Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 1.djvu/24

 6 A History of Art in Sardinia and Jud.v.a. urged Carthage into a line of conduct which had been undreamt of by Tyre. Strong in the foothold she had gained in the island, she created armies for the purpose of keeping the barbarians in check, reducing them into farmers to cultivate the soil, and miners to extract the native ores for her sole benefit. But although her policy was successful wherever it was tried, she does not seem to have cared to add much to the belt of land nor to the popula- tions which owned her sway to the rear of her more important stations. The wars carried on in Sardinia in the sixth century b.c. by Malcus, and later by Asdrubal and Hamilcar, sons of Mago, founder of the military power of Carthage, were not directed against, or at least did not result in, crushing the Highlanders, or in depriving them of their independence. 1 Sardinian coin, which later found its way to the Roman market, was at this time a considerable import of Carthage, and if many a time she was saved from famine or surrender, notably during the African insurrection and when Agathocles held the surrounding country, it was due to the grain convoys from Caralis. 2 The subjection of Sardinia may be deduced from the treaty concluded between Rome and Carthage in 509, where Sardinia is placed on the same level and is spoken of as a country entirely and indisputably her own, whilst she makes no claims on Sicily beyond the " portion of the island subject to Carthage." 3 This state of affairs continued two hundred and fifty years ; nor does it appear to have been disturbed during the bloody contentions which Carthage sustained in Sicily and Africa, against the Greeks and the Romans, since none of her forces were told off to put down a general revolt of the Sardinian tribes. 4 Encoun- 1 All we have to go by are some vague, obscure words (Justin, xviii. 7 ; xix. 1 ) referring to Malcus's reverses and the successes of Asdrubal and Hamilcar. But this dry abbreviator enters into no details upon the incidents of those struggles nor upon the sites in which they occurred. 2 That the position of Carthage in her war against the mercenaries was greatly aggravated by her loss of the island is clearly indicated by Polybius when he says, " That she was found to have relinquished Sardinia, whose possession in critical straits had been of the utmost value to her" (Poly., I. Ixxxii. 7; Diodor., XIV. lxiii. 4 ; lxxvii. 6 ; xxi. xvi.). 8 Poly., III. xxiii. 5. i The occasion which served the Romans for a pretext to seize Sardinia was caused by a revolt of the mercenaries whom Carthage kept there, and not by the insurrection of the native tribes (Poly., I. lxxxix). The islanders did not take up the defensive until they saw these mercenary bands broken up by their own