Livy 39.8-19

(Penguin translation by H. Bettenson)

The Bacchic"Conspiracy" of 186 BCE

8. The following year diverted the consuls, Spurius Postumius Albunius and Quintus Marcius Philippus, from the command of armies and the conduct of campaigns abroad to the crushing of conspiracy at home. The praetors drew lots for their spheres of office: Titus Maenius received the jurisdiction in Rome, and Marcus Licinius Lucullus was appointed judge in suits between citizens and foreigners; the province of Sardinia fell to Gaius Aurelius Scanius, Sicily to Publius Cornelius Sulla, Hither Spain to Lucius Quinctius Crispinus, Further Spain to Gaius Calpurnius Piso. A senatorial decree entrusted both the consuls with an inquiry into secret conspiracies.(1)

The trouble had started with the arrival in Etruria of a Greek of humble origin, a man possessed of none of those numerous accomplishments which the Greek people, the most highly educated and civilized of nations, has introduced among us for the cultivation of mind and body; he dealt in sacrifices and soothsaying. But his method of infecting people's minds with error was not by the open practice of his rites and the public advertisement of his trade and his system; he was the hierophant of secret ceremonies performed at night. There were initiations which at first were imparted only to a few; but they soon began to be widespread among men and women. The pleasures of drinking and feasting were added to the religious rites, to attract a larger number of followers. When wine had inflamed their feelings, and night and the mingling of the sexes and of different ages had extinguished all power of moral judgment, all sorts of corruption began to be practised, since each person had ready to hand the chance of gratifying the particular desire to which he was naturally inclined. The corruption was not confined to one kind of evil, the promiscuous violation of free men and of women; the cult was also a source of supply of false witnesses, forged documents and wills, and perjured evidence, dealing also in poisons and in wholesale murders among the devotees, and sometimes ensuring that not even the bodies were found for burial. Many such outrages were committed by craft, and even more by violence; and the violence was concealed because no cries for help could be heard against the shriekings, the banging of drums and the clashing of cymbals in the scene of debauchery and bloodshed.

9. This evil, with all its disastrous influence, spread from Etruria to Rome like an epidemic. At the start, the very size of the city concealed it, giving ample room for such evils and making it possible to tolerate them; but at length information reached the ears of the consul Postumius, and the manner of its coming was much as follows.

Publius Aebutius, whose father had served in the select class of cavalry provided with horses by the State, was left a ward; and later, on the death of his guardians, he was brought up under the protection of his mother Durenia and his stepfather Titus Sempronius Rutilus. His mother was under the sway of her husband, and his stepfather had so performed his guardianship that he was unable to render an account to the court. The stepfather was therefore desirous that his ward should either be removed or made dependent on him by some tie. The Bacchanalia offered the one way of destroying the young man; and so the mother appealed to her son, saying that when he was ill she had vowed on his behalf that as soon as he got better she would initiate him into the Bacchic rites; now, by the kindness of the gods, she was due to pay her vow, and she wished to fulfill this obligation. She explained that he would have to observe continence for ten days; at the end of that period she could conduct him to a banquet, then, after ceremonial washing, to the shrine.

Now there was a well-known harlot, a freedwoman named Hispala Faecenia, who was worthy of a better life than the business to which she had become accustomed while a mere slave: but even after her manumission she had supported herself by the same occupation. A liaison had started between this woman and Aebutius, a relationship not at all harmful either to the young man's financial resources or to his reputation. He had been loved and courted without any overtures on his part; and since his own family made but grudging provision for all his needs, he was in fact supported by the generosity of the courtesan. Her relationship with Aebutius had brought the woman to the point of applying to the tribunes and the praetor for a guardian, after the death of her patron (since she then had no legal protector) so that she could make her will, in which she named Aebutius as her sole heir.

10. Since there were these pledges of love between the pair, and they had no secrets from each other, the young man light-heartedly told his mistress not to be surprised if he did not sleep with her for several nights, explaining that he intended to undergo initiation into the Bacchic rites as a matter of religious obligation, in fulfillment of a vow made to obtain recovery from illness. When the woman heard this, she exclaimed, in consternation: "Heaven forbid! Better for you and for me to die rather than that you should do that!" And she called down the vengeance of heaven on the heads of those who had prompted him to this course. Amazed at her language and at her distress of mind, the young man bade her forgo her curses; it was his mother, he told her, who had prescribed this, with the approval of his stepfather. "That means", she retorted, "that your stepfather - for perhaps it would be wicked to accuse your mother - is in a hurry to destroy by this action your virtue, your reputation, your prospects and your life."

