Among the epigrams on Corsica ascribed to Seneca, there is one which says of the Corsicans: Their first law is to revenge themselves, their second to live by plunder, their third to lie, and their fourth to deny the gods. This is all the information of importance we have from the Greeks and Romans on the subject of Corsica. CHAPTER IV. COMMENCEMENT OF THE MEDIÆVAL PERIOD. Corsica remained in the possession of the Romans, from whom in later times it received the Christian religion, till the fall of Rome made it once more a prey to the rovers by land and sea. Here, again, we have new inundations of various tribes, and a motley mixture of nations, languages, and customs, as in the earliest period. Germans, Byzantine Greeks, Moors, Romanized races appear successively in Corsica. But the Romanic stamp, impressed by the Romans and strengthened by bands of fugitive Italians, has already taken its place as an indelible and leading trait in Corsican character. The Vandals came to Corsica under Genseric, and maintained themselves in the island a long time, till they were expelled by Belisarius. After the Goths and Longobards had in their turn invaded the island and been its masters, it fell, along with Sardinia, into the hands of the Byzantines, and remained in their possession nearly two hundred years. It was during this period that numerous Greek names and roots, still to be met with throughout the country and in the language, originated. The Greek rule was of the Turkish kind. They appeared to look upon the Corsicans as a horde of savages; they loaded them with impossible exactions, and compelled them to sell their very children in order to raise the enormous tribute. A period of incessant fighting now begins for Corsica, and the history of the nation consists for centuries in one uninterrupted struggle for existence and freedom.