by Yonat Vaks

What is freedom as a human experience? Is the desire for freedom something inherent in human nature? Is it an identical experience regardless of what kind of culture a person lives in? Why is it then for many a cherished goal and for others a threat?

Freedom is so personal to our sense of self, that it is also the most controversial to define. Humanity and culture have developed from societies with centralized powers and little individual freedom into growing decentralized ways of governance and distribution of information. For much of human history, people thought of freedom not as protecting individual rights but as ensuring self-rule and the just treatment of all. The rise of modernity brought about the triumph of a new idea of liberty. Today most people think of freedom as a matter of individual liberties and, in particular, of protection from the intrusions of big government and the state.

This quest has become so deeply rooted in the human experience that many symbols, Gods and stories have been devoted to convey it.

The Roman Empire represents two centuries that brought peace and prosperity to the world by extinguishing national and political freedom, but in which individual freedom flourished as it never had. After the collapse of the old monarchy and the foundation of the Republic, the control of the government was restricted to a handful of great families.The remaining citizens were called plebians. Soon, however, these plebians or plebs began to resent their second-class status and rose up, demanding to participate in the affairs of state and exercise their rights as full citizens of Rome. After rising up, they managed to create the Council of the Plebs. It enacted laws that eventually became binding to all citizens, including the patricians. This painting is of the Aventine Triad, also referred to as the plebian Triad. It is the joint cult of the plebs. The cult of the the Roman dieties Liber, Ceres and Libertas. It served as a focus of plebian identity, sometimes in opposition to Rome´s original ruling elite, the patricians. Liber, ´the free one´, was a god of wine, fertility and freedom. His festival of Liberalia became associated with free speech and the rights attached to coming of age. Libertas is the goddess of liberty. She became a politicised figure in the Late Republic, featured on coins. She is also the inspiration for the statue of liberty and many paintings. Ceres was the goddess of agriculture and fertility.