All the more amazed at this outburst the young man asked what it was all about; and then (after imploring the gods and goddesses for mercy and forgiveness if under compulsion of her love for him she uttered what should be kept secret) she told him that when she was a maidservant she had accompanied her mistress to that shrine, but she had never been near it since she gained her freedom. She knew it, she said, as the workshop of corruptions of every kind; and it was common knowledge that for the past two years no one had been initiated who was over the age of twenty. As each one was introduced, he became a kind of sacrificial victim for the priests. They led the initiate to a place which resounded with shrieks, with the chanting of a choir, the clashing of cymbals and the beating of drums, so that the victim's cries for help, when violence was offered to his chastity, might not be heard. She went on to beg and beseech him to put a stop to the whole project by any means, and not to rush into a situation where every kind of enormity would have first to be suffered and then to be practised. And she refused to let him go until the young man gave her his word that he would have nothing to do with those ceremonies.

11. When he reached home, and when his mother brought up the subject of what had to be done on that day and on the following days in connection with the ceremonies, he told her that he would not do any of these things, and that he had no intention of being initiated. His stepfather was present at this conversation. His mother instantly shouted at him that the trouble was that he could not deprive himself of Hispala's embraces for ten nights; he was so infected with the poisonous charms of that serpent that he had no respect for his mother or his stepfather - or even for the gods. Scolding him in this fashion, his mother on one side, his stepfather with four slaves on the other, they drove him from the house. The young man then went to his aunt Aebutia and explained to her the reason why his mother had thrown him out; and on her suggestion he went next day to the consul Postumius and told him the whole story, with no witnesses present.

The consul sent him away with instructions to come back in two day's time; and he himself meanwhile asked his mother-in-law Sulpicia, a lady of the highest character, whether she knew an elderly lady from the Aventine, named Aebutia. She replied that she knew her as a woman of integrity, one of the old school. The consul then told her that he needed to have an interview with the lady; and he asked Sulpicia to send her an invitation to come over. Aebutia arrived to see Sulpicia, in response to the summons, and in a short while the consul came in, as if by chance, and introduced into the conversation a mention of her nephew Aebutius. Tears sprang to her eyes, and she started to lament the plight of a young man who had been robbed of his fortune by those who should have been the last persons to treat him thus, "He is at this moment", she said, "staying at my house; he has been thrown out of his home by his mother just because (heaven preserve us!) the upright young man has refused to be initiated into ceremonies which, according to all reports, are nothing short of obscene."

12. Having satisfied himself by this investigation that Aebutius was a reliable witness, the consul said good-bye to Aebutia; and he asked his mother-in-law to invite a freedwoman named Hispala to visit her; she also was from the Aventine, quite well known in the neighbourhood, and he would like to ask her also a few questions. Hispala was disconcerted at receiving the message, for she could not imagine why she had been summoned to such a well-known and respected lady; and she nearly fainted when she saw the lictors in the vestibule, the consul's entourage, and the consul himself.

Postumius conducted her into the inner part of the house, and in the presence of his mother-in-law, he told Hispala that if she could bring herself to tell him the facts she had no cause for alarm. She could take the pledged word of Sulpicia, a lady of such high position, or his own promise; and she should reveal to them the ceremonies that were habitually performed in the nocturnal rites of the Bacchanalia in the grove of Stimula. On hearing this, the woman was panic-stricken, and such trembling seized every part of her body that for a long time she could not open her mouth. When at last she came to herself, she told the consul that when she was still a mere girl and a slave she had been initiated with her mistress; but for a good many years, now that she had been manumitted, she had no knowledge of what happened at these rites.

The consul praised her for her conduct so far, in not denying the basic fact that she had been initiated; but he told her to reveal all the rest of the facts, under the same pledge. She denied any further knowledge; and the consul went on to warn her that if she were proved to be lying by the evidence of another witness, she could not expect the same forgiveness or indulgence as she would receive if she made a voluntary confession. He added that the man who had heard the story from her had given him a full account of the facts.

