Battle of Alalia

Alalia (in Greek old Ἀλαλίη /Alalíê) was the name in the Antiquité of the Corsican city of Aleria. It was a Greek Cité, founded by the Phocée NS of Massilia , Marseilles.

The city was the stake of a conflict between the Greeks and what of aucuns called the “confederation étrusco-Carthaginian”, the coalition of the forces of these two States. Etruscan and Carthaginians did not accept the Greek presence in this area of the Mediterranean which they regarded as their field. The Etruscans controlled the trade with the Corsica and the Gallic coasts, the Carthaginians (see Carthage) following the Phéniciens controlled the sea routes and the traffic of the ores in all Western Mediterranean and the outlet on the Atlantique by the Détroit of Gibraltar. A naval Bataille took place, of broad city thinks one, in 535 av. J. - C. approximately, and Phocéens of Alaliè were massacred there.

This battle has a great importance in what, like that of Salamine, it was significant. Just as the second marks a final crushing argument to the Eastern expansion in the west, the first is a date hinge in antiquity. Indeed, the battle of Alalia marks to some extent the end of the antiquated period and the beginning of the traditional time in the Western Mediterranean. More than the Etruscan Greeks or Carthaginians and their allies, it is Rome which consequently will become the dominant power.

Source

(I, 165-167).

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