The nature of its interior prevents us from believing that the condition of the island was by any means so flourishing during the long periods of its subjection to the Romans, as some writers are disposed to assume. They contented themselves, as it appears, with the two colonies mentioned, and the establishment of some ports. The beautiful coast opposite Italy was the region mainly cultivated. They had only made a single road in Corsica. According to the Itinerary of Antonine, this Roman road led from Mariana along the coast southwards to Aleria, to Præsidium, Portus Favoni, and Palæ, on the straits, near the modern Bonifazio. This was the usual place for crossing to Sardinia, in which the road was continued from Portus Tibulæ (_cartio Aragonese_)--a place of some importance, to Caralis, the present Cagliari. Pliny speaks of thirty-three towns in Corsica, but mentions only the two colonies by name. Strabo, again, who wrote not long before him, says of Corsica: "It contains some cities of no great size, as Blesino, Charax, Eniconæ, and Vapanes." These names are to be found in no other writer. Pliny has probably made every fort a town. Ptolemy, however, gives the localities of Corsica in detail, with the appellations of the tribes inhabiting them; many of his names still survive in Corsica unaltered, or easily recognised. The ancient authors have left us some notices of the character of the country and people during this Roman period. I shall give them here, as it is interesting to compare what they say with the accounts we have of Corsica in the Middle Ages and at the present time. Strabo says of Corsica: "It is thinly inhabited, for it is a rugged country, and in most places has no practicable roads. Hence those who inhabit the mountains live by plunder, and are more untameable than wild beasts. When the Roman generals have made an expedition against the island, and taken their strongholds, they bring away with them a great number of slaves, and then people in Rome may see with astonishment, what fierce and utterly savage creatures these are. For they either take away their own lives, or they tire their master by their obstinate disobedience and stupidity, so that he rues his bargain, though he have bought them for the veriest trifle."