13. Thinking without a doubt (as was in fact the case) that Aebutius had revealed the secret, the woman fell at Sulpicia's feet and began to beg her not to allow something said by a freedwoman to her lover to be turned into a serious, even a fatal, statement; what she had said was designed to frighten Aebutius - it was not based on any knowledge. At this point Postumius, blazing with anger, told her that she imagined she was at the moment bantering with her lover Aebutius, instead of speaking in the house of a lady of the highest reputation and in conversation with a consul. Sulpicia for her part lifted the terrified creature and tried to comfort her, while endeavouring to assuage the anger of her son-in-law. Hispala eventually pulled herself together and after complaining bitterly about the treachery of Aebutius, who had returned such thanks for all she had done for him, she declared that she was exceedingly afraid of the wrath of the gods whose secret rites she was about to disclose, but far more afraid of the vengeance of the men who would tear her limb from limb with their own hands, if she gave evidence against them. Accordingly she besought Sulpicia and the consul that they would send her into exile somewhere outside Italy, where she could pass the rest of her life in safety.

The consul bade her to keep her spirits up, assuring her that he would make it his business to see that she could live in safety at Rome. Hispala then explained the origin of the ceremonies. They had started as a rite for women, and it was the rule that no man should be admitted. There had been three fixed days in a year on which initiations took place, at daytime, into the Bacchic mysteries; and it was the custom for the matrons to be chosen as priestesses in rotation. But when Paculla Annia of Campania was priestess she altered all this, ostensibly on the advice of the gods. She had been the first to initiate men, her sons, Minius and Herennius Cerrinius; and she had performed the ceremonies by night instead of by day, and in place of three days in a year she had appointed five days of initiation in each month. From the time when the rites were held promiscuously, with men and women mixed together, and when the license offered by darkness had been added, no sort of crime, no kind of immorality, was left unattempted. There were more obscenities practised between men than between men and women. Anyone refusing to submit to outrage or reluctant to commit crimes was slaughtered as a sacrificial victim. To regard nothing as forbidden was among these people the summit of religious achievement. Men, apparently out of their wits, would utter prophecies with frenzied bodily convulsions: matrons, attired as Bacchantes, with their hair dishevelled and carrying blazing torches, would run down to the Tiber, plunge their torches into the water and bring them out still alight - because they contained a mixture of live sulphur and calcium. Men were said to have been carried off by the gods - because they had been attached to a machine and whisked away out of sight to hidden caves; they were people who had refused to enter the conspiracy or to join in the crimes, or to submit to violation. There was, she alleged, a vast number of initiates, and by this time they almost made up a second people; some men and women of rank were to be found among them. She added that in the last two years it had been laid down that no one over twenty should be initiated; they were looking for young people of an age open to corruption of mind and body.

14. When she had finished giving her information, she again fell at their feet and repeated her prayers that the consul should remove her to some place of retirement. Postumius then asked his mother-in-law to vacate some part of the house, so that Hispala could move into it. A room on the upper floor was given her; the stairs leading down to the street were barred up, and access to the inside of the house was provided instead. All the possessions of Faecenia were at once transferred to this apartment, her domestics were sent for, and Aebutius was bidden to move into the house of one of the consul's clients.

Both witnesses being now under his control, Postumius brought the matter to the attention of the Senate, with all the facts set out in order, beginning with the first reports and then giving the later information resulting from his own inquiries. The Fathers were seized with extreme panic, as well on account of the community, fearing that these conspiracies and nocturnal meetings might lead to some secret treachery or hidden peril, as on private considerations, since each one feared on his own behalf, afraid that he might have some connection with this horrid business. However, the Senate passed a vote of thanks to the consul for having investigated the matter with remarkable thoroughness and without creating any disturbance.

The Fathers then empowered the consuls to hold a special inquiry into the Bacchic ceremonies and these nocturnal rites (bidding them to make sure that the informers Aebutius and Faecenia did not come to any harm in consequence) and to invite other witnesses by the offer of rewards. The Senate decreed that the priests of these rites, male and female, were to be sought out, not only in Rome but in all market-towns and centers of population, so that they should be available for the consuls; furthermore, that it should be proclaimed in the city of Rome (and edicts should be sent throughout Italy to the same effect) that no one who had been initiated into the Bacchic rites should attempt to assemble or meet for the purpose of holding these ceremonies or to perform any such religious rite. More especially, it was decreed that an inquiry should be held regarding those persons who had assembled or conspired for the furtherance of any immoral or criminal design.

