to 753
BC - Italy before the Romans |
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Etruscans |
700 BC |
- Etruscans borrow alphabet from Greeks
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650 BC |
- Etruscans spread to Capua and Pompeii
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535 BC |
- Etruscans and Carthaginians join in battle against the
Greeks at Alalia
- Weakens Greek position, causing withdrawal
- Etruscans capture Corsica
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- Herodotus Histories,
I.94 The
Lydians have very nearly the same customs as the
Hellenes, with the exception that these last do not
bring up their girls the same way. So far as we have
any knowledge, the Lydians were the first to introduce
the use of gold and silver coin, and the first who
sold good retail. They claim also the invention of
all the games which are common to them with the Hellenes.
These they declare that they invented about the time
when they colonized Tyrrhenia [i.e., Etruria],
an event of which they give the following account.
In the days of Atys the son of Manes, there was great
scarcity through the whole land of Lydia. For some
time the Lydians bore the affliction patiently, but
finding that it did not pass away, they set to work
to devise remedies for the evil. Various expedients
were discovered by various persons: dice, knuckle-bones,
and ball, and all such games were invented, except checkers,
the invention of which they do not claim as theirs. The
plan adopted against the famine was to engage in games
one day so entirely as not to feel any craving for food,
and the next day to eat and abstain from games. In this
way they passed eighteen years.
- Still the affliction continued, and even
became worse. So the king determined to divide the
nation in half, and to make the two portions draw lots,
the one to stay, the other to leave the land. He would
continue to reign over those whose lot it should be to
remain behind; the emigrants should have his son Tyrrhenus
for their leader. The lot was cast, and they who had
to emigrate went down to Smyrna, and built themselves
ships, in which, after they had put on board all needful
stores, they sailed away in search of new homes and better
sustenance. After sailing past many countries, they came
to Umbria, where they built cities for themselves, and
fixed their residence. Their former name of Lydians they
laid aside, and called themselves after the name of the
king's
son, who led the colony, Tyrrhenians.
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- Livy History
of Rome, Book 5.1: The
Veientines, on the other hand, tired of the annual
canvassing for office, elected a king. This gave great
offence to the Etruscan cantons, owing to their hatred
of monarchy and their personal aversion to the one
who was elected. He was already obnoxious to the nation
through his pride of wealth and overbearing temper,
for he had put a violent stop to the festival of the
Games, the interruption of which is an act of impiety.
The Etruscans as a nation were distinguished above
all others by their devotion to religious observances,
because they excelled in the knowledge and conduct
of them....
- Book 7.2. But the violence of the
epidemic was not alleviated by any aid from either
men or gods, and it is asserted that as men's minds were
completely overcome by superstitious terrors they introduced,
amongst other attempts to placate the wrath of heaven,
scenic representations, a novelty to a nation of warriors
who had hitherto only had the games of the Circus. They
began, however, in a small way, as nearly everything does,
and small as they were, they were borrowed from abroad.
The players were sent for from Etruria; there were no words,
no mimetic action; they danced to the measures of the flute
and practiced graceful movements in Etruscan fashion. Afterwards
the young men began to imitate them, exercising their wit
on each other in burlesque verses, and suiting their action
to their words. This became an established diversion, and
was kept up by frequent practice. The Etruscan word for
an actor is istrio, and so the
native performers were called histriones. These
did not, as in former times, throw out rough extempore effusions
like the Fescennine verse, but they chanted satyrical
verses quite metrically arranged and adapted to the notes
of the flute, and these they accompanied with appropriate
movements.
- Several years later Livius for the first time
abandoned the loose satyrical verses and ventured
to compose a play with a coherent plot. Like all his contemporaries,
he acted in his own plays, and it is said that when
he had worn out his voice by repeated recalls he begged
leave to place a second player in front of the flutist
to sing the monologue while he did the acting, with all
the more energy because his voice no longer embarrassed
him. Then the practice commenced of the chanter following
the movements of the actors, the dialogue alone being left
to their voices. When, by adopting this method in the presentation
of pieces, the old farce and loose jesting was given up
and the play became a work of art, the young people left
the regular acting to the professional players and began
to improvise comic verses. These were subsequently known
as exodia [after-pieces],
and were mostly worked up into the Atellane Plays.
These farces were of Oscan origin, and were kept by the
young men in their own hands; they would not allow them
to be polluted by the regular actors.
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Latins |
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An Italian tribe that is the origin of the Latin lanuage. Rome's founders, Romulus and Remus, were members of the Latin tribe.
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Greek Westward Movement / Beginning of Etruscan
Civilization |
750 BC |
- First successful Greek colony in Italy at Cumae in south-central
near present day Naples
- Other Greek movement leads to Etruscan influence in Italy
- Herodotus Histories,
1.94, p. 40. According to Herodotus, a severe famine
caused King Atys of Lydia to divide the population "into
two groups and determined by drawing lots which should
emigrate and which should remain at home. He appointed
himself to rule the section whose lot determined
that they should remain, and his son Tyrrhenus to
command the emigrants. The lots were drawn, and one
section...finally reached Umbria in the north of
Italy, where they settled and still live to this
day. Here they changed their name from Lydians to
Tyrrhenians [Greek name for the Etruscans], after
the King's son Tyrrhenus, who was their leader."
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