Bacchanalia

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 challgenged 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 fulfilment 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” appears as the enemy of rulers and politicians. Finally, this reconsideration of the Bacchanalia helps to understand why the early Christians were likened to the Bacchants.

Mad women running on top of the mountains without the supervision of their husbands, ingestion of mind-altering concoctions, ecstatic nocturnal dancing to the rhythm of the frame drum, ritual sexuality, these and more are the ingredients composing the early worship of Dionysus.
This chapter examines the role of women in the Dionysian cult: Who were the maenads, what happened during their women-only rituals, but also what was the reaction of their contemporaries and which were the most accredited interpretations of contemporary scholars on their legendary legacy.

The Bacchic cult became the target of mass persecution in 186 BCE. According to Livy, the cult permeated all societal boundaries, resulting in the Roman government condemning over seven thousand people. Of the seven thousand, more Bacchants suffered capital punishment than were thrown in jail. This thesis shows how this extreme and violent reaction can be sociologically categorized as a moral panic by using sociologist David Garland’s seven criteria of a moral panic. Highly influenced by Stanley Cohen, the creator of the term moral panic, the criteria of Garland are examined in detail to prove that the persecution of 186 was, indeed, a moral panic. In order to strengthen the argument and connection to moral panic studies, the Bacchic cult persecution is compared side-by-side with the witch hunts in Europe during the 14th-17th centuries. The criteria necessary for categorization as a moral panic are present in both violent reactions, even though they are centuries apart. That is, both persecutions involve concern, hostility, consensus, disproportionality, volatility, and a moral dimension that is symptomatic of a larger problem.

For a moral panic to be set into motion, the conditions need to allow for the panic to engulf the general public, and 186 provided such an opportunity. The violent reaction toward Bacchants happened due to a hidden political agenda which included many factors: concern regarding foreign influences in Italy, shift of public support to newly victorious generals, changes in aristocracies throughout Italy due to Hannibal’s destruction a few years prior, evolution of the role of women, fracturing within the Senate, and a desire to expand political power to other areas within Italy. False accusations that preyed upon deep-seated fears of the foreign cult were hurled against the Bacchants, a group which provided the perfect scapegoat. By creating a moral panic, the Roman government was able to work the public into a frenzy so that it could justify the violent suppression of the cult, thereby reestablishing its dominance and addressing all political concerns that had arisen in the decades prior to 186.

The celebrations in honor of Bacchus, the Bacchanalia, have been represented in the visual art as the powerful union of the realms of wine and music. In particular, Bacchus’ multifarious symbolism is at the core of many works of art, ceremonial objects, musical compositions and choreographies, evoking contexts that are at times cultic, festive, moralizing, and even philosophical. This has been possible because Bacchus (or Dionysus, in Greek) personifies the synesthesia of all senses. In fact, not only is the god of drunkenness, freedom, intoxication, sensual pleasures, fertility, creative inspiration, and religious ecstasy; but he is also associated with love, dance and music. The popularity of these festivities were to be evoked through the centuries and in the Renaissance, with the rediscovery of classical art, the Bacchanalia often appeared in paintings famous still today. Out of the many Bacchanalia represented in visual arts through the centuries, I will discuss in this essay over the Bacchanals of Titian.

The Senate exercised control over the Bacchic rites in 186 BCE by arresting and executing over six thousand practitioners and severely cramping the continuous activities of the cult through the promulgation of a decree, the senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus, regulating its organisation and activities. According to Livy (39.8-19) they were motivated to do this because violations of morality and criminal practices occurred under the guise of the cult; however, it is more likely that this was a propagandistic veneer covering the real reason which was that the Bacchanalian cult in Rome was unsanctioned and uncontrolled and hence threatened to disturb the social and religious structure and hierarchy of Roman society.

‘Battle’ over Titus Livius: Innocent Gentillet versus Niccolò Machiavelli

Emphasizing the importance of the political reading of Titus Livius’ 'ab Urbe condita' during the sixteenth century, this intervention will dwell on the particular moment when, thanks to the Huguenot Innocent Gentillet, the work of the Roman historian seemed to become a subject of a downright ‘clash’ in which ‘Machiavellism’ is its ultimate goal.
In fact, as known, Niccolò Machiavelli was the author of the 'Discourses on Livy' ('Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio', prior to 1519 but published posthumously in 1531), considered, beginning with Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the most authentic expression of his political thought and the principal text of ‘republicanism’. Reinterpreting the classical past in order to find solutions for the present became the explicit strategy of the Florentine: in the preface of the book one can read all of his disappointment for the fact that «there is no sign of the antique 'virtute' that remains», which is all the more regrettable as «civil laws are nothing more than judgments handed down by the ancients jurists, which, reduced in order, our jurists presently teach».
For equally known reasons, Machiavelli had also become an adversarial target; in particular, the Huguenot Gentillet, four years after the Saint Bartholomew’s Day massacre, published his 'Discours…Contre Nicolas Machiavel Florentin' (1576), the first important openly hostile text to the Florentine thinker (which, moreover, had dedicated 'The Prince' to the father of Catherine de’ Medici), a text, which over the years had reached and maintained remarkable publishing success.
The strategy varies from the one already implemented by Francesco Guicciardini, who, in his 'Observations on Machiavelli’s Discourses' ('Considerazioni intorno ai ‘Discorsi’ del Machiavelli sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio', from 1527 to 1529 but published only in 1857), had expressed doubts about the goodness of the Roman ‘model’ and, more generally, the very possibility of making reference to ‘models’. However, Gentillet, becoming determined from the 'auctoritas' of the ancients, further idealized Rome in order to attack the inadequacy of the Machiavellian interpretation; the actual work of Livy had been taken out of context and set right at the convenience of the Florentine himself. The Prince and the Discourses were then reduced to maxims and fought thanks to episodes and concepts drawn from Livy (already used by Machiavelli or, in many cases, newly introduced in the debate). Therefore, it is these episodes and concepts that the intervention will focus on.
Equally well known is how Machiavelli, since the 1970s, has been receiving special attention from historians of ‘republican’ political thought, which are differentiated according to two principal lines of interpretation: that of John Pocock, who emphasizes the role of a ‘civic humanism’ cultivated from Greek sources, and that of Quentin Skinner, who emphasizes the role of a ‘neo-Romanism’ cultivated from Latin sources.
The present intervention highlights how the anti-Machiavellian debate, at least in the case of Gentillet, seems to focus mainly on the interpretation of the romanitas and the text of Livy, perhaps because it is perceived more as ‘central’ in relation to the Greek sources.

The Heraklitos mosaic, which dates to the second century AD and is displayed today at the Vatican Museums, depicts the theme of the asàrotos òikos ("unswept floor") alongside allusions to Dionysian and Isiac mystery cults. The mosaic is well known due to its highly illusionistic depiction of scraps of food, which are scattered evenly across the room's floor, as if left behind; a theme which according to Pliny was first created by the mosaicist Sosus in Hellenistic Pergamon. The mosaic Pliny is referring to was never discovered, and the theme is known today only through five surviving Roman variations, the Heraklitos mosaic being the largest and most elaborate one. This article examines the ways in which the Heraklitos mosaic expresses the connection between power, social status and initiation into mystery cults in Imperial Rome, and explores the connection between traditional Roman beliefs, foreign cult practices and elitist artistic representation.