Lucy Shipley
Appearances
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
He calls himself Lucius Toquinius 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 Tanaquil's quite canny.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
Servius Tullus 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. She has this personality mismatch emerges from the sources. And it seems like the younger daughter, Talia Minor, is quite ambitious.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
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. And she gets married to Taniquil's son, Aarons, who seems to be, from all accounts, a bit of a wimp. He's quite gentle.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
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. Talia 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.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
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.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
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 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 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.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
So, you know, what more drama could you wish for? But again, we have to be careful. So it's such a rip roaring yarn, isn't it? You know, I saw your face when you 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. It's showing very clearly that women can be vicious and not to be trusted near power. It's kind of this
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
most awful thing to do, to desecrate your father's body, to betray your family. It's a fable. It's not just a kind of, wow, this is awful, true crime-esque. 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.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
We are going to talk so much about Livy's portrayal of the Etruscans, but this idea that women are are powerful in Etruscan society and that that is dangerous is going to come up time and again.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
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
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
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 if this is all real. Goodness knows what she's thinking at all of this. She's sort of watching behind her hands going, oh my God, what have I unleashed?
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
But in the end, really, if we think about it from her perspective, it ends up going pretty well for her because her son ends up being king after all of this has kind of calmed down, after the body has been cleared up out of the street. It's Tarquinius Superbus who goes on to become king in Rome. But you can only outrun your karma for so long and they end up being kicked out in their turn.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
This is another really famous story that I think a lot of people will know. And it's actually their son who kind of causes this problem. It's that rape of Lucretia story. 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 textile making. She is weaving.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
And the king's son sort of says that there's an argument over women and which women are more virtuous. 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, party girls. 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.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
And you've seen this exemplary woman, the king's son decides that 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. 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.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
These are bad people and bad things happen to them. But it's not as straightforward as, oh, they're out and they're gone. Sextus Tarquinius is the son, the bad prince who makes this decision and causes all this trouble. And he ends up being murdered in another city of Gabii, which is just close by Rome.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
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, if you wanted to be very tidy, you could say that this marks the moment when Etruscan influence over Rome... has fallen back completely.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
So now we're sort of seeing Rome moving towards having influence over Etruria eventually. This is maybe that moment where the pendulum just shifts, shifts to the middle and then it's going to keep on going. So it's so interesting just seeing How different communities end up being dragged into this. So, you know, Superbus goes off and he hangs out in Vey for a little while.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
And then he calls on other Etruscan elite families. You know, Livy would call them kings.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
Yeah, sorry. I think we're going to talk more about Vele later. So Vele is about 10 miles north of Rome. And nowadays it's kind of absorbed into the suburbs of Rome. But it's still, at this point, it's an independent Etruscan city. It's got huge wealth from being closely situated to the Tiber. It's also got access on what will later go on and become the Via Flaminia.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
So it's one of the most important Etruscan cities. And crucially, it's right on Rome's doorstep. And 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. So it makes sense.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
If you've fallen out with Rome, which, you know, Superbus has spectacularly been kicked out, where are you going to go? You're going to go to their closest kind of rival and off he goes to they. And he kind of calls in other Etruscan allies and they try and take on Rome in order to win it back for him. However, they are unsuccessful.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
So that's the kind of, almost like the founding myth, this struggle against the Etruscans, from a Roman perspective anyway, this struggle against these Etruscan forces. They're coming down from Cuci, which is a city of inland Etruria. It's quite a long distance to the north. These troops are coming down and trying to assist
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
in the retaking of Rome for this Etruscan kingship, this Etruscan family who want to retain it. Of course they want to retain it, but they are unsuccessful.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
Yeah, brave Horatius, the captain of the gates. Even the Etruscans could force scarce forbear to cheer. Wow, you know that off by heart.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
So really, Livy goes into detail of this, and it's this figure from QC. He's kind of this semi-mythical figure himself, Las Porcenas. 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.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
that they the siege is not successful there's a story about this roman youth who breaks in to try and murder porcena and he gets caught because he mixes up porcena with his servant and then he says oh you can kill me you can torture me i'm not scared and he puts his hand into a brazier of fire but porcena 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 like these people are these people are a bit much i'm i'm
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
you know i think it's over for you my friend he says to his ally i'm terribly paraphrasing paul livy's probably spinning in whatever grave he's in um but again it's it's that kind of it's those stories that you see again and again it's a story it's a motif that you remember 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 it you know it's
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
There's a reason why this stuff comes up later. 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 move away from those to stories that we don't maybe know so well. So at this point... what we are seeing is the beginning of that twist towards Roman power, the beginning of Rome's rise in the Italian Peninsula.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
I'm sure you have episodes and episodes on Rome's rise to power and what happens next. But to go back to the Etruscan city at Veii, this is the moment that's going to spark off the steady rise in rivalry that will end with the siege of Veii. So we talked about a siege of Rome, but a really big date in Etruscan archaeology is the siege of Veii and its fall. So Veii falls in 396 BC. So not too long.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
