The Etruscans, lords of the Tyrrhenian Sea

The story

The people the Romans called Tusci

Before Rome became great, central Italy was dominated by another people: the Etruscans. Their territory, Etruria, corresponded roughly to present-day Tuscany, western Umbria and northern Lazio. At the moment of their greatest expansion, around 500 BC, the Etruscans came to control the Po plain and parts of Campania as well. The Romans called them “Tusci”, from which the name Tuscany comes, and, it seems, the name recalled their reputation as experts in religious rites.

The Etruscans never formed a single kingdom. They lived in independent city-states, each with its own walls, government and territory. Ancient sources speak of a league of twelve peoples, the “duodecim populi Etruriae”, which met every year at a sanctuary, the fanum Voltumnae. On that occasion the head of the confederation was chosen, called in Etruscan zilath mechl rasnal. It was a religious and cultural alliance more than a political one.

Where did they come from?

About the Etruscans there is a question that the Greeks, the Romans and then modern scholars asked: where did they come from? Today most experts think they were an Italian people, born on the spot. Their civilisation developed around 900 BC from the Proto-Villanovan culture, and its first phase is the Villanovan, discussed in another card. The ancient tradition of an eastern origin is not shared by most scholars today.

Their language is hard to understand. The first Etruscan inscriptions date from about 700 BC, in southern Etruria, and use an alphabet derived from the Greek of the colonists from Euboea. We can read the letters, but we understand the meaning of the words only in part. It is not an Indo-European language like Latin and Italian: scholars link it to a small family of languages called Tyrsenian, which includes Lemnian, spoken on the island of Lemnos, and Raetic, spoken in the Alps.

Cities of the living and cities of the dead

Much of what we know about the Etruscans comes from the tombs, because the cities of the living have often been covered by modern ones. At Cerveteri, ancient Caere, there is the necropolis of the Banditaccia, which covers about 400 hectares in all, of which only about ten can be visited. There are about a thousand tombs, many under great round earth mounds, built between the 9th and 3rd centuries BC. The tombs are cut into the rock and imitate the houses of the living, with a corridor, a central hall and various rooms. Some are lined up along real streets. In the Tomb of the Reliefs, of the Matuna family, household objects are carved on the walls. Cerveteri and Tarquinia together have been a World Heritage Site since 2004.

At Tarquinia the walls of some tombs are painted, for example in the Tomb of the Augurs. The images are full of colour. Scholars warn, however, that those frescoes were probably painted by Greek or foreign artists, and so are not always a faithful picture of Etruscan life.

Women and social life

One aspect that struck the ancients, and still strikes us, is the position of Etruscan women. Funerary inscriptions often mention the mother next to the father, and women had a name of their own, not derived from their father's or husband's as in Rome. On painted or carved sarcophagi, married couples are shown reclining close together, in an affectionate pose. Greek and Roman authors, it seems, mistook this freedom for loose morals, but some scholars today think it was simply a different way of regarding women.

A wealth built on trade

The Etruscans grew rich through exchange: to the north with the Celts, to the south with the Greeks. The families of the great landowners filled their tombs with imported luxury objects. Power was in the hands of a few aristocratic families, and the richest cities were those near the coast.

The decline

Towards the end of the 4th century BC Rome began to conquer Etruria, city after city. In 90 BC the Romans granted the Etruscans citizenship, and in 27 BC the territory was absorbed completely into the empire. The people did not disappear suddenly: they slowly mixed with the Romans, and the Etruscan language fell out of use.

The Romans owed a great deal to the Etruscans. Scholars think that the organisation of the noble families, the class of the patricians and the office of dictator in an emergency may have an Etruscan model. Certainly, for the Romans, the Etruscans were teachers.