Fall of the Etruscans

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Speaker 1 When someone says ancient Italy, many would think immediately of Rome, of this mighty ancient superpower that ruled the Mediterranean for hundreds of years.

Speaker 1 But there was also a time in ancient history when Rome wasn't the Italian superpower that we regularly think of today, but in fact was dominated by another neighboring people, a people centered to the north in present-day Tuscany, that were for several centuries a major player in the Western Mediterranean, the Etruscans.

Speaker 1 Today they're seen as a rather mysterious ancient Italian culture, but the archaeological record for them is rich, particularly in their burials, in their tomb paintings, in their pottery and so on.

Speaker 1 Their popularity amongst you ancients listeners is high. In a recent poll we released on Spotify, we asked which overlooked civilization you wanted us to cover next, and the Etruscans ended up on top.

Speaker 1 It was the Etruscans who the Romans would topple as the leading power in central Italy, stories about which would become embellished with myths and heroic legends retold by later Roman writers like Libby.

Speaker 1 So what do we know about the Etruscan decline? What does the literature tell us? And also, what does the archaeology tell us?

Speaker 1 How did the Etruscans go from major players in the Western Mediterranean to subjects of Rome? That is what we're going to cover today.

Speaker 1 It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host.
And joining me to talk through the fall of the Etruscans is the author and Etruscan expert, Dr. Lucy Shipley.

Speaker 1 Now, I've interviewed Lucy once before, two years ago, all about the origins and the rise of the Etruscans in the early 1st millennium BC.

Speaker 1 We will put a link to that episode in the description of this one, because this is almost a continuation of that episode.

Speaker 1 We've done the origins and rise, now we're doing the zenith and fall of the Etruscans.

Speaker 1 We're going to start this episode by looking at the Etruscans at the height of their power, and then how it ultimately came crashing down in the face of Rome. Lucy was brilliant.

Speaker 1 She knows so much and is so enthusiastic about all things Etruscans and I really do hope you enjoy.

Speaker 1 Lucy, it is wonderful to have you back on the podcast.

Speaker 14 Oh, thank you so much. I'm thrilled to be back.

Speaker 1 You're more than welcome. I think last time we chatted, it was some two years ago now, wasn't it? And we covered the earlier stage of the Etruscans, their origins and their rise to supremacy.

Speaker 1 But this is the other end. This is, is it Etruscans versus Rome, or is it more complicated than that when we're studying their fall?

Speaker 14 I think it's always more complicated than that. I'm sure if you ask any of your guests, they're going to say, oh, it's always a bit more complicated than that.
And I'm not going to be the exception.

Speaker 14 And I'm going to be naughty as well, because I know that you want to talk about the fall of the Etruscans, but I just want to take a little bit of time to really enjoy them at their height, because it's such an easy thing to do, isn't it?

Speaker 14 We talk about the rise and the origins and then vomp, we're straight through the good part and then on to the destruction and the end. And I don't want to just race to the end here.

Speaker 14 I want to really examine and go into all the ways in which the Etruscans were really flourishing at their peak, if that's okay.

Speaker 1 Yes, let's do that. So let's kick it off with the Etruscans.
I mean, set the scene with us, Lucy. Who were the Etruscans and define their world when they are at their peak? Yep.

Speaker 14 Reminders for everybody that is kind of not listened to, not listened to the first part of the Etruscans episode as well.

Speaker 14 Come on, people.

Speaker 14 So we are talking central Italy, you know, the heartland of the Etruscans is that land between the river Tiber, the river that flows through Rome and the River Arno that flows through Florence.

Speaker 14 So that gives you a nice little boundary. What we're going to be talking about today is the kind of period where they're at their absolute height.

Speaker 14 So we are talking about, so probably start around 600 BC and then we'll roll forwards in time from there.

Speaker 14 So I think in our last episode, we talked a lot about historical texts, the issue of the Etruscans being featured in a lot of other people's historical texts, but not leaving us very much of their own writings, although we we know they were writing so they're kind of this tantalizing people almost on the edge of written history which is i think one of the things that i find so absolutely fascinating about them archaeologically there's this real preconception that the utruscans are mostly known through their burial archaeology and hopefully that's changing i'm going to talk a bit more about that through this episode and hopefully in the first episode we made that clear as well you know it's not just tombs but it is definitely also tombs to kind of steal a tagline from another history hit podcast yes i know so yeah we're kind of starting this story and when we left off last time we just started talking about this kind of figure that appears in the classical sources and we talked about this chap called demaratus of corinth and i think that's quite a good place to start this episode and there's a lot of hoo-ha about is this person real Are they real?

Speaker 14 Are they not? Is this a genuine historical figure?

Speaker 14 I think it's always really dangerous to be assuming that we can identify individuals from 600 BC, especially when they tend to come with all these magical things that they brought to Italy, which actually the archaeology shows was very much already present at this time.

Speaker 1 Because that's the first thing that strikes out. I mean, Demeratus of Corinth sounds like a Greek.
I'm guessing he was a Greek, yet he's involved with the Etruscans in 600 BC.

Speaker 14 Yeah, absolutely. So we know that the Etruscans are trading heavily with Greece.
It depends whose viewpoint you have here, whether they're pirates or whether they're traders.

Speaker 14 It depends if you're a Greek person wanting to expand into the Western Mediterranean, in which case they're a complete complete pain and an obstruction.

Speaker 14 Or if you're an Etruscan person, then who are these Greeks coming over here into the Western Mediterranean? What are they doing on our trading routes? So there's kind of different perspectives there.

Speaker 14 And we find these Corinthian wares in Etruria. And then we move forwards in time and we see the attic black and red figurewares get really popular in Etruria.

Speaker 14 So there's a lovely statistic that I really like to trot out at every possible opportunity, which is something like 85, 90% of the vases that you see in museums will have come from Etruscan tombs.

Speaker 14 So if you're wandering around the British Museum, admiring their beautiful attic, black figure, attic red figure vases, those have mostly come from Etruria because the Etruscans are putting them in tombs and they're being removed in the 19th century and then heading to these big museums, these big institutions around the world.

Speaker 14 So if it wasn't for the Etruscans, I'm sorry, you Beasley, Boardman, all you people with your Executious painters and this and that, you wouldn't have that if it wasn't for the Etruscans.

Speaker 14 So really, all these Greek archaeologists owe a debt to the Etruscans, but they really probably wouldn't like to be told that at all.

