241 BC

Treaty of Lutatius

Treaty of Lutatius ends the First Punic War

The Roman people rejected their own commander's peace as too lenient and added 1,000 talents to the bill. Corsica, named in the usual headline, was not part of it at all.

241 BCE: an army without a supply line

Rome's naval victory at the Aegates Islands did not destroy Carthage's forces in Sicily. It left them without a viable supply route, and in 241 BCE Carthaginian authorities authorized negotiations with the Roman commander Gaius Lutatius Catulus.

Hamilcar Barca, commanding in Sicily, recognized that the isolated army could not be sustained; Gisco handled the practical negotiation and the evacuation. The agreement was made subject to ratification by the Roman people.

Ratification raised the price

Catulus's preliminary terms required Carthage to evacuate Sicily, refrain from war against Hiero II and Syracuse, and return Roman prisoners without ransom.

Rome's ratification toughened them. The indemnity became 3,200 Euboic talents — 1,000 due immediately and 2,200 over ten years — and the evacuation was extended to the islands lying between Sicily and Italy.

What the treaty did not cover

Carthaginian troops withdrew, ending a war that had run 23 years, from 264 to 241 BCE, and leaving Rome in control of the former Carthaginian zone on the island.

Corsica and Sardinia were not transferred by this settlement. A further 1,200-talent indemnity was imposed later, with the Sardinian settlement after the Mercenary War.

Sicily did not become a governed province that year either. The treaty protected Syracuse under Hiero II by name as a Roman ally, and scholars date the regularly administered province with its own praetor to 227 BCE.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 5 sources 2 audit passes

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What the sources leave uncertain

No secure day or month for the final ratified treaty survives; 241 BCE is firm.
Polybius preserves both Catulus's preliminary terms and the tougher ratified terms, which can produce apparently conflicting totals of 2,200 and 3,200 talents if the stages are not distinguished.
Sicily came under Roman control in 241 BCE, but scholars distinguish that acquisition from the later creation of a regularly governed province with its own praetor in 227 BCE.