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The Temple of Libertas
The Goddess of Freedom, Libertas, was revered by the Romans. Her temple was a center of public business. In the Atrium Libertatis, the first public library in Rome was opened by Asinius Pollio. Please sign the guestbook in the Cella at the bottom of this page. Comments and discussions are always welcome in the Library. Enjoy!
Visitors to this Domus
In conjunction with the Symposium with Dr. Garrett Fagan, 3/16-22/08, The Temple of Libertas is proud to feature Garrett G. Fagan. Professor Garrett G. Fagan has taught at The Pennsylvania State University since 1996. He was born in Dublin, Ireland, and educated at Trinity College. He received his Ph.D. from McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, and has held teaching positions at McMaster University, York University (Canada), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Davidson College, and The Pennsylvania State University. In all of these institutions, students have given very high ratings to his courses on the classical world. He has also given many public lectures to audiences of all ages. Professor Fagan has an extensive research record in Roman history and has held a prestigious Killam Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship at the University of Cologne, Germany. He has published numerous articles in international journals, and his first monograph, Bathing in Public in the Roman World, was published by the University of Michigan Press in 1999. He has also edited a volume from Routledge on the phenomenon of pseudoarchaeology (2005). His current research project is on spectatorship at the Roman arena, and he is also working on a book on ancient warfare.
Professor Fagan's courses at The Teaching Company: Online interview with Professor Fagan: Point of Inquiry with D. J. Grothe In the above interview Professor Fagan explains the differences between archaeology and pseudoarchaeology, emphasizing how the science of archaeology benefits society. He explores possible motivations of pseudoarchaeologists, and challenges various pseudoarchaeological theories about Atlantis, the origins of the Great Pyramids in Egypt, and about the possible discovery of great pyramids in Bosnia. He also details the various ways that pseudoarchaeology and other pseudoscientific thinking may harm society.
Books:  About the Temple of Libertas
 Libertas is frequently shown wearing a distinctive hat called a Liberty Cap, Phrygian or Freedman’s Cap — it is a brimless cloth cap fitting snugly about the head that was worn by freed slaves in Rome. Historical information:
Iuppiter Libertas, aedes: a temple on the Aventine, perhaps near that of Iuno Regina and the present church of S. Sabina, originally dedicated on 13th April (Fast. Ant. ap. NS 1921, 92: Iov(i) Leibert(ati) restored by Augustus (Mon. Anc. iv.6: Iovis Libertatis in Aventino = ib. Graec. x.11: Διὸς Ἐλευθερίου ἐν Ἀουεντίνῳ; Babelon, Egnatia 3 = BM. Rep. I.400. 3276‑84), and re-dedicated on 1st September (Fast. Arv. ad Kal. Sept., CIL I2 p214, 328, where the name appears as Iuppiter Liber).
Ti. Sempronius, consul in 238 B.C., had built and dedicated a temple of Libertas on the Aventine, out of the proceeds of fines, in which his son placed a painting of the celebration of the victory of Beneventum in 214 (Liv. XXIV.16.19: digna res visa ut simulacrum celebrati eius diei Gracchus postquam Romam rediit pingi iuberet in aede Libertatis quam pater eius in Aventino ex multaticia pecunia faciendam curavit dedicavitque; Fest. 121: Libertatis templum in Aventino fuerat constructum).
Whether this temple is to be identified with that of Iuppiter Libertas is uncertain, but has given rise to much discussion (WR 105‑106, 126‑127; HJ 167; Gilb. II.209‑210; iii.97, 444; Rosch. II.663‑664, 2031‑2034; Merlin 107, 227‑228, 301‑302; BC 1914, 349‑350; FUR 28‑29; RE X. 1132; xiii.101‑102).
Atrium Libertatis: a building containing the offices of the censors, some at least of their records, and some of the law on bronze tablets (Liv. XLIII.16; XLV.15; Fest. 241; Serv. ad Aen. I.726; Gran. Licin. 15). It is also said to have served as the place of detention of the Thurian hostages in 212 B.C. (Liv. XXV.7.12) and for the torture of the slaves during the trial of Milo (Cic. pro Mil. 59).
