Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T21:20:42.185Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Is Modern Liberty Ancient? Roman Remedies and Natural Rights in Hugo Grotius's Early Works on Natural Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 August 2010

Extract

The Dutch humanist Hugo Grotius (1583–1645) is widely acknowledged to have made important contributions to an influential doctrine of individual natural rights. In this article I argue that Grotius developed his rights doctrine primarily out of normative Roman sources, that is to say Roman law and ethics. If this Roman tradition has been as central to Grotius's influential writing on natural rights as I claim, why has it not received more scholarly attention? The reasons lie in the view that while rights are constitutive of modern liberty, they were unknown in classical antiquity.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Constant, Benjamin, “The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with That of the Moderns,” in The Political Writings, trans. and ed. Fontana, B. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 312.Google Scholar

2. Ibid., 310f. Leslie Green has pointed out to me that Constant could be interpreted as claiming only that there were no individual rights among the ancients that amounted to our basic liberties; in my interpretation of Constant, however, he is resting his case on the claim that there were no individual rights among the ancients tout court.

3. Ibid., 315.

4. Ibid., 325. For this tradition of thought, seeNippel, W., “Antike und moderne Freiheit,” in Ferne und Nähe der Antike, ed. Jens, W. and Seidensticker, B. (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2003), 4968.Google ScholarNippel shows a line of argument ranging from Constant over Fustel de Coulanges, Jacob Burckhardt, and Lord Acton to Max Weber, and influencing twentieth-century ancient historians such as Moses Finley and Paul Veyne.

5. Berlin, Isaiah, “Two Concepts of Liberty,” in Four Essays on Liberty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969).Google Scholar

6. Hobbes, , Leviathan, ed. Tuck, R., rev. student, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996),Google Scholarchap. 21, 149f.;Rousseau, , The Social Contract and Other Later Political Writings, ed. Gourevitch, V. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 114fGoogle Scholar.

7. For an extension of the classical republican tradition into the early national period, see the classicPocock, J. G. A., The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975)Google Scholar.

8. Constant's view is probably untenable with regard to “the ancients” as a whole even if one were willing to grant the narrow, restricted focus on institutional history. The view seems tailored to the Greek concept of freedom and would most probably not withstand scrutiny in terms of Roman institutional history; the Romans considered their constitutional safeguards, such as the right to appeal a magistrate's order (provocatio), as “bulwarks to guard freedom.” Livy 3, 45, 8; see alsoCicero, De re publica 2, 55.Google ScholarIn the Greek city-states, “the concept of freedom gained political importance [in the context] of the community's defense against foreign rule and tyranny” and was thus understood collectively. In Rome, by contrast, libertas had a “primarily negative orientation” and was “almost without exception—for aristocrats and commoners alike—protection against (excessive) power, force, ambition, and arbitrariness.” In Rome, the freedom concept was focused “on the needs of individual citizens,” and “its function was markedly negative and defensive” and was “linked primarily with individual rights that eventually were fixed by law.” It is of course this last aspect that provides the link to the tradition that is the subject of this article.Raaflaub, Kurt A., The Discovery of Freedom in Ancient Greece, trans. Franciscono, R. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 267;Google Scholarsee alsoWirszubski, Chaim, Libertas as a Political Idea at Rome during the Late Republic and Early Principate (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), esp. 2430.Google ScholarAlso, it bears mentioning that the Romans did not have the legal concept of expropriation; even for public projects, the government had to buy (without any means of legal coercion) property regularly like a private actor.

9. Reminiscent of the way Edward Coke's First Institute was used in the American colonies before the Revolution and in the early Republic: “From the late seventeenth century until the early nineteenth, Americans learned property law from Coke's treatise without regard to the court system in which those rules arose, which magnified the conceptual division between remedy and right, jurisdiction and jurisprudence, the Westminster courts and the common law.”Hulsebosch, Daniel J., “The Ancient Constitution and the Expanding Empire: Sir Edward Coke's British Jurisprudence,” Law and History Review 21 (2003): 439–82, at 480CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10. For an account of Grotius's Dutch context and the relation in the early seventeenth century between Dutch Roman legal scholarship and the rise of a new commercial morality in the United Provinces, seeWhitman, James, “The Moral Menace of Roman Law and the Making of Commerce: Some Dutch Evidence,” Yale Law Journal 105 (1996): 1841–89.CrossRefGoogle ScholarFor the intellectual climate of the humanist so-called “niederländische Bewegung,” seeOestreich, Gerhard, Strukturprobleme der frühen Neuzeit. Ausgewählte Aufsätze, ed. Oestreich, B. (Berlin: Dunker & Humblot, 1980), 301ffGoogle Scholar.

11. See Haggenmacher, P., “Grotius and Gentili: A Reassessment of Thomas E. Holland's Inaugural Lecture,” in Hugo Grotius and International Relations, ed. Bull, H., Kingsbury, B., Roberts, A. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 133–76,Google Scholarat 161. For a recent article that downplays the importance of subjective natural rights in Grotius's works, seeZagorin, P., “Hobbes without Grotius,” History of Political Thought 21 (2000): 1640,Google Scholaresp. 33ff.

