Genoa > Genova Liguria Italy

The Ligurians called themselves Ambrones, according to Plutarch, but this does not necessarily indicate a relationship with the Ambrones of northern Europe.

Classical references and toponomastics suggest that the Ligurian sphere once extended further than the present boundary of Liguria.

Ligurian toponyms have been found in Sicily, the Rhône valley, Corsica and Sardinia.

Aeschylus represents Hercules as contending with the Ligures on the stony plains near the mouths of the Rhone, and Herodotus speaks of Ligures inhabiting the country above Massilia (modern Marseilles, founded by the Greeks).

Thucydides also speaks of the Ligures having expelled the Sicanians, an Iberian tribe, from the banks of the river Sicanus, in Iberia.

The Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax describes the Ligyes (Ligures) living along the Mediterranean coast from Antion (Antibes) as far as the mouth of the Rhone; then intermingled with the Iberians from the Rhone to Emporion in Spain.

Little is known of the Ligurian language.

Only place-names and personal names remain.

It appears to be an Indo-European branch with both Italic and particularly strong Celtic affinities.

Strabo tells us that they were of a different race from the Celts (by which he means Gauls) who inhabited the rest of the Alps, though they resembled them in their mode of life.

Lucan in his Pharsalia (around 61 CE) described Ligurian tribes as being long-haired, and their hair a shade of auburn (a reddish-brown): ...Ligurian tribes, now shorn, in ancient days First of the long-haired nations, on whose necks Once flowed the auburn locks in pride supreme.

The Ligurians are ignorant of their own origin.

In the nineteenth century, the Ligures' question got the attentions of not a few scholars.

Dominique-François-Louis Roget, Baron de Belloguet, claimed a "Gallic" origin.

Amédée Thierry, a French historian, linked them to the Iberians, while Karl Müllenhoff, professor of Germanic antiquities at the Universities of Kiel and Berlin, studying the sources of the Ora maritima by Avienus (a Latin poet who lived in the fourth century CE, but who used as source for his own work a Phoenician periplus of the sixth century BCE), held that the name Ligurians generically referred to various peoples who lived in Western Europe, including the Celts, but thought the real Ligurians were a Pre-Indo-European population.

Also favoring a Pre-Indo-European origin thesis were French historian Henri d'Arbois de Jubainville, who argued that the Ligurians, together with the Iberians, constituted the remains of the native population that had spread in Western Europe with the Cardium Pottery culture cardial ceramic, or related to the Bell Beaker folk; and Arturo Issel, a Genoese geologist and paleontologist, who considered them direct descendants of the Early European Modern Humans that lived throughout Gaul from the Mesolithic.

The Ligures seem to have been ready to engage as mercenary troops in the service of others; Ligurian auxiliaries are mentioned in the army of the Carthaginian general Hamilcar in 480 BCE.

…Liguria under the escort of thirty Carthaginian quinqueremes.

Mago manages to capture Genoa and …

Mago has held control of Northern Italy for nearly three years, warring with the mountain tribes and gathering troops.

The Romans have devoted seven legions to maintain watch over him and guard Northern Italy, but no general action has been fought.

In 204 BCE, Mago had been reinforced with six thousand infantry and some cavalry from Carthage.

The Romans had refused to give battle and blocked Mago so he couldn't reach Hannibal.

Wounded in a battle in Cisalpine Gaul, Mago is recalled back to Carthage along with Hannibal to aid in its defense, as the future Scipio Africanus major has shattered the armies of Hasdrubal Gisco, Hanno, son of Bomilcar, and has captured Syphax, who is allied to Carthage, in Africa.

Mago and his army sail from Italy in 202 BCE under the escort of the Punic fleet, and is unmolested by the Roman navy as he makes for Africa.

Before arriving in Carthage, however, he dies at sea.

Genoa probably had begun as a Ligurian village on the Sarzano Hill overlooking the natural port (today Molo Vecchio) that had prospered through contacts with the Etruscans and the Greeks.

The first historically known inhabitants of the area are the Ligures, although a city cemetery, dating from the sixth and fifth centuries BCE, testifies to the occupation of the site by the Greeks; the fine harbor probably was in use much earlier, perhaps by the Etruscans.

It is also probable that the Phoenicians had bases in Genoa, or in the nearby area.

In the Roman ages, Genoa has been overshadowed by the powerful Marseille and Vada Sabatia, near modern Savona.

Different from other Ligures and Celt settlements of the area, Genoa had been allied to Rome through a foedus aequum ("Equal pact") in the course of the Second Punic War.

It had therefore been destroyed by the Carthaginians in 209 BCE.

The town has been rebuilt, and Rome, after defeating the Ligurians in a battle near the city in 180, completes its subjugation of all of Italy, deporting 40,000 Ligurians to other areas of the Republic.

The consul Spurius Postumius Albinus in 148 BCE constructs the Via Postumia, which runs from the coast at Genua (Genoa) …

The Burgundians under king Gundobad, having crossed the Alps, plunder Liguria, taking many Romans into captivity.

Belisarius secures Liguria, …

…Liguria.

Pope Severinus had finally succeeded Honorius I as the seventy-first pope on May 28, 640.

During the short time he is pope, Severinus condemns the Ecthesis.

Convening a synod, he decrees that “as there were two natures in Christ, so there were two natural operations.” He also renews the mosaics in the apse of Saint Peter’s Basilica.

Unfortunately Severinus was already quite old when his election was confirmed, and his reign is only two months long when he dies on August 2, 640.

Pope John IV succeeds Severinus as the 72nd pope; his election on December 24 is accepted by the Exarchate of Ravenna.

The Lombards under king Rothari conquer Genoa and all remaining imperial territories in the lower Po Valley, including …