Résumé en anglais

Bibliogr. p. 328-330

In the first year of the Republic there was a conspiracy which failed because a slave reported it to the authorities. As a reward he received a sum of money and was granted his freedom as well as Roman citizenship. The historian Livy claims that this was the first time a slave was freed through the procedure of manumissio vindicta, and that the ceremony derived its name from the slave in question: Vindicius. Many scholars have pointed out that the story is unlikely to be historically accurate. Instead of demonstrating the accuracy or inaccuracy of Livy's story, however, the present study wants to suggest that in addition to providing an etymological explanation for a key procedure in the manumission of slaves Livy may have aimed to present the story as a specific deserving case of the granting of freedom and citizenship. This should be understood against the backdrop of the turbulent times that Livy's readers had recently experienced and the attempts by Augustus to re-energize Rome's destiny on the firm footing of its past moral foundations. Within this perspective Vindicius' act of story may be viewed as an essential contribution to the freedom of the Roman people. Livy achieves this above all by screening out the fact that in order to save the state Vindicius has to betray his own familia. This aspect receives additional importance against the many examples in the history of the first century BC of slaves betraying their masters for money. Vindicius' stance is ideologically correct and therefore in agreement with the Roman perception of the good slave.