After the day of Rome came Germans, Byzantine Greeks, Moors, Goths, Vandals, and Longobards. For centuries the island was torn by incessant war, the Corsicans doing their utmost to keep themselves free from foreign masters. The feudal system was fastened upon the struggling people by the chiefs of the invaders. The crags were crowned with castles, and half-savage feudal lords ruled by the law of their own fierce lusts. They waged war upon each other, they ground down the native races. Unable to defend themselves, miserably poor, but full of desperate courage, the Corsicans fled from the coasts to escape the pirate, and to the mountains to resist the feudal robber. In their distress the peasants found a leader in Sambuccio, who organized them into village communities,--a democratic, self-ruling confederation. There were no serfs, no slaves, in Corsica; freedom and equality the people claimed and fought for; and under Sambuccio they totally routed the barons. The great leader died; the barons took up arms again; the peasants appealed to the margrave of Tuscany for aid; an army came from Italy, the barons were beaten, and the village confederation restored. From A.D. 1020 to A.D. 1070, Tuscany protected the Corsicans; but the popes, having looked upon the land with eyes of desire, claimed it for the Church, and, through skilful manipulations (such as are common in cases of that kind), the people were persuaded to submit. In the year 1098 Pope Urban II. sold the island to Pisa, and for one hundred years Corsica remained under the dominion of that republic. Genoa, however, envied Pisa this increase of territory, claimed the island for herself, and backed her claim by arms. Corsica was rent by the struggle, and the Corsicans themselves were divided into hostile camps, one favoring Pisa, the other Genoa. The leader of the Pisan faction, Guidice della Rocca, kept up, for many years, an unequal struggle, showing wonderful courage, fertility of resource, rigorous justice, and rare clemency. He killed his own nephew for having outraged a female prisoner for whose safety he, Della Rocca, had given his word. Old and blind, this hero was betrayed by his bastard son, delivered to the Genoese, and died in a wretched Genoese dungeon; and with his downfall passed away the Pisan sovereignty. A period of anarchy followed the death of Della Rocca. The barons were unmerciful in their extortions, and the people were reduced to extreme misery. After many years appeared another valiant patriot of the Rocca race, Arrigo della Rocca (1392). He raised the standard of revolt, and the people rallied to him. He beat the Genoese, was proclaimed Count of Corsica, and ruled the land for four years. Defeated at length by the Genoese, he went to Spain to ask aid. Returning with a small force, he routed his enemies and became again master of the island. Genoa sent another army, Arrigo della Rocca was poisoned (1401), and in the same year Genoa submitted to France.