Speaker 1 So 600 BC, they've got strong connections with Greece, and you mentioned this particular figure from Corinth. So what is the state of the Etruscan world?

Speaker 1 Is it ruled by a king or is it influential to cities? What do we know about the whole makeup of the Etruscan world?

Speaker 14 So in theory, according to the historical text, there are these 12 cities of the Etruscan League, the Dodecapolis, and they make up a collective that identify identify themselves together as the Rasna, Resena, the people of the Etruscans.

Speaker 14 However, what we're starting to see from the archaeology is that the picture for central heartland Etruria is a lot more complicated than that.

Speaker 14 And there are these smaller settlements, more archaeological excavations at places like Pojo Civitate, which is near Siena.

Speaker 14 and recent amazing discoveries at places like San Castiano de Bagni, although that's a lot later, they show that there's much more activity taking place in Etruria outside these 12 traditional cities.

Speaker 14 And it used to be that people would say Etruria is a really good model of this traditional idea about core and periphery.

Speaker 14 So taking models of Greek sort of city-states and you have the city at the center and then you have the periphery and the tribute and the trait goes in and then the city gets rich.

Speaker 14 But in Etruria, I don't think the more and more we understand the Etruscan countryside, I think the more problematic that model becomes. Yet again, it's not as simple as that.

Speaker 14 And there's an awful lot more going on.

Speaker 14 And I'd like people to remember that as we go on and talk about about the kind of interactions with rome because this is something that's going to come up time and again and you asked about kings so king is a really tricky a tricky thing so if you look at the historical sources they will quite often and more as we go on as we talk about those interactions with rome they will talk about etruscan kings the reason i brought up demaratus is because he ends up being very closely linked to the utruscan kings of rome but Are these figures really kings?

Speaker 14 Are they kind of elite families that are important? How do we define what a king is? Is a king someone who's just called a king? What does it matter that we don't have nation states?

Speaker 14 So why does it matter that we pick up on the semantics of this word king?

Speaker 14 I think it matters because there are so many different people kind of vying for roles where they have influence, roles where they have power.

Speaker 14 We know from the Etruscan texts that they have quite a complicated system of magistrates. They're people who are doing these important administrative roles.

Speaker 14 We know that there are people with an awful lot of resources and presumably political sway and influence to go with that. I don't know whether I would be happy to call them a king.

Speaker 14 I would probably say, go and talk to Christopher Smith because he's wonderful and he'll tell you more and more about this. So going back to kind of the geography for a minute there.

Speaker 14 So we have this 12 Etruscan cities. But at the time that we're starting to think about the Etruscans on this podcast today, they've also expanded to the north and to the south.

Speaker 14 So in the north, they've headed all the way to almost kind of the Venetian lagoon area, amazing site called Spina, which is this incredible Etruscans trading city on the Adriatic.

Speaker 14 Also the Bologna area as well. So they seem to be building almost like a colonia, like a deliberately designed town.

Speaker 14 There's an example there called Marza Botto, which we talked about in the last episode in relation to kind of architecture, Etruscan domestic architecture.

Speaker 14 But you have evidence of like city planning there, the design of the city, all these features like public space, the design of streets, all of those things are present at Marza Botto, which is really interesting.

Speaker 1 Before we head south, Lucy, I guess very quickly, tangently, if they're going north, that must mean, because we're talking about interactions with the Greeks, and we'll get to the Romans in a minute as well.

Speaker 1 But the Celts as well, the Gauls, they must have big connections with the Celts as well. I remember doing an episode about that, yeah.

Speaker 14 Absolutely. Yes, I really want to talk about this.

Speaker 14 It's something that quite often gets caught up and forgotten to one side between the relationships of the Greeks and the Romans, which I was just about to do. So thanks very much for stopping me.

Speaker 14 We could talk for a long time about relationships between Etruria and northern Europe, between Etruria and Gaul in particular. You know, I just talked about colonies.

Speaker 14 They're in the south of France, Marseille, that area. They're definitely Etruscan settlements there, trading settlements.
There's fantastic Etruscan materials.

Speaker 14 So the very famous Vicks burial, the Vicks burial. Yes.
Yep, the infamous Vicks burial.

Speaker 14 Not just the crater, but there's also Etruscan, there's an Etruscan oineke or a jug in that burial as well.

Speaker 14 So if those things are coming there through Etruscan trade routes, which they might well be, we can see Etruscan influence there.

Speaker 14 There's an amazing, enormous hill fort site in germany called the hoineberg and there's a ton of utruscal but i'm being unexaggerating but there is utruscan material from there as well and then in spain as well so we have utruscan material from like the south of spain near cariz so the utruscans are really dominating this western mediterranean trading world they seem to have a kind of relationship with the Phoenicians and North Africa, which is seems quite collegial.

Speaker 14 They ally with each other at various points.

Speaker 14 I like to facetiously portray them as, from the the Greek source's perspective, they're like an axis of evil, stopping the Greeks from having this trading in the Western Mediterranean when the Etruscans and the Phoenicians team up.

Speaker 14 These are these horrible barbarians who are just stopping us from accessing all these exciting markets.

Speaker 1 But then let's go back to Italy. And so south of those heartlands of the Etruscans.
So what is this relationship that the Etruscans have? with, let's say, Rome and that area south of Rome too?

Speaker 1 Because that's also big at this time.

Speaker 14 Yeah, so I'm going to kind of start with south of Rome because I think we're going to talk, we're going to inevitably talk a lot about Rome. So let's put it off for as long as we can.

Speaker 14 So the Etruscans expand all the way down into Campania. And it seems like there's almost like a little boundary here.

Speaker 14 So the kind of Greek influence of real Magna Gratia, southern Italy, kind of butts up against Etruscan influence. And the second longest Etruscan inscription that we have actually comes from Capua.
So

Speaker 14 southern Campania. So Santa Maria Capua Veteres, excavations there.

Speaker 1 This is all all Vesuvius area, isn't it?

Speaker 14 Yeah, Vesuvius area, exactly. And it's just fascinating that this huge long Etruscan inscription is actually found there rather than kind of somewhere that you'd really expect.

Speaker 14 So it's just showing that people are writing Etruscan. Presumably, if you're writing Etruscan, you're also going to be able to read the Etruscan.

Speaker 14 And we can see that happening there, which is really interesting. You can also see it in kind of burial styles.

