There have always been those who have been drawn to the Etruscans, often presenting them as a particularly mysterious people. The novelist D. H. Lawrence, for example, already tubercular and on a slow path to death, became totally immersed in the atmosphere of an Etruscan world entirely of his own making. As he wandered among deserted Etruscan tombs in the mid-1920s he fantasized:
The things they did in their easy centuries are as natural and as easy as breathing. They leave the breast breathing freely and pleasantly with a certain fullness of life. Even the tombs. And that is the true Etruscan quality: ease, naturalness and an abundance of life, no need to force the mind or soul in any direction. And death to the Etruscan was a pleasant continuance of life, with jewels and wines and flutes playing for the dance. (From Etruscan Places, published posthumously in 1932)
There is, in fact, no evidence to support Lawrence’s belief that the Etruscans were a people without cares. Why then have they acquired this image? There is always something attractive about a civilization that has vanished. Many Etruscan cities are now deserted and so they are particularly atmospheric places to visit. The poet Propertius (first century Bc) wrote of the desolation of the Etruscan city of Veii, captured by the Romans in 396 Bc.
Veii, thou hadst a royal crown of old,
And in thy forum stood a throne of gold!
Thy walls now echo but the shepherd’s horn,
And o’er thine ashes waves the summer corn.
(Translation by George Dennis)
(Dennis remains perhaps the greatest of the nineteenth-century writers on the Etruscans, and still worth consulting while on the road.)
The language of the Etruscans (which, unlike other languages of the peninsula, Oscan, Umbrian, and Latin, is non-Indo-European in origin) is often said to be incomprehensible and this has added mystery. However, progress has been made. ‘Etruscan’ is written in an alphabet derived from that of the Euboean Greeks and
Much has been deciphered, although not every word recorded in it is yet understood and what appears to have been a solid body of literature recounting the deeds of leading families has been lost. To add the mystery, Herodotus passed on the legend that the Etruscans had an exotic origin in the east. There may be some truth in this. While a strong argument has been made, from the archaeological evidence, that Etruscan civilization originated within Italy itself and can be traced as a continuum from a proto-Etruscan society, there is now some intriguing genetic evidence that settlers, including their cattle, may have arrived from the east and become integrated with the native population. In the relatively isolated region of Murlo, in the centre of ancient Etruria, for instance, a genetic variation has been found in the human population that is otherwise only found in Turkey. The problem remains in defining the size of any incoming populations, and, even more challenging, the dates at which they may have arrived, possibly long before 1200 bc.
Yet ultimately the Etruscans intrigue because they were a sophisticated civilization with a fine tradition of craftsmanship and some exhilarating achievements especially in sculpture. It is only recently that archaeology is allowing a more realistic assessment of who the Etruscans were and what they achieved. It is now clear that as early as 1200 bc the primitive agricultural economy of Etruria was becoming more complex and intensive, with an increased dependence on sheep, goats, and pigs. A larger population could be supported and by 900 bc it was becoming grouped in scattered villages on the plateaux of tufa (a soft volcanic rock) that are typical of the area. Each village had its own cemetery close by. The burials of the period are easily recognizable from the biconical urns of a dark pottery incised with simple decorations in which the ashes of the dead were placed. (A good, well-illustrated introduction to the Etruscans is Sybille Haynes, Etruscan Civilization: A Cultural History, London, 2000.)
One of the first sites of this period to be excavated, in the 1850s, was at Villanova, near the modern Bologna, and the name ‘Villanovan’ was given to the period. What later became the great cities of the Etruscan world, Veii, Tarquinia, Vulci, Cerveteri, all developed directly from these earlier Villanovan village sites. Later Villanovan sites developed on hilltops (Fiesole and the dramatic Volterra), and northwards into the Po valley. When the Greeks and Phoenicians first approached Etruria in the eighth century they found the Tyrrhenian Sea already bustling with Etruscan traders, who were working along the coast and across the sea to Sardinia which had its own well-established contacts with the eastern Mediterranean. (The name Tyrrhenian comes from the Greek word for Etruscan.) However the Etruscans jealously guarded their own territory and the early foreign traders had to contact them from offshore.
