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165-553: Inhabited before the 7th century BC, the town's native population changed several times, from Etruscans to Romans . Numerous tombs from the Etruscan and Roman periods can be found in the area. The town as it looks today was founded in 1236 when the inhabitants of its Caere neighbour abandoned the former to be better protected by rock formations. To this, they gave the name of Caere Novum (simply Ceri, not to be confused with another neighbour, Cerenova ), in order to distinguish it from

330-616: A great victory for Metellus. Rome then besieged the last Carthaginian strongholds in Sicily, Lilybaeum and Drepana , but these cities were impregnable by land. Publius Claudius Pulcher , the consul of 249, recklessly tried to take the latter from the sea, but suffered a terrible defeat ; his colleague Lucius Junius Pullus likewise lost his fleet off Lilybaeum . Without the corvus , Roman warships had lost their advantage. By now, both sides were drained and could not undertake large-scale operations. The only military activity during this period

495-515: A Mediterranean language", a hypothesis that goes back to an article by Paul Kretschmer in Glotta from 1934. Literary and historical texts in the Etruscan language have not survived, and the language itself is only partially understood by modern scholars. This makes modern understanding of their society and culture heavily dependent on much later and generally disapproving Roman and Greek sources. These ancient writers differed in their theories about

660-477: A call for help from Syracuse, where tyrant Thoenon was desperately fighting an invasion from Carthage . Pyrrhus could not let them take the whole island, as it would have compromised his ambitions in the western Mediterranean, and so declared war. The Carthaginians lifted the siege of Syracuse before his arrival, but he could not entirely oust them from the island as he failed to take their fortress of Lilybaeum . His harsh rule soon led to widespread antipathy among

825-497: A common religion. Political unity in Etruscan society was the city-state, which was probably the referent of methlum , "district". Etruscan texts name quite a number of magistrates , without much of a hint as to their function: The camthi , the parnich , the purth , the tamera , the macstrev , and so on. The people were the mech . The princely tombs were not of individuals. The inscription evidence shows that families were interred there over long periods, marking

990-542: A continuity of culture from the last phase of the Bronze Age (13th–11th century BC) to the Iron Age (10th–9th century BC). This is evidence that the Etruscan civilization, which emerged around 900 BC, was built by people whose ancestors had inhabited that region for at least the previous 200 years. Based on this cultural continuity, there is now a consensus among archeologists that Proto-Etruscan culture developed, during

1155-569: A garrison in Tarentum, to wage a new campaign in Greece against Antigonus II Gonatas of Macedonia . His death in battle at Argos in 272 BC forced Tarentum to surrender to Rome. Rome and Carthage were initially on friendly terms, lastly in an alliance against Pyrrhus, but tensions rapidly rose after the departure of the Epirote king. Between 288 and 283 BC, Messina in Sicily was taken by

1320-652: A language with strong structural resemblances to the language of the Etruscans. The discovery of these inscriptions in modern times has led to the suggestion of a " Tyrrhenian language group " comprising Etruscan, Lemnian, and the Raetic spoken in the Alps . However, the 1st-century BC historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus , a Greek living in Rome, dismissed many of the ancient theories of other Greek historians and postulated that

1485-567: A leader was chosen to represent the league. There were two other Etruscan leagues (" Lega dei popoli "): that of Campania , the main city of which was Capua , and the Po Valley city-states in northern Italy, which included Bologna , Spina and Adria . Those who subscribe to a Latin foundation of Rome followed by an Etruscan invasion typically speak of an Etruscan "influence" on Roman culture – that is, cultural objects which were adopted by Rome from neighboring Etruria. The prevailing view

1650-517: A long-lasting alliance with Rome. In 262 BC, the Romans moved to the southern coast and besieged Akragas . In order to raise the siege, Carthage sent reinforcements, including 60 elephants—the first time they used them—but still lost the battle . Nevertheless, Rome could not take all of Sicily because Carthage's naval superiority prevented it from effectively besieging coastal cities. Using a captured Carthaginian ship as blueprint, Rome therefore launched

1815-433: A massive construction program and built 100 quinqueremes in only two months. It also invented a new device, the corvus , a grappling engine that enabled a crew to board an enemy ship. The consul for 260 BC, Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Asina , lost the first naval skirmish of the war against Hannibal Gisco at Lipara , but his colleague Gaius Duilius won a great victory at Mylae . He destroyed or captured 44 ships and

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1980-504: A means of acquiring valuable resources, such as land, prestige, goods, and slaves. It is likely that individuals taken in battle would be ransomed back to their families and clans at high cost. Prisoners could also potentially be sacrificed on tombs to honor fallen leaders of Etruscan society, not unlike the sacrifices made by Achilles for Patrocles . The range of Etruscan civilization is marked by its cities . They were entirely assimilated by Italic, Celtic , or Roman ethnic groups, but

2145-425: A monogamous society that emphasized pairing. Similarly, the behavior of some wealthy women is not uniquely Etruscan. The apparent promiscuous revelry has a spiritual explanation. Swaddling and Bonfante (among others) explain that depictions of the nude embrace, or symplegma, "had the power to ward off evil", as did baring the breast, which was adopted by western culture as an apotropaic device , appearing finally on

2310-433: A renewed effort to tackle indebtedness; required the election of at least one plebeian consul each year; and prohibited magistrates from holding the same magistracy for the next ten years or two magistracies in the same year. In 339 BC, the plebeian consul and dictator Quintus Publilius Philo passed three laws extending the plebeians' powers. His first law followed the lex Genucia by reserving one censorship to plebeians,

2475-504: A result of the end of the patrician monopoly on senior magistracies, many small patrician gentes faded into history during the 4th and 3rd centuries BC due to the lack of available positions. About a dozen remaining patrician gentes and 20 plebeian ones thus formed a new elite, called the nobiles , or Nobilitas . By the early 3rd century BC, Rome had established itself as the major power in Italy, but had not yet come into conflict with

2640-531: A significant defeat at the Battle of the Cremera in 477 BC, wherein it fought against the most important Etruscan city, Veii ; this defeat was later avenged at the Battle of Veii in 396 BC, wherein Rome destroyed the city. By the end of this period, Rome had effectively completed the conquest of its immediate Etruscan and Latin neighbours and secured its position against the immediate threat posed by

2805-708: A similar revolt in Sardinia to seize the island from Carthage, in violation of the peace treaty. This led to permanent bitterness in Carthage. After its victory, the Republic shifted its attention to its northern border as the Insubres and Boii were threatening Italy. Meanwhile, Carthage compensated the loss of Sicily and Sardinia with the conquest of Southern Hispania (up to Salamanca ), and its rich silver mines. This rapid expansion worried Rome, which concluded

2970-704: A stalemate, with the Treaty of Phoenice signed in 205. In Hispania, Scipio continued his successful campaign at the battles of Carmona in 207, and Ilipa (now Seville ) in 206, which ended the Punic threat on the peninsula. Elected consul in 205, he convinced the Senate to invade Africa with the support of the Numidian king Masinissa , who had defected to Rome. Scipio landed in Africa in 204. He took Utica and then won

3135-501: A stem from the Etruscan Rasna (𐌛𐌀𐌔𐌍𐌀), the people. Evidence of inscriptions as Tular Rasnal (𐌕𐌖𐌋𐌀𐌛 𐌛𐌀𐌔𐌍𐌀𐌋), "boundary of the people", or Mechlum Rasnal (𐌌𐌄𐌙𐌋 𐌛𐌀𐌔𐌍𐌀𐌋). "community of the people", attest to its autonym usage. The Tyrsenian etymology however remains unknown. In Attic Greek , the Etruscans were known as Tyrrhenians ( Τυρρηνοί , Tyrrhēnoi , earlier Τυρσηνοί Tyrsēnoi ), from which

3300-680: A treaty with Hasdrubal in 226, stating that Carthage could not cross the Ebro river . But the city of Saguntum , south of the Ebro, appealed to Rome in 220 to act as arbitrator during a period of internal strife . Hannibal took the city in 219, triggering the Second Punic War. Initially, the Republic's plan was to carry war outside Italy, sending the consuls P. Cornelius Scipio to Hispania and Ti. Sempronius Longus to Africa, while their naval superiority prevented Carthage from attacking from

