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By Ways of Europe (Notable American Authors)
By Ways of Europe - Notable American Authors Author:Bayard Taylor Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: of the Roman town ; but the walls of a church and chapel of the Middle Ages are still to be seen. The only other Roman colony on Corsica — Aleria, at the mouth o... more »f the Tavignano — was a restoration of the more ancient Alalia, which tradition ascribes to the Phoceans. Notwithstanding the nearness of the island to the Italian coast, and its complete subjection to the Empire, its resources were imperfectly developed by the Romans, and the accounts of it given by the ancient writers are few and contradictory. Strabo says of the people : " Those who inhabit the mountains live from plunder, and are more untamable than wild beasts. When the Roman commanders undertake an expedition against the island, and possess themselves of the strongholds, they bring back to Rome many slaves; and then one sees with astonishment the savage animal nature of the people. For they either take their own lives violently, or tire out their masters by their stubbornness and stupidity; whence, no matter how cheaply they are purchased, it is always a bad bargain in the end." Here we have the key to that fierce, indomitable spirit of independence which made the Genoese occupation one long story of warfare ; which produced such heroes as Sambucuccio, Sampieri, and Paoli; and which exalted Corsica, in the last century, to be the embodiment of the democratic ideas of Europe, and the marvelous forerunner of the American Republic. Verily, Nature is " careful of the type." After the Romans, the Vandals possessed Corsica ; then the Byzantine Greeks ; then, in succession, the Tuscan Barons, the Pisans, and the Genoese — yet scarcely one of the political forms planted among them took root in the character of the islanders. The origin of the Corsican Republic lies back of all our history ; it was a natural growth, which ...« less