The sources of The Freedom of the Seas (Mare Liberum)

1. Digest Ulpian 9 authority · 1 neutral 10 citations · 15 passages

   ch. 9 10 passages anchored here · ch. 11 · ch. 12 · ch. 15 · ch. 16 2 passages anchored here

   Ulpian is the most heavily cited jurist, invoked repeatedly as authority on the sea's legal status.

   Et Vlpianus eum qui molem in mare iacit, ita tuendum dicit si nemo damnum sentiat.

2. unspecified legal opinions Ulpian 8 authority 8 citations · 9 passages

   ch. 23 9 passages anchored here

   Cited repeatedly as decisive legal authority.

   He says that these things are not by nature private possession, but that, as Ulpian claims, they are by nature things open to the use of all, both because in the first place they were produced by nature, and have never yet come under the sovereignty of any one, as Neratius says;

3. Horace 4 authority · 1 neutral 5 citations · 8 passages

   ch. 6 · ch. 20 · ch. 23 2 passages anchored here · letter ii 4 passages anchored here

   Named explicitly ('Iam ab Horati tempore') to date the antiquity of the claim.

   Satires II, 2, 129–130.

4. Hugo Grotius 3 authority · 1 neutral · 1 extended 5 citations · 9 passages

   introductory note 3 passages anchored here · letter ii 6 passages anchored here

   Explicitly identified as the source treatise for Mare Liberum and relied upon as evidence of Grotius's expertise.

   Grotius prepared, but did not publish, a reply to Welwod’s first attack, entitled Defensio Capitis Quinti Maris Liberi Oppugnati a Gulielmo Welwodo Juris Civilis Professore, Capite XXVII ejus Libri Scripti Anglica Sermone cui Titulum Fecit Compendium Legum Maritimarum.

5. Legal commentary Bartolus de Saxoferrato 2 authority · 2 refuted 4 citations · 2 passages

   ch. 11 2 passages anchored here

   Bartolus is explicitly named as approving a particular legal interpretation.

   Nam Martiani quidem responsum, de quo et ante egimus, si recte cum Papiniani verbis comparetur, non aliam accipere potest interpretationem, quam eam quae et Iohanni olim et Bartolo probata est, et nunc a doctis omnibus recipitur:

6. Aristotle 3 authority 3 citations · 13 passages

   ch. 26 3 passages anchored here · ch. 30 · letter ii 9 passages anchored here

   Aristotle's Politics and related statements are explicitly named and invoked as authority for the naturalness and classification of trade.

   Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea 5, 5, 11 (1133a 20):

7. Demosthenes 3 authority 3 citations · 5 passages

   ch. 16 · ch. 31 2 passages anchored here · letter ii 2 passages anchored here

   Demosthenes's oration is explicitly named and quoted (in Greek).

   Demosthenes in his speech on the liberty of the Rhodians says that it was necessary for those who wished to be free to keep away from treaties which were imposed upon them, because such treaties were almost the same as slavery.

8. Isocrates 2 authority · 1 neutral 3 citations · 7 passages

   ch. 16 · ch. 31 · letter ii 5 passages anchored here

   Isocrates is explicitly named as source of the cited definition.

   Isocrates, Archidamos 51.

9. Plutarch 3 authority 3 citations · 4 passages

   ch. 6 · ch. 20 · letter ii 2 passages anchored here

   Named explicitly ('Iam olim Plutarchus') and quoted in Greek.

   Diodorus Siculus XI;

10. unspecified legal writings Hermogenianus 3 authority 3 citations

    ch. 23 3 passages anchored here

    Named directly across two passages as a legal authority.

    Hence Hermogenianus, in speaking of separate ownerships, adds the boundaries set to the fields and the buildings thereon constructed.

11. Boethius 2 neutral 2 citations

    ch. 8 · ch. 22

    Named explicitly ('quo Boëthius respexit') as the reference point for the allusion.

    Alter vero obtentus nihilo est iustior, quam ille Graecorum in Barbaros, quo Boëthius respexit:

12. Cornelius Nepos 2 authority 2 citations

    ch. 9 · ch. 23

    Cornelius Nepos's testimony is cited as authority for the ancient precedent of Eudoxus's voyage.

