In ancient Rome, the dediticii or peregrini dediticii were a class of free provincials who were neither slaves nor citizens holding either full Roman citizenship as cives or Latin rights as Latini.[2]
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.[3] 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.[4] 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;[5] 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.[6]
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;[7] 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.[8]
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