Original scientific paper
LEGAL STATUS OF THE PARTIES TO MARINE VENTURES IN THE ANCIENT WORLD
Zlatko Đukić
orcid.org/0009-0001-0916-0102
; Filozofski fakultet u Osijeku, Osijek, Hrvatska
Abstract
Th is work describes the historical and legal status of the
individuals who participated in sailing ventures on rivers,
lakes and the sea, which can be followed in continuity since
the oldest civilizations. Th e basic objective of these activities
was to link various markets in order to export products
and import merchandise absent on a given local market.
Th e oldest thus far preserved and known legal provisions
that regulate such water-borne ventures and the ensuing
relations were found in the Laws of Eshnunna and the
Babylonian Code of Hammurabi. Also known are the
legal tenets of oriental peoples which, via the Chaldeans,
Egyptians and Phoenicians, made their way to the shores
of the Mediterranean Sea. Thanks to this, the sequence of
maritime codes used by the Mediterranean civilizations
has been preserved to this day. Th e role of sailors changed
over the course of history, and it did not particularly diff er
from the role of shipowners. In the codes which governed
seafaring and the legal relations between participants in
sailing ventures (from the Laws of Eshnunna through the
Code of Hammurabi and the Rhodian Sea Law of Jettison
to Roman law), it is notable that navigation is managed
exclusively by the shipowner (dominus navis) who is also
the ship’s commander, but also a merchant, for this individual
exchanged goods. Th e question arises as to whether
the actual owner of a vessel was capable of dealing with
three different jobs. Roman law confi rms that this was not an ideal solution, for already by that point a distinction was drawn between the shipmaster (magister navis) and the person who engaged in
maritime activity, i.e. the shipowner (exercitor navis).
Keywords
participants in seafaring and trade
Hrčak ID:
75453
URI
Publication date:
30.12.2011.
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