[POMPONIUS libro trigensimo septimo ad Quintum Mucium. ] §50.7.18.prSi quis legatum hostium pulsasset, contra ius gentium id commissum esse existimatur, quia sancti habentur legati.
[POMPONIUS, from the thirty-seventh book on Quintus Mucius.] If anyone has assaulted an embassy of the enemy, this is considered to have been committed against the law of nations, because ambassadors are held to be sacred.
et ideo si, cum legati apud nos essent gentis alicuius, bellum cum eis indictum sit, responsum est liberos eos manere: id enim iuri gentium conuenit esse.
And therefore if, while the ambassadors of some nation were among us, war should be declared against them, it has been answered that they remain free; for this is agreed to be in accordance with the law of nations.
itaque eum, qui legatum pulsasset, Quintus Mucius dedi hostibus, quorum erant legati, solitus est respondere.
Accordingly, Quintus Mucius was accustomed to answer that he who had assaulted an ambassador should be surrendered to the enemy whose ambassadors they were.
quem hostes si non recepissent, quaesitum est, an ciuis Romanus maneret: quibusdam existimantibus manere, aliis contra, quia quem semel populus iussisset dedi, ex ciuitate expulsisse uideretur, sicut faceret, cum aqua et igni interdiceret.
If the enemy did not receive him, the question arose whether he remained a Roman citizen; some thinking that he did, others the contrary, because the people, once they had ordered someone to be surrendered, seemed to have expelled him from the state, just as they did when they interdicted him from water and fire.
in qua sententia uidetur Publius Mucius fuisse.
Publius Mucius seems to have been of this opinion.
id autem maxime quaesitum est in Hostilio Mancino, quem Numantini sibi deditum non acceperunt: de quo tamen lex postea lata est, ut esset ciuis Romanus, et praeturam quoque gessisse dicitur.
But this was especially questioned in the case of Hostilius Mancinus, whom the Numantines did not accept when he was surrendered to them; concerning whom, however, a law was afterwards passed that he should be a Roman citizen, and he is said to have also held the praetorship.