3465-457: A very limited value for a realistic representation of the Etruscan population. It was only from the end of the 4th century BC that evidence of physiognomic portraits began to be found in Etruscan art and Etruscan portraiture became more realistic. There have been numerous biological studies on the Etruscan origins, the oldest of which dates back to the 1950s when research was still based on blood tests of modern samples, and DNA analysis (including

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3630-481: Is arguably bolstered by the fact that he was the first ancient writer to report the endonym of the Etruscans: Rasenna. The Romans, however, give them other names: from the country they once inhabited, named Etruria, they call them Etruscans, and from their knowledge of the ceremonies relating to divine worship, in which they excel others, they now call them, rather inaccurately, Tusci, but formerly, with

3795-519: Is believed that the Etruscan government style changed from total monarchy to oligarchic republic (as the Roman Republic) in the 6th century BC. The government was viewed as being a central authority, ruling over all tribal and clan organizations. It retained the power of life and death; in fact, the gorgon , an ancient symbol of that power, appears as a motif in Etruscan decoration. The adherents to this state power were united by

3960-538: Is more plausibly traceable to cultural exchange than to migration. Several archaeologists specializing in Prehistory and Protohistory , who have analyzed Bronze Age and Iron Age remains that were excavated in the territory of historical Etruria have pointed out that no evidence has been found, related either to material culture or to social practices , that can support a migration theory. The most marked and radical change that has been archaeologically attested in

4125-487: Is said to have sided with the plebeians, ruined by the sack and largely indebted to patricians. According to Livy, Capitolinus sold his estate to repay the debt of many of them, and even went over to the plebs, the first patrician to do so. Nevertheless, the growing unrest he had caused led to his trial for seeking kingly power; he was sentenced to death and thrown from the Tarpeian Rock . Between 376 BC and 367 BC,

4290-443: Is that Rome was founded by Latins who later merged with Etruscans. In this interpretation, Etruscan cultural objects are considered influences rather than part of a heritage. Rome was probably a small settlement until the arrival of the Etruscans, who constructed the first elements of its urban infrastructure such as the drainage system. The main criterion for deciding whether an object originated at Rome and traveled by influence to

4455-676: Is the Romanesque Church of the Madonna di Ceri, which stands on an ancient site where Etruscans and Romans venerated the cult of the goddess Vesta . In 1980, during a restoration, frescoes from approximately the 12th century, representing some scenes drawn from Old Testament , were discovered on a wall of the church building. 41°59′43″N 12°09′12″E  /  41.99528°N 12.15333°E  / 41.99528; 12.15333 Etruscans The Etruscan civilization ( / ɪ ˈ t r ʌ s k ən / ih- TRUS -kən )

4620-610: The Aqua Appia , and the first Roman road, the Via Appia . In 300 BC, the two tribunes of the plebs Gnaeus and Quintus Ogulnius passed the lex Ogulnia , which created four plebeian pontiffs, equalling the number of patrician pontiffs, and five plebeian augurs, outnumbering the four patricians in the college. The Conflict of the Orders ended with the last secession of the plebs around 287. The dictator Quintus Hortensius passed

4785-543: The Battle of Actium in 31 BC, and the Senate's grant of extraordinary powers to Octavian as Augustus in 27 BC—which effectively made him the first Roman emperor —marked the end of the Republic. Rome had been ruled by monarchs since its foundation . These monarchs were elected, for life, by the men of the Roman Senate . The last Roman monarch was called Tarquin the Proud , who in traditional histories

4950-455: The Battle of Bovianum in 305 BC. By 304 BC, Rome had annexed most Samnite territory and begun to establish colonies there, but in 298 BC the Samnites rebelled, and defeated a Roman army, in a Third Samnite War . After this success, it built a coalition of several previous enemies of Rome. The war ended with Roman victory in 290 BC. At the Battle of Populonia , in 282 BC, Rome finished off

5115-810: The Battle of Zama in 202 BC, becoming the dominant power of the ancient Mediterranean world. It then embarked on a long series of difficult conquests, defeating Philip V and Perseus of Macedon , Antiochus III of the Seleucid Empire , the Lusitanian Viriathus , the Numidian Jugurtha , the Pontic king Mithridates VI , Vercingetorix of the Arverni tribe of Gaul , and the Egyptian queen Cleopatra . At home, during

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5280-469: The Battle of the Great Plains , which prompted Carthage to open peace negotiations. The talks failed because Scipio wanted to impose harsher terms on Carthage to prevent it from rising again as a threat. Hannibal was therefore sent to face Scipio at Zama . Scipio could now use the heavy Numidian cavalry of Massinissa—which had hitherto been so successful against Rome—to rout the Punic wings, then flank

5445-625: The Conflict of the Orders , the patricians , the closed oligarchic elite, came into conflict with the more numerous plebs ; this was resolved peacefully, with the plebs achieving political equality by the 4th century BC. The late Republic, from 133 BC onward, saw substantial domestic strife , often anachronistically seen as a conflict between optimates and populares , referring to conservative and reformist politicians, respectively. The Social War between Rome and its Italian allies over citizenship and Roman hegemony in Italy greatly expanded

5610-594: The Cornelii , Aemilii , Claudii , Fabii , and Valerii . The leading families' power, privilege and influence derived from their wealth, in particular from their landholdings, their position as patrons , and their numerous clients. The vast majority of Roman citizens were commoners of various social degrees. They formed the backbone of Rome's economy, as smallholding farmers, managers, artisans, traders, and tenants. In wartime, they could be summoned for military service. Most had little direct political influence. During

5775-608: The Gauls , and as a result may have lost many – though not all – of its earlier records. Later history relates that some Etruscans lived in the Vicus Tuscus , the "Etruscan quarter", and that there was an Etruscan line of kings (albeit ones descended from a Greek, Demaratus of Corinth ) that succeeded kings of Latin and Sabine origin. Etruscophile historians would argue that this, together with evidence for institutions, religious elements and other cultural elements, proves that Rome

5940-708: The Italian Peninsula . According to the logographer Hellanicus of Lesbos , there was a Pelasgian migration from Thessaly in Greece to the Italian peninsula, as part of which the Pelasgians colonized the area he called Tyrrhenia, and they then came to be called Tyrrhenians. There is some evidence suggesting a link between the island of Lemnos and the Tyrrhenians. The Lemnos Stele bears inscriptions in

6105-486: The Mamertines , a band of mercenaries formerly employed by Agathocles . They plundered the surroundings until Hiero II , the new tyrant of Syracuse , defeated them (in either 269 or 265 BC). In effect under a Carthaginian protectorate, the remaining Mamertines appealed to Rome to regain their independence. Senators were divided on whether to help. A supporter of war, the consul Appius Claudius Caudex , turned to one of

6270-651: The Neolithic and the "most likely separation time between Tuscany and Western Anatolia falls around 7,600 years ago", at the time of the migrations of Early European Farmers (EEF) from Anatolia to Europe in the early Neolithic. The ancient Etruscan samples had mitochondrial DNA haplogroups (mtDNA) JT (subclades of J and T ) and U5 , with a minority of mtDNA H1b . An earlier mtDNA study published in 2004, based on about 28 samples of individuals, who lived from 600 to 100 BC, in Veneto , Etruria, and Campania, stated that

6435-482: The Palatine Hill according to Etruscan ritual; that is, they began with a pomerium 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 attested in Etruscan in the form Ruma-χ meaning 'Roman', a form that mirrors other attested ethnonyms in that language with

6600-603: The Prehistory , Etruscan age, Roman age , Renaissance , and Present-day, and concluded that the Etruscans appear as a local population, intermediate between the prehistoric and the other samples, placing in the temporal network between the Eneolithic Age and the Roman Age. A couple of mitochondrial DNA studies, published in 2013 in the journals PLOS One and American Journal of Physical Anthropology , based on Etruscan samples from Tuscany and Latium, concluded that

