The Ampsicora Revolt

The passage of Sardinia under Roman domination was a consequence, even if indirect, of the defeat suffered by Carthage in the First Punic War. We speak of an “indirect consequence” in the sense that the peace treaty concluded in 241 BC between Rome and Carthage did not provide for the latter the loss of control over Sardinia.
This loss resulted from Rome's decision to comply with the request for help from the Carthage mercenaries stationed in Sardinia, who rebelled because of the impossibility for Carthage to meet their requests for payment.

The sudden transition of Sardinia from the Punic to the Roman sphere of control is certainly one of the possible causes that determined the difficulty encountered by Rome in its attempt to achieve the “pacification” of the island. At the time this passage took place, the Sardinians showed cultural characteristics profoundly marked by their centuries-old relationship with the Phoenician-Punic cultural world, characteristics that, in some ways, not even the following centuries of Roman domination were able to completely erase from the Sardinian cultural “genome”.

All this helps to frame in the right light the so-called “Ampsicora revolt”, which took place in Sardinia in 215 BC, during the Second Punic War (219 BC - 202 BC). During this conflict, Rome experienced one of the deepest military, political and economic crises in its history, due to the repeated defeats suffered by Annibale, the skilled Carthaginian leader who had the happy intuition to move the military confrontation directly to Italy. The news relating to this event has been handed down to us by the Augustinian historian Tito Livio and by the Flavian poet Silius Italico.

To meet the enormous expenses that the continuation of the conflict entailed, Rome had to take very drastic measures. These certainly include the significant increase in taxes on the provinces and therefore also on Sardinia. This led to a situation of strong discontent among the Sardinians, especially among the Sardinian-Punic landlords who saw their economic interests seriously damaged.

One of these was Ampsicora, a native of Cornus, who was at the head of the revolt that broke out to put an end to the “harassment” of Rome. The rioters openly sided with Carthage, who responded to the request for help by sending Asdrubale, known as the Bald, one of his most capable men to Sardinia. On the Roman side, the command was instead entrusted to Tito Manlio Torquato.

The outcome of the uprising was decided during two pitched battles. In the first, probably held in the Campidano of San Vero Milis, Josto, Ampsicora's son and lieutenant, faced Tito Manlio Torquato instead of his father, who went to Barbagia to try to involve the Sardinians from the interior in the conflict, suffering a heavy defeat. The decisive battle, whose outcome was also favorable to the Romans, however, took place not far from Carales, in a town probably located between Sestu and Decimo. In the battle, about twelve thousand men of the Sardinian-Punic front seem to have died, including Josto himself, while Ampsicora decided to kill himself at the end of

the battle.

Update

20/9/2023 - 11:02