Note 2 — Chapter I · THE ROMANS

History of Rome, Niebuhr, Hare’s trans., i. 576. Niebuhr has been followed in the text, although the “nexum” is one of the vexed points of Roman law. (See Über das altrömische Schuldrecht, Savigny.) The precise form of the contract is, however, perhaps, not very important for the matter in hand, as most scholars seem agreed that it resembled a mortgage, the breach of whose condition involved not only the loss of the pledge, but the personal liberty of the debtor. See Gaius, iv. 21.