[347] Mommsen Staatsr. iii. p. 93.
[348] p. 35.
[349] The privilege could not have been based on quiritarian ownership, since this tenure was precarious.
[350] The contract of nexum was in fact a conditioned mancipation, like a testament, the nuncupatio being made by the vendor, who perhaps purchased with a single coin (nummo uno), as in the later mancipationes fiduciae causa (Bruns Fontes).
[351] Except as a penal measure ordained by the state. The furem manifestum according to Gellius (xx. 1), “in servitutem tradit” (lex); he is more correctly described as addictus by Gaius (iii. 189). The incensus might be sold as a slave (Cic. pro. Caecin. 34, 99). Later a free man who collusively allowed himself to be sold as a slave, in order to share the purchase money with the vendor, was adjudged a slave as a punishment for his fraud (Dig. 40, 13, 3; Inst. 1, 3, 4; Cod. 7, 18, 1).
[352] p. 24.
[353] Gell. xx. 1 “Aeris confessi rebusque jure judicatis triginta dies justi sunto. Post deinde manus injectio esto, in jus ducito. Ni judicatum facit aut quis endo eo in jure vindicit, secum ducito, vincito aut nervo aut compedibus.... Si volet suo vivito. Ni suo vivit, qui eum vinctum habebit, libras farris endo dies dato. Si volet plus dato.” The addictus like the nexus did not become a slave, but still retained his position in his census and in his tribe (Quinctil. Decl. 311).
[354] In the case of a nexal contract there could not be more creditors than one. A man could not, by the nature of the case, mancipate himself to several people at once.
[355] Liv. ii. 23 “Fremebant se, foris pro libertate et imperio dimicantes, domi a civibus captos et oppressos esse; tutioremque in bello quam in pace, et inter hostes quam inter cives, libertatem plebis esse.”
[356] ib. 27.