But the women did not always wait for the sanction of the State, but acted on their own impulse. The most notable instance of this nature was the introduction of the Bacchanalia, or worship of Bacchus, in 186 B.C. The historian Livy gives us details of this event, and his account is confirmed by a contemporary tablet of brass, containing a decree, or rather a letter of the Senate, found in Southern Italy in 1640. The narrative throws great light on the effects produced by the introduction of a new worship, and therefore I will relate the circumstances with some minuteness. A Greek of low birth came to Etruria, offering to initiate the people in the mysteries of Bacchus. The rites of that god were often celebrated in Greece by night, and were accompanied by feast, dance, and song. This was to some extent a new feature of worship to the Italians, and the people of Etruria were seized with a fury for it as by a plague. It spread from Etruria to Rome. At first the worship was carried on in secret, but at length the matter reached the ears of the consul. A woman who had been initiated, testified that at first women alone were admitted to the celebration of the rites, that they met in the day time thrice in the year on fixed days, and that matrons were elected priestesses.[77] At length, however, a priestess, acting as if by the advice of the god, initiated her sons, changed the festival from the day time to night, and appointed the celebrations to take place five times every month. At the rites the men leapt and tossed their arms about in the most frantic manner, amidst the clashing of cymbals and the beating of drums, and they uttered prophecies; while the women, dressed as the worshippers of Bacchus, howled and yelled, rushed with dishevelled hair and blazing torches down to the river Tiber, plunged their torches into the river, drew them forth still blazing as if by miracle, and returned, still howling and yelling, to their celebrations. The woman also declared that the frenzy had taken hold of a large portion of the population, including many of the nobility; but that for some reason or other, very recently a resolution had been passed that none should be initiated who were above twenty years of age. The consuls, on receiving this information from the woman, brought the matter before the Senate, an inquiry was instituted, and it was discovered that above 7,000 men and women had engaged in these secret celebrations. The feature in this case which interests us, and at that time attracted the notice of the Senate, was that persons of both sexes and various ages met together at night and engaged in orgies, in which wine was freely drunk. The Roman citizen was forbidden to practise any worship not sanctioned by the State; but here the women defied the law of their country and outraged the old Roman notions of propriety. Stories soon got abroad, as they always do in such matters, that it was not merely for the worship of