It was restored in 194 B.C. (Liv. XXXIV.44) and again with great magnificence by Asinius Pollio (Suet. Aug. 29), who established here the first public library in Rome (Isid. Orig. 6.5; Ov. Trist. III.1.72; v. Bibliotheca Asini Pollionis).
It is not to be confused with the Aedes Libertatis on the Aventine, and probably not with the shrine or monument that is marked with the word Libertatis on the Marble Plan in the north apse of the basilica Ulpia (see Forum Traiani, p242). Three inscriptions refer to this atrium in the first century A.D. (CIL vi. 470, 472, 10025).
The first runs thus: Senatus populusque Romanus Libertati (in large letters on a marble slab); and the second, Libertati ab. imp. Nerva Caesare Aug. anno ab urbe condita DCCCXXXVIII, XIIII K. Oct. restitutae S.P.Q.R. Hülsen supposes, very naturally, that the first inscription belonged to the dedicatory inscription of a shrine with the statue of Libertas (near the curia, not on the Capitol) under which the second inscription could very well have stood (Mitt. 1889, 240, 241).
There is no other reference until the sixth century, when an inscription was set up in some part of the curia as follows (CIL VI.1794): salvis domino nostro Augusto et gloriosissimo rege Theoderico Va . . . ex com(es) domesticorum in atrio Libertatis quae vetustate squaloreque confecta erant refecit.
The restoration was obviously an important one, and Mommsen (Hermes, 1888, 631‑633) has collected several references to the building in Cassiodorus and Ennodius. Of other earlier preferences to the building (Ov. Fast. IV.624;1 Tac. Hist. I.31; Serv. ad Aen. I.726; cf. also Babelon i. p472; but cf BM Rep. i. p399, n3) the only one that has topographical value is in Cicero's letter to Atticus (iv.16), where he says that he and Oppius proposed to extend the new forum of Caesar "usque ad atrium Libertatis." This extension must have been along the line of the successive imperial fora, passing the comitium, but how far from the old forum this atrium was we do not know.
The history of the restored building of Pollio, and its relation to that part of the curia that bore its name in the sixth century, are unknown. The earlier atrium was probably not on the site of the later curia, and it was probably destroyed or used for other purposes before the sixth century (FUR 28‑32; Jord. I.2.460 ff.; BC 1889, 362; DE I.760; Roscher ii.2032‑2033; Boyd, Public Libraries in Rome, Chicago, 1915, 3‑5, 31; RE XIII.102‑104).
Source: Atrium Libertatis
Article on pp56‑57 of Samuel Ball Platner (as completed and revised by Thomas Ashby): A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome,
London: Oxford University Press, 1929.
A convicted republican, he loved Caesar above everything else, abhorred the civil war, supervised the distribution of land to the veterans in Gallia Transpadana where he saved the estate in Mantuanum for Vergilius and was able to achieve the remarkable feat at Brundisium of reconciling the triumvirate who had in the meantime fallen out with each other.
While Antonius was in the Orient, Octavianus had bombarded the followers of his brother and his ex-wife Fulvia with lead missiles on which he had ordered the legend divvs ivlivs inscribed, and finally slaughtered 300 of them before the altar of Divus Iulius. Antonius then married Octavianus’ sister Octavia and was, at last, formally inaugurated as flamen Divi Iulii. The consulate of Asinius Pollio, which sealed the peace and brought the promise of recovery for the depleted state of the farmers, raised great hopes and was celebrated by Vergilius as the return of the Saturnia regna, the golden age.
In the next year, Asinius led the war against the Parthinians in Illyria (modern Albania), celebrated a triumph and fulfilled the greatest yearning of Caesar, who had not gotten over the fire in the library of Alexandria: With the spoils of war, he built the first public library in the temple of Libertas with a Greek and a Latin wing. This library, even then, took on somewhat of the character of a university, in that he introduced the practice of sponsoring lectures on works that were yet to be published.
He was friends with Catullus, and later with Horace and Virgil, who addressed him his fourth Bucolic. Man of literature himself, he wrote tragedies, (a ' history of civil war' about the events from 60 to 43 BC), speaches, poems, as well as a treatise on grammar. Nothing remains of his work today.
Source:
Extracts from "Jesus was Caesar" by Francesco Carotta, Kirchzarten
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