ETRURIA, an ancient district of Italy, the extent of which varied considerably, and, especially in the earliest periods, is very difficult to define (see section Language). The name is the Latin equivalent of the Greek Τυρρηνία or Τυρσηνία, which is used by Latin writers also in the forms Tyrrhenia, Tyrrhenii; the Romans also spoke of Tusci, whence the modern Tuscany (q.v.). In early times the district appears to have included the whole of N. Italy from the Tiber to the Alps, but by the end of the 5th century B.C. it was considerably diminished, and about the year 100 B.C. its boundaries were the Arnus (Arno), the Apennines and the Tiber. In the division of Italy by Augustus it formed the seventh regio and extended as far north as the river Macra, which separated it from Liguria.

History.—The authentic history of Etruria is very meagre, and consists mainly in the story of its relations with Carthage, Greece and Rome. At some period unknown, prior to the 6th century, the Etrurians became a conquering people and extended their power not only northwards over, probably, Mantua, Felsina, Melpum and perhaps Hadria and Ravenna (Etruria Circumpadana), but also southwards into Latium and Campania. The chronology of this expansion is entirely unknown, nor can we recover with certainty the names of the cities which constituted the two leagues of twelve founded in the conquered districts on the analogy of the original league in Etruria proper (below). In the early history of Rome the Etruscans play a prominent part. According to the semi-historical tradition they were the third of the constituent elements which went to form the city of Rome. The tradition has been the subject of much controversy, and is still an unsolved problem. It is practically certain, however, that there is no foundation for the ancient theory (cf. Prop. iv. [v.] 1. 31) that the third Roman tribe, known as Luceres, represented an Etruscan element of the population, and it is held by many authorities that the tradition of the Tarquin kings of Rome represents, not an immigrant wave, but the temporary domination of Etruscan lords, who extended their conquests some time before 600 B.C. over Latium and Campania. This theory is corroborated by the fact that during the reigns of the Tarquin kings Rome appears as the mistress of a district including part of Etruria, several cities in Latium, and the whole of Campania, whereas our earliest picture of republican Rome is that of a small state in the midst of enemies. For this problem see further under [Rome]: History, section “The Monarchy.”

After the expulsion of the Tarquins the chief events in Etruscan history are the vain attempt to re-establish themselves in Rome under Lars Porsena of Clusium, the defeat of Octavius Mamilius, son-in-law of Tarquinius Superbus, at Lake Regillus, and the treaty with Carthage. This last event shows that the Etruscan power was formidable, and that by means of their fleet the Etruscans held under their exclusive control the commerce of the Tyrrhenian Sea. By this treaty Corsica was assigned to the Etruscans while Carthage obtained Sardinia. Soon after this, decay set in. In 474 the Etruscan fleet was destroyed by Hiero I. (q.v.) of Syracuse; Etruria Circumpadana was occupied by the Gauls, the Campanian cities by the Samnites, who took Capua (see [Campania]) in 423, and in 396, after a ten years’ siege, Veii fell to the Romans. The battle of the Vadimonian Lake (309) finally extinguished Etruscan independence, though for nearly two centuries still the prosperity of the Etruscan cities far exceeded that of Rome itself. Henceforward Etruria is finally merged in the Roman state.

Etruscan Antiquities

The large recent discoveries of Etruscan objects have not materially altered the conclusions arrived at a generation ago. It is not so much our appreciation of the broad lines of the manners and arts of the Etruscans that has altered as our understanding of the geographic and social causes which made them what they were. One great difficulty in the study of the remains is that a very large portion of them have been found by unofficial excavators who have been naturally unwilling to tell whence they came, and that certain other excavations, such as those carried out by Comm. Barnabei for the Villa Giulia museum, have been carried out under conditions which help but little towards increasing our knowledge.[1] The increase has, however, been steady, even if not all one could wish.

