It’s hard to imagine Italy as anything other than the heart of the Latin world, the origin
point of Roman civilization, which has so greatly influenced the society we live in
today. However, it was not always this way. Stretching from the Po Valley to the Tiber
River, the Etruscan civilization thrived for centuries before the founding of Rome, boasting
a society that rivaled the sophistication of classical Greece, the trading acumen of
Phoenicia, and the wealth of Egypt. In this video, we will tell the story of Italy’s
most ancient people, and explore the monumental cultural impact they had on the young Roman
Republic, and through them, the world.
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In their early history, the Romans referred to the strange and foreign peoples to their
north as “Etrusci”, and it is from this root that the modern region of Tuscany gained
its name. However, the peoples in question called themselves the Rasenna. At their peak,
which lasted from around 750 - 400 BCE, they were an incredibly prosperous society, and
their cities lit up the Italian heartland. Pisa, Bologna, Capua, and many other modern
population centers were originally founded by the Etruscans.
They were also a sea-going people, forging trade networks all over the Mediterranean
that brought copious wealth into their lands. Through their skilled warriors, they would
establish themselves as the premier power in the Italian peninsula for centuries, and
although they would eventually be conquered and assimilated into Rome, the Empire we all
know would be nigh unrecognizable if not for the contributions that the Etruscans made
to its society. Where the Etruscans originally came from is
a matter of scholarly debate. The Ancient historian Herodotus claimed they were migrants
from Anatolia, while others asserted they were one of the mysterious Sea Peoples that
caused the Bronze Age Collapse. It is through language that we gain a clearer window into
the Etruscan’s past. For most of their history, their civilization was surrounded by Celtic
Gauls to the north, Greeks to the south, and Italic tribes to their east, the latter of
whom would eventually spawn the Latins of Rome.
Diverse as they were, these three peoples had one thing in common: they spoke Indo-European
languages. Today, this massive language family covers most of the globe, but in the early
Iron age, it would have been a relatively new arrival in Europe, with the Greeks, Italics,
and Celts all being descended from a common ancestor that likely migrated out of the Caucasian
mountains between the 3rd to 1st millennium BC. The Etruscan language, however, is not
Indo-European, making it an anomaly compared to its neighbours. From this, we can discern
that the Etruscans themselves were probably indigenous, belonging to an ancient bloodline
that inhabited Europe long before the great migration, potentially making them Italy’s
earliest known people. Whatever their origin may be, we can trace
the Etruscan’s archaeological presence in Italy as far back as 1200 BC, around the same
time the Trojan War supposedly took place. Little is known about Etruscan society this
far back in time. But we can be fairly certain that with weapons forged from bronze, they
came to dominate central-western Italy. They built their villages on naturally defensible
plateaus, constructing houses of thatch and mud while subsisting off farming, herding,
and forestry. They cremated their dead in primitive burial sites, and placed their ashes
in Biconic Urns. 1,000 BC saw the first Italic peoples enter into the peninsula, but the
forebears of the Romans had centuries before their time in the sun would come, and the
proto-Etruscans retained their territorial and cultural integrity in the face of this
migration. By the 9th century, the Etruscans entered
what is known as the Villanovan phase of their history. Ancient Tuscany was abundant in natural
resources, and the Etruscans grew prosperous mining the abundant copper and iron deposits
in their lands. Small hill-villages began coalescing into larger towns, and population
centers like Veii, Tarquinia and Vulci became regional powers. Their society became noticeably
more complex, as observed through their architecture, which now featured ornately decorated homes
baring geometric and animalistic motifs. Villanovan Etruscans interred their dead in dedicated
necropolises, the richest of which were home to graves baring ritualistically elaborate
weapons, shields, and armour made of bronze and iron. These graves also featured luxury
goods manufactured in Phoenicia and Greece, indicating that it was around this time that
the Etruscans took to the seas, establishing trade networks with the Near East.
Etruscan merchants brought back more than just physical treasures from their new trading
partners. The period of history between 750-500BC saw them heavily influenced by Eastern, predominantly
Greek, cultures. Etruscan pottery, sculpture, and art took on a distinctly eastern style,
while the Etruscan elites adapted courtly Rituals that emphasized pomp and ceremony,
especially rites involving wine, a drink they adored. Most importantly, they adopted for
the Western Greek Alphabet as their writing system, through which we retain the only documentation
of their mysterious language today. This era also presided over rapid urbanization
of Etruscan society, as their towns bloomed into cities, complete with paved roads and
aqueducts built amongst hallowed tombs, austere temples, and luxury villas inspired by Hellenic
design. As their tribal warriors evolved into professional armies, the Etruscans expanded
their territory, coming to dominate their southern Latin neighbours, including a certain
little backwater town called Rome. Politically, the Etruscans were always a divided
people. Much like the Ancient Greeks, the city-state was the main political unit in
Etruria, with a single city forming a nucleus of control over its surrounding rural territory.
