, and others which
resemble them, are either of statutory origin, or at any rate belong to
the civil law. There are other actions, however, both real and personal,
which the praetor has introduced in virtue of his jurisdiction, and of
which it is necessary to give examples. For instance, he will usually,
under the circumstances to be mentioned, allow a real action to be
brought with a fictitious allegation--namely, that the plaintiff has
acquired a title by usucapion where this, in fact, is not the case;
or, conversely, he will allow a fictitious plea on the part of the
defendant, to the effect that the plaintiff has not acquired such a
title where, in point of fact, he has.

4 Thus, if possession of some object be delivered on a ground sufficient
to legally transfer the same--for instance, under a sale or gift, as
part of a dowry, or as a legacy--and the transferee has not yet acquired
a complete title by usucapion, he has no direct real action for its
recovery, if he accidentally loses possession, because by the civil law
a real action lies at the suit of the owner only. But as it seemed hard
that in such a case there should be no remedy, the praetor introduced
an action in which the plaintiff, who has lost possession, fictitiously
allege that he has acquired a full title by usucapion, and thus claims
the thing as his own. This is called the Publician action, because it
was first placed in the Edict by a praetor called Publicius.

5 Conversely, if a person, while absent in the service of the State, or
while in the power of an enemy, acquires by usucapion property belonging
to some one resident at home, the latter is allowed, within a year
from the cessation of the possessor's public employment, to sue for
a recovery of the property by a rescission of the usucapion: by
fictitiously alleging, in other words, that the defendant has not thus
acquired it; and the praetor from motives of equity allows this kind of
action to be brought in certain other cases, as to which information may
be gathered from the larger work of the Digest or Pandects.

6 Similarly, if a person conveys away his property in fraud of
creditors, the latter, on obtaining from the governor of the province a
decree vesting in them possession of the debtor's estate, are allowed to
avoid the conveyance, and sue for the recovery of the property; in other
words, to allege that the conveyance has never taken place, and that the
property consequently still b