Yes, it's a hundred years. So it's a steady process of kind of Think of the mess in Rome after all of this. Can you imagine? There's an awful lot to do, and there's a lot of things that happen in that century that we can talk about. But to just focus in, again, on storytelling. So, Veii falls after a 10-year siege. Think of the Trojan War. That's 10 years, all the stories we have from that.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
And because they're so close together, there's this pattern where they'll besiege Veii and then go home. 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 leave your family and you go and besiege this other city and then actually it's not going very well so you come back. And then you go back for some more.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
And it's that attritional warfare that is happening. And when Vey finally falls, it's fascinating what happens. One of the most famous things about Ve is its temples. So there's this big temple to the Etruscan goddess Uni, who was Roman Juno, Etruscan Uni, really big, important temple.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
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. 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 statuary. So the Apollo of Vey is an architectural terracotta.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
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 Etruscans loved their terracotta. So this is this incredible life-size terracotta. terracotta statue of the god Apollo, and that ends up being taken back to Rome.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
And it's very interesting to compare different Etruscan cities as well. So we've talked a lot about Veii, but in the previous episode, we talked a bit more about Cervetri, Caere, 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.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
So the Etruscan city is higher up and then it has this twinned port city there on the coastline. Now, Caere, completely different relationship with Rome. It seems to almost be like a finishing school for Roman elite young men. And they'll send people off there to go and learn religious mysteries. I always think of it as like a Swiss finishing school for the Roman elite. They go off to Caere.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
And Caere 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 Veii. And it's very interesting because that gets reflected much later as well.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
So if we look at things like the inscription evidence, we can see that Etruscan names survive for much longer in Caere, 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 later. where they have a much more combative relationship with Rome. It's very interesting.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
So one of the things that we kind of almost skipped over really, I'm talking about this amazing century, you Cervetri is a place where the Romans end up hiding their sacred objects. So they've stolen this material from Veii, but when they are threatened, they send their most sacred things off to Kerate and trust that these people will look after it.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
So part of you just, you know, the mind boggles at these things moving around in the landscape in these stressful times. 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? Are these elite families in these different places that get on better?
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
Is this a concerted policy where people at Kerry have made this decision? Actually, we're not going to tangle with these guys. We're not interested. We're just going to keep them sweet. 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.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
Yeah, a kind of all of the above, really. D, all of the above. 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. This is somewhere very rich, very successful, and everybody wants a piece of this pie.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
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. So in the South, you're exactly right. So in the South, we have Greek colonists pushing northwards. We have the Samnites. They caused trouble for the Romans for centuries after this, and they really pushed the Etruscans back. And we have Gauls raiding the north.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
Marzabota, that I've just talked about, that gets pretty much wiped out through Gaulish raiding. They're coming at all directions. And it's fascinating to just see things starting to fall apart for the Etruscans in all these different areas.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
And again, 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.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
If you have an army of marauding ghouls showing up in Rome, they've come through Etruria on their way there, 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 Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
The dark side of that is that everybody can see what a fantastic target you are. 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. And it's really interesting to think about how the Romans conceptualized this.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
So there's this motif that pops up in the Roman sources called the abyssus etruscus, the kind of overweight Etruscan. And it's linked to these ideas about Stoicism and Confucianism. 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 it's coming up for Christmas, I don't want to be fat shaming anybody.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
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 a hard life is good for you. And when things are getting too luxurious, then you are weak.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
And we see that in kind of representations in your interest in Alexander and the Persian Empire, this representation of the Persian Empire as being kind of soft, effectively, too addicted to luxury, and it falls.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
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.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
Yeah. So whether it's kind of complacency or this conception of these people as actually they're too addicted to their wine. We jokingly talked in the Lucretia story about these Etruscan women as the party girls.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
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 insulting and it's quite ridiculous. It's almost like it's a trope, isn't it? It's a trope to say why they were defeated in the end.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
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 when times change, kind of hungry dogs run faster is what they say, isn't it? There's these rivalries coming up.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
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? We talk about the rise and the origins and then we're straight through the good part and then on to the destruction and the end.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
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, one of the really interesting ways of doing that is to look at tomb paintings. 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.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
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 Etruscans, they'll know these painted tombs and they're beautiful. Honestly, go and Google them. Go Google image search them now.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
And there's 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. But if we look at the motifs that are used 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.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
There's the scene, very famous one, the Tomb of the Bulls, one of the earliest ones, the ambush of Troilus by Achilles. You have these amazing nine trees with different changing seasons represented on them, the passage of time. 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, apotropaic?