These cities were often in fierce competition with one another, and war between them was
not uncommon. With that said, a loose alliance was formed around 600BC that consisted of
the twelve most powerful city-states, called the “League of Twelve Peoples”. While
this enabled the Etruscans to regulate each other’s economic and religious interests,
each city remained largely independent in practice.
Originally, the city-states were ruled by Kings, but like Athens before them, it seems
that the Etruscans overthrew their monarchs between the 5th and 4th centuries BC and established
a form of oligarchic republican government, although this transition was not a uniform
across all their cities. Etruscan religion and mythology were rich
and multi-layered. Prior to 600 BC, they worshipped formless Gods thematically centered around
the moon and the sun. As their cultural contact with the Greeks grew deeper, their deities
began to more closely resemble the Olympian Pantheon. The Greeks saw Etruscan Gods merely
as adaptations of their own, divine plagiarism the Romans would also later be guilty of.
While the Etruscan religion greatly resembled the Greeks’, and to a lesser extent, the
Phoenicians, fundamentally it was unique. Their chief God was Tinia, ruler of the sky.
At surface level, he appeared to mirror Zeus, but the two were not entirely parallel. Zeus,
like most of the Greek Gods, often acted impulsively and violently. Tinia, on the other hand, could
not even throw a lightning bolt without permission from a mysterious collective of deities known
as the “Secret Gods of Favour”. Uni, the goddess of fertility and childbirth, was often
compared to Hera. But while Hera was the jealous and vengeful wife to a pathologically adulterous
husband, Tinia and Uni appeared to have a functional, loving marriage.
Menrva was the third most important deity and was roughly equivalent to Athena. It was
from Menrva that the Romans would get the name for their own Goddess of Wisdom - Minerva.
Unlike her Greek and Roman counterparts, the Etruscan Menrva was not a virgin, and even
had an intimate relationship with the Etruscan version of Heracles. Of course, there were
many other Gods, some born of the Etruscan’s indigenous past, and some cut from Greco-Roman
cloth. In general, Etruscan Gods were more restrained, peaceful, and all-around functional
when compared to their Greek counterparts. In most societies, religion is often tied
to public spectacle, and in this, the Etruscans were no different. Sporting events, in particular,
were incredibly popular, with boxing, wrestling and chariot racing never failing to draw a
crowd. Once a year, citizens of the Twelve Cities would gather at Fanum Voltumnae, the
most sacred sanctuary in Etruria, and broad parallel to what Mount Olympus was to the
Greeks. There, they would revel in public games intertwined seamlessly with intricate
religious rituals. If an ancient Greek or Roman happened to attend
the games at Fanum Voltumnae, they may have been surprised to find women present in the
audience. Indeed, Etruscan women enjoyed a great deal of freedom and autonomy compared
to their Greco-Roman counterparts, and later Roman authors often condemned them as frivolous,
spoiled, and depraved when compared to Latin women.
The Wives and Daughters of Etruria had the freedom to own, inherit and transfer property
as they saw fit. During ceremonial banquets, they feasted alongside men as equals. For
them, there was no shame in drinking, in contrast to Greek women, who were generally expected
to forego alcohol. Etruscan women were also prominent leaders in religious life, serving
as Oracles and Priestesses who held direct sway over their people’s political decisions
through their powers of divination. While the Greeks also had a prominent female Sybil
[Sibyl, “prophet”] in Delphi, she required male priests to interpret her will, while
Etruscan priestesses delivered their own prophecies. The Etruscan cities maintained a strong martial
culture, both to settle disputes among themselves, and to expand their frontiers against their
Gallic and Italic neighbours. Etrurian warfare was originally small-scale in nature. In the
Villanovan era, warriors formed the aristocratic elite of society. They armoured themselves
with bronze helmets and cuirasses, and went into battle wielding iron spears, javelins,
stabbing swords, and shields. In general, the rich fought on horseback or on a chariot,
while the lower classes fought on foot. Conflicts usually took the form of minor skirmishes
between neighbouring tribes, and featured little in the way of tactics. The two armies
would meet and exchange a hail of javelins, at which point both sides would charge one
another and engage in a chaotic melee. Individual heroism was valued over unit cohesion, and
it was not uncommon for warriors to seek one on one combat during the heat of battle.
As Etruscan society evolved, so did its military. As a byproduct of trading with the Greeks,
the Etruscans slowly adopted a distinctly Hellenic style of arms, armour, and warfare.
