Treaty of Lutatius
The Treaty of Lutatius ended the First Punic War after 23 years of conflict. Most of the fighting during the war took place on, or in the waters around, the island of Sicily. Carthage would hand over what it still held of Sicily; relinquish several groups of islands nearby.
About Treaty of Lutatius in brief
The Treaty of Lutatius was the agreement of 241 BC, amended in 237 BC, between Carthage and Rome. It ended the First Punic War after 23 years of conflict. Most of the fighting during the war took place on, or in the waters around, the island of Sicily. Carthage would hand over what it still held of Sicily; relinquish several groups of islands nearby; release all Roman prisoners without ransom, although ransom would need to be paid to secure the release of prisoners held by the Romans; and pay an indemnity of 3,200 talents of silver – 82,000 kilograms – over 10 years. The treaty received its name from the victorious Gaius Lut atius Catulus, who also negotiated the initial draft. In 237 BC Carthage prepared an expedition to recover Sardinia, which had been lost to rebels. The Romans stated they considered this an act of war. Their peace terms were the ceding of Sardinia and Corsica and the payment of an additional 1,200-talent indemnity – 30,000 kg. Weakened by 30 years of war, Carthage agreed rather than enter into a conflict with Rome again. During this period Carthage had come to dominate southern Hispania, much of the coastal regions of North Africa, the Balearic Islands, Corsica, Sardinia,. and the western half of the half of Sicily in a military and commercial empire. In 264 BC Rome and Carthage were the pre-eminent powers in the western Mediterranean.
The Roman Republic had been aggressively expanding in southern Italian mainland by 272 BC. During the River Arno of the first century BC, the Roman Republic conquered peninsular Italy of the south for a time. The two cities went to war over the city of Messana in the north-east of the Italian mainland in 348 BC and around 279 BC. The Carthaginian written records were destroyed along with their capital Carthage, in 146 BC and so Polybius’s account of the Firstpunic War is based on several, now-lost, Greek and Latin sources. Modern historians usually also take into account the histories of Diodorus Siculus and Dio Cassius, and the 12th-century Byzantine chronicler Joannes Zonaras, who relied on much earlier sources, is also sometimes used. Other, later, histories of the war and the treaty that ended it exist, but in fragmentary or summary form. Only part of thefirst book of the forty comprising The Histories deals with the First punic War. The modern consensus is to accept it largely at face value, and the details of the treaty in modern sources are almost entirely based on interpretations of Polybious’s account. The main source for almost every aspect of the War is the historian Polybio, a Greek sent to Rome in 167 BC as a hostage, but he is known today for The History, written about a century after 146 BC.
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This page is based on the article Treaty of Lutatius published in Wikipedia (as of Oct. 30, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
