Marseille (English spelling Marseilles) is the second largest city in France. It is located on France’s south coast. It was founded circa 600 BCE as the Greek colony of Massalia. For the ancient Greeks and Romans, Marseille was a trading center, and it remains the commercial port of France. The city became a focal point of the French Revolution and was the birthplace of France’s national anthem, La Marseillaise, which was written as a revolutionary song in 1792 by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle after the declaration of war against Austria.