PHOENICIANS AND CARTHAGINIANS

For documentation of information and interpretation on this page, refer to the bibliography.

An inscription that possibly dates to the eleventh century and some bronze figurines found at nuragic sites and dated to around 1000 BCE provide our first evidence for Phoenician contacts, probably at this time no more than the sporadic or periodic visits of merchants making ports of call on their way to or from the Iberian peninsula. Contact with Iberia put Sardinia from the tenth to the eighth century indirectly in contact with the broader world of the west, and it may be that Phoenician Sardinia was the mediator between the Atlantic world and the Italian mainland. Some of the pre-Etruscan material found in Sardinia may have been a reciprocal of this commerce; however, most of the contacts between Sardinia and the Villanovan world were more likely carried on by native central Italians and Sardinians, for Villanovan material is widely distributed at nuragic sites in the interior of the island in contrast with later imports from Etruria during the subsequent Punic period that are always or almost always found in association with Punic material. It has been suggested that Sardinians preceded Greek colonists in utilizing the mineral resources of Etruria. Three Sardinian bronzes found in the Cavalupo tomb at Vulci have been interpreted as evidence for a (surely not unique) marriage relationship between Sardinian and Villanovan aristocrats.

In the eighth and seventh centuries, the Phoenicians began to develop permanent settlements; and by the mid-seventh century, they began to expand the territory under their control. Shortly after the middle of the sixth century, Carthage directly intervened in Sardinia by sending an expeditionary force that was at first defeated; over the course of the next century, however, the Carthaginians vigorously pursued a policy of active imperialism that resulted, around 450 BCE, in the establishment of an interior frontier system. As we know from Polybius (3.22.8-9), by the late sixth century they were able to assert control over all trade by the Romans in Libya and Sardinia and by 348 they were even more restrictive (Polyb. 3.24 + Walbank). By the fifth century, the Phoenician coastal settlements and some more recently established Punic ones had arrived at a mature level of urbanization; they would continue to evolve and play important social and economic roles throughout the Roman period. After the establishment of the Punic internal frontier, Carthaginian influences on the native populations both within their sphere of control and beyond intensified. It seems likely that they restricted internal, as well as external, trade and that Punic forts, in addition to their obvious military function, might have served as nodes of exchange between Sardo-Carthaginians and natives and between diverse groups of indigenes. From the fifth century on, imported goods at native sites increased dramatically and some rural colonies were founded.

PUNIC WARS AND ROMAN CONQUEST

As far as we can tell from surviving accounts, Sardinia played a minor role in the First Punic War between Rome and Carthage, although in the earliest phases of the conflict it would have seemed destined to be a major battleground. Zonaras (8.10) records that in the winter of 263/2, the Carthaginians conveyed most of their army to Sardinia with the intention of attacking (presumably the coast of Latium or even Rome) from there; from subsequent events, it seems that at least part of those troops were accompanied by warships and that they were based around Olbia. Polybius reports that the Roman senate took note of the fact that the coast of Italy was being repeatedly ravaged (1.20), clearly before as well as after the capture of Agrigentum, so it is at least arguable that Carthaginian control of the sea, as Polybius in fact asserts (1.20; cf. 24), was what motivated the Romans to develop a new fleet. In 259, the year after C. Duilius's victory over the Carthaginian fleet at Mylae, L. Cornelius Scipio attacked Sardinia around Olbia and seems to have been ejected by that Hannibal who had lost the battle of Mylae and who was in 258 to be defeated around Sulcis by C. Sulpicius Paterculus. Scipio supposedly triumphed over Carthaginians, Sardinians, and Corsicans; but his elogium later says only that he captured Corsica and Aleria and that he dedicated a shrine to the Tempestates. Sulpicius triumphed over Carthaginians and Sardinians, and his would seem to have been the decisive victory in that theater, for we hear no more about Sardinia for the duration of the war except for the fruitless (and possibly fictional) demand of M. Atilius Regulus in 256/5 that the Carthaginians abandon the island (cf. Dio, frg. 43.22-23).