6765-605: The Roman Kingdom became the Roman Republic . Its culture flourished in three confederacies of cities: that of Etruria (Tuscany, Latium and Umbria), that of the Po Valley with the eastern Alps , and that of Campania . The league in northern Italy is mentioned in Livy . The reduction in Etruscan territory was gradual, but after 500 BC, the political balance of power on the Italian peninsula shifted away from

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6930-591: The Seleucid Empire made increasingly aggressive and successful attempts to conquer the entire Greek world. Now not only Rome's allies against Philip, but even Philip himself, sought a Roman alliance against the Seleucids. The situation was exacerbated by the fact that Hannibal was now a chief military advisor to the Seleucid emperor, and the two were believed to be planning outright conquest not just of Greece, but also of Rome. The Seleucids were much stronger than

7095-545: The Seleucid Empire . In 202, internal problems led to a weakening of Egypt's position, disrupting the power balance among the successor states. Macedonia and the Seleucid Empire agreed to an alliance to conquer and divide Egypt. Fearing this increasingly unstable situation, several small Greek kingdoms sent delegations to Rome to seek an alliance. Rome gave Philip an ultimatum to cease his campaigns against Rome's new Greek allies. Doubting Rome's strength, Philip ignored

7260-847: The Turks (four haplotypes in common), and the Tuscans (two haplotypes in common). While, the modern populations with the shortest genetic distance from the ancient Etruscans, based solely on mtDNA and FST, were Tuscans followed by the Turks, other populations from the Mediterranean and the Cornish after. This study was much criticized by other geneticists, because "data represent severely damaged or partly contaminated mtDNA sequences" and "any comparison with modern population data must be considered quite hazardous", and archaeologists, who argued that

7425-427: The lex Hortensia , which reenacted the law of 339 BC, making plebiscites binding on all citizens, while also removing the requirement for prior Senate approval. These events were a political victory of the wealthy plebeian elite, who exploited the economic difficulties of the plebs for their own gain: Stolo, Lateranus, and Genucius bound their bills attacking patricians' political supremacy with debt-relief measures. As

7590-407: The "Pelasgians", and even then, some did so in a way that suggests they were meant only as generic, descriptive labels for "non-Greek" and "indigenous ancestors of Greeks", respectively. The 5th-century BC historians Herodotus , and Thucydides and the 1st-century BC historian Strabo , did seem to suggest that the Tyrrhenians were originally Pelasgians who migrated to Italy from Lydia by way of

7755-539: The (Alpine) Noricans are the Raeti and Vindelici . All are divided into a number of states. The Raeti are believed to be people of Tuscan race driven out by the Gauls , their leader was named Raetus. The question of the origins of the Etruscans has long been a subject of interest and debate among historians. In modern times, all the evidence gathered so far by prehistoric and protohistoric archaeologists, anthropologists, and etruscologists points to an autochthonous origin of

7920-561: The 3rd century BC. According to legend, there was a period between 600 BC and 500 BC in which an alliance was formed among twelve Etruscan settlements, known today as the Etruscan League , Etruscan Federation , or Dodecapolis ( ‹See Tfd› Greek : Δωδεκάπολις ). According to a legend, the Etruscan League of twelve cities was founded by Tarchon and his brother Tyrrhenus . Tarchon lent his name to

8085-460: The Boii ambushed the army of the consul-elect for 215, L. Postumius Albinus , who died with all his army of 25,000 men in the Battle of Silva Litana . These disasters triggered a wave of defection among Roman allies, with the rebellions of the Samnites, Oscans, Lucanians, and Greek cities of Southern Italy. In Macedonia, Philip V also made an alliance with Hannibal in order to take Illyria and

8250-719: The Eastern Mediterranean or Anatolia" and "there are indications that the evidence of DNA can support the theory that Etruscan people are autochthonous in central Italy". In his 2021 book, A Short History of Humanity , German geneticist Johannes Krause , co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Jena , concludes that it is likely that the Etruscan language (as well as Basque , Paleo-Sardinian , and Minoan ) "developed on

8415-537: The Etruscan individuals the ancestral component Steppe was present in the same percentages found in the previously analyzed Iron Age Latins, and in the Etruscan DNA was completely absent a signal of recent admixture with Anatolia and the Eastern Mediterranean. Both Etruscans and Latins joined firmly the European cluster, west of modern Italians. The Etruscans were a mixture of WHG, EEF, and Steppe ancestry; 75% of

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8580-439: The Etruscan male individuals were found to belong to haplogroup R1b (R1b M269) , especially its clade R1b-P312 and its derivative R1b-L2 , whose direct ancestor is R1b-U152 , while the most common mitochondrial DNA haplogroup among the Etruscans was H . The conclusions of the 2021 study are in line with a 2019 study previously published in the journal Science that analyzed the remains of eleven Iron Age individuals from

8745-533: The Etruscan political system, authority resided in its individual small cities, and probably in its prominent individual families. At the height of Etruscan power, elite Etruscan families grew very rich through trade with the Celts to the north and the Greeks to the south, and they filled their large family tombs with imported luxuries. According to Dionysius the Etruscans called themselves Rasenna (Greek Ῥασέννα),

8910-531: The Etruscans had no significant heterogeneity, and that all mitochondrial lineages observed among the Etruscan samples appear typically European or West Asian , but only a few haplotypes were shared with modern populations. Allele sharing between the Etruscans and modern populations is highest among Germans (seven haplotypes in common), the Cornish from the South West of Britain (five haplotypes in common),

9075-728: The Etruscans in favor of the rising Roman Republic . The earliest known examples of Etruscan writing are inscriptions found in southern Etruria that date to around 700 BC. The Etruscans developed a system of writing derived from the Euboean alphabet , which was used in the Magna Graecia (coastal areas located in Southern Italy ). The Etruscan language remains only partly understood, making modern understanding of their society and culture heavily dependent on much later and generally disapproving Roman and Greek sources. In

9240-435: The Etruscans to ally themselves with Carthage , whose interests also collided with the Greeks. Around 540 BC, the Battle of Alalia led to a new distribution of power in the western Mediterranean. Though the battle had no clear winner, Carthage managed to expand its sphere of influence at the expense of the Greeks, and Etruria saw itself relegated to the northern Tyrrhenian Sea with full ownership of Corsica . From

9405-559: The Etruscans were an indigenous population, showing that Etruscan mtDNA appears to fall very close to a Neolithic population from Central Europe ( Germany , Austria , Hungary ) and to other Tuscan populations, strongly suggesting that the Etruscan civilization developed locally from the Villanovan culture , as already supported by archaeological evidence and anthropological research, and that genetic links between Tuscany and western Anatolia date back to at least 5,000 years ago during

9570-509: The Etruscans were indigenous people who had always lived in Etruria and were different from both the Pelasgians and the Lydians. Dionysius noted that the 5th-century historian Xanthus of Lydia , who was originally from Sardis and was regarded as an important source and authority for the history of Lydia, never suggested a Lydian origin of the Etruscans and never named Tyrrhenus as a ruler of

9735-407: 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 one finds that a given feature was there first, it cannot have originated at Rome. A second criterion is the opinion of the ancient sources. These would indicate that certain institutions and customs came directly from the Etruscans. Rome is located on the edge of what

9900-502: The Etruscans. There is no archaeological or linguistic evidence of a migration of the Lydians or Pelasgians into Etruria. Modern etruscologists and archeologists, such as Massimo Pallottino (1947), have shown that early historians' assumptions and assertions on the subject were groundless. In 2000, the etruscologist Dominique Briquel explained in detail why he believes that ancient Greek narratives on Etruscan origins should not even count as historical documents. He argues that

10065-601: The Great , he was eager to build an empire for himself in the western Mediterranean and saw Tarentum's plea as a perfect opportunity. Pyrrhus and his army of 25,500 men (with 20 war elephants) landed in Italy in 280 BC. The Romans were defeated at Heraclea , as their cavalry were afraid of Pyrrhus's elephants. Pyrrhus then marched on Rome, but the Romans concluded a peace in the north and moved south with reinforcements, placing Pyrrhus in danger of being flanked by two consular armies; Pyrrhus withdrew to Tarentum. In 279 BC, Pyrrhus met

