Lex Fufia Caninia

Testamentary manumission had been established in early Rome as one of three procedures recognized in Roman law as not only granting libertas (liberty) to the formerly enslaved person but also full citizenship.

[8] A few ancient sources claim that masters had been freeing slaves "indiscriminately" with the stipulation that they participate in funeral rites, bolstering the deceased's social profile through the large number of mourners, but to the material detriment of the living successors.

[9] Economic historian Peter Temin saw the law from a labor market perspective as a way to incentivize slaves to prove their value and gain one of the limited opportunities for manumission.

[10] Others, such as P. A. Brunt, have viewed the law as more generally encouraging owners to filter candidates for manumission based on their readiness for participating as citizens.

[11] The lex Fufia Caninia may or may not have limited the demographic impact of former slaves on Roman society,[12] and the law is not seen by most scholars in the 21st century as primarily aimed at reducing the total number of manumissions.

Plaster cast of an early 2nd-century relief from the Tomb of the Haterii depicting mourning ; the caps on the figures at lower right suggest they were slaves freed in the deceased's will [ 7 ]