Dediticii

In ancient Rome, the dediticii or peregrini dediticii (Classical Latin: [deːdɪˈtiːkiiː]) were a class of free provincials who were neither slaves nor citizens holding either full Roman citizenship as cives or Latin rights as Latini. A conquered people who were dediticii did not individually lose their freedom, but the political existence of their community was dissolved as the result of a deditio, an unconditional surrender. In effect, their polity or civitas ceased to exist. Their territory became the property of Rome, public land on which they then lived as tenants. Sometimes, this loss was a temporary measure, almost a trial period to see whether the peace held, while the people were being incorporated into Roman governance; territorial rights for the people or property rights for individuals might then be restored by a decree of the senate (senatus consultum) once relations were perceived as having stabilized. In the Imperial era, there were three categories of people who held dediticius status defined as freedom without rights: the peregrini dediticii ("foreigners under treaty") who had surrendered; peregrini who had immigrated into the empire; and former slaves who were designated libertini qui dediticiorum numero sunt, freedmen who were counted permanently as dediticii because of a penal status that denied them the rights usually ensuing from manumission.