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10230-499: The Greek island of Lemnos . They all described Lemnos as having been settled by Pelasgians, whom Thucydides identified as "belonging to the Tyrrhenians" ( τὸ δὲ πλεῖστον Πελασγικόν, τῶν καὶ Λῆμνόν ποτε καὶ Ἀθήνας Τυρσηνῶν ). As Strabo and Herodotus told it, the migration to Lemnos was led by Tyrrhenus / Tyrsenos, the son of Atys (who was king of Lydia). Strabo added that the Pelasgians of Lemnos and Imbros then followed Tyrrhenus to

10395-441: The Greeks and the Eastern Mediterranean and not to mass migrations. The facial features (the profile, almond-shaped eyes, large nose) in the frescoes and sculptures, and the depiction of reddish-brown men and light-skinned women, influenced by archaic Greek art, followed the artistic traditions from the Eastern Mediterranean, that had spread even among the Greeks themselves, and to a lesser extent also to other several civilizations in

10560-479: The Latins. The 7th-century BC Homeric Hymn to Dionysus referred to them as pirates. Unlike later Greek authors, these authors did not suggest that Etruscans had migrated to Italy from the east, and did not associate them with the Pelasgians. It was only in the 5th century BC, when the Etruscan civilization had been established for several centuries, that Greek writers started associating the name "Tyrrhenians" with

10725-422: The Lydians. For this reason, therefore, I am persuaded that the Pelasgians are a different people from the Tyrrhenians. And I do not believe, either, that the Tyrrhenians were a colony of the Lydians; for they do not use the same language as the latter, nor can it be alleged that, though they no longer speak a similar tongue, they still retain some other indications of their mother country. For they neither worship

10890-462: The M314 derived allele also found in a Middle Bronze Age individual from Croatia (1631–1531 BC). While the four samples of mtDNA extracted belonged to haplogroups U5a1 , H , T2b32 , K1a4 . Among the older studies, only based on mitochondrial DNA, a mtDNA study, published in 2018 in the journal American Journal of Physical Anthropology , compared both ancient and modern samples from Tuscany, from

11055-476: The Macedonians had ever been, because they controlled much of the former Persian Empire and had almost entirely reassembled Alexander the Great's former empire. Fearing the worst, the Romans began a major mobilization, all but pulling out of recently conquered Spain and Gaul. This fear was shared by Rome's Greek allies, who now followed Rome again for the first time since that war. A major Roman-Greek force

11220-405: The Near East are attested only centuries later, when Etruscan civilization was already flourishing and Etruscan ethnogenesis was well established. The first of these attested contacts relate to the Greek colonies in Southern Italy and Phoenician-Punic colonies in Sardinia , and the consequent orientalizing period . One of the most common mistakes for a long time, even among some scholars of

11385-403: The Punic army—and confronted Hannibal, who was encamped at Cannae , in Apulia . Despite his numerical disadvantage, Hannibal used his heavier cavalry to rout the Roman wings and envelop their infantry, which he annihilated. In terms of casualties, the Battle of Cannae was the worst defeat in Roman history: only 14,500 soldiers escaped, and Paullus was killed as well as 80 senators. Soon after,

11550-444: The Rhone, sent his elder brother Gnaeus with the main part of his army in Hispania according to the initial plan, and went back to Italy with the rest to resist Hannibal in Italy, but he was defeated and wounded near the Ticino river . Hannibal then marched south and won three outstanding victories. The first one was on the banks of the Trebia in December 218, where he defeated the other consul Ti. Sempronius Longus. More than half

11715-447: The Roman Empire, throughout the republican era Rome was in a state of near-perpetual war. Its first enemies were its Latin and Etruscan neighbours, as well as the Gauls , who sacked Rome in 387 BC. After the Gallic sack, Rome conquered the whole Italian Peninsula in a century and thus became a major power in the Mediterranean. Its greatest strategic rival was Carthage , against which it waged three wars . Rome defeated Carthage at

11880-477: The Roman army was lost. Hannibal then ravaged the country around Arretium to lure the new consul C. Flaminius into a trap at Lake Trasimene . This clever ambush resulted in the death of the consul and the complete destruction of his army of 30,000 men. In 216, the new consuls L. Aemilius Paullus and C. Terentius Varro mustered the biggest army possible, with eight legions—some 80,000 soldiers, twice as many as

12045-455: The Romans derived the names Tyrrhēnī , Tyrrhēnia (Etruria), and Mare Tyrrhēnum ( Tyrrhenian Sea ). The ancient Romans referred to the Etruscans as the Tuscī or Etruscī (singular Tuscus ). Their Roman name is the origin of the terms " Toscana ", which refers to their heartland, and " Etruria ", which can refer to their wider region. The term Tusci is thought by linguists to have been

12210-415: The Romans' inability to conceive of plausible alternatives to the traditional republican system in a "crisis without alternative". The second instead stresses the continuity of the republic: until its disruption by Caesar's civil war and the following two decades of civil war created conditions for autocratic rule and made return to republican politics impossible: and, per Erich S. Gruen , "civil war caused

12375-469: The Sicilians; some cities even defected to Carthage. In 275 BC, Pyrrhus left the island before he had to face a full-scale rebellion. He returned to Italy, where his Samnite allies were on the verge of losing the war. Pyrrhus again met the Romans at the Battle of Beneventum . This time, the consul Manius Dentatus was victorious and even captured eight elephants. Pyrrhus then withdrew from Italy, but left

12540-598: The Spartan general marched on Regulus, crushing the Roman infantry on the Bagradas plain ; only 2,000 soldiers escaped, and Regulus was captured. The consuls for 255 nonetheless won a naval victory at Cape Hermaeum, where they captured 114 warships. This success was spoilt by a storm that annihilated the victorious navy: 184 ships of 264 sank, 25,000 soldiers and 75,000 rowers drowned. The corvus considerably hindered ships' navigation and made them vulnerable during tempest. It

12705-537: The Umbrian word for "Etruscan", based on an inscription on an ancient bronze tablet from a nearby region. The inscription contains the phrase turskum ... nomen , literally "the Tuscan name". Based on a knowledge of Umbrian grammar, linguists can infer that the base form of the word turskum is *Tursci, which would, through metathesis and a word-initial epenthesis , be likely to lead to the form, E-trus-ci . As for

12870-464: The abusive treatment of plebeian debtors by the wealthy during a famine. The patrician Senate was compelled to give them direct access to the written civil and religious laws and to the electoral and political process. To represent their interests, the plebs elected tribunes , who were personally sacrosanct, immune to arbitrary arrest by any magistrate, and had veto power over legislation. By 390 BC, several Gallic tribes were invading Italy from

13035-533: The aftermath of the Social War. In the winter of 138–137 BC, a first slave uprising, known as the First Servile War , broke out in Sicily. After initial successes, the slaves led by Eunus and Cleon were defeated by Marcus Perperna and Publius Rupilius in 132 BC. In this context, Tiberius Gracchus was elected plebeian tribune in 133 BC. He attempted to enact a law to limit

13200-423: The agreement when Philip's emissaries were captured by a Roman fleet. The First Macedonian War saw the Romans involved directly in only limited land operations, but they achieved their objective of occupying Philip and preventing him from aiding Hannibal. The past century had seen the Greek world dominated by the three primary successor kingdoms of Alexander the Great 's empire: Ptolemaic Egypt , Macedonia and

13365-493: The amount of land anyone could own and establish a commission to distribute public lands to poor rural plebs. The aristocrats, who stood to lose an enormous amount of money, bitterly opposed this proposal. Tiberius submitted this law to the Plebeian Council , but it was vetoed by fellow tribune Marcus Octavius . Tiberius induced the plebs to depose Octavius from his office on the grounds that Octavius acted contrary to

