On Duties 1.37 — Cicero (on the Stoics)

Cicero (on the Stoics), On Duties 1.37

There is extant, too, a letter of the elder Marcus Cato to his son Marcus, in which he writes that he has heard that the youth has been discharged by the consul, when he was serving in Macedonia in the war with Perseus. He warns him, therefore, to be careful not to go into battle; for, he says, the man who is not legally a soldier has no right to be fighting the foe. This also I observe—that he who would properly have been called "a fighting enemy" (perduellis) was called "a guest" (hostis), thus relieving the ugliness of the fact by a softened expression; for "enemy" (hostis) meant to our ancestors what we now call "stranger" (peregrinus). This is proved by the usage in the Twelve Tables: "Or a day fixed for trial with a stranger" (hostis). And again: "Right of ownership is inalienable for ever in dealings with a stranger" (hostis). What can exceed such charity, when he with whom one is at war is called by so gentle a name? And yet long lapse of time has given that word a harsher meaning: for it has lost its signification of "stranger" and has taken on the technical connotation of "an enemy under arms."