Liber - Imperial Era

Imperial Era

Augustus successfully courted the plebs, supported their patron deities and began the restoration of the Aventine Triad's temple; it was re-dedicated by his successor, Tiberius. No trace remains of it, and the historical and epigraphical record offers only sparse details to suggest its exact location. Pliny the Elder describes its style and designers as Greek; this may be further evidence of time-honoured and persistent plebeian cultural connections with Magna Graecia, well into the Imperial era, when Liber is found in some of the threefold, complementary deity-groupings of Imperial cult; a saviour figure, like Hercules and the Emperor himself. Septimius Severus inaugurated his reign and dynasty with games to honour Liber/Shadrapa and Hercules/Melqart, the Romanised founding hero-deities of his native town, Lepcis Magna (North Africa); then he built them a massive temple and arch in Rome. Later still, Liber Pater is of one of many deities served by the erudite, deeply religious senator Vettius Agorius Praetextatus (c. AD 315 – 384). A Bacchic community shrine dedicated to Liber Pater was established in Cosa (in modern Tuscany), probably during the 4th century AD. It remained in use "apparently for decades after the edicts of Theodosius in 391 and 392 AD outlawing paganism". Its abandonment, or perhaps its destruction "by zealous Christians", was so abrupt that much of its cult paraphernalia survived virtually intact beneath the building's later collapse.