Hoc modo dicit Cicero agrum Arpinatem Arpinatium dici, Tusculanum Tusculanorum: ‘similisque est’, inquit, ‘privatarum possessionum discriptio. Ex quo quia suum cuiusque fit eorum, quae natura fuerant COMMVNIA, quod cuique obtigit, id quisque teneat’.[61a] Contra autem Thucydides[62a] eam terram quae in divisione populo nulli obvenit, ἀόριστον hoe est, indefinitam, et limitibus nullis circumscriptam vocat.[63a]
Ex his quae hactenus dicta sunt duo intelligi possunt. Prius est, eas res quae occupari non possunt, aut occupatae numquam sunt, nullius proprias esse posse; quia omnis proprietas ab occupatione coeperit. Alterum vero, eas res omnes, quae ita a natura comparatae sunt, ut aliquo utente nihilominus aliis quibusvis ad usum promiscue sufficiant, eius hodieque condicionis esse, et perpetuo esse debere cuius fuerant cum primum a natura proditae sunt. Hoc Cicero voluit:[64a] ‘Ac latissime quidem patens hominibus inter ipsos, omnibus inter omnes societas haec est; in qua omnium rerum, quas ad communem hominum usum natura genuit, est servanda communitas’. Sunt autem omnes res huius generis, in quibus sine detrimento alterius alteri commodari potest. Hinc illud esse dicit Cicero:[65a] ‘Non prohibere aqua profluente’. Nam aqua profluens qua talis non qua flumen
‘For each nation’, Seneca says in another place, ‘made its territories into separate kingdoms and built new cities’.[60]
Thus Cicero says: “On this principle the lands of Arpinum are said to belong to the Arpinates, the Tusculan lands to the Tusculans; and similar is the assignment of private property. Therefore, inasmuch as in each case some of those things which by nature had been common property became the property of individuals, each one should retain possession of that which has fallen to his lot.”[61] On the other hand Thucydides[62] calls the land which in the division falls to no nation, ἀόριστος, that is, undefined, and undetermined by boundaries.[63]
Two conclusions may be drawn from what has thus far been said. The first is, that that which cannot be occupied, or which never has been occupied, cannot be the property of any one, because all property has arisen from occupation. The second is, that all that which has been so constituted by nature that although serving some one person it still suffices for the common use of all other persons, is today and ought in perpetuity to remain in the same condition as when it was first created by nature. This is what Cicero meant when he wrote: “This then is the most comprehensive bond that unites together men as men and all to all; and under it the common right to all things that nature has produced for the common use of man is to be maintained.”[64] All things which can be used without loss to any one else come under this category. Hence, says Cicero, comes the well known prohibition:[65] ‘Deny no one the water that flows by’. For running water considered as such and not as a