The paper criticizes some recent interpretations of the
Roman
legal concept of res communes omnium, often assimilated to modern notion of “common pool resources”.
Through
the analysis of the legal discipline of the
most relevant res communes omnium, the sea and the seaside,
I conclude that
the rules of this
Roman category of things are not anyhow comparable to
those of “common goods”.
In fact, while these are characterized by the
only possibility to extract values of use from the good, without any chance
of appropriation, the public character of the use of the beach and the sea
in thinking of the Roman jurists allows the appropriation of portions.