Legal Usage
In Roman law, a thing given as a pledge or bond was a sacramentum. The sacramentum legis actio was a sum of money deposited in a legal procedure to affirm that both parties to the litigation were acting in good faith. If correct law and procedures had been followed, it could be assumed that the outcome was iustum, right or valid. The losing side had thus in effect committed perjury, and forfeited his sacramentum as a form of piaculum, an expiatory sacrifice; the winner got his deposit back. The forfeited sacramentum was normally allotted by the state to the funding of sacra publica, public religious rites.
Read more about this topic: Sacramentum (oath)
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