La Corsica di Diodoro: Tradizioni etnografiche, divagazioni utopiche, debiti storiografici

Diodours Siculus left us the most precise description about Corsica among those inherited from the ancient world. It occupies a conspicuous part of chapters 13 and 14 of his book V, which describes the islands. Even though short, it offers us information about ethnography, anthropology and society that otherwise would not be known. The text shows the island as a place of uncommon features, yet not savage, but ruled by harmonious 'natural' customs. In its totality, it presents the island as a different geo-anthropological reality, as a sort of utopian kingdom, which is characterised by pacified models of social cohabitation. This image should have been different from that provided by Timaeus, if we choose to accept a suggestion of Polybius.