Etruscans in Rome?

I believe that most current authority is that the Etruscans were the first historical people of Italy. They were crushed by the Romans and thereafter lost their culture and identity.

Yeah, I know that. But where did the romans come from then? What I meant was that, were the etruscans the ancestors of the romans?

No one know the origins of the Etruscans. There are only guesses. The earliest evidence of them, evidence which can be described as Etruscan, dates to the 7th C. Alpine, Asian, and Greek origins have been posited. Rome had been in existence since the Stone Age. The Etruscans established dominance over that city for a while until their decline, downfall and absorption into Roman culture. Their downfall began with the prominence of Greek cities in Italy (e.g. Syracuse, and Hieron's defeat of the Etruscans at Cumae in 474 BCE) and perhaps more devastatingly, the Gaulish invasion from the northwest. Later, the inhabitants of Rome overthrew the Tarquin dynasty. The Romans took advantage of the Etruscans' weakened state, and began to establish their dominance of Italy soon thereafter. The Romans dealt the Etruscans a decisive defeat at Volsinia in 265 BCE.

National Geographic Jan. issue talked over this issue.

There are several interesting pages on early italian peninsula history in the book A Traveller's History of Italy by Valerio Lintner.

quoting bits and pieces of the text -

Glancing at early peoples in the peninsula, there were the Villanovans, the Ligurians, the Golasecca-Comacines, the Veneti or Atestines, the Picenes, the Umbrians, the Fossa Grave, the Messapians, Peucetians, and Daunians; the first migrants in considerable numbers were the Mycenaeans; the first invaders to exert a really important influence were the Greeks; the preroman italic culture which had the greatest influence and left the most important mark on italian history is, without a doubt, the Etruscan one.
.....

During the late seventh century and early part of the sixth century bc, the Etruscans conquered much of Latium... and they occupied Rome.
....
Around the sixth century b.c. much of Italy, and in particular central Italy, was dominated by the Etruscans. The Romans knew them as Etrusci or Tusci.
.......
Under Etruscan kings Rome was developed to a considerable extent, becoming a real city with advanced cultural life.

..... Etruscan domination of Rome finally came to an end around 510 BC when Tarquinus Superbus... was expelled...
Lars Porsena was eventually defeated by the Latins under Aristodemus in 506 BC.



I skipped a lot, but I think you can see that even then things were complicated.

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Read up on it since last night. As InfraBlue has already said, there is a lot of controversy among historians as to where the Etruscans came from. However, Heredotus maintained that they came from Lydia in Anatolia (in present-day Turkey). Accoding to this version, they colonized the west coast of Italy and the northern section, today known as Tuscany (the Romans called them Etruscii or just Tuscii) because there was drought and crop failure in their homeland, causing a portion of the Lydians to emigrate in search of greener pastures. They were technologically far advanced of the other local peoples. The vaulted arch, so characteristic of later Roman architecture, was an Etruscan innovation, for example. They smelted iron and had weapons superior to their adversaries. For a time they had an uneasy alliance with the Carthaginians of North Africa against the encroachment of Greek colonies in Sicily and the heel of the boot of Italy. Source: The Horizon Book of Ancient Rome.

On whether Etruscans were natives or immigrated to italy, Valerio Lintner says -

(and I quote at length)

"The Greek historian Herodotus wrote in the fifth century bc that they were Lydians who had migrated to Italy from western Asia Minor to escape famine, and this became the recognised wisdom, even accepted by the Etruscans themselves. A dissenting view was put forward in the first century bc by Dionysius of Halicarnassus who claimed that they must in fact be native Italians, as their language and institutions were in many ways radically different from those of the Lydians. The debate continues to the present day, substantially unresolved despite the use of modern scientific methods to study the human remains that have been discovered by archaeologists.

Those who favor the indigeneity thesis point to the fact that Etruscan towns usually replaced former Villanovan settlements, a good example of this bveing the Veii near Rome. Furthermore, their burial practices often seem to be a logical progression of Villanovan ones. The oriental flavour of Etruscn culture can, according to theis view, be explained by the Greek influence which was, as we have seen, significant at this time.

