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Manumission
Forms of formal manumission
1. manumissio vindicta: by a mock trial
 2. manumissio censu: by sensus
 3. manumissio testamento: by testament
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Manumissio vindicta
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Mock trial
Owner appeared with another Roman citizen before magistrate who
had imperium. The citizen acted as adsertor liberatis and declared
the free status of the slave; when owner did not contest this claim,
the adsertor touched the slave with the rod (festuca or vindicta) and
at same time said the formula: “hunc ego hominem liberum esse aio
ex iure Quiritium” (I declare this man to be free according to the
law of the Roman citizens).
The magistrate then confirms that the slave is free.
Note: this procedure implies that the person had been wrongly
enslaved and was now restored to his/her rightful status through
this trial
manumissio censu
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Slave is entered into census record.
Note: less fictional, but nevertheless an entry
into the census represents also an uncontested
claim that the person was really a free citizen.
 Represents a renewal of an entry – since the
censor only records the fact that the person is a
citizen - he does not make him/her a citizen.
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manumissio testamento
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Common formula: “Stichus servus meus liber
esto.” (My slave Stichus shall be free).
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Note: Important that the owner’s intention was
clear and the formula without ambiguity so that
the statement of the slave’s free status could
not be taken as an admission of wrongful
enslavement which could lead to demand
restitutio natalium (restitution of free-born
status) and not manumission.
What do these procedures to
manumit slaves suggest to
you about how Romans
perceived the act of
manumitting slaves?
Manumission and the Roman Social
Hierarchy
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Social Status based on birth and property; ideal did not
include concept of social mobility like modern concept of
‘the American Dream’.
Basic opposites: free and unfree
 Category of free is subdivided into free (ingenuus) and
freed (libertus)
 Freed remain separate from the free-born
 Carried trace of slave-status, setting them apart from
free-born
 Macula servitutis (stigma of slavery) which could rub off
on others
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The senator’s wife
According to Valerius Maximus 6.3.11
 A senator divorced his wife after he had
caught her engaged in a private
conversation with a common freedwoman
(libertina vulgari) in public
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Suetonius on Augustus
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“ He gave dinner parties constantly and
always formally, with great regard to the
rank and personality of his guests.
Valerius Messala writes that he never
invited a freedman to dinner with the
exception of Menas, and then only when
he had been enrolled among the freeborn
after betraying the fleet of Sextus
Pompey. “ (Suet. Aug. 74)
The Augustan Legislation
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Lex Iulia de maritandis ordinibus 18 BC
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Iulian law on marriage among the orders
Banned senators and their descendants from marrying freedwomen,
actresses or infames.
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Infamia – loss of status due to dishonourable profession/action:
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gladiators, actors, adulteresses.
Same status as subject foreigners (peregrini dediciti), men who had
fought in a war against Rome, were defeated, surrendered, and
could never become Roman citizens or Latins, could not make a will,
could not receive anything through a will
Note: The stain of slavery was considered similar to the stain
attached to infamia
Legislation reflects need to prevent contamination of highest order
of Roman citizens
What exactly did the Romans
mean by the macula servitutis
The macula servitutis
Slaves were associated with ‘servile traits’ in character,
mentality and body
 Fortuna could make anyone (or most) a slave.
Yet Romans had no notion of essential equality between all
human beings;
 Slavery itself could change a person, the ultimate state
of dependency and subjection to someone else’s reduced
a person’s honour and moral judgment
 Slaves not considered inferior in intellect, but perceived
as lacking in rationality and moral maturity.
 Ideal was that only free, unfettered mind could make
morally informed decisions.
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Roman construction of slave as morally
deficient and without honour common in
most slave societies.
 Common tendency to despise subjects for
their servility and submission
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Beings without honour
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Pater familias – had potestas vitae necisque (power over life and death)
limited in practice to small children only
Physical punishment of adult sons was unacceptable since it put them on
same level as slave
No restrictions of master’s potestas over slaves, slave body had no
protection from violence including sexual exploitation
Even a freedwoman could not be a victim of stuprum committed by her
patron
Likely that social expectation existed that slaves and perhaps (in some
circumstances) also freed people would be sexually available
Violability of the slave’s body central to the construction of the servile
person: Scars, branding marks, tattoos were signs of slavery but also of a
servile mind.
This servile stereotype had the function to maintain the slave system by
setting slaves apart from the free and reinforce the social hierarchy with its
distinct categories
How does manumission fit
into this construct?
How was it possible to manumit a
slave and integrate him/her into
the free citizen body?
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Fundamental problem - manumission compromised the
basic boundary between free and slave
Manumission practiced in most slave societies, although
less frequent
Rome unique in that ex-slave was made citizen (or Latin)
in terms of civic status they made them equals
Athens - ex-slaves became metics = resident aliens
American slaves received lesser civic status
North America – manumission extremely rare or banned
in some states.
