LIBER, LIBERALIA. - According to tradition, when in 495 B.C., following a famine, the Sibylline Books ordained the introduction into Rome of Greek divinities, the triad Ceres, Liber and Libera was received, which the ancients already regarded as a translation of the Greek one: Demeter, Dionysus (v.) and Persephone (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 6, 17). In the same year a temple was built to 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 of the Italic native origin of Liber, for the following reasons. In the first place, his feast (the Liberalia) was already recorded in the ancient "Numan" calendar (17 March), a sign of great antiquity; then the frequent epithet of "pater" given to Liber, just as it was attributed to the other two native 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, Sabines, at Capua and in Rome itself (in a fragment of the Arval calendar, at 1 September: cf. CIL, I, II, p. 214), which might suggest a 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, Liber can claim his autonomy, for the earliest age, with respect to Dionysus by showing that he has no link with the vine, his feast falling at a time very far removed (March) from the grape harvest. He appears instead in clearer links with the fertility of fields and animals: thus the ithyphallic processions performed in various localities of Italy, especially at Lavinium, where an entire month was dedicated to Liber "pro eventibus seminum" and "ab agris fascinatio repellenda," ceremonies in which abundant use was made of "verba flagitiosissima" (Augustine, De civ. Dei, 7, 21; cf. Athenaeus, 622 c), all elements of undoubted archaism; and finally the better-known relation of Liber with Ceres (also among the Sabines, cf. Servius, loc. cit.), the goddess of grain.
In a later age, when the cult of Dionysus began to penetrate into Rome, the Greek god was little by little identified with Liber because of some cultic resemblance, such as: the phallic festivals, the custom of hanging the oscilla in honor of the god, etc., whereby Liber ended up becoming himself a god of the vine, of the grape harvest and the like.
On the day of the Liberalia (17 March) old women (called "sacerdotes Liberi") crowned with ivy were seen throughout the city, selling cakes of flour, honey and oil (libum), a small part of which they threw upon the tiny altar (foculus) placed before them, in honor of the god and for the benefit of the buyer. On this same day young men assumed the toga virilis.
Bibliography3 works
Cesare D'Onofrio