[26] The satirical pen of Aristophanes has not spared the Dionysiac festivals. But the raillery and sarcasm of a comic writer must always be received with many grains of allowance. He has, at least, been candid enough to confess that no one could be initiated who had been guilty of any crime against his country or the public security.--_Ranae_, v. 360-365.--Euripides makes the chorus in his Bacchae proclaim that the Mysteries were practised only for virtuous purposes. In Rome, however, there can be little doubt that the initiations partook at length of a licentious character. "On ne peut douter," says Ste. Croix, "que l'introduction des fêtes de Bacchus en Italie n'ait accéleré les progrès du libertinage et de la débauche dans cette contrée."--_Myst. du Pag._, tom. ii. p. 91.--St. Augustine (De Civ. Dei, lib. vii. c. xxi.) inveighs against the impurity of the ceremonies in Italy of the sacred rites of Bacchus. But even he does not deny that the motive with which they were performed was of a religious, or at least superstitious nature--"Sic videlicet Liber deus placandus fuerat." The propitiation of a deity was certainly a religious act. [27] Hist. Greece, vol. ii. p. 140. [28] This language is quoted from Robison (_Proofs of a Conspiracy_, p. 20, Lond. edit. 1797), whom none will suspect or accuse of an undue veneration for the antiquity or the morality of the masonic order. [29] We must not confound these Asiatic builders with the play-actors, who were subsequently called by the Greeks, as we learn from Aulus Gellius (lib. xx. cap. 4), "artificers of Dionysus"--Διονυσιαϗοι τεχνιταὶ. [30] There is abundant evidence, among ancient authors, of the existence of signs and passwords in the Mysteries. Thus Apuleius, in his Apology, says, "Si qui forte adest eorundem Solemnium mihi particeps, signum dato," etc.; that is, "If any one happens to be present who has been initiated into the same rites as myself, if he will give me the sign, he shall then be at liberty to hear what it is that I keep with so much care." Plautus also alludes to this usage, when, in his "Miles Gloriosus," act iv. sc. 2, he makes Milphidippa say to Pyrgopolonices, "Cedo signum, si harunc Baccharum es;" i.e., "Give the sign if you are one of these Bacchae," or initiates into the Mysteries of Bacchus. Clemens Alexandrinus calls these modes of recognition σωθηματα, as if _means of safety_. Apuleius elsewhere uses _memoracula_, I think to denote passwords, when he says, "sanctissimè sacrorum signa et memoracula custodire," which I am inclined to translate, "most scrupulously to preserve the signs and passwords of the sacred rites."