In the early history of Rome, the Etruscians played a prominent part. According to tradition, they were the third of the constituent elements which went to form the city of Rome. However, this tradition is still an unsolved historical mystery. It is almost certain that there is no foundation for the ancient theory that the third Roman tribe, known as Luceres, represented an Etruscian element of the population; it is believed by many historians that the tradition of the Tarquin kings of Rome represents the temporary domination of Etruscian lords, who extended their conquests some time before 600 B.C. over Latium and Campania. This theory is corroborated by the fact that during the reigns of the Tarquin kings Rome appears as the mistress of a district including part of Eutruria, several cities in Latium; however, the earliest picture of Republican Rome is that of a small state in the midst of enemies. Part of this historical confusion may stem from the fact that Etruscian language has been declared dissimilar to any other language. Many attempts of various kinds, none completely successful, have been made to decipher this difficult language. Scholars still base their labors on the internal study of the language and employ the principle of combination and chronology to elucidate less known details by established details.

 The problem of the origin and connection of the Etruscians has assumed a new aspect owing to the progress of archaeological research. The expectation that the key to the Etruscian language would some day be found has not evolved; it has been evident that the limited character and style of the inscriptions forbids any hope that they will ever yield historical information of value. On the other hand, the steady progress of archaeological exploration and comparative study has revealed the chronological sequence of the various sites and their relative antiquity . It is believed that the Etruscians were Orientals or semi-Orientals. This belief is determined by examining the character of their earliest art which shows a contact with Mesopotamia, Syria and Cyprus on the one side and with Egypt on the other. The deities and mythological figures on Etruscian gold-work and the jewelry of the 7th century are clearly related to the deities and heroes of Asiatic mythology. Much of the art work may have been imported, however, the clear influences suggest that the trade of these centuries was exclusively with the East; a factor wholly new in the history of Italy which had never before traded with the Aegean, not even in the days of Mycenae.The origin, the date and the place of the Etruscians' arrival in Italy, archaeological, is that they came from somewhere between Hellespoint and Syria. Herodotus in antiquity asserts that they came from some part of Asia Minor. In regard to the question of Etruscian origins, every poet and every prose writer except Dionysius of Halicarnassus accepts as a matter of course the story of their migration from Lydia as given by Hereodotus who tells how in the reign of Atys, son of manes, there was great scarcity of food in all Lydia which lasted 18 years. " At last their king divided the people into two potions and made them draw lots so that the one part should remain and the other leave the country; he himself was to be the head of those who drew the lot to remain there, and his son, whose name was Tyrrhenus,of those who departed. Then one part of them, having drawn the lot, left the country and came down to Smyrna and built ships, whereon they set all their goods that could be carried on shipboard and sailed away to seek a livelihood and a country." In its broad lines the story told by Herodotus is borne out by archaeological research.

 The Etruscian nation was very loosely organized, even in the days of its greatest power. It always retained the character of an aggregate of clans. Though these clans refrained from internecine war, they were quite unwilling to band together for any common cause except under the stress of some extraordinary emergency. Each city, similar to the cities in Greek antiquity, seemed to have considered itself free to conduct its own policy, and to make war or peace with little consideration or no consideration for the interests of the rest. Thus history records few more pathetic instances of political blindness than the apathy of the great Etrurian cities in the long wars between Veii and Rome, which allowed the Romans, though actually the weaker, to swallow all Etruria piecemeal. There is evidence in the 6th century B.C. that the Etruscians had a confederacy of twelve cities. This confederacy seemed to be organized not so much for politically purposes but more principally for affairs in religion.

 It is perhaps, the Etruscian religion and its organizing impact on the order of cities that is most interesting. Intellectually, the Etruscians were the link between the Romans and the Greeks. On the mainland of Italy, the Roman tribes moved south, the Greeks moved north and the Etruscians geographically were caught between the two. The intellectually ideas of the Greeks were interpreted and transformed into new ideas by the Etruscians, and then these Etruscian ideas were interpreted and transformed into their own ideas by the Romans. This process of transformation was previously referred to as evoked perception. The Etruscians laid the foundation for Roman thought and in particular the foundation for Roman cities, the bulwark of the Roman Empire.

 Mythologically, the Etruscians were fascinated with a number of ideas. The first was a fascination and belief that the number twelve was sacred. A simple example of this fascination with the number twelve is seen in the fact that they formed a confederacy of twelve cities. They were the predecessor for a continuing fascination with the number twelve. In Western civilization, we have twelve months in the year, twelve hours in the day, twelve hours in the night, twelve inches make up a foot and in Christianity, Christ was surrounded and served by twelve disciples. Often the distinction between a twelve year old and a thirteen year is the distinction between a child and an adolescent.

 Another fascination for the Etruscians was their fascination with the end of life rather than the beginning of life. Their life after death seemed more significant than their living life, and much of their planning ideologies were ideologies for their imagined cities for the dead rather than for the real cities of the living. The Romans in their conquest of the Etruscians would look upon these ideas and as a people civilization applied these ideas to the many cities that they would form as part of their vast empire.

How do you imagine that principles for planning cities of the dead, namely burial sites, could have been useful for the Romans in planning their cities for the living?