Speaker 14 beautiful famous painted tombs at Peistum and the Tomb of the Diver, really very Etruscan kind of influenced in the styling and also in sort of pottery. We can see it in place names.

Speaker 14 I think all those things show that this is a really Etruscan influence area. It's hard to tease apart politically what that might mean.

Speaker 14 Like are these people who are part of, can we call it an Etruscan empire? I don't want to. Are we seeing sort of heavy influence? Are we seeing actual people going there and kind of governing this?

Speaker 14 It's really tricky to pull apart the actual sort of day-to-day nature of what it would have been like living in this Etruscan influence, not Etruscan-administered southern extent of that area.

Speaker 14 So, in the middle of this, we have Rome. So, we've talked to the north, we've talked to the south, we've talked all about the Western Mediterranean trading world.

Speaker 14 Rome is kind of sitting smack in the middle of this.

Speaker 14 And if we go back to our Demoratus story, in Livy, we have this very lovely, again, it's a really sort of fairy tale narrative about how the Etruscan kings, very clear that these are conceived of as kings, end up in Rome.

Speaker 14 So Demeratus from Corinth settles in Tarquinia, marries a very rich, influential Etruscan woman from a kind of highly important, one of these elite Etruscan families, marries her, they have children.

Speaker 14 things are going well and his son marries another very powerful Etruscan woman who has this reputation as a kind of seer. That's how she's presented in Livy.

Speaker 14 And again, it's kind of trope with the Etruscans. There's a book describing them as the most religious of people.

Speaker 14 So there's this idea that they're kind of mystical, they understand things that others don't.

Speaker 14 And this young man, Lucius Tarquinius, he marries this woman called Taniquil, and they decide to go and seek their fortune elsewhere.

Speaker 14 And on their way, on their journey, an eagle sweeps down from the skies and steals his hat. And it's just, it's such an incongruous moment.

Speaker 14 Like, if this, if this happened, can you imagine just walking along and then there's these blooming talons in your hair? It'd be horrible.

Speaker 14 But Tanaquil's quick thinking and she kind of spins this as actually, you are destined for great things. You have been chosen by the eagle.
We can see all this Roman symbolism coming in really nicely.

Speaker 14 Lucius Tarquinius and his wife Tanaquil, they end up in Rome. They make all the big moves.

Speaker 14 They persuade the population that they are so wonderful and they get sort of voted in as king in about 616 to 579.

Speaker 14 Like that's his reign, supposedly if we go with Livy's dates and he gets this new name he calls himself Lucius Tarquinius Priscus it's all going great until he gets murdered because that's what happens to kings in Rome the throne doesn't stay with his children it doesn't go directly to his two sons it goes to another person this new king Servius Tullius but Tanico is quite canny servius tullius has only got daughters and it's her supposedly who arranges for these two daughters to marry her two sons so she's canny, but she's not that canny because she marries them to the wrong ones.

Speaker 14 She has this personality mismatch emerges from the sources. And it seems like the younger daughter, Tullia Minor, is quite ambitious.

Speaker 14 You will see this again and again with these figures in Roman history, these women who are ambitious and powerful. They want power for themselves.

Speaker 14 And she gets married to Tanakor's son Aarons, who seems to be, from all accounts, a bit of a wimp. He's quite gentle.

Speaker 14 And I don't know if this is kind of a misplaced optimism that maybe opposites will attract but it definitely doesn't work in this case tullia manages to persuade her sister's husband tarquinius superbus he ends up being called superbus anyway after all of this happens he gives himself this shiny new name where have we seen that before why not if you can maybe you should and he's ambitious too but he's married to her sister who is kind of again a more gentle retiring flower type of personality so the two of them scheme off together get rid of their spouses slightly problematic thing to do but it only gets worse because they then go on to overthrow her father.

Speaker 1 Is this the story that ends brutally with one of them having their carriage, their royal carriage in the street and they see their dead father in the road and then they just have the carriage run over the corpse of their dad?

Speaker 14 Bingo, that is exactly the story that we are talking about here. And it's presented in Livy that this is all her idea.
It's coming from her.

Speaker 14 I don't know what kind of daddy issues she has to drive her to do this. But yeah, and her charioteer supposedly refuses to do this awful thing.

Speaker 14 And she takes the reins herself and says, I'll do it then and drives over the body of her dead father in the street. So, you know, what more drama could you wish for? But again, we have to be careful.

Speaker 14 So it's such a rip-roaring yarn, isn't it? You know, I saw your face when we started telling it and I'm grinning like an idiot because it's such a great story. But remember, it's doing a job for Livy.

Speaker 14 It's showing very clearly that women are can be vicious and are not to be trusted near power. It's kind of this most awful thing to do to desecrate your father's body, to betray your family.

Speaker 14 It's a fable. It's not just a kind of, wow, this is awful, true crime-esque.

Speaker 14 It's putting together a lesson for the reader that actually women shouldn't be allowed anywhere near power because they will do horrible things like this. And this is an Etruscan woman as well.

Speaker 14 We are going to talk so much about Livy's portrayal of the Etruscans, but this idea that women are powerful in Etruscan society and that that is dangerous is going to come up time and again.

Speaker 1 Is this more of a thing that actually, if it's Servius Tullius's daughter and Servius Tullius was a Roman, that she's married to an Etruscan and that has also influenced her becoming, well, I said in Livy's agenda, her becoming in their eyes barbaric and that's what she's done in that case.

Speaker 14 Yeah, it's kind of infiltrated into her. So it's that influence.
So she has this very powerful mother-in-law and it's giving her ideas effectively is the thing that's going on.

Speaker 1 Oh, Taniquil comes back into it.

Speaker 14 Okay, gossip. Yeah, so Tanaquil is still kind of in the picture with all of this insanity going on.
Although she kind of fades out, I'd love to know. I'd love to know if this is all real.

Speaker 14 Goodness knows what she's thinking at all of this. Is she sort of watching behind her hands, going, oh my God, what have I unleashed?

Speaker 14 But in the end, really, if we think about it from her perspective, it ends up going pretty well for her because, you know, her son ends up being king after all of this has kind of calmed down.

Speaker 14 After the body has been cleared up out of the street, it's Tarquinius Superbus who goes on to become king in Rome.

Speaker 14 But you can only outrun your karma for so long and they end up being kicked out in their turn. This is another really famous story that I think a lot of people will know.

Speaker 14 And it's actually their son who kind of causes this problem. It's that rape of Lucretia story.

