman cosmion. The Bacchic cult had always offered an alternative opportunity to find
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some fulfillment for people who had no chance to participate in the care for and
administration of the republic (procuratio atque administratio rei publicae), according to Cicero
the republican epitome of a meaningful life (De re publica 1.22.36). From the earliest times,
long before the cult came to Italy, women and even slaves had been admitted to the
Dionysian mysteries. The comedies of Plautus, which were mostly written before the
Bacchanalian affair, show that the Bacchic cult was known in Rome previously but was
always considered to be somewhat dubious (Walsh, 1996: 191f.; Beard/North/Price,
1998: 93). Yet, as long as the rites were performed by a limited number of people and at
rare occasions, the cult could be tolerated.
In 186 bce, however, the Roman authorities realized that the cult had grown out
of control. More and more people tried to find the meaning of life in the fulfillment of
bodily desires. Livy himself gives a social and a psychological reason for why the number
of people who felt attracted by foreign religions had increased since the Hannibalic wars.
First, many people fled from their deserted lands in the countryside to the city where
they did not or at least not immediately find their place in the social order. Secondly,
the vicissitudes of war and the alternations of success and failure made the citizens
receptive to new interpretations of human existence (Ab urbe condita 25.1). Some people
may have just used the cult to live out their sexual fantasies; nevertheless, there is no
reason to doubt that to the majority of initiates the experience of drunkenness,
unrestrained sexuality, and lustful violence was at the same time a religious experience.
As even consul Postumius admits, the Bacchants felt driven by a divine force (numen) and
claimed to be acting according to the will of a god. Once this alternative dimension of
meaning was accepted among a certain group of people, their desires became more and
more extreme as the norms and limitations of the overarching cosmion successively
began to fall. Eventually, some initiates were seeking the ultimate thrill in acts of sexual
violence against adolescent males.
The cosmion reacted exactly in the moment when the apolitical forces of
unrestrained bodily desires had gained a dimension where their destructive potential
could no longer be neglected.20 Besides the frightening size the cult had gained, there is
evidence that promiscuous sexuality, especially the initiation of young males, who were
the future carriers of the republic, was the main reason for the reversal of the hitherto
tolerant policy toward the Bacchants.21 The idea that young men were initiated before
the age of twenty meant that they were getting initiated at exactly the same time as they
were supposed to obtain their toga virilis; this could not be tolerated by the Senate
(Limoges, 2009: 90).
Additionally, Postumius intimates that especially the fact that young males were
initiated and morally corrupted before the military could get hold of them, caused great
concern. The military oath of somebody, who has already sworn the oath of Bacchic
initiation, is worthless. Those are not the right persons to defend the chastity of wives
and children (Ab urbe condita 39.15.13-14). The concerns of the senators about sexual
disorder are also manifest in the original text of the second decree, when it orders that no
man should wish to present himself to the female Bacchants (Bacas neiquis uir adiese uelet)
(Riccobono, 1968: 240, line 7; cf. Pailler, 1995: 166f.).

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Postumius depicts the Roman Republic as a cosmion in which the joint efforts of
gods and the civic institutions provide a shelter for the citizens. At the end of his speech
he solemnly emphasizes that especially now, in times of crisis, the leaders of the city, the
lesser magistrates, and the people have to gather in order to protect the city (Ab urbe
condita 39.16.12-13). The god Bacchus, on the other hand, is not part of the cosmion but
an alien force creating destructive forces inside the cosmion. The essence of this
destructive force is religious individualism, the desire for individual fulfillment as
opposed to the care for the public good. The Bacchants therefore act apolitically from the
perspective of the republican cosmion. If the republic would not defend itself against this
alien element, Bacchus and his Bacchants would establish their own cosmion, in which
the virtuous and pious citizens would be an alien element and subject to elimination.
Postumius clearly sees that the core of the conflict is the clash between two opposite
religious experiences.22 On the one hand, there is the experience behind the civil religion,
as most clearly expressed in one of Ciceros speeches:
(...) who, once convinced that divinity does exist, can fail at the
same time to be convinced that it is by its power (numen) that
this great empire has been created, extended, and sustained?
(De haruspicum responsis oratio 9.19).23

The articulation of this experience with symbols like religio, pietas, sanctitas, cura, and sacra
publica contributed essentially to the evocation of the Roman cosmion and determined
the symbolic structure of the political. Yet, there is another religious experience
symbolized by the name of the alien god. Postumius does not doubt that the Bacchic
experience originates from the numinous sphere. Nevertheless, it is an experience which
offends the gods of the ancestors, and therefore the gods support political measures
taken in order to fight the fatal result of this experience. All this is summed up in this one
sentence of Postumius:
All this we shall do, with the favour and approval of the gods; it
is they who have dragged these matters out of the shadows into
the light of the day, because they were indignant that their
divine majesty (numen) should be polluted by deeds of crime
and lust (Ab urbe condita 39.16.11).

