History of Rome

​The woman, without doubt, believing that which was indeed the fact, namely that Aebutius had revealed the secret, fell at Sulpicia’s feet and began first to entreat her, ​not to wish that the talk of a freedwoman with her lover should be turned into a matter not merely serious but even capital; she had said those things, she claimed, for the purpose of frightening him, not because she knew anything.

​At this, Postumius, flared up with anger, said that even then she believed she was joking with her lover Aebutius, and did not realize she was speaking in the house of a most grave woman and with a consul. Meanwhile Sulpicia raised up the trembling woman, encouraging her at the same time, while also appeasing the anger of her son-in-law.

​At last, having collected herself, and having bitterly denounced the treachery of Aebutius, who had returned such a favor to one who had deserved so well of him, ​she said that her fear of the gods, whose hidden mysteries she would be revealing, was great, but her fear of the men, who would tear her to pieces with their own hands as an informant, was much greater.

​Therefore, she implored Sulpicia and the consul to send her away somewhere outside Italy, where she might spend the remainder of her life in safety.

​The consul bade her be of good courage, and said that he would take care that she should live safely in Rome.

​Then Hispala disclosed the origin of the rites. At first, she said, it was a sanctuary for women, and no man was accustomed to be admitted there. There were three established days in the year on which they were initiated into the Bacchic rites by day; the priestesses were accustomed to be chosen from the matrons in turn.

​Paculla Annia, a Campanian priestess, had altered everything, as if by the admonition of the gods; for she was the first to initiate men, namely her own sons, Minius and Herennius Cerrinius; and she changed the ritual from a daytime to a nighttime service, and instead of three days in the year, she established five days of initiation in each month.

​From the time the rites became promiscuous, with men mingled with women, and the license of the night was added, no crime, no vice was left uncommitted there. There were more acts of debauchery between men themselves than between women.

​If any were less tolerant of dishonor and slower to commit crime, they were slaughtered like sacrificial victims. To hold nothing as unspeakable was their highest religious duty.

​The men, as if out of their minds, with fanatic tossing of their bodies, uttered prophecies; the matrons, dressed as Bacchantes with disheveled hair, ran down to the Tiber with burning torches, and plunging them into the water, drew them out with the flame still burning, because they contained active sulfur and quicklime.

​Men were said to have been carried off by the gods, whom, bound to machines, they snatched out of sight into hidden caves;

​these were the ones who had refused either to take the oath of conspiracy, or to associate themselves with the crimes, or to submit to debauchery. Their number was immense, almost a second state by now, among whom were certain noble men and women. Within the last two years it had been established that no one older than twenty years should be initiated, because they sought out ages capable of deception and submission to debauchery.