OF FREEDMEN

Those are freedmen, or made free, who have been manumit-
ted from legal slavery. Manumission is the giving of freedom;
for while a man is in slavery he is subject to the power once
known as ‘manus’; and from that power he is set free by manu-
mission. All this originated in the law of nations; for by natural
law all men were born free -- slavery, and by consequence
manumission, being unknown. But afterwards slavery came
in by the law of nations; and was followed by the boon of
manumission; so that though we are all known by the common
name of `man,' three classes of men came into existence with
the law of nations, namely men free born, slaves, and thirdly
freedmen who had ceased to be slaves. 1 Manumission may
take place in various ways; either in the holy church, according
to the sacred constitutions, or by default in a fictitious vindica-
tion, or before friends, or by letter, or by testament or any
other expression of a man's last will: and indeed there are many
other modes in which freedom may be acquired, introduced
by the constitutions of earlier emperors as well as by our own.
2 It is usual for slaves to be manumitted by their masters at any
time, even when the magistrate is merely passing by, as for
instance while the praetor or proconsul or governor of a
province is going to the baths or the theatre.

3 Of freedmen there were formerly three grades; for those
who were manumitted sometimes obtained a higher freedom
fully recognised by the laws, and became Roman citizens;
sometimes a lower form, becoming by the lex Iunia Norbana
Latins; and sometimes finally a liberty still more circumscribed,