LIBERTAS
The main classification in the law of persons is of free persons and slaves.
Slavery
As was normal in ancient societies, the Roman economy was dependent on slave labour to a very high degree.
Indeed, according to some estimates, up to 40% of the population of Italy in the early Principate may have been slaves. Slaves were property, belonging to their master. In early law, the slave’s master had the absolute power of life and death over the slave. Although by the time ofJustinian this was reduced to a power of reasonable chastisement, for a slave “reasonable chastisement” could doubtless include fairly severe punishments. The slave could not own property, anything acquired by the slave becoming the property of the master.A person normally became a slave either by being born to a slave woman or through capture in war. Slaves captured in war, at least in earlier times, would often be educated and skilled, and if the war in which the slave was captured was against another Italian state the slave might have a similar cultural background to his Roman masters. Such slaves would often be given responsible jobs. Many professions nowadays considered to carry high status, such as medicine, were in Rome carried out by slaves. On the other hand, slaves coming from the “barbarian” peoples of the north would not normally be thought suited to anything other than manual labour. Thus, although all slaves had the same legal status, it is impossible to generalise about the nature of slavery in Roman society. The legal position is misÂleading in the case of educated and skilled slaves. Such a slave would have a higher value, and so would often receive better treatment, and might rise to a high position in the management of the master’s affairs. Much comÂmercial activity was carried on by slaves acting more or less independently of their masters, although with their masters’ capital. A valuable slave might be allowed a fund of money or property to treat as his own, called a peculium (considered below).
At the other end of the scale, agricultural slaves, with no marketable skills beyond the ability to carry out manual labour, and who were cheap and easily replaced, might be treated very poorly indeed.The end of slavery
Slavery could be brought to an end. Sometimes a slave would be allowed to buy his freedom with his peculium, which, although belonging to the master, was functionally treated as belonging to the slave. Slavery ended by manumission, for which there were various methods. It was very common for slaves to be manumitted in their master’s will.
Augustus imposed restrictions on manumission. By the lex Aelia Sentia of ad 4, the permission of a council to investigate manumissions was necessary where the master was aged less than twenty or where the slave was under thirty. Manumission by an insolvent master was also void. By the lex Fufia Caninia of 2 bc, the number of slaves who could be freed by will was reÂstricted to a maximum of 100, with the permitted number in a given case depending on the total number owned by the testator. These restrictions were largely abolished by Justinian.
Perhaps surprisingly, a manumitted slave became a Roman citizen. However, freedmen, as such former slaves are called, were subject to certain duties of respect to their former master. Some of these would be legal duties agreed at the time of manumission, but the most important consequences were social ones. These were unlikely to have been found unduly onerous. Roman society was based on this kind of relationship between patron and client, and there was no one in Rome not subject to someone else’s patronage, save only the emperor.