Si iusta multi, et ipse Augustinus,[185a] arma crediderunt eo nomine suscipi, quod per terras alienas iter innoxium negaretur, quanto illa erunt iustiora, quibus maris, quod naturae lege commune est, usus communis et innoxius postulatur? Si iuste oppugnatae sunt gentes quae in suo solo commercia aliis interdicebant, quid illae quae populos ad se nihil pertinentes per vim distinent, ac mutuos earum commeatus intercludunt? Si res ista in iudicio agitaretur, dubitari non potest quae a viro bono expectari deberet sententia, ait Praetor:[186a] ‘Quo minus illi in flumine publico navem agere, ratem agere, quove minus per ripam exonerare liceat, vim fieri veto’. De mari et litore in eandem formam dandum interdictum docent interpretes, exemplo Labeonis, qui cum interdiceret Praetor:[187a] ‘Ne quid in flumine publico ripave eius facias, quo statio iterve navigio deterius sit, fiat’; simile dixit interdictum competere in mari:[188a] ‘Ne quid in mari inve litore facias, quo portus, statio, iterve navigio deterius sit, fiat’. Immo et post prohibitionem, si quis scilicet in mari navigare prohibitus sit, aut non permissus rem suam vendere, aut re sua uti, iniuriarum eo nomine competere actionem Vlpianus respondit.[189a] Theologi insuper et qui tractant casus, quos vocant, conscientiarum, concordes tradunt, - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - If many writers, Augustine himself[185] among them, believed it was right to take up arms because innocent passage was refused across foreign territory, how much more justly will arms be taken up against those from whom the demand is made of the common and innocent use of the sea, which by the law of nature is common to all? If those nations which interdicted others from trade on their own soil are justly attacked, what of those nations which separate by force and interrupt the mutual intercourse of peoples over whom they have no rights at all? If this case should be taken into court, there can be no doubt what opinion ought to be anticipated from a just judge. The praetor’s law says:[186] ‘I forbid force to be used in preventing any one from sailing a ship or a boat on a public river, or from unloading his cargo on the bank’. The commentators say that the injunction must be applied in the same manner to the sea and to the seashore. Labeo, for example, in commenting on the praetor’s edict,[187] ‘Let nothing be done in a public river or on its bank, by which a landing or a channel for shipping be obstructed’, said there was a similar interdict which applied to the sea, namely,[188] ‘Let nothing be done on the sea or on the seashore by which a harbor, a landing, or a channel for shipping be obstructed’.