He Lived 5 Years 2 Months 6 Days 6 Hours a Slave

[Stephan Huller]

http://www.ashmolean.org/ashwpress/lati ... oman-child[/border]-slave-and-the-woman-who-loved-him/

[karinaarmijos]

Mmm sounds interesting, I will check it out.

[Leucius Charinus]

Or it might be that his freedom was such a recent event that Annaia Ferusa simply hadn’t got used to the idea of calling him anything else.

He lived 5 years, 2 months, 6 days, 6 hours’

A libertus, a freedman, of only five years old is unusual. The majority of slaves had to reach the age of thirty before they could be granted their freedom.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manumission#Ancient_Rome

One typical scenario was the freeing in the master's will of a devoted servant after long years of service. This kind of manumission generally was restricted to slaves who had some degree of intimacy with their masters, such as those serving as personal attendants, household servants, secretaries and the like.

One possibility is that Annaia Ferusa was the mistress to a master who had recently died and freed his slaves, including the subject of the inscription, who died a short time thereafter.