She is known only through the Roman historian Livy's account of the introduction, growth and spread of unofficial Bacchanalia festivals, which were ferociously suppressed in 186 BC under threat of extreme penalty.
Livy describes the Bacchanalia as hitherto reserved to women, a daylight ritual held on just three days of the year; Paculla Annia changed them to nocturnal rites, increased their frequency to five a month, opened them to all social classes and both sexes - starting with her own sons, Minius and Herennius Cerrinius - and made wine-fueled violence and sexual promiscuity mandatory for all initiates.
[2] Paculla Annia is unlikely to have introduced all the changes attributed to her by Livy;[3] many of his dramatis personae, stylistic flourishes and tropes may draw more on Roman satyr plays than on the Bacchanalia themselves.
[4] Hispala Faecenia provides the dramatic trope of "golden-hearted prostitute", whose courageous testimony, goodness, and loyalty far outweigh her low origin, profession and fear of reprisal.
[6] The Senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus has been interpreted as an assertion of Rome's civil and religious authority, either throughout the Italian peninsula or within Roman territories, following the recent Punic War and subsequent social and political instability.