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Roman History - Early Italy to 753 BC

By 2000 BC Italy was populated by a number of Indo-European tribes, each with its own language and culture. There was a disparity in the levels of civilization achieved by the early Italian cultures, which were usually intensely local in their expression. These tribal groups consolidated unsuccessfully in common defense against the intrusion of the Etruscans, who appeared in Italy about 900 BC.

The origin of the Etruscans, whose influence and civilization in Italy were not surpassed until the emergence of Latin Rome as an independent power, is a mystery that has confounded scholars for centuries. The origins of the Etruscans, a non-Indo-European population of preclassical Italy, are unclear. There is broad agreement that their culture developed locally, but the Etruscans’ evolutionary and migrational relationships are largely unknown.

Archaeological evidence of their civilization, though plentiful, is subject to contradictory interpretations. Their language, whose alphabet was derived from Greek, had no known affinities with other languages and remains undecipherable. The explanation put forward by Herodotus that the Etruscans migrated from Asia Minor has remained a popular speculation.

Paleoanthropological studies have only proved broad similarities between the Etruscans and their neighbors of the Iron Age. Archaeological evidence suggests that the Etruscan culture developed locally, with some features pointing to an Eastern influence. However, it is not clear if such influence reflects only trading and cultural exchange or rather some sort of shared biological ancestry. That is a long-lasting controversy. Dionysius of Halicarnassus (1.30.2) favored local development, whereas, according to Herodotus (1.94), the Etruscans were Lydians of Anatolia who were fleeing from famine. No modern archaeologist supports the latter view, but some affinities between the Lydian and the Etruscan languages have been recognized.

The Etruscan culture developed in central Italy (Etruria) in the first millennium BC. The oldest-known inscriptions in Etruscan, a non-Indo-European language isolate, date back to the end of the 8th century, right after the shift from the rural Villanovian culture, documented in the same area in the 9th century BC, to an urban society. The Etruscan cities were independent states that shared a language and a religion but never formed a political unit. However, between the 7th and the 5th centuries BC, leagues of Etruscan cities established their political and cultural leadership over an area spanning from the Po Valley to Magna Graecia, including, during part of the 6th century, Rome. In the second millennium BC lines of trade extended from the Aegean islands into Italy, the depot for amber and copper brought from beyond the Alps. The first Greek colonies were established in southern Italy in the eighth century BC. Politically and economically independent of their mother cities in Greece, the colonies in Magna Graecia (Greater Greece) — as Sicily, Calabria, Apulia, and Lucania were called in antiquity — remained an integral part of the Hellenic world. Some of the city-states of Magna Graecia, such as Syracuse or Sicily, were powerful and prosperous and played a part in the political life of Greece and the Aegean. The Greeks in Italy (known as Italiotes) manifested a tendency for warring among themselves and were challenged by the Phoenician colony of Carthage, which in its drive for hegemony in the western Mediterranean settled enclaves in Sicily and Sardinia in the sixth century BC and made allies of the Etruscans.

By the sixth century BC the Etruscans had expanded into neighboring territories throughout Latium and Campania, effectively blocking further Italiote expansion, and had crossed the Apennines and gone beyond the Po River into upper Italy. Their widespread use of writing and their highly developed technical skills in building and engineering helped to lead the rest of Italy out of the Iron Age. In addition to their own talents, the Etruscans were the conduit for influences from the Greeks, from early archaic times to the Hellenistic age, and introduced the city-state as a form of political organization to Italy.

Like their Greek counterparts, however, the 12 city-states of Etruria, as the area settled by the Etruscans was called, were disunited and frequently engaged in internecine conflict, despite the existence of a formal religious league. By about 500 BC a hereditary Etruscan monarchy was overthrown, and the constituent city-states formed independent republics as the Etruscan power in Latium disappeared. They retained control of the area north of the Apennines until the invasion of the Gauls in the fourth century BC and by about 350 BC eclipsed the Etruscans in Latium.

Military defeats, the Roman expansion, and progressive assimilation caused a decline of the Etruscan cities, which lost their autonomy when Roman citizenship was granted to the Roman allies (90–89 BC). Immediately afterward, the language disappeared.