That Sardinia was not mentioned in Lutatius Catulus's treaty of 241 is not sufficient to demonstrate that Atilius's arrogant demands did not include Carthaginian withdrawal from the island, the strategic importance of which had recently been amply demonstrated: the basis of Catulus's treaty was a mutual desire for accommodation and compromise; the focus of the war had been for some years Sicily, possession of which had quickly become the Roman senate's chief goal (Polyb. 1.20) and which Catulus did propose the Carthaginians abandon (Rome's ten commissioners adding the small islands between Italy and Sicily); when Catulus imposed his own additional requirements, Hamilcar refused and the former did not press further (Walbank 126); finally, Catulus "was fully aware that the resources of Rome were at the lowest ebb from the strain of the war" (Polyb. 1.62), nor did he wish the glory for the conclusion of peace to fall to his successor (Zon. 8.17). After twenty-three exhausting years of war, Catulus prefered a termination of hostilities to the acquisition of an additional prize no matter how economically and strategically desirable, no doubt either having little or no interest in overseas expansion per se or understanding that sooner or later Sardinia would be added to Rome's now nascent empire.

The First Punic War had scarcely been terminated before Carthage created for itself an impossible situation with its mercenaries, resulting in the so-called Mercenary War, which allowed the Romans the opportunity to seize Sardinia, an event that Polybius thought was the chief cause of the Second Punic War (3.10.4). Some time after the revolt had begun in North Africa, perhaps in 239, the Carthaginian mercenaries in Sardinia revolted, inviting the Romans to "interfere" on the island, but the latter adhered faithfully to their recent treaty of friendship (Polyb. 1.83.11). Another such request was subsequently made by what Polybius calls some mercenaries who had deserted the island and gone to Italy, in response to which the Romans, in a complete transformation of policy, sent a naval expedition to the island in 238 or 237; Meloni has suggested that these latter mercenaries were really refugees from the Punic cities in flight from the mercenaries. When Carthage expressed indignation at Rome's action and informed the Romans that they were preparing to recover the island, the Romans declared war, causing the Carthaginians to abandon their claim to Sardinia and to pay an additional indemnity of 1200 talents (Polyb. 1.88; 3.10, 28). In modern parlance, the Romans' action might be termed a preventive reaction strike; for, although Polybius is at pains to demonstrate that the Romans were without provocation, he also asserts that Hamilcar "never relaxed in his determined purpose of revenge; had it not been for the mutiny of the mercenaries at Carthage, he would at once have sought and made another occasion for bringing about a war, as far as he was able to do so" (3.9)--and what better place from which to bring about such a war than Sardinia, the northeastern shores of which are not much more than 100 nautical miles from the mouth of the Tiber? Although an argument can be made that Rome was concerned to protect Italian commerce (Cassola 50-56), motives of defence seem more cogent, for the Romans almost simultaneously with the seizure of Sardinia engaged in campaigns in Cisalpine Gaul, Liguria, and Corsica.

So, the consul of 238, Ti. Sempronius Gracchus, with a fleet and troops, took possession (probably in 237) of Sardinia "without combat"; that is, he established control over the Punic cities of the littoral. As would often happen on the frontiers of empire, a change of overlords provoked rebellion. Interpreting the Corsi in some of our sources as the Sardinian tribe of that name, we have evidence for campaigns in Sardinia in every year between 236 and 231; in 232 and 231 both consuls were dispatched to the island, and triumphs were thrice celebrated during this period. Most of the fighting seems to have occurred in the northeast, a region where Punic control had not been as extensive as it was in the south and west; other campaigns were located in the mountains and forests, which serves only to inform us that they were not in the coastal plains: we have no way of knowing which mountains and forests. In 227 Sardinia became one of Rome's first two overseas provinces, to be administered (together with Corsica) by an annually dispatched praetor; this juridical transformation provoked further rebellions in 226 and 225. A consular army of two legions was sent in the latter year, and, so far as we can tell, the island remained peaceful for the next decade.

