''Ingenui'' or ''ingenuitas'' (singular ''ingenuus''), was a legal term of

ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom ...

indicating those freemen who were born free, as distinct from

freedmen A freedman or freedwoman is a formerly enslaved person who has been released from slavery, usually by legal means. Historically, enslaved people were freed by manumission (granted freedom by their captor-owners), emancipation (granted freedom ...

who had once been slaves. In

, free men were either ''ingenui'' or ''libertini''. ''Ingenui'' indicated those free men who were born free. ''Libertini'' were those men who were

manumitted Manumission, or enfranchisement, is the act of freeing enslaved people by their enslavers. Different approaches to manumission were developed, each specific to the time and place of a particular society. Historian Verene Shepherd states that t ...

from legal slavery. Although freedmen were not ''ingenui'', the sons of ''libertini'' were ''ingenui''. A ''libertinus'' could not by adoption become ''ingenuus''. If a female slave (''ancilla'') was pregnant, and was manumitted before she gave birth to the child, that child was born free, and therefore was ''ingenuus''. In other cases, also, the law favored the claim of free birth, and consequently of ''ingenuitas''. Paulus, ''Sent. Recept.'' iii. 24, and v. 1. ''De liberali causa'' If a man's ingenuitas was a matter in dispute, there was a ''judicium ingenuitatis'', which was a court to determine status with regard to patronal rights. The words ''ingenuus'' and ''libertinus'' are often opposed to one another; and the title of freeman (''liber''), which would comprehend ''libertinus'', is sometimes limited by the addition of ''ingenuus''. According to

Cincius Cincius, whose ''praenomen'' was likely Lucius and whose ''cognomen'' goes unrecorded, was an antiquarian writer probably during the time of Augustus. He is frequently confused with the annalist Lucius Cincius Alimentus, who fought in the Second ...

, in his work on

Comitia The legislative assemblies of the Roman Republic were political institutions in the ancient Roman Republic. According to the contemporary historian Polybius, it was the people (and thus the assemblies) who had the final say regarding the election ...

, quoted by Festus, those who in his time were called ''ingenui'', were originally called ''patricii'', which is interpreted by some scholars such as Carl Wilhelm Göttling to mean that

Gentile Gentile () is a word that usually means "someone who is not a Jew". Other groups that claim Israelite heritage, notably Mormons, sometimes use the term ''gentile'' to describe outsiders. More rarely, the term is generally used as a synonym fo ...

s were originally called ''ingenui'' also, an interpretation that is the subject of some dispute. Others reckon the meaning of the passage to be this: originally the name ''ingenuus'' did not exist, but the word ''patricius'' was sufficient to express a Roman citizen by birth. This remark then refers to a time when there were no Roman citizens except ''patricii''; and the definition of ingenuus, if it had then been in use, would have been a sufficient definition of a patricius. But the word ingenuus was introduced, in the sense here stated, at a later time, and when it was wanted for the purpose of indicating a citizen by birth, merely as such. Thus, in the speech of

Appius Claudius Crassus Appius Claudius Crassus Inregillensis (or Crassinus Regillensis) Sabinus ( 471–451 BC) was a Roman senator during the early Republic, most notable as the leading member of the ten-man board (the Decemvirate) which drew up the Twelve Tables o ...

, he contrasts with persons of patrician descent, "Unus Quiritium quilibet, duobus ingenuis ortus." Further, the definition of ''Gentilis'' by Scaevola shows that a man might be ingenuus and yet not gentilis, for he might be the son of a freedman; and this is consistent with

Livy Titus Livius (; 59 BC – AD 17), known in English as Livy ( ), was a Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, titled , covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditional founding in ...

. If Cincius meant his proposition to be as comprehensive as the terms will allow us to take it, the proposition is this: All (now) ''ingenui'' comprehend all (then) ''patricii;'' which is untrue. Under the

Empire An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...

, ''ingenuitas'', or the ''Jura Ingenuitatis'', might be acquired by imperial favor; that is, a person, not ''ingenuus'' by birth could be made so by the sovereign power. A freedman who had obtained the ''Jus Annulorum Aureorum'', was considered ''ingenuus''; but this did not interfere with the patronal rights. The ''natalibus restitutio'' was a decree in which the

princeps ''Princeps'' (plural: ''principes'') is a Latin word meaning "first in time or order; the first, foremost, chief, the most eminent, distinguished, or noble; the first man, first person". As a title, ''princeps'' originated in the Roman Republic w ...

gave to a ''libertinus'' the rights and status of ''ingenuus''; a form of proceeding which involved the theory of the original freedom of all mankind, for the ''libertinus'' was restored, not to the state in which he had been born, but to his supposed original state of freedom. In this case the patron lost his patronal rights by a necessary consequence, if the fiction were to have its full effect.Dig. 40. tit. 11 It seems that questions as to a man's ''ingenuitas'' were common at Rome; which is not surprising, when we consider that patronal rights were involved in them.

References

{{Italic title Social classes in ancient Rome Ancient Roman titles Latin legal terminology Roman law