I enjoyed reading the posts as well as the Palmer article on Manumission. There is a question about slavery under Roman law that has always puzzled me.

We know that under the Twelve Tables, circa 450 BCE, Table III, of a judicial remedy of enslavement for debt. After a 30-day grace period a defaulting debtor could be brought before the praetor, imprisoned and, after notice posted and three market days, could be sold as a slave across the Tiber (possibly alternative to execution of the debtor). We also read that in the early Republican period of the possibility of slavery upon default of a mortgage upon the person, the so-called nexum, although this remedy was supposedly banned in about 326 BCE in the Lex Poetelia Papiria. VIII Livy, History of Rome, at 27. Yet we also know that enslavement for debt persisted as a judicial remedy for at least a few centuries after repeal of the nexum because it is mentioned in the writings of Cicero and others. Cicero Pro Flacco,20;Cicero, Pro Quinctio,49; See also, Sallust,Conspiracy of Catiline,33.

My question is this: could the enslaved debtor work his way out of the judicially-imposed enslavement for reason of debt? If this sort of manumission existed, was it purely at the discretion of the creditor/master, or might it have been a judicially imposed right or condition of the enslavement? Was a peculiam still given the debtor/slave, and, if so, was this offset to repay the indebtedness, or could it be used to "redeem" the indebtedness years after the fact? Any thoughts or comments would be appreciated.