Ingenui

For the Roman commander with this name, see Ingenuus.

Ingenui or ingenuitas (singular ingenuus), was a legal term of ancient Rome indicating those freemen who were born free, as distinct from, for example, freedmen, who were freemen who had once been slaves.

In ancient Rome, free men were either ingenui or libertini. Ingenui indicated those free men who were born free. Libertini were those men who were manumitted from legal slavery. Although freedmen were not ingenui, the sons of libertini were ingenui. A libertinus could not by adoption become ingenuus. If a female slave (ancilla) was pregnant, and was manumitted before she gave birth to the child, that child was born free, and therefore was ingenuus. In other cases, also, the law favored the claim of free birth, and consequently of ingenuitas. If a man's ingenuitas was a matter in dispute, there was a judicium ingenuitatis, which was a court to determine status with regard to patronal rights.