tamen omnes proprietatem rerum, saltem mobilium a iure gentium primario prodire, itemque contractus omnes quibus pretium non accedit.[155a] Philosophi[156a] τῆς μεταβλητικῆς quam translationem vertere licebit, genera statuunt duo: τὴν ἐμπορικιὴν καὶ τὴν καπηλικήν quarum ἐμπορική quae ut vox ipsa indicat inter gentes dissitas, ordine naturae prior est, et sic a Platone ponitur.[157a] Καπηλική eadem videtur esse quae παράστασις[158a] Aristoteli, tabernaria sive stataria negotiatio inter cives. Idem Aristoteles[159a] τὴν ἐμπορικήν dividit in ναυκληρίαν et φορτηγίαν quarum haec terrestri itinere, illa maritimo merces devehit. Sordidior autem est καπηλική contra honestior ἐμπορική et maritima maxime, quia multa multis impertit.[160a]
Vnde navium exercitionem ad summam rempublicam pertinere dicit Vlpianus; institorum non eundem esse usum; quia illa omnino secundum naturam necessaria est. Aristoteles:[161a] ἔστι γὰρ ἡ μεταβλητικὴ πάντων, ἀρξαμένη τὸ μὲν πρῶτον ἐκ τοῦ κατὰ φύσιν, τῷ τὰ μὲν πλείω, τὰ δὲ ἐλάττω τῶν ἱκανῶν ἔχειν τοὺς ἀνθρώπους, ‘est enim translatio rerum omnium coepta ab initio, ab eo quod est secundum naturam, cum homines partim haberent plura, quam sufficerent, partim etiam pauciora’. Seneca:[162a] ‘quae emeris, vendere; gentium ius est’.
Commercandi igitur libertas ex iure est primario gentium,
authorities agree that the ownership of things, particularly of movables, arises out of the primary law of nations, and that all contracts in which a price is not mentioned, are derived from the same source.[155] The philosophers[156] distinguish two kinds of exchange using Greek words which we shall take the liberty to translate as ‘wholesale’ and ‘retail’ trade. The former, as the Greek word shows, signifies trade or exchange between widely separated nations, and it ranks first in the order of Nature, as is shown in Plato’s Republic.[157] The latter seems to be the same kind of exchange that Aristotle calls by another Greek word[158] which means retail or shop trade between citizens. Aristotle makes a further division of wholesale trade into overland and overseas trade.[159] But of the two, retail trade is the more petty and sordid, and wholesale the more honorable; but most honorable of all is the wholesale overseas trade, because it makes so many people sharers in so many things.[160]
Hence Ulpian says that the maintenance of ships is the highest duty of a state, because it is an absolutely natural necessity, but that the maintenance of hucksters has not the same value. In another place Aristotle says: “For the art of exchange extends to all possessions, and it arises at first in a natural manner from the circumstance that some have too little, others too much.”[161] And Seneca is also to be cited in this connection for he has said that buying and selling is the law of nations.[162]
Therefore freedom of trade is based on a primitive right of nations which has a natural and permanent cause; and