Roman wine-and-fertility god; member of the Aventine plebeian triad (with Ceres and Libera). Italic Liber's rural Liberalia (March 17, the toga-virilis day for Roman boys, with the phallus-cart procession Augustine describes) predates and is independent of the Greek Dionysus equation. The Bacchanalia suppression of 186 BCE — Senate prosecuting the imported Greek-derived ecstatic Bacchic cult while preserving the civic Liberalia — documents the structural distinction. Per Beard/North/Price 1998; Wiseman, Roman Drama and Roman History (1998).