Postumius seems to say that the gods of the ancestors do not accept Bacchus as their
fellow god. He is an alien god even from the divine perspective. Consequently, none of
the symbols of the republican cosmion really apply to the Bacchic cult. Alternative
symbols, however, are not simply at hand. Therefore, whenever traditional symbols are
applied to the Bacchanalia, they are often accompanied by adjectives which turn them
into their exact opposites (religio prava, sacrarium obscenum, sacra externa, externus ritus) (cf.
Canzik-Lindemaier, 1996: 90f.). In other words, the application of the republican
symbols to the individualist cult of the Bacchants would undermine the logic of the
political order, based on the principle that the procuratio rei publicae is the highest form of
personal fulfillment.24 A Bacchant cannot be a citizen. Should the city accept the
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Bacchanalia as sacra publica and as religio civilis it would mean the victory of Bacchus and
his destructive power. Postumius understood that the most significant differentiation is
not the one between religion and politics, but between political and apolitical forms of
religiosity.
At this point we have to ask what kind of god we are dealing with here. The
question is not easy to answer. The myths indeed say that Dionysus has to fight
constantly for his acknowledgment as a proper god in the divine as well as in the human
realm (Vernant, 1999).25 It is, however, interesting that the mythological enemies of
Dionysos are predominantly rulers, who try to ban him from their kingdoms: Perseus of
Argos, Lykurgos of Thracia, and most importantly, Pentheus of Thebes (Kernyi, 1966:
206). Dionysos, however, is the god of mania and breaks his way through every human
resistance (Kernyi, 1967: 280-282). In the famous monologue at the beginning of
Euripides Bacchae, the illegitimate son of Zeus announces his return to Thebes, the
hometown of his mother Semele, as follows:
To this of Hellene cities first I come,
Having established in far lands my dances
And rites, to be God manifest to them.
(...)
Now Cadmus gave his crown and royal estate
To Pentheus, of another daughter born,
Who wars with Heaven in me (theomachei ta kat eme),
and from my libations
Thrusts, nor makes mention of me in his prayers.
Therefore to him my godhead will I prove.
And to all Thebans (Bacchae 20-22, 43-48).26

The king tries to ban Dionysos from the city, neglecting that a god does not stop at city
walls (Bacchae 653-654). Dionysos cunningly turns the women of the city into Maenads
who follow him and celebrate Dionysian festivals in the mountains outside the city.
Pentheus wants to stop the Bacchanalia, but falls victim to the Dionysian dimension in
himself. The god appeals to his voyeuristic desires as he seduces him, convincing him to
dress up like a woman and to observe the Bacchanalia in the mountains. The whole story
cannot be told here, but finally Pentheus resistance against the god leads to his
destruction in a gruesome scene. The women, including his mother, are blinded by mania
and mistake him for an animal, tearing him to pieces.
One may, as E. R. Dodds did, interpret the story in psychological terms:
(...) the moral of the Bacchae is that we ignore at our peril the
demand of the human spirit for Dionysiac experience. For
those who repress the demand in themselves or refuse its
satisfaction to others transform it by their act into a power of
disintegration and destruction, a blind natural force that sweeps
away the innocent with the guilty.27

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This psychological dimension is certainly present in Euripides tragedy and the underlying
myth. Yet, as Jean-Pierre Vernant did, one may also emphasize the political moral of the
story:
The tragedy of the Bacchae shows the dangers that are involved
when a city retrenches within its own boundaries. If the world
of the same refuses to absorb the element of otherness that
every group and every human being unconsciously carry within
themselves, just as Pentheus refuses to recognize that
mysterious, feminine, Dionysiac element that attracts and
fascinates him despite the horror that he claims to feel for it,
then all that is stable, regular, and the same tips over and
collapses and the other, of hideous aspect, absolute otherness
and a return to chaos, come to appear as the sinister truth, the
other, authentic, and terrifying face of the same. The only
solution is for women to use the controlled trance, an officially
recognized thiasos [i.e. a Dionysian gathering; M.R.] promoted
to the status of a public institution, while men turn to the joy of
the komos, wine, disguise, and carnival and for the city as a
whole, in and through the theater, to make it possible for the
other to become one of the dimensions of both collective life
and the daily life of each individual. The victorious eruption of
Dionysus is a sign that otherness is being given its place, with
full honors, at the center of the social system (Vernant, 1990:
402).

