In the history of civilization, religion often acts as a liberator of women. Sometimes, indeed, it acts in an opposite direction, when, by false conceptions of humanity, it restricts the duties and privileges of women. But, on the other hand, religion generally excites the mind to a wild state of enthusiasm, and in this enthusiasm the ideas and prescriptions of conventionality are set aside, the pleasures of liberty are felt, and by degrees a permanent gain in freedom is established. We find this to be the case in Greece, where almost the only occasions on which the women came in contact with the outer world were supplied by the observance of religious festivals. The Roman religion was in many respects unlike the Greek. It was not brightened by genial fancies, it afforded no scope for emotional outpourings, its prayers were confined to fixed formulas, and its ritual was strictly prescribed. It was, like the Romans themselves, solemn and sedate. The Roman religion, therefore, did not contain those elements which could contribute to enlarge the freedom of women. There were, indeed, various festivals which were celebrated by matrons alone, into which it was death for a male to intrude, and these afforded women opportunity to consult with each other. But it may be doubted whether the Roman women ever used these meetings for any other than purely religious purposes, and whether these gatherings were ever characterized by fervour and frenzy. It was in the introduction of foreign gods and worships that the craving of the Roman women for religious excitement was gratified, and in the celebration of these worships we see that the women were sometimes as daring as in their poisonings. They naturally took to the foreign gods, whose worship was accompanied by great elevation of the spirit and outward demonstrations. Thus we are told that the worship of the Idæan Mother, the goddess whose priests danced wildly, cutting their bodies until the blood streamed down, was introduced in 204 B.C., and that on that occasion the highest matrons of the city went forth to receive the goddess, and, amidst prayers and incense, and in the sight of the whole population, carried the goddess to her temple.[75] In this case there was no irregularity in the introduction of the new worship, for the act had been ordered by the Senate at the instigation of the Decemviral College, the keepers of the Sibylline books.[76]