Ecstatic worship rites centered on the god Dionysus, widespread across the ancient Mediterranean before Roman authorities moved to suppress them.
Worship of Dionysus (Bacchus to the Romans) centered on ecstatic ritual — wine, music, dance, and altered states of consciousness — practiced by informal associations rather than a single organized institution. The rites spread from Greece into Italy by the 2nd century BCE, where their secrecy, mixed-gender gatherings, and independence from state oversight alarmed Roman authorities.
In 186 BCE, the Roman Senate passed the Senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus, sharply restricting Bacchic worship across Italy — one of the earliest documented state actions against a religious movement on the grounds of social control and secrecy rather than theology alone.