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.
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 Oenusian 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.