[3][4][5] Freedmen would be granted only Latin rights if the manumission of the slave failed to meet any of the conditions set out by the Lex Aelia Sentia of 4 AD for it to confer Roman citizenship.
This provided that for the freedman to acquire Roman citizenship a slave had to be manumitted at the age of 30 or older, the owner had to have quiritary ownership and the ceremony had to be public.
The manumission of slaves who had been enslaved because of crimes would raise them only to the position of dediticii (war captives).
"[7] The Institutes, which were part of the Corpus Juris Civilis (Body of Civil Law) commissioned by Justinian I in the sixth century, recorded that in previous times there were three form of freedmen: those who became Roman citizens, those who acquired inferior freedom as Latins as per the lex Junia Norbana and those who obtained still less freedom as dediticii as per the lex Aelia Sentia.
One abolished the dediticii and the other “rendered all freedmen Roman citizens without making any distinction with reference to age, the mode of manumission, or the authority of the manumitting party, as was formerly the practice.”[8]