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
strongholds, and it appears that they forced the Roman commander to an
advantageous peace.
They rose again in the year 181. Marcus Pinarius, Prætor of Sardinia,
immediately landed in Corsica with an army, and defeated the islanders
with dreadful carnage in a battle of which Livy gives an account--they
lost two thousand men killed. The Corsicans submitted, gave hostages
and a tribute of one hundred thousand pounds of wax. Seven years later,
a new insurrection and other bloody battles--seven thousand Corsicans
were slain, and two thousand taken prisoners. The tribute was raised to
two hundred thousand pounds of wax. Ten years afterwards, this heroic
people is again in arms, compelling the Romans to send out a consular
army: Juventius Thalea, and after him Scipio Nasica, completed the
subjugation of the island in the year 162.
The Romans had thus to fight with these islanders for more than a
hundred years, before they reduced them to subjection. Corsica was
governed in common with Sardinia by a Prætor, who resided in Cagliari,
and sent a _legatus_ or lieutenant to Corsica. But it was not till the
time of the first civil war, that the Romans began to entertain serious
thoughts of colonizing the island. The celebrated Marius founded, on
the beautiful level of the east coast, the city of Mariana; and Sulla
afterwards built on the same plain the city of Aleria, restoring the
old Alalia of the Phocæans. Corsica now began to be Romanized, to
modify its Celtic-Spanish language, and to adopt Roman customs. We
do not hear that the Corsicans again ventured to rebel against their
masters; and the island is only once more mentioned in Roman history,
when Sextus Pompey, defying the triumvirs, establishes a maritime power
in the Mediterranean, and takes possession of Corsica, Sardinia, and
Sicily. His empire was of short duration.