All, or most, Romans would have counted themselves as upholders of libertas, just as today most of us uphold ‘democracy’. But there were repeated and intense conflicts over what that meant. We have already seen that, when Cicero was sent into exile, his house was demolished and a shrine of Libertas erected on its site. Not everyone would have approved. Cicero himself tells how during the performance of a play on the theme of Brutus, the first consul of the Republic, the crowd burst into applause at a line spoken by one of the characters: ‘Tullius, who underpinned the citizens’ liberty’.
