Etruscan history

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Main article: Etruscan civilization
A map showing the extent of Etruria and the Etruscan civilization; the map includes the 12 cities of the Etruscan League and notable cities founded by the Etruscans

Etruscan history is the written record of Etruscan civilization compiled mainly by Greek and Roman authors. Apart from their inscriptions, from which information mainly of a sociological character can be extracted, we do not have any historical works written by the Etruscans themselves, nor is there any mention in the Roman authors that any was ever written. Remnants of Etruscan writings are almost exclusively concerned with religion.

Origin

Main article: Etruscan origins
The Mars of Todi, a life-sized bronze sculpture of a soldier making a votive offering, late 5th to early 4th century BC
Painted terracotta Sarcophagus of Seianti Hanunia Tlesnasa, about 150–130 BC
The Orator, c. 100 BC, an Etrusco-Roman bronze statue depicting Aule Metele (Latin: Aulus Metellus), an Etruscan man wearing a Roman toga while engaged in rhetoric; the statue features an inscription in the Etruscan alphabet

There have been three hypotheses as to the origins of the

Early Iron Age: either by autochthonous development in situ out of the Villanovan culture of Etruria in northern and central Italy, or via an eastern (Anatolian or Thessalian) colonization of Italy. The third hypotheses was reported by Livy and Pliny the Elder, and puts the Etruscans in the context of the Rhaetian people to the north and other populations living in the Alps.[1] The first Greek author to mention the Etruscans, whom the Ancient Greeks called Tyrrhenians, was the 8th-century BC poet Hesiod, in his work, the Theogony. He mentioned them as residing in central Italy alongside the Latins.[2] The 7th-century BC Homeric Hymn to Dionysus[3] referred to them as pirates.[4]
Unlike later Greek authors, such as Herodotus and Hellanicus, these earlier Greek authors did not suggest that Etruscans had migrated to Italy from elsewhere.

According to prehistoric and protohistoric archaeologists, anthropologists, etruscologists, geneticists, linguists, all the evidence gathered so far fits the autochthonous origin of the Etruscans.[5][6][7][8] Moreover, there is no archeological evidence for a migration of the Lydians or the Pelasgians into Etruria.[9][6][7][8] It was only in the 5th century BC, when the Etruscan civilization had been established for several centuries, that Greek writers started associating the name "Tyrrhenians" with the "Pelasgians" or the "Lydians". There is consensus among modern scholars that these Greek tales are not based on real events.[10] The earliest evidence of a culture that is identifiably Etruscan dates from about 900 BC: this is the period of the Iron Age Villanovan culture, considered to be the earliest phase of Etruscan civilization,[11][12][13][14][15] which itself developed from the previous late Bronze Age Proto-Villanovan culture in the same region, part of the central European Urnfield culture system.[16]

Paleo-European.[20][21]

History

Further information: Padanian Etruria

Etruscan expansion was focused both to the north beyond the

Apennines and south into Campania. Some small towns disappeared during the 6th century BC, ostensibly consumed by greater, more powerful neighbors. However, there is no doubt that the political structure of the Etruscan culture was similar, albeit more aristocratic, to Magna Graecia
in the south.

The mining and commerce of metal, especially

Carthaginians
, whose interests also collided with the Greeks.

Military history

Main article: Etruscan military history

Around 540 BC, the Battle of Alalia led to a new distribution of power in the western Mediterranean Sea. Though the battle had no clear winner, Carthage managed to expand its sphere of influence at the expense of both the Etruscans and the Greeks. Etruria saw itself relegated to the northern Tyrrhenian Sea.

From the first half of the 5th century BC, Campanian Etruria lost its Etruscan character, and the new international political situation meant the beginning of the Etruscan decline. In 480 BC, Etruria's ally Carthage was defeated by a coalition of

Syracuse. A few years later, in 474, Syracuse's tyrant Hiero defeated the Etruscans at the Battle of Cumae. Etruria's influence over the cities of Latium and Campania weakened, and it was taken over by Romans and Samnites
.

In the 4th century BC,

Po valley and the Adriatic
coast.

Roman–Etruscan Wars

Main article: Roman–Etruscan Wars

In the 4th century BC, Rome began annexing Etruscan cities. By the beginning of the 1st century BC, Rome had annexed all the remaining Etruscan territory.

Rulers

Cimmerian Bosporus); on exhibit at the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg
.

The institution of kingship was general. Many names of individual Etruscan kings are recorded, most of them in a historical vacuum, but with enough chronological evidence to show that kingship persisted in Etruscan city-culture long after it had been overthrown by the Greeks and at Rome,

scepter topped with an eagle, the folding cross-framed "curule seat", the sella curulis, and most prominent of all, the fasces carried by a magistrate, which preceded the king in public appearances.[24]

The Etruscan cities would come together under a single leader at a traditional annual council held at the

cultus
.

