- Enrico Benelli –
of 265/264 bc to people a new city of no lesser dimensions than the old one; a mass
slaughter of the entire plebeian class seems highly unlikely.
EPIGRAPHIC EVIDENCE: FREEDPEOPLENot surprisingly, epigraphic evidence for freedpersons is more extensive than that
available for slaves. The Etruscan word for freedman, lautni/lavtni (fem. lautniθa/lavtniθa,
“freedwoman”), has traditionally been connected with lautn, “family,” lautni meaning
something like “man of the family.”^25 The archaic feminine form lauteniθa, documented
by a recently published inscription from Orvieto (see below), raises some doubts about
this reconstruction. The archaic form of the word for “family,” lavtun,^26 is also attested as
stem of an onomastic series, which is not related with an indication of social condition;
it starts with the archaic name Lavtunie from Marzabotto (TLE 706 = ET Fe 1.13^27 ),
whose (typically gentilicial) suffi x -ie suggests it is to be interpreted as a family name
(although an individual name cannot be entirely ruled out). The recent-age form of family
name Lautne/Lavtne (fem. Lautnei/Lavtnei) is attested throughout Etruria (from Caere to
Perusia, Arretium, Cortona, Volaterrae: ThLE I,^2 s. vv.). The female Clusine cognomen
Latuni (whose male form is as yet unknown) belongs probably to this same series, while
Latni is, at least once, only a syncopated form of the well-known family name Latini (and,
in some instances, a simplifi ed form for lautni: see ThLE I,^2 s. vv., for references).
The most ancient freedperson known to us is Kanuta, freedwoman of a Larecena (and wife
of an Aranθ Pinie) who was the author of a dedication of an altar in the Volsinian sanctuary
of Campo della Fiera (REE 74, 140; see Chapter 31). The inscription belongs probably to
the late Archaic period, as is shown by some characteristic epigraphic features, like the use
of
writing not earlier than 510/500 bc. This individual was probably a freedwoman of a
somehow privileged status, as is shown not only from her very appearance as a dedicator
of an inscribed stone altar, but also from her marriage with a freeborn person (whose
family name is already unknown in Orvieto: he belonged presumably to a lesser family
than the Larecena themselves). Roman law began to intervene into matters regarding
slaves and freedpersons at least by the time of the Twelve Tables (mid-fi fth century bc),
revealing that the sphere of action of such persons had begun to cross the borders of
the gentilicial clans and to involve the whole society.^28 This required intervention by
the State, especially concerning relations between slaves (and freedpersons) and freeborn
people outside the gens to which they belonged; traditional customs centered on the
authority of the pater familias were probably considered no longer suffi cient to regulate
such matters (although it is possible that such traditions continued to work inside the
gentes themselves). As a result, at least from the mid-fi fth century bc onwards, the status
of slaves and freedpersons in the civic community as a whole was defi ned by public
law. It is possible that Etruscan cities underwent similar developments, especially in the
framework of the increased defi nition of the political sphere that characterized the late
Archaic phase. It is probably no accident that epigraphic evidence for freedpeople and
slaves begins exactly in the late Archaic period.^29
After that one late Archaic testimony, inscriptions referring to freedpersons appear
again in the third century bc, their number increasing dramatically between the second
and the early fi rst centuries bc, as a consequence of the enormous diffusion of chattel
slavery in Italy after the Second Punic War. Most of the freedpersons in this period bore