Around 700 BC, the Etruscans adopted and adapted one of the local variants of the Greek alphabet used by the Greeks in the south of Italy. The Etruscan texts that have been preserved—mostly very short texts in inscriptions—have largely defied translation, so that the Etruscan language still remains unknown to us. It certainly was not an Indo-European language, and the Etruscans, therefore, should be classified as one of the pre-Indo-European population groups in Europe and the Mediterranean area surviving into historic times. In their turn, many Italic peoples would adopt both the alphabet and the accoutrements of urban life from the Etruscans.
The Etruscan cities showed some similarities with those of the Geeks but were clearly distinct from most of the Greek cities in that they were based on a class system of freemen and serfs. They had ruling elites consisting of Etruscans proper and subjugated populations consisting mostly of the descendants of the indigenous peoples in their territories. It is
Quite possible, though, that the situation differed from city to city, since our knowledge of Etruscan political organization is fairly limited. As far as we can see, the Etruscan cities were in the period up to around 500 BC ruled by kings. Among themselves, the Etruscan cities maintained some relations of a religious character that were expressed in the reverence of a common sanctuary, but politically each city was independent. This period is mainly known from grave finds: weapons and ceramic pottery. The latter would from the 7th century BC onward be influenced by Greek pottery painting and would come to resemble its Greek models fairly closely. Since the 6th century BC, impressive and often splendidly decorated funeral chambers were built for the Etruscan aristocracies, a custom that would be practiced until well into the 3rd century BC. Their lively mural paintings give us some glimpses of Etruscan life and of Etruscan ideas on death and the after-life. In any case, the latter must have played an important role in Etruscan religion, in which Greek influences and wholesale adoptions of Greek gods and myths are clearly visible. In contrast, the stress in Etruscan religion on divination, that is, the art of foretelling the will of the gods from various signs such as the liver of the sacrificial victim or the spot struck by lightning, was probably a more typically Etruscan feature that can possibly be traced back, at least in part, to Asia Minor.
Warfare must always have been at the heart of Etruscan politics. In the 6th century BC, they adopted from the Greeks the heavy equipment and the tactics of the hoplite phalanx and embarked on a period of considerable expansion. Various cities succeeded in extending their power at the expense of Italic populations or in establishing daughter cities. As a result, in the 6th century, a large part of the Po valley became Etruscan territory, as did the fertile plain of Campania around the Gulf of Naples. That expansion brought the Etruscans into conflict with the Greeks and would also provoke a reaction from the Latins in coastal Central Italy.
Of the Italic peoples, many herded goats and sheep besides practicing a rather simple agriculture. This was especially true of the Samnites and related groups in Central and South Italy. It provided them with a certain mobility and offered an incentive for constant expansion in search of new pastures or fields for cultivation at the expense of the inhabitants of the small coastal plains. In the 6th century BC, the expansion of these peoples was to some extent halted by the Etruscan expansion. The region of Latium, situated between Etruria proper (modern Tuscany north of the Tiber) and Etruscan-dominated Campania, must in that century also have fallen under some form of Etruscan dominance. That is the background to the emergence of the city of Rome.
World History
