Nexum

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Nexum was a debt bondage contract in Ancient Rome where the debtor pledged his person as collateral should he default on his loan. It was abolished by the Lex Poetelia Papiria in 326 BC.

Contents

[edit] The Contract

Nexum was a form of mancipatio, a symbolic transfer of rights that involved a set of scales, copper weights, and a formulaic oath.[1] Under the nexum contract, a free man became a bond slave, or nexus, until he could pay off his debt to the indebted, or obaeratus. The term “nexum” is derived from nec suum, together signifying “bound” or “fastened.” [2]

It is still unclear whether debtors entered in a nexum contract initially with their loan or if they entered voluntarily after they could not pay off an existing debt, though the former seems more likely to be the case. [3] Additionally, there is no single formal nexum contract that all nexi entered – it is possible that there were many variations of the nexum contract, and that the details of nexum contracts were worked out on a case-by-case basis.[4]

Debt-bondage existed in early Rome largely as an answer to the patrician’s increasing control of the ager publicus, or public land. As many plebeians had no access to the ager publicus, which was largely under the control of a small group of wealthy aristocrats, nexum became an unavoidable security on debts. [5]

Still, nexum contracts were an attractive answer to debtors considering the alternatives – slaves were subject to death or sale across the Tiber at the hands of their masters. Though nexi were often beaten and abused by their obaerati, they maintained (if sometimes only in theory) their Roman citizenship and rights.[6] Creditors also profited more from a nexum contract, as they received a contractual worker instead of a slave to execute or sell.[7]

[edit] Abolishment

According to Livy, nexum’s abolishment was due to the excessive cruelty and lust of a single “usurer,” Lucius Papirius. In 326 BC, a young boy named Gaius Publilius was guarantor to his father’s debt and became nexus of Papirius. (Dionysius of Halicarnassus records that Publilius borrowed the money for his father’s funeral)[8]The boy was noted for his youth and beauty, and Papirius fell into lust with him. He tried to seduce him with “lewd conversation,” but as the boy did not pay him attention he grew impatient and reminded the boy of his position as bond slave. When the boy again refused his forceful advances, Papirius had him stripped and lashed. The wounded boy ran into the street, and an outcry among the people led the consuls to convene the senate, resulting in the Lex Poetelia Papiria, which forbid holding debtors in bondage for their debt, but rather using the debtor’s property as collateral. All people confined under the nexum contract were released, and nexum as a form of legal contract was forbidden thereafter. [9]

Varro alternatively dates the abolishment of nexum in 313 BC, during the dictatorship of Gaius Poetelius Libo Visolus.[2] Poetelius, from where Lex Poetelia Papiria is derived, was in his third consulship in 326 BC, the date that Livy records.

Cicero considered the abolishment of nexum primarily a political maneuver to temporarily appease the plebeian masses, which by Cicero’s time (almost 300 years after the Lex Poetelia Papiria) had carried out three full-scale secessions:

When the plebeians have been so weakened by the expenditures brought on by a public calamity that they give way under their burden, some relief or remedy has been sought for the difficulties of this class, for the sake of the safety of the whole body of citizens[10]

Though nexum as a legal contract was abolished, debt bondage persisted in the case of defaulting debtors, where a court could grant creditors the right to take insolvent debtors as bond slaves. [11]

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Speake, Graham. A Dictionary of Ancient History. Basil Blackwell Ltd. Cambridge, Mass: 1994. pp. 392, 436
  2. ^ a b Varro. On the Latin Language: Book VII. Trans. Roland G. Kent. On the Latin Language I: Books V-VII. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1938. pp 359-361
  3. ^ The Cambridge Ancient History 2nd Ed. Vol. VII Vol. II: The Rise of Rome to 220 BC. Cambridge University Press. Great Britain: 1990. p 215
  4. ^ The Cambridge Ancient History 2nd Ed. Vol. VII Vol. II: The Rise of Rome to 220 BC. Cambridge University Press. Great Britain: 1990. p 330
  5. ^ The Cambridge Ancient History 2nd Ed. Vol. VII Vol. II: The Rise of Rome to 220 BC. Cambridge University Press. Great Britain: 1990. p 331
  6. ^ The Cambridge Ancient History 2nd Ed. Vol. VII Vol. II: The Rise of Rome to 220 BC. Cambridge University Press. Great Britain: 1990. p 209
  7. ^ Watson, Alan. Rome of the XII Tables: Person and Property. Princeton University Press. Princeton, N.J: 1975. p 115 Often, the Paterfamilias--or the legal head of the Roman family--would offer his own son for nexum in order to pay off debts.
  8. ^ Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Roman Antiquities: Book XVI. Trans. Earnest Cary. Roman Antiquities Vol. VII: Books XI-XX. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1950. pp 323-325
  9. ^ Livy, History of Rome VIII.28, "The Perseus Digital Library". Retrieved on May 10, 2007.
  10. ^ Cicero. The Republic II. Trans. Clinton W. Keyes. On the Republic. On the Laws. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1928. p 171
  11. ^ Brunt, P.A. Social Conflicts in the Roman Republic. Chatto & Windus Ltd. London: 1971. pp 56-57

[edit] External links

Livy, "History of Rome VIII.28", "The Perseus Digital Library". Retrieved on May 10, 2007.

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