This chapter focuses on the legal status and social position of public freed persons in the Roman world, with a particular focus on Italy and the western provinces. It primarily aims to test the idea that public slaves enjoyed a better social condition in comparison to other groups of enslaved persons, by investigating their prospects to gain freedom and build social relationships. The first section considers the legal status of public freed persons, by describing the process of their manumission in self-governing towns in the light of chapter 72 of the Lex Irnitana and discussing the related modern debate about the possible condition that was granted to public freed persons in the municipium of Irni, Baetica (cives Latini or Latini Iuniani?). The second section examines whether, how and why public freed persons could integrate into urban society, based on the extant inscriptional evidence in Italy and the western provinces.

This chapter examines the experiences of slaves in various sectors of the economy, including agriculture, manufacturing, mining and domestic labor, as well as banking, commerce and the state bureaucracy.