While Trimalchio is likely an unreliable witness when providing evidence …show more content…
In Trimalchio's household there freeing a slave seems to be a relaxed and relatively informal ritual. The ritual of freedom seems only to include the giving of a cap, described as “perched rakishly on the sow’s head [...] the cap of freedom which newly freed slaves wear in token of their liberty.” This cap is later used to free a boy, Liber, just for the sake of a joke (49). The cap most likely is a real artifact used in the freeing of slaves since no one questions its use. The ease could be questioned as fiction; however, according to Duff one of the most common forms of freeing slaves was to declare them free “among a few friends acting as witnesses” (Duff 1928). According to another freedman at the table, freedom can also be bought as he states, “I bought my wife’s freedom so no man could put his dirty paws on her. I paid a good two hundred for my own freedom” (64). Not only does this suggest the common price of freedom for a slave (likely less than 200 sesterces), but it also reveals much about the dynamics of slave culture. A fortunate slave would be able to purchase the freedom of their spouse so that both of them could live as free citizens