The general law of debt, as it is found in the East, among the Greeks, among the northern nations, as well as among the Romans, is this, that the borrower could pledge himself and his family for the debt. According to Plutarch, in his life of Solon, there were at Athens nearly a thousand bondmen for debt, who, if they were not able to pay, were sold to the foreigner. Among the Romans personal arrest existed in its sternest form. People either liquidated their debts by personal servitude, or else they alienated their property for a certain time, or in case of severe distress for life, or else they also sold themselves,--by which likewise the children, who were still _in patria potestate_, came _per æs et libram_ into the _mancipium_ of the buyer,--yet with the condition that they might be redeemed. This bondage lasted until they emancipated themselves again _per æs et libram_. Our personal arrest of insolvent debtors is the still remaining half of this ancient right, which ceases to have any meaning, owing to the other half having been done away with by milder manners. The German also could in olden times give up his freehold and his person to another, whose bondman he then became. In order to escape the addiction, the borrower could eventually sell his property as a security; yet he was bound in conscience to redeem it after a certain time. The _Fides_ answered for it that the creditor also would not withhold from the debtor the opportunity of redeeming himself, even when his person and his family were concerned. For this reason the _Fides_ was a goddess of such importance among the Romans: as under such strict forms of law, people would have utterly been ruined without her. If a debtor did not discharge his debt, he was forfeited to his creditor, being _fiduciarius_ in his _mancipium_; yet the latter could not directly _manum injicere_, an addiction of the prætor being wanted for that purpose. He had to _in jure vindicare_ him with the words, _Hunc ego hominem meum esse aio ex jure Quiritium_; and without doubt the five witnesses and the _libripens_, before whom the contract had been concluded, were to be present. The prætor then gave a respite; and if after its expiration payment was not made, and the debtor therefore was not able to prove the _liberatio per æs et libram_, the ὑπερήμενος was addicted to the creditor. In the old Attic law, it was just the same; yet Solon had without doubt abolished it, and introduced in its stead the Attic law of mortgage, from which the later Roman one is derived. For the _equites_ in their important money transactions tried to evade the strict debtor’s law, by causing them to be managed by foreigners who were not subject to the Roman laws. Thence arose the laws concerning the _chirographa_ and _centesima_, a discount business for so short a date was not done in Rome at all. The _Addictus_ was termed _nexus_, because of his being _nexu vinctus_. _Nexus_, or