12. See Haakonssen, Knud, “Hugo Grotius and the History of Political Thought,” Political Theory 13 (1985): 239–65;CrossRefGoogle ScholarHaakonssen, , Natural Law and Moral Philosophy. From Grotius to the Scottish Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Haakonssen, , “The Moral Conservatism of Natural Rights,” in Natural Law and Civil Sovereignty: Moral Right and State Authority in Early Modern Political Thought, ed. Hunter, I. and Saunders, D. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 27f.,CrossRefGoogle Scholarsketching a tradition ranging from Grotius to Barbeyrac and Burlamaqui up to the Founding Fathers; for a bibliography containing all editions of Grotius's works up to 1950, seeMeulen, J. Ter and Diermanse, P. J. J., Bibliographie des écrits imprimés de Hugo Grotius (The Haag: M. Nijhoff, 1950).Google ScholarFor Grotius's influence on the political thought of the English Whigs, seeZuckert, Michael P., Natural Rights and the New Republicanism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 106–15,Google Scholar188 (on the influence on John Locke's Questions Concerning the Law of Nations). For Grotius's status as the second most important legal authority after Coke in pre-revolutionary America, seeHoward, A. E. D., The Road from Runnymede: Magna Carta and Constitutionalism in America (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1968), 118f.Google ScholarFor Grotius's impact on international law, seeHaggenmacher, P., “On Assessing the Grotian Heritage,” in International Law and the Grotian Heritage (The Hague: The Instituut, 1985), 150–60.Google ScholarFor the influence on the early German enlightenment, seeHochstrasser, T. J., Natural Law Theories in the Early Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13. Grotius's contribution to the development of a doctrine of natural rights is well known and has received a lot of scholarly attention; seeHaggenmacher, P., “Droits subjectifs et système juridique chez Grotius,” in Politique, droit et théologie chez Bodin, Grotius et Hobbes, ed. Foisneau, Luc (Paris: Kimé, 1997), 73130,Google Scholaresp. 114, n. 1;Tierney, Brian, The Idea of Natural Rights (Scholars Press for Emory University, 1997), 316–42;Google ScholarTuck, Richard, Natural Rights Theories: Their Origin and Development (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 5881;CrossRefGoogle ScholarTuck, , Philosophy and Government, 1572–1651 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 137–76;CrossRefGoogle ScholarTuck, , The Rights of War and Peace (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 78108;Google ScholarTully, James, A Discourse on Property. John Locke and his Adversaries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 68ff.,CrossRefGoogle Scholar80ff., 90, 114, 168; M. Villey, “Les origines de la notion de droit subjectif,” inVilley, , Leçons d'histoire de la philosophie du droit, 2nd ed. (Paris: Dalloz, 1962), 221–50Google Scholar.

14. Constant, , “Liberty of the Ancients,” 312.Google Scholar

15. Which is why only a small part of Aristotle's theory of justice, namely compensatory justice, is imposed on a polis-less natural state that is far more susceptible to the normative sources of Roman origin, which place little emphasis on distribution. For a more general account of Grotius's dependency on a Roman tradition in developing his conception of a state of nature, with special attention to his use of classical rhetoric and his interpretation of the Roman just war tradition, seeStraumann, B., “‘Ancient Caesarian Lawyers’ in a State of Nature: Roman Tradition and Natural Rights in Hugo Grotius's De iure praedae,” Political Theory 34.3 (2006): 328–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16. Roelofsen, C. G., “Some Remarks on the ‘Sources’ of the Grotian System of International Law,” Netherlands International Law Review 30 (1983): 7379, at 79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17. See the authoritative work byHaggenmacher, P., Grotius et la doctrine de la guerre juste (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18. For the political context, seeBorschberg, P., “Hugo Grotius, East India Trade and the King of Johor,” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 30 (1999): 225–48;CrossRefGoogle ScholarBorschberg, , “The Seizure of the Sta. Catarina Revisited: The Portuguese Empire in Asia, VOC Politics and the Origins of the Dutch-Johor Alliance (1602–ca. 1616),” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 33 (2002): 3162;CrossRefGoogle ScholarIttersum, M. van, Profit and Principle: Hugo Grotius, Natural Rights Theories and the Rise of Dutch Power in the East Indies, 1595–1615 (Leiden: Brill, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19. Villey, M., “La genèse du droit subjectif chez Guillaume d'Occam,” Archives de philosophie de droit 9 (1964): 97127.Google Scholar

20. Tierney, , Idea, 4377.Google Scholar

21. Ibid., 330.

22. See Villey, M., “L'idée du droit subjectif et les systèmes juridiques romains,” Revue historique de droit français et étranger 4.24 (1946): 201–27;Google ScholarVilley, “Les origines.” For a good summary of Villey's views and the debate surrounding the origins of individual rights, seeTierney, , Idea, 1342Google Scholar.

23. See Tierney, , Idea, passim and especially 93130.Google Scholar

24. For Gentili, seeHaggenmacher, P., “Grotius and Gentili,” 133–76; forGoogle ScholarVázquez, seeBrett, Annabel S., Liberty, Right and Nature. Individual Rights in Later Scholastic Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 165204;Google Scholarfor Suárez, seeTuck, , Natural Rights, 54ffGoogle Scholar.

25. In his later natural law work, when the argument was not directed against Spain anymore, Grotius turned at times very explicitly against the school of Salamanca (see, e.g., De iure belli ac pacis 2, 20, 40, 4), while he sometimes adduced the Spanish neo-Thomists in his earlier works for prudential reasons; substantively, however, he drew from very different sources even in his early work. SeeStraumann, B., Hugo Grotius und die Antike. Römisches Recht und römische Ethik im frühneuzeitlichen Naturrecht (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2007), 1784, 193fGoogle Scholar.

26. Henry Sumner Maine noted that early on: “The system of Grotius is implicated with Roman law at its very foundation, and this connection rendered inevitable—what the legal training of the writer would perhaps have entailed without it—the free employment in every paragraph of technical phraseology, and of modes of reasoning, defining, and illustrating, which must sometimes conceal the sense, and almost always the force and cogency, of the argument from the reader who is unfamiliar with the sources whence they have been derived.”Maine, H. S., Ancient Law (1866; New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2002), 351. See alsoGoogle ScholarLauterpacht, H., Private Law Sources and Analogies of International Law (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1927), 14.Google Scholar

27. Grotius, Hugo, Mare liberum, The Freedom of the Seas, trans. Magoffin, R. van Deman, ed. Scott, J. B. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1916), 5:Google Scholar“Sed quod hic proponimus nihil cum istis commune habet, […] non ex divini codicis pendet explicatione, cuius multa multi non capiunt […].” For Grotius's reasons to draw on secular sources for his natural law system, seeStraumann, B., Hugo Grotius und die Antike, 11f.,Google Scholar121f.; for an excellent discussion of the secular character of Grotius's natural law and especially the famous etiamsi daremus passage, seeHaakonssen, , “Hugo Grotius and the History,” 247ff.,Google Scholarwith literature. It lies beyond the scope of this article to decide whether Grotius in his use of a Stoic concept of nature could be described as a precursor to Deism.