13530-582: The analysis of ancient samples) was not yet possible. It is only in very recent years, with the development of archaeogenetics , that comprehensive studies containing the whole genome sequencing of Etruscan samples have been published, including autosomal DNA and Y-DNA , autosomal DNA being the "most valuable to understand what really happened in an individual's history", as stated by geneticist David Reich , whereas previously studies were based only on mitochondrial DNA analysis, which contains less and limited information. An archeogenetic study focusing on

13695-476: The ancient Greek civilization. Etruscan expansion was focused both to the north beyond the Apennine Mountains and into Campania. Some small towns in the sixth century BC disappeared during this time, ostensibly subsumed by greater, more powerful neighbors. However, it is certain that the political structure of the Etruscan culture was similar to, albeit more aristocratic than, Magna Graecia in

13860-665: The ancient city, Caere Vetus (today Cerveteri ). In the same period, the castle was constructed for the defence of the town. Since the 14th century, Ceri became the property of some of the greatest Italian families: from the Anguillara (of which the greatest exponent was Renzo da Ceri ) to Cesi , the Borromeo , the Odescalchi , and ended with the Torlonia , who are still owners of a large part of Ceri. The main attraction

14025-430: The ancient story of the Etruscans' 'Lydian origins' was a deliberate, politically motivated fabrication, and that ancient Greeks inferred a connection between the Tyrrhenians and the Pelasgians solely on the basis of certain Greek and local traditions and on the mere fact that there had been trade between the Etruscans and Greeks. He noted that, even if these stories include historical facts suggesting contact, such contact

14190-628: The area around Epidamnus , occupied by Rome. His attack on Apollonia started the First Macedonian War . In 215, Hiero II of Syracuse died of old age, and his young grandson Hieronymus broke the long alliance with Rome to side with Carthage. At this desperate point, the aggressive strategy against Hannibal the Scipiones advocated was abandoned in favour of a slow reconquest of the lost territories, since Hannibal could not be everywhere to defend them. Although he remained invincible on

14355-537: The area is the adoption, starting in about the 12th century BC, of the funeral rite of incineration in terracotta urns, which is a Continental European practice, derived from the Urnfield culture ; there is nothing about it that suggests an ethnic contribution from Asia Minor or the Near East . A 2012 survey of the previous 30 years' archaeological findings, based on excavations of the major Etruscan cities, showed

14520-727: The areas around Rome, of which four were Etruscan individuals, one buried in Veio Grotta Gramiccia from the Villanovan era (900-800 BC) and three buried in La Mattonara Necropolis near Civitavecchia from the Orientalizing period (700-600 BC). The study concluded that Etruscans (900–600 BC) and the Latins (900–500 BC) from Latium vetus were genetically similar, with genetic differences between

14685-408: The battlefield, defeating all the Roman armies on his way, he could not prevent Claudius Marcellus from taking Syracuse in 212 after a long siege , nor the fall of his bases of Capua and Tarentum in 211 and 209 . In Hispania, Publius and Gnaeus Scipio won the battles of Cissa in 218, soon after Hannibal's departure, and Dertosa against his brother Hasdrubal in 215, which enabled them to conquer

14850-896: The central and western Mediterranean up to the Iberian Peninsula . Actually, many of the tombs of the Late Orientalizing and Archaic periods, such as the Tomb of the Augurs , the Tomb of the Triclinium or the Tomb of the Leopards , as well as other tombs from the archaic period in the Monterozzi necropolis in Tarquinia , were painted by Greek painters or, in any case, foreigner artists. These images have, therefore,

15015-522: The cities of Latium and Campania weakened, and the area was taken over by Romans and Samnites . In the 4th century BC, Etruria saw a Gallic invasion end its influence over the Po Valley and the Adriatic coast . Meanwhile, Rome had started annexing Etruscan cities. This led to the loss of the northern Etruscan provinces. During the Roman–Etruscan Wars , Etruria was conquered by Rome in

15180-507: The city of Tarchna , or Tarquinnii, as it was known by the Romans. Tyrrhenus gave his name to the Tyrrhenians , the alternative name for the Etruscans. Although there is no consensus on which cities were in the league, the following list may be close to the mark: Arretium , Caisra , Clevsin , Curtun , Perusna , Pupluna , Veii , Tarchna , Vetluna , Volterra , Velzna , and Velch . Some modern authors include Rusellae . The league

15345-409: The consuls Publius Decius Mus and Publius Sulpicius Saverrio at the Battle of Asculum , which remained undecided for two days. Finally, Pyrrhus personally charged into the melee and won the battle but at the cost of an important part of his troops ; he allegedly said, "if we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined." He escaped the Italian deadlock by answering

15510-484: The continent in the course of the Neolithic Revolution ". The Etruscan civilization begins with the early Iron Age Villanovan culture , regarded as the oldest phase, that occupied a large area of northern and central Italy during the Iron Age. The Etruscans themselves dated the origin of the Etruscan nation to a date corresponding to the 11th or 10th century BC. The Villanovan culture emerges with

15675-414: The depiction of a fasces 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 . The historical Etruscans had achieved a state system of society, with remnants of the chiefdom and tribal forms. Rome was in a sense the first Italic state, but it began as an Etruscan one. It

15840-727: The dominant military powers of the Mediterranean : Carthage and the Greek kingdoms. In 282, several Roman warships entered the harbour of Tarentum , triggering a violent reaction from the Tarentine democrats, who sank some. The Roman embassy sent to investigate the affair was insulted and war was promptly declared. Facing a hopeless situation, the Tarentines (together with the Lucanians and Samnites) appealed to Pyrrhus , king of Epirus , for military aid. A cousin of Alexander

16005-439: The early Republic, the plebs (or plebeians) emerged as a self-organised, culturally distinct group of commoners, with its own internal hierarchy, laws, customs, and interests. Plebeians had no access to high religious and civil office. For the poorest, one of the few effective political tools was their withdrawal of labour and services, in a " secessio plebis "; the first such secession occurred in 494 BC, in protest at

16170-626: The eastern coast of Hispania. But in 211, Hasdrubal and Mago Barca successfully turned the Celtiberian tribes that supported the Scipiones, and attacked them simultaneously at the Battle of the Upper Baetis , in which the Scipiones died. Publius's son, the future Scipio Africanus , was then elected with a special proconsulship to lead the Hispanic campaign, winning a series of battles with ingenious tactics. In 209, he took Carthago Nova ,

16335-457: The end of the war, the consuls for 256 BC decided to carry the operations to Africa, on Carthage's homeland. The consul Marcus Atilius Regulus landed on the Cap Bon peninsula with about 18,000 soldiers. He captured the city of Aspis , repulsed Carthage's counterattack at Adys , and took Tunis . The Carthaginians hired Spartan mercenaries, led by Xanthippus , to command their troops. In 255,

16500-554: The examined Etruscans and Latins found to be insignificant. The Etruscan individuals and contemporary Latins were distinguished from preceding populations of Italy by the presence of c.  30% steppe ancestry . Their DNA was a mixture of two-thirds Copper Age ancestry ( EEF + WHG ; Etruscans ~66–72%, Latins ~62–75%), and one-third Steppe-related ancestry (Etruscans ~27–33%, Latins ~24–37%). The only sample of Y-DNA extracted belonged to haplogroup J-M12 (J2b-L283) , found in an individual dated 700-600 BC, and carried exactly

16665-462: The fall of the republic, not vice versa". A core cause of the Republic's eventual demise was the loss of elite's cohesion from c.  133 BC : the ancient sources called this moral decay from wealth and the hubris of Rome's domination of the Mediterranean. Modern sources have proposed multiple reasons why the elite lost cohesion, including wealth inequality and a growing willingness by aristocrats to transgress political norms, especially in

16830-523: The figureheads of sailing ships as a nude female upper torso. It is also possible that Greek and Roman attitudes to the Etruscans were based on a misunderstanding of the place of women within their society. In both Greece and the earliest Republican Rome, respectable women were confined to the house and mixed-sex socialising did not occur. Thus, the freedom of women within Etruscan society could have been misunderstood as implying their sexual availability. A number of Etruscan tombs carry funerary inscriptions in

