Spurius Postumius Albinus (consul 186 BC)

For other people with similar names, see Spurius Postumius.

Spurius Postumius Albinus was a politician of ancient Rome, of patrician rank, of the 2nd century BC. He was praetor peregrinus in 189 BC, responsible for Roman interests in foreign affairs; and consul in 186 BC.[1] In his consulship the Senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus was passed, reforming the mystery cult of Bacchus in Rome and among her close allies on the Italian mainland. In Livy's account, this was a reaction to various abominable crimes committed by members of the cult, and its threat to the Roman state.[2] More likely, the legislation represents an attempt by Postumius and the senate to impose traditional Roman values and collective authority over a well organised, unofficial civil and religious association that seemed dangerously popular, widespread and potentially subversive. The legislation followed close after a particularly traumatic and turbulent period in Rome's history;[3] Postumius was also an augur, which gave him a degree of religious authority. He died in 179 BC at an advanced age.[4]

  1. ^ Livy, 37, 47, 50
  2. ^ Livy, 39, 6, 11, ff; cf Valerius Maximus, 6, 3. § 7; Pliny the Elder, Historia Naturalis, 33
  3. ^ During the Punic crisis, some foreign cults and oracles had been repressed by Rome, but on a much smaller scale and not outside Rome itself. See Erich S. Gruen, Studies in Greek culture and Roman policy, BRILL, 1990, pp.34-78: on precedents see p.41 ff.[1]. See also Sarolta A. Takács, Politics and Religion in the Bacchanalian Affair of 186 B.C.E., Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol. 100, (2000), p.301. [2]; and Beard, M., Price, S., North, J., Religions of Rome: Volume 1, a History, illustrated, Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 93–96.
  4. ^ Livy, 40, 42; Cicero, Cato Maior de Senectute, 3.