28. For an excellent discussion of that debate with a balanced, well-reasoned judgment in favor of Grotius's secularity, seeHaakonssen, , “Hugo Grotius and the History,” 247ff.; see alsoGoogle ScholarHaakonssen, , Natural Law and Moral Philosophy, 29;Google ScholarSchneewind, J. B., The Invention of Autonomy. A History of Modern Moral Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 67ff.;Google ScholarBesselink, L., “The Impious Hypothesis Revisited,” Grotiana New Series 9 (1988): 363;CrossRefGoogle ScholarZajadlo, J., “Die Bedeutung der Hypothese etiamsi daremus,” Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie 74 (1988): 8392;Google ScholarD'Entrèves, A. P., Natural Law. An Introduction to Legal Philosophy (London: Hutchinson, 1967), 50ff.;Google ScholarLeger, James St., The “etiamsi daremus” of Hugo Grotius; A Study in the Origins of International Law (Rome: Pontifico Ateneo “Angelicum,” 1962);Google ScholarChroust, A.-H., “Hugo Grotius and the Scholastic Natural Law Tradition,” New Scholasticism 17 (1943): 101ff.CrossRefGoogle ScholarGrotius's secularity is affirmed above all by D'Entrèves and Haakonssen.

29. Straumann, , “‘Ancient Caesarian Lawyers,’” 338ff.;Google ScholarStraumann, , Hugo Grotius und die Antike, 24,Google Scholar41–46, 96–103, 138f. For Grotius's relation to the Dutch East India Company, see Ittersum, Profit and Principle.

30. The legal foundation of these remedies, however, was deemed to consist, in a positivist manner, entirely in the authority (iurisdictio) of the praetor. For the ius gentium, see the authoritative work byKaser, M., Ius gentium (Cologne: Böhlau, 1993), especially 47,Google Scholar165; see alsoGrosso, G., “Riflessioni su ‘ius civile,’ ‘ius gentium,’ ‘ius honorarium’ nella dialettica fra tecnicismo-tradizionalismo giuridico e adeguazione allo sviluppo economico e sociale in Roma,” 451,Google Scholarand especially 442: “[S]i può dunque dire che la trasformazione e crescita sociale di Roma trova nel ius gentium, in particolare nei negozi sanzionali ex fide bona, la diretta traduzione in schemi giuridici.” See also Cicero's account of equitable remedies in the praetor's edict, Cicero De officiis 1, 32. For a recent expression of the opposing view that ius gentium was nothing more than a loose term used by the Roman lawyers to embrace all the legal provisions commonly observed by all humankind, seeAndo, C., “Religion and ius publicum,” in Religion and Law in Classical and Christian Rome, ed. Ando, and Rüpke, J. (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2006), 126–45,Google Scholarat 134ff.

31. As we have seen, Michel Villey, looking at the way the term “ius” was used, argued against a subjective Roman notion of right; see Villey, “Les origines.” But see, for a Greek origin of rights,Miller, F. D., Nature, Justice, and Rights in Aristotle's Politics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995);Google ScholarMitsis, P., “The Stoic Origin of Natural Rights,” in Topics in Stoic Philosophy, ed. Ierodiakonou, K. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999), 153–77.Google ScholarThe question of whether the Greek Stoics possessed a concept of rights remains open and need not concern us here. For an overview, seeMiller, J., “Stoics, Grotius and Spinoza on Moral Deliberation,” in Hellenistic and Early Modern Philosophy, ed. Miller, and Inwood, B. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 117–20. See alsoCrossRefGoogle ScholarKammasch, T., Schwarz, S., “Menschenrechte,” in Der Neue Pauly. Enzyklopädie der Antike, ed. Cancik, H. and Landfester, M. (Stuttgart: Metzler, 2001), 15.1:383–91,Google Scholarwho deny an ancient origin of subjective natural rights. Arguing convincingly for a subjective use even of the term ius in Roman law isDonahue, C., “Ius in the Subjective Sense,” in A Ennîo Cortese, ed. Maffei, D. (Rome: II Cigno, 2001), 1:506–35; see alsoGoogle ScholarKaser, M., “Zum ‘Ius’-Begriff der Römer,” in Essays in Honor of Ben Beinart (=Acta Juridica 1977), 2:6381.Google ScholarPugliese, G., “‘Res corporales,’ ‘res incorporales’ e il problema del diritto soggetivo,” in Studi in onore di Vincenzo Arangio-Ruiz (Naples, 1954), 3:223–60Google Scholarargued early on for a Roman concept of subjective rights; see also, in a similarvein, M. Zuckert, “‘Bringing Philosophy Down from the Heavens’: Natural Right in the Roman Law,” The Review of Politics 51.1 (1989): 7085;Google ScholarGewirth, A., Reason and Morality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), 100Google Scholar.

32. Significantly, the most important example of gross misinterpretation is Grotius's deliberate false attribution of a subjective use of ius gentium (as “right of nations” instead of “law of nations”) to the Roman jurists; see below.

33. For Grotius's right to property, seeBrandt, R., Eigentumstheorien von Grotius bis Kant (Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog, 1974);Google ScholarBuckle, S., Natural Law and the Theory of Property. Grotius to Hume (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991).Google ScholarFor contractual rights, seeDiesselhorst, M., Die Lehre des Hugo Grotius vom Versprechen (Cologne: Böhlau, 1959)Google Scholar.

34. See Constant, , “Liberty of the Ancients,” 325:Google Scholar“The effects of commerce extend even further: not only does it emancipate individuals, but […] it places authority itself in a position of dependence.”

35. See Straumann, B., “The Right to Punish as a Just Cause of War in Hugo Grotius's Natural Law,” Studies in the History of Ethics 2 (2006): 120,Google Scholarhttp://www.historyofethics.org/022006/022006Straumann.shtml (27 February 2008).

36. Grotius tries to render the cause of war as an Aristotelian causa materialis. This terminology, however, does not carry any substantive weight and in De iure belli ac pacis is abandoned entirely; for Grotius's use of the Aristotelian doctrine of causes in De iure praedae, seeHaggenmacher, , Grotius et la doctrine, 63ffGoogle Scholar.

37. Grotius's doctrine of the just war is also reflected in the early Commentarius in theses XI, where only public wars are being discussed, however, and where Grotius does not posit a natural right to punish; seeBorschberg, P., Hugo Grotius “Commentarius in theses XI”. An Early Treatise on Sovereignty, the Just War, and the Legitimacy of the Dutch Revolt (Bern: Lang, 1994), 237ff., 263Google Scholar.

38. The following edition has been used:Grotius, Hugo, De iure praedae commentarius. A Collotype Reproduction of the Original Manuscript of 1604, ed. Scott, J. B., The Classics of International Law 22, vol. 2 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1950); when De iure praedae (enceforth abbreviated as IPC) is cited in English, this translation will be used:Google ScholarGrotius, Hugo, De iure praedae commentarius. Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty, trans. Williams, G. L., with Zeydel, W. H., ed. Scott, J. B., The Classics of International Law 22, vol. 1 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1950).Google ScholarSome of the translations have on occasion been modified.

