The senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus ("senatorial decree concerning the Bacchanalia") is an Old Latin inscription dating to 186 BC. It was discovered in 1640 at Tiriolo, in Calabria, southern Italy. Published by the presiding praetor, it conveys the substance of a decree of the Roman Senate prohibiting the Bacchanalia throughout all Italy, except in certain special cases which must be approved specifically by the Senate. When members of the elite began to participate, information was put before the Senate by Publius Aebutius and his lover and neighbour Hispala Faecenia, who was also a well-known prostitute, as told in the Ab Urbe Condita Libri of Livy. The cult was held to be a threat to the security of the state, investigators were appointed, rewards were offered to informants, legal processes were put in place and the Senate began the official suppression of the cult throughout Italy. According to the Augustan historian Livy, the chief historical source, many committed suicide to avoid indictment. The stated penalty for leadership was death. Livy stated that there were more executions than imprisonments. After the conspiracy had been quelled the Bacchanalia survived in southern Italy. The Senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus can be seen as an example of realpolitik, a display of the Roman senate's authority to its Italian allies after the Second Punic War, and a reminder to any Roman politician, populist and would-be generalissimo that the Senate's collective authority trumped all personal ambition. Nevertheless, the extent and ferocity of the official response to the Bacchanalia was probably unprecedented, and betrays some form of moral panic on the part of Roman authorities; Burkert finds "nothing comparable in religious history before the persecutions of Christians".

Text

The surviving copy is inscribed on a bronze tablet discovered in Calabria in Southern Italy (1640), now at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. The text as copied from the inscription is as follows.

Translation into classical Latin

The following passage uses classical reflexes of the Old Latin lexical items:

Orthography

The spelling of the text of the Senatus consultum differs in many predictable ways from the spelling of Classical Latin. Some of these differences are merely orthographical; others reflect archaic pronunciations or other archaisms in the forms of words.

Geminate consonants

In Classical Latin, geminate (or long) consonants are consistently written with a sequence of two letters: e.g., cc, ll, ss for [kː], [lː], [sː]. These geminate consonants are not represented in the Senatus consultum:

Consonant clusters

Archaic gn- is found for n- at the beginning of the verb nosco The prefix ad appears as AR before V and F: The consonants bl appear as PL in POPLICOD publicō (15:10), recalling its origin from populus.

Diphthongs

AI is usually used instead of Classical ae in: EI became Classical ī in: EI at the end of a word often corresponds to Classical short i or to no vowel at all. However, in many cases such as sibī, utī, archaizing Classical forms ending in ī are also found, especially in poetry. OV normally became Classical ū in: OI normally became Classical ū in: OI exceptionally became Classical oe in:

Short vowels

Archaisms

The archaic ending -ce added to some forms of the pronoun hic is reduced to -c in Classical Latin in most cases: The ending -d, found on some adverbs and ablative singulars of nouns and pronouns, is lost in Classical Latin: The last two words AGRO TEVRANO (30:7-8) omit the final -d, despite containing the same ablative ending elsewhere written -OD; this fact suggests that at the time of writing, the final -d was no longer pronounced in ordinary speech. In Classical Latin the prefixes ex- and dis- become ē- and dī- before voiced consonants. In the Senatus consultum, they are still written EX and DIS:

Archaic morpheme variants

The archaic passive infinitive ending -ier (instead of Classical -ī) is used The archaic third-declension genitive singular ending -us (instead of Classical -is) is used in NOMINVS (7.9) (instead of nōminis). The ending -us comes from the Indo-European genitive singular ending *-os, the o-grade variant of the genitive singular suffix for consonant-stem nouns (while Classical -is comes from the e-grade variant *-es of the same suffix).

Translation into English

The inscription was translated by Nina E. Weston as follows. Regarding the Bacchanalia, it was resolved to give the following directions to those who are in alliance with us: No one of them is to possess a place where the festivals of Bacchus are celebrated; if there are any who claim that it is necessary for them to have such a place, they are to come to Rome to the praetor urbanus, and the senate is to decide on those matters, when their claims have been heard, provided that not less than 100 senators are present when the affair is discussed. No man is to be a Bacchantian, neither a Roman citizen, nor one of the Latin name, nor any of our allies unless they come to the praetor urbanus, and he in accordance with the opinion of the senate expressed when not less than 100 senators are present at the discussion, shall have given leave. Carried. No man is to be a priest; no one, either man or woman, is to be an officer (to manage the temporal affairs of the organization); nor is anyone of them to have charge of a common treasury; no one shall appoint either man or woman to be master or to act as master; henceforth they shall not form conspiracies among themselves, stir up any disorder, make mutual promises or agreements, or interchange pledges; no one shall observe the sacred rites either in public or private or outside the city, unless he comes to the praetor urbanus, and he, in accordance with the opinion of the senate, expressed when no less than 100 senators are present at the discussion, shall have given leave. Carried. No one in a company of more than five persons altogether, men and women, shall observe the sacred rites, nor in that company shall there be present more than two men or three women, unless in accordance with the opinion of the praetor urbanus and the senate as written above. See that you declare it in the assembly (contio) for not less than three market days; that you may know the opinion of the senate this was their judgment: if there are any who have acted contrary to what was written above, they have decided that a proceeding for a capital offense should be instituted against them; the senate has justly decreed that you should inscribe this on a brazen tablet, and that you should order it to be placed where it can be easiest read; see to it that the revelries of Bacchus, if there be any, except in case there be concerned in the matter something sacred, as was written above, be disbanded within ten days after this letter shall be delivered to you. In the Teuranian field."