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
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. 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.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
Maybe this is where some of this perception of the Etruscans as devoted to the banquet table comes from. 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. And what we see coming in are these figures that are quite eerie and almost frightening.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
So we start seeing these demonic figures. So this figure of the wolf man, there seems to be a kind of wolf demon in Etruscan religion. His name seems to be Kalu. And this figure called Vant, who's this winged woman. They almost look like machine gun bullet belts across her body. So she's bare chested with these double belts coming across. And She is bringing people to the afterlife.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
And I don't want to just race to the ending. 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.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
And we suddenly move from this lovely eternal party to actually people are still being depicted banqueting into quite late periods. But it doesn't look as much fun anymore. We have these quite terrifying figures. And one of the really quite late examples, and not from Taquinia, from far inland, a place called Satiano, is this tomb of the Infernal Chariot.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
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 in this tomb are amazing. 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.
The Ancients
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So when I went summer before last, it was just myself and my family. So just five of us in this tomb. It's very special. I do recommend that people go and see it. A little plug for Satyana there, because 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. And what we have there are these terrifying demons.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
So there's 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 and he or she seems to have fangs as well. And she's driving this chariot that's drawn by, some people have suggested, different mythical beasts. So this is not a lovely party.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
And even though banqueting is depicted in the same tomb, the whole process of this eternal banquet just doesn't have the same overtones anymore. It's not fun anymore. The party's over. So how have we gone over the course of 200 years to these very optimistic,
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
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. 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.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
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. Even the fact it exists at all speaks to the idea that Etruscan religion is still carrying on.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
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. But actually, they're not feeling good about it. I don't want to fall into that D.H. Lawrence trap, but when he visits Tarquinia, he just falls under the spell of these tombs because they're so beautiful.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
Yep. Reminders for everybody that is kind of not listened to, not listened to the first part of the Etruscans episode as a warm-up for this. Come on, people. So we are talking central Italy. 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, if that gives you a nice little boundary.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
It's a vision of the afterlife that's just enchanting. But that's gone.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
So Tarquinia is a really interesting case study for the Roman conquest of Etruria. Cary to Etruria just staying out things. We've talked about them. They've chosen that route. 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.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
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. So from, by Livy's reckoning, from about 358 to 281, we have this series of truces and agreements. But by 281, we see that Tarquinia has fallen. There is this triumph celebrating victory over the Etruscans back in Rome.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
And then the next year, they're heading northwards up that coastal strip where a lot of the Etruscan wealth is centred. Vulci next. Vulci we haven't talked about very much today, but it's very much a centre of Etruscan artisans. 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.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
And then Arezzo goes to, I think Arezzo watches what's happening and they think, oh my gosh, we'd better be like Carey. They try that kind of the diplomatic route. They kind of go that softer route and they avoid things. But then Orvieto, Etruscan, Volsynia, they go the harder route and then we have more violence. In the territory of Orvieto, Volsynia, we have this Fanum Voltumne, which is this
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
temple of all Etruria, which supposedly was the meeting place for this Etruscan league. If we go back to the beginning, these 12 cities, they're meant to all meet here. When Rome takes Volsynia, you'll never guess what happens to the Phanumvulton, though. It gets completely destroyed and all the goodies are carted back to Rome.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
Again, that statement of dismantling a political system, 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.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
And it's so interesting because I think the Oviedo 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. And we do have this word laotni, which seems to mean kind of like peasantry or
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
But it doesn't seem very clear. 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 in the Greek world and in the Roman world. So if there is a slave revolt, whose slaves are they and what are they doing? What are they rebelling against? Where has this come from?
