His health was ruined by his debaucheries, and a surgical operation became necessary.
The evil reputation of these festivals, at which the grossest debaucheries took place, and all kinds of crimes and political conspiracies were supposed to be planned, led in 186 B.C. to a decree of the senate - the so-called Senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus, inscribed on a bronze tablet discovered in Calabria (1640), now at Vienna - by which the Bacchanalia were prohibited throughout the whole of Italy, except in certain special cases, in which the senate reserved the right of allowing them, subject to certain restrictions.
The simplicity of his life and his adherence to Stoic principles were looked upon as a reproach to the frivolity and debaucheries of Nero, who "at last yearned to put Virtue itself to death in the persons of Thrasea and Soranus" (Tacitus).
