194 THE ROMAN EMPIRE
Magna Mater, at the time of the invasion of Italy by Hannibal. This was a
Phrygian goddess whose worship was marked by ecstatic dancing,
culminating, at least when practised at the cult centre of Pessinus, in self-
castration. The senate quickly purged the cult of its more extreme features
and made it unavailable to Roman citizens.
Thereafter, no more exotic cults came in by invitation, and those that
arrived in Rome and Italy uninvited were liable to be attacked as subversive.
The cults in question – beginning in the 180s BC with the worship of Bacchus,
and proceeding through the Egyptian gods, Judaism and Christianity to
Mithraism, well entrenched by the mid- second century AD – were subversive
in two ways. First, they threatened to break the exclusive control of the
political authorities over religious activities. The senate, and later, the
emperors, were confronted with a series of autonomous, exclusively religious
organizations devoted to divine service. The Bacchanalians, for example,
had their own cell structure, oath of membership, treasury, and lay and
priestly hierarchies. Secondly, the new cults threatened to undermine rather
than supplement the ancestral religion. Whereas the gods of the Roman
state made no demands on the individual, and promised him no rewards
except in his capacity as a member of a political collectivity, the so- called
mystery religions required conversion and ritual purifi cation, and offered
revelation, redemption, and to the few, the prospect of deeper religious
experience. The cult of Mithras freed the incorporeal soul from the material
body and enabled it to rise gradually through the seven planetary spheres to
Saturn and thence to the realm of the fi xed stars.
The ‘failure’ of Roman governments of the Principate to expand the
offi cial state religion to accommodate alien cults is therefore quite
predictable. Yet the arrival of an emperor at the head of the government
created the possibility of change. To put the matter at its simplest, some day
an emperor with pronounced monarchical tendencies might take offi ce, one
who was a devotee of a personal religion, and who would set about bringing
the offi cial religion into line with his own. Two questions are of interest:
what factors delayed that development, and how did governments cope
with the intrusion of new cults in the interim, that is to say for the major
part of our period?
To answer the fi rst question we need to scrutinize the policies of the
creator of the Principate. In Augustus, a sensitivity to the political traditions
of Rome was combined with a backward- looking religious policy and a
social conservatism. The essential facts are well known, and a brief summary
can suffi ce. First, the Augustan constitution was a monarchy, but it was built
on the political structures of the old Republic. The constitutionality of the
position of the emperor, and the continued (if in practice diminished) roles
of the established organs of government, were central planks. The second
and third points are closely linked. The depth of Augustus’ religious
conservatism is beyond debate. But in addition, the senate as rebuilt by him
was likely to share his views; it was as close to the old senate in social