Editing Liber (section)

==Imperial era==
Augustus successfully courted the plebs, supported their patron deities and began the restoration of the Aventine Triad's temple; it was re-dedicated by his successor, [[Tiberius]].<ref>Tacitus, Annals, 2.49; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 6.17.</ref> Liber is found in some of the threefold, complementary deity-groupings of [[Imperial cult (ancient Rome)|Imperial cult]]; a saviour figure, like [[Hercules]] and the Emperor himself.<ref>Beard ''et al''., Vol. 1, 134 - 5, 64 - 67.</ref> The reign and dynasty of the emperor [[Septimius Severus]] were inaugurated with games to honour Liber/[[Shadrafa]] and Hercules/[[Melqart]], the Romanised founding hero-deities of his native town, [[Leptis Magna]] (North Africa). He built them a massive temple and arch in Rome.<ref>Bowman, A., Cameron, A., Garnsey, P., (Eds) The Crisis of Empire, AD 193-337, The Cambridge Ancient History, 2nd edition, Volume 12, 2005, p.563.[https://books.google.com/books?id=MNSyT_PuYVMC&dq=Liber+Pater+Shadrapa&pg=PA563]</ref> Later still, Liber Pater is of one of many deities served by the erudite, deeply religious senator [[Vettius Agorius Praetextatus]] ({{circa|AD 315}} – 384).<ref>J. F. Matthews, Symmachus and the Oriental Cults, ''The Journal of Roman Studies'', Vol. 63 (1973), p. 179. Praetextatus' erudition and religiosity are attested by his widow, herself a priestess. Praetextatus was also an [[augur]], ''[[Quindecimviri sacris faciundis|quindecimvir]]'' and public priest of [[Vesta (mythology)|Vesta]] and Sol, an initiate of the [[Eleusinian mysteries]], and priest of [[Hecate]], [[Sarapis]], [[Cybele]], and [[Mithras]], all apparently clustered on a solar theology analogous to that of the Emperor [[Julian the Apostate|Julian]].</ref>

A Bacchic community shrine dedicated to Liber Pater was established in [[Cosa]] (in modern Tuscany), probably during the 4th century AD. It remained in use "apparently for decades after the edicts of Theodosius in 391 and 392 AD outlawing paganism". Its abandonment, or perhaps its destruction "by zealous Christians", was so abrupt that much of its cult paraphernalia survived virtually intact beneath the building's later collapse.<ref>Jaquelyn Collins-Clinton, A late antique shrine of Liber Pater at Cosa, ''Etudes Preliminaires aux Religions Orientales dans l'Empire Romain, Volume 64,''  BRILL, 1977, pp.3, 5. [https://books.google.com/books?id=CsoUAAAAIAAJ&q=paraphernalia&pg=PA3]
</ref> Around the end of the 5th century, in [[Orosius]]'s ''Seven Books of History Against the Pagans'', Liber Pater's mythic conquest of India is taken as an historical event, which left a harmless, naturally peaceful nation "dripping with blood, full of corpses, and polluted with [Liber's] lusts."<ref>Paulus Orosius: Seven Books of History Against the Pagans, trans. and ed. A T Fear, Liverpool University Press, 2010, p. 57, and editor's footnote 179, concerning Orosius' use of "Pater" to emphasise "the cruelty of this pagan father as opposed to the mercy of the Christian God the Father."</ref>