Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 1.djvu/20

 2 A History of Art in Sardinia and Jud.ea. They do not seem, however, to have extended their occupation beyond the narrow zones of buildings or suburbs to the rear of their seaports, and the plain, about a hundred kilometres from north to south, which lies between the Gulf of Cagliari and that of Oristano. In the hands of intelligent and industrious owners this marshy tract, known in the present day as Campidano, would be reclaimed and again become, as in olden times, the most produc- tive portion of the island. Here Carthage had established, pro- tected no doubt by fortified posts, compact groups of Libyo- Phœnicians, that is, people of African race, who had adopted the language, the religion, and the customs of their Punic masters. 1 They had directed the course of the waters and drained the ground under notice, applying the same enlightened methods that had been successfully practised at the foot of Lebanon and around Sidon and Tyre, but which now is intersected by lagoons exuding abroad miasmas inimical to human life. It is probable that the copper and lead mines (the latter con- taining a certain proportion of silver) found in the low hills between the plain and the sea, were worked by gangs of war prisoners and slaves, under the supervision of Carthaginian engineers. This district, now called Iglesias, was subject to Sulcis, a town built by the Tyrians in the small island of Sant' Antioco, divided from Sardinia by a narrow arm of the sea (Fig. i) ; 2 a well-sheltered roadstead facilitated the shipping of the ore. 3 Thus the Phoenicians had secured the means of turn- ing to account the natural riches of the country ; they had re- frained, however, to occupy the volcanic brakes to the north-west, 1 We read in Diodorus that the Carthaginians who, among other cities in Sicily, had built Theuma, sent to Sardinia some of their own citizens as well as Libyans, willing to emigrate (XIII. lxix. 8) ; whilst Cicero in his defence of Scaurus, im- peached by the Sardinians, has the following words : " A Pœnis admixto Afrorum genere Sardi, non deducti in Sardiniam atque ibi constituti, sed amandati et repudiati coloni" {Pro Scauro, xix. 42). 2 The name of Sulcis has survived ; but it is now given to the tract of land which faces Sant' Antioco, and which formerly belonged to Sulcis city. 8 M. Pais observes that no ancient text is extant to show that mines were worked by the Carthaginians in Sardina ; that all the passages having reference to the mineral riches of the island, belong to the Roman period, and that no archaeological discovery has hitherto supplemented the silence of old writers. Yet it is hardly conceivable that the presence of lead in the vicinity of Sulcis city, of silver in the basins of Iglesias and Sarrabus, can have escaped the observation of such skilful metallurgists as were the Phoenicians ; and had they ascertained the existence of these ores, they must have tried to extract them.