Liberty, goddess of the Greeks and Romans. The Greeks invoked her under the name of Eleutheria , and sometimes they said Θεοὶ Έλευθεροι, gods of liberty. The Romans, who called her Libertas , held this divinity in singular veneration, built her numerous temples and altars, and erected a good number of statues to her. On Mount Aventine, Tiberius Gracchus dedicated a magnificent temple to her, supported by bronze columns and decorated with sumptuous statues. In front of it was a courtyard called the atrium Libertatis . [1]

After Julius Caesar subjected the Romans to his dominion, they raised a new temple in honor of that goddess, as if their liberty had been restored by the one who had sapped its foundations. But on a medallion of Brutus, one sees Liberty in the shape of a woman, holding in one hand the hat, symbol of liberty , and in the other hand two daggers with the inscription, idibus Martiis , “on the ides of March.”

The goddess was even represented by a woman dressed in white, holding the bonnet in her right hand, and a javelin or rod in her left, like the one the masters used to strike their slaves when they enfranchised them. Sometimes, there is a chariot next to her.

On other medallions, she is accompanied by two women, named Adiona and Abeona , regarded as her followers because liberty includes the power of going and coming where one wants. [2]

Some Italian cities—such as Bologna, Genoa, and Florence—used to have on their flags and their coats of arms the word liberty , and they were right. But this fine motto no longer suits them today; it belongs to London to make a trophy of it.

1. The “hall of freedom.”

2. The reference is to the Latin words abeo and adeo.