Promises Past: Marcus Atilius Regulus and the Dialogue of Natural Law

Abstract

We begin with two Roman stories—one ancient and now arcane, one modern and yet notorious. One recounts the heroism of a single man; the other convenes embassies from a majority of the world’s nations. Notwithstanding a bridge of more than two millennia, a common theme emerges from these two remote and seemingly dissimilar episodes—a lesson about the sanctity of promise-keeping between sovereign peoples. Be it the oath of a lone prisoner of war or a proud nation’s refusal to sign an international constitutive document, these diplomatic choices offer compelling evidence of how a people conceives of itself in relation to the other, as well as of its notions of justice and collective honor. Perhaps more than anything else, these shared values, these ideals, guide and inform every promise made— or not made—between peoples, and they dictate the manner in which that promise will be honored. To illuminate this point, I turn to the stories to which I have already alluded: the legendary faithfulness of