ABSTRACT
Not many years before, loyal Italians had turned against Rome to wrest from her the rights of citizenship. Under the Empire, auxiliaries had to endure long military service, and the leading men of municipal towns spent their fortunes in works of public use to obtain local magistracies, and obtained those same Roman rights. If the early republican legislators could have foreseen the problems of the future, perhaps they would have curtailed the right of the master to confer high status on his manumitted slave. But, as slaves increased and were more often freed, the political bearing of manumission became evident; the Republic saw long struggles on the subject of the libertine vote in the tribes, and attempts were made to diminish its influence. But no modification of the principle that manumission gave citizenship was ever made till the evils of too lavish a bestowal of it had long made themselves apparent.
