Introduction

The problems related to the subject of peace treaties in Roman law are abundant. Not only does the thin evidence of the sources make it difficult to gather a status quaestionis. What do we know about the content and function of peace treaties which have been passed down to us from history? What remains to be discovered? What questions of principle dowe have to ask when it comes to the appropriate methods we should employ? ‘New’ sources, nova reperta so to speak, are only seldom found. Thus, we have to resort to reinterpreting the rather limited amount of well-known sources and to reviewing the older secondary literature to see to what extent it ispossible to make the texts speak to us – rather than being obscured by the interpretations of their own age.

Taking a classical vexata quaestio as our starting point, we will take an overall view of the problems, first of substance and then of method, caused by the peace treaty. From this methodological discussion, we will finally return to our initial question. Even the concept of pax raises the problem whether pax is a legal act or a factual state of being. For our overall view, we first have to ask what can be said about the ‘classical’ international law of ancient Rome as a ‘system’ and especially about the function of the peace treaty within such a system.