Emancipation
Freeing a slave was called manumissio, which literally means "sending out from the hand". The freeing of the slave was a public ceremony, performed before some sort of public official, usually a judge. The owner touched the slave on the head with a staff and he was free to go. Simpler methods were sometimes used, usually with the owner proclaiming a slave's freedom in front of friends and family, or just a simple invitation to recline with the family at dinner.
A felt cap called the Pileus was given to the former slave as symbol of manumission.
Slaves were freed for a variety of reasons; for a particularly good deed toward the slave's owner, or out of friendship or respect. Sometimes, a slave who had enough money could buy his freedom and the freedom of a fellow slave, frequently a spouse. However, few slaves had enough money to do so, and many slaves were not allowed to hold money. Slaves were also freed through testamentary manumission, by a provision in an owner's will at his death. Augustus restricted such manumissions to at most a hundred slaves, and fewer in a small household.
Already educated or experienced slaves were freed the most often. Eventually the practice became so common that Augustus decreed that no Roman slave could be freed before age 30.
Read more about this topic: Slavery In Ancient Rome
Famous quotes containing the word emancipation:
“The greatest block today in the way of woman’s emancipation is the church, the canon law, the Bible and the priesthood.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)
“The right to vote, or equal civil rights, may be good demands, but true emancipation begins neither at the polls nor in courts. It begins in woman’s soul.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“In a seriously intended intellectual emancipation a person’s mute passions and cravings also hope to find their advantage.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)