Archaeologists Learned That Around 1200 B.C. Groups of People with Iron Weapons Began

Etruscans

Archaeologists learned that around 1200 B.C. groups of people with iron weapons began invading the lands around the Mediterranean. One group, called the Latins, settled on the Palatine. The area where the Latins settled had a pleasant climate and fertile soil. Nearby were swamps and dense forests that supplied the Latins with timber. The Latins built gravel roads to bring salt and other items from the coast. By 776 B.C. the settlement on the Palatine had become a village of about 1,000 farmers living in wooden huts.

Around 800 B.C. a people called Etruscans settled in Etruria, the rolling hill country north of the Latin village on the Palatine. The Etruscans used an alphabet borrowed from the Greeks. They spoke a language different from any other in the ancient world. To this day, no one knows for certain from where they came. The Etruscans were known as a “people of the sea." As pirates, they were feared and envied throughout the Mediterranean. As traders, they were admired and respected. The Etruscans organized their towns into city-states, each ruled by a king. The city-states worked together in a league - the Etruscan League. The league began to trade with people in the east and people along the African coastline. Their trade routes included the tiny village on the Tiber River. By 600 B.C. the Etruscans dominated all of northern Italy, including the Latin village on the Palatine.

Most of our information about Etruscan life comes from images and personal belongings found in Etruscan tombs. Paintings on the walls of the larger tombs display funeral banquets, processions, and games that must have been adapted from the happier events in life—civic ceremonies, state dinners, weddings, and rituals of worship. Favorite personal belongings taken to the tomb show us what men and women wore and valued in life. Sometimes large tombs symbolize the deceased’s home, which helps us understand what the house of a well-to-do Etruscan looked like.

The Etruscans were more culturally advanced than the Latins. They made many contributions to Roman civilization. For example, the Etruscans taught the Latins how to use the arch in building bridges. The laid the foundations of Rome's first sewer system. The Romans borrowed the Etruscan alphabet. The slave fights held at Etruscan funerals were the model for gladiatorial games with which the Romans amused themselves. The triumph, or parade-like welcome given a Roman hero returning from battle, was an Etruscan custom before it became a Roman one. The Etruscans also introduced the Romans to soothsayers and to gods with human forms. The Romans even founded their cities according to a ritual borrowed from the Etruscans.

Etruscan kings ruled Rome for more than 200 years, but most of them were cruel tyrants. They said the Latins had no rights because they were a conquered people. In 509 B.C. Roman farmer-soldiers overthrew the Etruscan king, Tarquin. They abolished the monarchy and set up a republic, or form of government in which the people choose their rulers.

/ The Etruscan Artisans