Speaker 14 So I think I referred to this when I was on the podcast before, this idea that you know Lucretia is a good Roman woman, she is at home, she is doing doing textile making. She is weaving.

Speaker 14 And the king's son sort of says that, you know, there's an argument over women and which women are more virtuous.

Speaker 14 And the Etruscan women of the court are sort of drinking and partying and having a lovely time because apparently that's what Etruscan women do. You're party girls.

Speaker 14 And actually, Lucretia is a good Roman wife and she's not doing that. So of course, you always want what you can't have.
And you're seeing this exemplary woman. The king's son decides that

Speaker 14 he wants her for his own and he sexually assaults her. And then we have this kind of knock-on ripple of effects that end up with him and his father being thrown out of Rome.

Speaker 14 And that's the end of the Etruscan kings in Rome. But it's very interesting because, again, it's that kind of fairy tale.
These are bad people and bad things happen to them.

Speaker 14 But it's not as straightforward as, oh, they're out and they're gone.

Speaker 14 You know, Sextus Tarquinius is the son,

Speaker 14 the sort of bad prince who makes this decision and causes all this trouble. And he ends up being murdered in another city of Gabi, which is just in sort of close by Rome.

Speaker 14 And it's really interesting just seeing how these different cities nearby start lining up on different sites.

Speaker 14 So, drawing it back to kind of we've talked a lot about Etruscans in Rome there, we've talked about the Etruscan kings.

Speaker 14 But if we draw it back again, sort of zoom out from the picture, we can see these other settlements, other communities are getting drawn into this mess.

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Speaker 1 Such an important time, isn't it? This is the link to the origins of the Roman Republic, the expulsion of the kings.

Speaker 1 And the important thing there, that the king that's being pushed out is an Etruscan king with his son.

Speaker 1 And so that is seen, as you mentioned, the rape of Lucretia there, all seen as the origins of the Roman Republic. But as you've also hinted at right there, that is not the end of the story.

Speaker 1 The Etruscans are linked to the expulsion of the kings because they are the kings, but that's not the end for the Etruscans. Now you see this ripple-on effect as it now, the line has been drawn.

Speaker 1 The line in the sand has been drawn. There is conflict ahead.

Speaker 14 Yeah, so if you wanted to tie this up in a really neat little bow, you could kind of see this as the beginning of a major shift in the relationships between Etruria and Rome. So you could,

Speaker 14 if you wanted to be very tidy, you could say that this marks the moment when Etruscan influence over Rome has fallen back completely.

Speaker 14 So now we're sort of seeing Rome moving towards having influence over Etruria eventually.

Speaker 14 This is maybe that moment where the pendulum just shifts, shifts the middle, and then it's going to keep on going.

Speaker 14 So it's so interesting just seeing how different communities end up being dragged into this.

Speaker 14 So, you know, Superbus goes off and he hangs out in Ve for a little while and then he he calls on other Etruscan elite families. You know, living would call them kings.

Speaker 1 Vay's another city nearby, is it, Lucy?

Speaker 14 Yeah, sorry. I think we're going to talk more about Vey later.
So Vey is about 10 miles north of Rome.

Speaker 14 And nowadays, it's kind of absorbed into the suburbs of Rome, but it's still at this point an independent Etruscan city. It's got huge wealth from being closely situated to the Tiber.

Speaker 14 It's also got access on what will later go on and become the Via Flaminia. So it's one of the most important Etruscan cities.
And crucially, it's right on Rome's doorstep.

Speaker 14 And this, you know, this kind of presence, this proximity of two cities that are both starting to vie for power, vie for control of resources very close together is not going to go well for one of them at this point.

Speaker 14 So it makes sense if you've fallen out with Rome, which Superbus has spectacularly, it's been kicked out, where are you going to go?

Speaker 14 You're going to go to their closest kind of rival and off he goes to Vey. And he kind of

Speaker 14 calls in other Etruscan allies and they try and take on Rome in order to win it back for him.

Speaker 14 However, they are unsuccessful.

Speaker 14 So that's the kind of almost like the founding myth, you know, this struggle against the Etruscans from from a Roman perspective anyway, this struggle against these Etruscan forces.

Speaker 14 You know, they're coming down from QC, which is a city of inland Etruria. It's quite a long distance to the north.

Speaker 14 These troops are coming down and trying to assist in the retaking of Rome for this Etruscan kingship, this Etruscan family who want to retain it.

Speaker 14 Of course they want to retain it, but they are unsuccessful.

Speaker 1 It's interesting though, isn't it? All these stories about the creation of an independent Rome, or at least in Romanize, how closely linked they are to the Etruscans.

Speaker 1 And Tarquinius Superbus, he's still a massive figure, as you've highlighted there. He's gathering in allies.
And I remember, and there's another great story now, isn't there?

Speaker 1 Because they go back to Rome. They lay siege to Rome.
And my mind thinks of that soldier holding the bridge or Horatius.

Speaker 14 Why is that? Brave Horatius, the captain of the gates. The captain of the gates.
Even the Etruscans could scarce forbear to cheer.

Speaker 1 Wow, you know that off by Horatio. It's another

Speaker 1 famous story, isn't it? So talk to us before the Romans then start consolidating their position, how do the Etruscans try to reverse this well, this expulsion of their king from Rome?

Speaker 14 So really kind of Livy goes into detail of this.

Speaker 14 and it's this figure from QC he's kind of this semi-mythical figure himself last Pausenna but he's presented as this very wise king and he recognizes that actually this is a bit of a lost cause and there's no point just shoving a king back into power when actually all the people hate him.

Speaker 14 So

Speaker 14 the siege is not successful.

Speaker 14 There's this story about this Roman youth who breaks in to try and murder Pausenna and he gets caught because he mixes up Pausenna with his servant and then he says, oh, you can kill me.

Speaker 14 You can torture me. I'm not scared.
And he puts his hand into a brazier of fire.

Speaker 14 But Paul Senna is so impressed by this that he says, Oh, if this city is full of young people like this, then actually, you know, I don't, I don't, I don't fancy this.

Speaker 14 Like these people are, these people are a bit much. I'm, I'm, you know, I think it's over for you, my friend, he says to his ally.
I'm terribly paraphrasing.

Speaker 14 Poor Livy is probably spinning in whatever grave he's in. But again, it's, it's that kind of.

Speaker 14 It's those stories that you see

Speaker 14 in the story. It's a motif that you remember.

