Etruscans
DH Lawrence felt that Italy has a more of an Etruscan pulse than Roman. Etruscans and introduced the alphabet to western Europe.
Lived between Rome and Florence (Tuscany) later PO Valley and Naples. Capital was Etruria. Herodotus told a story of the early Etruscans and they came from Lydia (SW Turkey) during a famine. But in reality they always came from Italy according to archeology. DNA evidence just confirms that people moved from this area duing the Ice Age
Etruscan invented Bucchero pottery (fired black all they way through). Very good metal workers. Very good mineral sources in Tuscany (tin and copper for Bronze) - accounts from prosperity and get Greek artists to come and make things for them.
But so little written evidence of them - no military or sacred books, plays or history etc. Perhaps the Romans destroyed their achive but no evidence. Greeks and Romans were uncomplementary of their culture. Traded with the Phoenecians and exporting wine to France.
Military status was very important to them but no more so than Greeks or Romans of the same eras.
Etruscans were not a nation. Power and status seems to be focused on the individual then family clans being powerful running cities. Not a great federation between cities and support each other if another city was threatened. There language was not Indo-European. Just a few thousand short inscriptions (tombstones, wall paintings, grave goods or votive offerings) and just a few texts. No where else has a language like Etruscan - when they wrote it down used a version of Greek alphabet.
Etruscan religions seems to be different to other societies. The basis of Etruscan religion was the fundamental idea that the destiny of man was completely determined by the vagaries of the many deities worshipped by the Etruscans. Every natural phenomenon, such as lightning, the structure of the internal organs of sacrificial animals, or the flight patterns of birds, was therefore an expression of the divine will, and contained a message which could be interpreted by trained priests such as Augurs A divine being rose up from the newly ploughed furrow, a being with the appearance of a child, but with the wisdom of an old man.and told Etruscans how to interpret the signs of the Gods. Tinia was supreme god equivalent to Jupiter
Women were more in evidence in paintings and had their own name but it was a patriarchial society.
Great painted tombs at Tarquinia. Hunting fishing, banqueting. Etruscan ideas using Greek techniques - not imitating.
Etruscans were still relevant during Augustus' reign - he was supported by 19 families of Etruscan origin so their influence from the 9th C BC to 1st C AD. The first of Claudius's wives was Etruscan.
Etruscans were absorbed or conquered by Rome and Romanized
