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The Etruscan civilization is the English name given today to the culture and way of life of a people of ancient Italy whom ancient Romans called Etrusci or Tusci.[1] The Attic Greek word for them was (Tyrrhēnoi) from which the Romans of the republic developed Tyrrhēni (Etruscans), Tyrrhēnia (Etruria) and Tyrrhēnum mare (Tyrrhenian Sea).[2] The Etruscans themselves used the term Rasenna, which was syncopated to Rasna or Raśna.[3]
As distinguished by its own language, the civilization endured from an unknown prehistoric time prior to the foundation of Rome until its complete assimilation to Italic Rome in the Roman Republic. At its maximum extent during the foundation period of Rome and the Roman kingdom, it flourished in three confederacies: of Etruria, of the Po valley with the eastern Alps, and of Latium and Campania.[4] Rome was sited in Etruscan territory. There is considerable evidence that early Rome was dominated by Etruscans until the Romans sacked Veii in 396 BC.
Culture that is identifiably and certainly Etruscan developed in Italy after about 800 BC approximately over the range of the preceding Iron Age Villanovan culture. The latter gave way in the seventh century to a culture that was influenced by Greek traders and Greek neighbors in Magna Graecia, the Hellenic civilization of southern Italy.
The Etruscans are believed to have spoken a non-Indo-European language. Knowledge of their language is still far from complete.
No etymology exists for Rasna.
The etymology of Tusci is based on a beneficiary phrase in the third Iguvine tablet, which is a major source for the Umbrian language.[5] The phrase is turskum ... numem, the Tuscan name, from which a root *Tursci can be reconstructed.[6] A metathesis and an e-extension produce E-trus-ci.[7] A common hypothesis is that *turs- along with Latin turris, "tower", come from Greek , "tower."[8]. The Tusci were therefore the "people who build towers"[8] or "the tower builders."[9] This venerable etymology is at least as old as Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who said "And there is no reason why the Greeks should not have called them by this name, both from their living in towers and from the name of one of their rulers."[10]
The Bonfantes speculate that Etruscan houses seemed like towers to the simple Latins. It is true that the Etruscans preferred to build hill towns on high precipices enhanced by walls. On the other hand if the Tyrrhenian name came from an incursion of sea peoples or later migrants (see below) then it might well be related to the name of Troy, the city of towers in that case.
The origins of the Etruscans are lost in prehistory. Several hypotheses exist, some of which are listed below. They are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Any or all might be true.
Debate over origins began even as the Etruscans lived out the floruit of their civilization and was revived in the 17th century AD. Whether ancient or modern theorists proceed mainly by looking for pattern matches between cultures; that is, given sets of cultural elements, {a, b, ...} of cultures {A, B, ...}, theorists look for groups of common elements and then hypothesize a connection between the corresponding cultures. The elements might be from any cultural aspects at all from speech sounds to pot marks.
No complete but many partial matches have been found. Debate continues.
In his own history of the Etruscan debate, Massimo Pallottino, the dominant Etruscologist of his times, distinguished between "provenance" and "ethnic formation."[11] Theories of the former seek an origin. He divided those into "oriental", "northern" and "autochnonous."
Formulating a different point of view on the same evidence, Pallottino says:[12]
Dionysius of Halicarnassus asserted:[10]
With this passage Dionysius launched the autochthonous theory, that the core element of the Etruscans, who spoke the Etruscan language, were of "the earth itself"; that is, on location for so long that they appeared to be the original or native inhabitants. They are therefore the owners of the Villanovan culture.[13]
Picking up this theme, the Bonfantes (2002) state:[14]
An additional elaboration conjectures that the Etruscans were[15]
Herodotus[16] records the legend that the Etruscans came from Lydia in Asia Minor:
In reply, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who read Herodotus, states:[10]
The Tyrrhenians may have been one of the sea peoples of the 14th century BC.
A team of geneticists from different universities in Italy and Spain undertook the first genetic studies of the ancient Etruscans, based on mitochondrial DNA from 80 bone samples taken from tombs dating from the seventh century to the third century BC in Etruria.[17] This study finds that they were more related to each other than to the general population of modern Italy.
Moreover, this pool contained between about 150,000 to 200,000 women. Dividing these numbers by the 36 cities in the three Etruscan leagues obtains an average of between 4167 and 6944 women per community. Selecting an arbitrary family size of four gives a most approximate Etruscan population of 600,000 to 800,000 persons in about 36 communities of an average between 16,668 and 27,776 persons each. These populations are sufficiently dense and sufficiently urban to have accomplished everything the Etruscans were supposed to have accomplished.
The study has also shown that there is a link between Etruscans and certain populations of Anatolia. In particular, the areas of historical Etruscan occupation share a relatively high concentration of y-haplogroup G with Anatolians. This evidence is not specific to any period or calendar date; the time of a contiguous population or significant migration might be far back in the stone age.
Another team of Italian researchers has shown that the mtDNA of cattle (Bos taurus) in modern Tuscany is different from that of cattle normally found in Italy, and even in Europe as a whole.[18] Their mtDNA is, in fact, similar to that of cattle typically found in the Near East. Many tribes who have migrated in the past have typically taken their livestock with them as they moved. This bovine mtDNA study suggests that at least some people whose descendants were Etruscans did in fact make their way to Italy from Anatolia or other parts of the Near East. The study gives no clue as to when they might have done so.
