EDICT OF SERVILIUS ON MILITARY SERVICE
   
495 BC )
 

 
( Johnson, Coleman-Norton & Bourne, Ancient Roman Statutes, Austin, 1961, p. 8, n. 4
 ).

 

 
     When a war with the Volscians was imminent and the plebeians seemed averse from enlistment, because of previous experience with patrician injustice inflicted on them or on their property during their military service, Publius Servilius Priscus Structus, a consul, calmed the people by an edïct, proclaiming certain immunities for debtors absent with the armed forces, and thus secured a satisfactory levy of the lower classes in the City.
 

 
ENGLISH TRANSLATION.
 

 
     No person shall hold a Roman citizen in bonds or in confinement, that he may not have the opportunity to give his name before the consuls.
     No person shall seize or shall sell a soldier's property while he is in camp or shall detain his children or grandchildren.