The ‘servile’ citizen
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Romans had strategies to overcome the problem
of having ‘servile’ individuals (damaged by slavery)
cross the boundary between slavery and freedom
Manumission had to be selective – only the ‘less
damaged’ qualified
Close connection between treatment of slave and
his/her moral development (more skilled)
Slave commonly referred to as a puer (boy, child)
A slave had to be educated and arrive at a level of
maturity that raised him above the other slaves.
Attitudes towards manumission
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Often hostility - expressed by regulations
Sources complain of abuses of manumissions:
criminal slaves bying freedom through robbery,
burglary, prostitions (Dio Halicarnassus 4.24.4-8)
Others were freed to benefit from grain dole
Some owners accused to be self-indulgent when
manumitting large numbers of slaves (posthumous
popularity)
Many source reflect a conviction that uncontrolled
manumission leads to the contamination of citizen
body by admitting unworthy slaves into it.
Augustus legislation on
manumission
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Attempt to reinforce social hierarchy and boundaries between
free and slave
Lex Aelia Sentia 4 AD:
Excluded all ex-slaves from becoming citizens at manumission
who had been chained by owners as punishment, were
branded, publicly interrogated under torture, found guilty,
fought in the arena, sent to gladiatorial school, were
imprisoned.
This group received status of peregrini dediticii (deffeated and
surrendered foreigners, Gaius Inst. 1.13-6)
Were also banned from Rome – had to live beyond 100
milestone
Also basic requirements for manumission: slave had to be age
30; owner age 20 – to avoid indiscriminate manumission.
Augustus rules on testamentary
manumission
Lex Fufia Caninia, 2 BC
 Limits on manumissio testamento
 Households between 2-10 slaves, half could
be manumitted
 10-30 - a third
 30 – 100 - a quarter
 100 – 500 a fifth
 Upper limit of 100 to largest households
 All slaves had to be mentioned by name – no
en-bloc manumissions
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Suetonius on Augustan legislation
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Suet. Aug. 40.3, Loeb translation
Considering it also of great importance to keep the people
pure and unsullied by any taint of foreign or servile blood, he
was most chary of conferring Roman citizenship and set a
limit to manumission.
**Suet. Aug. 40.4, Loeb translation
Not content with making it difficult for slaves to acquire
freedom, and still more so for them to attain full rights, by
making careful provision as to the number, condition, and
status of those who were manumitted, he added the proviso
that no one who had ever been put in irons or tortured should
acquire citizenship by any grade of freedom.
Abuses of manumission in the
late Republic
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Gaius Gracchus and his associate C. Fulvius Flaccus said to have made offer to slaves in
tumult which preceded their own deaths: in 89 BC senate en bloc offered freedom as
reward to any slaves who would bring info to light on assassination t Rome of the praetor
A. Sempronius Asellio;
at battle of Colline Gate slaves offered freedom for their support of the Marians agains
Sulla, who himself was later said to have liberated 10,000 men to serve as his own
personal bodygard;
** L. Cornelius Cinna twice offered slaves their freedom at times of civil commotion
App. BC 1.26; 54; 58; 65; 69; 74; 100.
Sex. Pompeius used to offer freedom for slaves’ help against their masters in Africa;
** members of second triumvirate offered freedom and cash to informants
** Octavian liberated some 20,000 slaves to serve as rowers in campaign against
Pompeius, claiming himself in Res Gestae to have restored to their owners 30,000 slaves
who had absconded to fight in late civil wars on promise of manumission
App. BC 4.7, 11, 36, 95, 131; Suet. Aug. 16.1. Caes BC 1.57; Dio 41.38.3; RG 25.1; Oros.
5.12.6.
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The philosopher Epictetus was himself an ex-slave:
Then he (the slave) is emancipated, and forthwith, having no
place to which to go and eat, he looks for someone to flatter,
for someone at whose house to dine. Next he either earns a
living by prostitution, and so endures the most dreadful
things, and if he gets a manger at which to eat he has fallen
into a slavery much more severe than the first: or even if he
grows rich, being a vulgarian he has fallen in love with a chit
of a girl, and is miserable, and laments, and yearns for his
slavery again.” Why, what was wrong with me? Someone else
kept me in clothes, and shoes, and supplied me with food,
and nursed me when I was sick: I served him in only a few
matters. But now, miserable man that I am, what suffering is
mine who am a slave to several instead of one!” (Epictetus,
Diss. 4.1.35-37, Loeb translation)
Qualifying for manumission
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Columella R.R. 1.8.19, Loeb translation
To women, too, who are unusually prolific,
and who ought to be rewarded for the
bearing of a certain number of offspring. I
have granted exemption from work and
sometimes even freedom after they had
reared many children. For to a mother of
three sons exemption from work was
granted: to a mother of more her freedom as
well.”