SARDINIA 250 SARDONYX ilex, cork, and wild olive, which yield timber, cork, bark for tanning, acorns, and charcoal. The seas yield large quantities of tunny, sardines, anchovy, and coral, though the fisheries, except for tunny, are not prosecuted by Sardinians, but by Italians; the native fishermen pre- fer to catch trout, eels, lobsters, crabs, etc., in the rivers and inland lagoons. Sardinia has no extensive manufactur- ing industries, though there is some tan- ning and making of cigars, aerated waters, macaroni, flour, and spirits. There are, however, a variety of do- mestic industries for home use; most of the women still ply the spinning wheel. Till the year 1828 Sardinia had no roads for wheeled vehicles, the Roman roads having gone to ruin centuries ago. Now there are good roads throughout the island; and they are supplemented by railways. The island has numerous fairly good ports — Cagliari (the capital), Porto Tor- res, Terranova, Tortoli, Alghero, Carlo- forte, and Bosa — most of which have been improved by the construction of harbor works. The inhabitants are for the most part of mixed race, Spanish and Italian elements predominating. Pop. about 881,000. Education is in a very backward state, about 75 per cent of the population being unable to read and write. There are universities at Cagliari and Sassari. The practice of the vendetta and brigandage have now almost entirely ceased. The language is a mixture of Latin, Spanish, and Italian. The moufflon or wild sheep, with red deer, fallow deer, wild boar, and an abun- dance of smaller game, such as hares, partridges, woodcock, snipe, etc., are the creatures chiefly hunted. Administra- tively the island is divided into the two provinces of Cagliari and Sassari. There are three archbishoprics, Cagliari, Sas- sari, and Oristano, and eight bishoprics. History. — The aboriginal inhabitants are believed to have been of Iberian stock, though this is by no means cer- tain. They seem to have been conquered by the Phoenicians at an early period; but little authentic is known before the conquest by the Carthaginians in 512 B. c. For two centuries and a half this people bitterly oppressed the native in- habitants, so that when the Romans came in the 3d century they were hailed as de- liverers. But the Sardinians did not at first bear the Roman yoke very patiently, thought afterward, from the reign of Tiberius onward, they enjoyed 300 years of continuous peace and prospered greatly. After the fall of the Roman empire evil days again fell on the island; it was overrun by Vandals and Goths, and then for many years was incessamtly harassed by the Saracens. During this time its nominal masters were the Byzan- tine emperors (till 774) and the Popes. In the beginning of the 11th century the Pisans and Genoese undertook the task of driving out the Saracens and holding the island against them ; but they had a hard task for 20 years or more. Then, the Moslems beaten off, they took to quarreling with one another, and only agreed to divide the island between them in 1299, Genoa taking the N., Pisa the S. But the real internal government was in the hands of four "judges" or chiefs, each ruling a separate province; this arrangement existed several centuries before the Pisans came, and continued to exist for several centuries longer. The Pope, who still claimed the over-lordship, at this time gave Sardinia to the king of Aragon; and he made himself defi- nitely master of it in 1416. The Ara- gonese and their sovereign successors, the Spaniards, kept possession of it till the treaty of Utrecht (1713); it then passed to Austria, but in 1718 was given to the House of Savoy in exchange for Sicily. ^ United with Savoy and Pied- mont, it gave title to a new kingdom, the kingdom of Sardinia. See Savoy. SARDIS, the capital of ancient Lydia in Asia Minor; stood at the N. foot oi Mount Tmolus (5,906 feet), 2V 2 miles S. of Hermus. Through its market place flowed the Pactolus over sands rich in gold, an allusion in all probability to the wealth of the inhabitants, who wove woolen stuffs and carpets, and organized the traffic between the highlands of the interior and the coast; it was, moreover, the grand and luxurious capital of Croe- sus, a monarch of fabulous wealth. In spite of the strength of its citadel it was destroyed by the Cimmerian Gauls in the 7th century B. c, by the Athenians in the 6th, by Antiochus the Great in 215 B. c, and by Timur in 1402; besides this it was overwhelmed by earthquake* in the reign of Tiberius. Both Xerxes and Cyrus the Great resided here before setting out on their great expeditiong. As Byzantium rose to importance, Sar- dis lost the advantages of its situation on the great land route between Persia and Rome, and gradually declined. At the present day fiere is nothing left at its site, Sart, except a small village and ruin mounds. SARDONYX, onyx consisting of alter- nate layers of sard and nearly opaque- white chalcedony. It is the most beau- tiful and the rarest variety of onyx, and that which was held in the greatest es- teem by the ancients for engraving into cameos.
