CHAPTER 6
The Etruscans and the Mediterranean

Giovannangelo Camporeale

1. Introduction1

Livy (History of Rome 5.33.7–8) preserves a tradition that ascribes great power to the Etruscans, not only on land but also on the seas.2 In fact, the two bodies of water that lap the Italian peninsula on the east and the west – the Tyrrhenian and the Adriatic, respectively – took their names from Tyrrhenus, the Etruscan patriarch, and Adria, an Etruscan colony founded along a northern tributary of the Po river delta. Pliny the Elder (Natural History 7.57.209) transmits another tradition regarding Etruscan sea power: Pisaeus, son of the aforementioned Tyrrhenus, was first to outfit warships with the beaks that served to ram and perforate enemy vessels. These traditions, although legendary, reveal the high regard that Etruscan seafaring enjoyed among the ancients, especially the Romans. Nonetheless, with a few exceptions, the Etruscans, unlike the Greeks and Phoenicians, founded no colonies along the Mediterranean coast; these would have provided an idea of their routes and the points of exchange for their products (for an overview of this subject see Camporeale 2004a).

The Mediterranean area is where the greatest ancient civilizations flourished, or at least those that have had the greatest impact on the world of today; the Mediterranean Sea, in particular, was a venue for trade, piracy, naval battles, and fishing, all activities with profound political, economic, and social implications, distinct today but often interrelated in antiquity (Figure 6.1). For example, in the first centuries of the last millennium, piracy was still practiced on occasion by wealthy merchants as a way of procuring means of subsistence for the weak, and was, therefore, considered an honorable rather than a shameful activity (see Homer Odyssey 3.68–74; Thucydides 1.5.1). The shipwreck from the island of Giglio (discussed further below) also contained a variety of goods and fishing weights, suggesting combined activities of commerce and fishing. Beyond doubt, the most common seagoing operation was trade, whether exchanges between aristocrats in private quarters governed by rules of hospitality and reciprocal gifts (the Homeric prexis), or commerce in public places such as sanctuary-emporia (from the end of the seventh century, when the Etruscan city develops as a political, administrative, and urban entity capable of founding and organizing such places). Trade involves a movement of people and objects, each of them the bearer of experiences, ideas, and tastes. And thus commerce becomes the prime mover of a process of acculturation.

Map of the Mediterranean labeling the main locations or areas with evidence of Etruscan production and paths of Etruscan expansion or of Etruscan products in Etruscan, Greek, and Phoenician territories.

Figure 6.1 Map of the Mediterranean.

Drawing: Camporeale 1992: 45.

These events presuppose the availability of products, both raw materials and manufactured goods, which enter into a long-range circuit. The raw materials are tied to the resources of the soil and those beneath the soil; in the specific case of Etruria, the most important are the products of agriculture (grains, wine, oil, fruit, vegetable fibers), animal husbandry (meat, skins, cheese, wool), wood (used in construction, naval carpentry, and fueling for “industrial” ovens), fish, salt, minerals, and metals. Manufactured products are tied to these same raw materials, worked to create objects both useful and valuable in daily life. These products brought the Etruscans into a network of commercial and cultural relationships with various peoples settled in the Mediterranean basin, some of them more advanced culturally (e.g., the Greeks, Phoenicians, and Syrians), and some less so (the Sardinians, Celts, and Tartessians). Movement by sea requires, in turn, the existence of landings (bays, river mouths, lagoons, harbors, ports, and their infrastructures), which become the areas of exchange and cultural relations, and roads that connect the site of production of exportable goods (in surplus), and that of their distribution, or, conversely, the point of arrival of imported goods and the point of their consumption. It is no coincidence that ancient writers explicitly note that the price of a product at the moment of consumption depended on the existence (and quality) of these roads (see Varro Agricultural Topics 2: proem 5). For the sake of completeness, it must be said that the products listed above also opened Etruria to peoples beyond the Alps, who sent objects and craftsmen down south and, in turn, received Etruscan objects and craftsmen, again with a series of social, economic, and cultural consequences.

