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The Third Treaty

A third treaty again was made by Rome at the time of
Third treaty, B.C. 279.
the invasion of Pyrrhus into Sicily; before the Carthaginians undertook the war for the possession of Sicily. This treaty contains the same provisions as the two earlier treaties with these additional clauses:—

"If they make a treaty of alliance with Pyrrhus, the Romans or Carthaginians shall make it on such terms as not to preclude the one giving aid to the other, if that one's territory is attacked.

"If one or the other stand in need of help, the Carthaginians shall supply the ships, whether for transport or war; but each people shall supply the pay for its own men employed on them.

The Carthaginians shall also give aid by sea to the Romans if need be; but no one shall compel the crews to disembark against their will."

Provision was also made for swearing to these treaties. In the case of the first, the Carthaginians were to swear by the gods of their ancestors, the Romans by Jupiter Lapis, in accordance with an ancient custom; in the case of the last treaty, by Mars and Quirinus.

The form of swearing by Jupiter Lapis was this. The commissioner for swearing to the treaty took a stone in his hand, and, having taken the oath in the name of his country, added these words, "If I abide by this oath may he bless me; but if I do otherwise in thought or act, may all others be kept safe each in his own country, under his own laws, in enjoyment of his own goods, household gods, and tombs,—may I alone be cast out, even as this stone is now." And having uttered these words he throws the stone from his hand.

Histories. Polybius. Evelyn S. Shuckburgh. translator. London, New York. Macmillan. 1889. Reprint Bloomington 1962.

Robert B. Strassler provided support for entering this text.

This text was converted to electronic form by professional data entry, Running heads in Walbank's reprint have been converted to chapter titles, and titles have been added, usually from the marginal notes, for chapters without them. Some pages have notes of the form "line X: A should read B," which I believe are Walbank's; they have "resp=fww". Summaries of missing sections are encoded as inline notes with "resp=ess." A very few unidentified quotations are marked in notes with "resp=aem" (the markup editor) Citations are marked using Perseus abbreviations. and has been proofread to a high level of accuracy.

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