Spain took place. Seneca, who spent eight years of exile in Corsica, in his book De Consolatione, addressed to his mother Helvia, and written from that island, has the following passage (cap. viii.):—"This island has frequently changed its inhabitants. Omitting all that is involved in the darkness of antiquity, I shall only say that the Greeks, who at present inhabit Massilia (Marseilles), after they had left Phocæa, settled at first at Corsica. It is uncertain what drove them away—perhaps the unhealthy climate, the growing power of Italy, or the scarcity of havens; for, that the savage character of the natives was not the reason, we learn from their betaking themselves to the then wild and uncivilized tribes of Gaul. Afterwards, Ligurians crossed over to the island; and also Hispanians, as may be seen from the similarity of the modes of life; for the same kinds of covering for the head and the feet are found here, as among the Cantabrians—and there are many resemblances in words; but the entire language has lost its original character, through intercourse with the Greeks and Ligurians." It is to be lamented that Seneca did not consider it worth the pains to make more detailed inquiry into the condition of the island. Even for him its earliest history was involved in obscurity; how much more so must it be for us?

Seneca is probably mistaken, however, in not making the Ligurians and Hispanians arrive on the island till after the Phocæans. I have no doubt that the Celtic races were the first and oldest inhabitants of Corsica. The Corsican physiognomy, even of the present time, appears as a Celtic-Ligurian.

CHAPTER II.

THE GREEKS, ETRUSCANS, CARTHAGINIANS, AND ROMANS IN CORSICA.

The first historically accredited event in relation to Corsica, is that immigration of the fugitive Phocæans definitely mentioned by Herodotus. We know that these Asiatic Greeks had resolved rather to quit their native country, than submit to inevitable slavery under Cyrus, and that, after a solemn oath to the gods, they carried everything they possessed on board ship, and put out to sea. They first negotiated with the Chians for the cession of the Œnusian Islands, but without success; they then set sail for Corsica, not without a definite enough aim, as they had already twenty years previously founded on that island the city of Alalia. They were, accordingly, received by their own colonists here, and remained with them five years, "building temples," as Herodotus says; "but because they made plundering incursions on their neighbours, the Tyrrhenians and Carthaginians brought sixty ships into the seas. The Phocæans, on their side, had equipped a fleet of equal size, and came to an engagement with them off the coast of Sardinia. They gained a victory, but it cost them dear; for they lost forty vessels, and the rest had been rendered useless—their beaks having been bent. They returned to Alalia, and taking their wives and children, and as much of their property as they could, with them, they left the island of Cyrnus, and sailed to Rhegium." It is well known that they afterwards founded Massilia, the present Marseilles.

We have therefore in Alalia, the present Aleria—a colony of an origin indubitably Greek, though it afterwards fell into the hands of the Etruscans. The history of this flourishing commercial people compels us to assume, that, even before the arrival of the Phocæans, they had founded colonies in Corsica. It is impossible that the powerful Populonia, lying so near Corsica on the coast opposite, with Elba already in its possession, should never have made any attempt to establish its influence along the eastern shores of the island. Diodorus says in his fifth book:—"There are two notable cities in Corsica—Calaris and Nicæa; Calaris (a corruption of Alalia or Aleria) was founded by the Phocæans. These were expelled by the Tyrrhenians, after they had been some time in the island. The Tyrrhenians founded Nicæa, when they became masters of the sea." Nicæa is probably the modern Mariana, which lies on the same level region of the coast. We may assume that this colony existed contemporaneously with Alalia, and that the immigration of the entire community of Phocæans excited jealousy and alarm in the Tyrrhenians, whence the collision between them and the Greeks. It is uncertain whether the Carthaginians had at this period possessions in Corsica; but they had colonies in the neighbouring Sardinia. Pausanias tells us that they subjugated the Libyans and Hispanians on this island, and built the two cities of Caralis (Cagliari) and Sulchos (Palma di Solo). The threatened danger from the Greeks now induced them to make common cause with the Tyrrhenians, who also had settlements in Sardinia, against the Phocæan intruders. Ancient writers further mention an immigration of Corsicans into Sardinia, where they are said to have founded twelve cities.

For a considerable period we now hear nothing more about the fortunes of Corsica, from which the Etruscans continued to draw supplies of honey, wax, timber for ship-building, and slaves. Their power gradually sank, and they gave way to the Carthaginians, who seem to have put themselves in complete possession of both islands—that is, of their emporiums and havens—for the tribes of the interior had yielded to no foe. During the Punic Wars, the conquering Romans deprived the Carthaginians in their turn of both islands. Corsica is at first not named, either in the Punic treaty of the time of Tarquinius, or in the conditions of peace at the close of the first Punic War. Sardinia had been ceded to the Romans; the vicinity of Corsica could not but induce them to make themselves masters of that island also; both, lying in the centre of a sea which washed the shores of Spain, Gaul, Italy, and Africa, afforded the greatest facilities for establishing stations directed towards the coasts of all the countries which Rome at that time was preparing to subdue.

We are informed, that in the year 260 before the birth of Christ, the Consul Lucius Cornelius Scipio crossed over to Corsica, and destroyed the city of Aleria, and that he conquered at once the Corsicans, Sardinians, and the Carthaginian Hanno. The mutilated inscription on the tomb of Scipio has the words—Hec cepit Corsica Aleriaque vrbe. But the subjugation of the wild Corsicans was no easy matter. They made a resistance as heroic as that of the Samnites. We even find that the Romans suffered a number of defeats, and that the Corsicans several times rebelled. In the year 240, M. Claudius led an army against the Corsicans. Defeated, and in a situation of imminent danger, he offered them favourable conditions. They accepted them, but the Senate refused to confirm the treaty. It ordered the Consul, C. Licinius Varus, to chastise the Corsicans, delivering Claudius at the same time into their hands, that they might do with him as they chose. This was frequently the policy of the Romans, when they wished to quiet their religious scruples about an oath. The Corsicans did as the Spaniards and Samnites had done in similar instances. They would not receive the innocent general, and sent him back unharmed. On his return to Rome, he was strangled, and thrown upon the Gemonian stairs.

Though subdued by the Romans, the Corsicans were continually rising anew, already exhibiting that patriotism and love of freedom which in much later times drew the eyes of the world on this little isolated people. They rebelled at the same time with the Sardinians; but when these had been conquered, the Corsicans also were obliged to submit to the Consul Caius Papirus, who defeated them in the bloody battle of the "Myrtle-field." But they regained a footing in the mountain