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Now as to the rites of Liber, whom they have set over liquid seeds,
and therefore not only over the liquors of fruits, among which wine
holds, so to speak, the primacy, but also over the seeds of
animals:, as to these rites, I am unwilling to undertake to show to
what excess of turpitude they had reached, because that would entail a
lengthened discourse, though I am not unwilling to do so as a
demonstration of the proud stupidity of those who practise them. Among
other rites which I am compelled from the greatness of their number to
omit, Varro says that in Italy, at the places where roads crossed
each other the rites of Liber were celebrated with such unrestrained
turpitude, that the private parts of a man were worshipped in his
honor. Nor was this abomination transacted in secret that some regard
at least might be paid to modesty, but was openly and wantonly
displayed. For during the festival of Liber this obscene member,
placed on a car, was carried with great honor, first over the
crossroads in the country, and then into the city. But in the town of
Lavinium a whole month was devoted to Liber alone, during the days of
which all the people gave themselves up to the must dissolute
conversation, until that member had been carried through the forum and
brought to rest in its own place; on which unseemly member it was
necessary that the most honorable matron should place a wreath in the
presence of all the people.
Thus, forsooth, was the god Liber to be appeased in order to the
growth of seeds. Thus was enchantment to be driven away from fields,
even by a matron's being compelled to do in public what not even a
harlot ought to be permitted to do in a theatre, if there were matrons
among the spectators. For these reasons, then, Saturn alone was not
believed to be sufficient for seeds, namely, that the impure mind
might find occasions for multiplying the gods; and that, being
righteously abandoned to uncleanness by the one true God, and being
prostituted to the worship of many false gods, through an avidity for
ever greater and greater uncleanness, it should call these sacrilegious
rites sacred things, and should abandon itself to be violated and
polluted by crowds of foul demons.
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