39. The twelfth chapter of IPC, published anonymously in 1609; the following edition has been used, containing both the text and a translation:Grotius, Hugo, Mare liberum. The Freedom of the Seas, trans. Magoffin, R. van Deman, ed. Scott, J. B. (New York: Oxford University Press, American Branch, 1916),Google Scholarhenceforth abbreviated as ML. In the following, when IPC or ML are cited in English, the translation of IPC will be used; the translation in ML will be used for passages not contained in IPC. Some of the translations have on occasion been modified. For a historical interpretation of ML, seeBorschberg, P., “Hugo Grotius' Theory of Trans-Oceanic Trade Regulation: Revisiting Mare Liberum (1609),” IILJ Working Paper 2005/14,Google ScholarHistory and Theory of International Law Series (www.iilj.org), http//www.iilj.org/publications/2005–14Borschberg… asp (27 February 2008).

40. The manuscript is at Leiden University Library: Theses sive quaestiones LVI, BPL 922 I, fols. 287–92 (henceforth abbreviated as TQ). Citations refer to folio and thesis number, translations are my own. I would like to thank Professor Peter Borschberg for discussing the TQ with me and for generously sharing various drafts of his paper“Grotius, the Social Contract and Political Resistance: A Study of the Unpublished Theses LVI,” IILJ Working Paper 2006/7,Google ScholarHistory and Theory of International Law Series (www.iilj.org), http://www.iilj.org/publications/2006–7Borschberg.asp (27 February 2008).

41. Hugo Grotius, “Defensio capitis quinti Maris Liberi oppugnati a Guilielmo Welwodo,” inMuller, S., Mare Clausum: Bijdrage tot de Geschiedenis der Rivaliteit van Engeland en Nederland in de Zeventiende Eeuw (Amsterdam: F. Muller, 1872), 331–61Google Scholar(henceforth abbreviated as DCQ). Translations from DCQ are taken fromGrotius, Hugo, The Free Sea, translated by Richard Hakluyt with William Welwod's critique and Grotius' reply, ed. Armitage, D. (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2004), 77130Google Scholar.

42. IPC 7, foll. 30a'f.: “Spectandae igitur in utroque causae, quas esse quatuor diximus. Nam qui tres statuunt iustas bellorum causas, defensionem, recuperationem et punitionem, ut loquuntur, illam non infrequenter omittunt, quae locum habet, quoties quae convenerint non praestantur. Totidem enim esse debent exsecutionum, quot sunt actionum genera, quod ad materiam attinet, quae in bello et iudiciis eadem est. Et ex primo quidem genere raro iudicia redduntur, quia moram istam se tuendi necessitas non permittit. Attamen interdicta de non offendendo huc pertinent. Secundo ex genere sunt in rem actiones, quas vindicationes dicimus: interdicta etiam possessionis gratia comparata. Ex tertio et quarto actiones personales, condictiones scilicet ex contractu et ex maleficio.” Punishment constitutes a cause of war, because guilt (culpa) itself creates an obligation; see IPC 12, fol. 119. This doctrine of punishment as a natural cause of war gave rise to Grotius's famous theory, anticipating Locke's “very strange doctrine,” that the private individual in the state of nature has a right to punish; IPC 8, foll. 40f. See B. Straumann, “Right to Punish”;Tuck, R., Rights of War, 82Google Scholar.

43. IPC 12, fol. 119 (=ML 13, p. 74), adducing Ulpian Digest 43, 8, 2, 9; 47, 10, 13, 7.

44. ML 13, p. 75: “Quod autem in iudicio obtineretur, id ubi iudicium haberi non potest, iusto bello vindicatur.”

45. ML 13, p. 75: “Et quod proprius est nostro argumento, Pomponius eum qui rem omnibus communem cum incommodo ceterorum usurpet, MANU PROHIBENDUM respondit.” The adduced passage (Pomponius Digest 41, 1, 50) reads: “Quamvis quod in litore publico vel in mari exstruxerimus, nostrum fiat, tamen decretum praetoris adhibendum est, ut id facere liceat: immo etiam manu prohibendus est, si cum incommodo ceterorum id faciat: nam civilem eum actionem de faciendo nullam habere non dubito.” The conclusion byZiskind, J., “International Law and Ancient Sources: Grotius and Selden,” The Review of Politics 35 (1973): 545CrossRefGoogle Scholarthat the use of force was not mentioned by Pomponius, is baffling.

46. Marcellinus, Digest 1,Google Scholar8, 2, 1: “Et quidem naturali iure omnium communia sunt illa: aer, aqua profluens, et mare, et per hoc litora maris.”

47. IPC 12, fol. 119 (=ML 13, p. 74); the citation is fromUlpian, Digest 43,Google Scholar12, 1, 17.

48. IPC 12, fol. 116' (a passage omitted from ML).

49. IPC 12, fol. 116' (omitted from ML): “Si quis igitur ius tale quasi possideat […].”

50. The terminology is probably post-classical; seeBuckland, W. W., A Text-Book of Roman Law, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1932), 196fGoogle Scholar.

51. IPC 12, fol. 116' (omitted from ML): “Nam quoties in iudiciis interdicta competunt prohibitoria, toties extra iudicia prohibitio competit armata.”

52. Mare liberum, sive de iure quod Batavis competit ad Indicana commercia.

53. For an excellent discussion of the gradual development of the notion of subjective rights in Grotius's work, see Haggenmacher, “Droits subjectifs.”

54. For the notion of a claim-right, seeHohfeld, W., Fundamental Legal Conceptions, as Applied in Judicial Reasoning, and Other Legal Essays, ed. Cook, W. W. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1919), 36Google Scholar.

55. Grotius, , Free Sea, 107; DCQ, 348: “Adde iam quod Mare non tantum dicitur a Iurisconsultis esse commune gentium iure, sed sine ulla adiectione dicitur esse Iuris gentium, quibus in locis ius non potest significare normam aliquam iusti, sed facultatem moralem in re: ut cum dicimus haec res est iuris mei id est habeo in ea dominium aut usum aut simile aliquid.” The notion of ius as a facultas had already been developed by Jean Gerson in the early fifteenth century; seeGoogle ScholarTuck, R., Natural Rights, 25fGoogle Scholar; but see Tierney, B., “Tuck on Rights. Some Medieval Problems,” History of Political Thought 6 (1983), 429–41;Google ScholarTierney, , The Idea of Natural Rights (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997), 207–35Google Scholar.

