Etruscans ?

**LeftEyeNine** · 09-07-2006, 00:53

What do you know about Etruscans ? Their way fo belief, significant elements of their culture, way of identification, cities, general history and so on ?

**Marshal Murat** · 09-07-2006, 02:05

They lived around Pisa and south. Pre cursors of the Roman Empire. No verbal language has ever been identified. They were beaten by Rome, and absorbed.

The last couple Roman kings were Etruscans.
At funerals, slaves would duke it out, origin of gladiatorial games.

**Kraxis** · 09-07-2006, 02:54

Made the first concrete, though it crumbled with age. The Romans 'merely' improved the design and made the effective concrete we know in Rome.

I believe that some written language was present, though it doesn't seem to have been terribly common outside buildings (and graves) or easily perishable documents (like waxtablets).

Good candidates for introducing hoplite warfare to Rome, as they are generally regarded as rather Greecophile.

**conon394** · 09-07-2006, 03:16

How about this paradox, on the basis of some of their native art the Etruscans are often cited as having given women more rights or been more equitable toward woman than the Greeks. Yet the Etruscans were very healthy consumers of Athenian pottery that featured the most nominally ‘misogynistic’ imagery (and in fact almost all of the symposium image pottery used to argue for a male dominated Greece is export ware from Etruscan graves). Altogether odd…

**LeftEyeNine** · 09-07-2006, 22:32

So are they a bit like those Mayan, Incan civilizations, mysterious and uncovered, only partially known ?

**GodWillsIt** · 09-08-2006, 13:02

there was supposed to be some kind of tablet/stone/carving in northern italy that was supposed to have Etruscan writing on it...i don't know if it was proven to be or not. I know there is a bunch of research on the dialect of the Etruscans.

**KrooK** · 09-08-2006, 13:42

At the beginning of it's existence Rome was probably Etruscan protectorate.
City gained independence due to Etruscan defeat into war with Cartage.

**AntiochusIII** · 09-09-2006, 01:30

Originally Posted by KrooK

At the beginning of it's existence Rome was probably Etruscan protectorate.
City gained independence due to Etruscan defeat into war with Cartage.

Carthage? Are you sure?

I believe the Etruscans used to have quite a pretty peaceful trading relationship with the City across the sea, no? After all, Rome supposedly build on Etruscan connections to establish a diplomatic relationship with Carthage as early as the start of the Republic itself, if I'm not wrong...

That and Carthage never took any serious interest in mainland Italy prior to the Punic Wars.

My perception also is like LEN's, that of a relatively mysterious civilization (if only by the virtue of not being studied enough just yet); but my perception is as worthless as any popular perception of history is. They surely are an interesting case, though: if Rome took much from the Greeks, then it probably took more from the Etruscans (though many they things took from the Etruscans would actually be of Greek origin anyway...), so yeah.

**Kraxis** · 09-09-2006, 02:14

At teh top of my head I do remember an Etrusco-Punic war, that the Etruscans lost pretty badly. But it was a war on the seas, so it was more a war over rights of trade and so on. Not really a decisive war, just one to define who was the bigger dog.

**cunctator** · 09-09-2006, 09:18

Actually Etruscan defeats in wars with greek colonies marked the beginning of their downfall not a war with carthage. The carthaginians were mostly allied with the etruscans against their common enemies at this time. Also at this time the gaulic immigration into the po valley and norther italy begun and further weakened the etrucan cities.

Around 535 BC a combinend etrucso punic fleet of 120 ships tried to expell the Phocaeans, greeks from asia minor from alalia, corsica. The fleet was defeated but the looses of the Phocaeans were that high that they abandoned their colony and transfered it to souther italy.

Around 524 an italic army under etruscan leadership attacked the greek colony Kyme/Cumae in campania but was defeated.

509 BC the traditional date when the etruscan Tarquinian dynasty was expelled from Roma.

504 BC etruscan defeat against an army of latins and cumaeans near Aricia in Latium

480 BC the carhtaginian was decisively defeated near Himera in Italy by the sicilian greeks.

474 BC The combined fleets of Cumae and Syrakusai decisively defeated the etruscan fleet near Cumae.

**Kraxis** · 09-09-2006, 11:54

Yeah, but at the same time they sacked Rome under Lars Porsena.

**Tamur** · 09-19-2006, 07:01

Looks like I missed this thread, but I did want to add a little about the language.

There are now well over 10,000 known examples of Etruscan writing, and the Etruscan alphabet has been deciphered. It bears many resemblances to Scandinavian runic systems, and makes one wonder whether Scandinavian contact with the Romans was earlier than anyone would expect. But that's another discussion.

Anyway, the language itself remains an almost complete mystery. It doesn't fit into any sort of Indo-European family, nor does it fit well anywhere else in the world. Apparently there is a language called Raetic from far northern Italy that is related, but written Raetic is very sparsely represented. As a sample, here are the numbers 1-10 in Etruscan: thu, zal, ci, huth, mak, sa, semph, cezp, nutph, sar. If you've done any linguistic analysis, you know that is one very odd set of number words.

Their metalworking is really stunning for the time period (or for two thousand years later, even). If you get a chance to see an exhibition or museum pieces, it's well worth the trip. A fascinating culture, and one that isn't probably given the coverage it deserves in university Classics curricula.

**Rex_Pelasgorum** · 09-30-2006, 21:34

Etruscans where probably a pre-indoeuropean people, and together whith the related Raethi, might have dominated Italy prior to the arivall of Latins (prisci Latins might have split up from the Pelasgo-Thracian group in SE Europe, and migrated in Italy around 1000 BC). Graecia Magna ,prior to the Greeks establishment, was inhabitad also by Etruscans. Greeks wrongly named in this case the local Etruscans from Magna Graecia as "Pelasgians", in this case, "pelasgian" was just an epithete , meaning "of ancient times".

I have personally read at least a dozen teoryes about Etruscans : either they were Slavs, either they where Thracians, either they were Albanians, Hungarians, whatever.

**Justiciar** · 10-01-2006, 03:14

Slavs? Hungarians? Albanians?

Aren't those three from a little too far afield, both in distance and timeframe? The safest bet is Proto-Indo-European.

**KrooK** · 10-01-2006, 11:18

Actually they couldn't be Slavs. First slavic tribes - Preslavs appeared about about V century.

**Kralizec** · 10-01-2006, 11:42

And there weren't any Hungarians (Magyars) around either, and we don't even know where the Albanians come from (one theory is that they were Illyrians)