The argument of Vernant can be brought in line with the terminology of Eric Voegelins
political theory: From the perspective of the political, absolute otherness causing a
return to chaos is the equivalent concept to Voegelins apolitical forces aiming at the
destruction of the cosmion. Expressed in these terms, Euripides seems to say that a sane
political order leaves some room for the Dionysian dimension. If the cosmion tries to
ban the Dionysian completely, it will break through and turn into violent rage. The
Dionysian cannot be banned since it is the apolitical dimension of human nature
transcending all political orders. And according to Greek understanding, everything that
is generally in man, everything that is natural and essential must be of divine origin. Yet,
the Dionysian can be contained within certain boundaries. In Euripides play Cadmus,
Pentheuss grandfather and predecessor on the throne, represents a type of ruler who
reconciled the Dionysian with the political. As Jean-Marie Pailler observed, only this
political reading of the tragedy as a play about the dialectique bachique/civique reveals the
profound relationship between Euripides Bacchae and Livys account of the Bacchanalia.28
Returning to the Bacchanalia of 186 bce, we may ask if Euripides message was
heard in Rome. To this question we get different answers. Postumius resembles
Pentheus, who wants to ban the god himself. It seems, however, that the Senate took a
much more moderate attitude, as is manifest in the second decree that was probably
issued after the senators were already confronted with the terror magnus of the
persecutions. They subjected the cult to strict regulations and the supervision of the
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Senate, but did not try to eliminate it. In other words, they contained the apolitical god
and thereby accepted his existence.29 Livy, on the other hand, seems rather to agree with
Postumius. The historian wants to convey a message when, in his narrative, a prostitute
saves the city: unfulfilled sexual desires are a problem and a source of disorder, but the
institution of prostitution should be enough to satisfy these needs. There is no need to
divinize and worship them.

Conclusion
On the basis of these results, we now can reconsider the initial question: why did pagans
of the second and third century see a parallel between Christians and Bacchants?
Obviously, they did so because they observed a group which, from their perspective,
behaved apolitically. The longings of the Christians and those of the Bacchants did not
have much in common, but both groups valued individual fulfillment more than the
public welfare. As Christian intellectual leaders such as Tertullian clearly expressed, there
was nothing more foreign to them than public affairs (nec ulla magis res aliena quam publica)
(Apologeticum 38). It was exactly this apolitical behavior that reminded literate pagans of
the Bacchanalia (cf. Wagemakers, 2010: 352f.). Consequently, they concluded that what
the Christians were doing in their obscure and nocturnal meetings must be more or less
the same as what the Bacchants did. Livys description was well-known and the missing
details could be added by imagination. The paradigmatic pagan in Minucius Felix says
about the abominable congregation (impia coitio) of the Christians:
They recognize each other by secret marks and signs; hardly
have they met when they love each other, throughout the world
uniting in the practice of a veritable religion of lusts (libidinum
religio) (Octavius, 9.2).
On a special day they gather for a feast with all their children,
sisters, mothers all sexes and all ages. There, flushed with the
banquet after such feasting and drinking, they begin to burn
with incestuous passions. They provoke a dog tied to the
lampstand to leap and bound towards a scrap of food which
they have tossed outside the reach of his chain. By this means
the light is overturned and extinguished, and with it common
knowledge of their actions; in the shameless dark with
unspeakable lust they copulate in random unions, all equally
being guilty of incest, some by deed, but everyone by
complicity. For whatever may happen in individual cases is the
general aspiration and desire of them all (Octavius, 9.6-7).30

