For the small independent landholder was in a hopeless plight—far more hopeless than that of the client or emancipated slave who could claim his lord’s protection. His condition was due to the law of debtor and creditor—one, it seems, that was unknown to the old patrician community, and had originated within the plebeian order, but which the Patriciate, by adopting plebeian forms of law, could use with terrible force against its inventors. The original procedure was one of the manifold forms of _nexum_, or binding obligation created by the copper and the scales (_per aes et libram_). A man who borrowed was allowed to sell his perpetual services to his creditor conditionally—the condition being the non-repayment of the debt within a given time.[350] When the prescribed period had elapsed, the debtor and his whole _familia_ passed into the power of his purchaser; he became his bondsman (_nexus_) until the debt was paid by his labour. As in such circumstances the debt was never likely to be liquidated, the small farmer became a mere dependent member of the household of the rich landowner, leaning on his mercy and subject to his caprice. No judicial process was necessary to create the condition. The simple proof (perhaps given before a magistrate) of the witnesses to the contract was all that was required. The enslavement of the citizen was, it is true, forbidden by Roman public law,[351] and the _nexus_ remained a burgess.[352] But a very thin line separated such a condition from one of actual slavery.