16995-412: The first half of the 5th century BC, the new political situation meant the beginning of the Etruscan decline after losing their southern provinces. In 480 BC, Etruria's ally Carthage was defeated by a coalition of Magna Graecia cities led by Syracuse, Sicily . A few years later, in 474 BC, Syracuse's tyrant Hiero defeated the Etruscans at the Battle of Cumae . Etruria's influence over

17160-471: The first time a Roman army had ever entered Asia . The decisive engagement was fought at the Battle of Magnesia , resulting in complete Roman victory. The Seleucids sued for peace, and Rome forced them to give up their recent Greek conquests. Rome again withdrew from Greece, assuming (or hoping) that the lack of a major Greek power would ensure a stable peace. In fact, it did the opposite. In 179, Philip died. His talented and ambitious son, Perseus , took

17325-536: The form "X son of (father) and (mother)", indicating the importance of the mother's side of the family. The Etruscans, like the contemporary cultures of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome , had a significant military tradition. In addition to marking the rank and power of certain individuals, warfare was a considerable economic advantage to Etruscan civilization. Like many ancient societies, the Etruscans conducted campaigns during summer months, raiding neighboring areas, attempting to gain territory and combating piracy as

17490-493: The golden crown, the 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 . An example of the fasces are the remains of bronze rods and the axe from a tomb in Etruscan Vetulonia . This allowed archaeologists to identify

17655-433: The growth of the aristocratic family as a fixed institution, parallel to the gens at Rome and perhaps even its model. The Etruscans could have used any model of the eastern Mediterranean. That the growth of this class is related to the new acquisition of wealth through trade is unquestioned. The wealthiest cities were located near the coast. At the center of the society was the married couple, tusurthir . The Etruscans were

17820-535: The infantry, as Hannibal had done at Cannae. Defeated for the first time, Hannibal convinced the Carthaginian Senate to pay the war indemnity, which was even harsher than that of 241: 10,000 talents in 50 instalments. Carthage also had to give up all its elephants, all its fleet but ten triremes , and all its possessions outside its core territory in Africa (what is now Tunisia ), and it could not declare war without Roman authorisation. In effect, Carthage

17985-497: The introduction, for example, of writing, of a new way of banqueting, of a heroic funerary ideology, that is, a new aristocratic way of life, such as to profoundly change the physiognomy of Etruscan society. Thus, thanks to the growing number of contacts with the Greeks, the Etruscans entered what is called the Orientalizing phase . In this phase, there was a heavy influence in Greece, most of Italy and some areas of Spain, from

18150-515: The last phase of the Bronze Age, from the indigenous Proto-Villanovan culture , and that the subsequent Iron Age Villanovan culture is most accurately described as an early phase of the Etruscan civilization. It is possible that there were contacts between northern-central Italy and the Mycenaean world at the end of the Bronze Age. However contacts between the inhabitants of Etruria and inhabitants of Greece , Aegean Sea Islands, Asia Minor, and

18315-437: The last vestiges of Etruscan power in the region. In the 4th century, plebeians gradually obtained political equality with patricians. The first plebeian consular tribunes were elected in 400. The reason behind this sudden gain is unknown, but it was limited as patrician tribunes retained preeminence over their plebeian colleagues. In 385 BC, the former consul and saviour of the besieged capital, Marcus Manlius Capitolinus ,

18480-507: The league's surrender. Rome decided to divide Macedonia into two new, directly administered Roman provinces, Achaea and Macedonia . For Carthage, the Third Punic War was a simple punitive mission after the neighbouring Numidians allied to Rome robbed and attacked Carthaginian merchants. Treaties had forbidden any war with Roman allies; viewing defence against banditry as "war action", Rome decided to annihilate Carthage. Carthage

18645-586: The main Punic base in Hispania. The next year, he defeated Hasdrubal at the Battle of Baecula . After his defeat, Carthage ordered Hasdrubal to reinforce his brother in Italy. Since he could not use ships, he followed the same route as his brother through the Alps, but the consuls M. Livius Salinator and C. Claudius Nero were awaiting him and defeated him in the Battle of the Metaurus , where Hasdrubal died. It

18810-477: The manifest will of the people, a position that was unprecedented and constitutionally dubious. His law was enacted and took effect, but, when Tiberius ostentatiously stood for reelection to the tribunate, he was murdered by his enemies. Tiberius's brother Gaius was elected tribune ten years later in 123 and reelected for 122. He induced the plebs to reinforce rights of appeal to the people against capital extrajudicial punishments and institute reforms to improve

18975-452: The monarchy did not succeed. The first Roman republican wars were wars of expansion . One by one, Rome defeated both the persistent Sabines and the local cities. Rome defeated its rival Latin cities in the Battle of Lake Regillus in 496 BC, the Battle of Ariccia in 495 BC, the Battle of Mount Algidus in 458 BC, and the Battle of Corbio in 446 BC. But it suffered

19140-423: The most advanced areas of the eastern Mediterranean and the ancient Near East . Also directly Phoenician, or otherwise Near Eastern, craftsmen, merchants and artists contributed to the spread in southern Europe of Near Eastern cultural and artistic motifs. The last three phases of Etruscan civilization are called, respectively, Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic, which roughly correspond to the homonymous phases of

19305-533: The most important cities in the Roman Empire. Views on the structural causes of the Republic's collapse differ. One enduring thesis is that Rome's expansion destabilized its social organization between conflicting interests; the Senate's policymaking, blinded by its own short-term self-interest, alienated large portions of society, who then joined powerful generals who sought to overthrow the system. Two other theses have challenged this view. The first blames

19470-598: The names survive from inscriptions and their ruins are of aesthetic and historic interest in most of the cities of central Italy. Etruscan cities flourished over most of Italy during the Roman Iron Age , marking the farthest extent of Etruscan civilization. They were gradually assimilated first by Italics in the south, then by Celts in the north and finally in Etruria itself by the growing Roman Republic. Roman Republic The Roman Republic ( Latin : Res publica Romana [ˈreːs ˈpuːblɪka roːˈmaːna] )

19635-422: The nearby Apennine hill tribes. Beginning with their revolt against Tarquin, and continuing through the early years of the Republic, Rome's patrician aristocrats were the dominant force in politics and society. They initially formed a closed group of about 50 large families, called gentes , who monopolised Rome's magistracies, state priesthoods, and senior military posts. The most prominent of these families were

19800-571: The north. The Romans met the Gauls in pitched battle at the Battle of Allia River around 390–387 BC. The battle was fought at the confluence of the Tiber and Allia rivers, 11 Roman miles (10 mi or 16 km) north of Rome. The Romans were routed and subsequently Rome was sacked by the Senones . There is no destruction layer at Rome around this time, indicating that if a sack occurred, it

19965-473: The offices of praetor and curule aediles, both reserved to patricians. Lateranus became the first plebeian consul in 366 BC; Stolo followed in 361 BC. Soon after, plebeians were able to hold both the dictatorship and the censorship. The four-time consul Gaius Marcius Rutilus became the first plebeian dictator in 356 BC and censor in 351 BC. In 342 BC, the tribune of the plebs Lucius Genucius passed his leges Genuciae , which abolished interest on loans, in

20130-415: The old kingdom. The Romans swiftly defeated the Macedonians at the second battle of Pydna . The Achaean League , seeing the direction of Roman policy trending towards direct administration, met at Corinth and declared war "nominally against Sparta but in reality, against Rome". It was swiftly defeated: in 146, the same year as the destruction of Carthage , Corinth was besieged and destroyed , forcing

20295-535: The origin of the Etruscan people. Some suggested they were Pelasgians who had migrated there from Greece. Others maintained that they were indigenous to central Italy and were not from Greece. The first Greek author to mention the Etruscans, whom the Ancient Greeks called Tyrrhenians , was the 8th-century BC poet Hesiod , in his work, the Theogony . He mentioned them as residing in central Italy alongside