    Etiam Arabibus, si verum est, quod Cornelius Nepos testatus est, Eudoxum quendam sua aetate cum Lathyrum Regem Alexandriae fugeret, Arabico sinu egressum Gades usque pervectum.

13. Georgics Vergil 2 authority 2 citations · 5 passages

    ch. 9 · letter ii 4 passages anchored here

    Vergil's line on the openness of air, water, and shore is cited as poetic authority.

    Vergil, Georgics II, 109.

14. Hesiod 2 authority 2 citations

    ch. 23 · ch. 30

    Named directly as the earliest poetic authority followed in the explanation.

    It will be most convenient to explain the signification of these terms if we follow the practice of all the poets since Hesiod, of the philosophers and jurists of the past, and distinguish certain epochs, the divisions of which are marked off perhaps not so much by intervals of time as by obvious logic and essential character.

15. Homer 1 authority · 1 neutral 2 citations

    ch. 12 · ch. 26

    Homer is explicitly named as the source Pliny cites for the origin of barter.

    Ita commercia victus gratia inventa est Homero Plinius probat.

16. Plato 1 authority · 1 neutral 2 citations · 4 passages

    ch. 12 · letter ii 3 passages anchored here

    Plato is explicitly named as agreeing on the priority of mercantile trade.

    Plato, Sophista 223d.

17. Strabo 2 authority 2 citations · 3 passages

    ch. 23 · letter ii 2 passages anchored here

    Directly quoted/paraphrased reporting on ancient merchant fleets.

    Geographica II et XVII.

18. Thucydides 1 authority · 1 neutral 2 citations · 4 passages

    ch. 23 · letter ii 3 passages anchored here

    Cited merely to report his terminology.

    History I, 139, 2.

19. Thyestes Seneca 2 authority 2 citations · 4 passages

    ch. 23 2 passages anchored here · letter ii 2 passages anchored here

    Explicitly named as Seneca's tragedy and quoted.

    It is this to which Seneca alludes in his tragedy Thyestes,

20. Works and Days Hesiod 2 authority 2 citations

    ch. 15 · letter ii

    Hesiod is explicitly named and quoted (in Greek) as authority for the maxim on rivalry.

    aut enim plane hoc negandum est, aut asseverandum non ad bonam modo, verum etiam ad optimam aemulationem fieri, iuxta Hesiodum:

21. Commentary on the Institutes Ioannes Faber 2 authority 2 citations · 5 passages

    ch. 9 · letter ii 4 passages anchored here

    Ioannes Faber is cited as a further authority for the sea's continuing primeval common status.

    Johannes Faber on Institutes II, 1, 5 (De rerum divisione, § Litorum).

22. De Re Rustica Varro 2 neutral 2 citations · 1 passage

    ch. 9

    Varro is cited as reporting the existence of maritime fish-ponds relevant to private sea enclosure.

    Et huius generis, puto fuisse piscinas maritimas quarum Varro et Columella meminerunt.

23. Mare Clausum John Selden 2 refuted 2 citations · 5 passages

    introductory note 4 passages anchored here · letter ii

    Explicitly introduced as written to refute Mare Liberum and treated as the losing side of the 'battle of books.'

    If it cannot be said that Grotius wears his learning “lightly like a flower”, the treatise of Selden is, in comparison, over-freighted with it;

24. Natural History Pliny 2 authority 2 citations

    ch. 9 · ch. 12

    Pliny's account is cited as authority for the ancient itinerary and trade with India.

    Ab Arabico autem sinu ad Indiam, Indicique Oceani insulas, et auream usque Chersonesum, quam esse Iapanem credunt plerique, etiam re Romana florente navigari solitum, iter a Plinio descriptum, legationes ab Indis ad Augustum, ad Claudium etiam ex Taprobane insula, deinde gesta Traiani et tabulae Ptolemaei satis ostendunt.

160 sources are named once. Each stands in the run of its own chapter, below — in the order of the text.