In her new book, Luciana Aigner-Foresti attempts to provide an overview of Etruscan history from the precursors of the specifically Etruscan civilisation in the late Bronze Age to its afterlife in the Roman Imperial period and Late Antiquity. As a historian, the author is particularly interested in presenting the connection between ‘the individual areas of the life of the Etruscan people’ and ‘in the opinion that a coherent view of Etruscan research is not sufficiently cultivated in comparison to the object-related and art-historical perspective’. (p. 7). In line with this intention, the treatment of Etruscan culture is organised diachronically, in broadly defined chronological sections, within which the author then proceeds according to individual, but again broadly defined subject areas (e.g. state order, social dynamics, economic foundations and trade relations). This clearly distinguishes Aigner-Foresti’s approach from other overviews, which are organised according to individual subject areas and are sometimes quite minutely structured[1]. The discussion alternates between chapters and sub-chapters focussing more on cultural history and others (especially for the later eras) more on event history. Both are subordinated to a clearly recognisable, overarching interest in social dynamics, so that the individual sections do connect in a continuous, logical manner.
After an introduction, which is particularly worth reading because it gives an outline of available sources and it describes possible ways of their methodical handling, Chapter 1 provides a very brief introduction to the geography of the Etruscan settlement areas. Chapter 2 deals with the cultural development within the borders of later Etruria during the more recent phases of the Bronze Age (second half of the 2nd millennium BC), paying particular attention to factors that were decisive for socio-economic dynamics, such as the mining of ores and metal processing, settlement concentration and relationships with neighbouring regions such as the Terramare culture in northern Italy. The third chapter, on the ‘Beginnings of Etruscan identity’, is more complex. First, in the section on the so-called Villanovan culture, Aigner Foresti describes upheavals of the previous conditions through the formation of large settlements and clear social hierarchies (3.1); then she links these developments with processes of change in the entire Iron Age-Mediterranean (3.2). In further sub-chapters, the author examines the essential markers of an emerging Etruscan identity, namely self-awareness as an ethnic entity[2] and language (3.3-5).
The fourth chapter is probably the most extensive in terms of content, as it spans an arc from the definitive development of a civilization that we can call Etruscan through exchange with cultures of the eastern Mediterranean, from the 9th century BC onwards, to the historical climax of Etruscan influence in Italy and beyond, at the turn of the 6th and 5th centuries BC. Within this larger context, individual sub-chapters deal with external contacts, which are regarded as important drivers for socio-cultural developments (4.1), the formation of politically constituted orders (4.2), the social elite, recognisable by its distinctive lifestyle (4.3), the emerging ‘middle class’ within the productive and commercial sphere (4.4), various topics summarised under the term ‘community tasks’ such as war, transport and trade, state institutions, religion and cult (4.5)[3], socio-political changes like the abolition of kingship or the institutional limitation of aristocratic power (4.6) and finally the cities as centres of social and political life (4.7).
After this tour de force, the following two chapters (5 and 6) examine the Etruscans’ relations with their neighbours in Italy and in the western Mediterranean region between the 6th and 2nd centuries BC. Insofar as some of these neighbours, namely the Greeks and Romans, report in historical texts on contacts and, above all, conflicts with the Etruscans, Aigner-Foresti is able to draw on literary sources as well as on archaeological evidence for her account. However, the author by no means only refers to military events, but also systematically searches for the causes of the decline of Etruscan power and the eventual subjugation by Rome (esp. 6.3). In this respect, she emphasises in particular the disunity between the Etruscan poleis as a decisive cause for the loss of autonomy.
Chapter 7 examines the social conditions and changes in the centuries of the dwindling external power of Etruscan cities. The author can show that the widespread image of a decadent, self-doubting Etruscan ruling class is inconclusive. Rather, the Etruscans adapted economically to the changing conditions (7.1), so that a still prosperous Etruscan aristocracy acted self-confidently in its own cities (7.3) as well as with respect to the new hegemonic power of Rome (7.4) – and this despite territorial losses (7.2) and internal conflicts. Aigner-Foresti then links the final decline of Etruscan society plausibly with the demographic consequences of Rome’s further imperial expansion in the Mediterranean (e.g. population losses due to wars, import of slaves) (7.5).
The concluding eighth chapter deals with the gradual disappearance of an independent, identifiable Etruscan culture and its absorption into a new Roman Italy – a process for which the Social War (90-88 BC) with the subsequent spread of Roman civil rights, Roman municipal constitutions and Latin as an official language formed an important milestone (8.1). Of particular interest here are Aigner-Foresti’s remarks on linguistic change and the integration of elements of Etruscan cult practice, namely divination and the interpretation of omens, into Roman religion (8.3 and 8.5).
To sum up, the author succeeds in providing an overview of Etruscan history that brings together many different aspects of Etruscan culture and is based on her excellent knowledge of sources of varying character – linguistic, epigraphic, historiographical, and archaeological. However, Aigner-Foresti does not make it easy for her readers, especially those who are not already familiar with the Etruscans. Nevertheless, by offering a wealth of evidence for historical processes, she always formulates her theses on the basis of concrete facts, so that even the expert can still learn a lot. This is certainly one of the book’s strengths. On the other hand, with the inductive method and source-based mode of argumentation pursued by the author, the less prepared reader runs the risk of failing to grasp the context[4]. In this respect, a few sentences providing general orientation on the topic, especially at the start of individual chapters and sub-chapters, would have been desirable. However, this hardly detracts from the high quality of the book, for which I can only wish a wide distribution, even beyond the German-speaking world.
Notes
[1] E.g. Alessandro Naso (ed.), Etruscology, 2 volumes (Berlin – Boston 2017); Gilda Bartoloni (ed.), Introduzione all’Etruscologia (Milano 2012).
[2] It should not be concealed that the reviewer, unlike Aigner-Foresti (pp. 47-49), with regard to the notice handed down by Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Ant. Rom. 1, 30, 3) that the Etruscans themselves called themselves “Rasenna,” is more inclined towards Helmut Rix’s opinion that there must be a misunderstanding by Dionysius and that the term is not an ethnicon, but should rather be compared with the Latin populus: Helmut Rix, “Etr. meχ rasnal = lat. res publica”, in: Maria Grazi Marzi Costagli (ed.), Studi di antichità in onore di Guglielmo Maetzke, vol. 2 (Roma 1984) pp. 455-468.
[3] Within this context, the author sometimes uses terms (p. 103, “Gottesmann”, “Gotteshäuser”) which in my opinion are hardly applicable to Etruscan religion, inasmuch ancient priests or temples were too much different from Christian clerics or churches; cf. (for Rome) e.g. John Scheid, La religion des Romains4 (Malakoff 2019) p. 127.
[4] To mention only three examples: chapter 4.1 (p. 59) starts with remarks on horse-snaffles as grave goods in Villanovian contexts; chapter 4.3 (p. 75) with the terracotta-model of a luxury shoe from Vetulonia; chapter 7.7 (p. 221) with a vase bearing a paχa-inscription from Caere.