Gaius Julius Hyginus
"The Pledge" (German: "Die Bürgschaft", ) is a ballad published by the German poet Friedrich Schiller in his 1799 "Musen-Almanach". He took the idea out of the ancient legend of Damon and Pythias issuing from the Latin "Fabulae" by Gaius Julius Hyginus, as rendered in the medieval collection of the "Gesta Romanorum". It magnifies the belief in the love of friendship and fidelity.