The Romans took Sardinia away-at least according to Polybius-with deception and unacceptable justifications: they occupied a vast, populous, and fertile island, unprovoked, many months after the treaty closing the First Punic War. This would be the main cause of the Hannibalic war, after the prodigious occupation of cities, lands, and mines by mercenaries on behalf of the Romans, on the eve of the Hampsicora revolt. From this moment on, the myriad cultural, linguistic, institutional, legal, economic Paleo-Sardinian and Carthaginian legacies in Sardinia confronted, even militarily, Rome, demonstrating a complexity and dignity that went far beyond the Punic experience alone. It was the populares, particularly Caesar and then Augustus, who initiated a process of "Romanization" of what Cicero still knows as the natio Sarda, a process that never completely overshadowed local culture but became unstoppable and was accompanied by the new imagery of the happy island (eudàimon), which enjoyed a mythical abundance of produce and was inhabited by the Nymphs of the sea and land. This volume seeks to attempt to overturn the perspective of interpreting the history of Sardinia, no longer as isolated, but actively included in the Roman world, harking back to the great masters who have studied the decisive importance of the Roman phase up to Constantine and well beyond. Behind this book is the passionate fieldwork of generations of scholars courageously engaged in large and increasingly international undertakings, with a wide gaze and a finally open horizon: to them we are indebted for so many discoveries, so many insights, so many exchanges and comparisons within the Roman ecuméne.

This book is included in DOAB.