DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.785#0027
introduction.] ETRURIA PROPER. xxvii
where Athens, Sparta, Argos, Thebes—or in Italy of the middle
ages, where Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Florence—were representatives
of so many independent, sovereign states, possessed of extensive
territory.
Such seems to have been the extent of Etruria in the time of
Tarquinius Priscus, when she gave a dynasty to Rome, probably
as to a conquered city. But ere long the Gauls on the north and
east,3 the Sabines, Samnites, and Greek colonists on the south,4
succeeded in compressing this wide-spread dominion into the
comparatively narrow limits of the central region. This may
be called Etruria Proper, because it was the peculiar seat of the
Etruscan power—the mother-country whence the adjoining
districts were conquered or colonised—the source where the
peculiar political and religious system of the nation took its
rise—the region where the power of Etruria continued to
flourish long after it had been extinguished in the rest of Italy,
and where the name, religion, language and customs of the
people were preserved for ages after they had lost their political
independence, and had been absorbed in the colossal corporation
of Rome.
It is Etruria Proper alone of which I propose to treat in the
following pages.
It was still an extensive region of the Italian peninsula, com-
prehending almost the whole of modern Tuscany, the Duchy of
Lucca, and the Transtiberine portion of the Papal State; being
bounded on the north by the Apennines and the river Magra,8
on the east by the Tiber, on the west and south by the Mediter-
ranean. This region was intersected by several ranges of
mountains, lateral branches or offsets of the great spine-bone
V. p. 251. Scbkentum, also, from the 3 Liv. V. 35 ; XXXVII. 57 ; Polyb.
temple of the Etruscan Minerva on its II, 17 ; Diodor. Sic. XIV. p. 321 • Plin.
promontory, must have belonged to that III. 19 ; Plut. Camill. ; Isidor. Orig.
people (Stat. Sylv. II. 2, 2 ; Steph. XV. 1.
Byz. mb wee) ; and Mailer (Etrusk. i Liv. IV. 37 ; Strabo, V. p. 247;
einL 4, 2) would also include Salernum. Plin. III. 9; Dionys. Hal. VII. p. 420,
Niebuhr (I. p. 73 et seq.), however, et seq.
considers most of what is said of the 5 For the conflicting authorities as to
Etruscan possessions south of the Tiber the north-western boundary of Etruria,
to refer to the Tyrrhene-Pelasgi, not to see Vol. II. p. 78.
the Etruscans, properly so called.
where Athens, Sparta, Argos, Thebes—or in Italy of the middle
ages, where Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Florence—were representatives
of so many independent, sovereign states, possessed of extensive
territory.
Such seems to have been the extent of Etruria in the time of
Tarquinius Priscus, when she gave a dynasty to Rome, probably
as to a conquered city. But ere long the Gauls on the north and
east,3 the Sabines, Samnites, and Greek colonists on the south,4
succeeded in compressing this wide-spread dominion into the
comparatively narrow limits of the central region. This may
be called Etruria Proper, because it was the peculiar seat of the
Etruscan power—the mother-country whence the adjoining
districts were conquered or colonised—the source where the
peculiar political and religious system of the nation took its
rise—the region where the power of Etruria continued to
flourish long after it had been extinguished in the rest of Italy,
and where the name, religion, language and customs of the
people were preserved for ages after they had lost their political
independence, and had been absorbed in the colossal corporation
of Rome.
It is Etruria Proper alone of which I propose to treat in the
following pages.
It was still an extensive region of the Italian peninsula, com-
prehending almost the whole of modern Tuscany, the Duchy of
Lucca, and the Transtiberine portion of the Papal State; being
bounded on the north by the Apennines and the river Magra,8
on the east by the Tiber, on the west and south by the Mediter-
ranean. This region was intersected by several ranges of
mountains, lateral branches or offsets of the great spine-bone
V. p. 251. Scbkentum, also, from the 3 Liv. V. 35 ; XXXVII. 57 ; Polyb.
temple of the Etruscan Minerva on its II, 17 ; Diodor. Sic. XIV. p. 321 • Plin.
promontory, must have belonged to that III. 19 ; Plut. Camill. ; Isidor. Orig.
people (Stat. Sylv. II. 2, 2 ; Steph. XV. 1.
Byz. mb wee) ; and Mailer (Etrusk. i Liv. IV. 37 ; Strabo, V. p. 247;
einL 4, 2) would also include Salernum. Plin. III. 9; Dionys. Hal. VII. p. 420,
Niebuhr (I. p. 73 et seq.), however, et seq.
considers most of what is said of the 5 For the conflicting authorities as to
Etruscan possessions south of the Tiber the north-western boundary of Etruria,
to refer to the Tyrrhene-Pelasgi, not to see Vol. II. p. 78.
the Etruscans, properly so called.