17 Gaius: Roman Slave Laws
(Roman Empire, 161 CE)

(8) The whole of the law by which we are governed relates either to persons, or to things, or to actions; and let us first examine the law of persons.

(9) The first division of men by the law of persons is into freemen and slaves.

(10) Freemen are divided into freeborn and freedmen.

(11) The freeborn are free by birth; freedmen by manumission from legal slavery.

(12) Freedmen, again, are divided into three classes, citizens of Rome, Latins, and persons on the footing of enemies surrendered at discretion. Let us examine each class in order, and commence with freedmen assimilated to enemies surrendered at discretion.

(13) The Lex Aelia Sentia enacts that slaves who have been punished by their proprietors with chains, or have been branded, or have been examined with torture on a criminal charge, and have been convicted, or have been delivered to fight with men or beasts, or have been committed to a gladiatorial school or a public prison, if subsequently manumitted by the same or by another proprietor, shall acquire by manumission the status of enemies surrendered at discretion.

(14) Surrendered enemies are people who have taken up arms and fought against the people of Rome and having been defeated have surrendered.

(15) Slaves tainted with this degree of criminality, by whatever mode they are manumitted and at whatever age, and notwithstanding the plenary dominion of their proprietor, never become citizens of Rome or Latins, but can only acquire the status of enemies who have surrendered.

(16) If the slave has not committed offences of so deep a dye, manumission sometimes makes him a citizen of Rome, sometimes a Latin.

(17) A slave in whose person these three conditions are united, thirty years of age, full ownership of the manumitter, liberation by a civil and statutory mode of manumission, i.e. by the form of vindicta, by entry on the censor’s register, by testamentary disposition, becomes a citizen of Rome: a slave who fails to satisfy any one of these conditions becomes only a Latin.

(18) The requisition of a certain age of the slave was introduced by the Lex Aelia Sentia, by the terms of which law, unless he is thirty years old, a slave cannot on manumission become a citizen of Rome, unless the mode of manumission is by the form of vindicta, preceded by proof of adequate motive before the council.

(19) There is an adequate motive of manumission if, for instance, a natural child or natural brother or sister or foster child of the manumitter’s, or a teacher of the manumitter’s child, or a male slave intended to be employed as an agent in business, or a female slave about to become the manumitter’s wife, is presented to the council for manumission.

(20) The council is composed in the city of Rome of five senators and five Roman knights above the age of puberty: in the provinces of twenty recuperators, who must be Roman citizens, and who hold their session on the last day of the assize (judicial session). At Rome the council holds its session on certain days appointed for the purpose. A slave above the age of thirty can be manumitted at any time, and even in the streets, when the praetor (elected magistrate of justice) or pro-consul is on his way to the bath or theatre.

(21) Under the age of thirty a slave becomes by manumission a citizen of Rome, when his owner being insolvent leaves a will, in which he gives him his freedom and institutes him his heir (to take over the liabilities), provided that no other heir accepts the succession.

(28) Latins have many avenues to Roman citizenship.

(29) For instance, the Lex Aelia Sentia enacts that when a slave below the age of thirty becomes by manumission a Latin, if he take to himself as wife a citizen of Rome, or a Latin colonist, or a freedwoman of his own condition, and thereof procure attestation by not less than seven witnesses, citizens of Rome above the age of puberty, and begets a son, on the latter attaining the age of a year, he is entitled to apply to the praetor, or, if he reside in a province, to the president of the province, and to prove that he has married a wife in accordance with the Lex Aelia Sentia, and has had by her a son who has completed the first year of his age: and thereupon if the magistrate to whom the proof is submitted pronounce the truth of the declaration, that Latin and his wife, if she is of the same condition, and their son, if he is of the same condition, are declared by the statute to be Roman citizens.

(36) Not every owner who is so disposed is permitted to manumit.

(37) An owner who would defraud his creditors or his own patron by an intended manumission, attempts in vain to manumit, because the Lex Aelia Sentia prevents the manumission.

(38) Again, by a disposition of the same statute, before attaining twenty years of age, the only process by which an owner can manumit is fictitious vindication, preceded by proof of adequate motive before the council.

(39) It is an adequate motive of manumission, if the father, for instance, or mother or teacher or foster-brother of the manumitter, is the slave to be manumitted. In addition to these, the motives recently specified respecting the slave under thirty years of age may be alleged when the manumitting owner is under twenty; and, reciprocally, the motives valid when the manumitting owner is under twenty are admissible when the manumitted slave is under thirty.

(40) As, then, the Lex Aelia Sentia imposes a certain restriction on manumission for owners under the age of twenty, it follows that, though a person who has completed his fourteenth year is competent to make a will, and therein to institute an heir and leave bequests; yet, if he has not attained the age of twenty, he cannot therein enfranchise a slave.

(41) And even to confer the Latin status, if he is under the age of twenty, the owner must satisfy the council of the adequacy of his motive before he manumits the slave in the presence of witnesses.

(42) Moreover, by the Lex Fufia Caninia a certain limit is fixed to the number of slaves who can receive testamentary manumission.

(43) An owner who has more than two slaves and not more than ten is allowed to manumit as many as half that number; he who was more than ten and not more than thirty is allowed to manumit a third of that number; he who has more than thirty and not more than a hundred is allowed to manumit a fourth; lastly, he who has more than a hundred and not more than five hundred is allowed to manumit a fifth: and, however many a man possesses, he is never allowed to manumit more than this number, for the law prescribes that no one shall manumit more than a hundred. On the other hand, if a man has only one or only two, the law is not applicable, and the owner has unrestricted power of manumission.