Usually before a master manumits a slave it is arranged that he shall remain in the mansion as some kind of an invaluable “man of business” for handling a large estate. Many a senator is like Cicero, in all private affairs completely at the mercy of a confidential _alter ego_, a freedman like Cicero’s able and beloved Tiro. Practically every dignitary in Rome will refer his business matters to “my freedman,” a shrewd consequential fellow, probably of Græco-Levantine origin, who has the right to use his patron’s seal ring, and who knows all the family secrets. Supple, obsequious, and indispensable, he is certain of a great legacy when his patron dies; and if the patron is childless, he often becomes his heir. There are, indeed, plenty of cases where a slave-boy who entered a house as a valet, first earned freedom, then became a general confidant, and ended not merely with inheriting the house itself but with marrying the late owner’s widow. =119. Humble Types of Freedmen.=--Of course, the bulk of freedmen have no claim to such expectations. They are petty shop keepers or skilled craftsmen. They make up the great bureaus of upper clerks in the huge government offices on the Palatine. Everywhere they compete, as a rule very successfully, with the free born, and, of course, they add to the cosmopolitan multitudes in Rome. An ex-slave cannot avoid becoming substantially the client of his former master. He is supposed to show his patron and his patron’s family constant respect and usually a certain amount of service without compensation. Thus a while ago Calvus manumitted a very faithful slave-physician. It was stipulated that he should continue to physic the familia without charge. For a freedman to show himself neglectful of these obligations, above all to do anything to injure his ex-master, is the depth of depravity. The legal penalties for such “ingratitude” are very severe, and in extreme cases the actual act of manumission itself can be cancelled. =120. Wealth and Power of Successful Freedmen.=--Nevertheless, top-lofty freedmen abound. Their ready wits bring them riches--the power before which all the Empire bends. Once more Juvenal describes an obnoxious type: “Though I’m born on the Euphrates, a fact which the little windows [holes for earrings] in my ears would prove if I denied it--yet am I the owner of five shops which bring me in 400,000 sesterces [$16,000] per year. What better thing does a senator’s robe bestow? Therefore, let everybody give way to one who but yesterday with the chalked feet of a slave entered our city.” Freedmen, of course, get ahead marvellously because nothing is too sordid if only it promises gain. “He [a certain freedman],” says Petronius, “started with an _as_ [large copper coin], and was always ready to pick a _quadrans_ [farthing] out of the filthy mire with his teeth. So his wealth grew and grew like a honey comb!”