Liber

LIBER PATER

L. Dellius Liberalis

OVERVIEW

In the Cultus Deorum Romanorum, Liber, also known as Liber Pater ("the free Father"), was a god of viticulture and wine, male fertility, and freedom. He was a patron deity of Rome's plebeians and was part of their Aventine Triad. His festival of Liberalia (March 17) became associated with free speech and the rights attached to coming of age. Liber was closely, often interchangeably, identified with Bacchus, Dionysus, and their mythology; in the late Republican era, Cicero would insist on the "non-identity of Liber and Dionysus" and describe Liber and Libera as children of Ceres. Cicero’s insistences aside, his cult and functions were increasingly associated with Romanised forms of the Greek Dionysus and Bacchus, whose iconography and mythology he came to share, until they were completely fused . Cicero speaks of three Libers and ascribes different functions and connotations to the different appellations – which represent three distinct philosophical, oratorial, rhetorical, and epistolographic perspectives with which Liber was viewed, at least by Cicero . However, Q. Lucilius Balbus suggests that the need to separate the “Greek” Liber (Semele natum) from the “Roman” Liber stems from the fact that neither the name Dionysus nor Bacchus is used. Elsewhere however, Cicero appears to refer to Liber when pointing out the positive aspects of the Roman god, his festival and associated cult; to use the name Bacchus metonymically for wine, its consequences, and its generally negative derivatives; and Dionysus when discussing the Greek god and his genealogy. Following on from Varro , Augustine describes Liber as a god of the “seeds of men” and thus primarily represents male sexuality . Further to this, he represents the old-Italic Liber as a god of fecundity of agriculture, of viticulture, cattle-breeding, and possibly the personification of freedom.

ETYMOLOGY

The name Līber ('free') stems from Proto-Italic *leuþero , and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁leudʰero ('belonging to the people', hence 'free'). In Latin liber means "free", or the "free one"; when coupled with "pater", it means "The Free Father”, akin to the Greek Dionysus-Eleftherios . The word 'liber' is also understood to be the etymological root of ‘libation’, ritual offering of drink, although Varro argued in favour of the ‘liberation’ connection as opposed to ‘libation’, writing that “men were liberated through coitus with the emission of seed. For this reason, women used to place the effigy of the part of the body involved in his temples. They then added the attributes and some wine to excite the desire.” .

ATTRIBUTES

Liber, like Dionysus or Bacchus, was generally depicted as a young adult male wearing a crown of foliage and carrying a thyrsus (a stem of narthex or fennel topped by a pinecone). The thyrsus was one of Dionysus’ most distinctive attributes, and as the cults of Dionysus and Bacchus were merged with that of Liber, it too was adopted by the latter. Vines and grapes were naturally also important attributes of Liber. Liber was accompanied everywhere he went by an entourage known as the thiasos to the Greeks, of revelers and beasts, who were said to engage in nocturnal orgies . The thiasos included frenzied worshippers known as maenads, as well as satyrs and fauns— male nature spirits/creatures that were half-human and half-animal (with ears and a tail resembling those of a horse for the former and horns and legs of the goat for the latter, as well as a permanent, exaggerated erection for both). In Roman literature, Liber was often associated with the half-human, half-goat fauns. Public figures who wanted to associate themselves with Liber would occasionally adopt the god’s attributes, for example the politicians Pompey and M. Antonius sometimes represented themselves with the attributes of Liber , as did the controversial Roman emperor Elagabalus (218-222) of the Severan dynasty.

FAMILY AND ASSOCIATED GODS

Ceres, Libera (Proserpina), and the Aventine Triad

In early Roman religion, the Italic goddess Libera was Liber’s female equivalent, whose pairing with the “Free father” appears to have been an "etymological duality" dating back to the end of the Regal or very early Republican eras . She enters Roman religious history as part of the so-called Aventine Triad alongside Ceres and Liber, whose cult was administered from their temple on the Aventine Hill established around 493 BC.

