The Etruscans were a people who spoke an apparently non-Indo-European language living along the west coast of the Italian Peninsula on the coastal plain west of the Apennines in the second and first millennia b. c.e.
ORIGINS
There is a persistent and often-repeated idea that the Etruscans were a people whose society and origins are shrouded in mystery. Their apparently non-Indo-European language is often said to be indecipherable and their elaborate cities of the dead give them an aura of otherworldliness. Their culture was so alien to that of other peoples of Italy, it is claimed, that they must have immigrated there from elsewhere. This idea was long given credence because of the assertion by the fifth-century b. c.e. Greek philosopher Herodotus, that they originated in the country of Lydia in Asia Minor.
An aura of mystery surrounds the Etruscans probably, in large part, because, although they did adopt writing from the Greeks in about 700 B. C.E., for largely unknown reasons they did not develop a literature, and most of the great number of surviving writings in the Etruscan language are simple memorials to the dead, giving their names, names of relatives, ages at death, and little more. This lack of material, not any inherent opacity of the language, has hampered a full decipherment of their language. As a result, unlike that of the Greeks and Romans, Etruscan civilization is a largely silent one, speaking to us primarily through the medium of their rich figural art.
A continuity of cultural development has shown conclusively that the earliest Etruscans were the makers of what is called the Villanova culture (named for one of its sites near modern Bologna), which had been established in the future Etruria (Tuscany) at least by about 1200
B. C.E., and probably long before. It is now recognized that Etruscan culture evolved directly from that of the Villanovans, and that the Etruscans’ cities, including Veii, Tarquinia, Vulci, and Cerveteri, were located on the sites of earlier Villanovan villages.
LANGUAGE
Unlike the later arrivals on the Italian Peninsula, the Italics, the Etruscans spoke a non-Indo-European language that may have had its origins with the first farmers in their region in the sixth millennium b. c.e. Most of the surviving writings in the Etruscan language are funerary inscriptions. This paucity of examples of their language has prevented its full decipherment.
HISTORY A Trading Society
By the time Greeks and Phoenicians arrived in the western Mediterranean in the eighth century B. C.E., they found a flourishing Etruscan trade network throughout what the Greeks called the Tyrrhenian (Greek for Etruscan) sea and reaching as far as sardinia. The Etruscans
Etruscans time line
ETRUSCANS
Location:
Western coastal region of northern Italy
Time period:
Second millennium to third century b. c.e.
Ancestry:
Unknown
Language:
Etruscan (affiliations unknown)
B. C.E.
C. 750 Foundation of loose confederation of Etruscan city-states
Eighth century Etruscans expand trade routes and settlements southward, controlling rich Campanian plain.
Mid-sixth century Persian pressure on Greeks causes waves of refugees to Italy.
540 Etruscans, with Phoenician support, defeat Phocaeans at sea and force abandonment of Alalia in Corsica.
525 Etruscans lead unsuccessful expedition with native mercenaries against Greek city of Cumae.
Fifth century Growing competition exerted on Etruscans by Carthaginians, leading to decline of coastal cities of Etruria.
Etruscans find trade routes bypassing Greek-held Rhone River, through Alpine passes to Rhine-Moselle region with its high-quality iron ore.
474 H iero I of Syracuse defeats Etruscan fleet off Cumae.
After 450 Greek and Etruscan trading networks experience growing power of Rome.
End of fifth century Trade completely disrupted by continual warfare in western Mediterranean.
Fourth century Celtic raids into Italy
390 Celts reach Rome.
Third century Remaining Etruscan cities destroyed or annexed by Rome.
This Etruscan bronze votive figure dates to the fourth century b. c.e. (Drawing by Patti Erway)
Had formed a loose confederation of states in the area north of Rome by about 750 b. c.e.
Over the course of the eighth century b. c.e. the Etruscans expanded their trade routes and settlements southward, controlling the rich Campanian plain and trading with the Greeks at their emporium of cumae, established in about 725 b. c.e. The Etruscans built their own trading centers along the coast, such as Pontecagnano. At this time the towns of Latium, among them Rome with its important position on the Tiber, few under Etruscan control and Etruscan influence spread inland, for example, to Umbria, where some evidence for urban settlement has been found. Inscriptions have been found there of the local dialect in Etruscan script (for example, the Iguvine tablets, a set of religious tracks, discovered in 1444 c. e. in the town of Gubbio). The Etruscans established cities on the important hilltop sites in the region.
