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Short description

Sardinian Archers were accomplished guerilla fighters but proved to be less reliable in close quarters fighting with swords.

Description

The Sardi tribes were the fiercely independent, indigenous inhabitants of Sardinia, who were deadly skirmishers and ambushers in their own rugged hills and forests.

The Sardinian Archers were the most common troops of the Sardi tribes, mustered for war by their chieftains, they fought with a medium bow and short, falcata-type wide sword. They wore the distinctive Sard horned round helm, with a simple pectoral plate and greaves. These warriors also wore simple leather from the hide of mouflons, and they were accomplished guerilla fighters, skilled at fighting from ambush and skirmishing. however, they were less reliable in close fighting with swords.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The indigenous "Nuragic" civilisation of Sardinia dates back to when the distinctive stone towers called nuraghe first appeared in c. 1800 BC. The Nuragic tribes of Sardinia had a mixed pastoral-agricultural economy, and from around 900 BC began trading with Phoenician seafarers sailing between Gadir and Tyre. The Phoenicians established colonies on Sardinia's coastline to trade with the Nuragic hinterland, establishing colonies at Caralis, Tharros, Sulchi, Nora and Bithia.

The Nuragic aristocracy exercised regional control from "proto-castles", larger complex nuraghe. While most nuraghi are single-tower buildings, a minority of some 2000 (some 28%) were enlarged over successive building phases to produce remarkable complex and impressive multi-tower complexes incorporating heavy curtain walls, subsidiary towers, bastions, and machicolated stone galleries. Interestingly, the larger nuraghi complexes demonstrate chronologically the first appearance of machicolation anywhere in the military architecture of the Mediterranean. Nuragic Sardinia was divided into cantons or chiefdoms, constantly warring with their Nuragic neighbours for the possession of lands and for the control over important communication ways.

Between 550-509 BC the aggressive Magonid rulers of Carthage launched a conquest of Sardinia, and were able to establish Punic control over the best agricultural land in the island, located in the south and west of the island. The Carthaginians established a cereal monoculture in their zone, and transplanted Libyan and Liby-Phoenician populations to the island to work the agricultural estates. Many Nuragic chiefdoms were conquered or became vassals to Carthage; others refused to surrender their independence; these withdrew into the central and northern mountains of the island, in particular the Corsi, Balari, Galura and Ilienses, who Livy described as "never entirely subjugated" (Livy, 40.34.12). This region was later known to the Romans as "Barbagia", and constituted a "reserve" of indigenous Nuragic culture. Here the independent Nuragic tribes lived a pastoral life in huts, subterranean houses and caves. Refusing to practice agriculture, they were believed to live on meat and milk.

In this way the two opposing cultures in Sardinia were formed – the Sard-Punic agricultural lowlands and the independent Nuragic pastoralists of the mountains. A degree of conflict between the Nuragic tribes of the hinterland and the Sard-Punic landowners became endemic.

Livy referred to the Nuragic warriors as Sardi pelliti - "skin clad" or "goatskins" - a disparaging term that referred to their custom of wearing goatskin hides and adorning their helms with horns. These Nuragic "Goatskin" warriors would generally have been drawn from the Iliensi, Galillensi and Corsi tribes of Sardinia. These tribes were both anti-Carthaginian and anti-Roman. From around 500 BC, when the Punic conquest stripped the Nuragic tribes of their most fertile lands in the south and west of the island, Nuragic culture entered its final phase, the so-called "survival phase", which only ended after a long resistance to Rome.

In 240 the Punic garrison in Sardinia murdered their commander Bostar and revolted, joining the rebels in the Mercenary War of 240-238. The atrocities of these mercenary rebels inspired a Sard uprising - probably largely led by the Nuragic tribes of the hinterland - and Sardinia was briefly freed of foreign rulers. Rome, however, forced Carthage to cede Sardinia to it in 238. Like their Punic predecessors, Roman authority was at first restricted to the major Punic cities, which had been the foci of colonial power ever since their Phoenician foundation. Unlike the Punics, however, Rome was determined to subjugate the independent Nuragic tribes of the "Barbagia".

Between 236-227 Rome sustained a prolonged war against the Nuragic tribes - called the Sardi pelliti ("skin-clad Sardinians") by Livy. In these years four triumphs celebrated victories over the de Sardeis; in 236 by the consul C. Licinius Varus; in 234 by the consul T. Manlius Torquatus; in 233 by the consul Sp. Cornelius Maximus; and in 232 by M. Pomponius Matho; in 231 both consuls were in Sardinia (Zon. 8.18). Zonaras alleges that Carthage covertly aided and supported the Sard rebels against Rome during this war (Zonaras 8.18).

The sources speak of Carthage recruiting soldiers in Sardinia in 393 BC for service in Sicily (Diod. 13.95.1). There was significant fighting at land and sea in Sardinia during the early part of the First Punic War; in 258 BC an expeditionary force commanded by the consul Gaius Sulpicius Paterculus was defeated in Sardinia by a certain "Hanno" (Zonaras 8.12).

In the Second Punic War the Sardo-Punic aristocrat Ampsicora and the Punic senator Hanno recruited a large contingent of Nuragic "Goatskins" to bolster their own lowland Sard-Punic "rebels" against Rome, while awaiting the arrival of a Punic expedition led by Hasdrubal the Bald in 215 BC (Livy, 22.31.1; 23.21.6; 23.32.5-12). These "Goatskins" formed many of the 20,000 strong Carthaginian field army that fought in Sardinia that year.

The Nuragic warriors relied on ambush and guerrilla tactics, fighting on their own terms in Sardinian woodlands and rugged hills. In this way they rendered the north and east of Sardinia, and the west of Corsica, largely ungovernable to foreign occupying powers. Nuragic warriors would fight from ambush in broken country to minimise the threat of enemy cavalry (of which the Nuragic tribes had none) and enemy heavy infantry (who relied on disciplined formations in open ground).

The Nuragic warriors honed their skills in inter-tribal raiding and warfare, whereby quick moving raiders would seize rival herds of cattle and sheep, and defend their own fortified nuraghe with archery. These nuraghe fortifications were often elaborate but appear to have fallen largely out of use as military installations by the Hellenistic period, instead serving as elite households and prestige sites. The Nuragic warriors used prolonged missile fire prior to making a decisive charge with their swordsmen.