Book contents
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- List of Illustrations
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- CHAPTER I THE ANCIENT CITY AND ETRURIA
- CHAPTER II A LONG PROCESS AND RAPID CHANGE
- CHAPTER III ORIENTALISING: ACCESSIBILITY AND TRANSFORMATION
- CHAPTER IV THE TRANSFORMATION OF FUNERARY IDEOLOGY
- CHAPTER V THE TRANSFORMATION OF POLITICAL AUTHORITY
- CHAPTER VI THE TRANSFORMATION OF GRAVE-GOODS
- CHAPTER VII ETRURIA AND ITS URBAN MEDITERRANEAN NETWORK
- BIBLIOGRAPHY
- INDEX
CHAPTER I - THE ANCIENT CITY AND ETRURIA
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2014
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- List of Illustrations
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- CHAPTER I THE ANCIENT CITY AND ETRURIA
- CHAPTER II A LONG PROCESS AND RAPID CHANGE
- CHAPTER III ORIENTALISING: ACCESSIBILITY AND TRANSFORMATION
- CHAPTER IV THE TRANSFORMATION OF FUNERARY IDEOLOGY
- CHAPTER V THE TRANSFORMATION OF POLITICAL AUTHORITY
- CHAPTER VI THE TRANSFORMATION OF GRAVE-GOODS
- CHAPTER VII ETRURIA AND ITS URBAN MEDITERRANEAN NETWORK
- BIBLIOGRAPHY
- INDEX
Summary
The formation of city-states in Italy under the influence of Greek models is therefore indisputable. But several factors complicate our understanding of it. First of all, we are not in a position to account for the authority, skill and rapidity with which the Etruscans turned the Villanovan culture of central Italy (whether it is native or alien ground to them) into one of the most enduring networks of cities history has ever known. It is only too obvious that the Etruscans remained different from the Greeks, however much they learned from them; and it will become apparent from what follows that what the Romans learned from the Greeks does not coincide with what the Etruscans learned from them.
A. Momigliano 1984, 380Etruria, the Most Enduring Network of Cities
Writing about the origins of Rome, Arnaldo Momigliano, in his inimitable style, touched on the heart of a problem still debated around the Early Iron Age in Etruria, also known as Villanovan period: how did Etruscan centres become cities of such a complex type and in such a swift fashion?
Momigliano's scepticism as to our ability to understand the problem is surely shared by some still today and is mainly motivated by the virtual absence of Etruscan written sources. This is a remarkable and certainly frustrating, if not unique, state of affairs: it prevents us from accessing a richness of information that only textual evidence can provide and prevents us from perusing some aspects – the mentalité, the imaginary, above all, the sociopolitical institutions – of a civilisation, the Etruscans, that was as sophisticated as Greece and Rome.
- Type
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- Information
- The Urbanisation of EtruriaFunerary Practices and Social Change, 700–600 BC, pp. 1 - 10Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009