The primitive Roman law distinguished a debt arising from money lent (_pecunia certa credita_) from debts arising out of contract, delict, sale, etc., or any other source: the creditor on the former ground had a quick and easy process, by which he acquired the fullest power over the person and property of his debtor. After the debt on loan was either confessed or proved before the magistrate, thirty days were allowed to the debtor for payment: if payment was not made within that time, the creditor laid hold of him (_manûs injectio_) and carried him before the magistrate again. The debtor was now again required either to pay or to find a surety (_vindex_); if neither of these demands were complied with, the creditor took possession of him and carried him home, where he kept him in chains for two months; during which interval he brought him before the prætor publicly on three successive nundinæ. If the debt was not paid within these two months, the sentence of addiction was pronounced, and the creditor became empowered either to put his debtor to death, or to sell him for a slave (p. 81), or to keep him at forced work, without any restriction as to the degree of ill usage which might be inflicted upon him. The judgment of the magistrate authorized him, besides, to seize the property of his debtor wherever he could find any, within the limits sufficient for payment: this was one of the points which Niebuhr had denied. Such was the old law of Rome, with respect to the consequences of an action for money had and received, for more than a century after the Twelve Tables. But the law did not apply this stringent personal execution to any debt except that arising from loan,—and even in that debt only to the principal money, not to the interest,—which latter had to be claimed by a process both more gentle and less efficient, applying to the property only and not to the person of the debtor. Accordingly, it was to the advantage of the creditor to devise some means for bringing his claim of interest under the same stringent process as his claim for the principal; it was also to his advantage, if his claim arose, not out of money lent, but out of sale, compensation for injury, or any other source, to give it _the form_ of an action for money lent. Now the nexum, or nexi obligatio, was an artifice—a fictitious loan—whereby this purpose was accomplished. The severe process which legally belonged only to the recovery of the principal money, was extended by the nexum so as to comprehend the interest; and so as to comprehend, also, claims for money arising from all other sources (as well as from loan), wherein the law gave no direct recourse except against the property of a debtor. The debitor nexus was made liable by this legal artifice to pass into the condition of an addictus, either without having borrowed money at all, or for the interest as well as for the