Out of pure curiosity...

[Loverartis]

Yeah one of those situatons. Obviously they have a cultural link to the east and adopt a lot of Greek ideas so an Aegean origin (at least for some of the ruling class) is quite probable, but there's heaps of continuity in the material culutre as well, so i'm guessing a great proportion of Etruscans were locals. Maybe a similar situation to "Celts" in the British Isles? Or English/Lallans speakers in Scotland?

(I'm a new member and I'm sorry if my english isn't very fluent) Hi, Cyclops.

I don't know anything about ancient people in England or in Scotland you refer to, but I agree with you on that: Etruscans, although they assimilated many aspects of Ellenism in 4rd and 3rd centuries b.C., maintained some of their cultural peculiarities but expressed them with greek art. In every case I think that their assimilation of Ellenistic and, then, Roman culture was slow and contiuous. Finally, their cultural identity was "standardized" to the Roman/Latin culture. That also happened to Iberians and to Veneti, for example.

[Cyclops]

(I'm a new member and I'm sorry if my english isn't very fluent) Hi, Cyclops....

Hello, your english is excellent.

... expressed them with greek art. ...

AFAIK the Hellenes were a wonderfully open minded people and their language and their art are a magnificent synthesis of the many culture they visited/raided/traded with on their epic ocean voyages. Not that they weren't also evil tyrannous weak strong brave cruel good bad etc like eveyone else, just making the point that their culture was especially porous and assimilative so they became a carrier for many cultures. The Etruscans and their cultural step-children the Romans adopted it (I'm guessing) because it was so readily adaptable ("yeah that god looks a bit like Zeus, he can be your version of the Thnderer, and his wife is in charge of the household orright?") as well as bweing brilliantly attractive ("you got your statues, your painting, your philosophy, your symposiums...")

I wonder about Punic culture: they were submerged by Greeks in the East when Alexander swamped them and extinguished/absorbed by Romans in the West. Were they a similar talkative adoptive people? What trace have they left in plain sight that we possibly think of as Roman or Greek?

There's a substantial caste of Syrian merchants in the Roman empire IIRC. I'm always reading about Syrian merchant colonies in Aquae Sulis in Brittania and at Marseille. Now were these "Syrians" Antiochian hellenes, Tyrian/Sidonian poeni, or something else? Assyrian descendants?

Certainly "Rome" as an empire was built of massive cultural congeries. Probably Etruscan was the first significant civilised influence on the rustic Latin/Sabine settlement on the Tiber, and it shows in the their basic institutions of magistracy, religion and warfare.

[Loverartis]

AFAIK the Hellenes were a wonderfully open minded people and their language and their art are a magnificent synthesis of the many culture they visited/raided/traded with on their epic ocean voyages. Not that they weren't also evil tyrannous weak strong brave cruel good bad etc like eveyone else, just making the point that their culture was especially porous and assimilative so they became a carrier for many cultures. The Etruscans and their cultural step-children the Romans adopted it (I'm guessing) because it was so readily adaptable ("yeah that god looks a bit like Zeus, he can be your version of the Thnderer, and his wife is in charge of the household orright?") as well as bweing brilliantly attractive ("you got your statues, your painting, your philosophy, your symposiums...")

Thanks Cyclops,
anyway we might ask this question: why greek culture was so "porous and assimilative", in comparison with other ancient cultures? You talk about religion: I agree, 'cause in my opinion religion was one of the aspects more assimilable.
Then I read in an essay that greek culture made philosophy and science not only to solve practical problems of their real life, but also for pure knowledge. Does it means something for the assimilative process?

There's a substantial caste of Syrian merchants in the Roman empire IIRC. I'm always reading about Syrian merchant colonies in Aquae Sulis in Brittania and at Marseille. Now were these "Syrians" Antiochian hellenes, Tyrian/Sidonian poeni, or something else? Assyrian descendants?

Mmm... It's a curious question. I remember that a lot of Etruscan pottery was recently found tombs near Siracusa, one of the greatest cities of Magna Graecia, so in that city we might suppose there were Etruscan merchants.

[bobbin]

I don't believe greek culture was particularly more "porous and assimilative" than others, the greeks just physically spread themselves out a lot more than most peoples and so they had the chance to interact with a greater number of different cultures

[Loverartis]

I don't believe greek culture was particularly more "porous and assimilative" than others, the greeks just physically spread themselves out a lot more than most peoples and so they had the chance to interact with a greater number of different cultures

I approve what you say when I remember the high number of colonies they founded (Cyrene, Magna Graecia...); but I also ask myself this: the greek colonies met native population and their culture. Maybe there's a deeper reason if the native population often (not always, it's clear) assimilated greek culture and not the opposite (I think about the diffusion of the Greek language, it was a lingua franca like the more ancient akkadian language).

[Arjos]

They invented "democracy", I find easy to imagine a rural group taking that in consideration...
Could be the fact that they didn't want to conquer anyone, but instead find land to settle on the coast in order to start trading, so the natives dealt with them more and more...

[Loverartis]

They invented "democracy", I find easy to imagine a rural group taking that in consideration...
Could be the fact that they didn't want to conquer anyone, but instead find land to settle on the coast in order to start trading, so the natives dealt with them more and more...

Yes, trade is an important element for a fusion of different cultures. A similar thing happened to Egyptian and Minoan civilizations in II mill. BC.
And what about Greek art?? During the Ellenism in Rome a part of population (with Cato the Censor) saw with apprehension the greek influence, specially for the importation of greek art. They feared that some elements of greek culture deleted Roman "Mos Maiorum".

[bobbin]

They invented "democracy", I find easy to imagine a rural group taking that in consideration...

Why would they give two hoots about that? Firstly most greeks didn't use it and secondly it would just be seen as another way of governing, it didn't have the conotations back then that it does today.

but I also ask myself this: the greek colonies met native population and their culture. Maybe there's a deeper reason if the native population often (not always, it's clear) assimilated greek culture and not the opposite (I think about the diffusion of the Greek language, it was a lingua franca like the more ancient akkadian language).

No deeper reason, it became the lingua franca the same way latin did in western europe, because the ruling and administrative classes of the region spoke it for a long time (from alexander to muslim or turkish conquests).

There wasn't anything inherent in greek culture that helped it spread, I should also point out that in many cases it wasn't adopted wholesale, for example Coptic (the egyptian language) was spoken by the majority of the population until after the muslim conquests.