LIBER, LIBERALIA. – According to tradition, when in 495 B.C., following a famine, the Sibylline Books ordered the introduction into Rome of Greek divinities, the triad Cerere, Liber, and Libera was received, already regarded by the ancients as the translation of the Greek triad: Demetra, Dioniso (v.) and Persefone (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 6, 17). In the same year a temple was built for the new gods by Greek artists (“aedes Cerere, Liberi Liberaeque,” at the foot of the Aventine near the Circus Maximus), whose dies natalis fell on 19 April, the feast of the Cerialia.
But, contrary to tradition, there can be no doubt about the Italic indigeneity of Liber, for the following reasons. First, his feast (the Liberalia) was already recorded in the ancient “Numan” calendar (17 March), a sign of great antiquity; then there is the frequent epithet “pater” given to Liber, just as it was attributed to the other two indigenous and archaic divinities, Iuppiter and Mars; finally, the fact that Liber appears as an epithet of Iuppiter among numerous peoples, such as the Vestini, Frentani, and Sabini, at Capua and at Rome itself (in a fragment of the Arval calendar, under 1 September: cf. CIL, I, II, p. 214), which might suggest the superimposition of Iuppiter upon a pre-existing local god, Liber or Loebasius (according to one of the oldest forms of the name: cf. Varro, De lingua lat., VI, 2; Servius, ad Georg., I, 7; Paulus Festus, 108). On the other hand, for the earliest period Liber can assert his independence from Dioniso by demonstrating the absence of any connection he has with the vine, since his feast fell at a time (March) very far removed from the grape harvest. Instead, he appears in closer relations with the fertility of the fields and animals: thus the ithyphallic processions performed in various places in Italy, especially at Lavinium, where an entire month was dedicated to Liber “pro eventibus seminum” and “ab agris fascinatio repellenda,” ceremonies in which extensive use was made of “verba flagitiosissima” (Augustine, De civ. Dei, 7, 21; cf. Athenaeus, 622 c), all elements of unmistakable archaism; and, finally, Liber’s better-known association with Cerere (also among the Sabini, cf. Servius, loc. cit.), the goddess of grain.
At a later period, when the cult of Dioniso began to penetrate Rome, the Greek god was gradually identified with Liber because of certain ritual similarities, such as the phallic festivals, the practice of hanging oscilla in honor of the god, and so forth; consequently, Liber himself came to be regarded as the god of the vine, the grape harvest, and related matters.
On the day of the Liberalia (17 March), old women (called “sacerdotes Liberi”) could be seen throughout the city, crowned with ivy, selling cakes made of flour, honey, and oil (libum). They would cast a small portion of these onto the tiny altar (foculus) placed before them, in honor of the god and for the benefit of the purchaser. On this same day, young men assumed the toga virilis.