As the Villanovan Culture prevailed over the Etruscan range at the dawn of their history, it must have been theirs. That it was exclusively theirs over its time span is less certain, and whether Etruscan culture preceded it is completely unknown.
History is the story of real events as related by particular authors. There are no extant histories written in Etruscan by persons identifying themselves as Etruscan. Etruscan history is known nearly entirely from Roman and Greek authors; however, the Roman populace included descendants of Etruscans and Roman culture contained elements of formerly Etruscan culture. Etruscan inscriptions contain also a small amount of historical information.
The Etruscan monuments provide a great deal of information about the society of the Etruscans, such as kinship and government. They had a form of written language, which has still not been decoded by historians.
Mythology is to be distinguished from religion; however, the two are often intertwined, as is the case with the Etruscans.
The Etruscans made lasting contributions to the architecture of Italy, which were adopted by the Romans and through them became standard to western civilization. Rome itself is a repository of Etruscan architectural features, which perhaps did not originate with the Etruscans, but were channeled by them into Roman civilization.
Those who subscribe to an Italic foundation of Rome, followed by an Etruscan invasion, typically speak of an Etruscan “influence” on Roman culture; that is, cultural objects that were adopted at Rome from neighboring Etruria. The prevalent view today is that Rome was founded by Etruscans and merged with Italics later. In that case Etruscan cultural objects are not influences but are a heritage.
The main criterion for deciding whether an object originated at Rome and travelled by influence to the Etruscans, or descended to the Romans from the Etruscans, is date. Many, if not most, of the Etruscan cities were older than Rome. If we find that a given feature was there first, it cannot have originated at Rome. A second criterion is the opinion of the ancient sources. They tell us outright that certain institutions and customs came from the Etruscans.
In 390 BC the city of Rome was attacked by the Gauls, and as a result may have lost many - though not all - of its earlier records. Certainly, the history of Rome before that date is not so secure as it later becomes, but enough material remains to give a good picture of the development of the city and its institutions.
Later history relates that some Etruscans lived in the Tuscus vicus, the “Etruscan quarter”, and that there was an Etruscan line of kings (albeit ones descended from a Greek, Demaratus the Corinthian) which succeeded kings of Latin and Sabine origin. Etruscophile historians would argue that this, together with evidence for institutions, religious elements and other cultural elements, prove that Rome was founded by Etruscans - or at least came under Etruscan domination. The true picture is rather more complicated, not least because the Etruscan cities were separate entities which never came together to form a single Etruscan state. Furthermore, there were strong Latin and Italic elements to Roman culture, and later Romans proudly celebrated these multiple, 'multicultural' influences on the city.
Rome was located on the edge of Etruscan territory. When Etruscan settlements turned up south of the border, it was presumed that the Etruscans spread there after the foundation of Rome. As it stands now, the settlements are known to have preceded Rome. Greeks also landed on Etruscan soil, at a conventional date of about 1000 BC.
Etruscan settlements were frequently built on a hill, the steeper the better, and surrounded by thick walls. When Romulus and Remus founded Rome, they did so on the Palatine Hill according to Etruscan ritual; that is, they began with a pomoerium or sacred ditch. Then they proceeded to the walls. Romulus was required to kill Remus when the latter jumped over the wall, breaking its magic spell (see also under Pons Sublicius).
The name of Rome is believed by some to be Etruscan, occurring in a standard form stating “place from which”: Velzna-χ, “from Velzna”, Sveama-χ, “from Sveama”, Ruma-χ, “from Ruma”. We do not know what it means however. If Tiberius is from θefarie, then Ruma would have been placed on the Thefar river.
Under Romulus and Numa the people were said to have been divided into thirty curiae and three tribes. Very few words of Etruscan entered the Latin language, but the names of at least two of the tribes - Ramnes and Luceres - seem to be Etruscan. The last kings may have borne the Etruscan title lucumo, while the regalia were traditionally considered of Etruscan origin: the golden crown, sceptre, the toga palmata (a special robe), the sella curulis (curule chair), and above all the primary symbol of state power: the fasces. The latter was a bundle of whipping rods surrounding a double-bladed axe, carried by the king's lictors. Chance has thrown an example of the fasces into our possession. Remains of bronze rods and the axe come from a tomb in Etruscan Vetulonia. Now that its appearance is known, the depiction of one was identified on the grave stele of Avele Feluske, who is shown as a warrior wielding the fasces.
The most telling Etruscan feature is the word populus, which appears as an Etruscan deity, Fufluns. Populus seems to mean the people assembled in a military body, rather than the general populace, however.
The range of Etruscan civilization is marked by its cities. They were entirely assimilated by Italic, Celtic or Roman ethnic groups, but the names survive from inscriptions and their ruins are of aesthetic and historic interest in most of the cities of central Italy.
The Etruscans are the subject of a 1932 travel book by the writer D H Lawrence, Sketches of Etruscan Places and other Italian essays.
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Ancient sources
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Modern sources
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