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
What we're going to be talking about today is the kind of period where they're at their absolute height. So we are talking about So we'll probably start around 600 BC, and then we'll roll forwards in time from there.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
Are these peasants who are unhappy? Are these actual enslaved people? When you say slave revolt to me, I think about Spartacus, but 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. And we see this again and again in Roman history.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
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. 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.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
And then, oh, oops, actually, we've taken your territory and you are going to be left here with 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.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
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. We see it again up in the kind of Florence area, this idea that there's a revolt. It's fine for us to come in and tidy up because these people are losing control anyway.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
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 know they were writing.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
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 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 it's not just burial rituals.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
It's also a kind of religious practice. 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. So Etruscan religion is still really important. And some of the most famous archaeological artefacts that we have
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
that tell us about Etruscan religion actually date from this later period. There's this amazing bronze liver from Piacenza, which is quite far north in Etruscan sphere of influence. It's amazing. It's a bronze model of a sheep's liver. You do get these from the ancient Near East. This is very much an Etruscan one.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
It's divided into 16 different areas, which seem to be connected with different astrological houses. And these are all related to these different Etruscan deities. So you have Selva on the Fufluns, Etruscan Dionysus. Try saying that carefully, Fufluns. And Kel, this Etruscan kind of earth deity as well. So that's just this extraordinary piece of Etruscan religious background.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
fabric that we have from this later period really famous so like when i spoke to you last it's just been discovered the sanctuary at san casiano 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 we see these votive figurines as well you know these are all later things it's clearly a huge part of people's lives just continuing these these remote sanctuaries
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
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. And archaeologically, there's this real preconception that the Etruscans 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.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
Also, we have respect for property. So an amazing archaeological discovery, the Cortona tablets. So these were found in 1992. 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? And it's a bronze tablet in different pieces.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
It's about 200 words long, which doesn't sound like a lot, but for the Etruscans, that'll do nicely. And what it's talking about is dealing with an inheritance, dealing with land being split up among different people. So there's a vineyard and it belongs to the Cusi family. And it's being given to another person called Atruscavus and his wife.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
So potentially these independent Etruscan women are still there. She's important enough to be mentioned in this document. There's a list of witnesses. There's also the magistrate, talked about Etruscan magistrates. He's named Lausica, these Etruscan names are continuing. So this is long after the Roman supposed conquest, but Etruscan law, you know, it's hard, isn't it?
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
You can't kind of say, oh, Etruscan law as if it's like British law today, but the way that Etruscan land management practices are managed is still happening under this Roman rule. So that's really interesting. 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.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
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 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 on revolt isn't it where the Etruscans and others kind of try to
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
Yeah, just 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. 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 the Quiller from? He's from Clusium. He's an Etruscan.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
Even in these most iconic places, That's a long way from kind of Livy and the hardcore archaeology, but it's just that kind of ghost of Etruscan people that continues on. And I think we could almost have a whole episode about the afterlives of the Etruscans. She says, plugging herself to come back in, you know... to talk about the afterlives of the Etruscans because they're so important.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
They continue to be really influential into the Renaissance when they're rediscovered. I've argued in publications that they influence the way that different Renaissance artists painted and depicted the human form. I just think their continued legacy is so fascinating. they never really go away. They're still there and they're still important.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
There's this lovely story about it's an Etruscan seer who tells Caesar not to go to the Senate. And it's Etruscan priests, Etruscan harispices that are really a problem for Christians when they're taking over in Rome. And they even pop up really late. There's a Pope who's trying to work out what to do in the face of a threat on the city.
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Fall of the Etruscans
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.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
The Etruscan seers pop up and say, well, actually, if you ask us, and he's like, I didn't ask you. Nobody's asking you, but they're still there, which is really fascinating. So again, it's that survival of religion, survival of culture, not necessarily survival of political power.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
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? Are they not?
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
Is this a genuine historical figure? 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.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
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. It depends if you're a Greek person wanting to expand into the Western Mediterranean, in which case they're a complete pain and an obstruction.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
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. And we find these Corinthian wares in Etruria and then we move forwards in time and we see the Attic black and red figure wares get really popular in Etruria.
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Fall of the Etruscans
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.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
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.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
So if it wasn't for the Etruscans, I'm sorry, you Beasley boardmen, all you people with your Exegios painters and this and that. You wouldn't have that if it wasn't for the Etruscans. 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.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
So in theory, according to the historical texts, there are these 12 cities of the Etruscan League, the Dodecapolis, and they make up a collective that identify themselves together as the Rasna, Rasena, the people of the Etruscans. 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.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
And there are these smaller settlements, more archaeological excavations at places like Progetti Vittate, which is near Siena, and recent amazing discoveries at places like San Cassiano di Bagni, although that's a lot later. They show that there's much more activity taking place in Etruria outside these 12 traditional cities.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
And it used to be that people would say Etruria is a really good model of this traditional idea about core and periphery. So taking models of Greek city-states, and you have the city at the center and then you have the periphery and the tribute and the trade goes in. And then the city gets rich.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
But in a true way, 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. And there's an awful lot more going on. And I'd like people to remember that as we go on and talk about the kind of interactions with Rome, because this is something that's going to come up time and again.