Greek emigrants began settling in southern Italy in such numbers that it became known as Magna Graecia (Greater Greece). One among many reasons for emigration is provided by the story of an aristocrat named Demaratus, who is recorded as fleeing from tyranny in corinth in the middle of the sixth century b. c.e. and setting up a business in Etruria. Many immigrated
Etruscan Territory in About 500 b. c.e.
Etruscan League territory,
C. 500 B. C.E.
Etruscan settlement Greek trading post Latin settlement
To areas under Etruscan control. At Gravisca, the port of Tarquinia, a Greek sanctuary was established and offerings to Apollo, Hera, and Demeter survive. One example is an anchor with a dedication to Apollo from one Sostratus, perhaps a merchant captain or sailor. A number of pots found in Etruria are inscribed with the Greek letters SOS, very possibly the initials of a wealthy Greek merchant mentioned by Herodotus as trading in the late sixth century B. C.E.
Persian pressure on Greeks in the midsixth century B. C.E. propelled waves of refugees to Italy, especially from colonies on Asia Minor; Phocaeans, Greeks from Phocis, were the most numerous. The Phocaeans created a colony at Alalia in western Corsica that was particularly threatening to Etruscan interests. In 540 B. C.E. the Etruscans, with some Phoenician support, defeated the Phocaeans at sea and forced the abandonment of the settlement. The Phocaean Greeks tightened their control over the trade route up the Rhone River in southern France, which they had established to avoid the Carthaginians (Phoenicians who had established the city of Carthage and made it a springboard for further colonization), in part because of conflict with the Etruscans. But by the fifth century B. C.E. the Etruscans had found trade routes bypassing the Rhone, which led through Alpine passes to the Rhine-Moselle region, where high-quality iron ore was available, such as in the Hunsruck-Eifel region.
The tribes in the Rhine-Moselle region had already begun to develop a warrior society, possibly because of their involvement in providing slaves to the Hallstatt elite to their south in southeastern France and southern Germany for trade with the Greeks. Now with direct contact to the Mediterranean luxury trade, they in their turn became rich. Etruscan influence on the tribes here is shown by their adoption of the Etruscan-style two-wheeled chariot, the numerous Etruscan amphorae found here, and the flowering of the richly inventive La Tene art style.
During the same period the Carthaginians had consolidated their position on Sardinia and on the west coast of Sicily and gradually forced the Etruscans off the sea. The Etruscans were now also under pressure from the Greek city-states in Sicily. An expedition against the Greek city of Cumae, led by Etruscans with native mercenaries in about 525 B. C.E., failed, and in 474 B. C.E. Hiero i of Syracuse defeated an Etruscan fleet off Cumae. The Etruscan presence in Campania was eliminated in the fifth century B. C.E. by the Samnites, a mountain people who now began raiding into the plains. in the face of this truncation of their trade network the Etruscans focused their energies on the Po River valley and trade routes through the Apennines. Here they founded the precursors of the modern cities of Ravenna, Rimini, and Bologna. One of the most successful trading cities was Spina on the Po delta, built on piles with bridges and canals between the buildings.
Carthaginian dominance in the Tyrrhenian Sea caused the decline of the coastal cities of Etruria. Inland cities, including Clusium, Fiesole, Cortona, Volsinii (Orvieto), and Veii, continued to thrive, however, largely because of their flourishing agriculture, fostered by large irrigation schemes in the fifth century B. C.E. These cities belonged to a religious confederation of 12 city-states that held an annual meeting at a shrine to the goddess Voltumna, but there does not seem to have been any political unity among them—none of them aided Veii when the city was attacked by Rome in the fifth and early fourth centuries B. C.E.
Decline of the Etruscans After 450 B. C.E. the Greek and Etruscan trading networks were under increasing stress from the growing power of expansionist Rome until, by the end of the fifth century B. C.E., they had been completely disrupted by continual warfare in the western Mediterranean.
