Sketch Of The Present State Of The Island Of Sardinia (1828) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: pletely vindicated his integrity, that the people immediately elected him their tribune; and so vast a concourse attended from every part of the country to vote on the occasion, that Rome could not contain them. The island now underwent the usual fate of Roman provinces; and sharing in the calamities attendant on the discords of Marius and Sylla, followed alternately the fortunes of Pompey, Cato, and Caesar. Sextus wresting it from Octavius, the want of its corn was so severely felt at Rome during a famine, as to occasion the famous peace concluded at Misenum, by which Sextus retained Achaia, Sicily, and Sardinia. Mena- dorus, his freedman, was left praetor of the latter; but being summoned by his master to answer an accusation, he murdered the deputies, and treacherously restored the island to Octavius. Atius Balbus, the maternal grand - father of Augustus, was praetor of Sardinia about 60 years B.C., and caused this middle brass medal to be struck? which is the only numismatic specimen proper to the island; for the half horse assigned to Calaris, by the wilfully erring Goltzius, is a coin of Cuma, one of the Molic colonies of Asia Minor. A few Carthaginian and Roman medals are occasionally found, but nothing national or colonial?a striking and peculiar deficiency in Sardinian archaeologia. From the fall of Sextus to the Vandalic invasion, there is little interesting matter recorded, the island being viewed by the Romans as a mere granary, and as a place of banishment for their criminals. Amongst other exiles, 4000 military Jews were sent thither by Tiberius, " to make war," says Tacitus, " upon the freebooters who plundered the inhabitants and ravaged the country. If the whole number died in that unwholesome climate, the loss, it was said, would be of no kind of moment....