Paculla Annia
Paculla Ania was a southern priestess from
Campania. According to
Livy, she had largely changed the rules of
Bacchanalias. To regard nothing as impious or forbidden became the very sum of the
Bacchus'
cult. The article states the story as told by Livius.
In
188 BC, Paculla admitted men for the first time to participate - although it is now believed that men had participated before that. The first men to be
initiated were her sons, Minius and Herennius Cerrinius. She also had ordered the festivities to take place by night instead of by day, and instead of three days in a year, five days of initiation in each month were appointed. Finally, participants of the ceremonies were all sorts: men and women, young and old, noble and common people, free and slaves, in a freedom of
wine and
sex. Everything was allowed. Also a rule was accepted that no one older than twenty should be initiated as the cult preyed on the young, innocent and naive.
In the rites, men were said to have shrieked out
prophecies in an
altered state of consciousness with frenzied bodily convulsions. Women, dressed as
Bacchantes, with hair dishevelled, run down to the
Tiber with burning
torches, plunged them into the water, and took them out again. The flame did not diminish, as they were made of
sulphur mixed with
lime.
The rites of women gradually turned into sexual
orgies especially of men. The men who refused to join their conspiracy or take a part in their
rites or submit to defilement, were sacrificed. They were fastened to a machine and taken to hidden caves, where they were said to have been kidnapped by the gods.
The festivities were reported to Postumius, who persuaded the
Roman Senate to authorize full investigation. In
186, the Senate passed a strict law (the
Senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus) prohibiting Bacchanalia except under certain circumstances that required the approval of the Senate. Violators were executed.
As claimed by the historian
Max Dashu, as early as the
second century BC, major elements of
European witchcraft as described by persecutioners in the
Middle Ages were already taking place, and subsequently used to suppress it as a subversive religion:
*secret nocturnal meetings
*the leaders were women
*they commonly initiated their children into the cult
*ecstatic festivities with music, dancing and cries, followed by orgies
*
same-gender sexual practices*allegiations of
ritual murder and other
crimes.
Elements that were not present yet were the
Christian Devil (as this religion had not yet begun),
shapeshifting and
levitation. The last two attributes were associated with the Roman mythological creature known as the
strix; this creature would later be associated with witchcraft in Italy and Eastern Europe. The fusion of these elements into the conception of a large-scale social conspiracy developed only later. Nevertheless, the
mysteries led by women were already being cast as a fast spreading cult and a serious threat to
society at large.
*
European witchcraft*
Madonna Oriente*
Witch-hunt*
The story of Faecennia Hispala,
Titus Livius,
Ab Urbe Condita, XXXIX, 8-19.
*
The first Mass Hunt - the first witch-hunt as described by
Max Dashu.