Before proceeding further, it will be useful to establish some preliminary points in order to facilitate understanding of the situation to be illustrated in what follows: Etruscan civilization develops in a time frame that ranges between the end of the tenth to the beginning of the ninth centuries and the first century; hence any conclusions must be related to a precise historical moment and not generalized. Along with Etruria proper, the Etruria of the Po Valley and the Etruria of Campania must be kept in mind, the former lapped by the Adriatic Sea and the latter by the Tyrrhenian, and both involved in movements within the Mediterranean (see Map 1). In addition, because the political and administrative organization of ancient Etruria consisted of city-states, the movements of people and goods in the Mediterranean must be tied to individual cities and not to an imaginary global Etruscan nation. The coastal centers clearly projected their interests outward toward the Mediterranean more than the inland centers did; thus when ancient writers mention Etruscan involvement in Mediterranean events, even when they do not explicitly say so, they are to be understood generally as referring to the Etruscans of the coastal centers.

2. Sources of Evidence

Archaeological Finds

Our sources of information about the Etruscans and the Mediterranean are both direct and indirect. Primary sources include shipwrecks (a considerable number) (Figure 6.2) with Etruscan materials discovered in the waters of the western Mediterranean basin (for an overview see Long, Pomey and Sourisseau 2002), Etruscan inscriptions and/or products found in the countries of the Mediterranean area, as well as inscriptions and/or products of the same area found in Etruria. Shipwrecks sometimes have homogeneous cargoes, as is the case for those of Cap-d’Antibes (central decades of the sixth century) and Grand-Ribaud F (end of the sixth-beginning of the fifth century), loaded mostly with large Etruscan amphorae of wine and Etruscan ceramics or bronzes associated with serving wine, probably of Caeretan origin. Other wrecks have a mixed cargo, like those of Bon-Porté and Dattier (second half of the sixth century), which carried East Greek, Sicilian, Etruscan, and Massiliote wine amphorae. For the vessels with homogeneous cargoes, the point of departure (Caere) can be established; for those with mixed ones, it is impossible. Furthermore, the former vessels are of considerable size (the amphorae loaded on board number several hundred), while on the latter, they are small (a few dozen amphorae). It would seem to follow that the first type of vessel undertook long voyages from a precise point of origin to a precise destination, and the second type belonged to a small-scale operation departing from a major port and redistributing the merchandise among various localities along the coast (see also Long et al. 2002: 47, 49, 64; Morel 2006: 33).

Image described by caption and surrounding text.

Figure 6.2 Plan of the underwater excavation of the wreck of Cap d’Antibes, mid-sixth century BCE.

Drawing: Camporeale 2001: 90 (top).

This hypothesis, if correct, permits us to pinpoint certain aspects of the way in which maritime trade took place in the ancient Mediterranean. It is crucial, both with the archaeological sites outside Etruria and with shipwrecks, to try to establish an exact percentage of Etruscan products compared with those imported from the outside or of local production, in order to reconstruct a more accurate picture of the maritime trade in Etruscan products, and, more precisely, to determine whether this movement was managed by Etruscan shippers or shippers from elsewhere. In effect, the presence of Etruscan material outside Etruria does not mean that it must have been transported exclusively by Etruscans; it could also have been transported by Greek or Phoenician ships making landfall in an Etruscan port before moving on to other sites. Some scholars have argued that because the Cap-d’Antibes shipwreck yielded a lamp of Punic type, it could have belonged to the Punic fleet, but similar lamps are fairly common in Caeretan tomb groups, both imports and local imitations of Punic models, suggesting that the lamp in this wreck could have been purchased on the Caeretan market. In any case, this evidence does not contradict the proposal (noted above) that the ship departed from Caere under the aegis of a Caeretan shipper.

The shipwreck from the island of Giglio (end of the seventh–beginning of the sixth century) has yielded merchandise of various types: amphorae and fineware from several East Greek workshops, Corinthian fineware and aryballoi, a bronze helmet of Corinthian type, Lakonian pottery, lamps of Greek type, a Phoenician-Punic amphora, kantharoi of Etruscan bucchero, and large Etruscan amphorae, some of which contained olives, Etruscan copper and lead ingots, wooden auloi, fisherman’s weights, arrowheads, unworked pieces of amber, and writing materials (Bound 1985, 1991). An Eastern Greek shipper has been proposed (Cristofani 1998), but this conjecture is by no means secure. It is also uncertain whether the ship made a long voyage, landing at various Mediterranean ports to load and unload merchandise, or whether it departed from an Etruscan port to redistribute the goods in other ports along the Tyrrhenian coast. The evidence gathered so far points to one basic consideration: ancient Mediterranean commerce must be analyzed in terms of geography rather than ethnicity (Gras 1985b: 158; 1989: 760; 2002: 15; Moscati 1985).

