[39]
13. Again, if under stress of circumstances1
individuals have made any promise to the enemy,
they are bound to keep their word even then. For
instance, in the First Punic War, when Regulus was
taken prisoner by the Carthaginians, he was sent
to Rome on parole to negotiate an exchange of
prisoners; he came and, in the first place, it was
he that made the motion in the Senate that the
prisoners should not be restored; and in the second
place, when his relatives and friends would have
kept him back, he chose to return to a death by
torture rather than prove false to his promise, though
given to an enemy.
1 Fidelity to a promise; (1) Regulus
M. Tullius Cicero. De Officiis. With An English Translation. Walter Miller. Cambridge. Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Mass., London, England. 1913.
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