39.13
The
woman being convinced, and quite rightly, that Aebutius was the informer,
flung herself at Sulpicia's feet and implored her not to let a conversation
between a freedwoman and her lover be treated so seriously as to amount to
treason. What she had told him was for the purpose of frightening, not
because she really knew anything. Postumius was very angry, and told her
that she must be imagining that she was joking with her lover, and not
speaking in the house of a grave and august lady and in the presence of the
consul. Sulpicia raised the terrified woman from the floor, spoke soothingly
to her and tried to quiet her. At length she became calm, and after bitterly
reproaching Aebutius for the return he had made after all she had done for
him, and declared that while she stood in great fear of the gods, whose
occult mysteries she was revealing, she stood in much greater fear of men
who would tear her to pieces if she turned informer. So she begged Sulpicia
and the consul to remove her to some place outside the borders of Italy
where she could pass the rest of her days in safety. The consul bade her be
under no apprehension; he would see to it that she found a safe home in
Rome. Then Hispala gave an account of the origin of these rites.
At first they were confined to women; no male was admitted, and
they had three stated days in the year on which persons were initiated during
the daytime, and matrons were chosen to act as priestesses. Paculla Annia, a
Campanian, when she was priestess, made a complete change, as though by
divine monition, for she was the first to admit men, and she initiated her own
sons, Minius Cerinnius and Herennius Cerinnius. At the same time she made
the rite a nocturnal one, and instead of three days in the year celebrated it
five times a month. When once the mysteries had assumed this promiscuous
character, and men were mingled with women with all the licence of
nocturnal orgies, there was no crime, no deed of shame, wanting. More
uncleanness was wrought by men with men than with women. Whoever
would not submit to defilement, or shrank from violating others, was
sacrificed as a victim. To regard nothing as impious or criminal was the very
sum of their religion. The men, as though seized with madness and with
frenzied distortions of their bodies, shrieked out prophecies; the matrons,
dressed as Bacchae, their hair dishevelled, rushed down to the Tiber with
burning torches, plunged them into the water, and drew them out again, the
flame undiminished, as they were made of sulphur mixed with lime. Men
were fastened to a machine and hurried off to hidden caves, and they were
said to have been rapt away by the gods; these were the men who refused to
join their conspiracy or take a part in their crimes or submit to pollution.
They formed an immense multitude, almost equal to the population of Rome;
amongst them were members of noble families both men and women. It had
been made a rule for the last two years that no one more than twenty years
old should be initiated; they captured those to be deceived and polluted.
