BACCHANALIA, the Latin name for the wild and mystic festivals of Bacchus (Dionysus [q.v.] ). They were introduced into Rome from lower Italy by way of Etruria, and were held in secret, attended by women only, on three days in the year (Ovid, Fasti vi. 503). Subsequently, admission to the rites was ex tended to men and celebrations took place five times a month. The evil reputation of these festivals, at which the grossest de baucheries took place, and all kinds of crimes and political con spiracies were supposed to be planned, led in 186 B.c. to a decree of the senate—the so-called Senatus consultum de Bacchanali bus, inscribed on a bronze tablet discovered in Calabria (1640), now at Vienna—which prohibited the Bacchanalia throughout Italy, except in certain special cases. But, in spite of the severe punishment inflicted upon those implicated in the criminal prac tices disclosed, Bacchanalia were not suppressed in the south of Italy for a very long time.