Freedmen and their sons were subject to civil disabilities; the third generation became ingenui (full citizens).
In private service superior posts were often filled by freedmen; the higher arts - as medicine, grammar, painting - were partly in the hands of freedmen and even of ingenui; the more successful actors and gladiators were often freedmen.
We find a division of social ranks which reminds us of the threefold gradation of Lower Germany (edelings, frilings, lazzen - eorls, ceorls, laets), and not of the twofold Frankish one (ingenui Franci, Romani), nor of the minute differentiation of the Upper Germans and Lombards.
Although free birth was considered indispensable, the right of wearing the gold ring (jus anuli aurei) was frequently bestowed by the emperor upon freedmen, who thereby became ingenui and eligible as equites.