Libertas
Libertas ( Latin freedom ) is the personification of freedom in Roman mythology .
Originally, it was next to Civitas ( civil rights ) and Familia ( Family status ) requirement for the personal legal status of the Roman citizen. If the citizen lost his "freedom", for example by being a prisoner of war or by a death sentence, he suffered a capitis deminutio maxima (greatest change in civil status ). He was degraded to a slave and henceforth regarded as a thing. At this time Libertas was depicted on coins as a beautiful, richly adorned woman.
Towards the end of the Roman Republic , their attributes may have changed into a scepter and a pileus , a hat worn by freed slaves. During the following principle their position changed from the individual to a general state concept of freedom. According to today's view, this was determined by the emperor together with Securitas (mythology) .
Libertas temples were found on the two Roman hills Aventine and Palatine Hill. On the Palatine Hill, Clodius built a Temple of Libertas on the foundation of the Villa Ciceros , his political adversary. This was supposed to be a symbol of the liberation of the Republic of Cicero, who lived in his consulate in 63 BC. BC had the Catilinarians executed without a proper process .
Portraits of Libertas many coins, for example, that decorate five- , ten- and twenty cents coins of Switzerland and various coins from the United States .
literature
- Georg Wissowa : Libertas . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 2.2, Leipzig 1897, Sp. 2031-2034 ( digitized version ).
- Chaim Wirszubski: Libertas as a Political Idea in Rome of the Late Republic and the Early Principate . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1967. (Dissertation, Cambridge, 1946)
- Rainer Vollkommer: Libertas . In: Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). Volume VI, Zurich / Munich 1992, pp. 278–284.
- Eliane Stoffel: Libertas. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 7, Metzler, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-476-01477-0 , column 144 f.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Wilfried Stroh: Cicero. Orator, statesman, philosopher (= Beck series . Volume 2440 ). 2nd, revised edition. CH Beck, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-406-56240-2 , p. 46 .