In Rome the obvious hinge in the destinies of the people from almost every point of view was the Hannibalic war. For a short time disaster seemed imminent, and the desperate reaching out to the ends of the earth for divine support could not fail to make a deep impression upon thousands of men. In that moment of dreadful stress, it was not the Etruscan Triad on the Capitol nor Father Mars, but the mystic Ma, the Ancient Mother of Phrygia with her diadem of towers, her lion-chariot and her bloody orgies, that stayed the rush of the Carthaginian. It is true that the city’s ultimate triumph caused a reaction. An increased national self-consciousness made Romans somewhat ashamed of their weakness, but they could not blot out the memory of the fact. The city’s increase in total well-being went on with tremendous strides, but the disintegrating forces of a vicious economic system were present here too. Besides, the special circumstances that tended to choke the city with people of diverse origin were intensified. In the next few generations we hear of the threatening character of foreign mysteries, of surreptitious association with the Cybele worshipers, of Isis devotees gaining ground. Shortly after the Second Punic War occurs the episode of the Bacchic suppression. One can scarcely help noticing how strikingly similar were the accusations directed against the Bacchanales and those later brought against the Christians, and wondering whether they were any truer in the one case than in the other. The whole incident can easily be construed as an act of governmental persecution, which, it may be noted, was as futile as such persecution generally is. The orgiastic Dionysus was not kept from Italy, though he always remained an uncomfortable god for Romans of the old type. One reason has already been referred to; viz., the constant recruiting of the _infima plebs_ from enfranchised foreign slaves. The lower classes were becoming orientalized. The great Sicilian slave revolt of 134 B.C.E. was almost a Syrian insurrection, and was under the direct instigation of the Syrian goddess Atargatis.[254] During the civil wars and the periods of uncertainty that lay between them, all political and social life seemed as though conducted on the edge of a smouldering volcano. Innumerable men resorted to magic, either in its naïve form or in its astrological or mathematical refinements. Newer and more terrific rites, stranger and more outlandish ceremonials, found a demand constantly increasing. And the Augustan monarchy brought only a temporary subsidence of this excitement. Order and peace returned, but Augustus could not cure the fundamentally unsound conditions that vitiated Roman life, nor did he make any real attempt to prevent Roman society from being dissolved by the steady inpour of foreign blood, traditions, and non-Roman habits of mind. The need of recourse to foreign mysteries was as apparent as ever.