The Forgotten Civilization of the Etruscans

Not forgotten, but overshadowed

The title calls the Etruscans forgotten, but one of the reasons they were never entirely forgotten is that Rome kept remembering them. Roman tradition said that the last three of its seven kings had Etruscan connections, and that Etruscan culture left deep traces in Roman life. How much of that tradition is history is debated, and this article sets out both the story and the doubts.

The tradition of the kings

Roman writers, above all Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, wrote in the late 1st century BCE about events they placed centuries earlier. Their accounts of the early monarchy were based on older traditions and family records, many of which were uncertain. The following outline is how the Romans themselves told the story, with traditional dates that scholars treat as approximate.

• Tarquinius Priscus (traditionally reigned 616 to 579 BCE) was said to be the son of Demaratus, a Greek from Corinth who had settled at Tarquinia, and of an Etruscan mother. He moved to Rome with his wife Tanaquil, a woman skilled in omens, and became king.
• Servius Tullius (traditionally 578 to 535 BCE) was a king of humble or servile origins in Roman accounts, who organised the citizens into classes by wealth and built or extended the city walls.
• Tarquinius Superbus (“Tarquin the Proud”, traditionally 534 to 509 BCE) was remembered as a tyrant. His son’s assault on Lucretia, according to the story, led to a revolt that drove the family out and created the Roman Republic in 509 BCE. Tarquin is then said to have sought help from Lars Porsena of Clusium, who besieged Rome but failed to restore him.

The word “Tarquin” probably comes from the Etruscan city of Tarquinia (Tarchna), which fits the traditional account that the dynasty came from there.

Was there Etruscan rule at Rome?

Scholars disagree about how literally to take this tradition. The following points are relevant.

1. Archaeology shows Etruscan contact. In the 7th and 6th centuries BCE, Rome changed from a cluster of villages into a city with a paved Forum, public buildings and large temples. Etruscan-style architectural terracottas and imported goods appear in this period, and a few Etruscan inscriptions have been found in the city.
2. A different tradition about Servius. The emperor Claudius, who studied Etruscan history, gave a speech in 48 CE, preserved on a bronze tablet found at Lyon, in which he says that Servius Tullius was known in Etruscan sources as Mastarna. A painting in the François Tomb at Vulci shows a figure named Macstrna freeing a man called Caile Vipinas, which many scholars link to this story. The identification is plausible but not certain.
3. The Republic’s origin story is partly legend. The tale of Lucretia is hard to verify, and the dates were probably fixed later. Many historians suspect that the “expulsion” in 509 BCE was a slower and more complicated change.
4. Rome remained Latin. The city’s language, its main cults and its people were Latin. Etruscan influence was real, but there is little evidence that Etruscans ruled it as a distant foreign power.

A cautious conclusion is that Rome in the 6th century BCE was strongly influenced by Etruscan culture, and that some of its rulers may have had Etruscan names or ties, but that the details in the later tradition cannot be taken at face value.

Possible Etruscan legacies in Roman life

Roman writers believed that many emblems of power came from Etruria. Modern scholars are more cautious, but the following are often mentioned.

• The fasces. A bundle of rods, sometimes with an axe, carried by attendants called lictors who walked before magistrates. Roman writers said the Etruscans passed it to Rome, and bundles of rods and axes have been found in an Etruscan tomb at Vetulonia, though the find is sometimes debated.
• The curule chair and the toga praetexta. A folding chair of office and a toga with a purple border, worn by senior magistrates.
• The triumph. The procession of a victorious general, perhaps influenced by Etruscan and Greek models.
• The Capitoline temple. The great temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline hill, traditionally begun by the Tarquins and dedicated in 509 BCE, was built in an Etruscan temple style. Roman tradition says an Etruscan craftsman from Veii, Vulca, made its clay statue of Jupiter.
• Drainage and building. The Cloaca Maxima, Rome’s great drain, is traditionally credited to the Tarquins. Whatever its first date, the engineering was the kind of work that later made Roman aqueducts a signature of the city.
• Writing. The Latin alphabet was adapted from a Greek script, probably through Etruscan contact. The history of the Greek and Latin alphabets is closely tied to Etruscan use.
• Games and ritual. Some historians have connected the Roman gladiatorial games with Etruscan funeral games, but this is a debated idea and the evidence is thin.
• Words. A few Latin words, such as persona (perhaps from Etruscan phersu, a masked figure), may have Etruscan origins, though etymologies are uncertain.

Military and political changes

Roman tradition credits Servius Tullius with dividing citizens into classes based on property and military equipment. That system fits the era in which the hoplite phalanx became standard in the Mediterranean, in which citizen soldiers fought in close formation. Greek-style fighting reached Etruria in the 7th century BCE, and Rome appears to have followed. The Roman Senate and the assembly system also developed in the regal period, though the Republic would reshape them.

After the kings

Rome’s break with the monarchy did not end contact with Etruria. Rome and Etruscan cities fought, traded and made agreements for centuries. The Romans continued to use Etruscan specialists for religious advice, and Etruscan arts remained prestigious. In the end, Rome grew at the expense of the Etruscan cities, while keeping some of what it had learned. This interplay is the main reason why the Etruscans were not forgotten: they were part of how Romans explained themselves.

Reading the evidence with care

The story of the Tarquins is the sort of account that mixes memory, family pride and political reasoning. It is best read as evidence of what Romans believed about their past. Archaeology confirms strong Etruscan influence on early Rome, while leaving open how it came about: by conquest, by immigration of craftsmen and aristocrats, or through trade and marriage. The accurate summary is that Etruscan culture helped to shape early Rome, and that Roman memory of its Etruscan kings was both selective and long-lived.