In the north-western mountain-land of Italy, whose
valleys and hills were occupied chiefly by the much-subdivided
Ligurian stock, the Romans pursued a similar course.
Those dwelling immediately to the north of the Arno
were extirpated. This fate befell chiefly the
Apuani, who dwelt on the Apennines between the Arno
and the Magra, and incessantly plundered on the one
side the territory of Pisae, on the other that of
Bononia and Mutina. Those who did not fall victims
in that quarter to the sword of the Romans were transported
into Lower Italy to the region of Beneventum (574);
and by energetic measures the Ligurian nation, from
which the Romans were obliged in 578 to recover the
colony of Mutina which it had conquered, was completely
crushed in the mountains which separate the valley
of the Po from that of the Arno. The fortress
of Luna (not far from Spezzia), established in 577
in the former territory of the Apuani, protected the
frontier against the Ligurians just as Aquileia did
against the Transalpines, and gave the Romans at the
same time an excellent port which henceforth became
the usual station for the passage to Massilia and to
Spain. The construction of the coast or Aurelian
road from Rome to Luna, and of the cross road carried
from Luca by way of Florence to Arretium between the
Aurelian and Cassian ways, probably belongs to the
same period.
With the more western Ligurian tribes, who held the
Genoese Apennines and the Maritime Alps, there were
incessant conflicts. They were troublesome neighbours,
accustomed to pillage by land and by sea: the
Pisans and Massiliots suffered no little injury from
their incursions and their piracies. But no
permanent results were gained amidst these constant
hostilities, or perhaps even aimed at; except apparently
that, with a view to have a communication by land with
Transalpine Gaul and Spain in addition to the regular
route by sea, the Romans endeavoured to clear the
great coast road from Luna by way of Massilia to Emporiae,
at least as far as the Alps—beyond the Alps
it devolved on the Massiliots to keep the coast navigation
open for Roman vessels and the road along the shore
open for travellers by land. The interior with
its impassable valleys and its rocky fastnesses, and
with its poor but dexterous and crafty inhabitants,
served the Romans mainly as a school of war for the
training and hardening of soldiers and officers.
Corsica
Sardinia
Wars as they are called, of a similar character with
those against the Ligurians, were waged with the Corsicans
and to a still greater extent with the inhabitants
of the interior of Sardinia, who retaliated for the
predatory expeditions directed against them by sudden
attacks on the districts along the coast. The
expedition of Tiberius Gracchus against the Sardinians
in 577 was specially held in remembrance, not so much
because it gave “peace” to the province,
as because he asserted that he had slain or captured
as many as 80,000 of the islanders, and dragged slaves
thence in such multitudes to Rome that “cheap
as a Sardinian” became a proverb.
