Abstract

There is no little division of opinion regarding the provenance of the Bacchanalian rites which were suppressed with much cruelty by the Senate in 186 B.C. Since the Dionysiac orgies were native to Phrygia, and since Livy tells the story in question immediately after describing the immoral practices that were brought back from Asia by the returning army of Manlius Vulso in 187, it has frequently been assumed that Anatolia was the source of these rites. Reitzenstein and Cichorius, in discussing a recently-found decree of Ptolemy IV. regarding an inquisition into Dionysiac rites in Egypt, both assume that the Roman cult had come from the Orient. Carcopino, in a recent discussion of the ‘Underground Basilica’ at Rome, suggests that the objectionable element of the cult was the Pythagorean club, which might become a political menace. Other scholars, remembering Livy's statement that one of the priests of the cult had operated in Etruria before coming to Rome, have tried to find traces of Dionysiac rites on Etruscan monuments.