166 Tasca
Flavius Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, and Cassius Dio did record the episode,
and Philo of Alexandria and Seneca also probably alluded to it. In any case,
Roman historians and scholars of ancient Judaism have carried out a great deal
of research on the matter.2
3 The Early Middle Ages
In the sixth century, Jews settled in the Sardinian town of Carales. Pope Gregory
the Great noted in a letter that the synagogue was a place of worship and a
meeting point for this community. The Jewish presence in other places on the
island—in Turris Libisonis, Sulci, and Tharros—is attested by archaeological
evidence, including inscriptions, lamps, rings, and amulets dating back to the
early centuries of the Middle Ages.3 Even though far fewer and less important
traces survive from the following centuries, it seems extremely likely that Jews
continued to visit Sardinia’s commercial ports to trade their goods.4
4 The Late Middle Ages
Due to the lack of archaeological evidence and documents, we can only pos-
tulate that the Jewish presence in Sardinia dates to the transition between an-
tiquity and the early Middle Ages. There is very little evidence of one or more
Jewish settlements on the island, even in the following centuries, making it
difficult to advance a solid hypothesis for this period. However, from the sec-
ond half of the fourteenth century and throughout the fifteenth, there were
a number of substantial Jewish settlements in the most important towns on
the island. These settlements not only showed a clear blend of Aragonese,
Valencian, Balearic, and Provençal influences, but were also characterized by
one feature in particular. In fact, medieval Sardinia seems to have been “one of
those lands where the Jews were present ‘in waves’ with constantly changing
2 Silvia Castelli, “Gli ebrei espulsi da Roma e inviati in Sardegna da Tiberio nel 19 e.v. nelle fonti
storiche di età romana,” in Tasca, “Gli ebrei in Sardegna,” pp. 67–80.
3 Giuseppe Piras, “SEDECAMI [A?]RONIS F(ILIUS): una possibile nuova testimonianza epi-
grafica d’età romana della presenza ebraica in Sardegna? Introductory Note,” in Tasca, “Gli
ebrei in Sardegna,” pp. 101–109.
4 Olivetta Schena, “Tracce di presenze ebraiche in Sardegna fra VI e XIII secolo,” in Tasca, “Gli
ebrei in Sardegna,” pp. 11–24.