Ingenui

:"For the Roman commander with this name, see Ingenuus.""Ingenui" or "ingenuitas" (singular "ingenuus"), was a legal term of ancient Rome indicating those who were born free, as distinct from, for example, freedmen, who were freemen who had once been slaves.Citation | last = Long | first = George | author-link = George Long (scholar) | contribution = Ingenui | editor-last = Smith | editor-first = William | title = Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities | volume = | pages = 637 | publisher = Little, Brown and Company | place = Boston | year = 1870 | contribution-url = http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-dgra/0644.html ]

In ancient Rome, free men were either "ingenui" or "libertini". Ingenui indicated those free men who were born free. [Gaius, i. 11] Libertini were those men who were manumitted from legal slavery. Although freedmen were not ingenui, the sons of libertini were ingenui. A libertinus could not by adoption become ingenuus. [Aulus Gellius, v. 19] 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", [Tacitus, "Annales" xiii. 27] which was a court to determine status with regard to patronal rights. [cite book | last = De Colquhoun | first = Patrick Mac Chombaich | authorlink = | coauthors = | title = A Summary of the Roman Civil Law | publisher = V. and R. Stevens and Sons | date = 1851 | location = London | pages = 362 | url = http://books.google.com/books?id=TSAUAAAAYAAJ | doi = | id = | isbn = ]

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. ["liber et ingenuus", Horace "ar. P." 383] According to Cincius, in his work on Comitia, quoted by Festus, [Sextus Pompeius Festus, "s.v." Patricios] 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 Gentiles 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, [Livy, vi. 40] 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. [Quintus Mucius Scaevola Pontifex, quoted in Cicero, "Topica" 6] [Livy, x. 8] 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, 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. [Dig. 40. tit. 10. s. 5 and 6] The "natalibus restitutio" was a decree in which the princeps gave to a libertinus the rights and status of ingenuus; [cite book | last = Morey | first = William C. | authorlink = | coauthors = | title = Outlines of Roman Law: Comprising Its Historical Growth and General Principles | publisher = G. P. Putnam's Sons | date = 1884 | location = New York | pages = 128 | url = http://books.google.com/books?id=w6cBAAAAYAAJ | doi = | id = | isbn = ] 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.

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