for "Dum enim Barbaricini omnes ut insensata animalia vivant, deum verum nesciant, ligna autem et lapides adorent" (living, all like irrational animals, ignorant of the true God and worshiping wood and stone). In AD 594. Ospitone was then convinced by Gregory the Great, and likely the circumstances of his conflict with Zabarda, to convert to Christianity after receiving the papal letter. His followers, however, were not immediately convinced and ostracized their prince for a short time before they themselves converted.
Exactly when and how Byzantine rule ended in Sardinia is not known. Direct central control was maintained at least through c. AD 650, after which local legates were empowered in the face of the rebellion of Gregory the Patrician, Exarch of Africa and the First Invasion of the Umayyad conquest of North Africa. There is some evidence that senior Byzantine administration in the Exarchate of Africa retreated to Cagliari following the final fall of Carthage to the Arabs in AD 697. The loss of imperial control in Africa led to escalating Moorish and Berber raids on the island, the first of which is document in AD 705, forcing increased military self-reliance in the province. Communication with the central government became daunting if not impossible during and after the Muslim conquest of Sicily of AD 827 and AD 902. A letter by Pope Nicholas I as early as 864 mentions the "Sardinian judges", without reference to the empire and a letter by Pope John VIII (reigned AD 872 – AD 882) refers to them as principes ("princes"). By the time of ‘’De Administrando Imperio’’, completed in 952, the Byzantine authorities no longer listed Sardinia as an imperial province, suggesting they considered it lost.
Whether this final transformation from imperial civil servant to independent sovereign resulted from imperial abandonment or local assertion, by the 10th century, the ‘’Giudici’’ (Latin iudices, literally meaning "judges", a Byzantine
