Of these three statutes the first mentioned, perhaps the last in date, was essentially different in object from the others. It enlarged existing rights: they were restrictive. For this reason, and because some of the provisions of the lex Aelia Sentia seem to presuppose the lex Iunia, it is well to deal with this law first.

Lex Iunia.

This statute defined the position of those who had been in libertate tuitione praetoris by the earlier law. It made them latins, giving them broadly the position of colonary latins, subject to certain disabilities of a very serious kind. Because of these restrictions they were called Latini Iuniani to mark them off from the others. The cases with which it dealt were, apparently, the slave freed by his bonitary owner, the slave informally freed, and the slave freed under 30, though as to this case we shall see that there is doubt as to what is due to this lex and what to the lex Aelia Sentia. Most of the points of difficulty under this lex will be more conveniently discussed later: here it is enough to mention a few points.

Notwithstanding the language of Gaius it is clear that a bonitary owner could give freedom by will. It is hardly so clear whether he could do it vindicta. And it seems that manumission censu must have given civitas or nothing. Apparently the entry of the man's name must have been a nullity, of no more force than any other mistake of the Censor's. And it does not seem that it amounted in itself to a manumission inter amicos or per epistolam.