Early in the Second Punic War, Sardinia seemed destined to play the role it had played early in the first, namely, as a platform from which the Carthaginian navy could harass Roman shipping and the coast of Italy; however, a large Roman fleet, a legion, and the taking of hostages impeded those designs. After the disaster at Cannae, the praetor complained to the senate that he lacked the means to provision his men and ships and was told that he had to secure them by his own initiative. His doing so was the prime cause of the rebellion extensively described by Livy and Silius Italicus, the revolt led by the punicized native Hampsicoras that centered around the city of Cornus. It may be that Carthage had been fomenting and financing rebellion: two unique series of Punic coins are dated to about 216 and find their best explanation as special issues by Carthage for that purpose. Aided by a storm that drove to the Balearic Islands the Carthaginian expeditionary force sent to aid the rebellion, the Romans were victorious and the commander reported that Sardinia had been subdued; nonetheless, two legions remained on the island until they were replaced by a single one in 206. In 210 a small Carthaginian fleet raided the territory of Olbia, from where they sailed to Cagliari whose territory they also plundered (Liv. 27.6.13f.). There was some concern in 208 that Carthage would make another attempt on Sardinia, so the praetor was given 50 of Scipio's ships, which, in the event, were not needed (Liv. 27.22.8; 29.7). Although the Romans could not have known it at the time -- ships were again sent for the defence of the Sardinian coast in 203 (Liv. 30.2.4)--the revolt of Hampsicoras represented the Sardinians' and Carthaginians' last best hope to shake off the yoke of Roman domination, which was now to last for more than six centuries.

After the Second Punic War, the legion in Sardinia was dismissed, but a force of 5000 Latins was enrolled (Liv. 31.8.10); it is likely that, except during the years of intensive wars, a force of similar size was maintained throughout much of the first half of the second century. Until the revolts of 181, we hear of no specific military operations in Sardinia, but it seems highly unlikely that the Romans would have allowed those natives (the "Sardi pelliti") who had joined Hampsicoras to remain unpunished. Archaeological evidence allows the inference that one line of the Romans' penetration into the interior at this time was to the northeast of Cornus through the Marghine region towards Goceano and the headwaters of the Tirso River, that is, through the probable home lands of the "Sardi pelliti," who reappear in 181 as the rebellious Ilienses (Liv. 40.19.6, 34.12-13). The Balares who later joined the Ilienses can be located between Goceano and Gallura, home of the Corsi.

In 181 the praetor M. Pinarius Rusca repelled an attack by the Ilienses, but was evidently unable to establish stability, for in 178 the praetor T. Aebutius sent his son to inform the senate that there was a great uprising: the Ilienses with the aid of the Balares had invaded the pacified portion of the province; the army, weakened by pestilence, was unable to resist. Sardinian envoys added that the senate should at least aid the cities, for they had already despaired of the countryside (Liv. 41.6.5-7); put off until the following year, the envoys, having been introduced to the senate, were finally allowed to inform it about the magnitude of the crisis. The senators were sufficiently impressed that they dispatched the consul Ti. Sempronius Gracchus with two legions, auxiliaries and naval forces (Liv. 41.8.2-5, 9.2, 8). In two years of successful combat, Sempronius reported that he had pacified the province, killing 27,000 enemy in the process (Liv. 41.12.5, 17.2), and he returned to a triumph in 175. On the tablet that he then caused to be erected in the Temple of Mater Matuta he claimed that more than 80,000 Sardinians had been killed or captured, so, presumably, more than 53,000 were captured and sold into slavery (Liv. 41.28.8-10), most likely in Sardinia itself where they would have provided the workforce that radically altered the landscape, accelerating the island's continued development as a major supplier of Rome's grain supplies.