Another point to bear in mind is the context in which Etruscan material is found in a foreign country: tomb, house, or sanctuary. In the first two cases, especially if the materials are in common use and of poor quality, they could belong to Etruscans who had emigrated; in the case of a sanctuary, they may reflect an occasional visit by an Etruscan. The presence of Etruscan inscriptions in a foreign country, on the other hand, especially if they indicate the ownership of an object or come from a settlement or from tombs, indicate a stable Etruscan presence. In all of these cases, the transfer has taken place by sea and is linked to work or commerce. The overall situation, however, is neither uniform nor schematic; rather, because it is rich in particular nuances that change from instance to instance, individual findings turn out to be much more useful than generalizations.

Literary Sources

Indirect sources include data reported by ancient Greek and Latin authors writing on a variety of subjects. Our task is neither to accept such information passively nor to reject it preemptively, but rather to put it into historical context: that is, to define the time and setting in which the writer who reports the testimony lived, his political and religious orientation, the public he meant to address, whether he speaks from direct knowledge or at second hand from another source. After an analysis of this sort, the use of a piece of evidence will offer a more concrete and valid basis for judgment in reconstructing a historical setting.

The information that ancient writers transmit about Etruscan penetration into the Mediterranean has already entered the realm of historical legend. The Argonauts, after having sailed up and down the Aegean basin and the Black Sea in search of metals – the poetic version of the myth tells of conquering the Golden Fleece, guarded in Colchis by two fire-breathing bulls and a dragon – arrive in Etruria and land on the island of Elba, where they found the city of Port Argo, named after their ship, and Telamon (Talamone) on the Tyrrhenian coast, both areas rich in mines (Hec. ap. Scholia in Apollonium Rhodium 4.259 = Fragmenta 21 Nenci; Tim. ap. Fragmenta Graecorum Historicorum 566 F85; Apollonius Rhodius 4.654–658; Lyc. 877–886; Strabo Geography 5.2.6 C224). This last detail is consistent with the general sense of the myth, which characterizes the various participants in the expedition as prospectors for metal. In terms of relative chronology, the myth refers to the generation immediately previous to that of the Trojan War, considering that the Argonauts include the fathers and uncles of the Greek heroes who fought at Troy (e.g., Peleus, father of Achilles). Thus, the original myth refers to a period before the formation of the Etruscan people. Evidently, the addition of an Etruscan coda to the story derives from a time after the discovery and exploitation of the metal mines of Etruria, which attracted entrepreneurs, prospectors, and merchants from various areas of the Mediterranean to this region.

Among the theories of the Etruscans’ origins current in the ancient world (see, most recently, Bagnasco Gianni 2012; Bellelli 2012), those recorded by Hellanicus (Dionysius of Halicarnassus Roman Antiquities 1.28.3) and Herodotus (1.94) refer the event to the period immediately after the Trojan War and maintain that the Etruscans arrived from the Aegean basin to the Adriatic Sea. Indeed, according to Hellanicus, the Pelasgians, expelled from northern Greece, arrived at Spina on the upper Adriatic, and from there reached Cortona; afterwards they founded the cities of Etruria, changing their name from Pelasgians to Tyrrhenians (=Etruscans). According to Herodotus (the theory is not his; he heard it in Lydia and recorded it), the Etruscans were Lydians. In order to survive a famine that had plagued their region for years, they took to the sea under the guidance of Tyrrhenus in order to seek out new lands, reaching the land of the Umbrians (ancient Umbria, it is important to note, extended as far as the Adriatic Sea). There they founded cities.

No matter how we evaluate the historical basis of these two stories, which pose the question of Etruscan origins in terms that are no longer acceptable, it is worth emphasizing that both are transmitted by Greeks writing in the fifth century, who insist that the Etruscans arrived in Italy by sea, and, more specifically, the Adriatic Sea – that is, the waters frequented in that century by Greek ships trading with the Etruscan emporia of Adria and Spina. Presumably the two theories were developed in a Greek setting with the clear intention of celebrating this setting as giving rise to a people that had produced wealth pursued by an active commerce in the Mediterranean area. To these theories, we can add that of Anticleides (end of the fourth century), who claims that the Etruscans were Pelasgians, under Tyrrhenus, who left the island of Lemnos for Italy (Strabo Geography 5.2.4 C221). This is clearly a theory that combines its two fifth-century predecessors, and hence must have developed after they had already taken hold, as it reinforces the connection between the Etruscans and the Mediterranean from the very beginning of their history. The models for these theories are to be sought, on one hand, in the Nostoi, the homecoming tales of the Greek heroes who fought at Troy, and on the other, in the Greek colonial movement, in which a numerically important group of individuals with a founder (oikistês) at their head left a Greek city to settle on a new site in the Mediterranean. These indicate that these theories emerge from Greek historiography (see Briquel 2004; Camporeale 2004c).

