German writer Werner Keller once stated the Etruscans wrote "the first, great chapter of Western history." Between the 8th and the 6th century BC, this ancient people of miners, metalworkers and seafaring traders settled in the area between today's western Umbria, Tuscany and northern Lazio (somewhat extending to Emilia-Romagna and Lombardy in the North, and Campania in the South). They reached a level of power that Livy describes as "quite extensive over the sea and land" before the Romans took over.
And even Rome's culture and power grew and developed at first in close connection to Etruscan history: indeed, the last three Capitoline kings – Tarquinio Prisco, Servio Tullio and Tarquinius Superbus – were Etruscan (aristocrats rebelled against the latter and overthrew him in 509 BC: thus ended the Etruscan hegemony in Rome and the Roman Republic was born).
Fonte: Italian Ways
