https://ancientrome.org/tags/bacchanalia/ Recent content in Bacchanalia on Ancient Rome Hugo en-us Tue, 05 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://ancientrome.org/the-bacchanalian-scandal-when-rome-panicked/ Tue, 05 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://ancientrome.org/the-bacchanalian-scandal-when-rome-panicked/ <p>In 186 BC, the Roman Senate issued the senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus — the decree concerning the Bacchic rites — one of the most extensive surviving Roman legal documents and the record of what the Roman state did when it decided that a religious movement had gotten out of hand. The decree restricted the Bacchic associations throughout Italy, required their leaders to present themselves for investigation, set numerical limits on how many people could participate in the rites, and prohibited Bacchic priests from holding funds or conducting initiations without specific Senate authorization. Thousands of people were prosecuted; the sources describe executions in numbers that suggest a systematic repression rather than individual criminal cases. The Bacchanalia, as the Roman sources describe it, was the first large-scale persecution of a religious movement in Roman history.</p>