Top: Tharros Baths
Right: Tharros Street and Sewer
For documentation of the information and interpretations in this page go to the bibliography.
Although we must suppose that there was an internal frontier in the Republican period, we have no evidence. For the imperial period, there is a useful body of epigraphical and archaeological material that allows us to trace the outlines of such a system consisting of a few garrisons as anchors with smaller bases at more or less regular intervals about every 20 km. It was from these forts and bases that Roman culture, including the Latin language, was able to supplant the indigenous culture, elements of which, nonetheless, survived for centuries as is best evidenced by the facts that some natives were still worshiping wooden and stone idols in the late sixth century CE, undoubtedly continuing customs that evolved during the Neolithic, and that pre-Roman vocabules persist in the present day Sardinian language, the closest to Latin of all Romance languages. As excavation and archaeological surveys have demonstrated, a very large number of indigenous sites continued to be occupied, or were re-occupied, during the Roman period, especially during the high empire. Some of these indigenes have left us epigraphical records of their names, such as: Tunila, Tarammon, Tarpalar, Curadro, Carittus Cotae (filius), Seneqio Tamucaris (filius), Urseccur Tertelli (filius), Iettocor Torceri (filius), Tubmar, Miaricora Turi (filius), and Asadiso Osurbali (filius). Particularly worthy of note are the early imperial burials in crouched position at Valenza-Nuragus and the continuous utilization of giants' tombs at least into the third and fourth centuries CE at Bruncu Espis-Arbus and Su Monte de S'Ape-Loiri.
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Top: Tharros Baths Right: Tharros Street and Sewer |
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Very little is known of the formerly Punic cities during the Republican and early imperial periods. Even where extensive excavations have been conducted, scholarly interest has focused on the imperial and the Punic periods. Because of the lack of research, it is a great exaggeration and misreading of the archaeological record to assert of Tharros, for example, that the city sank into a deep recession after 238 BCE, from which it emerged only in the second to third centuries CE, and to attribute this mythical recession to a decline in maritime trade because "during the entire Republican period Rome had no need of the western coast of Sardinia for its maritime trade." Tharros and other cities certainly became relatively more prosperous and well-appointed during the high empire, but that does not mean that they were excessively depressed in the interval. The extensive agricultural settlements in the hinterland, which survey archaeology has recently elucidated, required a port to export their products and to import, if nothing else, the black-glazed wares and Dressel-1 amphoras that are often the only witnesses to the villages' existence. The presence of a coin of Ballaeus of Illyria (168 BCE) in Tharros tomb 32 and the recent redating to the third or second century BCE of the tombstones of some persons from Massilia found there suggest that the city remained an international sea port, and the city's mention in Sallust's Histories is best explained in conjunction with M. Aemilius Lepidus's attempt to land on the island in 77 BCE, which might well have been the occasion when the ditch of the northern fortifications was filled in as a siege tactic. Also during the late republican or early imperial period, the sanctuary of the Doric semicolumns was equipped with a new temple, Temple K was rebuilt, and a tetrastyle temple was constructed over some Punic and late Republican houses; this last may be the Capitolium, erected in conjunction with the city's elevation to municipal status. By the high empire, Tharros was a bustling port city. The excavated portion of the city had an aqueduct that fed a reservoir and communal fountain; there were three baths, all constructed in the second century CE, and a total of at least six temples. Habitations seem to have continued the Punic style, with from two to five or six rooms around a courtyard, usually with a well or cistern, and some had a second story. Visitors to the ruins tend to be especially impressed by the extremely well developed sewer system onto which private houses and baths were connected.
Othoca (Old City) near the gulf of Oristano and the mouth of the Tirso River may have served as a transhipment point to Tharros for foodstuffs and other products from the Campidano, Arborea and the interior; pottery demonstrates that it survived through the imperial period. Neapolis (New City), is on the Lagoon of S. Giovanni, which connects with the Gulf of Oristano through the Lagoon of Marcedd'; it too may have primarily been a transhipment point for foodstuffs from Arborea and Marmilla and for minerals from the Iglesiente. Republican pottery abounds at Neapolis and in its hinterland. In the imperial period there were at least two baths, an aqueduct, a reservoir, a "monumental area" where there might have been one or more temples, and some modest habitations. Abundant material found at the site over the centuries and the remains of various villas in its environs testify to a lively and prosperous commercial center.
