The article focuses on the process of Romanization of the innermost part of the Island, traditionally regarded as resistance in relation to the full territorial conquest of Sardinia by Rome. The last researches demonstrated that the fact was due to scarcity of studies and surveys. The text analyzes three ways of access to Barbagia: the northernmost one through Austis’ stronghold, where a military garrison was present since augustean age; the south-western way, through Sarcidano, area in which sources point out the presence of Valentini; the southern one through Gerrei, following a road guarded since nuragic age, and characterized by the finding of the famous Table of Esterzili. For each of these cases new data is presented, deriving from archive searches, surveys and following interpretations.

The Latin inscriptions of Republican Sardinia prove an early immigration of Italians to this province since 238 B.C., with important quantities only in the age from the Gracchi to Caesar. In the same time there has been a slow but inexorable process of acculturation of the local populations, which interested especially the upper classes living in urban communities (self romanization) but which is also present in the country (vulgar romanization). In both cases the adhesion to the Italic customs, often accompanied by the assignment of the civitas latina or romana, does not involve the abandonment of the past customs and traditions, but rather their interpretation in the new political and cultural climate. Si trova nel volume Il processo di romanizzazione della provincia Sardinia et Corsica. Atti del convegno internazionale di studi, Cuglieri (OR) 26-28 marzo 2015, a cura di S. De Vincenzo, C. Blasetti Fantauzzi, Roma 2016, pp. 69-88. ISBN: 978-88-7140-722-7, collana ANALYSIS ARCHAEOLOGICA. AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN ARCHAEOLOGY MONOGRAPH SERIES N. 1

The literature on Roman Sardinia identifies the mountainous inland with the so-called Barbaria traditionally considered isolated and resistant to romanization. This region was inhabited by primitive populations hostile to external contributions. The analysis of literary, toponomastic, archaelogical and epigraphic sources allows to identify Barbaria’s boundaries which were more extensive than those of current Barbagia and correspond roughly to the entire central-eastern Sardinia. A deeper study of the same documentation suggests a particularly early process of romanization of the local populations through a voluntary and reciprocal integration that can be considered completed by the end of the first century AD. Material evidences show a hybrid society where indigenous tradition and Roman-Italic influences actively intertwine creating an original and mixed culture.

The synthetic formulae provinciae of Corsica and Sardinia date back perhaps to the same written source, originated in a moment between the Second Triumvirate and the beginning of Augustus age and not updated by latest information. The description of Corsica, essentially identical to the one provided by Pomponius Mela, shows an island organized in semi-urbanized villages around two coloniae, deducted at the end of the Republican age. The more detailed formula of Sardinia seems to circumscribe the towns only to the south central part of the island, bordering at the same time the tribes North of the river Tirso, with the only exception of the colony of Turris Libisonis.

The military character of Moesiae and a low anthropization favored both the born of agglomerates near the numerous castra and of rural settlements of various legal nature, particularly in the eastern part of the territory, in nearest contact with the Greek towns on the shore and in Thrace. In these agglomerations gathered peregrini, veterani and cives Romani often consistentes. The vici of Moesiae, with own magistrates and territory, do not seem ever to have ever reached full autonomy.