Ethnology.—The origin of the Etruscans will most likely never be absolutely fixed,[2] but their own tradition (Tacitus, Ann. iv. 55) that they came out of Lydia seems not impossible. Herodotus (i. 94) and Strabo (v. 220) tell of Lydians landing at the mouth of the Po and crossing the Apennines into Etruria. Thus it seems certain that though the earliest immigrants, known to the later Etruscans as the Rasena, may have come down from the north, still they were joined by a migration from the east before they had developed a civilization of their own, and it is this double race that became the Etruscans as we know them in tradition and by their works. To give a date to the migration of the Rasena from the north, for which the only evidence is the fact that the Etruscan language is found in various parts of north Italy,[3] is impossible, but we can perhaps give an approximate one to the coming of the Lydians or Tyrrhenians (Thuc. iv. 109; Herod. i. 57). We know that there was a great wave of migration from Greece to Italy about 1000 B.C., and as the earliest imported Greek objects found in the tombs cannot be dated many generations later than this, this year may be considered as giving us roughly the time when the real Etruscan civilization began.

It has been, and still is, a common mistake to speak of the Etruscans as though they were closely confined to that part of Italy called Etruria on the maps, but it is quite certain that in the early stages of their development they were differentiated from the Umbrians on the north-east and the Latins on the south in ways due rather to the locality than to race or essential character.[4] To primitive peoples open seas or deserts are a greater hindrance to intercourse than mountains or rivers, and even these did not cut off Etruria from the neighbouring regions of Italy. The Apennines that separated her from Umbria were not difficult to cross, and the Tiber which formed the boundary between her and Latium has been a far greater element of separation in the minds of modern authors than it ever was in reality. Narrow, not particularly swift, often shallow, such a stream can never have caused more than a moment’s delay to the hardy Etruscans. When Rome was founded, the river of course could be used like a moat round a castle as a means of defence, but that is very different from its being a permanent bar to the spread of a given culture. The fact that the alphabets used in other parts of Italy besides Etruria are derived from the Etruscan or from similar Grecian sources, that Rome was ruled by Etruscan kings, that the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline was decorated by Etruscan artists (Livy x. 23; Pliny, H.N. xxxv. 157), that the decorations of the temple found by Signor Mazzoleni near Conca (Notizie degli scavi, 1896) are of the same kind as others found in Etruria, show that the influences which grew to their clearest development in the region west of the Tiber had a marked effect over a broader region than is usually admitted. This too was the belief of the Greek historians, many of whom considered Rome as a Tyrrhenian city.[5]

Cities and Organization.—The chief cities of Etruria proper were Veii, Tarquinii, Falerii, Caere, Volci, Volsinii, Clusium, Arretium, Cortona, Perusia, Volaterrae (Volterra), Rusellae, Populonium and Faesulae. That the country was thickly settled is made plain by the ruins that have been found. It was governed by kings who were elected for life, but whose power depended largely on the leaders (lucumones) of the separate states or regions and on the aristocracy (Censorinus, De die natali, iv. 13). Later the office of king was abolished and replaced by annual magistrates (Livy v. 1). Below the aristocracy came the free people, who were divided into curiae (Serv. ad Aen. x. 202), and then the slaves. There can be little doubt that the early organization of the people at Rome was typical of Etruria (Niebuhr, Röm. Gesch. 2nd ed. i. 389).

A league of twelve cities is mentioned by the ancients (Livy iv. 23), whose delegates met at the temple of Voltumna, but we are not told which cities formed the league, and there can be little doubt that the list changed from time to time. A glance at the map makes clear some of the general relations of these cities to one another and to the outer world. They are well spread all over the country, and by no means only along the coast. None of the important ones is among the mountains. This means that the earliest inhabitants of the country were not roving traders like the Mycenaean Greeks, and that the cities drew their wealth and strength from agricultural pursuits, for which the country was well suited, as the three rivers, Arnus, Umbro and Tiber, with their feeders (not to mention several lesser streams), channel it in all directions. We get a hint as to the government of the cities from the fact that many of the Roman forms and apanages of office were derived from the Etruscans (Dion. Hal. iii. 61); for instance, the diadem worn by those honoured with a triumph, the ivory sceptre and the embroidered toga (Tertull. De Cor. 13), and so too the golden bulla and the praetexta (Festus, s.v. “Sardi”). Such things give us an idea as to the aristocratic basis of the government. Of the actual laws we know something also. Cicero (Div. ii. 23) tells the story of the miraculous uncovering by a ploughboy of a child who had the wisdom of a sage, and how the child’s words were written down by the amazed folk, and became their archives and the source of their law. Coming down to historic times we find that their code, known as the libri disciplinae Etruscae, consisted of various parts (Festus, s.v. “Ritualis”). There were the libri haruspicini (Cic. Div. i. 33, 72), which dealt with the interpretation of the will of the gods by means of sacrifice; the libri fulgurales, which explained the messages of the gods in the thunder and lightning; and finally the libri rituales, which held the rules for the conduct of daily life—how to found cities, where to place the gates, how to take the census, and the general ordering of the people both in peace and war.

