est, inter communia omnium a Iurisconsultis refertur: et a Poeta:[66a]
Dicit haec non esse natura propria, sicut Vlpianus[67a] natura omnibus patere, tum quia primum a natura prodita sunt, et in nullius adhuc dominium pervenerunt (ut loquitur Neratius[68a]); tum quia ut Cicero dicit, a natura ad usum communem genita videntur. Publica autem vocat tralatitia significatione, non quae ad populum aliquem, sed quae ad societatem humanam pertinent, quae publica Iuris gentium in Legibus vocantur, hoc est, communia omnium, propria nullius.
Huius generis est Aër, duplici ratione, tum quia occupari non potest, tum quia usum promiscuum hominibus debet. Et eisdem de causis commune est omnium Maris Elementum, infinitum scilicet ita, ut possideri non queat, et omnium usibus accommodatum: sive navigationem respicimus, sive etiam piscaturam. Cuius autem iuris est mare, eiusdem sunt si qua mare aliis usibus eripiendo sua fecit, ut arenae maris, quarum pars terris continua litus dicitur.[69a] Recte igitur Cicero:[70a] ‘quid tam COMMVNE quam Mare fluctuantibus,
stream, is classed by the jurists among the things common to all mankind; as is done also by Ovid:[66] ‘Why do you deny me water? Its use is free to all. Nature has made neither sun nor air nor waves private property; they are public gifts’.
He says that these things are not by nature private possession, but that, as Ulpian claims,[67] they are by nature things open to the use of all, both because in the first place they were produced by nature, and have never yet come under the sovereignty of any one, as Neratius says;[68] and in the second place because, as Cicero says, they seem to have been created by nature for common use. But the poet uses ‘public’, in its usual meaning, not of those things which belong to any one people, but to human society as a whole; that is to say, things which are called ‘public’ are, according to the Laws of the law of nations, the common property of all, and the private property of none.
The air belongs to this class of things for two reasons. First, it is not susceptible of occupation; and second, its common use is destined for all men. For the same reasons the sea is common to all, because it is so limitless that it cannot become a possession of any one, and because it is adapted for the use of all, whether we consider it from the point of view of navigation or of fisheries. Now, the same right which applies to the sea applies also to the things which the sea has carried away from other uses and made its own, such for example as the sands of the sea, of which the portion adjoining the land is called the coast or shore.[69] Cicero therefore argues correctly:[70] ‘What is so common as