Page:A dissertation on slavery - with a proposal for the gradual abolition of it, in the state of Virginia. (IA dissertationonsl00tuckrich).pdf/76

 Among the Romans, the libertini, or freedmen, were formerly distinguished by a threefold division. They sometimes obtained what was called the greater liberty, thereby becoming Roman citizens. To this privilege, those who were enfranchised by testament, by the census, or by the vindicta, appear to have been alone admitted: sometimes they obtained the lesser liberty only, and became Latins; whose condition is thus described by Justinian. “They never enjoyed the right of succession [to estates].—For although they led the lives of free men, yet with their last breath they lost both their lives and liberties; for their possessions, like the goods of slaves, were detained by the manumittor.” Sometimes they obtained only the inferior