When discussing the identity of Our Lady of The Republic, I often hear questions about the Roman deity Libertas– literally “Liberty” in feminine form.  This of course begs the question of whether the modern Lady Liberty is a seat for Her or someone else.  The question of the “seating” capacity of physical objects is a complex one- I dare not rule out the possibility of multiple Powers sharing a physical locus.  However, I believe that our modern “Goddess of Liberty” sculptures generally represent Athena/Minerva rather than Eleutheria/Libertas.

To be fair, when considering deities known to the Greeks and Romans, it can be difficult at best to determine the historical or “lore” specifics- as these often changed over time and depending on the cultus of the place in question.  After all, different city-states and provinces had different cultures and traditions.  As such, I am deriving my current belief from a question of scope, function, and message- what some might call a “portfolio”.

Libertas is a personified (and deified) virtue.  In some cultures, these personifications would be considered epithets of some other deity, but in Rome there seems to have been a definite recognition of virtues possessing a life and will of their own.  So distinct is this that the goddess Libera (“Liberated [woman]”) is not necessarily the same goddess as Libertas (“Liberty”).  Libera, after all, is more associated with agriculture and the wine god Liber- later known as Bacchus.  While both Libera and Libertas were worshipped on the Aventine Hill, there is a distinct difference between their functions.

Because of the primordial character of virtues, they represent Forces more elemental than human in nature.  The god from whom we get the name “virtue”, Virtus, is literally the embodiment of “Manliness”.  He is worshipped for the positive aspects that He can convey, yet masculinity contains many complex and contradictory facets- chivalry (in the modern sense) contains and is built upon the conceits of machismo or chauvinism, yet few women and children complain about sexism when a man offers them his place in a lifeboat.  Virtus is a complex Power- so too, with Libertas.

Hers is both the freedom to heal and the freedom to harm.  Hers is both emancipation and libertinism.  Hers is the freedom to speak what must be said and the freedom to speak that which should not.  Hers is the freedom to drink a little wine with dinner and the liberty to get roaring drunk.  In short, Libertas gives and represents the liberty associated with what Enlightenment scholars would call “a state of nature”.

By contrast, Our Lady of The Republic promotes a specific kind of liberty- enlightened or judicious freedom, which is to say liberty expressed wisely.  She does not ignore or scorn Libertas, rather She attempts to civilize the raw and frequently dangerous extremes of absolute freedom.  In this way, Our Lady can be seen as a goddess of Social Contracts, particularly those in which individual rights and freedoms are balanced by equal and opposite responsibility both for the self and for the society as a whole- The Republic.

Lady Liberty and the countless other statues representing the virtue of Freedom must be regarded in this light.  Were those who commissioned, crafted, and installed these countless statues throughout the United States intending to promote the pure, elemental liberty of Libertas; or, were they celebrating the tempered, civilized liberty of Athena/Minerva/Columbia/America?  Did the founders and framers serve the ideal of unfettered freedom to do what one wants, or the freedom to do what one should?  Clearly, to my mind, it is the latter they intended- and the latter goddess that they served in gifting to us the American Republic.

This, I argue, is the liberty that Lady Liberty represents.  Hers is a freedom not exclusive of Libertas (or Libera or Liber), but rather one in which occasional excesses can be more safely expressed and appropriately promoted or sanctioned as the situation warrants.  After all, in a state of nature, one can morally get drunk, lawfully have sex with someone’s preferred partner, and then be rightly killed by the jealous lover in an act of vengeance.  In a state of civilization (especially a Republic), that last part is less likely.  There would likely still be consequences, but Social Contracts usually proscribe killing except in narrow cases and usually with some requirement that evidence be presented and judged in a court of law.

I think we should strive, every day, to remember that America (the nation) is a land in which liberty is intended to be inseparable from responsibility.  We should also remember that America (the goddess) granted our forebears the wisdom and courage to forge this nation and that She is trying every day to enlighten us with the wisdom to maintain and strengthen it.  It falls to us to keep that nation free and to build it into a civilization worthy of the name… and worthy of Her.