Nexum
In the old Roman legal system
nexum was the solemn process of entering
upon a relationship of debtor and creditor under the form of
mancipatio
(q. v.). In the formula used therein the borrower gave the lender, in case of non-fulfilment
of the obligation incurred, the right to seize him (cf.
Manus Iniectio) without more ado as his bondsman, since he stood in the
position of a defendant against whom judgment had already been given (
iudicatus), or who had admitted his liability in open court (
in iure
confessus). There was no limit in respect of time to the right of the creditor over a
debtor whose person thus became forfeit to him: it consisted in the fact that the creditor
could keep the
nexus in his private dungeon and make him work as a slave
for him. The latter, however, continued to be a citizen; but, as long as the debt existed, was
considered dishonoured, and was accordingly excluded from service in the legion and voting in
the assemblies of the people. After the Lex Poetilia Papiria of B.C. 326 had, in the interest
of the plebeians, for the most part abolished personal security, the
nexum gradually passed into a mere contract of loan. Varro defines it as
quodcumque per aes et libram geritur （
L. L. vii. 105).
In Nettleship's
Lectures and Essays, pp. 363-66
(Oxford, 1885),
there is a note which attempts to show that the proper meaning of
nexum
is “a thing pledged (bound),” and of
nexus (second
declension), “a prisoner”; that the evidence for making
nexum mean “a solemn process” is weak; and that
nexus-ūs is the proper word for the contract or bond between debtor and
creditor. In almost all the passages where
nexum -i is supposed to mean
“a process,” it might as well come from
nexus (fourth
declension). Cicero, however, in the oration
Pro Caecina 102, has
nexa atque hereditates; and in
De Rep. ii. 59,
propter unius libidinem omnia nexa civium liberata nectierque postea desitum. See
Bachofen, Das Nexum (1843);
Huschke, Ueber das Recht
des Nexum (1846); and Giraud,
Des “Nexi,”
etc.
(1847).
