the underworld, spouse to Rome's king of the underworld, Dis pater, and daughter to Ceres. The cult's functions, framework of myths and roles involved the agricultural cycle, seasonal death and rebirth, dutiful daughterhood and motherly care. They included secret initiations and nocturnal torchlit processions, and cult objects concealed from non-initiates. Proserpina's forcible abduction by the god of the underworld, her mother's search for her, and her eventual but temporary restoration to the world above are the subject of works in Roman and later art and literature. In particular, her seizure by the god of the Underworld – usually described as the Rape of Proserpina, or of Persephone – has offered dramatic subject matter for Renaissance and later sculptors and painters. Cult and myths Origin of Libera In early Roman religion, Libera was the female equivalent of Liber Pater, protector of plebeian rights, god of wine, male fertility and liberty, equivalent to Greek Bacchus or Dionysus. Libera was originally an Italic goddess, paired with Liber as an "etymological duality" at some time during Rome's Regal or very early Republican eras. She enters Roman history as part of a so-called Triadic cult alongside Ceres and Liber, in a temple established around 493 BC on the Aventine Hill at state expense, promised by Rome's governing class to the plebs (Rome's citizen-commoners), who had threatened secession. Collectively, these three deities were divine patrons and protectors of Rome's commoner-citizens, and guardians of Rome's senatorial records and written laws, housed at the temple soon after its foundation. Libera might have been offered cult on March 17 during Liber's festival, Liberalia, or at some time during the seven days of Cerealia, held in mid-to-late April; in the latter festival, she would have been subordinate to Ceres; the names of both Liber and Libera were a later addition to Ceres's festival. Otherwise, Libera's functional relationship to her Aventine cult partners is uncertain. She has no known native iconography or mythology. Libera and Proserpina Libera was officially identified as Proserpina from 205 BC, when she and Ceres acquired a Romanised form of Greek mystery rite, the ritus graecia cereris. This was part of Rome's religious recrecruitment of deities to serve as divine allies against Carthage, towards the end of the Second Punic War. In the late Republican era, Cicero described Liber and Libera as Ceres' children. At around the same time, possibly in the context of popular or religious