thumb|Contemporary effigy of Prince Sicard, namesake of the Pactum, from one of his coinsThe
Pactum Sicardi was a treaty signed on
4 July 836 between the Greek
Duchy of Naples, including its satellite city-states of
Sorrento and
Amalfi, represented by
Bishop John IV and
Duke Andrew II, and the
Lombard Prince of Benevento,
Sicard. The treaty was an
armistice ending a war between the Greek states and Benevento, during which the
Byzantine Empire had not intervened on behalf of its subjects. It was supposed to last five years.
By the treaty Prince Sicard recognised the rights of merchants from the three cities to travel through his domains. He made navigation up the rivers
Patria,
Volturno, and
Minturno open to merchants,
responsales (envoys), and
milities (soldiers). Sicard did not give up his powers of enforcement over either the illegal
slave trade (in Lombards) or the trafficking in stolen merchandise. He did abolish the
lex naufragii (law of shipwreck) by which the landowner on whose shores a wrecked ship or its cargo washed up was the possessor of that wealth: "If a ship is wrecked because of the fault [of the men aboard] the goods found in it are to be returned to the one to whome they belonged and still belong." This measure, protecting the property rights of shipping companies and merchants, was "far in advance of thes times".
Despite these efforts, a war began again in 837, when Duke Andrew of Naples called in
Saracens as allies against Benevento. In 838 Sicard captured Amalfi by sea.