erti_, in relation to
their masters; and _libertini_, in relation to free born citizens.

CHAPTER V.

_Private Rights of Roman Citizens._

The right of liberty comprehended not only liberty from the power of
masters, but also from the dominion of tyrants, the severity of
magistrates, the cruelty of creditors, and the insolence of more
powerful citizens. After the expulsion of Tarquin, a law was made by
Brutus, that no one should be king at Rome, and that whoever should form
a design of making himself a king, might be slain with impunity. At the
same time the people were bound by an oath that they would never suffer
a king to be created.

Citizens could appeal from the magistrates to the people, and the
persons who appealed could in no way be punished, until the people
determined the matter; but they were chiefly secured by the assistance
of the tribunes.

None but the whole Roman people in the _comitia centuriata_ could pass
sentence on the life of a Roman citizen. No magistrate could punish him
by stripes or capitally. The single expression, "I am a Roman citizen,"
checked their severest decrees.

By the laws of the twelve tables, it was ordained, that insolvent
debtors should be given up to their creditors, to be bound in fetters
and cords, and although they did not entirely lose the rights of
freemen, yet they were in actual slavery, and often more harshly treated
than even slaves themselves.

To check the cruelty of usurers, a law was afterwards made that no
debtors should be kept in irons, or in bonds; that the goods of the
debtor, not his person, should be given up to his creditors.

The people, not satisfied with this, as it did not free them from
prison, demanded an entire abolition of debt, which they used to call
new tables; but this was never granted.

Each clan and family had certain sacred rights, peculiar to itself,
which were inherited in the same manner as effects. When heirs by the
father's side of the same family failed, those of the same gens
succeeded in preference to relations by the mother's side of the same
family. No one could pass from a Patrician family to a Plebeian, or from
a Plebeian to a Patrician, unless by that form of adoption which could
only be made at the _comitia curiata_.

No Roman citizen could marry a slave, barbarian or foreigner, unless by
the permission of the people.

A father among the Romans had the power of life and death over his
children. He could n