Note 222 — Chapter I · THE EARLIEST CONSTITUTION OF ROME (continued 2)

The sacramentum (literally “oath”) in the actio sacramento is best explained as an atonement (piaculum) in the form of a money payment for the expiable, because involuntary, perjury of the litigant who has maintained a false claim. When the process was secularised, the sacramentum came to be considered a simple wager. See Danz Der sacrale Schutz pp. 151 ff.