Etruria

Etruria, the ancient name of the country in Italy lying to the W. of the Apennines and the Tiber. This was Etruria proper, though at a certain period of .prosperity the Etruscans held the valley of the Po and part of the region south of the Tiber. Central Etruria consisted of a confederation of twelve cities, and one of these cities, whose remains show that it must have contained a vast population and have reached a high state of civilisation, was for centuries the great rival and deadly foe of Rome. The early history of Rome is mixed up with that of Etruria: the Tarquins were an Etruscan family who gained the upper hand in Rome, and were driven from it by a revolt, and Lars Porsena of Clusium was perhaps no more a, single personage than Pharaoh of Egypt, since the name seems to have designated an office. Throughout the country vast cemeteries, the remains of Cyclopean wralls, countless inscriptions in archaic language, and often indecipherable, richly decorated tombs, and mural paintings, bear witness to a civilisation compared with which that of Rome was infantine. The Etruscan civilisation was centuries earlier than that of Rome, and when history, as distinct from legend, begins, Etruria was a great naval power fit to ally itself with Carthage, and Rome was to a great extent an Etruscan city, deriving much of its religion, social customs, and greatness from that source. Hiero of Syracuse fought with and defeated an Etruscan fleet off Cumee in 525 B.C. The deathblow to Etruria as a separate power seems to have been given by the irruption of the Gauls under Brennus, and from that time they gradually yielded to the supremacy of Rome.