20460-624: The original meaning of the root, *Turs-, a widely cited hypothesis is that it, like the word Latin turris , means "tower", and comes from the ancient Greek word for tower: τύρσις , likely a loan into Greek. On this hypothesis, the Tusci were called the "people who build towers" or "the tower builders". This proposed etymology is made the more plausible because the Etruscans preferred to build their towns on high precipices reinforced by walls. Alternatively, Giuliano and Larissa Bonfante have speculated that Etruscan houses may have seemed like towers to

20625-513: The origins of the Etruscans; however, the consensus among modern scholars is that the Etruscans were an indigenous population. The earliest evidence of a culture that is identifiably Etruscan dates from about 900 BC. This is the period of the Iron Age Villanovan culture , considered to be the earliest phase of Etruscan civilization, which itself developed from the previous late Bronze Age Proto-Villanovan culture in

20790-417: The past, has been to associate the later Orientalizing period of Etruscan civilization with the question of its origins. Orientalization was an artistic and cultural phenomenon that spread among the Greeks themselves, and throughout much of the central and western Mediterranean, not only in Etruria. Orientalizing period in the Etruscans was due, as has been amply demonstrated by archeologists, to contacts with

20955-485: The people's welfare. While ancient sources tend to "conceive Gracchus' legislation as an elaborate plot against the authority of the Senate... he showed no sign of wanting to replace the Senate in its normal functions". Amid wide-ranging and popular reforms to create grain subsidies, change jury pools, establish and require the Senate to assign provinces before elections, Gaius proposed a law that would grant citizenship rights to Rome's Italian allies. He stood for election to

21120-593: The phenomenon of regionalization from the late Bronze Age culture called " Proto-Villanovan ", part of the central European Urnfield culture system . In the last Villanovan phase, called the recent phase (about 770–730 BC), the Etruscans established relations of a certain consistency with the first Greek immigrants in southern Italy (in Pithecusa and then in Cuma ), so much so as to initially absorb techniques and figurative models and soon more properly cultural models, with

21285-461: The plebs, resulting in a stalemate. In 367 BC, they carried a bill creating the Decemviri sacris faciundis , a college of ten priests, of whom five had to be plebeians, thereby breaking patricians' monopoly on priesthoods. The resolution of the crisis came from the dictator Camillus , who made a compromise with the tribunes: he agreed to their bills, and they in return consented to the creation of

21450-639: The popular assemblies to get a favourable vote by promising plunder to the voters. After the assembly ratified an alliance with the Mamertines, Caudex was dispatched to cross the strait and lend aid. Messina fell under Roman control quickly. Syracuse and Carthage, at war for centuries, responded with an alliance to counter the invasion and blockaded Messina, but Caudex defeated Hiero and Carthage separately. His successor, Manius Valerius Maximus , landed with an army of 40,000 men and conquered eastern Sicily, which prompted Hiero to shift his allegiance and forge

21615-413: The power of the Senate, which was by now protected from the influence of the consuls and became the central organ of government. In 312 BC, following this law, the patrician censor Appius Claudius Caecus appointed many more senators to fill the new limit of 300, including descendants of freedmen, which was deemed scandalous. Caecus also launched a vast construction program, building the first aqueduct ,

21780-561: The quasi-mythological detailing of an aristocratic coup within Tarquin's own family or a consequence of an Etruscan occupation of Rome rather than a popular revolution. According to Rome's traditional histories, Tarquin made several attempts to retake the throne, including the Tarquinian conspiracy , which involved Brutus's own sons, the war with Veii and Tarquinii , and finally the war between Rome and Clusium . The attempts to restore

21945-461: The question of Etruscan origins was published in September 2021 in the journal Science Advances and analyzed the autosomal DNA and the uniparental markers (Y-DNA and mtDNA) of 48 Iron Age individuals from Tuscany and Lazio , spanning from 800 to 1 BC, and concluding that the Etruscans were autochthonous (locally indigenous), and they had a genetic profile similar to their Latin neighbors. In

22110-472: The republican system was an elective oligarchy , not a democracy ; a small number of powerful families largely monopolised the magistracies. Roman institutions underwent considerable changes throughout the Republic to adapt to the difficulties it faced, such as the creation of promagistracies to rule its conquered provinces , and differences in the composition of the senate. Unlike the Pax Romana of

22275-506: The request, and Rome sent an army of Romans and Greek allies, beginning the Second Macedonian War . In 197, the Romans decisively defeated Philip at the Battle of Cynoscephalae , and Philip was forced to give up his recent Greek conquests. The Romans declared the "Peace of the Greeks", believing that Philip's defeat now meant that Greece would be stable, and pulled out of Greece entirely. With Egypt and Macedonia weakened,

22440-535: The same accuracy as the Greeks, they called them Thyrscoï [an earlier form of Tusci]. Their own name for themselves, however, is the same as that of one of their leaders, Rasenna. Similarly, the 1st-century BC historian Livy , in his Ab Urbe Condita Libri , said that the Rhaetians were Etruscans who had been driven into the mountains by the invading Gauls; and he asserted that the inhabitants of Raetia were of Etruscan origin. The Alpine tribes have also, no doubt,

22605-468: The same gods as the Lydians nor make use of similar laws or institutions, but in these very respects they differ more from the Lydians than from the Pelasgians. Indeed, those probably come nearest to the truth who declare that the nation migrated from nowhere else, but was native to the country, since it is found to be a very ancient nation and to agree with no other either in its language or in its manner of living. The credibility of Dionysius of Halicarnassus

22770-649: The same origin (of the Etruscans), especially the Raetians; who have been rendered so savage by the very nature of the country as to retain nothing of their ancient character save the sound of their speech, and even that is corrupted. The first-century historian Pliny the Elder also put the Etruscans in the context of the Rhaetian people to the north, and wrote in his Natural History (AD 79): Adjoining these

22935-514: The same region, part of the central European Urnfield culture system. Etruscan civilization dominated Italy until it fell to the expanding Rome beginning in the late 4th century BC as a result of the Roman–Etruscan Wars ; Etruscans were granted Roman citizenship in 90 BC, and only in 27 BC the whole Etruscan territory was incorporated into the newly established Roman Empire . The territorial extent of Etruscan civilization reached its maximum around 500 BC, shortly after

23100-463: The same suffix -χ : Velzna-χ '(someone) from Volsinii' and Sveama-χ '(someone) from Sovana '. This in itself, however, is not enough to prove Etruscan origin conclusively. If Tiberius is from θefarie , then Ruma would have been placed on the Thefar ( Tiber ) river. A heavily discussed topic among scholars is who was the founding population of Rome. In 390 BC, the city of Rome was attacked by

23265-602: The scope of civil violence. Mass slavery also contributed to three Servile Wars . Tensions at home coupled with ambitions abroad led to further civil wars . The first involved Marius and Sulla . After a generation, the Republic fell into civil war again in 49 BC between Julius Caesar and Pompey . Despite his victory and appointment as dictator for life , Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC. Caesar's heir Octavian and lieutenant Mark Antony defeated Caesar's assassins in 42 BC, but they eventually split. Antony's defeat alongside his ally and lover Cleopatra at

23430-585: The sea. This plan was thwarted by Hannibal's bold move to Italy. In May 218, he crossed the Ebro with a large army of about 100,000 soldiers and 37 elephants. He passed in Gaul , crossed the Rhone , then the Alps , possibly through the Col de Clapier . This exploit cost him almost half of his troops, but he could now rely on the Boii and Insubres, still at war with Rome. Publius Scipio, who had failed to block Hannibal on

23595-464: The second made plebiscites binding on all citizens (including patricians), and the third required the Senate to give its prior approval to plebiscites before they became binding on all citizens. During the early Republic, consuls chose senators from among their supporters. Shortly before 312 BC, the lex Ovinia transferred this power to the censors, who could only remove senators for misconduct, thus appointing them for life. This law strongly increased

