or LIBERTINUS, amongst the Romans, a freedman, or a person set free from a legal servitude.

Persons of this class still retained some mark of their ancient state, he who made a slave free having a right of patronage over the libertus; so that if the latter failed in showing due respect to his patron, he was restored to his servitude, and if the libertus died without children, his patron was his heir.

In the early age of the republic, libertinus denoted the son of a libertus or freedman; but afterwards, that is, before the time of Cicero, and under the emperors, the terms libertus and libertinus were used as synonymous.