What the Etruscans had to offer the visitors from the east was metal. The Colline Metallifere, the metal-bearing hills above what became the major Etruscan cities of Populonia and Vetulonia, yielded iron, copper, and silver. The deposits were already being exploited locally but now Etruscan aristocrats began exchanging the metals for the goods of the east, pottery and finished metalwork. Local cemeteries show the results. The most extensively excavated is that at Quattro Fontanili, a cemetery of the
Important southern town of Veii, one of the first to make direct contact with the east. After about 760 bc burials show an increased use of iron. It is beaten into the status symbols of a warrior aristocracy, helmets, swords and shields, chariots and horse-bits, and implements for feasting. Women are buried with jewellery. The influences in this ‘orientalizing’ period are from the east in general, including Phoenicia and Syria, rather than simply from Greece (where Corinth predominates). The easterners’ settlement at Pithekoussai on Ischia (see also p. 150) was a cosmopolitan one.
Etruscan society was formed of clans each with its own leader with whom his followers identified. Warfare between rival clans may have involved local chieftains fighting on horseback backed by lightly armed retainers. Although some pieces of hoplite armour were imported from Greece there is no significant evidence at this date that the Etruscans adopted the phalanx and fought as equal members of a community as the Greeks did. This is warfare between individuals, and it is possible that the Roman triumph (see the end of this chapter) originated with the Etruscans as the celebration, and public assertion of his authority, by a victorious chieftain. Some sources talk of Etruscan kings, and it may be that each settlement had its own supreme ruler with ‘a gold crown, an ivory throne, a sceptre surmounted by an eagle, a purple tunic threaded with gold and a cloak, also of purple, with embroidered decoration’, as one later Roman account puts it.
Rivalry between local aristocrats led to the emergence of more consolidated and better-protected settlements. The tufa plateaux already offered good defence but from possibly as early as 700 bc they were fortified with tufa blocks. (Cerveteri is an example.) This initiated a tradition of building massive fortified walls that reached its peak in the fifth and fourth centuries when the Etruscan cities were threatened by both Romans and Celts. The evidence from tombs of this earlier period suggests a small aristocratic elite whose cultural life was increasingly influenced by their contacts with Greece. The Greek alphabet was adopted about 700 bc and literacy maintained by the elite as a status symbol. In the decorated burial chambers of the aristocratic tombs of Tarquinia and on the plaques from Poggio Civitate (see below), paintings and reliefs show a lifestyle centring on hunting and banqueting. In the banqueting scenes couples recline on couches in symposia and the Athenian game of kottabos is in full swing but here the couples are not, as in Athens, men with their hetairai but Etruscans with their wives. It is a lifestyle reminiscent of an earlier aristocratic age of Greece, the world of Odysseus and Penelope, rather than that of democratic Athens.
Greek commentators, notably the fourth-century historian Theopompus, were shocked enough by the public appearance of women to condemn Etruscan society as a sexual free-for-all, with women playing as much part as men in initiating encounters with men, boys, and other women. In practice, upper-class Etruscan women appear to have been treated with respect and affection and they are portrayed in carriages, sumptuously dressed, and as spectators at games (including chariot-racing, a Greek sport later passed on to enthusiastic Romans). Inscriptions give children the names of both their fathers and mothers. An elegant sandal with gold laces was known to the Greeks as ‘Etruscan.
It was the paintings within the tombs that gave Lawrence his picture of the Etruscans, but this does not mean that Etruscan life, even for the elite, was a parade of banquets interspersed by hunting. The pictures of banqueting, for instance, may represent the hopes of the deceased for life in the future world (as in Egypt) or may record a transitional meal between the world of the living and the world of the dead. (By the fourth century bc some banquets include demons and other symbols of the underworld in them, a development which some have linked to the increasing threat from Rome.) Similarly the Greek pottery that fills the later tombs (and provides 80 per cent of the known surviving Attic vases) may have been attractive for its associations with the world of the dead and the hopes of some afterlife for those who have carried out heroic deeds. The story of Heracles, a mortal figure who becomes immortal through his labours, is a popular theme that was highlighted by Athenian potters working specifically for the Etruscan market.
