IMPERIUM ROMANUM

Provinces · The later western provinces

LW-45 Sardinia

The empire around 400 CE. The broad colours represent prefectural groupings, while…
The empire around 400 CE. The broad colours represent prefectural groupings, while regional names, major cities, and symbols for selected state industries show the larger administrative and logistical setting. These groupings contained many individual provinces; a region labelled on this map is not necessarily one province.

Late Sardinia retained important agricultural, maritime, and mineral resources. Coastal towns and inland communities experienced Roman authority differently, while Christian bishoprics connected the island with Italy and Africa. Its separate governorship gave institutional form to an island whose social and economic history had always differed from Corsica’s.

Vandal government joined it to an African-centred maritime power. Eastern Roman recovery followed the destruction of that kingdom, but officials continued to face local and regional challenges. The island’s late history combined persistent Mediterranean connections with a difficult interior political geography, rather than one uniform pattern of coastal and inland control.