Such was the decree of the Senate. The consuls ordered the curule aediles to search out all the priests of this cult, and to keep them under house-arrest for the inquiry; the plebeian aediles were to see to it that no celebration of the rites should take place in secret. The triumviri capitales(2) were authorized to arrange watches throughout the city, to make sure that no nocturnal assemblies were held, and to take precautions against outbreaks of fire; while five regional officers were to act as assistants to the triumviri, each of them being responsible for the buildings in his own district.

15. When the magistrates had been sent off to assume their responsibilities, the consuls mounted the Rostra and called an informal assembly. After reciting the customary form of prayer, regularly said by magistrates before addressing the people, Postumius began as follows:

"Citizens of Rome, there has never been an assembly for which this customary appeal to the gods was so apt - indeed so necessary -as it is for this present meeting. It is a prayer that reminds us that these are the gods who, according to the institutions of your ancestors, are to receive your worship, your veneration, your prayers - not those gods who would drive on to every sort of crime, to every form of lust, those persons whose minds have been taken captive by degraded and alien rites, whipping them on as if with the scourges of the Furies. For my part I confess myself unable to decide what I should cloak in silence or how far I should speak out. If you are kept in ignorance of anything, I fear I may give occasion for negligence; if I lay bare the whole story, I am afraid that I may spread excessive alarm. But whatever I tell you, you may be sure that my words are inadequate to the horror and the seriousness of the actual situation. Our energies will be devoted to the taking of adequate precautions.

"The Bacchic rites have for a long time been performed all over Italy, and recently they have been celebrated even in many places in Rome itself; I am quite sure that you have been made aware of this not only by rumors but also by the bangings and howlings heard in the night, which echo throughout the city. But I am equally sure that you do not know what this thing really is. Some believe it to be a kind of worship of the gods; others suppose it a permitted sport and relaxation; and that, whatever kind of thing it may be, it involves only a few people. As for their number, if I tell you that there are many thousands of them, you are bound to be scared out of your wits straightway, unless I go on to describe who they are and what kind of people they are. In the first place, then, a great part of them are women, and they are the source of this evil thing; next, there are males, scarcely distinguishable from females. Debauched and debauchers, frenzied devotees, bereft of their senses by lack of sleep, by drink, by the hubbub and the shouting that goes on through the night. Up to now this conspiracy has no strength, but it is gaining a vast increase in strength in that its followers grow more numerous as the days go by.

"Your ancestors did not wish that even the citizens should assemble fortuitously, without good reason: they did not wish you to assemble except when the standard was set up on the citadel, or when the army was called out for an election, or when the tribunes had proclaimed a council of the plebs, or one of the magistrates had summoned you to an informal meeting (3); and they held that whenever a crowd collected there should also be an authorized person in control of the crowd. What kind of gatherings do you suppose these to be, gatherings, in the first place, held at night, and, secondly, gatherings where men and women meet promiscuously? If you knew at what age male persons are initiated you would feel pity for them - yes, and shame. Citizens of Rome, do you feel that young men, initiated by this oath of allegiance, should be made soldiers? That arms should be entrusted to men called up from this obscene shrine? These men are steeped in their own debauchery and the debauchery of others; will they take the sword to fight to the end in defence of the chastity of your wives and your children?

16. "And yet it would be less alarming if their evil courses had merely rendered them effeminate - that was in great measure their own personal disgrace - and if they had kept their hands from crime and their thoughts from evil purposes. Never has there been so much wickedness in this commonwealth, never wickedness affecting so many people, nor manifesting itself in so many ways. Whatever wrongdoing there has been in these years, whether in the form of lust, or of fraud, or of violent crime, all of it, you may be sure, has its origin in this one shrine. And they have not yet put into practice all the crimes towards which they have conspired. Their impious conspiracy still confines itself to private outrages, because it has not yet strength enough to overthrow the state. But the evil grows with every passing day, and it creeps abroad. It is already too serious for private resources to deal with it; it aims at the supreme power in the state.

"Unless you are on your guard, Citizens of Rome, this present meeting, held in the daylight, legally summoned by a consul, can be paralleled by another meeting held in the night. Now, as individuals, they are afraid of you, as you stand assembled in a united body; but presently, when you have scattered to your houses in the city or to your homes in the country, they will have assembled, and will be making plans for their own safety and at the same time for your destruction; and then you as individuals, will have to fear them as a united body. That is why each one of you ought to hope that all those whom you care for may be of sound mind. If lust, if madness, has snatched off any of them into that whirlpool, then the person concerned should deem such a one to belong not to himself but to those with whom he has conspired to commit every kind of wrong-doing and crime.

