Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/791

Rh LIRERATUS. Persephone, the daughter of Demeter (Ceres), whence Cicero {de Nat. Deor. ii. 24) calls Liber and Libera children of Ceres ; whereas Ovid {Fast. iii. 512) calls Ariadne Libera. The festival of the Liberalia was celebrated by the Romans every year on the I7th of March. (Diet, of Ant. s. v. Liberalia ; Hartung, Die Relig. der Rom. vol. ii, p. 135, &c. ; Xlausen, Aeneas und die Penaten., vol. ii. p. 750, &c.) [L. S.] Ll'BERA. [Liber.] LIBERA'LIS, ANTONI'NUS. [Antoninus, p.212,b.] LIBERA'LIS, SA'LVIUS, an eloquent pleader at Rome, whom the younger Pliny characterises as a man " subtilis, dispositus, acer, disertus," is first mentioned in the reign of Vespasian, when he spoke of the emperor with great boldness, in plead- ing the cause of a wealthy person who had been accused. He was brought to trial in the reign of Domitian, but what was the result of this trial we are not informed : he had the good fortune, at all events, of escaping with his life (Plin. Ep. iii. 9. § 33). His name again occurs in the reign of Trajan. In B. c. 100 he defended with great ability Marius Priscus, who was accused by the younger Pliny, and by the historian Tacitus ; and in the same year he was again opposed to Pliny in the cele- brated cause brought by the inhabitants of the province of Baetica against Caecilius Classicus, and his accomplices. (Suet. Vesp. I'd ; Plin. Ep. ii. 11, iii. 9. § 36.) LIBERA'TUS, a deacon of the church of Carthage in the sixth century. He was at Rome in A. D. 533, when the pope, Joannes IL, received the bishops sent by the emperor, Justinian L, to consult him on the heresies broached by the monks, designated Acoemetae (or, as Liberatus terms them, Acumici), who had imbibed Nestorian opinions. ( Liberat. Breviar. c. 20, comp. Epistolae Justiniani ad Joan, and Joannis ad Justinianum., apud Con- cilia., vol. iv. col. 1742, «&c. ed. Labbe.) He was again at Rome in 535, having been sent the previous year, together with the bishops Caius and Petrus, by the synod held at Carthage, under Reparatus, bishop of that see, to consult pope Joannes II. on the reception of those Arians who recanted their heresies into the church. Joannes was dead before the arrival of the African delegates ; but they were received by pope Agapetus, his successor. (Epis- tolae Agapeti ad Reparatum apud Concilia., ed. Labbe, vol. iv. col. 1791, 179'^,) When, in 552, Reparatus was banished by Justinian to Euchaida, or Eucayda (Vict. Tun. Chron.), Liberatus accom- panied him, and probably remained with him till the bishop's death, in 563. Nothing further is known of him. Liberatus is the author of a valuable contribu- tion to ecclesiastical history entitled Breviarium Caussae Neslorianorum ei Eutychianoruvi. It com- prehends the history of a century and a quarter, from the ordination of Nestorius, A. D. 4213, to the time of the fifth oecumenical (or second Constanti- nopolitan) council, A. D. 553, and is divided into 24 chapters. It was compiled, as the author tells us in his proem, from " the ecclesiastical history lately translated from Greek into Latin," apparently that translated by Epiphanius Scholasticus [Epipha- Nius, No. 11], from the Greek ecclesiastical histo- rians ; from the acts of the councils and the letters of the fathers, from a document written in Greek at Alexandria, and from the communications, ap- LIBERIUS. 777 I parently oral, of men of character and weight. He made considerable use of the Breviculus Historiae Eutychianisiarum., and of other sources of informa- tion not particularly mentioned by him. His Latin style is generally clear, without ornament, but unequal, from the bad Latin into which pas- sages from Greek writers have been rendered. He has been charged with partiality to the Nestorians, or with following Nestorian writers too implicitly. The Breviarium is contained in most editions of the Concilia (vol. v. ed. Labbe, vol. vi. ed. Coleti, vol. ix. ed. Mansi) : in those of Crabbe (vol. ii. fol. Cologn. 1538 and 1551) are some subjoined passages derived from various extant sources illus- trative of the history, which are omitted by sub- sequent editors ; and Hardouin has in his edition omitted the Breviarium itself. It was separately published, with a revised text, and a learned preface and notes, and a dissertation, De Qtiivta Synodo, by the Jesuit Gamier, 8vo. Paris, 1675 ; and is reprinted from his edition, with the preface, notes, and dissertation, in the Bibliotheca Patrum of Galland, vol xii. fol. Venice, 1778. (Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. x. 543 ; Bihl. Med. et Inf. La- tinit. vol. iv. 272, ed. Mansi ; Cave, Hist. Litt. ad ann. 553 ; Ceillier, Auteurs Sacres, vol. xvi. p. 543; Gamier, Praef. in Liberat.) [J. C. M.] LIBER A'TOR, a surname of Jupiter, answer- ing to the Greek 'EKevdeptos, to whom Augustus built a temple on the Aventine. (Tac. Ann. xv. 64, xvi. 35; comp. Becker, Handb. der Rom. Al- terth. i. p. 457.) [L. S.] LIBE'RIUS, the successor of Julius as bishop of Rome, was ordained on the twenty-second of May, A. D. 352, at a period when the downfall of the usurper Magnentius being no longer doubtful, the Arians were straining every nerve to excite Constantius against their orthodox antagonists. The conduct of Liberius when he first assumed the papal dignity is involved in much obscurity. If we believe that either of the letters found among the fragments of Hilarius (frag. iv. col. 1327, and 1335, ed. Bened. fol. Paris, 1693),— the first in- scribed Epistola Liberii Episcopi Urbis Romae ad Orientales Episcopos, and written apparently in 352 ; the second, belonging to a much later date, but containing allusions to the same events, Delec- tissimis Fratribus Presbyteris et Coepiscopis Oiienia- libus, — is genuine, there can be no doubt that at the outset of his career he took a violent part against Athanasius, and even excommunicated him from the Roman church. On the other hand, Dupin employs no less than seven distinct argu- ments to prove that the first must be spurious, although he says nothing with regard to the second, and both are by many divines regarded as Arian forgeries. It is at all events certain that the pope soon after displayed the utmost devotion to the cause of the persecuted Catholics ; for after the legates deputed by him to the council of Aries, (a. d. 353), Vincentiusof Capua, and Marcellinus, another Carapanian bishop, had been gained over, after his representatives at Milan (a. d. 354), Eu- sebius of Vercelli, and Lucifer of Cagliari, had been driven into exile, after nearly all the prelates of the West had yielded to the influence of the court, Liberius stood firm to the truth ; and although vio- lently hurried from Rome to the presence of the emperor, he chose rather to suffer banishment than to subscribe the condemnation of one, whom he believed innocent. But after two years spent at