As their prosperity grew the Etruscans expanded southwards. Their influence spread over the entire plain of Campania, rich land in itself but also a meeting place with the Greeks. There was a Greek colony at Cumae on the mainland about 725 and the Etruscans themselves were developing their own coastal centres. With the growing importance of trade and craftsmanship, Etruscan cities on the major hilltop sites such as Volterra were expanding. (These elevated sites also offered better protection against the malaria that haunted the marshy plains.) The towns of Latium, among them Rome with its important position on the Tiber, now also came under Etruscan control and Etruscan influence spread eastwards. There is some evidence for urban settlement in Umbria and the peoples there used Etruscan script to record their distinctive dialect (as in the Iguvine tablets, a set of religious tracts, discovered in 1444 in the town of Gubbio, and still on display in the museum there). Greek craftsmen now begin to settle, and Etruscan craftsmen acquired skills in working gold, silver, and ivory from them. (The cultural relationship between the Greeks and the Etruscans is fully explored by John Boardman in his The Diffusion of Classical Art in Antiquity, Princeton and London, 1995.)
One original Etruscan creation is bucchero, a shiny black pottery. From about 650 it was being traded along the French and Spanish coasts. In the sixth century trade in manufactured goods was given new impetus by migrants from Greece. One aristocrat, Demaratus, is recorded as fleeing from tyranny in Corinth in the middle of the century and setting up his business in Etruria. It was possibly under his influence that the Etruscans copied metal relief work in clay and so developed terracotta, used at first for the decoration of temples. Terracotta later provides some of the most attractive of Etruscan ‘sculptures, married couples reclining on couches and a magnificent set of horses from Tarquinia, now in the museum there.
Particularly fascinating is an impressive complex of buildings at Poggio Civitate near Murlo (dated to between 650 and 575 bc). This is an important site, in its earliest form a residence with a manufacturing workshop attached. After a fire in the early sixth century it was rebuilt in the shape of a substantial building with four wings enclosing courtyards. It is unique in size for this period in the Mediterranean. Whether the residence of a local clan leader or a ritual or political centre, it
Was finely decorated and shows the combined influence of Greek and Villanovan styles. Roof-tiles had been adopted from Greece, while acroteria, raised images placed on the roof, in this case of human figures both male and female, originated in Etruria. There was a frieze of terracotta plaques and these are overwhelmingly aristocratic in their themes; they show mounted warriors, a horse race, a procession, possibly of a newly married couple and their attendants, a banquet, and a row of seated figures with their attendants.
Livy said that the Etruscans were more religious than any other people. It is difficult to give much meaning to such a statement but ritual was certainly important and the remains of sanctuaries show that the Etruscans sought divine help for their daily needs. They created a pantheon of gods drawn from many sources, some local, some Greek. (Two-thirds of the Olympian gods have an Etruscan equivalent.) Each god had his or her own place in the sky, and an understanding of the pleasure or displeasure of the gods could be gained from watching the flight of birds, flashes of lightning, or any other unusual event. The augurs, responsible for interpreting the signs, would then prescribe the correct rituals for their appeasement.
The augurs would carry out their duties standing within a sacred area set apart on high ground. (The area was known to the Romans as a templum, the origin of the word ‘temple’) Perhaps as early as 600 bc the Etruscans built temples immediately behind the sacred area. The model is the Greek temple but the emphasis is on a highly decorated fa9ade and an entrance only at the front. The podium on which the temple rested is much higher than in Greece and the augur may have stood on its edge to make his divinations. A late example, the Ara della Regina temple at Tar-quinia, from the first half of the fourth century, stood on a podium of 77 by 34 metres on the summit of a hillside commanding a site which had been sacred for centuries before this. The Romans adopted the Etruscan temple as their model, most notably in the great temple to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva on the Capitoline Hill begun in the late sixth century when an Etruscan ‘king’ still ruled Rome. The Romans drew heavily on Etruscan beliefs, and the rules of divination, the disciplina, were carefully preserved by them.