At Sulcis, now S. Antioco, a temple was dedicated to the Punic deity Elat
in the first century BCE, and numerous inscriptions attest to the continued use of the
Punic language there through the Republic. The Punic cemetery also continued to be
utilized at least through the second century, and some other burials along Via Eleanora
d'Arborea attest to the continuity of 
Punic mortuary practices into the Roman period; most
notably, the tophet continued in use into the first century BCE (the tophet at S. Antioco appears here). During the
Caesarean civil
war, Sulcis assisted the Pompeian admiral P. Nasidius and was heavily punished by Caesar
who imposed a fine and increased its vectigal from 1/10th to 1/8th (BellAfr. 98.1), but
the city quickly recovered and was, along with Cagliari, one of the two most important
cities in Sardinia by the time of Strabo (5.123). At an unknown time, probably in the
first century CE, it was elevated to the status of municipium. During that period, the
city's civic center experienced a noteworthy expansion of both private and public
buildings, including a portrait gallery of Julio-Claudian imperial personages. During the
second century, the area immediately downslope from a temple, which had an access
ramp
built in the second century BCE on Italic models, was restructured to include an
amphitheater. A temple of Isis and Serapis is attested as are horrea. One of
Sulcis's
primary functions would have been to serve as the port of embarkation for the mineral
resources of the Iglesiente; the harbor will have been just north of the bridge
that connected the island of S. Antioco with the mainland, in an area where there are still
submerged remains of piers. In addition to burials, the area along Via Eleanora d'Arborea
contained an impressive array of remains, mostly of the second and third centuries
CE,
including a basilica, various temples, the forum and numerous mosaic floors.
Very little of Bithia has been excavated. Continuity from the Punic period and the restructuring of the temple of Bes have already been noted, and recently excavated burials suggest a relatively high level of prosperity through the third century CE.
It is often claimed, on insufficient grounds, that Nora
(seen here in overview) preceded Cagliari
as the Roman administrative center of the island. Here, too, the period of greatest
prosperity was the second and third centuries CE, but here, as at Tharros, the lack of
material evidence prior to that time is more a function of archaeological inactivity than
of local impoverishment. For the Republican period, we have evidence of the restructuring
of the "Temple of Tanit" and of the construction, in the second century
BCE, of
the Temple of Aesculapius; the so-called glass furnace in the industrial zone is probably
to be dated to the late Republic, and some structures northwest of the central baths were
constructed in the late republic and restructured during the empire. Most of the existing
large structures are datable, largely by their mosaics, to the high empire, although
earlier phases cannot at present be excluded and are indeed quite likely. Dating to the
second century CE are the theater, a structure of uncertain purpose (tannery? fountain?
fullery?), and probably the aqueduct; to the second or third century, the baths by the
sea, a building east of the forum, the temple with a sole surviving column, the complex
north of the central baths, the central baths, the house of the tetrastyle atrium, and
another large house to the north, and another poorly-defined peristyle. The baths at the
entrance to the city and the small baths date to the (early) fourth century as do mosaics
in the central baths and the temple of Aesculapius.
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Above: Nora Theater Above right: Nora Structure of Uncertain Purpose Right: Nora Baths by the Sea
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If Cagliari was not the Romans' administrative center in Sardinia from the beginning, it certainly was so by 215 BCE. Probably the largest and most prosperous of the Punic cities on the island, with its two harbors (one at the present port, the other in the lagoon of S. Gilla [or Igia = Cecilia]) it must have immediately assumed the role of leading city and commercial center. Tigellius and his relative Phamia, who appear in the letters of Cicero (Fam. 7.24; Att. 13.49.2, 50.3, 51.2; cf. Hor. Sat. 1.2, 3), attest to the existence of wealthy and powerful domi nobiles et locupletes of Punic extraction. During the Caesarian civil war, the inhabitants expelled the Pompeian governor in favor of Caesar, receiving their reward when the latter, spending nearly two weeks there in June 46, gave the inhabitants Roman citizenship and made the city a Roman municipality. In the second century BCE a theater temple was built on the model of central Italian examples. Construction of that temple on Via Malta and an adjacent one on Piazza Carmine might have been caused by the undoubtedly numerous immigrants from the continent, persons like C. Apsena C. f. Pollio who was buried in a tomb decorated with a Doric frieze. Recent excavations have also cast considerable light on the vigor of commercial life in Calgiari in the last two centuries BCE.
