The Cult Of Bacchus

[Favonius Cornelius]

The Second Punic war caused great strife for the Roman people. It was surely a time when nearly no family did not lose a man in the wars to the armies of Hannibal. As seen in the extreme dictations of the quindecimviri during that time, religious observance was one outlet used to allay public strain. The scars of the war left its mark on the psyche of Roman Republic after its conclusion. It was a firtile ground for religious exploration where the people could find meaning in their lives. One such expression was the growing Cult of Bacchus.

 

Bacchus had been recognized for some time under the name Liber, the Italic diety, when Rome expanded through Italia. Perhaps too there was influence from the Greek founded cities in the south of Italia via Dionysus. The calculated Roman tradition of absorption of the gods of conquered peoples promised that popular gods would be respected.

 

By 186 BC, the Cult had spread through much of Italia, and the severity of its secretive cult members in their drunken orgiastic worship had caused the Senate of Rome to declare the Cult of Bacchus a subversive group which threatened public order. Based on the accounts from the histories and archaeological evidence, we see a picture of excessive intoxication and revelry as a fundamental to worship of Bacchus. Coupled with its tradition of secrecy, one can see the allure to those who look for excitement and change in a rough world.

 

Livy, Book 39:

 

"During the following year the consuls Sp. Postumius Albinus and Q. Marcius Philippus had their attention diverted from the army and the wars, and the administration of provinces, by the necessity of putting down a domestic conspiracy. The provinces were allotted to the praetors as follows: the civic jurisdiction to T. Maenius, the alien to M. Licinius Lucullus, Sardinia to C. Aurelius Scaurus, Sicily to P. Cornelius Sulla, Hither Spain to L. Q. Crispinus, and Further Spain to C. Calpurnius Piso. Both the consuls were charged with the investigation into the secret conspiracies. A low-born Greek went into Etruria first of all, but did not bring with him any of the numerous arts which that most accomplished of all nations has introduced amongst us for the cultivation of mind and body. He was a hedge-priest and wizard, not one of those who imbue men's minds with error by professing to teach their superstitions openly for money, but a hierophant of secret nocturnal mysteries. At first these were divulged to only a few; then they began to spread amongst both men and women, and the attractions of wine and feasting increased the number of his followers. When they were heated with wine and the nightly commingling of men and women, those of tender age with their seniors, had extinguished all sense of modesty, debaucheries of every kind commenced; each had pleasures at hand to satisfy the lust he was most prone to. Nor was the mischief confined to the promiscuous intercourse of men and women; false witness, the forging of seals and testaments, and false informations, all proceeded from the same source, as also poisonings and murders of families where the bodies could not even be found for burial. Many crimes were committed by treachery; most by violence, which was kept secret, because the cries of those who were being violated or murdered could not be heard owing to the noise of drums and cymbals."

 

More on The Subversive Cult and its Discovery Through the Woman Hispala

 

(This post was written while under the influence of Bacchus.)

Edited December 21, 2005 by Favonius Cornelius

[Zeke]

I do wonder if the cult of Baccaus posed any threat to early Christianity?

 

Zeke

[Favonius Cornelius]

I do wonder if the cult of Baccaus posed any threat to early Christianity?

 

Zeke

 

Why would you wonder that?

[Ursus]

I do wonder if the cult of Baccaus posed any threat to early Christianity?

 

Zeke

 

 

The various Greco-Oriental mystery cults, taken as a collective entity, were the competitors to Christianity.