The issue of freed slaves taking up public office appears in a variety of sources. As favored freedmen of wealthy patrons could be extremely wealthy, they might desire to assume the outward marks of status to which their wealth might entitle them if they had been free born. Two responses to this pressure evolved in the Julio-Claudian period. One was that freedmen could obtain permission from the emperor to wear the ring that was a sign of membership in the equestrian order. This affected their personal status, but was not passed on to their children. The second was the natalium restitutio which conferred the status of a freeborn person on a freed slave and any children. An important further feature of the natalium restitutio as opposed to the granting of the right to wear a ring is that, while masters and their children retained rights to property of a freedman and services that the freedman agreed to provide, masters lost all rights over the person who received the natalium restitutio The right to wear a ring and the natalium restitutio could be combined. The issue is summed up with admirable clarity by the Ulpian as follows: Digest 38.2.3: Even if a freedman should have received the right to wear a ring from the emperor, the patron succeeds in an action to invalidate his will, a matter that is established by many rescripts, for, although he lives as a freeborn person, he dies as a freed person. However, it is obvious that if his birthright has been restored to him, possessio bonorum against the terms of the will is not an issue (Ulpian). Click here for a definition of possessio bonorum.