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Fall of the Etruscans
And you asked about kings. So king is a really tricky term. a tricky thing. If you look at the historical sources, they will quite often, and more as we go on as we talk about these 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 Etruscan kings of Rome. But are these figures really kings?
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
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? We don't have nation states, so why does it matter that we pick up on the semantics of this word king? I think it matters because there are so many different people vying for roles where they have influence, roles where they have power.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
We know from the Etruscan texts that they have quite a complicated system of magistrates, the people who are doing these important administrative roles. 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. I would probably say,
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
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. 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.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
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 Etruscan trading city on the Adriatic. Also the Bologna area as well. So they seem to be building almost like a colonia, like a deliberately designed town.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
There's an example there called Marzabotto, which we talked about in the last episode in relation to kind of architecture, Etruscan domestic architecture. 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 Marzabotto, which is really interesting.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
Oh, absolutely. Yes, I really want to talk about this. 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. We could talk for a long time about relationships between Etruria and Northern Europe, between Etruria and Gaul in particular.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
You know, I just talked about colonies. They're in the south of France, Marseille, that area. There are definitely Etruscan settlements there, trading settlements. There's fantastic Etruscan materials. So the very famous Vicks burial, the Vicks burial. Yeah, the infamous Vicks burial.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
Not just the crater, but there's also Etruscan, there's an Etruscan oineke, or a jug, in that burial as well. So if those things are coming there through Etruscan trade routes, which they might well be, we can see Etruscan influence there. There's an amazing, enormous hillfort site in Germany called the Heunerberg, and there's a ton of Etruscan material, but I'm being
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
I'm exaggerating, but there is Etruscan material from there as well. And then in Spain as well. So we have Etruscan material from the south of Spain, near Cádiz. So the Etruscans 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. They ally with each other at various points.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
I like to facetiously portray them as, from the Greek sources' 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. These are these horrible barbarians who are just stopping us from accessing all these exciting markets.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
Yeah, so I'm going to kind of start with south of Rome because I think we're going to inevitably talk a lot about Rome. So let's put it off for as long as we can. So the Etruscans expand all the way down into Campania and it seems like there's almost like a little boundary here. So the kind of Greek influence of real Magna Graecia southern Italy kind of butts up against Etruscan influence.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
And the second longest Etruscan inscription that we have actually comes from Capua, so southern Campania, so Santa Maria Capua Verteres, excavations there.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
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. 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. And we can see that happening there, which is really interesting.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
You can also see it in kind of burial styles. Beautiful, famous painted tombs at Paestum and the Tomb of the Diver, really very Etruscan kind of influenced in the styling.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
also in sort of pottery you can see it in place names 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 like are these people who are part of can we call it an etruscan empire i don't want to are we seeing some heavy influence are we seeing actual people going there and kind of
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
governing this, it's really tricky to pull apart the actual day-to-day nature of what it would have been like living in this Etruscan influence, not Etruscan-administered southern extent of that area. In the middle of this, we have Rome. We've talked to the north, we've talked to the south, we've talked all about the Western Mediterranean trading world,
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
Rome is kind of sitting smack in the middle of this. And if we go back to our Demaratus 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. So
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
Demaratus 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, 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 Lydia. And again,
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
It's kind of a trope with the Etruscans. There's a book describing them as the most religious of people. So there's this idea that they're kind of mystical. They understand things that others don't. And this young man, Lucius Tarquinius, he marries this woman called Tanaquil, and they decide to go and seek their fortune elsewhere.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
And on their way, on their journey, an eagle swoops down from the skies and steals his hat. And it's just, it's such an incongruous moment. Like if this happened, can you imagine just walking along and then there's these blimmin' talons in your hair? It'd be horrible. But Taniquil's quick thinking and she kind of spins this as actually you are destined for great things.
The Ancients
Fall of the Etruscans
You have been chosen by the eagle. We can see all this Roman symbolism coming in really nicely. Lucius Tarquinius and his wife Taniquil, they end up in Rome. They make all the big moves. They persuade the population that they are so wonderful and they get voted in as king in about 16 to 579. That's his reign, supposedly, if we go with Livy's dates. And he gets this new name.