Speaker 14 You, the heroic young man, you just talked about the holding holding of the bridge and horatius this captain of the guard who swims the river because he's so brave he lets the bridge be destroyed behind him and then swims the river and you know it's it's there's a reason why this stuff comes up later you know the bit of poetry that i just quoted is from the 19th century these stories have so much power to them But in a way, I'd like to kind of move away from those to kind of stories that we don't maybe know so well.

Speaker 14 So at this point, what we are seeing is the the beginning of that twist towards Roman power, the beginning of Rome's rise in the Italian peninsula.

Speaker 14 I'm sure you have episodes and episodes on Rome's rise to power and what happens next. But

Speaker 14 to go back to the Etruscan city at Vei, this is the moment that's going to spark off the steady

Speaker 14 rise in rivalry that will end with the siege of Vei. So we talked about a siege of Rome, but a really big date in Etruscan archaeology is the siege of Vei and it's fall.
So Vei falls in 396 BC.

Speaker 1 So not too long, isn't it? Well, actually, no, it is a bit, literally, 100 years or so after what we were saying.

Speaker 14 Yes, it's 100 years. So it's a steady process of kind of, you know, think of the mess in Rome after all of this.

Speaker 14 Can you imagine, you know, there's an awful lot to do and there's lots of things that happen in that century that we can talk about. But to just focus in on again, on storytelling.

Speaker 14 So Vei falls after a 10-year siege. You know, think of the Trojan War.

Speaker 14 That's 10 years. All the stories we have from that.
And because they're so close together, there's this pattern where they'll besiege Vei and then go home.

Speaker 14 And it's just so extraordinary to us sitting here in the present to think about how this siege might have worked. And that, you know, you leave your family and you go and besiege this other city.

Speaker 14 And then actually it's not going very well. So you come back.
And then you go back for some more. And it's, it's that attritional warfare that is happening.

Speaker 14 And when Vei finally falls, it's fascinating what happens. One of the most famous things about Vei is its temples.

Speaker 14 So there's this big temple to the Etruscan goddess Uni, who is Roman Juno, Etruscan Uni, really big, important temple.

Speaker 14 And what the Romans do is they take all the statues from it and whisk them back to Rome and then burn it to the ground. And that's such a statement, isn't it? It's just such a thing to do.

Speaker 14 We have captured your gods and they are coming with us. And we still have some of these incredible objects.
We have some of this statues.

Speaker 14 so the apollo of ve is a architectural terracotta i think we talked a fair bit about architectural terracottas on roofs in the first episode but you know we always think about greek marble pediments and this and that the utrus love their terracottas so this is this incredible life-size terracotta statue of the god apollo and that ends up being taken back to rome

Speaker 14 And once, it's very interesting to compare different Etruscan cities as well.

Speaker 14 So we've talked a lot about Vei, but in the previous letter episode, we talked a bit more about Civetri, Cere, which is another Etruscan city, again, very close to Rome, has this coastal location, however, has this associated trading port next door to it, effectively.

Speaker 14 So the Etruscan city is higher up, and then it has this twinned port city there on the coastline. Now, Cere

Speaker 14 completely different relationship with Rome. It seems to almost be like a finishing school for Roman elite young men.
men. And they'll send people off there to go and learn religious mysteries.

Speaker 14 I always think of it as like a Swiss finishing school for the Roman elite. They go off to Care

Speaker 14 and Care seems to have a completely different and more positive relationship with Rome. So they don't have this rivalry, this intensity that we see at Vey.

Speaker 14 And it's very interesting because that gets reflected much later as well.

Speaker 14 So if we look at things like the inscription evidence, evidence, we can see that Etruscan names survive for much longer in Care, where they have this softer relationship with Rome than they do at somewhere else like Tarquinia, which I'm sure we're going to go on and talk about, where they have a much more combative relationship with Rome.

Speaker 14 It's very interesting. So one of the things that we kind of almost skipped over, really, talking about this amazing century, you

Speaker 14 Tervetri is a place where the Romans end up hiding their sacred objects.

Speaker 14 So they've stolen this material from they, but when they are threatened, they send their most sacred things off to Keri and trust that these people will look after it.

Speaker 14 So part of you just, you know, the mind boggles at these things moving around in the landscape in these stressful times.

Speaker 14 But it's really interesting to see how these different Etruscan cities have these different relationships and to ask why. Is this a personal relationships thing?

Speaker 14 Are these elite families in these different places that get on better? Is this a concerted policy where people at Cary have made this decision?

Speaker 14 Actually, we're not going to tangle with these guys, we're not interested, we're just going to keep them sweet.

Speaker 14 I'd love to know what's going on because this is a pattern we're going to see again and again through the Roman conquest of Etruria.

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Speaker 1 With all of that, and said that slow expansion of Rome in its heartlands, you know, up the river Tiber and in that area, you mentioned at the beginning, I mean, nearer the beginning, how you've got the Etruscan heartlands to the north, but you've also got Etruscan south of Rome too.

Speaker 1 So it almost feels like this line is being created, kind of splitting that world in two.

Speaker 1 I mean, does it seem to suggest at that same time that from the archaeology, from the sources we have surviving, that are the Etruscans being stretched elsewhere?

Speaker 1 That it's not just the Romans, that you've also got, let's say, Greeks in southern Italy, or other Italians like Samnites or so on, or the Celts in the north?

Speaker 1 I mean, does it seem to suggest that the Etruscan world is starting to be stretched a bit with other players? And as you say, it's not one united world.

Speaker 1 There are cities having independent choices of who they're siding with and so on.

Speaker 14 Yeah, a kind of all of the above, really. D, all of the above.

Speaker 14 I think a really good, maybe a good way to think about this, like a good comparison to go a little bit further in time, it reminds me a little bit of kind of Anglo-Saxon England.

Speaker 14 This is somewhere very rich, very successful, and everybody wants a piece of this pie. So if you are on the fringes of this and it's looking a little bit shaky, then you are going to make your move.

Speaker 14 So in the south, as you're exactly right. So in the south, we have Greek colonists pushing northwards.
You know, we have the Samnites.

Speaker 14 they caused trouble for the Romans for centuries after this, and they really pushed the Etruscans back.

Speaker 14 And we have Gauls raiding in the north, Marzabotta that I've just talked about, that gets pretty much wiped out through Gaulish raiding. They're coming at all directions.

