Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)

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Symbŏla

（συμβολή). The Greek term for a treaty between two States, determining the procedure in the event of lawsuits taking place between their respective subjects. A common provision of these contracts was that a party who lost his cause, when tried by the laws of the foreign State, could appeal to those of his own; and similarly the party who had been worsted in his own State was allowed to appeal to the law in his opponent's State. Such treaties were made chiefly to facilitate commercial communications between different States.