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Gaius Valerius Catullus (84 B.C. - 54 B.C.) may have inadvertently provided a most insightful statement of a fundamental rule of international relations, and especially the relations between the creditor and debtor states.

Catullus, Poem 103 (PRITHEE, Silo, either give me back the ten sestertia, and then you may be as violent and overbearing as you like; or, if the money gives you pleasure, don't try, I beg, to be a pimp and be at the same time violent and overbearing). The origins of the poem are quite humble. E.T. Merrill's Commentary explained: "To an arrogant pander who had received a large sum for his services. Apparently the epigram is prompted by the manner of Silo's reception of some complaint on the part of Catullus." E. T. Merrill, Commentary on Catullus (E. T. Merrill, Ed.).

Horizontally equal relations will not be possible between debtor and creditor states in fact, whatever the formal arrangements within international organizations otherwise suggest. The value of lending includes a power to silence the borrower in law and power relations.

But that has long been the usual state of things. Yet, there is a lesson here as well for the United States as it begins to borrow its way out of its economic crisis using the money of other states. It will hear versions of this poem in increasingly more direct ways as it continues to borrow funds and invoke principle against its creditors. There is also a lesson here for those entities seeking public funds to ameliorate their financial distress.

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