The warrior-caste still comprised the social elite, but by the 6th century BC, it had evolved
to resemble a Greek Hoplite in arms and armour. More disciplined than their Villanovan ancestors,
the Etruscan Hoplites fought primarily in a phalanx, protected on the wings by cavalry,
a universally effective formation that even the Romans used before the adoption of the
Maniple. Etruscan phalanxes were often supplemented
by auxiliaries from their society’s lower classes, who were more lightly armoured than
their aristocratic counterparts, often wielding nothing more than stones and slings. These
armies were effective, so much so that with them, the Etruscans expanded their power over
the lion’s share of Italy. However, like with all civilizations, their prosperity would
not last forever, and a decline was soon to come.
To anyone with a passing knowledge of Ancient History, the fall of Etruria to the Romans
seems an inevitability, but to the ancients, the result was hardly set in stone. Rome itself
was founded in 753BC, and for centuries the urbanized Etruscans considered it a rural
backwater barely worth mentioning. This changed in 616BC, when an Etruscan aristocrat from
Tarquinia ascended as King of Rome. Known to his people as Lucius Tarquinius Priscus,
he introduced his city to a working sewage system, led Rome in its subjugation of the
other tribes of Latium, and built the circus maximus, importing athletes and chariot racers
from Etruria to introduce the Romans to the joy of public sporting. Priscus’s dynasty
would last two more generations; in 509 BC, his Grandson Tarquinius Superbus, infamous
for his wanton tyranny, was overthrown and exiled forever, ending the Roman Kingdom and
giving rise to the Roman Republic. This marked a turning point in Italian history,
as the Romans began to slowly expand, while the Etruscans slowly declined. In 396BC, after
a century of frontier warfare, the Dictator Marcus Furius Camillus conquered, sacked and
completely depopulated the city of Veii. The other Etruscan cities looked upon this destruction
with apathy; to many of them Veii was a bitter rival they were glad to see gone, and besides,
it was one thing for Rome to take a city directly on its border, but the upstart Latins could
never extend further north into the Etrurian heartland. Naturally, this was a fatal judgment.
Hampered by their inability to properly unite against a common enemy, the Etruscans city-states
were simply unable to provide a consistent answer to the dynamic Roman military. Over
the next few centuries, their territory fell chunk-by-chunk into Roman hands.
One final pushback was made in 298BC, when the Etruscans finally put up a united front
against the Romans, allying with a confederation of Gauls and Samnites in the Third Samnite
War. Nevertheless they were defeated, and this ended any hope of Etruria retaining its
independence. Its last city, Volsinii, fell to Rome in 264BC, the same year that the Republic
would go to war with Carthage for the first time.
Even after their conquest, the Etruscans did not disappear overnight. Their people, culture,
and language survived for another three hundred years under Roman rule. However, following
the Social War of 90BC, Etruscan cities within the republic gained full Roman citizenship,
and this expedited their assimilation into Latin society, and by around 30AD, the Etruscan
language had gone extinct, ending a culture that had endured for nearly 1,500 years.
Nevertheless, the legacy these ancient peoples left upon the Roman Empire was nothing short
of extraordinary. The Romans based their Latin alphabet upon Greek letters, but they received
those letters through the Etruscans. Core pillars of Roman infrastructure, such as the
aqueduct and the paved road were cultural borrowings taken from well-established Etruscan
technology. Icons of Roman authority, such as the Toga, the Fasces, and the custom of
the military triumph were all originally Etruscan. The Romans adopted much of Etruscan military
technology, such as the use of brass trumpets to relay orders in battle. Even the iconic
Pilum and Scutum evolved from Etruscan designs. By and large, the Romans owed much of their
skill in metalworking to the master artisans of Etruria. Finally, the Roman love for public
sports and spectacle was rooted in Etruscan culture. Some sources even claim that the
institution of Gladiatorial Combat evolved out of an Etruscan sacrificial rite. One must
imagine Emperor Justinian, watching his beloved Greens turn a corner in front of an electric
crowd of 40,000 people in the Constantinople hippodrome, and wonder if he knew that he
owed this spectacle to a forgotten people, gone 600 years before his birth.
Indeed, it is easy to ascribe the value of the Etruscans solely upon the cultural legacy
they left upon an Empire that, in turn, has left such a profound legacy on our society
today. However, these mysterious peoples of a bygone Italy are more than a stepping stone
of Roman History. Their society stands on its own as one of the strongest, wealthiest
and most sophisticated of antiquity, and a reminder of the fascinating worlds one can
find by digging deep into the mysterious mists of humanity’s forgotten past.
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