Meanwhile the disruption of trade had a dramatic effect on the Celtic La Tene tribes, which, together with population growth and some internal social instability whose cause can only be guessed at, led to an outburst of mass migrations both toward Greece and into italy along the routes that had carried the coveted goods of the Mediterranean world. The raids of Celtic tribes on northern italy and the Po region in the fourth century B. C.E. caused further serious economic losses to the Etruscans. There is some evidence that Celts and Etruscans intermarried, however.
The decline of the Etruscans opened a power vacuum in italy that was exploited by many different peoples. in the north the CELTS occupying the Po valley raided farther down into the peninsula, easily driving through Etruscan opposition with a momentum that quickly propelled them all the way to the gates of Rome itself in 390 (or 387) B. C.E. The Celts laid waste much of the region around Rome, which held out for seven months until the
Celts moved off. Raiding continued throughout the Italian Peninsula for 60 years. Many different mountain peoples also 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 southwest Italy was overrun by the fifth century b. c.e.
The power vacuum caused by Etruscan decline, leading to the disruptions in Italy of the fifth and fourth centuries b. c.e., not only galvanized Rome to expand the military for own self-defense, but also catapulted the city to leadership of the whole of Italy and then beyond. The Etruscan cities of central Italy fell into terminal decline and were eventually defeated and destroyed by Rome in the third century b. c.e.
CULTURE
Economy
Etruscan Wealth through Trade The rise of Etruscan society was fostered by several natural benefits of their territory. It lay along the west coast of the Italian Peninsula on the coastal plain west of the Apennines. This was the best farmland in the region, with fertile volcanic soil and, because it is not in the rain shadow of the mountains, adequate precipitation; between the rivers Tiber and Arno are found some of the richest mineral deposits in the central Mediterranean. The coast is indented and so provides a safe haven for seafarers. From the eighth century B. C.E. Greeks and Phoenicians in particular were trading inland for minerals. As their suppliers the Etruscans grew rich. They also established trade routes north through the Alps to the Celts along the Rhine and Moselle Rivers, trading wine and other goods for iron.
The Etruscan socioeconomy had undergone an important realignment from 1200 B. C.E., with a greater emphasis on stock rearing, particularly of sheep, goats, and pigs, and a rise in population; by 900 b. c.e. settlements had been established on the plateaus of tufa (a soft volcanic rock) common in the region.
Greek Imports The appetite of Etruscan society for Greek pottery was so great that Greek potters, the so-called Perizoma Group of late sixth-century Athens, adapted their wares for the Etruscan market.
Government and Society Early Etruscans Early Etruscan society appears to have been a tribal one closer to that
Of the Celts than of contemporary Greeks, for whom the city was the focus of one’s identity This structure is suggested by the Etruscan custom of naming, which was similar to that of the Romans, with an individual’s name, called in Latin the praenomen, linked with that of his clan or tribe, the nomen. (Among Greeks the individual’s name was linked with the name of his or her city) Thus the Etruscans had not as yet developed a truly urban culture, possibly the reason they did not use writing, a primarily urban phenomenon, until late in their history under Greek influence.
Evolution away from Tribal Past Intertribal rivalry changed over time as the Etruscans prospered. War became more serious as the stakes grew higher and as competition for control of trade in the area intensified. This development is seen in the greater fortification of the plateau sites that may have begun as early as 700 B. C.E., built with tufa blocks. (Cerveteri is an example.) The building of massive fortified walls reached its peak in the fifth and fourth centuries b. c.e., when the Etruscan cities were being threatened by both Romans and Celts.
Greek Influences The Etruscans received important influences from the Greeks as soon as large-scale trade with them began. They adopted the Greek alphabet in about 700 b. c.e.; writing seems to have been used as a sign of elite status. Tomb paintings demonstrate Etruscan adoption of the Greek banquet, with the difference that Etruscan wives took part, rather than the het-airai, prostitutes, of the Greeks. Another favorite occupation of Etruscan nobles depicted in tomb paintings was hunting.
