Dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

NEXUM. NEXUM. 797
is not herself auclor, but her guardian is auctor." made a nexus should be done away with by another
There may be some weight in this observation, the legal act; and this seems to be the Nexi liberatio
point of which appears to be this: there was man- which was done per aes et libram. It also apcipatio in the case of adoption, where the adopted pears from a passage in Livy (vi. 14), that a
person was in the power of another, but no man- certain person, who was judicatus pecuniae, and is
cipatio in the case of Adrogation, where the not described as nexus, was released from his
adopted person was not in the power of another. obligation per aes et libram. In the time of Gaius
The tacit conclusion then seems to be, that if an imaginary form of payment per aes et libraml
in one case there was no mancipatio and yet a was retained in cases where the obligation was
person was brought into the power of another contracted either per aes et libram or was due ex
with his own consent, there could be no mancipa- judicati causae. (Gaius, iii. 173-175.) There
tio when a person consented to put himself into a seems indeed no reason why this ceremony should
servile relation to another; for it is here assumed have been used in the case of an addictus who
that a nexum was voluntary. But this is not a wished to be restored to his former state, for the
legitimate conclusion. It is easy to see that man- Addictio was by implication only to have an effect
cipatio in the case of adoption, where the son was till the debt was paid. It might be contended that
in the power of the father, was a sufficient form, such was the effect of the Nexumn also, but we
considering that the person adopted was only a must distinguish between the effect of a sentence
filius familias; and that Adrogation, which was of the Praetor and a solemn act like that of the
of a person who was sui juris, was a very different Nexum, which was in form a transfer of ownermatter, and required other forms to be observed, ship. The addictus was protected against injilria
because the person adrogated was not a filius- from his master (Gaius. i. 141), and it is said that
famniias. [ADOPTION.] A nexum effected no he retained his name and tribe; but it is somewhat
change of familia like an adoption or adrogation, difficult to understand how he retained his tribe,
and while its object was different from that of both since he had sustained Infamia. Upon the disof these ceremonies, it is quite consistent for its charge of his obligations the addictus, it seems,
form to have been the same as the form of the one, returned to his former status.
and different from the form of the other. It was Niebuhr's opinion that the Nexum, when
The mode in which Goettling (p. 123) explains it became a form of giving security, had not its
this matter of the nexum is as follows: " A free complete effect until the debtor was unable to pay
citizen can come into a mancipii causa when he and was brought into the condition of a debtorcannot pay a loan (aes confssusn) out of his own slave by the addictio. An answer to this has
meana. What in such case he has to give security been already given. If it required an addictio to
for, that to which he has bound himself, is called make a person nexus, what was the use of a Nexumn
nexum (namely aes); hence the phrases nexi datio, when a man might become addictis, even when
nexi liberatio. The person who does such an act there was no Nexum? The only intelligible sois called nexems (from nexus nexfus) iniens, nexuen lution of all these difficulties is that a Nexum, in
~fciezs, but after he has received the loan in the which there was a mancipatio personae, had an
above solemn manner, he is nexu obligatus, nexu immediate effect.
vinctus: as soon as he has failed to fulfil his obli- It seems to be a legal consequence of a Nexum
gation, and in conseqnence of such failure has been and an Addictio that the children, if they were in
addicted (addictuzs), and given in mancipium by the power of the parent, must follow his condition,
the magistrate, he is called nexus (adjective), qui se as in the case of adrogation.
nexum dedit"- -a more confused account of the In the case mentioned in Livy (viii. 28),
thing, or one more remote from legal precision, can- where the son is said to have been nmexus for
nsot be imagined. The passage of Livy (ii. 27) is his father's debt (cue se nexeun dcdisset), it may
cot easy to explain. (Compare Liv. ii. 23.) be that the father bound his son only, which lihe
The Lex Poetelia (B. c. 326) alleviated the con- could certainly do just in the same way as lie
dition of the nexi. So far as we can understand could mancipate him. If the son was not in his
its provisions, it set all the nexi free or made them father's power, he could still bind himself onl besoluti (Liv. viii. 28, nexi soluti), and it enacted that half of his father. The expression in Livy does
for the future there should be no nexum (cauetzmozque not enable us to determine which of the two
id posteC1rm a ne necterent2r), and that no debtor possible cases was the real case, but it seems proshould for the future be put in chains. Addictio bable that the son was in the power of the father.
however still continued in force after the Lex Unterholzner observes (Lehre des RMnm. Reclts von
Poetelia, as we see in several instances. (Liv. den Schzclddvelealteissen, i. p. 31. note g): " The
xxiii. 14; Sail. Cat. 33; Cic. pro PFlcco, 20.) legal condition of the nexi is one of the most ohIt appears from the Lex Galliae Cisalpinae (c. 21, scure points in the old Roman law. It is here as22), that in the case of other actions there was sumed that a man by the personae mancipatio came
only a Possessio Bonortim, but in the case of pe- into this condition. Persons who were in the
cunia certa credita there was personal execution. Patria Potestas could for the noxae cause, which
The enactment of the Lex Julia which introduced was long maintained in practice, and also on acthe Bonorumn Cessio, and gradual changes in so- count of the debts of hinm who had the Potestas,
ciety, must have diminished the frequency of the consequently in a sense after the nature of a pawn,
Addictio. [BoNoRuAI CEsseIo.] In the system and by virtue of the so-called paternal power of
of Justinian, Nexum did not exist, for the use of sale, be mancipated. Further, we must assume
aes et libra in legal transactions had ceased. that persons who were sui juris could also manciNeither the Addictus nor the Nexus was a slave, pate themselves by way of pawn, though no eviamd his ingenuitas was only in suspense. As to dence of that has been preserved. This is made
thile Nexum, it must have been necessary that the the less incredible, since we cannot doubt, that
effect of the legal act by which the ingenuus was womenl who were sini juris could make a coemtio,