3. The Etruscans in the Mediterranean: A Chronological Survey

The dawn of the historical period gives rise to another account reported by ancient sources that projects Etruria into the Mediterranean: Ephorus (Strabo Geography 6.2.2 C267) relates that Greek colonization of the eastern coast of Sicily, which goes back to the third quarter of the eighth century, was slowed because of Greek fear of the Etruscan pirates who made incursions into the Mediterranean. In all probability, this account mirrors the situation in Ephorus’s own time when, (as discussed below), the Etruscans did indeed ply the seas as pirates – a situation then projected back into the remote past. In support of this explanation, it is important to note that (presumed) Etruscan pirates are never mentioned as an obstacle to Phoenician settlement of the western part of Sicily in the eighth century (Thucydides 6.2.6).

The earliest archaeological remains at the Etruscan site of Pontecagnano, in the immediate hinterland of Salerno, can be dated to the beginning of the ninth century. Many distinctive characteristics of this center’s culture in its most ancient manifestation, from the biconical cinerary urns with a single vertical handle and a cover in the form of a pileated helmet, to the bronze swords with their geometrically decorated sheaths, can be compared to material found in the coastal centers of southern Etruria. This implies a movement of persons and/or things by sea.

The Villanovan Period

In the period currently termed Villanovan (ninth–eighth centuries), Etruscan tomb groups include objects from overseas starting from the very earliest phase. Examples include a mirror of Aegean-Cypriote manufacture found in a pozzetto tomb at Tarquinia, or the many products of Sardinian manufacture in bronze (e.g., statues, small models of baskets, tintinnabula, conical “buttons” surmounted by a bird, models of nuraghe, pendants of various kinds, daggers) or impasto (e.g., pitchers with elongated, off-center necks) recovered in tombs from various sites along the Tyrrhenian coast between Pisa and Pontecagnano. This movement intensifies in the central decades of the eighth century, as manifested by finds such as a Phoenician bronze cup with repoussé animal friezes from a tomb in Vetulonia (Maggiani 1973), a little Phoenician wide-bellied ceramic jug from Tarquinia (on the type see Culican 1970), a Cypriot bronze basin with handles decorated with a lotus flower from a Vulcian tomb (Kriseleit 1988), Egyptian faience scarabs from several Etruscan centers (Hölbl 1979: passim), and a Phoenician bronze cup with two bull friezes from Montevetrano in the territory of Pontecagnano (Jannelli 2013: 130, n. 75.4).

Various explanations have been suggested for the presence of these exotic artifacts: exchanges, movements of individuals, marriages in which the foreign partner has brought along a typical native object as a personal memento or as a wedding gift. The explanations vary according to the nature of the object and the context of its provenance. The usual foreign protagonists are the Phoenicians, the great navigators of the Mediterranean in the first centuries of the last millennium, interested essentially in the metal mines of southern Spain, mines that produced gold, silver, copper, and iron of good quality and in great quantities (Strabo Geography 3.2.8 C146). Imports to Etruria, few in number and precious in manufacture, involve the wealthy stratum of local society, which begins to emerge in the course of the eighth century and controlled the production of and the traffic in raw materials. This movement takes place, obviously, in the Mediterranean area.

A more specific analysis can be made of the first Greek vases that arrived in Etruria: the Geometric cups and kraters from Euboea that reach centers of southern Etruria and Campania in the middle decades of the eighth century. These vases are clearly distinct from the rough, locally produced impasto vessels, because they are made of refined clay, thrown on the wheel, and have good-quality painted decoration. They belong to a wine service. It is quite likely that they arrived together with the wine itself, probably transported in goat-skins (also used in banquets; see Varro On the Life of the Roman People 1.frag. 85 Riposati), given the fact that eighth-century wine amphorae have not been found in these contexts – and along with the ceremony in which the wine was consumed, the symposium, together with the associated aristocratic ideology. It is not out of the question to assume that the Euboean emporia and colonies in Campania were included in this movement. The island of Ischia (Pithekoussai), and Cumae, may not only have received these products from the motherland, but also redistributed them throughout Etruria. The mid-Tyrrhenian centers involved in this commerce are Veii, Rome, Caere, Tarquinia, and Vulci, which had commodities – salt, minerals, metals, and grain – that represented a fair exchange. The movement was not limited to trading manufactured items and raw materials, but extended to persons as well: to judge from the large quantities of Etrusco-Geometric vessels in local clay and crafted in Euboean technique with Euboean models of decoration, it seems likely that master potters came from Euboea itself to set up shop in Etruria.

