Roman Freedmen
Freedmen and freedwomen were people who had once been slaves but had managed to get legally free. Sometimes they were freed because they were getting too old to work and the people who owned them didn't want to have to take care of them anymore. Nannies and wetnurses, for instance, were often freed when the children they were taking care of grew up. Sometimes they were freed because they saved up enough money to pay for themselves and buy their own freedom. Or they might be freed because they had done something especially useful for their owners, out of gratitude.
Most of the slaves who were freed worked as servants for rich people, or they worked for the Roman government - the slaves who worked on big plantations, in the fields, were much less likely to be freed.
Freedwomen and freedmen still had to do what their ex-owners told them, and had to work for them for free if their owners wanted them. Freedwomen could not refuse to marry the men who had once owned them, even though they had been freed. And freedmen could not hold important political and religious positions, though their children could.
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But we do hear of many ex-slaves eventually becoming independent and
even wealthy. Often they opened stores, or ran small businesses. Sometimes
they bought farms. Many freedmen owned slaves themselves.
And some freedmen actually got pensions from their former owners. Pliny
the Younger bought a small farm for his old nanny to retire to.
During the Julio-Claudian period, some of the most powerful men in the empire were actually freedmen. The emperors felt they could trust these men more than they could trust senators and other rich men they knew.
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