Speaker 14 And it's fascinating to just see things starting to fall apart for the Etruscans in all these different areas. And again,

Speaker 14 to use a later time period as well, there's this tendency to brush over etruria and say oh the gauls when they sacked rome they sweep through etruria but actually if you think about the reality of what that's like for people on the ground and for these etruscan cities that are there they're at risk too it's not just these big blockbuster events you if you have an army of marauding gauls showing up in rome they've come through etruria on their way there you burning and pillaging as they go presumably so yes i think it's that thing where when you're doing very well and you're very successful and you're obviously great source of wealth showing off through all these trading networks, the dark side of that is that everybody can see what a fantastic target you are.

Speaker 14 There's a target on your collective backs, effectively, and everybody's starting to nibble at the edges and then things are starting to go wrong.

Speaker 14 And it's really interesting to think about how the Romans conceptualize this. So there's this motif that pops up in the Roman sources called the obesis Etruscus, the kind of overweight Etruscan.

Speaker 14 And it's linked to these ideas about stoicism and kind of luxury. You see it in the Greek sources as well.
Luxury is bad for you. If you're kind of having too good of a time and, you know,

Speaker 14 it's coming, coming up for Christmas. I don't want to be fat shaming anybody.
But if you're having too much of a good time, you're getting lax, you're getting soft. There's this idea that actually

Speaker 14 a hard life is good for you. And when things are getting too luxurious, then you are weak.

Speaker 14 And we see that in kind of representations in, you know, your, your interest in Alexander and the Persian Empire, this representation of the Persian Empire as being kind of soft, effectively, too addicted to the people of the world.

Speaker 1 This is this thing like soft times breed soft people kind of vibe that you see time and time again, right?

Speaker 14 Yeah, so whether it's kind of complacency or you this conception of these people as actually they're too addicted to their wine and their, you know, we talk, we sort of jokingly talked in that story in the Lucretia story about these Etruscan women as the party girls.

Speaker 14 But there is that kind of perception that comes through the sources that these people were not serious enough to defend their boundaries, which I think is quite, it's quite insulting and it's probably, it's quite ridiculous.

Speaker 14 It's almost like it's a trope, isn't it? It's a trope to say why they were defeated in the end.

Speaker 14 But I think there probably is a little element of when you are very successful, it's very easy to sit back and enjoy the fruits of that success. And then maybe

Speaker 14 when times change, kind of hungry dogs run faster is what they say, isn't it?

Speaker 14 Absolutely.

Speaker 14 These rivalries coming up.

Speaker 1 Absolutely. If you're at the top of the hill, you're not as hungry as the person climbing the hill and stuff like that.
But I mean, does the archaeology reflect that too?

Speaker 1 Because I do appreciate we've got the literary sources. And naturally, some of these literary sources are very biased, pro-Roman, like Livy, as we've discussed.
But you mentioned also with Marzabotto.

Speaker 1 I mean, does the archaeology seem to suggest that, you know, that these external factors, you know, they are they are wreaking havoc on some of these Etruscan places? is evidence of destruction.

Speaker 1 Or perhaps is there other factors like, is there evidence in the archaeology that the economic trade links that the Etruscans once had, that those links are fading too?

Speaker 14 So one of the really interesting elements of the archaeology that I think tracks the kind of, if we want to start talking about the decline of the Etruscans, And one of the really interesting ways of doing that is to look at tomb paintings.

Speaker 14 And I know I said that I didn't want to talk about burial archaeology, but I'm going to do it because it's so fascinating.

Speaker 14 So tarquinia is somewhere we talked about a lot in the first episode it's this etruscan city on a high tufa plateau and dug into the rock are these amazing painted tombs i think if most people know the utruscans they'll know these painted tombs and they're you know they're beautiful honestly go and google them go google image search them now um and there's you know kind of 200 of these things and the earliest ones are from about 540 520 and then they carry on through the next kind of 200 years.

Speaker 14 But if we look at the motifs that are used to to paint those tombs, what we can see is a real shift and a change in what they're portraying. So it starts off with kind of mythological scenes.

Speaker 14 There's the scene, very famous one, the Tomb of the Bulls, one of the earliest ones.

Speaker 14 The ambush of Troilus by Achilles. You have these amazing nine trees with different changing seasons represented on them, the passage of time.

Speaker 14 Yeah, there's this kind of sexual figures as well. It depends on your view.
Are these kind of fertility related? Are they comic relief? Are they, you know, a protopaic?

Speaker 14 Are they kind of turning back the evil eye with something like quite comical and sexual? We don't know. So we have all of these things.

Speaker 14 You have some of the most beautiful ones, really famous, the tomb of the leopards, absolutely glorious depictions of these animals, people who are banqueting, this idea of the eternal banquet.

Speaker 14 This is where, maybe this is where some of this perception of the Etruscans as devoted to the banquet table comes from.

Speaker 14 This representation of people having a fantastic time in the afterlife. It looks great at this point.
So these earlier ones, the Etruscan afterlife looks fantastic, but things start to turn darker.

Speaker 14 And what we see coming in are these figures that are quite eerie and almost frightening. So we start seeing these demonic figures.

Speaker 14 So this figure of the wolf man, there seems to be a kind of wolf demon in Etruscan in Etruscan religion. His name seems to be Carlu.

Speaker 14 and this figure called Vant, who's this winged woman, and she kind of, they almost look like machine gun bullet belts across her body so she's bare-chested with these like double belts coming across and she is bringing people to the afterlife and we suddenly move from this lovely eternal party to actually people are still being depicted banqueting into quite late periods but it's it doesn't look as much fun anymore we have these quite terrifying figures and then one of the really quite late examples and not from taquinha from far inland place called satiano is this tomb of the infernal chariot.

Speaker 14 And you have this. Sorry, what? I'm sorry, what?

Speaker 1 Tomb of the Infernal Chariot.

Speaker 14 Tomb of the Infernal Chariot. Yeah, what a name.
Isn't it great? I want to be buried in a tomb of the infernal chariot. So the paintings on in this tomb are amazing.

Speaker 14 And if you ever get a chance, if you're on holiday in Tuscany and you have the chance to go and visit, the museum there is wonderful. And you can go and see this tomb in small groups.

Speaker 14 So when I went summer before last, it was just myself and my family. So just five of us in this tomb.
You know, it's very special. I do recommend that people go and see it.

Speaker 14 A little plug for Satiana there, because it's, it's kind of off the beaten track, which is why it's so special. But this is a really late tomb.
It's kind of been dated to about 340, 320.

