Roman slaves: chattel or proletarians?

@Tonifranz sorry for replying after so much time but the nature of my existence means that I don't have access to the internet all the time :(

Anyway, it's not their own name, it's their new, Roman, name. The concept of individuality was not quite alien to the Romans, but it was nowhere near to our concept of it. There is a reason that only a dozen or so male first names were used, and women from the mid Republic through to the middle empire period didn't even have praenomina. The most important part of a name was the family name, and a freedman or new citizen taking his former master or patron's nomen shows that he was becoming part of that family. Not his own name, the family name. Nothing wrong with that, no stigma attached to becoming Roman--quite the opposite, in fact!--but it is not correct to say that a freedman, son of a freedman, or even great-grandson of a freedman could be viewed in the same way as a plebeian whose family became citizens in the 5th century, for example.

Romans were litigious minded, sure, but there are plenty of conventions and simply human prejudices that governed elections more than laws. Money, the behavior of a man's siblings and in-laws, the areas in which a senator had most of his land, a man's ancestors accomplishments, rumors, etc. Freedmen were, hard stop, disabled by the law, but their children and grandchildren were disabled by the social conventions of the time. Gaius Marius was still given grief for being from Arpinum, and his family had been citizens for generations! Senate conservatives argued against allowing Cato the Elder into the senate, because he was from a town twenty miles from Rome! I think that you are underestimating the xenophobic attitude of the Roman government apparatus up until the 80's BC.

Just because somebody succeeds does not mean that their actions are politically irrelevant. Consider the election of Obama (if you'll forgive me). Wouldn't it be ridiculous if somebody two thousand years from now says "Well, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 gave equality to blacks, and Obama was elected president, so his being black was politically irrelevant" because there's no law against black people being president. You saying that Cato and his father didn't face any stigma is similar. Come on, not to denigrate the trials of non-whites in the US, but you can see how the situation is comparable.

Servius Tullius is a funny example. His father was a god, according to sources, which just makes it another of the interesting legends about the early years of Rome. Probably being a demigod outweighed being born of a slave.

Hardly any difference between patrician and plebeian? It was a far cry from the early days, but as you say it was important for priesthoods, and being patrician made one better known by default. A full third of consuls during the Republic were patrician Cornelians, and this despite the law forbidding two patricians being consul at the same time (no bar to plebeians doing the same). A patrician name, and to some extent a famous plebeian name (like Caecilius Metellus and Junius and Calpurnius and plebeian Aurelius), were often enough to guarantee a victory in elections against objectively better but less "named" (that is, with a less famous or unknown name) candidates.

If I ever said that anything is an impossible barrier, please quote me on it. I don't recall writing such a thing. There are barriers, but I never said that they were impossible to surmount.
 
The average Roman owned at least one slave
I am afraid that is a gross exaggeration.

Freedmen are citizens if freed by Roman masters.
During the Republic, freed slaves were automatically citizens.
Oddly if freed they (slaves) become citizens...
There is a distance of two light years between "if freed the slaves become citizens" and "if freed the slaves might become citizens"
From all I know that's the latter, which is true.
There was no law or anything like that that the freed slaves automatically become Roman citizens. No, nothing even close.
But the freed slaves do often become citizens, because they would vote for their "patron" (or the way their patron says). The rich, noble, influential, political active "true" Romans needed voters, so when possible they help their freed slaves become Roman citizens (often using good old Roman Late Republican corruption - through their relatives or/and their friends holding important public offices, or just bribes).
Freeing your slaves and helping them make Roman citizens (the voters) was a wise investment with sound expectations of returns.

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The only thing that freedmen cannot do is hold public office and serve in the military.
Ye, the freedman holding public office is something I don't remember about Late republic. But I am not sure there was some special law or something prohibiting it; I suppose they just didn't have chances to get elected, they wouldn't win competition against "true" Romans.
But serving in the military... My god, that was a whole idea of making as many Roman citizens as possible - the Republic did need "cannon meat".
Just imagine some conscription for bloody war into some Spain with little chance to plunder or even survival, but good chances to die there:
- sad "true" Romans (of the second/third/fourth... generations) are conscripted and sent for slaughter, but happy "new" Roman citizens (freedmen) are staying in Rome (to comfort their wives probably).
Something is very wrong here.

Freedmen have many disabilities, like ... having to wear the freedman's cap
No, no, the freedmen didn't have to wear the freedman's cap permanently.
The only time when the freedman's cap was used is the day when a slave became a freedman. It was a sign, a proof of his new status, so under this freedman's cap you'd see the face of a man having the happiest day of his life. So the function of the freedman's cap was to celebrate and forget about this funny cap after it.
It was not like the yellow star of David which was wore permanently and which the Nazis used to see who is Jewish.

Once a Roman senator proposed to make some kind of a sign for the slaves in order to see who is a slave and who is a not. Other senators banned this proposed law; the reason was that if the slaves had seen how numerous they were in the streets of Rome they might have realized their strength and rebelled.
So you might meet, speak, eat and drink a day and whole night with some guy in Rome, and only in the morning accidentally by chance got to know that he was a slave. There was nothing to give him away.*
The same with freedmen.
*there were exceptions like slave collars, face brands or tattoos for the slaves who often run away from their masters, but these were exceptionally rare.

In the streets of Late Republican Rome in 99,999% of cases you won't be able to distinguish, differentiate, identify by appearance/dress/cap/shoes/belts/whatever a Roman citizen of the seventh generation, a slave, an Italian without Roman citizenship, a non-citizen freedman and a freedman (Roman) citizen. All looked the same. Some slaves were dressed much better then Roman citizens and spoke better Latin.
 
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