Furthermore, because this is a production linked to the consumption of wine, it is also likely that wine was produced locally, and that along with the master potters came vintners, who grafted Greek wine-bearing shoots onto local wild grapevines, turning the latter into wine-bearing vines, and thereby ensuring a product that found good placement on the market. Significantly, the earliest Romans poured libations in milk at the time of Romulus and in wine at the time of Numa Pompilius, but this was wine obtained from the grapes of pruned vines (Pliny the Elder The Natural History 14.13.88; Plutarch Numa 14.7; on the question see Gras 1985a: 373– 381). Nor should we forget the fact that between the end of the eighth and the beginning of the seventh centuries, wine came from Euboea to Etruria along with the alphabet, an import that created a genuine cultural revolution (see further, Chapter 14). The movement from Greece toward Etruria, which is the same movement that led to the Greek colonization of southern Italy, is larger and more extensive than that from the Near East. In any event, in the final decades of the eighth century the major lines of communication are set, to be followed ever more intensively in succeeding centuries.

In the Villanovan period, works of Etruscan craftsmanship, especially in bronze, are appreciated in foreign as well as local markets: razors have been found on the other side of the Alps and in Sardinia, as well as what are probably suits of parade armor (e.g., the crested helmets, spear points, laminated shields, bridles recovered from the great Greek sanctuaries of Delphi and Olympia (Kilian 1977; von Hase 1997, 1981, 1997; Herrmann 1983 (1984); Naso 2006a: 354–360; 2006c)). For these last items, it is difficult to say whether they were dedicated by Etruscans who visited these sanctuaries, or by Greeks who had acquired the goods in Etruria during business trips and offered them at the sanctuary upon their return home.

If we follow the second possibility, the Etruscans, even if they did not sail the Mediterranean themselves to Greece, would have had contact with Greek navigators – that is, with people who navigated the Mediterranean. The only explanation that can be excluded out of hand is that these offerings are war booty, both because they were evidently designed for parades, and because there are no accounts of wars between Etruscans and Greeks in the ninth and eighth centuries, nor any clashes over colonization.

The Orientalizing Period

Between the end of the eighth and the seventh centuries, the volume of trade between Etruria and other Mediterranean lands assumed massive proportions. A class of local entrepreneurs becomes firmly established, involved in the exploitation and commercialization of local resources, and ready to invest its profits in the acquisition of exotic luxury goods. This period is usually termed “Orientalizing” because of the arrival in Etruria of luxury products and skilled master craftsmen from the Near East and “Orientalized” Greece: these are the prime movers of a radical transformation of technology, style, taste, and ways of life that now distinguish Etruria from the previous two centuries (see further, Chapters 2 and 23). The so-called “princely” tombs of Etruria have yielded up enamel vases and statuettes from Egypt, cups in precious metal and ivories from Phoenicia, silver pitchers and bronze candelabras from Cyprus, ribbed bronze bowls from Assyria, great bronze cauldrons from Syria, and vessels of precious metal created in Etruria by masters from the Near East. All of these objects are connected with banqueting or with personal dress. The Phoenicians among the other Near-Eastern peoples remain the Etruscans’ partners in commerce, interested as always in acquiring metals from local mines.