Rulers of Clevsin (Clusium)

Rulers of Caisra (Caere)

  • Lausus
  • Larthia
  • Thefarie Velianas fl. c. late 6th century–early 4th century BC, known from his temple dedication recorded on the Pyrgi Tablets

Rulers of Veii

  • Volumnius fl. mid 5th century–437 BC
  • Lars Tolumnius fl. late 5th century–428 BC

Rulers of Arimnus (Ariminum)

  • Arimnestos

Etruscan kings of Rome

Other Etruscan rulers

  • Mezentius fl. c. 1100 BC
  • Tyrsenos
  • Velsu fl. 8th century BC

See also

  • Women in the Etruscan society

Notes

  1. ^ Titus Livius (Livy), The History of Rome (Ab Urbe Condita), Book 5
  2. ^ Hesiod, Theogony 1015.
  3. ^ Homeric Hymn to Dionysus, 7.7–8
  4. ^ John Pairman Brown, Israel and Hellas, Vol. 2 (2000) p. 211
  5. ISBN 978-0-631-22038-1
    .
  6. ^
    ISBN 9781444337341
    .
  7. ^
    ISBN 978-1-61451-520-3
    .
  8. ^
    ISBN 9781780238623
    .
  9. ISBN 9780195170726
    . Etruscan origins lie in the distant past. Despite the claim by Herodotus, who wrote that Etruscans migrated to Italy from Lydia in the eastern Mediterranean, there is no material or linguistic evidence to support this. Etruscan material culture developed in an unbroken chain from Bronze Age antecedents. As for linguistic relationships, Lydian is an Indo-European language. Lemnian, which is attested by a few inscriptions discovered near Kamania on the island of Lemnos, was a dialect of Etruscan introduced to the island by commercial adventurers. Linguistic similarities connecting Etruscan with Raetic, a language spoken in the sub-Alpine regions of northeastern Italy, further militate against the idea of eastern origins.
  10. ISBN 9780191016752
    . Briquel's convincing demonstration that the famous story of an exodus, led by Tyrrhenus from Lydia to Italy, was a deliberate political fabrication created in the Hellenized milieu of the court at Sardis in the early 6th cent. BCE.
  11. ISBN 978-8878145337
    . Il termine "Villanoviano" è entrato nella letteratura archeologica quando, a metà dell '800, il conte Gozzadini mise in luce le prime tombe ad incinerazione nella sua proprietà di Villanova di Castenaso, in località Caselle (BO). La cultura villanoviana coincide con il periodo più antico della civiltà etrusca, in particolare durante i secoli IX e VIII a.C. e i termini di Villanoviano I, II e III, utilizzati dagli archeologi per scandire le fasi evolutive, costituiscono partizioni convenzionali della prima età del Ferro
  12. ISBN 9788843022618
    .
  13. ^ Giovanni Colonna (2000). "I caratteri originali della civiltà Etrusca". In Mario Torelli (ed.). Gi Etruschi (in Italian). Milano: Bompiani. pp. 25–41.
  14. ^ Dominique Briquel (2000). "Le origini degli Etruschi: una questione dibattuta fin dall'antichità". In Mario Torelli (ed.). Gi Etruschi (in Italian). Milano: Bompiani. pp. 43–51.
  15. ^ Gilda Bartoloni (2000). "Le origini e la diffusione della cultura villanoviana". In Mario Torelli (ed.). Gi Etruschi (in Italian). Milano: Bompiani. pp. 53–71.
  16. ISBN 0842523340
    .
  17. ^ Rix 1998. Rätisch und Etruskisch (Innsbruck).
  18. ISBN 978-0-7190-5540-9
    .
  19. ISBN 978-88-430-9309-0
    .
  20. ISBN 9781444337341
    .
  21. ISBN 978-1-107-02379-6
    . Italy was home to a number of languages in the Iron Age, some of them clearly Indo-European (Latin being the most obvious, although this was merely the language spoken in the Roman heartland, that is, Latium, and other languages such as Italic, Venetic or Ligurian were also present), while the centre-west and northwest were occupied by the people we call Etruscans, who spoke a language which was non-Indo-European and presumed to represent an ethnic and linguistic stratum which goes far back in time, perhaps even to the occupants of Italy prior to the spread of farming.
  22. ^ Graeme Barker and Tom Rasmussen, The Etruscans, 1998:87ff.
  23. ^ This is the interpretation given by Livy (v.1.3).
  24. ^ Barker and Rasmussen 1998:89.

Further reading

Library resources about
Etruscan history
  • Bartoloni, Gilda. "The Villanovan culture: at the beginning of Etruscan history." In The Etruscan World, edited by Jean MacIntosh Turfa, 79–98. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013.
  • Briquel, Dominique. "Etruscan origins and the ancient authors." In The Etruscan World, edited by Jean MacIntosh Turfa, 36–55. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013.
  • De Grummond, Nancy Thomson. Etruscan Myth, Sacred History, and Legend. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 2006.
  • Haynes, Sybille. Etruscan Civilization: A Cultural History. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2000.
  • Jolivet, Vincent. "A long twilight: 'Romanization' of Etruria." In The Etruscan World, edited by Jean MacIntosh Turfa, 151–79. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013.
  • Leighton, Robert. "Urbanization in southern Etruria from the tenth to the sixth century BC: the origins and growth of major centers." In The Etruscan World, edited by Jean MacIntosh Turfa, 134–50. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013.
  • Nielsen, Marjatta. "The Last Etruscans: family tombs in northern Etruria." In The Etruscan World, edited by Jean MacIntosh Turfa, 180–93. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013.
  • Potter, T.W. Roman Italy. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.
  • Sannibale, Maurizio. "Orientalizing Etruria." In The Etruscan World, edited by Jean MacIntosh Turfa, 99–133. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013.
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