Rome seized the Mediterranean Island of Sardinia from the Carthaginians in 238 BC, 3 years after the end of the First Punic War. It took 11 years for the Roman garrisons to gain formal control over the main parts of the island, and uprisings of local people in the interior mountains continued for another 250 years. Most famously, wealthy landowners from the island sided with Carthage during the Second Punic War in 215 BC. Roman historians emphasized the strategic role of Sardinia as a naval base and supplier of grain, but the local population is never really addressed in historic sources.
Peter Van Dommelen’s archaeological work on the west central part of the island has revealed interesting archaeological evidence of the daily practices of the Sardinians during the Roman period. It has long been noted by archaeologists that there are many Carthaginian, or Punic, elements to the material remains of the early Roman period on the island. This has been variously framed as the survival of a debased Punic culture, or evidence of a failed Romanization of the local culture. Van Dommelen, however, demonstrates the relevance of an approach to colonial practice in an archaeological survey of rural farmsteads. The vast majority of these farms used ceramics produced locally, in shapes that reflected the Punic heritage of the inhabitants. Some also demonstrate neo-Punic forms that show ongoing contact with the Carthaginians of the North African coast. One exception is a larger farm, where local ceramics are mixed with Roman imported wares. In local burial patterns Punic grave styles and grave goods continue until 100 BC, when a shift occurs to Roman-style graves and imported Roman grave goods. This coincides with a shift in rural utilitarian ceramics toward more Roman styles.
Van Dommelen is convincing in his belief that this is not merely the persistence of pre-Roman Punic cultural practices. The Romans demanded taxes and rents, but cultural assimilation does not seem to have been a priority. It would seem, rather, that the landowners of the region remained in contact with the Carthaginians, and demonstrated through their daily practices their ongoing sense of being Punic, despite being part of the Roman system. This was a conservative strategy of maintaining ‘the old ways’, and yet at the same time contributed to a silent resistance to Roman rule through daily activities on these farms.
World History
