Some of the mysteries often gave in their beginnings a rather coarse idea of the future life, and the pleasures which might be enjoyed therein were very material. The ancient Greek conception, going back to Orphism, was, as we have seen, that of a subterranean kingdom divided into two contrasted parts—Tartarus where the wicked, plunged in a dark slough or subjected to other pains, suffering the chastisement of their faults, on the one side; on the other, the Elysian Fields, those flowered, luminous meadows, gay with song and dance, in which the blessed pursued their favourite occupations, whether they were allowed to dwell there for ever, or whether they awaited there the hour fixed for their rebirth on earth.[89] This eschatology, which had become the common possession of the Hellenes, was certainly that of the mysteries of Greece and in particular of the mysteries of Eleusis. But these mysteries were never more than local religions: however numerous were the initiates attracted by their renown, they were bound to the soil where they were born. Thus their influence was very limited in the Roman period and cannot be compared with that of the universal cults which were propagated throughout the Mediterranean world. As for Orphism, which was never connected with any one temple, it is doubtful whether it still constituted an actual sect, and if it did, it certainly spread over a very narrow field. Its influence was perpetuated chiefly because it was absorbed by Pythagorism. Among the mysteries propagated in the West, the most ancient were those of the Thraco-Phrygian gods, Dionysos and Sabazios, who were indeed looked upon as identical. We know that in 186 B. C. a _senatus consultum_ forbade the celebration of the Bacchanalia in Italy, and in 139 some sectaries of Jupiter Sabazius, who identified this god with the Jahve-Sabaoth of the Jews, were expelled from Rome by the praetor at the same time as the “Chaldeans.” The cult practised by the votaries of Bacchus or Liber Pater, whose confraternities were maintained until the end of paganism, differed profoundly from the Dionysos worship of ancient Greece: a number of Oriental elements had been introduced into it; in particular, the relations between Dionysos and Osiris, which go back to a very remote period, had become singularly close in Egypt. However, many reliefs on tombstones and the celebrated paintings found in the catacombs of Praetextatus prove that the cults of the Thraco-Phrygian gods remained faithful to the old idea of a future life. The shade went down into the bowels of the earth, never again to leave them. If judged worthy, it took part in an eternal banquet, of which the initiate received a foretaste on earth, in the feasts of the mysteries. Sacred drunkenness, a divine exaltation, was the pledge of the joyous intoxication which the god of wine would grant in Hades to the faithful who had united themselves to him.[90]