What the pagans did not see is that the apolitical forces in man are not restricted to
bodily desires, but include spiritual longings. The dimension of the beyond as the object
of these desires was yet unknown to most pagans.
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Other than in Euripides tragedy, in Livys account the richness of the Dionysian
dimension is reduced to sexual lust. This essay, however, is not the place to decide
whether the orgiastic sexuality of the Roman Bacchanalia represents a reduced, a
degenerate or an unrestrained form of the Dionysian. Most likely, the contemporaries of
Postumius were already divided on that question. In any case, the apolitical dimension of
human existence is much more complex. Man can transcend the political in the biological
as well as in the spiritual sphere. From both dimensions he might gain insights into other
possibilities of meaningful existence. As Plato says, the greatest goods (ta megista ton
agathon) can spring from mania, if it is of true divine origin (Plato, Phaidros 244a). These
insights can contribute to the richness of human life in society, given that the political
order displays certain openness toward the apolitical dimension. Modern totalitarianism,
on the other hand, can be explained as the attempt to eliminate the apolitical realm of
experience altogether and to substitute the cosmion for the cosmos (Voegelin, 1997:
227). The mythical Pentheus and the historical Postumius are not totalitarian politicians,
yet their attempts to abolish the apolitical go certainly in this direction. One can conclude
that, at their core, the tragedy of Euripides and the story told by Livy exemplify a
problem of perpetual and intercivilizational relevance: the extent to which a political unit
can accommodate forces that undermine the meaning-structure behind its institutional
order and, consequently, its raison dtre.

Notes
If not otherwise indicated, all English quotations from Ab urbe condita are taken from Livy
(1976); all Latin quotes are from Livy (1965).
2 Im using the term pagan in the sense of non-Christian, as it came into use in late antiquity.
3 For a contextual analysis of the Octavius see Riedl (2009).
4 In the Roman Republic coniuratio was not a clearly defined term in penal law but denoted an
immediate threat to the Commonwealth (Nippel 1997: 68).
5 See the editorial notes of G.W. Clarke to his English translation of the Octavius. Minucius Felix
(1974: 207, note 106).
6 An extreme case of Realpolitik-interpretation is found in Erich S. Gruen (1990: 34-78). Gruen
concludes: Rome had little reason to fear the cult as threat of religion, society or public order.
But Bacchic sectarians supplied convenient victims for purposes that had little to do with the sect
itself. The campaign against Dionysiac worship must be seen largely as a demonstration a
posturing by the leadership to exhibit senatorial authority, to declare dominion in Italy, to
distinguish collective interest from individual excesses, and to distance itself from some of the
manifestations of Hellenism (Gruen 1998: 72f.). Fergus Millar, on the contrary, presents the
senatus consultum as representing the standard means of communication with the Italian
foederati in the first half of the second century bce (Millar, 1984: 7). Sarolta A. Takcs also
provides a Realpolitik perspective, emphasizing more the dimension of domestic politics. The
Senates refusal had nothing to do with religious or moral scruples despite Livys insistence; it was
a question of traditional senatorial rights and political power (Takcs, 2000: 303). A more
balanced evaluation of possible motives behind the senatorial measures is found in Limoge
(2008).
7 Cf. also E. R. Dodds introduction to his commented edition of Euripides Bacchae (Euripides,
1960). The concept of the Dionysian I am referring to is the one of E. R. Dodds and Jean-Pierre
1

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Matthias Riedl The Containment of Dionysos