56. Grotius probably alludes to Digest 1, 8, 4, where it is said that nobody could be denied access to the seashore, provided he keeps clear of houses and buildings, because these are not, as opposed to the sea, subject to the ius gentium (“quia non sunt iuris gentium sicut et mare”). Cf. Instititiones 2, 1, 1.

57. Grotius refers in DCQ back to the following passage in IPC 12, fol. 100' (=ML 5, p. 22): “De mari autem prima sit consideratio, quod cum passim in iure aut nullius, aut commune, aut publicum iuris gentium dicatur.” In the manuscript, the words iuris gentium look as if they had originally read iure gentium, “according to the law of nations,” and were changed only later to the genitive.

58. Where the praetor would grant a remedy based on equity (aequitas), even when there was no remedy available in his edict.

59. See Gewirth, , Reason, 100.Google Scholar

60. Donahue, , “Ius,” 530.Google ScholarMost Roman law textbooks cannot do without the notion of right; see, e.g., Buckland, Roman Law, passim.

61. For Donellus and his subjective conception of ius, see H. Coing, “Zur Geschichte des Begriffs subjektives Recht,” inCoing, , Gesammelte Aufsätze (Frankfurt am Main: V. Klostermann, 1982), 1:251–54;Google ScholarHaggenmacher, , Grotius et la doctrine, 178–80;Google ScholarHaggenmacher, , “Droits subjectifs,” 113Google Scholar.

62. See, e.g., the way Celsus characterizes the term actio as a right (ius) in the context of actions in personam in Digest 44, 7, 51: “Nihil aliud est actio quam ius quod sibi debeatur, iudicio persequendi.” (“An action is nothing else but the right to recover by judicial process that which is owing to one.”) For further examples, see the appendix in Donahue, “Ius,” 531ff. (which does not contain, however, the passage by Celsus just cited).

63. The dating of the manuscript remains tentative; Professor Peter Borschberg holds that based on an analysis of the paper's watermarks, the manuscript appears to have been written in the first decade of the seventeenth century, presumably between 1602 and 1605. Based on an analysis of the concepts used, however, I would date the work rather around the DCQ (1615), both because of the clear-cut subjective use of ius and because of a marginal note denying a natural right to punish (see below, n. 78), which would be more in line with later works such as Defensio fidei catholicae de satisfactione Christi and De imperio summarum potestatum circa sacra, both written between 1614 and 1617.

64. TQ, fol. 287 recto, thesis 2: “Homo naturaliter ius habet in actiones et res suas tum retinendi tum abdicandi: vita autem et corpus retinendi tantum. Hoc tamen ius a iure Dei dimanans ab eodem restringitur, per legem naturalem et per verbum tum extrinsecum tum intrinsecum, id est Scripturam et Revelationem.” It is obvious that Grotius in this work is still indebted to certain Thomist patterns of thought, more so than in his later De iure belli ac pacis; for an account of the development of Grotius's natural law works, see Straumann, Hugo Grotius und die Antike.

65. See Haggenmacher, , “Droits subjectifs,” 81f.,Google Scholarwho assumes that Grotius only later came to differentiate strictly between subjective and objective ius.

66. In a similar way as natural liberty in the Institutes may be restricted by law (ius);Florentinus, Institutiones 1, 3, 1:Google Scholar“Et libertas quidem est, ex qua etiam liberi vocantur, naturalis facultas eius quod cuique facere libet, nisi si quid aut vi aut iure prohibetur.” Pace QuentinSkinner, , Liberty before Liberalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 19,Google Scholarthe Romans jurists obviously thought of freedom as a natural power.

67. TQ, fol. 287 recto, thesis 6: “Homo autem ius non habet >naturaliter< in >vitam corpus< actiones et res alterius hominis, insiquatenus illae >vita corpus< actiones aut res alterius sunt media ordinata ad consequendum >ad bonum suum< ius quod quisque habet in vitam, corpus, actiones et res suas. >Ergo non habet ius puniendi< [.]” The bracketed words are marginal notes inserted by Grotius.

68. On the influence of De officiis, see the brief sketch with literature inDyck, A. R., A Commentary on Cicero, De Officiis (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996), 3949Google Scholar.

69. See ibid., 29–36.

70. See, e.g.,Cicero, De officiis 3,Google Scholar50–68; 2, 78–80.

71. SeeCicero, De officiis 2,Google Scholar78–80, where the injustice of re-distribution is evoked; see below.

72. IPC 2, fol. 6: “VITAM TUERI ET DECLINARE NOCITURA LICEAT.”

73. Cicero, De officiis 1,Google Scholar11: “Principio generi animantium omni est a natura tributum, ut se, vitam corpusque tueatur, declinet ea, quae nocitura videantur, omniaque, quae sint ad vivendum necessaria anquirat et paret, ut pastum, ut latibula, ut alia generis eiusdem.”Cicero, De finibus 4, 16:Google Scholar“Omnis natura vult esse conservatrix sui, ut et salva sit et in genere conservetur suo.”Cicero, De finibus 5, 24:Google Scholar“Omne animal se ipsum diligit, ac simul ortum est id agit ut se conservet, quod hic ei primus ad omnem vitam tuendam appetitus a natura datur, se ut conservet atque ita sit affectum ut optime secundum naturam affectum esse possit.”

74. For the Stoic background (oikeiosis) ofCicero, De officiis 1,Google Scholar11, seeDyck, , Commentary, 86ff.Google ScholarFor Grotius's use of the Stoic concept, seeStraumann, B., “Appetitus societatis and oikeiosis: Hugo Grotius' Ciceronian Argument for Natural Law and Just War,” Grotiana New Series 24/25 (2003/2004): 4166CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

75. Cicero, Pro Milone 10.Google Scholar

76. Ibid.; cited in IPC 1, fol. 4'.

77. IPC 7, fol. 29': “Bellum igitur omne quatuor causarum ex aliqua oriri necesse est. Prima est sui defensio, ex lege prima. Nam ut Cicero inquit, illud est non modo iustum, sed etiam necessarium, cum vi vis illata defenditur.” The citation is fromCicero, Pro Milone 9Google Scholar.

