Captivating History - The Etruscans: A Captivating Guide to the Etruscan Civilization of Ancient Italy That Preceded the Roman Republic

Almost everyone has heard of the Romans, but far fewer know of the Etruscans. The Etruscans were one of the most powerful civilizations in ancient Italy before the rise of the Romans. They thrived from 900 BCE until their eventual absorption into Rome around 100 BCE and enjoyed an expansive stretch of territory called Etruria. One could mark their lands as including Tuscany, western Umbria, northern and central Lazio, along with some settlements in nearby Campania, Lombardy, Romagna, Veneto, and the Po Valley. These Etruscans developed their own language, culture, and religion but also demonstrated the multiculturalism and cultural assimilation common among the civilizations around the Mediterranean Sea. They would only crumble when they became involved in the Roman-Etruscan Wars and failed to defeat the massive republic forming at their doorstep.

The Italian Peninsula

The predecessors of the Etruscans were the Villanovans, from whom the Etruscans took some elements of culture and language. Due to their position in Italy and ethnic origin, the Etruscans were considered part of the Italics, an Indo-European ethnolinguistic group which originated from Northeast Africa. Archaeologists and anthropologists can trace the Italic migration to Italy as far back as the 2 nd millennium BCE. While the Italics settled in Rome, other Indo-European travelers would travel to new locations and become the Spanish, Romanian, French, and Portuguese, among others. When discussing the Etruscans, people need to use years followed by the abbreviation BCE, which stands for Before Common Era. This is referring to the point before year 1 in the modern Gregorian calendar. So, when this volume refers to the Etruscan civilization as beginning around 900 BCE, it means the Etruscans started 900 years before year 1, or 2,919 years before the year 2019.

The Etruscans were an ancient civilization during the Iron Age, the last stage in the three-stage system developed by archaeologists to describe the progress of civilizations based on their available technologies. As members of the Iron Age, the Etruscans possessed the knowledge of ferrous metallurgy or ironworking. They could develop carbon steel to make stronger weapons, armor, and implements like farming tools that would give them an advantage in military affairs and growing crops. The Iron Age succeeds the Bronze Age which was when civilizations learned how to create bronze tools and developed a proto-writing system. The Etruscans already had their own form of writing by the time of their development.

The majority of modern information about the Etruscans does not come from their writings but from the archaeological interpretation of artifacts. For scholars of the Etruscans, these artifacts can be funerary and burial goods, graves, the remnants of buildings, jewelry, paintings, frescoes, inscriptions, weapons, tools, and other items that still remain after two millennia of environmental hazards, looting, and grave robbing. Some written sources do exist, but they are rare. Information can also be gathered from the writings of nearby civilizations and cultures like the Romans, who wrote extensively about the Etruscans. These sources need to be taken with a grain of salt, though, as ancient historians and philosophers were prone to exaggeration and biases in their interpretations.

The importance of the Etruscans can be traced back to Rome though. The Roman Republic, and later the Roman Empire, was an unusual conqueror because it would absorb and assimilate elements of the cultures it dominated. A standing practice was to allow the defeated to continue practicing their culture and religion so long as they paid their taxes on time. Such a procedure was part of why Christianity would seep into the Roman Empire around the 1 st century CE, for example. For the Etruscans, this meant they influenced aspects of Roman civilization, one of the most powerful cultures in the history of the Western world.

The word Rome is Etruscan in origin as are the names of its mythological founders Remus and Romulus. Several of the Roman creation myths centered on branches of the Etruscans breaking off to found Rome, and Rome itself used to be a part of Etruscan civilization before it broke away and started to develop its own society. When the Etruscans were absorbed, elements of their culture, language, and religion would seep into Roman practice. Before their assimilation, the Etruscans gifted Rome with much of its political science and technology. Through the Etruscans, the Romans developed monarchy, walls, drainage systems, and the powerful forum.

The Etruscans shouldnt only be studied as the influencer of Rome, but it is the connection through which most individuals have heard of their illustrious civilization. Other interesting developments of the Etruscans were their flamboyant fashion, complex political structure, urban planning, and fatalistic religion. As the reader of this volume, check and see where the Etruscans sound similar to the Romans but also interpret what made the Etruscans unique, what rings of assimilation of other cultures like the Greeks, and determine whether it was possible for the Etruscans to avoid their fate against the Romans during the 1 st century BCE.