puta, indivisae manere potuerunt; quamquam enim horum usus non simpliciter in abusu consistat, eorum tamen usus abusus cuiusdam causa comparatus est, ut arva et arbusta cibi causa, pascua etiam vestium; omnium autem usibus promiscue sufficere non possunt. Repertae proprietati lex posita est, quae naturam imitaretur. Sicut enim initio per applicationem corporalem usus ille habebatur, unde proprietatem primum ortam diximus, ita simili applicatione res proprias cuiusque fieri placuit. Haec est quae dicitur occupatio, voce accommodatissima ad eas res quae ante in medio positae fuerant; quo Seneca Tragicus alludit:[51a]
Et Philosophus:[52a] ‘Equestria OMNIVM equitum Romanorum sunt. In illis tamen locus meus fit PROPRIVS, quem OCCVPAVI’. Hinc Quintilianus dicit,[53a] quod omnibus nascitur, industriae esse praemium; et Tullius,[54a] factas esse veteri occupatione res eorum qui quondam in vacua venerant.
Occupatio autem haec in his rebus quae possessioni renituntur, ut sunt ferae bestiae, perpetua esse debet, in aliis sufficit, corpore coeptam possessionem animo retineri. Occupatio in mobilibus est apprehensio, in immobilibus
for instance, as fields, could remain unapportioned. For although their use does not consist merely in consumption, nevertheless it is bound up with subsequent consumption, as fields and plants are used to get food, and pastures to get clothing. There is, however, not enough fixed property to satisfy the use of everybody indiscriminately.
When property or ownership was invented, the law of property was established to imitate nature. For as that use began in connection with bodily needs, from which as we have said property first arose, so by a similar connection it was decided that things were the property of individuals. This is called ‘occupation’, a word most appropriate to those things which in former times had been held in common. It is this to which Seneca alludes in his tragedy Thyestes,
And in one of his philosophical writings he also says:[52] ‘The equestrian rows of seats belong to all the equites; nevertheless, the seat of which I have taken possession is my own private place’. Further, Quintilian remarks[53] that a thing which is created for all is the reward of industry, and Cicero says[54] that things which have been occupied for a long time become the property of those who originally found them unoccupied.
This occupation or possession, however, in the case of things which resist seizure, like wild animals for example, must be uninterrupted or perpetually maintained, but in the case of other things it is sufficient if after physical possession is once taken the intention to possess is maintained. Possession of movables implies seizure, and possession of