The proponents of the immigration view, on the other hand, consider that to make the transition from the villages of the Villanovans to the cities which the Etruscans founded required new skills which did not exist in Italy at the time, and which must therefore have been brought in from outside. They additionally point to the many parallels between eastern and Etruscan culture, and to linguistic evidence."

(Lintner goes on about linguistics, but I'll stop typing now.)
My copy of the Traveller's History of Italy is dated 1989; there may be new info that I don't know about since that date.

Well, I dont think you guys understand my question lol. I dont want to know where the etruscans came from. I wanna know where the ROMANS came from. Who were their ancestors?

Well, current thinking is that the origins of all modern peoples was in Africa. The Romans like to claim that they were descended from survivors from the sack of Troy. There isn't much evidence (practically none) to support that idea. It may be more likely that the Eutruscans were displaced Trojans, though I doubt that as well. The Romans were almost certainly one of the aboriginal peoples of Italy, but gained prominence as the City and the local tribes grew in strength and influence. After all, a Roman was/is a citizen of the City State of Rome. As Roman dominance waned, even blue-painted savages who seldom ventured south of the Rhine might proudly claim to be Roman.

You did ask if the etruscans were the so called natives, Lucky Star.

The area around what was to become Rome was called Latium. According to ancient greek historians it was Aeneas who arrived in Latium and founded the city. According to Roman tradition, it was Romulus and Remus. children of the god Mars, who were found floating on the Tiber River, and after being raised by a shepherd (also suckled by a wolf), they set out to found Rome. Later historians fused the two stories, which I gather are considered now to be historically dubious.

I gather from my earlier quote that the people in the Latium area were called Latins; I also gather that the Etruscans ventured into their territory and took over for a while.
Perhaps you can look all this up on google and tell us what you find.

Osso is quite right. The Latins of Latium became known as Romans because they took over as rulers of the city-state of Rome, ousting the Traquin kings, who were probably Etruscan. That is why the language they spoke is known as Latin to this day. As for the language of the Etruscans, the inscriptions they left have never been completely desciphered by modern scholars. But some of the letters seem to bear a resemblance to the script of the Orient, reinforcing Heredotus' version of the story.

I think, Merry, that the latins (and maybe other italic peoples) were in the neighborhood before the etruscans, as well as taking over after the Tarquin Lars Porsena was defeated, not that you didn't mean that, but to be clear what I surmise. Not sure, of course.

I read that the last etruscan stronghold was in Volsinii, lost by them in 265 bc, whereas the loss of Rome by Lars Porsena to the latins under Aristodemus was in 500 bc.
The etruscans had many strongholds at different times over the centuries, obtaining them from other tribes and losing them, from the far north to the campania south of Rome.

Undoubtedly there are research papers and books on these subjects. I am quoting a travel history, which is effectively a short summary of the italian peninsula history that I have found very handy; though it attempts to describe what is understood now, is certainly not a thorough academic work. Lintner does give a selected reading list at the back of the book.

Yup, Osso, that's what I meant. The Latins were indigenous, the Etruscans seem to have been immigrants. (But some historians would argue that the Etruscans, too, were indigenous. Go figure.)

Well, I like hearing about it all.. Have you nosed around any etruscan places, MA?

Rome itself was around since the Stone Age. The earliest evidence of what may be termed Etruscan civilization dates to circa 7th c. BCE, or around the early iron age.

Right. I remember reading about grape vines in the stone age, but don't have my source book at hand. (Chianti, by Raymond Flower)

Apparently the first Etruscan king in Rome was Tarquinius Priscus, 616-579 bce.

The Celts were once the masters of Europe. In their earliest incarnation, they were sometimes known as the people of the Boii, with Boii meaning cattle, the root of the word, "bovine." Boii is the source of Bohemia and the Po Valley in northern Italy.

The Celts claimed to have sacked Rome and to have attacked Delphi, indicating that the importance of Rome is ancient.

You know the little guy found frozen in the Alps by hikers about 15 years ago, now housed in a museum in Italy and called something like, "Ootsi," after the mountain range? Turns out he was murdered, shot in the back. I would hazard a guess that the language he spoke was some form of proto-Celtic.

Lintner says that the Celts sacked Rome in 390 bc - and that the Gallic tribesmen were bought off with gold, order was relatively quickly re-established...
Rome has had so many sackings, I can't keep them straight.