Aquae Ypsitanae (civitas), Forum Traiani, Summary
Scholars date the Roman presence in Aquae Ypsitanae on the Tirso to as early as the era of the great revolts in the 2nd c. BC at the thermal water springs of Caddas, “the hot (springs)”, which are located at the base of an impressive layer of trachyte. The site was already known by Ptolemy (3, 3,7) as Ydata Ypsitanà. Regardless of the previous pre-Roman situation that can be traced in the town (religious or trading centre?) of the indigenous populus of the Ypsitani, the settlement had four functions: bath town, vicus main town for a pagus located on the other side of the Tirso, junction on the two roads viae a Turre and a Karalis and finally military base for the cohors I Corsorum. Regarding this cohors we know of one praefectus, Sex. Iulius Sex. f. Pol(lia tribu) Rufus (CIL XIV 2954), who was entrusted with this prefecture in the Augustan era along with that of the civitates Barbariae, the non-urbanised communities ultra Thyrsum, who paid homage to the (Augustus or Tiberius) precisely at Aquae Ypsitanae (ILSard. I 188).
A problem arises with Aquae Ypsitanae as to whether the settlement belonged to a territory of its own or the pertica of a nearby town. The original road network of the territory, before the founding of Forum Traiani, feature a road straight a Karalis through Uselisas far as Aquae Ypsitanae, which led to the town of Othoca, the statute of which we know nothing about, being excluded. This was connected with Forum Traiani by way of an 18-mile-long road, presumably in the era of Trajan, and it would suggest instead that Aquae Ypsitanae be included in the pertica of the colonia Iulia Augusta Uselis, which was divided into pagi, already at the moment of its establishment, or in any case, that of the founding of the colony. Piero Meloni was the first to postulate that the Ydata Ypsitanà depended on the paganic organisation, hence on a *pagus Ypsitanus.
Despite the absence of direct sources, it is not to be excluded that the bath town of Aquae Ypsitanae was established as a vicus, with its own limited juridical organisation, within the jurisdiction of the magistrates– the IIviri – of the colonia of Uselis. The record of two individuals, the servus publicus of the Aquae Ypsitanae, [Fe]lix Ypsitan[orum servus] (ILSard.. I 194), author of a document relating to a piscina, and the sixty-year-old Aquensis fisci (servus) (AE 1992, 880) in an epitaph dating to the first half of the 2nd c. AD, but who had to take on the name Aquensis in the pre-Trajan era, reflect the existence of public administration at the aquae, relating to the fiscus, with servi publici, known as Ypsitani or Aquenses, presumably because they were the children of public slaves.
The analysis of the layout of Aquae Ypsitanae in thephase preceding the establishment of Forum Traiani by Trajan is relatively uncertain. Aquae Ypsitanae was about 17 miles from Uselisalong the aforementioned a Karalis road, which wasprovided with milestones in 46 AD, under Claudius, who presumably restructured the preceding road network already in the Late Republican era. The discovery of black varnish pottery (Campana A and local grey ware), Italic sigillata, and south-Gallic sigillata in the area of Aquae Ypsitanae indicates uninterrupted settlement of the site between the Late Republican era and the Flavian era, preceded by the monumentalisation of Aquae in the era of Trajan. The horizontal and volumetric expansion of the bath complex between the Augustan era and that of the Flavians is uncertain, although it cannot be excluded that the main components that were centred around a stepped natatio with a portico may date to a pre-Trajan era. Without doubt, one piscina in the Aquae is attested by the cited inscription: [Fe]lix Ypsitan[orum servus]. This can be dated with certainty to the 1st c. AD.
The cult of the waters was extensively developed in the proto-Sardinian civilisation. This may suggest that the Ypsitani could have practised such rituals, albeit in undetermined forms, at the aquae ferventes that, according to Solinus (4,4,6), were not only therapeutic, but could also be used for ordalic practices.
It is possible that the indigenous cult of the waters was founded, syncretistically, in the Hellenistic era with the cult of salutary divinities, as would seem to suggest two small statues in trachyte that were found in the area of the Aquae in 1899. They represent the Egyptian god Bes, who was probably used by the Punic populations as their healer god, Eshmun, in the Graeco-Roman interpretation, Asklepios-Aesculapius.
A third statue, also in greyish trachyte, once held in the town hall of Fordongianus, was also from the bath complex. It represents a female divinity, but it is unfortunately headless.
We can hypothesise that cults relating to two divinities were practised at Aquae Ypsitanae: one was female, the other male, and nevertheless variably reinterpreted during the Imperial era.
A trachyte arula dedicated to Aescul(apius) (AE 1986, 272) is dated to the Augustan era on a palaeographic basis. It regards the resolution of a votum by a certain L. Cornelius Sylla, probably descendant of one of the dictator Sulla’s freedmen, in the area of Aquae Ypsitanae.
Minimal Bibliography
A. Mastino, Urban and rural life in Roman Sardinia: economy, society and land use, Cambridge Scholars Publihing limited, 2025, pp. 1-455.
A. Mastino, Sardinia in the Roman World until Constantine, Cambridge Scholars Publihing limited, 2026, pp. 1-475
Photo by Nicola Castangia