The establishment of the facts assumed the form of a wager, in which each party made a deposit (-sacramentum-) against the contingency of his being worsted; in important causes when the value involved was greater than ten oxen, a deposit of five oxen, in causes of less amount, a deposit of five sheep.  The judge then decided who had gained the wager, whereupon the deposit of the losing party fell to the priests for behoof of the public sacrifices.  The party who lost the wager and allowed thirty days to elapse without giving due satisfaction to his opponent, and the party whose obligation to pay was established from the first—­consequently, as a rule, the debtor who had got a loan and had not witnesses to attest its repayment—­became liable to proceedings in execution “by laying on of hands” (-manus iniectio-); the plaintiff seized him wherever he found him, and brought him to the bar of the judge simply to satisfy the acknowledged debt.  The party seized was not allowed to defend himself; a third person might indeed intercede for him and represent this act of violence as unwarranted (-vindex-), in which case the proceedings were stayed; but such an intercession rendered the intercessor personally responsible, for which reason the proletarian could not be intercessor for the tribute-paying burgess.  If neither satisfaction nor intercession took place, the king adjudged the party seized to his creditor, so that the latter could lead him away and keep him like a slave.  After the expiry of sixty days during which the debtor had been three times exposed in the market-place and proclamation had been made to ascertain whether any one would have compassion upon him, if these steps were without effect, his creditors had the right to put him to death and to divide his carcase, or to sell him with his children and his effects into foreign slavery, or to keep him at home in a slave’s stead; for such an one could not by the Roman law, so long as he remained within the bounds of the Roman community, become completely a slave.(6) Thus the Roman community protected every man’s estate and effects with unrelenting rigour as well from the thief and the injurer, as from the unauthorized possessor and the insolvent debtor.

Guardianship

Protection was in like manner provided for the estate of persons not capable of bearing arms and therefore not capable of protecting their own property, such as minors and lunatics, and above all for that of women; in these cases the nearest heirs were called to undertake the guardianship.

Law of Inheritance