, but who afterwards suffered their quarrel to be appeased.
The magistrate carefully simulated the demeanour of a private
arbitrator casually called in.

In order to show that this statement is not a mere fanciful conceit, I
will produce the evidence on which it rests. Very far the most ancient
judicial proceeding known to us is the Legis Actio Sacramenti of the
Romans, out of which all the later Roman Law of Actions may be proved
to have grown. Gaius carefully describes its ceremonial. Unmeaning and
grotesque as it appears at first sight, a little attention enables us
to decipher and interpret it.

The subject of litigation is supposed to be in Court. If it is
moveable, it is actually there. If it be immoveable, a fragment or
sample of it is brought in its place; land, for instance, is
represented by a clod, a house by a single brick. In the example
selected by Gaius, the suit is for a slave. The proceeding begins by
the plaintiff's advancing with a rod, which, as Gaius expressly
tells, symbolised a spear. He lays hold of the slave and asserts a
right to him with the words, "_Hunc ego hominem ex Jure Quiritium meum
esse dico secundum suam causam sicut dixi_;" and then saying, "_Ecce
tibi Vindictam imposui_," he touches him with the spear. The defendant
goes through the same series of acts and gestures. On this the Praetor
intervenes, and bids the litigants relax their hold, "_Mittite ambo
hominem_." They obey, and the plaintiff demands from the defendant the
reason of his interference, "_Postulo anne dicas qua ex causa
vindicaveris_," a question which is replied to by a fresh assertion of
right, "_Jus peregi sicut vindictam imposui_." On this, the first
claimant offers to stake a sum of money, called a Sacramentum, on the
justice of his own case, "_Quando tu injuria provocasti, D aeris
Sacramento te provoco_," and the defendant, in the phrase "_Similiter
ego te_," accepts the wager. The subsequent proceedings were no longer
of a formal kind, but it is to be observed that the Praetor took
security for the Sacramentum, which always went into the coffers of
the State.

Such was the necessary preface of every ancient Roman suit. It is
impossible, I think, to refuse assent to the suggestion of those who
see in it a dramatisation of the Origin of Justice. Two armed men are
wrangling about some disputed property. The Praetor, _vir pietate
gravis_, happens to be going by, and interposes to stop the contest.
The disputants