Haec igitur sunt illa quae Romani vocant communia omnium iure naturali[71a] aut quod idem esse diximus, publica iurisgentium, sicut et usum eorum modo communem, modo publicum vocant. Quamquam vero etiam ea nullius esse, quod ad proprietatem attinet, recte dicantur, multum tamen differunt ab his quae nullius sunt, et communi usui attributa non sunt, ut ferae, pisces, aves; nam ista si quis occupet, in ius proprium transire possunt, illa vero totius humanitatis consensu proprietati in perpetuum excepta sunt propter usum, qui cum sit omnium, non magis omnibus ab uno eripi potest, quam a te mihi quod meum est. Hoc est quod Cicero dicit inter prima esse Iustitiae munera, rebus communibus pro communibus uti. Scholastici dicerent esse communia alia affirmative, alia privative. Distinctio haec non modo Iurisprudentibus usitata est, sed vulgi etiam confessionem exprimit; unde apud Athenaeum convivator mare commune esse dicit, at pisces capientium fieri. Et in Plautina Rudente servo dicenti,[72a] ‘Mare quidem commune certost omnibus’, assentit piscator, addenti autem, ‘In mari inventust communi’ recte occurrit: _Meum quod rete atque hami nancti sunt, meum potissimumst._ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - the sea for those who are being tossed upon it, the shore for those who have been cast thereon’. Vergil also says that the air, the sea, and the shore are open to all men. These things therefore are what the Romans call ‘common’ to all men by natural law,[71] or as we have said, ‘public’ according to the law of nations; and indeed they call their use sometimes common, sometimes public. Nevertheless, although those things are with reason said to be _res nullius_, so far as private ownership is concerned, still they differ very much from those things which, though also _res nullius_, have not been marked out for common use, such for example as wild animals, fish, and birds. For if any one seizes those things and assumes possession of them, they can become objects of private ownership, but the things in the former category by the consensus of opinion of all mankind are forever exempt from such private ownership on account of their susceptibility to universal use; and as they belong to all they cannot be taken away from all by any one person any more than what is mine can be taken away from me by you. And Cicero says that one of the first gifts of Justice is the use of common property for common benefit. The Scholastics would define one of these categories as common in an affirmative, the other in a privative sense. This distinction is not only familiar to jurists, but it also expresses the popular belief. In Athenaeus for instance the host is made to say that the sea is the common property of all, but that fish are the private property of him who catches them. And in Plautus’ Rudens when the slave says:[72] ‘The sea is certainly common to all persons’, the fisherman agrees; but when the slave