a digital library of Latin literature
   
CSL Home



Keyword Search
  
     advanced search

Browse by:
          Author
          Title
          Genre
          Date

Full Corpus:
   All available texts
      (single page)



Help
Secondary Texts

What's New
Copyright
Credits
Contact Us

Decree of the Senate Concerning the Rites of Bacchus
trans. William F. Richardson, 2004
The original bronze tablet, found in Tiriolo, Italy, in 1640, is currently located in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.


The consuls Quintus Marcius son of Lucius and Spurius Postumius son of Lucius consulted the senate on the seventh of October in the Temple of Bellona. Present at the writing of the decree were Marcus Claudius son of Marcus, Lucius Valerius son of Publius, and Quintus Minucius son of Gaius.

Concerning the rites of Bacchus among the federated peoples they decreed that the following edict be made:

“Let none of them be minded to have a shrine of Bacchus. If there are any who say that they must needs have a shrine of Bacchus, they must come to the Urban Praetor at Rome and, when their case has been heard, our senate must make a decision on this, provided that not fewer than one hundred senators were present when the matter was discussed. Let no man, whether Roman citizen or Latin ally or other ally, be minded to go to a meeting of Bacchantes, unless they have gone to the Urban Praetor and he has authorised it in accordance with a decision of the senate, provided that not fewer than one hundred senators were present when the matter was discussed.”

They decreed:

“Let no man be a priest. Let no-one, man or woman, be a master. Let none of them be minded to keep a common fund. Let no-one be minded to make any man or woman an official or a temporary official. Henceforth let no-one be minded to conspire, collude, plot or make vows in common among themselves or to pledge loyalty to each other. Let none of them be minded to hold sacred rites in secret. Let none of them be minded to hold sacred rites in public or in private or outside the city, unless they have gone to the Urban Praetor and he has authorised it in accordance with a decision of the senate, provided that not more than one hundred senators were present when the matter was discussed.”

They decreed:

“Let no group of more than five people in all, counting both men and women, be minded to hold sacred rites; and let no more than two men or three women be minded to be present, unless authorised by the Urban Praetor and the senate as above.”

You are to publicise these decrees at a public meeting over a period of not less than three market days, and you must keep in mind the decree of the senate, which was as follows: “If there are any who transgress against the decrees set out above, a capital charge is to be brought against them”. You are to engrave this on a bronze tablet (this also the senate decreed) and are to give orders that it be set it up where it can most easily be read. And you are to see to it that such shrines of Bacchus as now exist (if any) are disbanded in accordance with the above decree within ten days from the time when you receive these tablets, unless they contain any genuinely sacred thing.

In the territory of the Teuri.


FORUM ROMANUM