The Aventine relationship between Ceres, Liber and Libera was most likely based primarily on their functions as agricultural and fertility deities of the plebs as a distinct social group. Liber had been companion to both Ceres and to Libera in separate and disparate fertility cults that were widespread throughout the Hellenised Italian peninsula, long before their official adoption by Rome . Each of the Aventine triad's deities continued to receive cult in their own right. Liber's open, gender-mixed cult and festivals continued, though was spared any significant consequences following the suppression of the Bacchanalia. Libera’s individual cult (as Proserpina), as well as her joint cult with Ceres, eventually became widespread throughout the Republic and Empire. Libera was officially identified as Proserpina from 205 BC, when she and Ceres acquired a Romanised form of Greek mystery rite, the ritus graecus cereris . In the late Republican era, Cicero described Liber and Libera as Ceres' children. Both the older and newer forms of her names, cult, and rites, and their diverse associations, thrived and survived well into the late Imperial era.

MYTHOLOGY

One of Liber’s roles was that of a civilising god of humanity, a role upon which Ovid focused greatly, and in his Fasti Ovid connects Liber with Prometheus making him the first to offer a sacrifice – libamen - and with Aristaeus, as inventor of honey – et inventi praemia mellis habet.

“…they say that [Bacchus] discovered honey. He was travelling from sandy Hebrus, accompanied By Satyrs, (my tale contains a not-unpleasant jest) And he’d come to Mount Rhodope, and flowering Pangaeus: With the cymbals clashing in his companions’ hands. Behold unknown winged things gather to the jangling, Bees, that follow after the echoing bronze. Liber gathered the swarm and shut it in a hollow tree, And was rewarded with the prize of discovering honey. Once the Satyrs, and old bald-headed Silenus, had tasted it, They searched for the yellow combs in every tree.” (Ovid, Fasti.)

As we can see from the extract, Liber, his thiasos, Silenus and the satyrs (all very Dionysian dramatis personae) crossed the river Hebrus and were headed to Mt. Rhodope in usual boisterous fashion. The bees, or rather “flying creatures” (volucres) are attracted by the sound of drumming and chanting and fly in swarm towards them. Liber collects them and shuts them in the hollow of a tree and soothes them into producing the golden nectar, a small portion of which he then shares with his retinue, before temporarily taking his leave, perhaps to rest.

Silenus particularly enjoyed the delicious, sticky substance and begins searching for the sweet honey himself. After some searching, he finds the bees in the trunk. He stands on the back of his donkey trying to get the honey, but only disturbs the hive, which in turn results in him being stung on his nose and bald head. He falls off the donkey who then promptly kicks him. His cries alert the satyrs who begin to laugh at him. The Silenus-narrative also functions as a contrast to the episode with Liber. Like the god, the old satyr finds the bees, but due of his imperfection, the bees do not obey, but instead turn against him. Ovid himself also plays upon this duality in the line “melle pater fruitur” (761). On the first reading, we do not know to whom the poet is referring. It is at this point that Ovid identifies Liber as civiliser in the story of the unlucky Silenus. After Silenus experienced the bees’ real power, Liber returns in order to ease his pains. The god also instructs them how to lessen the pain caused by the stings of the bees: the satyr must smear his face with rich, fertile earth – the very same from which the vines themselves grow.

THE LIBERALIA, FESTIVAL OF LIBER

Liber's festivals are timed to the springtime awakening and renewal of fertility in the agricultural cycle. In Rome, his annual Liberalia festival was held on 17th March. A portable shrine was carried through Rome's vici. Liber's aged, ivy-crowned priestesses (Sacerdos Liberi) made special cakes, or liba, of oil and honey which passing devotees would have them sacrifice on their behalf – as the discovery of honey was credited to Liber-Bacchus. Embedded within the Liberalia, at a ritualistic level, were the various freedoms and rights attached to Roman ideas of virility as a divine and natural force . Young men of around 15 or 16 celebrated their coming of age to manhood; they cut off and dedicated their first beards to their household Lares, and placed the childhood bulla praetexta on the lararium (with a lock of hair or the stubble of that first shave placed inside) - mothers often retrieved the discarded bulla and kept it out of superstition. Should the son ever achieve a public triumph, the mother might display the bulla to ward off any evil that might be wished upon him by envious people.

