Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

;CHAPTER XVILEGAL REGULATIONS OF ROME AS REGARDS FISHINGPrevious instances of taking fish belonging to another haveso far only been attended by divine or superhuman punishment.I venture now a few sentences on what were the Roman(I have discovered no Greek) legal regulations—for there doesnot appear to have existed at Rome any special law on Fishingand how the rights of fisheries and fishers were protected.From the evidence available it is clearDigest, 41. I. I, lays down that " omnia animalia, qute terra,mari, caelo capiuntur, id est ferae bestiae, volucres, et pisces,capientum hunt."(3)That the sea and public rivers were not capable ofindividual ownership.several exceptions ; for instance, (a) a cove of the sea borderingon a man's land — perhaps if enclosed with stakes, etc.—couldbe exclusively occupied for fishing {Digest, 47. 10, ss. 13 and 14)(i) That among Res Nullius, or things belonging to noone, were fish and wild animals in a state of nature. The(2) That they became the property of the person who first" reduces them into possession," i.e. captures them.(4) That no citizen could be prevented from fishing in thesea and such rivers by any person. To this rule there are(6) a right of fishing in a recess or backwater of a public rivercould be acquired by prescription, and would then be protectedby a possessory Interdict against any one who tried to fishthis water {Ibid., 44. 3. 7).It is hard to define precisely what constituted a publicriver and what a private river. Under the term " public "came all rivers of any size, not merely those that were tidal.231——