Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/394

 388 THE KEVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. tion per ces et lihram — tlmt is to say, with the solemn formality "which was cummonly employed to confer upon a man the right of property in any object.' The plebeian, it is true, took secm-ity against slavery. By a sort of fiduciary contract, he stipulated that he should retain his rank of freeman until the day of the pay- ment, and that on that day he should recover full pos- session of himself on paying the debt. But on that day, if the debt was not paid, he lost the benefit of his contract. Pie was in the power of his creditor, who took him to his house and made him his client and servant. In all this the creditor did not think he was committing any act of inhumanity ; the ideal of society being, in his eyes, the government of the gens, he saw nothing more legitimate or more commendable than to bring men into it by any means possible. If this plan had succeeded, the plebs would have disappeared in little time, and the Roman city would have been noth- ing but an association of patrician gentes, sharing among them a multitude of clients. But this clientship was a chain which the plebeian held in horror. He fought against the patrician who, aimed with his debt, wished to make a client of him. Clientship was for him equivalent to slavery ; the j^a- trician's house was, in his eyes, a prison {ergastulum). Many a time the plebeian, seized by the patrician, called upon his associates, and stirred up the plebeians, cry- ing that he was a free man, and displaying the wounds which he had received in the defence of Rome. The calculation of the patricians only served to irritate the plebs. They saw the danger, and strove with all their ' Varro, L. L., VII. 105. Livy, VIII. 28. Aulus Gellius, XX. 1. Fcstus, V. Nexum.