The Etruscans (The Early People in Italy)

For Rome

Provided it with its early political arrangements (monarchy, army)

Urban infrastructure (walls, forum, drainage system)

Turned Rome into a full-blown city-state

Etruscan words entered the Latin language

The toga palmata (a magistrate’s robe)

The sella curulis (magistrate’s chair)

The fasces (symbolised magisterial power)

The word populus is of Etruscan derivation, and originally referred to the people assembled for war, as an army.

The early Romans were deeply influenced by their more civilized Etruscan rulers

Can be seen in the Romans’ writing, art and architecture, religion, military matters, entertainment

Helped to shape Roman civilization, the Etruscans had an enduring influence on later Western culture

Polytheistic

Tin or Tinia, the sky

Uni the wife

Cel, the earth goddess

Later, Greek deities were taken into the Etruscan system

Aritimi (Artemis)

Menrva (Minerva)

Pacha (Dionysus)

Temples

Where they could make offerings to their gods

Started with dried mud-brick buildings using wooden poles and thatch roofs

Evolved into more solid and imposing structures using stone and Tuscan columns

Each town had three main temples

Private houses

Multiple intercommunicating rooms, sometimes with a hall and a private courtyard, all on one floor

Had an atrium, an entrance hall open to the sky in the centre and with a shallow basin on the floor in the middle for collecting rainwater

Opposite was a large room, with a hearth and cistern, and side rooms including accommodation for servants.

The surviving Etruscan art

Figurative sculpture in terracotta

Cast bronze

Wall-painting

Metalworking

Etruscan art was strongly connected to religion; the afterlife was of major importance in Etruscan art

The Etruscan musical instruments seen in frescoes and bas-reliefs are different types of pipes, such as Pan pipes and double pipes, percussion instruments, and stringed instruments like the lyre

The only written records of Etruscan origin that remain are inscriptions, mainly funerary. Otherwise, Etruscan literature is evidenced only in references by later Roman authors.

Raiding neighbouring areas

Attempting to gain territory

Engaging in – or combating – piracy

Prisoners were sometimes set to fight one another

Grew into the gladiatorial entertainments of the Roman amphitheatres

Most Etruscan cities moved from monarchy to oligarchy

New cities sprang up as the Etruscans expanded their sphere of influence

The Etruscan homeland was originally divided into twelve city-states

united by a common religion

Different states from going to war with one another from time to time

united by a loose political confederacy.

They migrated from Lydia

North of Rome

Nowadays called Tuscany

Spread from the Tiber River in the south to parts of the Po Valley in the north

The major Etruscan cities included

Cerveteri

Populonia

Chiusi

Tarquinia

Vulci

The early Romans were deeply influenced by their more civilized Etruscan rulers

Can be seen in the Romans’ writing, art and architecture, religion, military matters, entertainment

Helped to shape Roman civilization, the Etruscans had an enduring influence on later Western culture

The name of Rome itself has of Etruscan origin

As are the names of its legendary founders

Romulus

Remus

The Etrsucan elite provided it with

its early political arrangements (monarchy, army)

urban infrastructure (walls, forum, drainage system)

Etruscan words entered the Latin language

The toga palmata (a magistrate’s robe)

The sella curulis (magistrate’s chair)

The fasces (symbolised magisterial power)

The word populus is of Etruscan derivation, and originally referred to the people assembled for war, as an army.