the higher classes, and
seem to have materially stimulated the rising tendency to the
formation of cliques. With the permission thus granted for the
-cultus- of Cybele the worship of the Orientals gained a footing
officially in Rome; and, though the government strictly insisted that
the emasculate priests of the new gods should remain Celts (-Galli-)
as they were called, and that no Roman burgess should devote himself
to this pious eunuchism, yet the barbaric pomp of the "Great Mother"
--her priests clad in Oriental costume with the chief eunuch at their
head, marching in procession through the streets to the foreign music
of fifes and kettledrums, and begging from house to house--and the
whole doings, half sensuous, half monastic, must have exercised a most
material influence over the sentiments and views of the people.

Worship of Bacchus

The effect was only too rapidly and fearfully apparent. A few years
later (568) rites of the most abominable character came to the
knowledge of the Roman authorities; a secret nocturnal festival in
honour of the god Bacchus had been first introduced into Etruria
through a Greek priest, and, spreading like a cancer, had rapidly
reached Rome and propagated itself over all Italy, everywhere
corrupting families and giving rise to the most heinous crimes,
unparalleled unchastity, falsifying of testaments, and murdering by
poison. More than 7000 men were sentenced to punishment, most of them
to death, on this account, and rigorous enactments were issued as to
the future; yet they did not succeed in repressing the ongoings, and
six years later (574) the magistrate to whom the matter fell
complained that 3000 men more had been condemned and still there
appeared no end of the evil.

Repressive Measures

Of course all rational men were agreed in the condemnation of these
spurious forms of religion--as absurd as they were injurious to the
commonwealth: the pious adherents of the olden faith and the partisans
of Hellenic enlightenment concurred in their ridicule of, and
indignation at, this superstition. Cato made it an instruction to his
steward, "that he was not to present any offering, or to allow any
offering to be presented on his behalf, without the knowledge and
orders of his master, except at the domestic hearth and on the
wayside-altar at the Compitalia, and that he should consult no
-haruspex-, -hariolus-, or -Chaldaeus-." The well-known question, as
to how a priest could c