Kitap 3
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Neither party shall impose any contribution, nor erect any public building, nor enlist soldiers in the dominions of the other, nor make any compact of friendship with the allies of the other.
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The Carthaginians shall within ten years pay to the Romans two-thousand two-hundred talents, and a thousand on the spot; and shall restore all prisoners, without ransom, to the Romans.
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Afterwards, at the end of the Mercenary war in Africa, theFifth treaty, B. C. 238. Romans went so far as to pass a decree for war with Carthage, but eventually made a treaty to the following effect: The Carthaginians shall evacuate Sardinia, and pay an additional twelve hundred talents.
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Finally, in addition to these treaties, came that negotiatedSixth treaty, B. C. 228. with Hasdrubal in Iberia, in which it was stipulated that the Carthaginians should not cross the Iber with arms.
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Such were the mutual obligations established between Rome and Carthage from the earliest times to that of Hannibal.
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As we find then that the Roman invasion of Sicily was not in contravention of their oaths, so we must acknowledge in the case of the second proclamation of war, in consequence of which the treaty for the evacuation of Sardinia was made, that it is impossible to find any reasonable pretext or ground for the Roman action. No excuse for the Roman claim on Sardinia. The Carthaginians were beyond question compelled by the necessities of their position, contrary to all justice, to evacuate Sardinia, and to pay this enormous sum of money. For as to the allegation of the Romans, that they had during the Mercenary war been guilty of acts of hostility to ships sailing from Rome,—that was barred by their own act in restoring, without ransom, the Carthaginian prisoners, in gratitude for similar conduct on the part of Carthage to Romans who had landed on their shores; a transaction which I have spoken of at length in my previous book.1, 83.
