An outline, era by era

Etruscans; founding of Rome (traditional date 753 BCE)

Iron Age · ~1200 – ~500 BCE

The Etruscans were a people of central Italy, living mainly in Etruria, between the Arno and Tiber rivers, in today's Tuscany and northern Lazio. Their culture, which emerged out of the earlier Villanovan culture, flourished from about 800 to 500 BCE. They built wealthy city-states such as Tarquinia, Cerveteri, Veii and Vulci, grew rich on metals and trade, and wrote in their own non-Indo-European language using an alphabet borrowed from Greek settlers. They are known mostly from their tombs, since their own literature is almost entirely lost.

Rome began as a cluster of settlements on hills beside the Tiber. Tradition dates its founding to 753 BCE, a date fixed by Roman writers centuries later. Archaeology shows villages on the Palatine from around the 9th to 8th centuries BCE, which grew into a town in the 7th and 6th. Etruscan neighbours strongly influenced early Rome in religion, building and public display. Roman tradition also says that the last three kings were Etruscan, and that the monarchy ended around 509 BCE. Rome later absorbed Etruria, but kept much of what it had learned.

Things happened, and the rest is history

  1. Villanovan towns and the rise of Etruscan city-states

    Event

    What happened

    From about 900 BCE, villages of the Villanovan culture in Etruria and parts of northern Italy bury their dead as cremations in biconical urns. From about 800 BCE, settlements on the plateaus of southern Etruria, such as Tarquinia, Cerveteri, Veii and Vulci, merge into larger proto-urban centres. Metal ores from the Tolfa hills, Elba and the Colline Metallifere fuel trade with Greeks and Phoenicians. In the 8th and 7th centuries BCE, Greek traders and settlers, notably at Pithekoussai on Ischia and later at Cumae, bring the alphabet, and Etruscan inscriptions in a Greek-derived script appear by about 700 BCE. Rich tombs in the 7th century BCE, such as the Regolini-Galassi tomb at Cerveteri, show a wealthy aristocracy with eastern luxury goods.

    The rest is history

    By the 6th century BCE these centres were walled city-states, linked in a loose league of cities and in contact with Greeks, Phoenicians and Carthaginians. The same growth drew in neighbouring Latium. Etruscan goods, building methods and religious practice reached Rome, which was then growing from hill villages into a town. Archaeologists generally see this as a gradual local development from the Villanovan culture, not the result of an invasion. The Etruscans' greatest power came in the 6th century BCE, before defeats at sea off Cumae in 474 BCE and the later rise of Rome reduced it.

    Sources

    1. BookBarker, Graeme, and Tom Rasmussen. The Etruscans. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998.Survey of Villanovan origins and the growth of the Etruscan cities.
    2. BookCornell, T. J. The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000-264 BC). London: Routledge, 1995.Places Etruscan urbanisation beside the growth of early Rome.

  2. Romulus and Remus

    Origin story

    The legend

    The twin sons of the god Mars and the priestess Rhea Silvia are left to die on the Tiber. A she-wolf nurses them and a shepherd raises them. As men they found a city on the Palatine hill, quarrel over it, and Romulus kills Remus and becomes the first king.

    The rest is history

    The story took its familiar form in the Roman writers of the 3rd to 1st centuries BCE, such as Fabius Pictor, Livy and Plutarch. The date of 753 BCE was fixed by the scholar Varro in the 1st century BCE. Archaeologists have found huts and burials on the Palatine from the 8th century BCE, so a settlement existed around then, but no founder is known. Rome grew gradually from several hill villages. The bronze She-Wolf in Rome is medieval in date, and only the twins were added in the Renaissance.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryLivy. Ab Urbe Condita (History of Rome), Book 1. Latin history, late 1st century BCE.The standard telling of the founding and the seven kings.
    2. BookCornell, T. J. The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000-264 BC). London: Routledge, 1995.
    3. BookWiseman, T. P. Remus: A Roman Myth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

  3. The Etruscans came from Lydia

    Origin story

    The legend

    During a long famine in Lydia in Asia Minor, the king divides his people in two and has them draw lots. The losing half, led by the king's son Tyrrhenus, sails west, lands in Italy and becomes the Etruscans.

    The rest is history

    The story is told by Herodotus in the 5th century BCE. Other Greeks disagreed: Hellanicus linked the Etruscans with the Pelasgians, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus argued in the 1st century BCE that they were native to Italy. Modern archaeology shows continuous development from the Villanovan culture, with no sign of an invasion. Studies of the language show a link to inscriptions on the Aegean island of Lemnos, which keeps the question of origins open. Genetic studies of ancient DNA published in 2021 found Etruscans closely related to their Italian neighbours, with no recent arrival from Anatolia.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryHerodotus. Histories, Book 1.94. Greek history, 5th century BCE.
    2. PrimaryDionysius of Halicarnassus. Roman Antiquities, Book 1.25-30. Greek history, late 1st century BCE.
    3. BookBonfante, Larissa, ed. Etruscan Life and Afterlife: A Handbook of Etruscan Studies. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1986.

  4. The Etruscan kings of Rome

    Heroic tale

    The legend

    Rome is ruled by seven kings. The fifth, Tarquinius Priscus, is the son of a Greek exile at Tarquinia, and an eagle takes his cap as an omen of kingship. The last, Tarquinius Superbus, is a proud tyrant. His son's crime against the noblewoman Lucretia leads Brutus to drive out the kings.

    The rest is history

    The tale was written down centuries after the events, and its details, including the lengths of the reigns, are not trustworthy. But the claim of Etruscan rule is plausible. Etruscan influence on Rome is clear in the archaeology: building techniques, temple design, the fasces, and the gladiatorial games. A Roman name, Servius Tullius, appears in a speech of the emperor Claudius, who said Etruscan sources called him Mastarna. A painted tomb at Vulci shows the figures Macstrna and the Vibenna brothers. The Capitoline temple was dedicated around 509 BCE, the traditional year the monarchy fell.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryLivy. Ab Urbe Condita, Books 1.34-60. Latin history, late 1st century BCE.
    2. PrimaryClaudius, speech on admitting Gauls to the Senate. Bronze tablet, Lyon, 48 CE (Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum XIII 1668).
    3. BookCornell, T. J. The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000-264 BC). London: Routledge, 1995.

  5. The rape of Lucretia and the fall of the kings

    Origin story

    The legend

    Sextus Tarquinius, son of the king, forces himself on Lucretia, wife of a noble. She tells her father and husband, makes them swear to avenge her, and kills herself. Lucius Junius Brutus, who has hidden his intelligence behind a pose of foolishness, rouses the people and expels the Tarquins. Rome elects two consuls.

    The rest is history

    Livy tells the tale in detail, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus gives a similar version. It reads like a moral drama about liberty rather than a record. The traditional date for the Republic is 509 BCE. The list of consuls begins then, although the early parts were reconstructed. Many historians think the change was slower and perhaps tied to wider trouble in Etruscan power in Latium. A king's name, Tarquinius, is known in Etruscan as Tarchna, and a family tomb of that name has been found at Cerveteri.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryLivy. Ab Urbe Condita, Book 1.57-60. Latin history, late 1st century BCE.
    2. BookForsythe, Gary. A Critical History of Early Rome: From Prehistory to the First Punic War. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005.
    3. BookCornell, T. J. The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000-264 BC). London: Routledge, 1995.

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