78. IPC 7, fol. 30a: “Ad defensionem tutelamque corporis sui privata vis iusta est omnium animantium exemplo.”

79. Florentinus, Digest 1,Google Scholar1, 3: “ut vim atque iniuriam propulsemus: nam iure hoc evenit, ut quod quisque ob tutelam corporis sui fecerit, iure fecisse existimetur, et cum inter nos cognationem quandam natura constituit, consequens est hominem homini insidiari nefas esse.” Here nature is taken to give rise to the Stoic concept of oikeiosis; see Straumann, “Appetitus societatis.”

80. Digest 48, 6, 11, 2: “Qui telum tutandae salutis suae causa gerunt, non videntur hominis occidendi causa portare.”

81. IPC 2, fol. 6: “ADIUNGERE SIBI QUAE AD VIVENDUM SUNT UTILIA EAQUERETINERE LICEAT.”

82. IPC 2, fol. 6: “quod quidem cum Tullio ita interpretabimur: concessum sibi quisque ut malit, quod ad vitae usum pertinet, quam alteri acquiri id fieri non repugnante natura.” Grotius is citing fromCicero, De officiis 3, 22,Google Scholarwhere we read: “Nam sibi ut quisque malit, quod ad usum vitae pertineat, quam alteri adquirere, concessum est non repugnante natura […].” In De iure belli ac pacis, Grotius cited the whole paragraph from De officiis. For the Stoic background of this concept of nature and the similarity to a passage in Seneca, seeDyck, , Commentary, 524, 527Google Scholar.

83. IPC 2, fol. 6: “Hac enim de re et Stoicis et Epicureis et Peripateticis convenit, ne Academici quidem videntur dubitasse.”

84. IPC 12, fol. 101' (=ML 5, p. 25), adducingCicero, De officiis 1, 21Google Scholar.

85. IPC 2, fol. 6f.

86. Digest 41, 2, 1, 1: “Dominiumque rerum ex naturali possessione coepisse Nerva filius a it eiusque rei vestigium remanere in his, quae terra mari caeloque capiuntur: nam haec protinus eorum fiunt, qui primi possessionem eorum adprehenderint.”

87. A view very similar to John Locke's in his Second Treatise of Government; seeLocke, J., Two Treatises of Government, ed. Laslett, P. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967),Google ScholarSecond Treatise, sects. 3, 124, 134, 136. See alsoWaldron, J., “Locke, Tully, and the Regulation of Property,” Political Studies 32 (1984): 98CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

88. See Cicero, De officiis 1,Google Scholar21. For the property law of the late republican period, seeWatson, A., The Law of Property in the Later Roman Republic (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), 71f.Google ScholarFor the status of private property in Cicero's political thought, seeWood, N., Cicero's Social and Political Thought (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 111–15Google Scholar.

89. For the conception of private property in Mare liberum, see the survey inTully, , A Discourse, 6870Google Scholar.

90. IPC 12, fol. 101 (=ML 5, p. 24): “Ad eam vero quae nunc est dominiorum distinctionem non impetu quodam sed paulatim ventum videtur initium eius monstrante natura. Cum enim res sint nonnullae quarum usus in abusu consistit, aut quia conversae in substantiam utentis nullum postea usum admittunt, aut quia utendo fiunt ad usum deteriores, in rebus prioris generis, ut cibo et potu, proprietas statim quaedam ab usu non seiuncta emicuit.”

91. Digest 7, 5: “De usu fructu earum rerum, quae usu consumuntur vel minuuntur.” This corresponds to the argument used by Pope John XXII against the Franciscans in the fourteenth century; Grotius in the marginal note refers both to John XXII and to Thomas Aquinas. SeeTierney, , Idea, 330f.,Google Scholarwho ascribes Grotius's reasoning solely to the canonistic tradition, ignoring that John XXII himself had argued using Roman law principles.

92. IPC 12, fol. 101 (=ML 5, p. 24): “Hoc enim est proprium esse, ita esse cuiusquam ut et alterius esse non possit: quod deinde ad res posterioris generis, vestes puta et res mobiles alias aut se moventes ratione quadam productum est. Quod cum esset, ne res quidem immobiles omnes, agri puta indivisae manere potuerunt […].”

93. IPC 12, fol. 101' (=ML 5, p. 25): “Repertae proprietati lex posita est quae naturam imitaretur.”

94. See Cicero, De finibus 3, 67,Google Scholarwhere the following statement is imputed to Chrysippus: “Sed quemadmodum, theatrum cum commune sit, recte tamen dici potest eius esse eum locum quem quisque occuparit, sic in urbe mundove communi non adversatur ius quo minus suum quidque cuiusque sit.” SeeLong, A. A., “Stoic Philosophers on Persons, Property- Ownership and Community,” in Aristotle and After, ed. Sorabji, R. (London: Institute of Classical Studies, 1997), 24f.,Google Scholarwho takes Cicero at his word, ascribing this moral justification of private property not very plausibly already to the Greek Stoa from Chrysippus. See thereto the criticism inMitsis, P., “The Stoic Origin,” 171fGoogle Scholar.

95. IPC 12, fol. 101' (=ML 5, p. 25): “Equestria OMNIUM equitum Romanorum sunt: in illis tamen locus meus fit PROPRIUS, quem OCCUPAVI.” The citation is fromSeneca, De beneficiis 7,Google Scholar12, 3.

96. Cicero, De officiis 1,Google Scholar21: “privata nulla natura.” Translations of De officiis are taken fromCicero, , On Duties, ed. Griffin, M. T. and Atkins, E. M. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991);Google Scholarsome of the translations have been modified.

97. DCQ, 336: “Inter quae Ciceronis illud irrideri maxime miror, nihil esse privatum natura, cum sit apertissimae veritatis. Non enim hoc vult Cicero, repugnare naturam proprietati et quasi vetare ne quid omnino proprium fiat, sed naturam per se non efficere ut quicquam sit proprium […].” Grotius's interpretation of Cicero is in line with the standard o e; seeWacht, M., “Privateigentum bei Cicero und Ambrosius,” Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum 25 (1982): 3538Google Scholar.

98. DCQ, 336: “ergo ut res ista fiat istius hominis, factum aliquod hominis debet intercedere, non ergo hoc facit ipsa per se natura. Unde etiam illud apparet, communitatem priorem esse proprietate. Nam proprietas non contingit nisi occupatione, ante occupationem vero praecedat necesse est ius occupandi; hoc autem ius non huic aut illi, sed universis omnino hominibus ex aequo competit, ideoque communitatis naturalis nomine recte exprimitur. Et hinc evenit, ut quae nondum occupata sunt aut a populo ullo aut ab homine etiamnunc sint communia, hoc est nullius propria omnibus ex aequo exposita: quo argumento certissime evincitur nihil a natura cuiquam esse proprium.”