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Cagliari's period of greatest florescence was the second and third centuries CE. There were three baths in the environs of the forum, with a fourth in the eastern quarter of the city, Bonaria. The amphitheater (seen here) and the aqueduct (which originated around Villamassargia, some 40 km. distant) were both constructed in the second century, and there are numerous other public and private buildings with mosaics, statuary (such as the Young Bacchus from Viale Trieste Baths-Cagliari seen below), and stuccoed walls. |
Even though Q. Cicero went to Olbia when he was sent to Sardinia by
Pompeius Magnus when the latter had been placed in charge of securing grain for Rome,
Olbia's relatively restricted hinterland rendered it somewhat less important and
prosperous than some of the other Punico-Roman cities. It was probably one of the ports
Caesar visited when bad weather impeded his return home in the summer of 46 (BellAfr 98).
A temple that had been build in the third or second century BCE may have been among the
first visible manifestations of the Roman period; it probably survived through the rest of
the Republican period and is the only known structure from that epoch. The baths and
aqueduct both seem to have been constructed in the late first or early second century
CE.
Grave goods in the cemeteries suggest that this was the period of the city's greatest
prosperity. The area of Villa Tamponi, between the baths and the present day Corso
Vittorio Emanuele, contained a number of buildings, at least one of which was probably a
temple.
At present we have no evidence for a Punic settlement at the site of Porto
Torres (seen here); the few objects that have been found there could be evidence for a community whose
dwellings and cemeteries have yet to be discovered, but they could also suggest that there
was a Punic emporium or, even more likely, that there was one or more indigenous
communities that were in commercial contact with Carthaginians. Thus, the Colonia Iulia
ad Turrem Libisonis (Plin. NH 3.7.85) seems to have been a new foundation, perhaps of the
late 40s BCE. There were some earlier Republican settlements in its vast, fertile
hinterland, and there may have been facilities for exporting grain that have not yet been
uncovered. Some walls and pottery have survived from the period of the late Republican
settlement at Porto Torres, and it would seem that the urban development of the site was
rapid. The bridge over the Mannu river probably dates to the Augustan period, and there
are considerable architectural remains from the early first century CE. The Temple of
Fortuna and basilica with tribunal and six columns that were restored, vestustate
collapsa, in the third century, may have originally been constructed during this early
building boom. An altar to the Egyptian deity Bubastis is dated to CE 35 and other
oriental deities including Isis are attested in the early imperial period. Both the local
antiquarium and the national museum in Sassari have abundant material from this period,
testifying to the high level of prosperity enjoyed by the city. The largest standing
monument there is the bath complex known as Palazzo di Re Barbaro (below). 
It too seems to have
originally been constructed in the first century; what is now visible was considerably
refurbished during the third and fourth centuries. Two other baths are known, Terme
Maetzke of the second century CE and Terme Pallottino of the late third or early fourth
century; near the latter are remains of a peristyle building the origins of which seem to
date to the first century CE. There were also an aqueduct and warehouses dating to the
second century, and the city may have had both a theater and an amphitheater.
Other, smaller communities and settlements are also known, although many
of them are scarcely more than names. Forum Traiani, now Fordongianus (right)
, was a prosperous
religious and administrative center on the Tirso River and became the seat of the military
governor during the Byzantine period; much of the second century baths, but little else,
survive. Much more of the Punic city of Cornus was available for inspection in the early
part of this century than now, when all that is visible is the recently excavated
paleo-Christian area of Is Columbaris (seen below). The city evidently achieved a measure of prosperity
during the high empire and continued into the middle ages. The Punic city of Bosa, upriver
from its modern homonym, appears also to have been prosperous in the imperial period.
There are almost no surviving traces of Colonia Iulia Augusta Uselis (modern Usellus); on
the evidence of pottery, it seems originally to have been founded, perhaps as a veteran
settlement, around the middle of the second century BCE and continued through the imperial
epoch. Valenzia, whose inhabitants Pliny calls Valentini, is likely also to have been a
military foundation at about the same time as Uselis. Custodia Rubriensis, Sorabile-Fonni,
Austis (Agustis) and Luguido (Castro-Oschiri) were military bases around which civilian
communities seem to have developed. Literary texts, especially Ptolemy, and inscriptions,
especially boundary markers, provide the names and general locals of numerous unurbanized
indigenous groups such as the Coracenses, Cunusitani, Giddilitani, Maltamonenses and
Semilitenses who inhabited vast areas of the island.
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| Is Columbaris-Cornus |
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