The ancient Roman festival associated with a boy receiving the adult toga was Liberalia.
Liberalia took place on March 17 and honored Liber, a god linked with freedom, fertility, and wine. Roman tradition connected the festival with a young male’s passage from childhood into adult civic identity. At the family level, the boy could put aside the childhood bulla and begin wearing the toga virilis.
The toga virilis, also called the toga pura, was the plain adult toga rather than the bordered toga worn by boys. Its adoption signaled that the wearer was eligible to be recognized as an adult male citizen, although political influence still depended heavily on age, family, wealth, and office.
Liberalia was not simply a school graduation or a birthday celebration. It was a religious festival whose coming-of-age associations formed one part of a broader Roman transition into public life.