Third Carthaginian-Roman Treaty

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There is only very imprecise information about the time, content and existence of the third Carthaginian - Roman treaty (also: Philinos Treaty ), which (supposedly) regulated the spheres of interest of Rome and Carthage.

Titus Livius reports a treaty in 306 BC. Chr. (Liv. 9,43,26). This could be the Philinos contract. Polybius claims that the treaty to which the Sicilian historian Philinos von Akragas refers (Pol. 3,26,2ff.) Never existed. Otherwise he should have found it in the Aerarium , the Roman archive. So although he assumes that the contract did not exist, one learns the alleged content from him. According to this, the Carthaginians should stay away from all of Italy, but the Romans from all of Sicily .

In retrospect of the First Punic War , the Roman Empire would have broken the oath. On the other hand, Polybios assumed that Philinos, who writes from a Carthaginian perspective, was ignorant and partial. The main argument on his part was the assertion that this document could not be found. But this is very problematic, especially since besides Livius also Servius knew of an agreement between the two states. In this the other power was not allowed to act on their coasts. Polybius is generally considered to be a very reliable historian, so it may well be that the treaty could not be found as usual. However, it is also very possible to subsequently clean up the archived holdings in order to exclude or reduce Rome's guilt for the war. In principle it seems possible that the one mentioned by Philinos existed between the second and fourth treaties. If Carthage had been allowed to simply intervene in Italy (as in the second treaty), it would be difficult to understand why the fourth treaty directed against Pyrrhus expressly mentioned permission to intervene .

However, not a few modern historians doubt the historicity of the treaty (among other things with reference to Polybios). If the spheres of interest have also been regulated, the exact terms of the contract cannot be clarified with absolute certainty, partly because of the poor source situation.

See also

literature