The Etruscans
A wealthy Italian civilisation with its own language, and Rome learns from it.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 400 years
- Known to
- ± 50 years
- Era
- Iron Age, Holocene
The Etruscans dominate central Italy from around 900 BCE with rich city-states, superb metalwork, elaborate painted tombs and a religion focused on divination from entrails and lightning. Their language is written in a Greek-derived alphabet and is readable but not Indo-European and largely not understood. Rome takes from them the arch, the toga, gladiatorial games, augury and much of its early urban form — and then absorbs them.