Legal Definitions - ingenuus

In ancient Roman law, an ingenuus referred to a person who was born free. This status meant they had never been enslaved at any point in their life, distinguishing them from individuals who had been born into slavery and later gained their freedom (known as libertini).

Here are some examples illustrating the concept of an ingenuus:

• Example 1: Birth to Free Parents
  Imagine a child born in the city of Rome whose mother and father were both Roman citizens, and both had been born free themselves. This child would automatically be considered an ingenuus. Their freedom was inherent from the moment of birth, without any prior period of enslavement for them or their direct lineage.

• Example 2: Unbroken Lineage of Freedom
  Consider a Roman family whose history could be traced back through several generations, with all known ancestors consistently documented as free individuals, never having been slaves or freed slaves. Any new member born into this family would be an ingenuus, signifying an unbroken line of inherent freedom passed down through their lineage.

• Example 3: Mother's Status at Birth
  Suppose a woman was born into slavery but was legally emancipated and became a freedwoman before she had any children. If she later gave birth to a child, that child would be classified as an ingenuus. Despite the mother's own past as a slave, the child was born at a time when its mother was already free, meaning the child itself was never born into slavery and thus possessed inherent freedom from birth.