Background

Corsica had an indigenous population in the Neolithic and the Bronze Age but the east coast was subject to colonization by Mediterranean maritime powers: Greeks, Etruscans, Carthaginians, Romans. They typically built on an étang, which they used as a harbor. Alalíē (Ionic dialect) was placed between the southern end of the 3.5 km (2.2 mi) long Ētang de Diane and the Tavignano River (the classical Rhotanos), slightly inland, but controlling the entire district including the mouth of the river. The site is partly occupied today by the village of Cateraggio (Corsican: U Cateraghju) at the crossroads of national routes N200 and N198. N200 follows the Vallé du Tavignano into the interior mountains of Corte.

When the Etruscans took the district, after its abandonment by the Greeks, they settled further south along N198 in the vicinity of the village of Aléria, today primarily an archaeological site across the river from Cateraggio, where visitors and academics are quartered. Still south of there was the Etruscan necropolis, in today's Casabianda. Aléria takes its name from the Roman town placed there after the defeat of the Etruscans.

The entire district, however, is wider still, following the Corsican custom of including some mountains and some beaches in every district. It incorporates the agricultural lands of Teppe Rosse (to the west), the entire Étang de Diane and the Plage de Padulone 3 km (2 mi) east of Cateraggio, a former barrier beach. Since 1975 a series of laws have created the Casabianda-Aléria Nature Preserve, 1,748 ha (4,320 acres) between the mouth of the Tavignanu and the Étang d'Urbinu, which is 5 km (3 mi) to the south.

The reserve to the south was initiated from the grounds of the former penitentiary of Casabianda in 1951. It was instituted in 1880 in a then pestilential area which it was hoped the prisoners could farm. It contained 1800 ha and 214 plots. Due to a high death rate from malaria, the agricultural experiment failed.^[4]

Pre-Roman

According to Herodotus^[5] twenty years before the abandonment of Phocaea in Ionia, that is, in 566 BC, Phocaeans colonizing the western Mediterranean founded a city, Alalíē, on the island of Cyrnus (Corsica). Diodorus Siculus^[6] says that the city was named Calaris, possibly a corruption of Alalíē.^[7] The historical circumstances of Calaris leave no doubt that it was Aleria.

Diodorus says^[6] that Aleria had a "beautiful large harbor, called Syracusium," that Calaris and another city, Nicaea, were on it, and that Nicaea had been built by the Etruscans. Syracusium^[8] can only be the Étang de Diane, a lake exiting to the Tyrrhenian Sea. As Aleria and Nicaea were trade rivals it seems unlikely that the Etruscans would have allowed the Phocaeans, who were ancient Greeks, access to Étang de Diane. Nicaea is generally identified with the La Marana district further north, where the Romans later built a city, Mariana, on the Étang de Biguglia, a better harbor.^[7] Diodorus says that the cities of Corsica were subject to the Phocaeans and that the latter took slaves, resin, wax and honey from them. Alalíē was then an emporium. Of the natives whom the Phocaeans subjugated Diodorus says only that they were "barbarians, whose language is very strange and difficult to understand" and that they numbered more than 30,000.

At home Phocaea was the first city of Ionia to come under siege by the army of Cyrus, who were Medes commanded by Harpagus, in 546 BC. Requesting a cease-fire the Phocaeans took to their ships, abandoning the city to Harpagus, who allowed them to escape.^[5] Refused permission to settle Oenussae in the territory of Chios they resolved to reinforce Alalíē, but first made a surprise punitive raid on Phocaea, executing the entire Persian garrison. At this success half the Phocaeans reinhabited Phocaea; the other half settled in the vicinity of Alalíē.

In Corsica they were so troublesome to the Etruscans and to the Carthaginians of Sardinia that the two powers sent a combined fleet of 120 ships to root them out, but this force was defeated by 60 Phocaean ships at the Battle of Alalia in the Sardinian Sea, which Herodotus describes as a Cadmeian victory (his equivalent of a Pyrrhic victory) because the Greeks lost 40 ships sunk and the remaining 20 so damaged as not to be battle-worthy. Now unable to defend themselves, the Phocaeans took to their remaining ships and sailed off to Rhegium, abandoning Alalíē. The Etruscans landed the numerous Phocaean prisoners and executed them by stoning, leaving the bodies where they lay until the oracle compelled a proper burial. As the Carthaginians were not then interested in Corsica, the Etruscans occupied Alalíē and took over dominion of the island, which they held until the Romans took it from them.

Roman

The Etruscans and perhaps others in their turn occupied Alalia.^[4] There is no evidence of any other impact of theirs on the island or the indigenous population; the east coast location was simply fortuitous for them. Across the waters, however, rose a power that eventually dominated the entire island and had a lasting impact, changing the language. Alalíē was occupied by the Romans during the First Punic War in 259 BC. Florus says that Lucius Cornelius Scipio destroyed it and cleared the region of Carthaginians^[9] while Pliny adds that Sulla much later placed two colonies, Aleria and Mariana.^[10] Evidently the Corsican Etruscans had still been cooperating with the Carthaginians. Not including them, the island was divided into 32 states.

The Etruscans continued to use the necropolis. Subsequently, the Etruscan population must have assimilated to a new Roman population in parallel with the assimilation of Etruscans on the mainland. The Etruscan language disappeared and it must have been starting from that time that the island began to acquire its Latin language.

Under the late Roman Republic the Romans decided to build a major naval base on the shores of Étang de Diane. Starting in 80 BC under Sulla as dictator they rebuilt the city on the promontory at Aléria, naming it Aleria. The city rose to prominence under Augustus, becoming the provincial capital of Corsica. Major fleets were stationed on the étang.^[11] Ptolemy mentions it but says little about it, only mentioning "Aleria Colonia", the Rotanus River and Diana Harbor.^[12] He lists the "native races" inhabiting the island, but their geographical coordinates do not match those of Aleria; perhaps the Roman town was not considered among them.

In the later Roman Empire, the port and the city declined. It never recovered from a disastrous fire of 410 AD and in 465 was sacked by the Vandals. Subsequently, it became a small village of no interest to any major power. These events must mark the end of its classical antiquity. It was buried bit by bit by the Tavignano and the Tagnone rivers, which also created the deadly marshes. The region became subsumed under a Christian parish.

Medieval and modern

In the 13th century, Aleria became of interest to the Republic of Genoa. By that time the Latin language was gone, but it had developed into Corsu on Corsica, in parallel with the development of other Romance languages.

The commune of Aléria was created in 1824, but it did not truly begin to revive until after 1945, after the allies (chiefly American) had undertaken to eradicate malaria (1944). An organization, SOMIVAC (Société d'aménagement pour la mise en valeur de la Corse) was created in 1957 to resurrect agriculturally the entire eastern plain under government sponsorship. It had great success in developing the region. A massive archaeological effort got underway in 1955.

Ecclesiastical

There is some evidence that Corsica was being converted to Christianity in the late 6th century. Pope Gregory the Great wrote in 597 to Bishop Peter of Alaria to recover lapsed converts and to convert more pagans from the worship of trees and stones. He sent him money for baptismal robes.^[13] In 601, however, Aleria was without a bishop (see under Ajaccio).

Aleria was a residential diocese, suffragan of the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Pisa, which became a dogal state in Italy. It counted among its bishops Saint Alexander Sauli.

On 29 November 1801, in accordance with the Napoleontic Concordat of 1801, it was suppressed as the territory of the diocese of Ajaccio was extended to the whole of Corsica. At the end of the Ancien Régime, the bishop no longer lived in Aléria, but in Cervione.