Natural Resources and Commerce.—Such was the country and such the laws. The people were a warrior stock with little commercial skill. Much of their wealth was due to trade, but they were not the restless, conquering blood that goes in search of new markets. They waited for the buyers to come to them. That their wealth and consequent power were gathered contemporaneously with that of Greece is shown by various facts. One of these is that Dionysius of Phocaea settled in Sicily after the Ionian revolt (in which his native city took part) had been quelled by Darius, and thence harried the Etruscans (Herod. vi. 17). Their power is also shown by the fact that they made an alliance with the Carthaginians, with the result that they obtained control of Corsica (Herod. i. 166), and this union continued for many generations.[6] That this treaty was no exceptional one is shown by Aristotle (Pol. iii. 96, Op. ii. 261), who says that there were numerous treatises, concerning their alliances and mutual rights, between the two peoples. That the Greeks held the Etruscans in considerable dread is suggested by the fact that Hesiod (Theog. 1011 foll.) names one of their leaders Agrios, “the Wild Man,” and by the fear they had of the straits of Messina, where they imagined Scylla and Charybdis, which, unless the whirlpools were of very different character then than now, were as likely to be the pirate bands of Carthaginians and Etruscans who guarded the channel. And this explanation is strengthened by Euripides (Med. 1342, 1359), whose Medea compares herself to “Scylla, who dwells on the Tyrrhenian shore.” The wealth that was the source of this power of the Etruscans must in the main have been drawn from agriculture and forestry. The rich land with its many streams could scarcely be surpassed for the raising of crops and cattle, and the hills were heavily timbered. That it was such material as this, which leaves no trace with the passing of time, that they sold cannot be doubted, for there is plenty of evidence that their country was visited by foreign traders of many lands, and that they bought largely of them, especially of metals. Metals also suggest that another source of their wealth was that of the middleman. Their towns were the centres of exchange, where the north and west met the south and east. They had no mines of gold or tin, but the carriers of tin, iron or amber[7] from the north met in the markets of Etruria the Phoenician and Greek merchants bringing gold and ivory and the other luxuries of the East. The quantities of gold, silver and bronze found in Etruscan tombs prove this clearly. Of these metals the only one found in unworked form, in what are practically pigs, is bronze. This in the form of aes rude has frequently been found in considerable quantities, and the larger and better formed bits of metals known as aes signatum are not rare. Both forms are usually spoken of as the earliest forms of money, but as the aes rude generally bears no marks of valuation or of any mint, and as the aes signatum is far too large and heavy for ordinary circulation, it is probable that these shapes of metal are not to be considered strictly or alone as coins, but as forms given to the alloy of tin and copper made and sold by the Etruscans to the foreigners for purposes of manufacture. This of course does not exclude their use as money. Where the copper for this bronze came from is not certain, but probably a great part was from the mines at Volaterrae. Still another proof that what the Etruscans sold was the product of their fields or crude metals imported from the north, is the fact that though in the museum at Carthage and elsewhere there are a few vases and other objects which probably come from Etruria, still such objects are extremely uncommon. On the other hand, articles obviously imported from the East are by no means uncommon in Etruria. Such are the ostrich shells from Volci,[8] the Phoenician cups from Palestrina,[9] the Egyptian glazed vases and scarabs found on more than one site.[10] All this goes to show that the Etruscans lacked in their earlier days skilful workers in the arts and crafts.