ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses that Hugo Grotius developed his rights doctrine primarily out of normative Roman sources, that is to say Roman law and ethics. It examines the use of the normative Roman works by the natural law tradition, or rather the use of those works by one pivotal exponent of that tradition, Hugo Grotius. The reasons lie in the view that while rights are constitutive of modern liberty, they were unknown in classical antiquity. The natural law tradition that he shaped laterendowed political theorists of the republican mold with a moral account of a realm outside of or previous to the political, thus providing political theory with a yardstick for a moral evaluation of the extent of political power. Grotius then justifies self-defense with an argument out of Pro Milone, according to which "the act of homicide is not only just but even necessary, when it represents the repulsion of violence by means of violence.".