99. See Digest 41, 1, 1–41, 9, 2; the passages are taken mainly from Gaius.

100. Cicero, De officiis 1, 21.Google Scholar

101. See Waldron, J., The Right to Private Property (Oxford: Clarendon, 1988), 382f.Google Scholar

102. For a discussion of such special rights in rem, seeWaldron, , Private Property, 106–9Google Scholar.

103. In the TQ, all the rights described are protected absolutely in that the holders of the rights hold an absolute claim-right against everyone else, entailing a correlative duty of non-interference on the part of everyone else; the subjective rights in TQ are all general rights in rem, inhering in everyone ab initio.

104. For the influence of the Roman doctrine of res nullius on the international law doctrine of terra nullius, seeLesaffer, R., “Argument from Roman Law in Current International Law: Occupation and Acquisitive Prescription,” The European Journal of International Law 16 (2005): 2558,CrossRefGoogle Scholarat 45f. Lesaffer's claim that Roman law had not recognized the occupation (occupatio) of land as a mode of acquisition is aimed at the Roman law concept of occupatio in its strict and original sense; however, real property in Italy could eventually be acquired by occupation in combination with adverse possession (usucapio).

105. Although the criteria are meager, it is not justified to speak of “no criterion for deciding whether an entitlement is just,” as Julia Annas does;Annas, J., “Cicero on Stoic Moral Philosophy and Private Property,” in Philosophia Togata, ed. Griffin, M. and Barnes, J. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 170.Google ScholarIn Cicero, De officiis 1,Google Scholar21, victory in a war is mentioned as a further possibility of acquiring property, without clarifying whether it is required that the war be just, which would obviously constitute a further normative criterion. See the discussion of this passage inDyck, , Commentary, 110f.Google ScholarAnnas, , “Cicero,” 170,Google Scholarn. 25 describes conquest as unjust acquisition, without considering conquest in a just war.

106. Cicero, De officiis 1, 21: “e quo si quis sibi appetet, violabit ius humanae societatis.”Google Scholar

107. IPC 2, fol. 7: “NE QUIS OCCUPET ALTERI OCCUPATA. Haec lex abstinentiae […].”

108. In De iure belli ac pacis Grotius referred to it; see IBP 2, 2, 2, 5, note 6.

109. Cicero, De officiis 3, 42: “Scite Chrysippus, ut multa, ‘qui stadium,’ inquit, ‘currit, eniti et contendere debet quam maxime possit, ut vincat, supplantare eum, quicum certet, aut manu depellere nullo modo debet; sic in vita sibi quemque petere, quod pertineat ad usum, non iniquum est, alteri deripere ius non est.’”Google Scholar

110. Wood, N., Cicero's Thought, 114:Google Scholar“Cicero, like John Locke much later, sees no contradiction between the imperative of morality and the demand of self-advancement as long as the latter is accomplished in a reasonable fashion and not at the expense of others, although both have a rather broad interpretation of what this means.” Similar isLong, A. A., “Cicero's Politics in De officiis,” in Justice and Generosity, ed. Laks, A. and Schofield, M. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 213–40,CrossRefGoogle Scholarat 233. See alsoWaldron, , Private Property, 153–55,Google Scholarwho describes this account of the state of nature as “negative communism.”

111. The term custodia is a legal term meaning, interestingly, an obligation to prevent theft. It appears in the Digest often as an absolute obligation, imposing strict liability without reference to negligence; see, e.g., Digest 4, 9, 1, 8.

112. Cicero, De officiis 2, 78: “Qui vero se populares volunt ob eamque causam aut agrariam rem temptant, ut possessores pellantur suis sedibus, aut pecunias creditas debitoribus condonandas putant, labefactant fundamenta rei publicae, […] aequitatem, quae tollitur omnis, si habere suum cuique non licet. Id enim est proprium […] civitatis atque urbis, ut sit libera et non sollicita suae rei cuiusque custodia.”Google Scholar

113. Cicero, De officiis 2, 73: “Hanc enim ob causam maxime, ut sua tenerentur, res publicae civitatesque constitutae sunt. Nam, etsi duce natura congregabantur homines, tamen spe custodiae rerum suarum urbium praesidia quaerebant.”Google Scholar

114. Cicero, De officiis 2, 74.Google Scholar

115. As Robert Nozick would have it; seeNozick, , Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974), 153–60Google Scholar.

116. For criticism of these arguments of procedural justice, seeWaldron, , Private Property, 253–83Google Scholar.

117. See Brandt, R., Eigentumstheorien, 37,Google Scholarnot paying attention to the historical context of Grotius's doctrine; see alsoWieacker, F., Privatrechtsgeschichte der Neuzeit, 2nd ed. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1967), 292Google Scholar.

118. IPC 12, fol. 114 (=ML 8, p. 62): “Sed cum statim res mobiles monstrante necessitate quae modo explicata est in ius proprium transissent, inventa est permutatio, qua quod alteri deest ex eo quod alteri superest suppleretur. […] Postquam vero res etiam immobiles in dominos distingui coeperunt, sublata undique communio […] neccessarium fecit commercium […]. Ipsa igitur ratio omnium contractuum universalis, ή μεταβλτικ a natura est […].” Grotius refers to Digest 18, 1, 1 pr.: “Origo emendi vendendique a permutationibus coepit.”

119. IPC 12, fol. 114' (=ML 8, p. 63f.): “Commercandi igitur libertas ex iure est primario gentium, quod naturalem et perpetuam causam habet, ideoque tolli non potest, et si posset non tamen posset nisi omnium gentium consensu […].” Previously, Grotius cites Aristotle Politics 1, 1257a15–17. Ironically, during the Anglo-Dutch colonial conference in 1613 in London, Grotius would be attacked by reference to this very sentence of his own. For the arguments of the English delegation, referring to ML 8, p. 63f., seeClark, G. N. and Eysinga, W. J. M., The Colonial Conferences between England and the Netherlands in 1613 and 1615, vol. 1, Bibliotheca Visseriana 15 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1940),Google ScholarAnn. 38, p. 115f.: “Nec enim latere vos arbitramur quid in hanc sententiam scripserit assertor Maris liberi: ‘Commercandi (inquit) libertas, quae ex iure est primario gentium et quae naturalem et perpetuam causam habet, tolli non potest et, si posset, non tamen nisi omnium gentium consensu.’” See also ibid., Ann. 39, p. 120; for the colonial conference in general seeClark, G. N., The Colonial Conferences between England and the Netherlands in 1613 and 1615, vol. 2, Bibliotheca Visseriana 17 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1951), 5981Google Scholar.

