Libertas, a goddess of Rome who had a temple on mount Aventine, raised by Tiberius Gracchus, and improved and adorned by Pollio with many elegant statues and brazen columns, and a gallery in which were deposited the public acts of the state. She was represented as a woman in a light dress, holding a rod in one hand and a cap in the other, both signs of independence, as the former was used by the magistrates in the manumission of slaves, and the latter was worn by slaves, who were soon to be set at liberty. Sometimes a cat was placed at her feet, as this animal is very fond of liberty, and impatient when confined. Livy, bk. 24, ch. 16; bk. 25, ch. 7.—Ovid, Tristia, bk. 3, poem 1, li. 72.—Plutarch, Gracchus.—Dio Cassius, bk. 44.
Lībēthra, a fountain of Magnesia in Thessaly, or of Bœotia, according to some, sacred to the muses, who from thence are called Libethrides. Virgil, Eclogues, poem 7, li. 21.—Pliny, bk. 4, ch. 9.—Mela, bk. 2, ch. 3.—Strabo, bks. 9 & 10.
Lībethrĭdes, a name given to the Muses from the fountain Libethra, or from mount Libethrus in Thrace.
Libici, Libecii, or Libri, a people of Gaul who passed into Italy, A.U.C. 364. Livy, bk. 5, ch. 35; bk. 21, ch. 38.—Pliny, bk. 3, ch. 17.—Polybius, bk. 2.
Libĭtīna, a goddess at Rome, who presided over funerals. According to some, she is the same as Venus, or rather Proserpine. Servius Tullius first raised her a temple at Rome, where everything necessary for funerals was exposed to sale, and where the registers of the dead were usually kept. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, bk. 4.—Livy, bk. 40, ch. 19.—Valerius Maximus, bk. 5, ch. 2.—Plutarch, Quæstiones Romanæ.
Libo, a friend of Pompey, who watched over the fleet, &c. Plutarch.——A Roman citizen, &c. Horace, bk. 1, ltr. 19.——A friend of the first triumvirate, who killed himself and was condemned after death.
Libon, a Greek architect who built the famous temple of Jupiter Olympius. He flourished about 450 years before the christian era.
Libophœnīces, the inhabitants of the country near Carthage.
Liburna, a town of Dalmatia.
Liburnia, now Croatia, a country of Illyricum, between Istria and Dalmatia, whence a colony came to settle in Apulia, in Italy. There were at Rome a number of men whom the magistrates employed as public heralds, who were called Liburni, probably from being originally of Liburnian extraction. Some ships of a light construction but with strong beaks were also called Liburnian. Propertius, bk. 2, poem 11, li. 44.—Juvenal, satire 4, li. 75.—Martial, bk. 1, ltr. 50, li. 33.—Horace, bk. 1, ode 37, li. 30; Epode 1, li. 1.—Lucan, bk. 3, li. 534.—Pliny the Younger, bk. 6, ltr. 16.—Mela, bk. 2, ch. 3.—Strabo, bk. 7.—Ptolemy, bk. 2, ch. 17.