in honour of Liber_.
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 honour. 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
honour, first over the cross-roads 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 most 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 honourable
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.