Speaker 14 And what we have there are these terrifying demons. So there's

Speaker 14 triple-headed snakes on the wall and they are really creepy looking. Sorry, very professional language there, but they are.
They're horrible. And then you have this ginger-headed face.

Speaker 14 And she has, he or she seems to have fangs as well.

Speaker 14 And she's driving this chariot that's drawn by some people have suggested different mythical beasts so this is not a lovely party and even though banqueting is depicted in the same tomb the whole process of this eternal banquet just doesn't doesn't have the same overtones anymore it's not fun anymore the party's over so how can how have we gone over the course of 200 years to these very optimistic you know to the extent that the roofs of these tombs are painted to look like pavilion roofs with beautiful hangings in different fabrics, like luxurious outside tents for people to recline under in the summer and have a wonderful time.

Speaker 14 How have we gone from that to ginger demons over 200 years? And I think what we can see there is a falling away of optimism. We can see that decline.

Speaker 14 We can see that actually people are worried about the future. So Sartiano is just such a fascinating case study of this later Etruscan period.

Speaker 14 Even the fact it exists at all speaks to the idea that Etruscan, Etruscan religion is still carrying on.

Speaker 14 This is after Rome has spread northwards, that this elite family who own this tomb still have the opportunity to spend their money to make this beautiful place for the afterlife.

Speaker 14 But actually, they're not feeling good about it. I don't want to fall into that D.H.

Speaker 14 Lawrence trap, but he just, when he visits Tarquinia, he just falls under the spell of these tombs because they're so beautiful. It's a vision of the afterlife that's just enchanting.
But that's gone.

Speaker 1 So that's gone, but I say that takes over two centuries.

Speaker 1 You see that transition, really interesting transition, which begs the question, what do we know about that whole process of Rome going from taking control of Vey at the beginning of the fourth century BC to them becoming dominant over basically the whole of the Etruscan world, the Etruscans, particularly in their heartland, in northern Italy, in places like Tarquinia and further afield.

Speaker 14 So Tarquinia is a really interesting case study for the Roman conquest of Etruria. Care, Tevetria, just staying out of things.
We've talked about them. They've chosen that route.

Speaker 14 Tarquinia, not so much. Big Etruscan city, big target.
And there is a series of truces and fights and battles and agreements. And people go to war for a little while.

Speaker 14 And then there'll be a truce for 40 years. And then all of a sudden, things will break out again.
So it's kind of little by little. It's a long fall of Tarquinia.

Speaker 14 So from by Livy's reckoning anyway, from about 358 to 281, we have this series of truces and and agreements. But by 281, we see that Tarquinia has fallen.

Speaker 14 There is this triumph celebrating victory over the Etruscans back in Rome. And then the next year, they're heading northwards up that coastal strip where a lot of the Etruscan wealth is centered.

Speaker 14 Vulci next. Vulci, we haven't talked about very much today, but it's very much a center of Etruscan artisans.

Speaker 14 A lot of the Etruscan red figure vase painting is happening at Vulci. We have these workshops there.
Again, very rich coastal trading city and it falls again.

Speaker 14 And then Arezzo goes to, I think Arezzo watches what's happening and they think, oh my gosh, we'd better be like Kere. They try that kind of the diplomatic route.

Speaker 14 They kind of go that softer route and they avoid things. But then Orvieto, Etruscan Volsinia, they go the harder route and then we have sort of more violence.

Speaker 14 In the territory of Orvieto Volsinia, we have this Fanum Voltumne, which is this temple of Orlitruria, which supposedly was the meeting place for this Etruscan League.

Speaker 14 If we go back to the beginning, these 12 cities, they're meant to all meet here when Rome takes Volsinia. You'll never guess what happens to the Fanum Voltumne.

Speaker 14 It gets completely destroyed and all the goodies are carted off back to Rome. Again, that statement of dismantling a political system,

Speaker 14 if we're going to take that literally, which, you know, we can argue about that, but this deliberate dismantling of an administrative system so that all power is going back to rome in this conception and it's so interesting because i think the ovieto fall if we look at the historical sources again there are little clues in here as to how they're justifying this so what we're told is that there's a problem with slave revolts and Etruscan class structure is something that I think I'd love to know more about.

Speaker 14 And we do have this word lautny, which seems to mean kind of like peasantry, but it doesn't seem very clear.

Speaker 14 It doesn't seem like there's potentially this system of slavery that's as well, not as well advanced, that's a horrible thing to say, as well entrenched maybe as you know, in the Greek world, in the Roman world.

Speaker 14 So if there is a slave revolt, whose slaves are they and what are they,

Speaker 14 what are they rebelling against? Where is this come from? Are these peasants who are unhappy?

Speaker 14 Are these actual enslaved people?

Speaker 14 When you say slave slave revolt to me i think about spartacus but that's that's not that's not appropriate here so what's going on but what i think this is is an excuse i think what you have are these elite families that we've spoken about already falling out with one another

Speaker 14 and we see this again and again in roman history you can see what's coming they're going to exploit any cracks in the social fabric and they're going to put their cards behind one family you look at the roman conquest of britain you see this again and again

Speaker 14 and they'll exploit that so maybe one group of people fall out with another it gets called a revolt the romans pile in on the other side and then oh oops actually we've taken your territory and you are going to be left here with your with your nice your nice house and your riches but you belong to us now and i think that's something that we can see heading northwards as these etruscan cities come under Roman influence you i don't want to say the roman yoke but it is kind of a little bit like that, this playing off these tensions and these rivalries.

Speaker 14 We see it again up in the kind of Florence area, this idea that

Speaker 14 there's a revolt. It's fine for us to come in and tidy up because these people are losing control anyway.

Speaker 1 So that's how the Romans take it over.

Speaker 1 So interesting how, once again, that tactic of, you know, a power seeking expansion notices in, you know, the targeted area that they want a city of, you know, divisions, internal divisions, and they take advantage of of that by backing the person who's more amenable to them to really and then they take over it's really interesting i see that again and again throughout history so that is the roman takeover and from then on the etruscans are part of the growing roman republic as they then go on you know fighting the samnites and then pyrrhus and then hannibal and the carthaginians and so on but as that time goes on i must also ask we've talked about like the fall of the etruscans maybe yes the fall of the etuscans as an independent player on the italian peninsula and further afield but does etruscan culture endure with the Romans when they're under Roman rule?