"I cannot even rest assured that none of you, my fellow-citizens, will be led astray with disastrous error. Nothing is more deceptive and plausible than a perverse scrupulosity in religious matters. When the will of the gods is made an excuse for criminal acts, there comes into the mind the fear that in punishing human misconduct we may be doing violence to something of divine sanction that is mixed up with the offenses. But you are set free from such scrupulosity by countless decisions of the pontiffs, resolutions of the Senate, and, for good measure, responses of the soothsayers. How often in the times of our fathers and grandfathers, have the magistrates been given the task of forbidding the performance of foreign ceremonies, of excluding the dealers in sacrifices and soothsaying from the Forum, the Circus and the city, of searching out and burning prophetical books, and of abolishing every system of sacrifice except the traditional Roman method? For men of the deepest insight in all matters of divine and human law came to the decision that nothing tended so much to the destruction of religion as a situation where sacrifices were offered not with the traditional ritual but with ceremonies imported from abroad.

"I have thought it right to give you this warning, so that no superstitious fear may agitate your minds when you observe us suppressing the Bacchanalia and breaking up these criminal gatherings. All this we shall do, with the favor and approval of the gods; it is they who have dragged these matters out of the shadows into the light of day, because they were indignant that their divine majesty should be polluted by deeds of crime and lust; and it was not their will that this wickedness should be brought to light in order to be left unpunished, but in order that vengeance might be done upon it and that it might be crushed. The Senate has entrusted to myself and my colleague a special commission of inquiry into this affair. The task assigned to us we, for our part, shall diligently fulfill; the responsibility of keeping watch throughout the city we have committed to the lesser magistrates. You citizens likewise have your duties; and it is incumbent on you, whatever the tasks laid upon you, that you should give ready obedience to your orders, in whatever place each one of you is stationed, and you must use your best efforts to ensure that no danger or disturbance of the public peace is occasioned by the malignity of these criminals."

17. The consuls then ordered the resolutions of the Senate to be read out, and announced the reward to be paid to an informer who brought any suspect before them or gave them the name of any absent offender. If anyone so named had made his escape, the consuls would fix a day for the hearing and if the accused did not answer to his name on that day he would be condemned in his absence. For those named who were away from Italy at that time a less rigid date would be given, in case any of them wished to come to stand trial. Next followed an edict prohibiting any attempt to sell or buy anything for the purpose of escaping, and forbidding anyone to harbor or conceal any fugitives, or to assist them in any way.

After the dismissal of the assembly there was extreme terror in the whole city, and this was not confined within the walls of the city or the boundaries of Rome; the panic began to spread far and wide throughout the whole of Italy, as letters were received from friends telling of the decree of the Senate, and describing the assembly and the edict of the consuls. In the course of the night following the day on which the matter was disclosed at the public meeting, many people were caught trying to escape; they were arrested and taken back by the guards posted at the gates by the triumviri. The names of many suspects were reported to the authorities; and some of these, men and women, committed suicide. It was said that more than 7,000 men and women were involved in the conspiracy; but it was generally agreed that the ringleaders were Marcus and Gaius Atinius, members of the Roman plebs, Lucius Opicernius of the Falisci, and Minius Cerrinius of Campania. These men, it was said, were the source of all the crimes and immoralities: they were the chief priests and the founders of the cult. Energetic steps were taken to ensure their arrest at the first opportunity; they were brought before the consul; they confessed, and made no attempt to delay their trial.

18. But there was such a flight from the city that in many instances the legal proceedings and indictments were rendered void; accordingly, the praetors Titus Maenius and Marcus Licinius were compelled, through the action of the Senate, to postpone the hearings for thirty days, until the consuls had completed their inquiries. This depopulation of the city also compelled the consuls to go out to the local towns and conduct their inquiries and hold the trials there, since those who had been informed against did not answer to their names at Rome and were not to be found in the city. There were some who had simply been initiated and had made their prayers according to the ritual form, repeating the words after the priest - those prayers being the vows comprising the abominable conspiracy to practice every kind of crime and lust - but had not committed, either against themselves or against others, any of those acts to which they had bound themselves by their oath; such people were left in custody. But those who had polluted themselves by debauchery or murder, who had defiled themselves by giving false witness, by counterfeiting seals, by forging wills, or by other kinds of fraud, were condemned to death. The people executed outnumbered those who were thrown into prison; but there was a large number of men and women in both categories. Condemned women were handed over to their families or to those who had control of them, for punishment in private; if there was no suitable person to inflict punishment in this way, punishment was exacted by the authorities.

