Acceso usuarios
Some important texts of Justinian's Digest about river's banks, riparian lands and flood problems will be re-examined considering the historical juridical and epigraphic sources on the matter and the latest results of the archaeological research on rivers during the classical Roman empire: in particular, the juridical definitions of river's banks, the problem of their exploitation for agriculture and commerce, their different regulation in the agri limitati and arcifinii and the way adopted to avoid or reduce the damages caused by floods, inundations and land erosions will be revised. In my opinion the essay shows that the Roman jurists were fully aware of the juridical and technical problems connected with the exploitation of rivers' banks and, in order to avoid the consequences, sometimes devastating, of floods on the riparian lands, they often proposed equitable solutions conciliating the utilitas singulorum with the common interest.
