mably a Sicilian, war
fleet in 405, while at the same time Celtic hordes were traversing and
devastating the Latin land.(7) In the following year (406), and
beyond doubt under the immediate impression produced by these serious
events, the Roman community and the Phoenicians of Carthage, acting
respectively for themselves and for their dependent allies, concluded
a treaty of commerce and navigation-- the oldest Roman document of
which the text has reached us, although only in a Greek
translation.(8) In that treaty the Romans had to come under
obligation not to navigate the Libyan coast to the west of the Fair
Promontory (Cape Bon) excepting in cases of necessity. On the other
hand they obtained the privilege of freely trading, like the natives,
in Sicily, so far as it was Carthaginian; and in Africa and Sardinia
they obtained at least the right to dispose of their merchandise at a
price fixed with the concurrence of the Carthaginian officials and
guaranteed by the Carthaginian community. The privilege of free
trading seems to have been granted to the Carthaginians at least in
Rome, perhaps in all Latium; only they bound themselves neither to do
violence to the subject Latin communities,(9) nor, if they should set
foot as enemies on Latin soil, to take up their quarters for a night
on shore--in other words, not to extend their piratical inroads into
the interior--nor to construct any fortresses in the Latin land.

We may probably assign to the same period the already mentioned(10)
treaty between Rome and Tarentum, respecting the date of which we are
only told that it was concluded a considerable time before 472. By it
the Romans bound themselves--for what concessions on the part of
Tarentum is not stated--not to navigate the waters to the east of
the Lacinian promontory; a stipulation by which they were thus wholly
excluded from the eastern basin of the Mediterranean.

Roman Fortification of the Coast

These were disasters no less than the defeat on the Allia, and the
Roman senate seems to have felt them as such and to have made use of
the favourable turn, which the Italian relations assumed soon after
the conclusion of the humiliating treaties with Carthage and Tarentum,
with all energy to improve its depressed maritime position. The most
important of the coast towns were furnished with Roman colonies: Pyrgi
the seaport of Caere, the colonization of which probably falls within
this period; along the west coast,