39.18
So
great, however, was the number of those who fled from the City that
law-suits and rights of property were in numerous cases lost by default, and
the praetors were compelled through the intervention of the senate to
adjourn their courts for a month, to allow the consuls to complete their
investigations. Owing to the fact that those whose names were on the list did
not answer to the summons, and were not to be found in Rome, the consuls
had to visit the country towns and conduct their inquiries and try the cases
there. Those who had simply been initiated, who, that is, had repeated after
the priest the prescribed form of imprecation which pledged them to every
form of wickedness and impurity, but had not been either active or passive
participants in any of the proceedings to which their oath bound them, were
detained in prison. Those who had polluted themselves by outrage and
murder, those who had stained themselves by giving false evidence, forging
seals and wills and by other fraudulent practices, were sentenced to death.
The number of those executed exceeded the number of those sentenced to
imprisonment; there was an enormous number of men as well as women in
both classes. The women who had been found guilty were handed over to
their relatives or guardians to be dealt with privately; if there was no one
capable of inflicting punishment, they were executed publicly. The next task
awaiting the consuls was the destruction of all the Bacchanalian shrines,
beginning with Rome, and then throughout the length and breadth of Italy;
those only excepted where there was an ancient altar or a sacred image. The
senate decreed that for the future there should be no Bacchanalian rites in
Rome or in Italy. If any one considered that this form of worship was a
necessary obligation and that he could not dispense with it without incurring
the guilt of irreligion, he was to make a declaration before the City praetor
and the praetor was to consult the senate. If the senate gave permission, not
less than one hundred senators being present, he might observe those rites on
condition that not more than five persons took part in the service, that they
had no common fund, and that there was no priest or conductor of the
ceremonies.
