Sul regime proprietario del bottino di guerra mobiliare

Purpose of the essay is to inquire into the legal issues concerning the ownership of the war booty during the Roman Republic. The article aims to distinguish the booty (praeda) from the single objects that each civilian-soldier took directly away from the enemy (res hostium). Just with the beginning of the Republic probably the plebs succeed in imposing to the patricians not to keep what each soldier stripped from the enemies, imposing on the contrary a customary duty to deposit each object of the enemies in the middle of the camp. Thus the concept of preaeda, previously referred only to the land booty, were now extended to the movable objects. This praeda were neither property of the State nor common property of the soldiers. It was handled by the command in chief of the exercitus. Just after the magistratus decided upon the destination of the booty, the ownership of the latter became clear (property of the State, of the magistratus, of the soldiers, of the praedae sectores.