The heyday of Etruscan city life came in the sixth and early fifth centuries bc. Each city was independent but its representatives met each year in a league of twelve cities, an idea possibly adopted from the Panhellenic festivals of the Greeks. The idea of a planned city centre also appears to have been adopted from the Greeks. Roads and bridges between cities reflect the sophistication of Etruscan engineering. For the inland cities, prosperity swelled the classes who were benefiting from trade and comparative peace. The authority of the aristocratic leaders appears to have been diluted as greater numbers of better-armed citizens were brought into the city forces and so a more egalitarian society emerged. Burial customs reflect the changes. At Cerveteri from about 500 bc individual burial chambers are replaced by what is a city of the dead with tombs arranged in streets, each one with a fa9ade in the shape of a house carved in the tufa. Family tombs are surrounded by more modest burial places for what might be servants or retainers.
Along the coast conditions were not so secure. Etruscan supremacy came under threat from about 550 bc as new waves of Greeks fled from Persian expansion. The Phocaean colony at Alalia in eastern Corsica was particularly threatening. In 540 bc the Etruscans, with some Phoenician support, defeated the Phocaeans at sea and forced the abandonment of the settlement, but the Phocaeans had also settled in southern France and they now blocked off Etruscan trade there. Meanwhile the Carthaginians (Phoenicians who had established the city of Carthage and made it a springboard for further colonization) had consolidated their position in Sardinia and on the western coast of Sicily and gradually forced the Etruscans off the sea. At Pyrgi, the port of Cerveteri, a striking set of gold plaques contains a bilingual dedication by a ruler of Cerveteri, Thefarie Velianas, to the Phoenician goddess Astarte, who is equated with the Etruscan Uni (the Etruscan equivalent to Hera and the forerunner of the Roman Juno). It has been suggested that Thefarie Velianas was a tyrant of Carthaginian origin who had been imposed on Cerveteri. The Etruscans were now also under pressure from the Greek tyrants in Sicily. An expedition led by Etruscans with native mercenaries against the Greek city of Cumae in about 525 bc failed and in 474 bc Hiero of Syracuse defeated an Etruscan fleet off Cumae. The Etruscan presence in Campania was eliminated in the fifth century by the Samnites, a mountain people who now began raiding into the plains.
As the Carthaginians became dominant in the Tyrrhenian Sea, the coastal cities of Etruria went into decline. Inland cities including Clusium (a ruler of Clusium, Lars Porsenna, features among Rome’s early enemies), Fiesole, Cortona, Volsinii (the modern Orvieto), and Veii continued to flourish, largely because they were exploiting their land so successfully. (The remains of large irrigation schemes dating from the fifth century have been found around Veii.) The league of twelve cities survived but lacked any kind of political vigour. No city came to the help of Veii when it was attacked by Rome in the late fifth century.
What trade remained had now to be directed across the Apennines in the Po valley. A new Etruscan city near the present town of Marzabotto, at the foot of the Apennines, was laid out in about 500 bc. Once again its carefully planned regular streets and distinction between a public and a residential area suggest the influence of Greek town planning. Other Etruscan foundations include the modern cities of Ravenna, Rimini, and Bologna. One of the most successful trading cities was Spina on the Po delta, built, as Venice would be, on wooden piles with bridges and canals between the buildings. Here the Etruscans met the Greeks in a city that seems as much Greek as Etruscan and which has proved the richest source of Attic vases of any Etruscan city. However, here too the Etruscan presence was threatened by a number of forces, including the eventual silting up of Spina and the migration of ‘Celtic’ war-bands across the Alps. There is some evidence of intermarriage between the newcomers and Etruscans and new trade routes were forged with the tribal groups of northern Europe (producing the La Tene culture, see p. 356) but the Etruscan cities of central Italy were now falling into steady decline and were eventually defeated and destroyed by Rome in the third century.
The decline of the Etruscans was one of the factors that made the fifth and fourth centuries an age of crisis in Italy. In the north Celtic groups were occupying the Po valley and raiding down further into the peninsula. A host of different mountain peoples began to plunder the plains. They may have been driven by population pressures but many had also acquired military skills from service as mercenaries and so had developed the confidence to attack the wealthy Greek and Etruscan cities of the lowlands. Almost every Greek city of south-west Italy was overrun in the fifth century.
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