History and civilization
Marseille has a complicated history. Founded by the Phoenicians in 600 B.C. it is one of the oldest cities in Europe.
Ancient history
- Humans have inhabited Marseille and its environs for almost 30,000 years: Paleolithic cave paintings in the underwater Cosquer cave near the Calanque of Morgiou date back to between 27,000 and 19,000 BC; and very recent excavations near the railway station have unearthed Neolithic brick habitations from around 6,000 BC.
- Marseille was founded in 600 BC by Greeks from Phocaea as a trading port under the name Massalia. It was the first Greek port in Western Europe, growing to a population of over 1000 and also the first settlement given city status in France.
- The city maintained its independence until the rise of Julius Caesar, when it joined the losing side (Pompey) in civil war, and lost its independence in 49 BC.
- During the Roman times the city was called Massilia. It was the home port of Pytheas.
- Marseille thrived as a Roman trading port. Evidence of its growth and wealth is the fact that it was the first town of France to have an official public sewer system.
Middle Ages and Renaissance
- With the decline of the Roman Empire, the town fell into the hands of the Visigoths, and then it was given to the Ostrogoths after the Battle of Vouillé to prevent the city from falling to the Franks.
- Eventually Frankish kings succeeded in taking the town in the mid 500s AD.
- In 1262, the city revolted under Hugues des Baux, brother of Barral des Baux, and Bonifaci VI de Castellana against the rule of the Angevins but was put down by Charles I.
- In 1347, the city suffered terribly from the bubonic plague (some 50,000 people died in a city of 90,000).
- Marseille soon revived its population and trading status in the Mediterranean and in 1437, the Count of Provence Rene of Anjou arrived in Marseille and established it as France’s most fortified settlement outside of Paris.
- Marseille was united with Provence in 1481 and then incorporated in France the following year, but soon acquired a reputation for rebelling against the central government.
18th and 19th centuries
- Over the course of the eighteenth century, the port’s defenses were improved and Marseille became more important as France’s leading military port in the Mediterranean.
- In 1720, the Great Plague of Marseille, a form of the Black Death, struck down 100,000 people in the city and the surrounding provinces.
- The local population enthusiastically embraced the French Revolution and sent 500 volunteers to Paris in 1792 to defend the revolutionary government; their rallying call to revolution, sung on their march from Marseille to Paris, became known as La Marseillaise, now the national anthem of France.
- During the nineteenth century the city was the site of industrial innovations and a growth in manufacturing.
- The rise of the French Empire and the conquests of France from 1830 onward (notably Algeria) stimulated the maritime trade and raised the prosperity of the city.
20th century
- During the first half of the twentieth century, Marseille celebrated its trading status and ‘port of the empire’ status through the colonial exhibitions of 1906 and 1922.
- During World War II, Marseille was bombed by the German and the Italian forces in 1940. The city was occupied by Germans from November 1942 to August 1944.
- From the 1950s onward, the city served as an entrance port for over a million immigrants to France. In 1962 there was a large influx from the newly independent Algeria, including around 150,000 pieds-noirs.
- Politically, from 1950 to the mid 1980s, Marseille was dominated by its mayor Gaston Defferre, who was re-elected six times.