The next task entrusted to the consuls was the destruction of all shrines of Bacchic worship, first at Rome and then throughout Italy, except in places where an ancient altar or statue had been consecrated. For the future it was provided by decree of the Senate that there should be no Bacchanalia in Rome or in Italy. If any person regarded such ceremonies as hallowed by tradition and as essential for him, and believed himself unable to forgo them without being guilty of sin, he was to make a declaration before the city praetor, and the praetor would consult the Senate. If permission were granted to the applicant, at a meeting attended by at least a hundred members of the Senate, he would be allowed to perform the rite, provided that not more than five people took part; and there was to be no common fund of money, no president of the ceremonies, and no priest.(4)

19. A further decree of the Senate, connected with this, was then passed on the proposal of the consul Quintus Marcius, providing that the whole question of those who had served as informers for the consuls should be brought before the Senate when Spurius Postumius had completed his investigation and returned to Rome. The Senate voted that Minius Cerrinius of Campania should be sent to Ardea for imprisonment, and that the authorities there should be warned to keep him in specially close custody, not only to prevent his escape but also to allow him no chance of committing suicide.

It was some considerable time before Spurius Postumius returned to Rome. He brought in a motion about the reward to be paid to Publius Aebutius and Hispala Faecenia, on the grounds that it was thanks to their information that the facts about the Bacchanalia had been discovered; and the Senate decreed that the city quaestors should pay them 100,000 asses out of the public treasury; and that the consuls should discuss with the tribunes the suggestion that they should bring before the popular assembly, at the earliest possible moment, a proposal that Publius Aebutius should be counted as having performed his military service, that he should not serve in the army unless of his own volition, and that the censor should not assign him a horse at the public expense (5) without his consent; that Hispala Faecenia should have the right of giving away or alienating property, of marriage outside her gens, and of choice of a guardian, just as if a husband had bestowed these rights in his will; that she should be allowed to marry a man of free birth, and that no slur or disgrace on account of the marriage should attach to the man who married her; that the consuls and praetors at this time in office, and their successors, should make sure that no harm should be done to this woman, and that she should live in safety. The tribunes were to tell the people that the Senate wished and deemed it right that this should be done.

All these proposals were put before the popular assembly, and were passed in accordance with the resolution of the Senate. The question of the impunity of the other informers, and the rewards to be paid them, was left for the consuls to decide.

(1). In particular, the mystic cult of Dionysus, widespread among the Greeks and in Italy (under his name of Bacchus). Its ritual orgia ("Bacchanalia"), inspiring "ecstasy", were conducted by women ("Bacchantes"). In Rome it flourished after the Hannibalic War, and men were admitted. The Bacchic cult was now officially regarded as immoral and subversive; its meetings could be termed "conspiracy" and controlled by law throughout Italy. The Senate's decree is quoted in a proclamation to the Italian allies that survives in a bronze copy (the Senatus Consultum de Bacchanalibus).

(2). The three magistrates exercising minor criminal jurisdiction, responsible for order in the city.

(3). The regular assemblies: Comitia Centuriata, originating in the citizen army ('centuries'); Concilium Plebis, organized on a territorial basis ('tribes'); Contio, a public meeting officially convened.

(4) The Senate proclaimed that 'existing Bacchic shrines, except where there is a sacred object, shall be destroyed'. The decree regulating the cult included these terms: 'Let no one keep a Bacchic shrine. If any claim that it is essential to them to keep a shrine, let them declare so to the city praetor, and the Senate shall decide, sitting with a quorum of a hundred senators . . . Let no man be a priest, nor any man or woman be president, nor anyone institute a common fund . . . nor shall any persons henceforth make oath, vow, pledge, promise or covenant together. Let no one hold ceremonies in secret nor do so in public or private or outside the city unless authorized as above by the Senate. The meeting shall be limited to five persons - two men, three women - except by grace of the Senate, as above.'

(5). For cavalry service in the class for which his reward now qualified him.