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  • From: "Edgar M. Krentz" <ekrentz AT lstc.edu>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Slaves and Roman Citizens
  • Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 17:22:03 -0500

Ssome time ago I posted a message saying that not all manumitted Roman slaves were citizens, even if they had Latin names. I was asked to provide further data. What I will do here is provide a brief note and some relevant bibliography.

Greek slaves did not easily obtain citizenship. Roman slaves might. There were two forms of manumission: Formal manaumission as a legal process admitted one into the civil community as a citizen. Informal manumission gave a slave de facto freedom, but not citizenship; this put the ex-slave into the class of Junian Latins.Roman slaves often adopted part of their master's name when freeed. The lex Fufia Caninia (II BC) limited the number of slaves one could set free in onee's will. Augustus took measures to limit the number of slaves achieving citizenship. The lex Aelia Sentia set a minimum age for manumission, both for owner and slave. The lex Junia formalized the non-citizen status of informally freed slaves. The details of this deserve careful study, since it was possible for a Junian Latin to achieve status, e.g. by registering the birth of a child.

Suetonius Aug 40.3 says Augustus was concerned to maintain the the purity of the Roman people, untainted by foreign blood. At the same time Augustus was concerned with the declining population of Romans! He also enacted statutes to regulate the relation of ex slaves to their former masters.

The best books on Roman slavery to my knowledge are

Bradley, Keith R. Slaves and Masters in the Roman Empire: A Study in Social Control. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987. Chapter 3, pp. 81-112, discusses manumission.

Bradley, Keith R. Slavery and Society at Rome. Key Themes in Ancient History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Pp. 154-65 discuss manumission.

Garnsey, Peter. Ideas of slavery from Aristotle to Augustine. Cambridge: Cambridge Univefsity Press, 1996: see his index under "manumission."

Vogt, Joseph. Ancient Slavery and the Ideal of Man. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974.

Weidemann, Thomas. Greek and Roman Slavery. Baltimore, London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981. A collection of texts in translation, with introductory notes. Chapter 3, pp. 45-60, is on manumission.

Two recent works in NT studies also have useful material:

Harrill, J. Albert. The Manaumission of Slaves in Early Christianity. WUIT 32. Tuebingen: Morh Siebeck, 1995. Harrill discusses manumission on pp.53-56.

Martin, Dale B. Slavery as Salvation: The Metaphor of Slavery in Pauline Christianity. New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 1990. Manumission and citizenship on pp. 32 & 38.

Add to all this the discussion of manumissioin and citizenship in

Swerwin-White, A. N. The Roman Citizenship . 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973 (Reprint by Sanmdpiper books, 1996), pp.322-34.






  • Slaves and Roman Citizens, Edgar M. Krentz, 05/13/1999

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