In point of fact, much surviving evidence, early and late, points to considerable
interest in local cults on the part of Romans at Rome and in provincial communit-
ies. But its interpretation is problematic. For example, nearly the earliest significant
evidence for official Roman state interaction with cults outside Rome – at least,
evidence contemporaneous with the events it describes or, as in this case, the events
of which it is a product – records radical action against local manifestations of the
cult of Bacchus (ILS18; on this event see North 1979; Cancik-Lindemaier 1996;
de Cazanove 2000b; and cf. de Cazanove 2000a). The extant senatus consultumof
186 bcraises concern on two grounds relevant here. First, it explicitly embraces non-
citizen communities in its effects; indeed, the one extant copy was found in south-
ern Italy, outside Roman territory. And yet our major literary source for this episode
- Livy, book 39 – concentrates on the arrival of the cult at Rome and the distur-
bances it caused there. The second cause for concern is that Roman priestly law as
it emerges in antiquarian writings of the first century bcexplicitly excluded non-
citizens from its ambit, and there are good reasons for thinking that reconstruction
appropriate (see the section on “Reichsreligion,” below). On what religious or polit-
ical grounds did the Romans interfere in the religious life of alien Italians?
One answer arises from detailed consideration of the content of the senatus
consultumitself, especially in light of what we learn from Livy (see also Ando 2003:
5–11). That answer harmonizes with some considerably later Roman attempts to
reconstruct mid-republican practice, as well as with imperial evidence for Roman
interference in the institutions of social life in provincial towns; and this evidence is
up to a point self-reinforcing. In particular, the senate’s decree orders no changes
in the forms of ritual practiced by cult members, beyond commanding that no man
shall be a priest. But Livy records – on what evidentiary basis, we do not know –
that the cult had only recently admitted men to its priesthood; and it may be that
the senate’s action should be understood in that light. If this is correct, then the
senate was acting in particular against the behaviors of cult members in relation to
each other, and not in relation to the god: Rome wished, therefore, to preclude the
possibility that cults could serve as vehicles for achieving local solidarity. Regarded
in this fashion, the action taken against the Bacchalia can be read against the very
considerable evidence under the empire for official disapproval of collegia– a term
that embraces guilds, fraternities, and other private clubs (Pliny, Epist. 10.34;
Digestae47.22).
This reading of the senate’s action against the worshipers of Bacchus should
be compared with the fate of Fregellae, a colony of Latin status established in 328
where the Liris emerges from the Apennines into the plain (Livy 8.22.2). Fregellae
revolted from Roman dominance under mysterious circumstances in 125bc(evid-
ence for the revolt and punishment is sparse: Cic. De inventione 2.105 and De finibus
5.62; Livy, Per.60; Asconius p. 17.17–22 Clark; De viris illustribus65.2). Writing
a little over a century later, the Greek geographer Strabo described Fregellae in his
day as “just a village, but it [was once] a noteworthy city, which held in attribution
many of the surrounding cities”: “now those cities come together at Fregellae,
to hold markets and perform certain rites” (5.3.10). As with the controls imposed
upon the cult of Bacchus, the Romans appear in Fregellae ostentatiously (and
perhaps piously) to have allowed or insisted upon the continuation of cult even when
Exporting Roman Religion 437
