If a man knowingly offers for sale wine that is spoiling, ought he tell his customers? Diogenes thinks that it is not required; Antipater holds that an honest man would do so. These are like so many points of the law disputed among the Stoics. "In selling a slave, should his faults be declared—not those only which the seller is bound by the civil law to declare or have the slave returned to him, but also the fact that he is untruthful, or disposed to gamble, or steal, or get drunk?" The one thinks such facts should be declared, the other does not.
92 "If a man thinks that he is selling brass, when he is actually selling gold, should an upright man inform him that his stuff is gold, or go on buying for one shilling[BV] what is worth a thousand?"
It is clear enough by this time what my views are on these questions, and what are the grounds of dispute between the above-named philosophers.
XXIV. Pacta et promissa semperne servanda sint, quae nec vi nec dolo malo, ut praetores solent, facta sint.
Si quis medicamentum cuipiam dederit ad aquam intercutem pepigeritque, si eo medicamento sanus factus esset, ne illo medicamento umquam postea uteretur, si eo medicamento sanus factus sit et annis aliquot post inciderit in eundem morbum nec ab eo, quicum pepigerat, impetret, ut iterum eo[349] liceat uti, quid faciendum sit. Cum sit is inhumanus, qui non concedat, nec ei quicquam fiat iniuriae, vitae et saluti consulendum.
93 Quid? si qui sapiens rogatus sit ab eo, qui eum heredem faciat, cum ei testamento sestertium milies relinquatur, ut, ante quam hereditatem adeat, luce palam in foro saltet, idque se facturum promiserit, quod aliter heredem eum scripturus ille non esset, faciat, quod promiserit, necne? Promisisse nollem et id arbitror fuisse gravitatis; quoniam promisit, si saltare in foro turpe ducet, honestius mentietur, si ex hereditate nihil ceperit, quam si ceperit, nisi forte eam pecuniam in rei publicae magnum aliquod tempus contulerit, ut vel saltare, cum patriae consulturus sit, turpe non sit.
Promises not binding:
(1) when life or health is at stake,
XXIV. The question arises also whether agreements and promises must always be kept, "when," in the language of the praetors' edicts, "they have not been secured through force or criminal fraud."
If one man gives another a remedy for the dropsy, with the stipulation that, if he is cured by it, he shall never make use of it again; suppose the patient's health is restored by the use of it but some years later he contracts the same disease once more; and suppose he cannot secure from the man with whom he made the agreement permission to use the remedy again, what should he do? That is the question. Since the man is unfeeling in refusing the request, and since no harm could be done to him by his friend's using the remedy, the sick man is justified in doing what he can for his own life and health.
(2) when reputation is at stake,