Dediticii

In the Roman Empire, the dediticii were one of the three classes of libertini. The dediticii existed as a class of persons who were neither slaves, nor cives, nor Latini, at least as late as the time of Ulpian. Their civil condition was formed by analogy to the condition of a conquered people, who did not individually lose their freedom, but as a community lost all political existence. In the case of the Volsci, Livy inclines to the opinion that the four thousand who were sold, were slaves, and not dediti.

The Lex Aelia Sentia provided that, if a slave was put in bonds by his master as a punishment, or branded, or put to the torture for an offence and convicted, or delivered up to fight with wild beasts, or sent into a ludus (gladiatorius), or put in confinement (custodia), and then manumitted either by his then owner, or by another owner, he merely acquired the status of a peregrinus dediticius, and had not even the privileges of a Latinus. The peregrini dediticii were those who, in former times, had taken up arms against the Roman people, and being conquered, had surrendered themselves. They were, in fact, a people who were absolutely subdued, and yielded unconditionally to the conquerors, and, of course, had no other relation to Rome than that of subjects. The form of deditio occurs in Livy.

Sources

• Long, George. 1875. "Dediticii". A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. William Smith, ed. (London: John Murray), p. 388.