<P> The relationship of a former slave to her patron could be complicated . In one legal case, a woman named Petronia Iusta attempted to show--without a birth declaration to prove it--that she had been free - born . Her mother, she acknowledged, had been a slave in the household of Petronius Stephanus and Calatoria Themis, but Iusta maintained that she had been born after her mother's manumission . Calatoria, by now a widow, in turn argued that Iusta was born before her mother was free and that she had been manumitted, therefore owing her former owner the service due a patron . Calatoria could produce no documentation of this supposed manumission, and the case came down to the testimony of witnesses . </P> <P> Uneducated or unskilled slaves had few opportunities to earn their freedom, and if they became free would lack means of supporting themselves . Therefore, a freedwoman in the workplace could have the advantage in training and skill over a woman born to a free family of working poor . </P> <P> The status of freedwomen, like freedmen, varied widely . Caenis was a freedwoman and secretary to the Emperor Vespasian; she was also his concubine . He is said to have lived with her faithfully, but she was not considered a wife . </P> <P> Women could turn to prostitution to support themselves, but not all prostitutes had freedom to decide . There is some evidence that even slave prostitutes could benefit from their labor . Although rape was a crime, the law only punished the rape of a slave if it "damaged the goods," because a slave had no legal standing . The penalty was aimed at providing her owner compensation for the "damage" of his property . Because a slave woman was considered property under Roman law, forcing her to be a prostitute was not considered a crime . Prior to Septimius Severus, women who engaged in acts that brought infamia to them as slaves also suffered infamia when freed . Sometimes sellers of female slaves attached a ne serva clause to the slave to prevent her from being prostituted . The Ne Serva clause meant that if the new owner or any owner after him or her used the slave as a prostitute she would be free . Later on the ne serva agreements became enforceable by law . Prostitution was not limited to slaves or poor citizens; according to Suetonius, Caligula when converting his palace into a brothel employed upper class "matrons and youths" as prostitutes . Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, Life of Caligula, Tacitus records that during one of Nero's feasts the prefect Tigellinus had brothels filled with upper class women . Prostitution could also be a punishment instead of an occupation; a law of Augustus allowed that women guilty of adultery could be sentenced to work in brothels as prostitutes . The law was abolished in 389 . </P>

Who did most of the work in roman society