Vernant rather than the one developed in Nietzsches early work The Birth of Tragedy. By saying
that the Dionysian dimension is an anthropological reality I certainly do not claim that it is das
Wahrhaft-Seiende, as Nietzsche says (Nietzsche, 1999: 38f). Nietzsches work undoubtedly
contains lucid passages even though his juxtaposition of the Dionysian and the Apollonian can
hardly claim to be grounded in classical traditions. However, it is very unfortunate that he held
Euripides in such low esteem and therefore neglected the political significance of the Dionysian
as displayed in the Bacchae.
8 This novel-like part of the account begins in 39.9.2. The story, in fact, has been turned into a
detective novel (Zimmermann, 1996)
9 The narrative strikingly resembles the emergence of pantomime in Rome, as recently described
by Arpad Szakolczai (2013: 95-104). In both cases we are told that the practices migrated to
Rome from the East via Greece and Etruria (with possible origins in prehistoric shamanism). In
both cases, the practices were at first perceived as alien and existed rather at the fringes of
society. And in both cases social disturbances resulting from imperial warfare have been made
responsible for the acceptance of these foreign practices.
10 For the reach of the persecution outside Rome see Stek (2009: 19-21).
11 For a comprehensive study of the archaeological evidence of the Bacchus cult in Italy and its
persecution see Pailler (1988).
12 Livy may have used the family annals of the Postumii or, more likely, a Latin translation of a
history written in Greek by a younger relative. For the speech in particular he may have also used
the acta senatus (Limoges, 2009: 78, 81; cf. Adamik, 2007: 333f.).
13 Accordingly, in Livys text the concept of superstition is not applied to the Bacchanalia.
14 Eric Voegelin writes on Solons discovery: The responsibility rests not with the gods, but with
the folly of men. () For the first time, the historico-political process appears as a chain of cause
and effect; human action is the cause of order or disorder in the polis (Voegelin 2000b: 265; cf.
Meier 1995: 225ff. and Meier 1993: 69ff.). Postumius discovery is of exactly the same type.
15 Sarah Limoges points to Livys stoic view of religion but not to his use of Stoic ethical
concepts (Limoges, 2009:78).
16 For the Stoic theory of inclinationes naturales and its legacy in Western thought see Forschner
(1998: 50-60 and 1995: 142-159).
17 La vrai crime, selon Tite-Live, tait de commettre tous ces actes en obissant aux lois dun
organisme autre que ltat romain, et ce qui a encore aggrav la menace tait le grand nombre des
participants issus de toutes les couches de la socit (Nagy, 2002: 181). Such a large group of
initiates is unprecedented in the history of the mystery cults (Burkert, 1987: 52f.).
18 This short text, which previously existed only as a handwritten manuscript, is now published as
appendix to Voegelin (1997: 225-237); some discussion of this text and its intellectual and
biographical background is found in Hollweck/Sandoz (1997), Henningsen (2000: 1-9), Gebhardt
(1998), Sigwart (2005: 265-280), Riedl (2007: 113-115). See also Voegelins own remarks in his
Autobiographical Reflections (Voegelin 1996: 62-69).
19 The specific political distinction to which political actions and motives can be reduced is that
between friend and enemy (Schmitt, 1996: 26).
20 Cf. also the analysis of J. A. North from the perspective of religious history. North emphasizes
that the Bacchanalia must also be seen in the context of a religious revolution, namely the
formation of religious organizations based on the membership principle. It is difficult to
exaggerate the importance of the religious revolution of which this development was the first
sign in Italy. Once a society has within it groups of people who have joined together because of

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their shared religious beliefs, a whole new set of religious possibilities arises. The leadership of
the group acquires a degree of control that priests had previously lacked: the organized group
becomes a potentially threatening force in politics (North, 2000: 66).
21 It was the detail of the systematic sexual abuse, and especially as inflicted in young men,
which caused the outrage () (Walsh 1996: 200). Cest bien cette entre chez les Bacchantes
de jeunes homes, ou plus exactement la multiplication de tels gestes, qui inquite en 186 le
pouvoir romain: cela lui parat humainement aberrant et civiquement dangereux. Pailler (1995:
167); cf. Bauman (1990: 347).
22 They [the leaders of the Bacchants] were unwitting actors in a drama which was bigger than
themselves. But it was also larger than the figures of the consuls and the majesty of the Senate,
for it was a drama of ideas, a clash between two religious worlds, two totally different forms of
religion, the religion of the State, in this case the Roman State, and the religion of the individual,
here represented by the religion of the Bacchanalia. In this clash of ideas the persecution of the
Bacchanalia finds its real historical explanation. (Pettazzoni 1954: 206).
23 Quoted from the bilingual edition in Cicero (1965: 341).
24 For the term procuratio see Verboven (2002: 230).
25 See esp. the chap. Dionysos Thbes.
26 Quoted from Euripides (1912, vol. 3: 9-11). According to E. R. Dodds the words theomachei
ta kat eme could more adequately be translated as opens war on deity in my person (Dodds
1960: 68).
27 Quoted from Dodds introduction to Euripides (1960: xlv); cf. Dodds (1951: 273): To resist
Dionysos is to repress the elemental in ones nature; the punishment is the sudden complete
collapse of the inward dykes when the elemental breaks through perforce and civilisation
vanishes.
28 En 186 av. J.-C., lorsquclate Rome le scandale des Bacchanales, cest lombre de Thbes
qui stend sur lItalie. Pour nous aujourdhui, comme pour les administrs du consul perscuteur
Postumius, les mythique Bacchantes dEuripide fournissent en effet le modle et comme la grille
de lecture de lpisode dramatiquement rel dont Tite-Live (XXXIX, 8 19) nous a transmis le
souvenir (Pailler 1995: 107).
29 The question seems to have been handled pragmatically by a mixture of decree and policy
regulation. Here was an admittedly ancient cult, and therefore offence to gods by its neglect
might be incurred of it was abolished altogether; at the same time, its rites were offensive and
destructive to social order. Therefore, their practice must be rendered harmless and confined to
the narrowest limits. (Frend 1965: 111).
30 The lampstand story was extremely popular in this period, as we learn from the refutations
of various Christian authors (Wagemakers 2010: 338f.).

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