120. TQ, fol. 287 recto, thesis 3: “Lex naturalis simul et Scriptura hanc restrictionem tradunt, ut Homo indicio voluntatis >alteri< facto obligetur, et eatenus amittat ius cum in actiones tum in res suas.”

121. Best described in Hohfeldian terms as a power to alter existing legal arrangements; see Hohfeld, Legal Conceptions; for a useful summary, seeFeinberg, J., Social Philosophy (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1973),Google Scholarchapter 4; see for a discussion of such a power in the context of free tradeWaldron, , Private Property, 296Google Scholar.

122. IPC 2, fol. 10: “Quid enim est aliud naturalis illa libertas, quam id quod cuique libitum est faciendi facultas? Et quod libertas in actionibus idem est dominium in rebus.” Grotius refers to Florentinus Institutiones 1, 3, 1: “Et libertas quidem est […] naturalis facultas eius quod cuique facere libet […].” The passage had already been used by Fernando Vázquez de Menchaca for the identification of dominium with naturalis libertas in his Controversiae illustres (1, 17, 4–5). SeeTuck, , Natural Rights, 51;Google ScholarHaggenmacher, , “Droits subjectifs,” 92Google Scholar.

123. In the Theses LVI, alienation is restricted to res and actiones, while later Grotius extends freedom of contract congruously to body and life.

124. IPC 2, fol. 8: “BENEFACTA REPENSANDA.”

125. IPC 7, fol. 29': “Tertia, quae a plerisque omissa est, ob debitum ex contractu, aut simili ratione. Sed idcirco praeteritum hoc puto a nonnullis quia et quod nobis debetur nostrum dicitur. Sed tamen exprimi satius fuit cum et Iuris illa Fecialis formula non alio spectet: Quas res nec dederunt, nec solverunt, nec fecerunt, quas dari, fieri, solvi oportuit.” The rendering of the fetial formula is taken from Livy 1, 32, 5.

126. SeeHaggenmacher, , Grotius et la doctrine, 178–80,Google Scholarwho intimates with regard to the distinction between absolute rights in rem and personal rights at the influence exerted byDonellus, and his Commentarii de iure civili (1589).Google ScholarSee alsoHaggenmacher, , “Droits subjectifs,” 113;Google ScholarCoing, , “Zur Geschichte,” 251–54. Grotius in 1618 had in his library a copy of Donellus's commentary on the title De pactis et transactionibus of the Codex Justinianus; seeGoogle ScholarMolhuysen, P. C., “De bibliotheek van Hugo de Groot in 1618,” Mededeelingen der Nederlandsche Akademie van Wetenschappen, Letterkunde, Afdeeling, Nieuwe Reeks 6, 3 (1943), Nr. 246Google Scholar.

127. IPC 7, fol. 30a: “[…] privata vis iusta est omnium animantium exemplo […] ad consequendum id quod nobis debetur.”

128. Digest 42, 8, 10, 16: “Si debitorem meum et complurium creditorum consecutus essem fugientem secum ferentem pecuniam et abstulissem ei id quod mihi debebatur, placet Iuliani sententia dicentis multum interesse, antequam in possessionem bonorum eius creditores mittantur, hoc factum sit an postea: si ante, cessare in factum actionem, si postea, huic locum fore.” Grotius does not cater to the differentiation made here in terms of the moment of the bankruptcy proceedings, which in absence of a judge is not relevant.

129. See Haggenmacher, , “Droits subjectifs,” 92; see alsoGoogle ScholarDiesselhorst, Die Lehre des Hugo Grotius vom Versprechen, who, however, refers almost exclusively to De iure belli ac pacis.

130. IPC 2, fol. 8, referring toAristotle, Nichomachean Ethics 5,Google Scholar1131a1ff. See the discussion of Grotius's use of Aristotle's theory inHaakonssen, , “Hugo Grotius and the History,” 239–65,Google Scholarat 254ff. Haakonssen errs, however, in thinking that Grotius's compensatory justice is to be identified with Aristotle's particular justice, which would include distributive justice; Grotius in fact identifies his compensatory justice only with Aristotle's justice en tois sunallagmasi. See also IBP 1, 1, 8, 1.

131. Grotius cites—as later in IBPCicero, De officiis 1,Google Scholar23 on fides and Digest 2, 14, 1 on pacta. This is evidence against the view, held by Nörr, that Grotius's fides is a notion pertaining specifically to the law of nations and is not derived from the bona fides of Roman private law; seeNörr, D., Die Fides im römischen Völkerrecht (Heidelberg: C. F. Müller, 1991), 45f.Google ScholarFor fides in Grotius's Parallelon rerumpublicarum, seeFikentscher, W., De fide et perfidia. Der Treuegedanke in den “Staatsparallelen” des Hugo Grotius aus heutiger Sicht (Munich: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1979).Google ScholarFor the development of the doctrine of pactum nudum in seventeenth-century Roman-Dutch law, seeZimmermann, R., “Roman-Dutch Jurisprudence and Its Contribution to European Private Law,” Tulane Law Review 66 (19911992): 16851721Google Scholar.

132. TQ, fol. 287 recto, thesis 7: “Quatenus autem eadem illa sunt media ordinata ad bonum cuique suum, eatenus homo alter in ea ius non habet; atque ita sapiens et medicus consilii habent potestatem non imperii: quod iure exsecutionis demonstratur.” The example can be attributed to Plato's Gorgias (456b), where Gorgias illustrates the alleged necessity of rhetoric with the example of the physician who has to coax the patient into taking his medicine.

133. TQ, fol. 287 recto, thesis 8: “Quod ita ver(um) est nisi consensus accesserit: cuius virtute alter ius habet ad eliciendi media ad bonum alterius.”

134. Gaius, Institutiones 3, 135f.Google Scholar

135. An implication which was to become more prominent in De iure belli ac pacis; seeStraumann, , Hugo Grotius und die Antike, 162–95,Google Scholaresp. 174ff. and 191ff.