Military Practices
Warfare between tribes had a large element of ceremony (as may well have been the case with the Celts, too, until they began their migrations). Local chieftains fought one another on horseback as in a joust, backed by lightly armed retainers. Thus war was mostly an individual affair, in which elite warriors fought as much for personal glory as for plunder and gain. It has been suggested that the Roman triumph of republican and imperial times, the highly stylized public celebration given for a victorious general, was adopted from the Etruscans, because it is a somewhat archaic holdover in emphasizing the general’s personal achievement, instead of his service to the state, a more characteristic Roman attitude. Some ancient sources mention Etruscan kings, sitting in state, wearing a gold crown and a richly embroidered tunic, sitting on an ivory throne, and bearing an eagle-shaped scepter. It would be a mistake to think of such trappings and celebrations as primarily intended to assert a leader’s authority, as in an urban-based civilization. Rather, in tribal societies, a leader’s wealth, derived from victory in war, was a sign of the gods’ favor for the tribe as a whole. Tribal leaders acted as intercessors between the gods and their people, and their success in the risky business of war depended on the help of the gods, who tipped the balance in the king’s favor (as in Homer, who was writing not about Greeks of later times but of the tribal societies of the remote past). Victory in war probably was seen as foretelling bountiful harvests, health, and general prosperity for the tribe.
The typical dwelling of Etruscans was adopted by Romans. The entrance of the one-story house was a narrow vestibule that opened out into the atrium, an open-roofed area with a pool underneath to receive rainwater. An altar to the household gods and the seat of the head of the household (who performed the rituals at the altar on behalf of his family) stood opposite the vestibule, and thus was the first sight to greet the visitor. Beyond the altar was the master bedroom in earlier times; later this became a public room where the master of the house received visitors. Bedrooms lined the sides of the atrium.
Inspired by Greek pottery and other wares, Etruscans experimented with new material and techniques. In the seventh century they developed bucchero, a shiny black pottery, which became highly desired in coastal Gaul (France) and Iberia (Spain). They also invented terracotta while attempting to replicate metal relief work in clay. Terra-cotta was used at first for the decoration of temples. The large-scale migration of Greeks to southern Italy stimulated trade, manufacturing, and craft skills in working gold, silver, and ivory.
Other Etruscan art forms include sculpture in clay and metal, and fresco tomb paintings. Etruscans clearly were influenced by Greeks and cultures of the eastern Mediterranean, and their art was extremely influential on that of the Romans.
Funerary Art The many banqueting scenes in Etruscan funerary painting are thought to have more significance than merely portraying a favorite pastime of the living. They may have been meant to show a ritual, sacramental meal consumed by the living on behalf of the dead, as in many customs that have survived to the present of setting a place at the table for departed ancestors on certain occasions, such as the Catholic holy day All Souls’ Day They perhaps expressed the hope that the departed would indeed join in those feasts in parallel with living relatives. The demons and other symbols of the underworld that begin to appear in paintings in the fourth century b. c.e. lend credence to this hypothesis; however, they may also be signs of social and psychological stressors on the Etruscans as the threat of Roman power loomed large at this time.
Painted Greek pottery became very popular as burial offerings, so much so that some 80 percent of surviving Greek pottery was found in Etruscan tombs. Setting aside such unlikely theories as that Etruscans buried Greek pottery with their dead (instead of gold and silver vessels that they kept for their own use) because it was cheap and abundant, it may have been the mythic themes depicted on the pottery to which Etruscans responded. Pottery showing the exploits of Heracles (Hercules) was very common in tombs; the fact that he was a mortal who became immortal may have offered comfort to mourners. In general the theme of many Greek (and probably also Etruscan) myths involved heroes who through their deeds attained immortality, at least in the form of everlasting fame. (The Greek hero Achilles, who traded glory for length of days, is the exemplar.)
Cities of the Dead Beginning around 500 b. c.e. the citizens of several Etruscan cities ceased to bury their dead in separate tombs, but instead created literal underground cities of the dead, with tombs arranged in streets, each one with a facade in the shape of a house carved in the tufa. Family tombs are surrounded by more modest burial places for what might have been servants or retainers. Such cities are found at Cerveteri and Orvieto. This more egalitarian arrangement probably reflects actual changes in Etruscan society, as urban life featured an increasingly prominent merchant and craftsman class, and the old warrior elite became less completely dominant. But it also gives a heightened sense that for the Etruscans, the world of the living was paralleled by an unseen world of the dead. Was the living world considered to be a mere reflection of this alternate spiritual world? With the lack of an Etruscan literature, such matters may remain the subject of speculation alone.
