The Rhodian Law on Jettison

Disasters did strike, although unevenly. Greek and Roman literature, including Paul’s report in the Acts of the Apostle,¹³¹ betray both fascination for and familiarity with standard procedure during storms at sea.

To rescue the ship, part or all of the cargo sometimes had to be jettisoned. Those whose goods had been saved thanks to the others’ - sometimes unwilling - sacrifice were called to contribute to the loss. The Roman jurists acknowledge the routine resort to foreign usage,¹³²the so-called lex Rhodia de iactu, the Rhodian origin of which is little more than hypothetical. From what can be reconstructed on the basis of D. 14.2 and Pseudo-Paul’s Sententiae,1³³ it seems that a contribution was expected not only in the case ofjettison but also for ransom paid to pirates, according to late republican and Augustan jurists like Servius, Ofilius, and Labeo.1³⁴ They and later classical jurists devised a very sophisticated system of estimating the respective market value of goods lost, damaged, or saved. Although the lex Rhodia was not included in any edict and should be regarded as a mere appendix to the law of hire and lease (locatio conductio), the title dedicated to it was placed between the actio exercitoria (D. 14.1) and the actio institoria (D. 14.3) by the compilers of the Digest, because the owners of the jettisoned goods had a remedy against the ship’s captain, and because the lex Rhodia was akin to a lex contractus or lex praepositionis, in that it expounded the terms of the contract of hire between shipper and merchants.¹³⁵

class=a2 style='text-indent:18.0pt'>The legal status of the usage is uncertain but is somewhat illuminated by a very controversial text by the late-second-century jurist Volusius Maecianus, the alleged author of a monograph on the lex Rhodia.1³⁶ A petitioner writes to the emperor to complain about being robbed by islanders after a shipwreck. The emperor’s answer, based on an earlier ruling by Augustus, specifies that the lex Rhodia applies whenever it is not in conflict with Roman law. Taken at face value, the text indicates that a legal vacuum could - or had to - be filled by existing usage, whatever it is and whatever its origin; foreign customs are better than nothing, and Roman lawmakers could not be expected to cover all situations. Maritime law was obviously permeable to external input.

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Source: Johnson David (ed). The Cambridge companion to Roman Law. Cambridge University Press,2015. — 554 p.. 2015

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