Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/162

148 Political Rights of the Freedmen. — The citizens without political rights, on the contrary, obtained full citizenship, although some of them had joined Hannibal and had afterward been severely punished.

It is still more strange that, while the best classes, the Latins, were not granted Roman citizenship, the lowest classes, the slaves, consisting of Spaniards, Gauls, Ligurians, Sardinians, and people of other nationalities, in almost every stage of moral degradation and barbarism were duly emancipated, and thereby admitted to citizenship, in large numbers. The admission depended, therefore, not on any official or legislative act, but on the pleasure and profit of the slave owners.

The freedmen (libertini) enjoyed only a limited right of suffrage, were not eligible to the magistracies or to the senate, and down to 18 B.C. they did not in law possess the right of intermarriage with freeborn citizens (ingenui). But they were often more profitable to their masters (patroni) than slaves, were of great importance in the private life of the highest classes, and served already as tools for managing the popular assemblies. In return for their restricted civil rights they might be required to serve in the navy along with some of the allies and the freeborn citizens assessed at from $88 to $33 (4000 to 1500 asses).

Number of Citizens. — The admission of freedmen did not suffice to maintain even the number of Roman citizens. At the census of 204 the number of citizens capable of bearing arms was stated to be two hundred and fourteen thousand. By 164 it had risen to three hundred and thirty-seven thousand. Then followed an almost uninterrupted decrease to three hundred and seventeen thousand in 136. This increase until the year 164, in spite of the great wars, was perhaps largely due to the assignments of public land and the founding of sixteen Roman colonies, whereby many