<P> Since slaves were legally property, they could be disposed of by their owners at any time . All children born to female slaves were slaves . Some slave owners, as for instance Tacitus, freed slaves whom they believed to be their natural children . Slaves who had the education or skills to earn a living were often manumitted upon the death of their owner as a condition of his will . Slaves who conducted business for their masters were also permitted to earn and save money for themselves, and some might be able to buy their own freedom . </P> <P> Over time, legislation was passed to protect the lives and health of slaves . Although many prostitutes were slaves, for instance, the bill of sale for some slaves stipulated that they could not be used for commercial prostitution . </P> <P> Freed men (liberti) were freed slaves, whose free - born children were full citizens . The status of liberti developed throughout the Republic as their number increased . Livy states that freedmen in the Early Republic mainly joined the lower classes of the plebeians . Juvenal, writing during the Empire when financial Freedmen were often highly educated and made up the bulk of the civil service during the early Empire . The Augustan poet Horace was himself the child of a freedman from Venusia in southern Italy . Many became enormously wealthy as the result of bribes, fraud, or other forms of corruption, or were given large estates by the Emperor they served . Other freedmen engaged in commerce, amassing vast fortunes often only rivalled by those of the wealthiest nobiles . Many of the Satires of Juvenal contain angry denouncements of the pretensions of wealthy freedmen, some' with the chalk of the slave market still on their heel' . Juvenal saw these successful men as nouveaux riches who were far too ready to show off their (often ill - gotten) wealth . Another famous caricature is seen in the absurdly extravagant character of Trimalchio in Satyricon . The majority of freedmen, however, joined the plebeian classes, and often worked as farmers or tradesmen . </P>

What were the three main divisions of roman history