Being a Roman freedman

KITTOS AND THEPHIALAI EXELEUTHERIKAI

“…If the idea of genuine prosecutions seems to crumble under such circumstances, the presence of families and children is entirely consistent with manumission. It is completely intuitive – and amply attested in slave systems throughout history (e.g., Mouritsen 2011, 285–6; Hünefeldt 1994, 79–85; Whitman 1997, 119–39; Groth 2017, 59) – that manumission would accompany a concerted effort to secure freedom for one's enslaved family members (even if those family ties, formed within the bonds of slavery, lacked legal recognition). Significantly, the phialai inscriptions do not only furnish examples of families residing together in the same deme; two or three families include a child living apart, readily explainable as families broken up by slavery, with the parents managing to secure their child's freedom following their own manumission (see Appendix, nos 3, 6, 7).…”

“… 18 Likewise, in the comparable Roman procedure of manumissio vindicta , magistrates ‘merely recognised and confirmed the change of status rather than actually effecting it’ (Mouritsen 2011, 69). Mouritsen goes on to say, ‘This stands in stark contrast to classical Greece’, but his point is that Roman manumission granted freedom and citizenship.…”

Master Narratives and the Wall Painting of the House of the Vettii, Pompeii

“…As has been recently and carefully documented by Mouritsen, two factors continued to shape the lives of a freedman or freedwoman throughout their lives, however: stigmas attached to having been a slave and continuing obligations to one's former owner. 45 Patrons retained a claim on their former slave's labour, estate, public obedience and sexual services. Formal restrictions on the activities of freedmen seem to stem from their onetime lack of bodily integrity: ex-slaves were forbidden from joining the Roman military and holding most political and religious offices.…”

Freedom in Marriage? Manumission for Marriage in the Roman World

“… 13 Freedwomen make only a brief appearance in Mouritsen 2011: (for example) 42–4, 190–2, as noted in Morley 2012: 592. For recent works on the manumission of enslaved women, see Wacke 2001 on manumission for marriage; Weiler 2001 on sexual labour as a way for enslaved women to achieve manumission; Kleijwegt 2012 on the legal position and family lives of freedwomen, and Perry 2013 on freedwomen's incorporation into the citizen body.…”

“… 11 Many historians have argued that manumission must have been profitable to slaveholders — for example, Hopkins 1978: 128 — but see Mouritsen 2011: 141–59, esp. 146–7 for a full consideration.…”