4 Thus, if possession of some object be delivered on a ground sufficient to legally transfer the same--for instance, under a sale or gift, as part of a dowry, or as a legacy--and the transferee has not yet acquired a complete title by usucapion, he has no direct real action for its recovery, if he accidentally loses possession, because by the civil law a real action lies at the suit of the owner only. But as it seemed hard that in such a case there should be no remedy, the praetor introduced an action in which the plaintiff, who has lost possession, fictitiously allege that he has acquired a full title by usucapion, and thus claims the thing as his own. This is called the Publician action, because it was first placed in the Edict by a praetor called Publicius. 5 Conversely, if a person, while absent in the service of the State, or while in the power of an enemy, acquires by usucapion property belonging to some one resident at home, the latter is allowed, within a year from the cessation of the possessor's public employment, to sue for a recovery of the property by a rescission of the usucapion: by fictitiously alleging, in other words, that the defendant has not thus acquired it; and the praetor from motives of equity allows this kind of action to be brought in certain other cases, as to which information may be gathered from the larger work of the Digest or Pandects. 6 Similarly, if a person conveys away his property in fraud of creditors, the latter, on obtaining from the governor of the province a decree vesting in them possession of the debtor's estate, are allowed to avoid the conveyance, and sue for the recovery of the property; in other words, to allege that the conveyance has never taken place, and that the property consequently still belongs to the debtor. 7 Again, the Servian and quasi-Servian actions, the latter of which is also called 'hypothecary,' are derived merely from the praetor's jurisdiction. The Servian action is that by which a landlord sues for his tenant's property, over which he has a right in the nature of mortgage as security for his rent; the quasi-Servian is a similar remedy, open to every pledgee or hypothecary creditor. So far then as this action is concerned, there is no difference between a pledge and a hypothec: and indeed whenever a debtor and a creditor agree that certain property of the former shall be the latter's security for his debt, the transaction is called a pledge or a hypothec indifferently. In other points, however, there is a distinction between them; for the term 'pledge' is properly used only where possession of the property in question is delivered to the creditor, especially if that property be movable: while a hypothec is, strictly speaking, such a right created by mere agreement without delivery of possession.