Even after the Sempronian settlement, there continued to be sporadic warfare along the frontier with consular armies in the early 130s (?), 126-122, and 115-111 and a praetorian one in 105-104, which was perhaps occasioned by a slave rebellion rather than by frontier instability. Throughout the first century BCE, in addition to martial events not unconnected with political upheavals in Rome and Italy, there were some frontier skirmishes and unrest, and the Ilienses, so Livy tells us, were not yet completely pacified in his day (40.34.13). By 6 CE, unpacified Sardinians were not only harassing the plains, but were engaging in piracy in the Tyrrhenian Sea (Strabo 5.2.7), so that Augustus had to remove the island from senatorial governance and assume it under his own control. Apart from Tiberius's dispatching into exile some 4000 Jews and others to put down brigandage in 19 CE (Tac. Ann. 2.85.5; cf. Dio 57.18.5a; Joseph. Ant. 18.65.84), we know of no other military activity or unrest until the period of the Flavian civil war, before which time Nero had considered the island sufficiently peaceful that he returned it to the senate's authority (Paus. 7.17.3). There would seem to have been some unrest during the period of the Civil War of 68-69 CE and the reign of Vespasian, for that emperor quickly returned the island to the emperor's portion (cf. CIL 10.8023-4). One well-attested such episode is the harassment of the settled agriculturalists called Patulcenses Campani by the indigenous tribe called Gallilenses (CIL 10.7852 = ILS 5947), who are usually seen as unruly shepherds invading a peaceful agricultural community. Clearly, however, the events attested on that inscription are the culmination of a long series, not a sudden invasion, and the Gallilenses had been squatting on and utilizing for some time, not suddenly raiding, the farmland in question.

PAX ROMANA AND THIRD CENTURY CRISIS

The second century CE was for Sardinia a time of peaceful growth and prosperity. There are no records of military activity. The governors seem to have been administrators experienced in the grain supply and transport rather than military men. By the time the future emperor Septimius Severus spent his quaestorhip there in 170, it had reverted to senatorial control, but we do not know when. If Hippolytus is precise in his terminology, it returned once again to the emperor by 190, for the governor is called a procurator (Ref. Haer. 9.12), and the evidence of unrecovered coin hoards allows the suggestion that the later second century saw an increase in military activity; on the other hand, all three known governors between ca. 193 and ca. 211 continued the pattern of peacetime administrators, so Hippolytus is more likely guilty of having used anachronistic terminology. By 226, however, the situation had changed; in and around that year, the governor, T. Licinius Hierocles, was a vir militaris of extensive experience as was his first known successor, P. Sallustius Sempronius Victor. Unrest, which can be localized only in general terms by the findspots of unrecovered coin hoards, seems to have been widespread throughout the rest of the third century. An increase in the number of coins minted by Gallienus, Claudius II, and Probus allows us to postulate serious efforts by those emperors to re-establish tranquility, surely to guarantee the safety of grain and other goods and commodities; coins of Tetricus are second in frequency only to those of Augustus, suggesting that Aurelian transferred troops from Gaul to Sardinia for the same purpose.

LATE EMPIRE AND EARLY MIDDLE AGES

In the fifth century CE, the Romans were replaced by the Vandals, who were soon ousted by the Byzantines. Traditionally, in Sardinia the Dark Ages begin earlier than elsewhere. However, archaeological evidence is beginning to provide a clearer picture of late Roman and early medieval Sardinia than was available only a few years ago when our evidence consisted largely of literary and legal texts along with a few inscriptions; although the gaps in our knowledge are so great that many years will be required to provide adequate documentation, the trend is manifest. For example, the importation of African Red Slip Ware, which continued long after the Vandal conquest of the island, reveals that trade and economic life continued and provides a vastly different understanding of life in Sardinia between ca. 450 and 600 CE than was possible when our evidence consisted mainly of the pages of Procopius: if nothing else, we now know that the countryside was much more populated than it had seemed to be. Our knowledge of early Christianity is constantly increasing, almost annually revising an outdated conclusion based on a single literary text that tells us that Symmachus, a fifth-century pope born in Sardinia, went to Rome from paganism (a paganitate). Most importantly, recent years have witnessed a revolution in our understanding of the impact on Sardinia of the Byzantine period, which began with Justinian's reconquest, and a new line of research has recently been suggested that, if taken up, promises to yield valuable results, allowing us eventually to fashion a more comprehensive analysis of the processes by which Sardinia was transformed between the fifth and eleventh centuries.

The photograph shows the Church of S. Saturno-Cagliari.

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