Talk:Gnaeus Afranius Dexter

Relegation
"Due to Roman law, if a slave owner is murdered in his home, his slaves could be executed and his freedmen relegated, based on the presumption that they should have come to his defense."

OK, but what does 'relegation' mean here ? A return to to being a slave ? Difficult to imagine if they were now voting citizens. Plus I would have thought freedmen did not stay around the house after manumission, so would have been unable to help the murdered wretch anyway.

And I don't know how far a dying man or woman's shrieks could be reasonably heard, but no doubt it would be acceptable if one said one was in the fields or cellar. In the modern period, from popular fiction, a butler if not too fat, and various footmen  ---  one's farmhands even  --- were expected to pile on to an intruder and either detain him or send him down the dusty road;  but even British Judges never swung them for not stopping the murder...

The Romans really liked killing people. Claverhouse (talk) 18:29, 4 April 2021 (UTC)