http://www.hakaimagazine.com/article-long/how-ancient-romes-1-hijacked-beach
Wealthy Romans, says classical archaeologist Elaine Gazda of the University of Michigan, were likely the first in history to snap up waterfront properties and build spectacular, sumptuous summer homes overlooking the sea. The coastal real estate boom that followed was unprecedented in antiquity. “We don’t really have ruins resembling these in the Hellenistic world,” says Gazda, who has studied villas along the Bay of Naples. “It’s a completely new phenomenon.”
But what exactly spurred this building boom? Why did Rome’s high society suddenly flock to the Bay of Naples and to many other coasts in the Roman Empire? The answer turns out to be far less obvious than one may think. The serene beauty of a waterfront view, the healthy sea air, the simple pleasure of boating during the hottest months of the year—these were all powerful draws. But new archaeological research suggests that many villa owners saw an economic opportunity, too, wringing profit from these coastal estates.
The great villas weren’t simply pleasure palaces, after all; studies suggest that many of the properties housed thriving fish farms that catered to the almost feverish passion among wealthy Romans for the freshest seafood possible. As Seneca, an adviser to the emperor Nero, once put it, “A surmullet, even if it is perfectly fresh, is little esteemed until it is allowed to die before the eyes of your guest.” And the desire to capitalize on this hunger for freshness eventually pitted the very rich against the working poor, sparking one of the world’s earliest-known battles for the coastline.
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Antoninus Pius seemed sympathetic, ruling that the fishers could fish where they chose in the ocean.
According to Roman law, as one later scholar explained, “the sea is common to all and the shore too, just like the air. …” But the emperor added one curious caveat to his decision: he instructed the fishermen to stay away from the buildings and structures belonging to the villa owners.
This caveat has long puzzled experts in Roman law. Many scholars, says Marzano, think it was likely intended to protect the privacy and pristine waterfront views of patrician property owners. But Marzano’s research provides another explanation. She thinks the fishers were setting their nets along the seaward walls of the owners’ piscinae, intercepting wild fish that the wealthy were trying to lure into their aquaculture ponds.
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