Paculla Annia

Who is Paculla Annia?

Paculla Annia was a Campanian priestess of Bacchus. She is known only through the Roman historian Livy's account of the introduction, growth and spread of unofficial Bacchanalia festivals, which were ferociously suppressed in 186 BC under threat of extreme penalty. Paculla Annia is said to have presided over the corruption of Bacchus's mystery cult and its holy orgia, starting around 188. Livy describes the Bacchanalia as hitherto reserved to women, a daylight ritual held on just three days of the year; Paculla Annia changed them to nocturnal rites, increased their frequency to five a month, opened them to all social classes and both sexes - starting with her own sons, Minius and Herennius Cerrinius -.and made wine-fueled violence and sexual promiscuity mandatory for all initiates. The cult was thought to function as a hidden state within the state, with particular appeal to those with leuitas animi; the lower classes, plebeians, women, the young, morally weak, and "men most like women" were thought most susceptible but even men of the highest class were not immune. A virtuous ex-initiate and prostitute, Hispala Faecenia, though fearing the vengeance of the cult, revealed all to a shocked Roman senate. Once their investigation was complete, they suppressed the cult, saving Rome from the divine wrath and disaster it would otherwise have suffered. Livy claims that six thousand were executed, and that the arrests included Paculla's son, Minius Cerrineus. The legislation against the cult, or rather its forced reformation, is given in the Senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus. Paculla's fate is unknown.