Liberalia
Sign in to savethumb|300px|Denarius with Liber and Libera In ancient Roman religion, the Liberalia (March 17) was the festival of Liber Pater and his consort Libera. The Romans celebrated Liberalia with sacrifices, processions, ribald and gauche songs, and masks which were hung on trees.
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thumb|300px|Denarius with Liber and Libera In ancient Roman religion, the Liberalia (March 17) was the festival of Liber Pater and his consort Libera. The Romans celebrated Liberalia with sacrifices, processions, ribald and gauche songs, and masks which were hung on trees.
The feast celebrated the maturation of young boys to manhood. Roman boys, usually at age 15 or 16, would remove the bulla praetexta, a hollow charm of gold or leather, which parents placed about the necks of children to ward off evil spirits. At the Liberalia ceremony the young men might place the bulla on an altar (with a lock of hair or the stubble of a first shave placed inside) and dedicate it to the Lares, the gods of the household and family. Mothers often retrieved the discarded bulla and kept it out of superstition. If the son ever achieved a public triumph, the mother could display the bulla to ward off any evil that might be wished upon the son by envious people.