Roman soldiers would often bury their fortunes before battle with the intent to dig them up later. What would a dying centurion have imagined as the fate of their treasure if it was one day found? We actually know a bit about Roman law regarding treasure. In 1902 the Numismatic Chronicle published a translation of M. Adrien Blanchet’s paper “Treasure-Trove, its Ancient and Modern Laws”. It is worth reading! Here is an excerpt: The old Roman right leaves us to understand that a citizen who unearthed a treasure, even on ground which belonged to him, should hand it over to the [Imperial treasury]. [2] .... Nerva, with his accustomed liberal spirit, surrendered his rights to a treasure found by Atticus, the father of the Sophist Herod, on his own lands. [4] Hadrian evidently realized the necessity of establishing some legislation on the subject of treasure trove…. The private individual became the full proprietor of treasure discovered on his own land; if, however, the treasure was found on the land of another person, the half of it went to the proprietor of the land, the finder retaining the other half. The same division held good, if the find was made on lands belonging to the state. [5] Severus Alexander was somewhat less generous … treasures of importance … become the property of the State. [6] Under Constantine the Great, the public treasury insisted on its rights; and a law of A.D. 315 granted to the finder one-half of the treasure, when duly announced to the fiscus. The same text provides that no enquiry shall follow, if such declaration be made in proper form. [8] The paper goes on to talk about medieval law: In a mandate of Philip IV, dated 27th August, 1306, it is ordered that treasures without any distinction found on lands or in dwellings belonging to Jews shall be surrendered to the King. [18] Without going into detail, we may mention that in Denmark, according to the law of Valdemar I, [29] it is enacted that if anyone should find gold or silver in a field or on a hill or under his plough, it belongs to the King; and if he denies that he has found it, let him defend himself on oath before his kinsmen. In Italy the State possesses also the right of pre-emption, the application of which has greatly fostered the concealment of treasure-trove, as the proprietors are ware of the small indemnity offered by the State. In mediaeval times the law appears to have been different, at least at Padua; for in 1274 we learn "that a treasure of pure gold of supposed value of more than 30,000 livres was found in the garden of the Hospice of the Domus Dei at Padua, which was unfairly divided byeween the finders, the Bishop, and the State and its officials; a fourth part being, however, reserved for the Hospital, but subject to the conditions that it should be devoted towards its repair." The end of the article talks about law in Victorian Britain. I am not sure if this part of the article was written by Blanchet or by the translator Herbert Grueber. The author praises John Evans (the editor of the Numismatic Chronicle where this paper appears). In 1886 the discovery of a hoard of gold coins of Henry VI-VIII at Park Street, St. Albans, was the means of bringing about a further improvement in the conditions of recompense to finders of treasure-trove, and in this improvement was mainly due to the strenuous efforts made by our President, Sir John Evans. On that occasion our President pointed out to the Treasury that the system ... of giving the finders merely the intrinsic value of coins retained, whilst the Treasury received from the Trustees of the British Museum and other public institutions the archaeological or numismatic value of the coins, was a very injurious and unfair one.... Already in the country districts the cultivator of the soil is inclined to resent the interference of the State with his personal affairs; and I do not fear contradiction when I state that numerous finds of coins, jewelry, or other small objects of antiquity have been dispersed and even melted down before being studied, and that because the finder imagines that the State has an absolute right over all finds. This feeling is probably the result of the influence of the various customs ... which have been enumerated above. For numismatics in particular it is of the highest importance that the treasures should be preserved in the entirety and also that their provenance should be known.
An interesting bit of background info to a contemporary issue, Ed. And of course, there’s the Biblical parable of the hidden treasure in a field from Matthew 13:44: “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.” Jesus seems to speak approvingly of the man’s actions, though it’s a hard parable to parse. Was the man (clearly not the property owner) legally entitled to the find under Jewish (or Roman provincial?) law, but had to buy the land in order to extract the treasure easily–which seems to be the Wiki interpretation? Or did the treasure fully belong to the property owner, so the worker bought the land so that he could legally claim the treasure too? The difficulty for me here is that the worker appears to be sneaky or unethical, keeping the find from the property owner, and yet Jesus seems to affirm his action. Perhaps the point of the parable is to seek the Kingdom by any means necessary. But nowhere in the parable is it implied that the find should go to the state or ruling authority.
Sounds like through the ages there's been a lot of back-and-forth with these laws. Thanks for the background, Ed.