This bronze statue of an Etruscan warrior dates to about 300 B. C.E. (Drawing by Patti Erway)
Role of Augurs The importance for the Etruscans of augurs, priests schooled in divining the will of the gods by reading omens, such as the flight of birds or lightning bolts, suggests that their religion, as did that of the Italic tribes of Italy, grew out of a belief in spirits (called by the Italics numina) who dwelled in rivers and trees, groves, fields and buildings. Belief in a multitude of spirits surrounding humankind on every hand, which each person encountered by day or night, waking or sleeping, may have given rise to efforts to contact the spirits both to learn their will and to gain their knowledge of the unseen, including the future. Augurs were consulted for everyday matters as well as at moments of crisis or war.
Augurs made their divinations from within a sacral space, usually on high ground. By about 600 B. C.E. the Etruscans began building temples adjacent to this sacred space (called by Romans the templum, the origin of the word temple), with very high podia (the bases on which temples were built). Augurs may have stood on the edge of a temple’s podium, the better to gain contact with the flying spirits. The Roman temple to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva on the Capitoline Hill begun in the late sixth century when an Etruscan “king” still ruled Rome was modeled on Etruscan temples. The Romans used the Etruscan rules of divination, the disciplina, which they took care to preserve unaltered.
Etruscan Gods Etruscans of historical times had developed a pantheon of gods, many adopted from other peoples, especially the Greeks. (Two-thirds of the Greek Olympian gods have an Etruscan equivalent.) In many cases they gave Greek or other names to their own deities. They equated the Phoenician goddess Astarte with their own Uni, whose Greek equivalent was Hera and who was the forerunner of the Roman Juno.
The “exotic” culture of the Etruscans, so different from what we think we know about the ancient Mediterranean world, hints at a diversity of that world that scholars and archaeologists have only begun to discover in recent decades. What we thought we knew about the ancient world for centuries derived from a very fragmented and limited source: the ancient texts that survived some 2,000 years of often tumultuous history and dramatic cultural change. Only a small fraction of the written legacy of antiquity has survived. For example, there are only 1,865 Roman manuscripts in existence that date from before Charlemagne (ninth century C. E.) of the Franks; the rest of the extant Roman literature consists of what scribes in the ninth century saw fit to copy; a number of the most important works are known from only a single copy. And because the overwhelming majority of the known literature was created by writers who worked within the dominant Greco-Roman culture, the picture that emerges from the texts alone has a considerable degree of uniformity. It is this uniformity which makes the culture of the Etruscans in contrast seem so strange. The field of classical studies in the 20th century opened wide many new doors to knowledge about the ancient world that are creating a new picture of antiquity as a period of sometimes bewildering cultural complexity and diversity, beginning with the archaeological discoveries of civilizations of the Minoans and Mycenaeans. Against this new backdrop the uniqueness of Etruscan culture can be seen as typical of the Mediterranean world, in which cultures in contact with Africa, the Near East, and Europe each blended them into a particular amalgam unique to itself.
Further Reading
Graeme Barker and Tom Rasmussen. The Etruscans (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000).
Larissa Bonfante, ed. Etruscan Life and Afterlife: A Handbook of Etruscan Studies. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1986).
Federica Borrelli et al., eds. The Etruscans: Art, Architecture, and History (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2004).
Otto J. Brendal. Etruscan Art (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1995)
Michael Grant. The Etruscans (New York: Scribner, 1980).
Sybille Haynes. Etruscan Civilization: A Cultural History (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Trust, 2000).
Ellen Macnamara. The Etruscans (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991).
Robert F Paget. Central Italy: An Archaeological Guide: The Prehistoric, Villanovan, Etruscan, Samnite, Italic, and Roman Remains, and the Ancient Road Systems (London: Faber, 1973). David Ridgway. Italy before the Romans: The Iron Age (New York: Academic, 1997).
Maja sprenger and Gilda Bartoloni. The Etruscans: Their History, Art, and Architecture (New York: H. N. Abrams, 1983).
Nigel Spivey. Etruscan Art (London: Thames & Hudson, 1997).
Mario Torelli. Etruscans (New York: Rizzoli, 2001). David H. Trump. Central and Southern Italy before Rome (New York: Praeger, 1965).
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