the first to declare in favor of the former, an example soon followed by the other cities of Sardinia; and Caesar himself touched there with his fleet on his return from Africa. A few years later, when Sardinia fell into the hands of Menas, the lieutenant of Sextus Pompeius, Caralis was the only city which offered any resistance, but was taken after a short siege. Cagliari continued to be regarded as the capital of the island under the Roman Empire, and though it did not become a colony, obtained the status of municipium. Remains of Roman public buildings were found to the west of Marina in Piazza del Carmine. There was an area of ordinary housing near the modern Via Roma, and richer houses on the slopes of the Marina distinct. The amphitheatre is located to the west of the Castello. A Christian community is attested in Cagliari at least as early as the 3rd century, and by the end of that century the city had a Christian bishop. In the middle decades of the 4th century bishop Lucifer of Cagliari was exiled because of his opposition to the sentence against Athanasius of Alexandria at the Synod of Milan. He was banished to the desert of Thebais by the emperor Constantius II. Claudian describes the ancient city of Karalis as extending to a considerable length towards the promontory or headland, the projection of which sheltered its port. The port affords good anchorage for large vessels, but besides this, which is only a well-sheltered standby, there is a large salt-water lake or lagoon, called the Stagno di Cagliari, adjoining the city and communicating by a narrow channel with the bay, which appears from Claudian to have been used in ancient times as an inner harbor or basin. The promontory adjoining the city is evidently that noticed by Ptolemy (), but the Caralitanum Promontorium of Pliny can be no other than the headland, now called Capo Carbonara, which forms the eastern boundary of the Gulf of Cagliari and the southeast point of the whole island. Immediately off it lay the little island of Ficaria, now called the Isola dei Cavoli ("Cabbage Island" in Italian, Isula de is Càvurus "Crab Island" in Sardinian). After the fall of the Western Roman Empire Cagliari fell, together with the rest of Sardinia, into the hands of the Vandals, but appears to have retained its importance throughout