The Etruscans*

The Etruscans*

We need to examine with the mysterious Etruscans* first because they seem to have contributed the most to the Roman character. Mysterious they are, both because we know very little about these people who established a vibrant civilization over much of Italy, and because what we do know about them is fragmentary and strange. Before they established a going society in northern Italy, there were only scattered bronze age cultures on the Italian peninsula.

This was back in the dark age of Greece, between the Mycenae bunch and the dawn of classical Greece. It was a time of ferment all over the Mediterranean. Waves of invaders poured down into southern Europe. The Phoenicians* were pushed westward out of Asia Minor and established a great colony at Carthage* on the North African coast and in Spain* and waves of iron using Indo-European Latin tribes invaded Italy from the north. The last invading tribe settled in the Alban hills around what would become Rome*.

Meanwhile, on the western coast of Italy, a new non-Latin tribe was emerging as a dominant force in the area of Tuscany*, spreading north and south of this cultural center. They gradually pushed the local Latin tribes further back into the hills and forests. The part of Italy they dominated came to be called Etruia*.

These Tuscany* tribes came to be known as the Etruscans*. They seem to have many characteristics of Asia Minor* peoples and may have migrated from Anatolia* across the northern edge of the Adriatic. There is an old and dubious story that they were the survivors of the fall of Troy. Many of their talents and characteristics will be adopted by the later Romans. They were hard, war-like and determined. They had a body of laws and a passion for divination. Everything they did depended on omens and signs read by their priest-kings. The Romans will ditch the king business but adopt this divination business, lock, stock and barrel.

The Etruscans* were great city planners and architects. They came up with the arch and a grid layout for their cities. They were engineers, digging tunnels through hills, draining swamps, diverting rivers and becoming expert miners and metal producers. The Romans really latch on to this architectural and engineering business and will become known as a society of builders.

Another quite different range of characteristics will be picked up by the Romans. The Etruscans were really crazy about blood and sex. They had terrific gladiator battles for every occasion (especially their funeral games), sexual freedom, luxurious living and loose moral codes. The Romans are appalled at the equality Etruscan women enjoyed, but they will adopt the rest of the blood and sex attitudes.

The Etruscans* owed much of their civilization to the Greek influence they encountered on their southern borders. The Etruscans were especially crazy about the works of Homer*.

Greek mythology is found throughout their art and may have influenced their religion as well. Their god Turms*, for example, was identical with the Greek Hermes who conducted the souls of the dead to the underworld.