, including young members of
noble families; for with the true missionary instinct, young people only
were admitted by the hierophants. We need not necessarily believe all
this; but it is certain, from the steps taken by the government, about
which there is no doubt, that it is in the main a true account. The
storm and stress of the long war with Hannibal would be enough to
account for the phenomena, even if they were not in keeping with
well-known psychical facts.

Let us now turn for a moment to the attitude of the government in this
extraordinary episode of Roman religious experience. The danger is dealt
with entirely by the Senate and the magistrates; the authorities of the
_ius divinum_ as such have nothing to do with it. It is characteristic
of the age that it is not dealt with as a matter of religion merely, but
as a conspiracy--_coniuratio_.[739] This is the word used by Livy, and
we find it also in the document called _Senatusconsultum de
Bacchanalibus_, part of which has most fortunately come down to us. This
is the word also used, we may note, of the conspiracy of Catiline in the
century following, and it always conveys the idea of _rebellion_ against
the order and welfare of the State. In this case it was rebellion
against the whole body of the _mos maiorum_, the [Greek: ethos] of the
City-state of Rome. For it was an attempt to supersede the ancient
religious life of that State by _externa superstitio, prava
religio_--_prava_, because _deorum numen praetenditur sceleribus_; and
hence, as Livy expresses it in the admirable speech put into the mouth
of the consul, the Roman gods themselves felt their _numen_ to be
contaminated.[740] All the speeches in Livy, except perhaps the military
ones, are worth careful study by those who would enter into the Roman
spirit as conceived by an Augustan writer; and this is one of the most
valuable of them.

Lastly, let us note the steps taken by the government in this emergency.
It is treated as a matter of police, both in Rome and Italy; the guilty
are sought out and punished as conspirators against the State, and a
precedent of tremendous force is hereby established for all future
dealings with _externa superstitio_, which held good even to the last
struggle with Christianity. Where foreign rites are believed to be
dangerous to the State or to morality, they must be rigidly suppressed
in the Roman world; when they are harmless they may be tolerated, or
even, like the cu