Protection of Cultural Heritage in Roman Law

The development of the concept of cultural heritage is foreign to the Roman legal experience and it is, therefore, not possible to identify the construction of an organic and coherent system of protections. Specific provisions, since the end of the republic, are aimed at preserving urban decorum (decus urbium). Among these, the SC. Hosidianum (47 CE) prohibits the buying and selling of buildings aimed at the demolition and reuse of building materials. The same ratio of protection of urban decorum inspires the provisions of the subsequent SC. Acilianum (122 CE), which prohibits bequeathing by legacy of things joined to buildings (ea quae aedibus iuncta sunt). A rescript by Alexander Severus (C.I. 8.10.2 [Imp. Alex. A. Diogenes, a. 222]) emphasizes that the owners are not allowed to disfigure the public view (publicus deformetur adspectus). More generally, it must not be neglected the role played, also with reference to developments of the Roman tradition, by the praetorian interdicts ad publicam utilitatem pertinentea (D. 43.1.2.1 [Paul. 63 ad ed.]), by the jurisprudential elaboration of the category of the res in usu publico (D. 43.8.2.5 [Ulp. 68 ad ed.]), by the use of procedural instruments with widespread legitimation (actiones populares). In late antiquity, the need to preserve cultural heritage sometimes seems to manifest itself with greater intensity (C.Th. 16.10.8; Nov. Maior. 4). Belisarius asks Totila (Proc., Οἱ ὑπὲρ τῶν πολέμων λόγοι, 7.22.11) to spare from destruction the city of Rome, a monument to posterity of the value of all (μνημεῖα τῆς πάντων ἀρετῆς τοῖς ἐπιγενησομένοις), thus avoiding committing a serious crime against men of all times (ἀδίκημα μέγα ἐς τοὺς ἀνθρώπους τοῦ παντὸς αἰῶνος).