place his stake _a cheval_, _i.e._ on the line. Stakes so placed neither
win nor lose if one side wins and the other loses, but win if both sides
win and are lost if both sides lose. The laws of baccarat are complicated
and no one code is accepted as authoritative, the different clubs making
their own rules.

See Badoureau, _Etude mathematique sur le jeu de baccarat_ (Paris, 1881);
L. Billard, _Breviaire du baccara experimental_ (Paris, 1883).

BACCHANALIA, the Lat. name for the wild and mystic festivals of Bacchus
(Dionysus). They were introduced into Rome from lower Italy by way of
Etruria, and held in secret, attended by women only, on three days in the
year in the grove of Simila (_Stimula_, _Semele_; Ovid, _Fasti_, vi. 503),
near the Aventine hill. Subsequently, admission to the rites were extended
to men and celebrations took place five times a month. The evil reputation
of these festivals, at which the grossest debaucheries took place, and all
kinds of crimes and political conspiracies were supposed to be planned, led
in 186 B.C. to a decree of the senate--the so-called _Senatus consultum de
Bacchanalibus_, inscribed on a bronze tablet discovered in Calabria (1640),
now at Vienna--by which the Bacchanalia were prohibited throughout the
whole of Italy, except in certain special cases, in which the senate
reserved the right of allowing them, subject to certain restrictions. But,
in spite of the severe punishment inflicted upon those who were found to be
implicated in the criminal practices disclosed by state investigation, the
Bacchanalia were not stamped out, at any rate in the south of Italy, for a
very long time (Livy xxxix. 8-19, 41; xl. 19).

BACCHYLIDES, Greek lyric poet, was born at Iulis, in the island of Ceos.
His father's name was probably Meidon; his mother was a sister of
Simonides, himself a native of Iulis. Eusebius says that Bacchylides
"flourished" ([Greek: ekmazen]) in Ol. 78. 2 (467 B.C.). As the term
[Greek: ekmazen] refers to the physical prime, and was commonly placed at
about the fortieth year, we may suppose that Bacchylides was born _circa_
507 B.C. Among his Odes the earliest that can be approximately dated is
xii.,[1] which may belong to 481 or 479 B.C.; the latest is vi., of which
the date is fixed by the recently found fragment of the Olympic register to
Ol. 82. 1 (452 B.C.). He would thus have been some forty-nine years younger
than his uncle Simonides, and some fifteen years younger th