If citizens, they would discard the toga praetexta and took up wearing the toga virilis, the which Ovid, poetically calls a toga libera (Liber's toga or "toga of freedom"). Having donned the toga virilis, the young men processed to the forum to register their citizenship and were then free to vote, to leave their father's domus, choose a marriage partner and, by the grace of Liber's endowment of virility, sire their own children and raise a family. The ceremony was a rustic one: the processional featured a large phallus which the devotees carried throughout the countryside to bring the blessing of fertility to the land and the people and protect the crops from evil. At the end of the procession, a virtuous and respected matron placed a wreath upon the phallus. Over time this feast evolved and included the goddess Libera, and the feast divided so that Liber governed the male seed, fertility, and freedom while Libera the female.

The Liberalia are attested in several sources, though Ovid’s account is quite particular. It is important to remember however that by the time of Ovid’s Fasti, the Aventine Triad were not among the gods with a significant State cult –the temple had been destroyed and wasn’t restored until 17AD – three years after Augustus’s death, and it is suggested that Ovid’s rebranding of Liber was necessary as he had been compromised by the Bacchic Affair of 186BC.

Virgil’s Georgics recount a rustic version of the feast of Liber, involving:

1. Slaughtering a goat

2. Theatre performances

3. Jumping on oily goatskins

4. Hanging masks on pine tree

All of which evoke the cult practices of Dionysus. Augustine recalls that in Lavinium, the Liberalia lasted one month and contained its original fertility cult elements: licentiousness, mischievousness and the phallic procession:

“tanta licentia turpitudinis: omnis verbis flagitiossimus uterentur… Nam hoc turpe membrum per Liberi dies festos cum honore magno plostellis impositum prius rure in comptis et usque in urbem postea vectabatur”.

Varro shares a number of common features with Ovid, including the honey cakes sold by the “old granny” priestesses: Liberalia dicta, quod per totum oppidum eo die sedent Sacerdotes Liberi anus hedera coronatae cum libis et foculo pro emptore sacrificantes.

It is important to point out that the licentious and mischievous behaviour found in both Virgil and Augustine’s narrative, as well as the accounts of Liber’s cults outside of Rome are missing from Ovid: as he was reformulating a more Roman Liber.

FOOTNOTES

 1 Grimal (1996)
 2 De Natura Deorum, 2:62
 3 i) Semele natum – born of Semele (Dionysus) ii) cum Cerere et Libera consecraverunt -  honuored with Ceres and Libera iii) ex mysteriis 
   intellegi potest – known by a mysteries religion.
 4 MacGóráin (2019)
 5 MacGóráin, 2019 p.165
 6 MacGóráin (2019).
 7 ARD, F 93C
 8 De Civ. Dei, 4.11
 9 De Vaan (2008)
 10 Eleutherios Ἐλευθέριος ("the liberator")
 11 Rerum Divinarum Libri, quoted by Augustine, De Civitate Dei, V, 9
 12 Liberum a liberamentum appellatum volunt quod mares per eius beneficium emissis seminibus in coeundo liberentur. […] Et ob haec Libero eandem corporis parte in templo poni. Ad haec addunt mulieres attributas Libero et vinum propter libidimem concitandam
 13 Catullus, Ode 64.251–64; Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.25–27; Virgil, Georgics 4.521
 14 Valerius Maximus, Memorable Deeds and Sayings 3.6.6; Pliny the Elder, Natural History 33.150; Pliny the Elder, Natural History 8.2.4; Velleius Paterculus, Roman History 2.82.4.
 15 Spaeth (1996) The Roman Goddess Ceres, p. 8
 16 Wiseman, T.P (1988) "Satyrs in Rome? The Background to Horace's Ars Poetica", The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 78, p 7, note 52.
 17 Spaeth (1996) pp. 4, 6–13, citing Arnobius, who mistakes this as the first Roman cult to Ceres. His belief may reflect the high profile and ubiquity of the "reformed" cult during the later Imperial period, and possibly the fading of older, distinctively Aventine forms of her cult.
 18 Kovacs (2013)
 19 Spaeth (1996). 
 20 a hollow charm of gold or leather, which parents placed about the necks of children to ward off evil spirits.
 21 Wiseman (1998)
 22 380-389
 23 Civitate Dei, 7, 21
 24 De Lingua Latina, 6:14

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