The belief that the ecological-environmental problem would have suddenly arisen between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, coinciding with the industrial revolution, however widespread, represents a commonplace. Indeed, the bad relationship established by man towards his natural habitat has much more ancient origins.
The analysis of environmental degradation factors and the relative reactions of the ancient legal systems can be interesting and useful, on the one hand, in order to understand the differences in quality, in the perceptibility of the human senses, in the consequences, in the times of realization of the harmful effects, between ancient and new forms of offense to the environment; on the other hand, in order to reflect, in a historical-juridical key, on the incisiveness of the adopted remedies.
Reconstructing the complex and uncertain 'battle' that ancient societies, in particular, the Roman one, found themselves fighting against the aggressions brought by man to the environment, means, first of all, 'to measure up' with the effectiveness of remedies and instruments of a technical-legal nature that, over the centuries were devised to try, at least, to mitigate if not to stem environmental degradation; at the same time, it means taking note of how to 'undermine' the effectiveness of these provisions in the bud and of those instruments there was the same, profound nature of the ecological problem, which, as in our days, even in antiquity (in particular in the Roman world) it was essentially 'cultural'. In bringing out this awareness, in providing it with documentary concreteness it is intended to establish a dialogue between past, present and future, suitable for grafting a (confidently profitable) circular process of knowledge for the benefit of today's young people and those of future generations.