According to the most ancient tradition, the inhabitants of Sardinia were Tyrrhenians, who appear in various forms and personifications, in the story about Aristaeus, in the Iolai, and in many other ways. If Tyrrhenians did exist there, they can only have been settlers on the coasts, for a part of the inhabitants, such as the _Noraces_ and _Balari_, were certainly of Iberian origin, and belonged to the same race as the inhabitants of the Balearian islands. In regard to others again, it is equally certain that they were of Libyan origin, for they are stated to have resembled the Berbers in language, in bodily structure, complexion, and hair. The _Sardi Montani_, perhaps a mixture of Iberians and Libyans, were in later times confined to the mountains. These mountains, however, must not be conceived as Alps, for heights of a less lofty character were sufficient for those people to maintain themselves in them. The highlands of Scotland also do not contain any high mountains, they are only inaccessible, and yet the population has maintained itself there throughout all the changes of nations. The sea-coast was occupied at an early time by Punic colonies, which afterwards became masters of the island, with the exception of the interior, over which they exercised no other influence than that which a powerful nation on the coast always possesses over the other inhabitants. In like manner the Dutch did not rule over the interior of Ceylon, the prince of Candy being sovereign, though he was obliged to comply with the wishes of the Dutch whenever they insisted upon it. Such was the condition of Sardinia during the second Punic war, when we meet with Hampsicora and Hiostus as Sardinian princes. The Punic settlements consisted for the most part of Carthaginians mixed with Libyans, as the Carthaginians themselves were a mixed race (Λιβυφοίνικες), or with Greeks from Sicily and Magna Graecia. The Libyans must not be conceived as negroes: in their physical features they are not very unlike Europeans, and scarcely differ at all from southern Europeans, so that the mixture could take place without any difficulty. The mixture of the Libyphoenices with the Sardinians is attested by Cicero in an interesting fragment of his speech for Scaurus. The Punic language accordingly predominated everywhere on the coast, and all the known names of the Sardinians are Punic, e.g., _Aris_, genitive _Arinis_, which is nothing else than the Hebrew Aaron; so also Caralis and others. I said before, that Sardinia, near the coast, has extensive low grounds, which are, for the most part, marshy and unhealthy: this peculiarity, (_aër gravis_), which is still the reason of the scanty population of the island, was known even to the historians of antiquity; the country was very dangerous to the Roman soldiers, many of whom died there of fevers. This we see from Tacitus’ annals[64] to have been the case in the time of Tiberius, and such it