23760-466: The simple Latins. The proposed etymology has a long history, Dionysius of Halicarnassus having observed in the first century B. C., "[T]here is no reason that the Greeks should not have called [the Etruscans] by this name, both from their living in towers and from the name of one of their rulers." In his recent Etymological Dictionary of Greek , Robert Beekes claims the Greek word is a "loanword from

23925-420: The south. The mining and commerce of metal, especially copper and iron , led to an enrichment of the Etruscans and to the expansion of their influence in the Italian peninsula and the western Mediterranean Sea . Here, their interests collided with those of the Greeks, especially in the sixth century BC, when Phocaeans of Italy founded colonies along the coast of Sardinia , Spain and Corsica . This led

24090-516: The study was not clear-cut and had not provided evidence that the Etruscans were an intrusive population to the European context. In the collective volume Etruscology published in 2017, British archeologist Phil Perkins, echoing an earlier article of his from 2009, provides an analysis of the state of DNA studies and writes that "none of the DNA studies to date conclusively prove that [the] Etruscans were an intrusive population in Italy that originated in

24255-471: The throne and showed a renewed interest in conquering Greece. With its Greek allies facing a major new threat, Rome declared war on Macedonia again, starting the Third Macedonian War . Perseus initially had some success against the Romans, but Rome responded by sending a stronger army which decisively defeated the Macedonians at the Battle of Pydna in 168. The Macedonians capitulated, ending

24420-503: The tribunes of the plebs Gaius Licinius Stolo and Lucius Sextius Lateranus continued the plebeian agitation and pushed for an ambitious legislation, known as the Leges Liciniae Sextiae . The most important bill opened the consulship to plebeians. Other tribunes controlled by the patricians vetoed the bills, but Stolo and Lateranus retaliated by vetoing the elections for five years while being continuously reelected by

24585-443: The war. Convinced now that the Greeks (and therefore the rest of the region) would not have peace if left alone, Rome decided to establish its first permanent foothold in the Greek world, and divided Macedonia into four client republics. Yet Macedonian agitation continued. The Fourth Macedonian War , 150 to 148 BC, was fought against a Macedonian pretender to the throne who was again destabilizing Greece by trying to reestablish

24750-503: Was soundly defeated by Catulus. Exhausted and unable to bring supplies to Sicily, Carthage sued for peace. Carthage had to pay 1,000 talents immediately and 2,200 over ten years and evacuate Sicily. The fine was so high that Carthage could not pay Hamilcar's mercenaries, who had been shipped back to Africa. They revolted during the Mercenary War , which Carthage suppressed with enormous difficulty. Meanwhile, Rome took advantage of

24915-413: Was Etruscan territory. When Etruscan settlements turned up south of the border, it was presumed that the Etruscans spread there after the foundation of Rome, but the settlements are now known to have preceded Rome. Etruscan settlements were frequently built on hills – the steeper the better – and surrounded by thick walls. According to Roman mythology , when Romulus and Remus founded Rome, they did so on

25080-431: Was abandoned after another similar catastrophe in 253 BC. These disasters prevented any significant campaign between 254 and 252 BC. Hostilities in Sicily resumed in 252 BC, with Rome's taking of Thermae. The next year, Carthage besieged Lucius Caecilius Metellus , who held Panormos (now Palermo). The consul had dug trenches to counter the elephants, which once hurt by missiles turned back on their own army, resulting in

25245-521: Was almost defenceless, and submitted when besieged. But the Romans demanded complete surrender and removal of the city into the desert hinterland, far from any coastal or harbour region; the Carthaginians refused. The city was besieged and completely destroyed . Rome acquired all of Carthage's North African and Iberian territories. The Romans rebuilt Carthage 100 years later as a Roman colony, by order of Julius Caesar. It flourished, becoming one of

25410-512: Was an ancient civilization created by the Etruscans, a people who inhabited Etruria in ancient Italy , with a common language and culture who formed a federation of city-states. After conquering adjacent lands, its territory covered, at its greatest extent, roughly what is now Tuscany , western Umbria , and northern Lazio , as well as what are now the Po Valley , Emilia-Romagna , south-eastern Lombardy , southern Veneto , and western Campania . A large body of literature has flourished on

25575-479: Was condemned to be a minor power, while Rome recovered from a desperate situation to dominate the western Mediterranean. Rome's preoccupation with its war with Carthage provided an opportunity for Philip V of Macedonia , in the north of the Greek peninsula , to attempt to extend his power westward. He sent ambassadors to Hannibal's camp in Italy, to negotiate an alliance as common enemies of Rome. But Rome discovered

25740-455: Was expelled from Rome in 509 BC because his son, Sextus Tarquinius , raped a noblewoman, Lucretia . The tradition asserted that the monarchy was abolished in a revolution led by the semi-mythical Lucius Junius Brutus and the king's powers were then transferred to two separate consuls elected to office for a term of one year; each was capable of checking his colleague by veto . Most modern scholarship describes these accounts as

25905-404: Was founded by Etruscans. Under Romulus and Numa Pompilius , the people were said to have been divided into thirty curiae and three tribes . Few Etruscan words entered Latin , 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 –

26070-590: Was largely superficial. Second Samnite War Third Samnite War From 343 to 341 BC, Rome won two battles against its Samnite neighbours, but was unable to consolidate its gains, due to the outbreak of war with former Latin allies. In the Latin War (340–338 BC), Rome defeated a coalition of Latins at the battles of Vesuvius and the Trifanum . The Latins submitted to Roman rule. A Second Samnite War began in 327 BC. The war ended with Samnite defeat at

26235-530: Was mobilized under the command of the great hero of the Second Punic War, Scipio Africanus , and set out for Greece, beginning the Roman–Seleucid War . After initial fighting that revealed serious Seleucid weaknesses, the Seleucids tried to turn the Roman strength against them at the Battle of Thermopylae , but were forced to evacuate Greece. The Romans pursued the Seleucids by crossing the Hellespont ,

26400-502: Was mostly an economic and religious league, or a loose confederation, similar to the Greek states. During the later imperial times, when Etruria was just one of many regions controlled by Rome, the number of cities in the league increased by three. This is noted on many later grave stones from the 2nd century BC onwards. According to Livy , the twelve city-states met once a year at the Fanum Voltumnae at Volsinii , where

26565-531: Was primarily a cultural mix of Latin and Etruscan societies, as well as of Sabine, Oscan, and Greek cultural elements, which is especially visible in the Ancient Roman religion and its pantheon . Its political organization developed at around the same time as direct democracy in Ancient Greece , with collective and annual magistracies, overseen by a senate . There were annual elections, but

26730-509: Was the era of classical Roman civilization beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Kingdom (traditionally dated to 509 BC) and ending in 27 BC with the establishment of the Roman Empire following the War of Actium . During this period, Rome's control expanded from the city's immediate surroundings to hegemony over the entire Mediterranean world . Roman society at the time

26895-438: Was the first Roman to receive a naval triumph, which also included captive Carthaginians for the first time. Although Carthage was victorious on land at Thermae in Sicily, the corvus gave a strong advantage to Rome on the waters. The consul Lucius Cornelius Scipio (Asina's brother) captured Corsica in 259 BC; his successors won the naval battles of Sulci in 258, Tyndaris in 257 BC, and Cape Ecnomus in 256. To hasten

27060-409: Was the landing in Sicily of Hamilcar Barca in 247 BC, who harassed the Romans with a mercenary army from a citadel he built on Mt. Eryx . Unable to take the Punic fortresses in Sicily, Rome tried to decide the war at sea and built a new navy, thanks to a forced borrowing from the rich. In 242 BC, 200 quinqueremes under consul Gaius Lutatius Catulus blockaded Drepana. The rescue fleet from Carthage

27225-480: Was the turning point of the war. The campaign of attrition had worked well: Hannibal's troops were now depleted; he only had one elephant left ( Surus ) and retreated to Bruttium , on the defensive. In Greece, Rome contained Philip V without devoting too many forces by allying with the Aetolian League , Sparta , and Pergamon , which also prevented Philip from aiding Hannibal. The war with Macedon resulted in

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