iberty to seek for the ransom, but the
Greek government sent troops in pursuit of the brigands, and the other
prisoners were then murdered. The scoundrels were hunted down, caught, and
executed, and Greece has since then been tolerably free from this reproach.
In the Balkan peninsula, under Turkish rule, brigandage continued to exist
in connexion with Christian revolt against the Turk, and the race conflicts
of Albanians, Walachians, Pomuks, Bulgarians and Greeks. In Corsica the
"maquis" has never been without its brigand hero, because industry has been
stagnant, family feuds persist, and the government has never quite
succeeded in persuading the people to support the law. The brigand is
always a hero to at least one faction of Corsicans.

The conditions which favour brigandage have been more prevalent, and for
longer, in Italy than elsewhere in western Europe, with the standing
exception of Corsica, which is Italian in all but political allegiance.
Until the middle of the 19th century Italy was divided into small states,
so that the brigand who was closely pursued in one could flee to another.
Thus it was that Marco Sciarra of the Abruzzi, when hard pressed by the
Spanish viceroy of Naples--just before and after 1600--could cross the
border of the papal states and return on a favourable opportunity. When
pope and viceroy combined against him he took service with Venice, from
whence he could communicate with his friends at home, and pay them
occasional visits. On one such visit he was led into a trap and slain.
Marco Sciarra had terrorized the country far and wide at the head of 600
men. He was the follower and imitator of Benedetto Mangone, of whom it is
recorded that, having stopped a party of travellers which included Torquato
Tasso, he allowed them to pass unharmed out of his reverence for poets and
poetry. Mangone was finally taken, and beaten to death with hammers at
Naples. He and his like are the heroes of much popular verse, written in
_ottava rima_, and beginning with the traditional epic invocation to the
muse. A fine example is "The most beautiful history of the life and death
of Pietro Mancino, chief of Banditti," which has remained popular with the
people of southern Italy. It begins:--

"Io canto li ricatti, e il fiero ardire
Del gran Pietro Mancino fuoruscito"
(Pietro Mancino that great outlawed man
I sing, and all his rage.)

In Naples the number of competing codes and jurisdictions, the surviv