Speaker 1 Can we actually say they actually fall?

Speaker 14 Yeah, I think that's a really interesting perspective to take. So we can definitely see that Etruscan culture continues on.
You know, we were just talking about Sartiano and the example there that

Speaker 14 this family is still able to practice these death rituals that are so important to them. And they're still able to spend their wealth on making this burial place.
But

Speaker 14 it's not just burial rituals. It's also in kind of religious practice.

Speaker 14 This is something you, we can see Rome honing its playbook, this religious tolerance, that it's okay to believe in your traditional religion as long as it actually doesn't get in the way with what we're wanting from you.

Speaker 14 So Etruscan religion is still really important. And some of the most famous archaeological artefacts that we have.
that tell us about Etruscan religion actually date from this later period.

Speaker 14 So there's this amazing bronze liver from Piacenza, which is quite far north in Etruscan, you know, Etruscan sphere of influence. And it's amazing.
It's a bronze model of a sheep's liver.

Speaker 14 Now, you do get these from the ancient Near East. This is very much an Etruscan one, and it's divided into 16 different areas, which seem to be connected with different astrological houses.

Speaker 14 And these are all related to these different Etruscan deities. So you have Selva on the Fuflins, Etruscan Dionysus, try saying that carefully, Fuflins, and Kell, this Etruscan kind of...

Speaker 14 earth deity as well. So that's just this extraordinary piece of Etruscan religious fabric that we have from this later period.
Really famous.

Speaker 14 So like when I spoke to you last, it had just been discovered, the sanctuary at San Cassiano de' Bagni, which is a province of Siena, these amazing bronze statues that had just been uncovered, and this combination of Etruscan and Latin inscriptions.

Speaker 14 We see these votive figurines as well.

Speaker 14 These are all later things. It's clearly a huge part of people's lives, just continuing these remote sanctuaries.
sanctuaries. Also, we have respect for property.

Speaker 14 So an amazing archaeological discovery, the Cortona tablets. So these were found in 1992.

Speaker 14 The story goes they were found on a building site and brought in to the police, but there's kind of a bit of a, were they really from that building site suggestion?

Speaker 14 And it's a bronze tablet in different pieces. It's about 200 words long, which doesn't sound like a lot, but you know, for the Etruscans, that'll do nicely.

Speaker 14 And what it's talking about is dealing with an inheritance, dealing with land being split up among different people.

Speaker 14 So there's a vineyard and it belongs to the Kusu family and it's being given to another, another person called Atrus Gevas and his wife.

Speaker 14 So, you know, potentially these independent Etruscan women are still there. You know, she's important enough to be mentioned in this document.
There's a list of witnesses.

Speaker 14 There's also the magistrate talked about Etruscan magistrates. He's named Las Cacrina Lausisa.
These Etruscan names are continuing.

Speaker 14 So this is long after the Roman supposed conquest, but Etruscan law, you know, as it's hard, isn't it? You can't kind of say, oh, Etruscan law as if it's like British law today. But

Speaker 14 the way that Etruscan land management practices are managed is still happening under this Roman rule. So that's really interesting.

Speaker 14 I just think there's an awful lot of continuation. And even onwards into kind of the first century BC, we can see that Etruscan ideas and Etruscan behavior is still happening in Etruria.

Speaker 14 And we have these amazing kind of brave markers from the first century BC that end up in Tunisia. And they're still demonstrably Etruscan after all this time and in a completely different space.

Speaker 14 And there's this idea that they might be Etruscan refugees from the social wars that kind of end up here, which is really that's like a revolt, a late, late on revolt, isn't it?

Speaker 1 Where the Etruscans and others kind of try to fight one last time, but it doesn't end well for them.

Speaker 14 Let's get the band back together for one last time because it's really gone well for us in the past. But I think it's, yeah, it's fascinating, isn't it? And they keep popping up again and again.

Speaker 14 And something that really spoke to me recently, I reread to my daughter, she's 10, I read her, The Eagle of the Knife. Where is Marcus Aquila from? He's from Clusium.
He's an Etruscan.

Speaker 14 Even in these most iconic, you know, that's a long way from kind of Livy in the hardcore archaeology, but it's just that kind of ghost of Etruscan people that continues on.

Speaker 14 And I think we could almost have a whole episode about the afterlives of the Etruscans.

Speaker 14 She says, plugging herself to come back in, you know, 2026, please, to talk about the afterlives of the Etruscans, because they're so important.

Speaker 14 They continue to be really influential into the Renaissance when they're rediscovered.

Speaker 14 I've argued in sort of publications that they influence the way that different

Speaker 14 Renaissance artists painted and depicted the human form. And I just think their continued legacy is so fascinating.
They never really

Speaker 14 go away. They're still there and they're still important.
There's this lovely story about it's an Etruscan seer who tells Caesar not to go to the Senate. And it's

Speaker 14 Etruscan priests, Etruscan herespicies that are really a problem for Christians when they're taking over in Rome. And they even pop up really late.

Speaker 14 There's a Pope who's trying to work out what to do in the face of a threat on the city. The Etruscan seers pop up and say, well, actually, if you ask us, and he's like, I didn't ask you.

Speaker 14 Nobody's Nobody's asking you, but they're still there, which is really fascinating. So, again, it's that survival of religion, survival of culture,

Speaker 14 not necessarily survival of political power.

Speaker 1 Well, I mean, there you go. It's such an interesting one.
They said, fall of the Etruscans, but actually the legacy of the Etruscans, as you say, could be another podcast episode in its own right.

Speaker 1 And I'm also really glad that you mentioned some of those really interesting artifacts. Like I've got up on my screen now, my other screen, the liver of Piacenza.

Speaker 1 I mean, that's an extraordinary artifact I've also got the tomb of the infernal chariot up on another tab too because I've got tab that up and the tomb of the leopards of course so it just shows the Etruscans extraordinary and the story of their

Speaker 1 their fall as the Romans rise but also these other external factors too I'm really glad that we could cover it on the podcast today Lucy it just goes to me to say thank you so much you've been an absolute force of nature just goes to me say thank you so much for taking the time to come back from the podcast today oh thank you so much

Speaker 1 Well there you go. There was Dr.
Lucy Shipley talking through the fall of the Etruscans and the rise of Rome as the new dominant power in central Italy more than 2,000 years ago.

Speaker 1 Thank you for listening to this episode of the Ancients. I hope you enjoyed it.
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