A General Outlook on the Issue of Trade Restrictions in Roman Law

Abstract

The legal sources of Roman law, mainly face trade restrictions in the context of the relationship between patron and freedman (libertus). It is no coincidence that, the issue arose in that particular context. Before slaves were set free, they would often acquire special knowledge and skills from working in the masters’ businesses. If a slave was set free to administer, the estate of his former master as procurator (a representative in terms of a general power of attorney), his livelihood was secured. In other cases, he had to establish his own occupation to survive after his manumission. His obvious choice would have been the occupation he had learned under his former master and present patron. For example, the freedman of a medical doctor could become a doctor himself and the freedman of a slave-dealer did not begin agitate for the abolition of slavery, but became a slave-dealer himself.