Commerce with Greece also intensifies, although control over the traffic passes from the Euboeans to the Corinthians and to Eastern Greeks (Torelli 1981). Vessels for serving wine (kotylai, skyphoi, cups, oinochoai, kraters) and transporting wine (impasto amphorae) come from Corinth and various East Greek cities, along with containers for transporting oil (e.g., SOS amphorae) produced in Attica (Boitani 1985; Rizzo 1990). Perfume vessels arrive as well (aryballoi, alabastra, pyxides), destined for the grooming of women, athletes, and the dead. Many of these vessels, both those for wine and grooming, become models for local Etruscan potters to replicate. This in turn implies a local production of wine, vinegar, and oil – basic ingredients for the preparation of perfumes and creams – which will be exported broadly throughout the Mediterranean (see the papers of various scholars in Verbank-Piérard, Massar, and Frère 2008, especially 97–141, 367–388). Etruria is also a destination for Greek master-craftsmen, who work for the wealthy local clientele. An emblematic case is that of Aristonothos, who must have set up a workshop in Caere where he signed a krater in 670–660 that was found at the site. The scenes depicted on this vessel mirror the life of the Etruscan aristocracy in the first half of the seventh century, a life projected outward toward the Mediterranean. One side depicts the blinding of Polyphemus by an Odysseus who presents himself as a wine merchant, while the other contains an armed battle between two ships. Presumably the vase, intended for a communal ceremony like a banquet, was commissioned of a (cultured) foreign master craftsman with the clear intent of referring to activities that took place at sea and glorifying the owner. In the final decades of the seventh century, other vase painters followed the example of Aristonothos, but worked at Vulci: they include the Painter of the Bearded Sphinx, of the Corinthian school, and the Swallows Painter, of the Rhodian.

As noted above, the Greek products now coming into Etruria originate in large measure from Corinth or East Greece. There are similar echoes in the historical tradition. Demaratus, a rich merchant of Corinth fallen into disgrace at home for political reasons, moved to Tarquinia in about 657, accompanied by artists (Cornelius Nepos ap. Pliny the Elder The Natural History 35.5.16; Dionysius of Halicarnassus Roman Antiquities 3.46.3–5; Strabo Geography 5.2.2 C219; Pliny the Elder The Natural History 35.43.152). Kolaios of Samos, in about 638, also made a voyage of exploration in the western basin of the Mediterranean, venturing beyond the Pillars of Hercules and reaching the marketplace of Tartessus on the Atlantic coast of the Iberian Peninsula, where his crew acquired merchandise to be sold in Greece for a handsome profit (Herodotus 4.152.14). Finally, for the lack of an assured supply of products, the Phocaeans, Eastern Greeks themselves, frequented the markets of the Adriatic, Etruria, Iberia, and Tartessus (Herodotus 1.163).

It is important to note the establishment, over the course of the seventh century, of an artistic production in Etruria executed by masters who use models and assimilate experiences from a variety of sources – Near Eastern, Greek, and transalpine, thereby providing hints as to their identity (see further, Chapter 24). In the first half of the seventh century, Etruscan society is open to the foreigners who come from across the sea, but their integration is not uniform; the potter and vase painter Aristonothos, who, as discussed above, probably set up a workshop at Caere, remains Greek inasmuch as he retains his Greek name and signs his work in Greek (Martelli 2000a, with bibliography). Demaratus, although he marries a noblewoman of Tarquinia, is only partly assimilated into local society because neither he nor his son (the future King of Rome, Lucius Tarquinius Priscus) take an Etruscan family name. On the other hand, Rutile Hipucrates, documented in an Etruscan inscription incised on the foot of an impasto pitcher (Thesaurus Linguae Etruscae 155), is a Greek who transformed his personal name, Hippokrates, into a family name and is therefore totally assimilated.

In the meantime Etruscan craftsmanship – stimulated, most likely by foreign models – achieves notable technical and stylistic advances; its products begin to appear among overseas and central European clients. In the great Greek sanctuaries, the offering of Etruscan goods, mostly bronzes, continues; examples include cauldrons and thrones in Olympia (Herrmann 1983 [1984]; Camporeale 1986 [1988]; Strøm 2000; von Hase 1997; Naso 2006a: 360–366), and situlae and belt buckles at the Heraion of Samos (Kyrieleis 1986; Naso 2006a: 360–362). Unfortunately, the identity of the dedicators remains uncertain. This must be the period to which Pausanias (5.12.5) refers when he mentions the dedication by the Etruscan king Arimnestos of a throne to Zeus in Olympia. Otherwise, according to a report of Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Roman Antiquities 3.46.3), the Corinthian merchant Demaratus, already mentioned above, returned to Greece with Etruscan goods after having brought Greek merchandise to Etruria. This account finds eloquent confirmation in an archaeological discovery datable to two or three decades after the career of Demaratus: the storeroom of a potter along the street leading from Corinth to the port of Lechaion, where Etruscan bucchero vases have been found alongside Greek vessels (Macintosh 1974), certainly artifacts imported en masse for sale in situ. It is also significant that a bucchero kantharos has been discovered in the nearby sanctuary of Perachora, bearing a dedicatory inscription in Greek by a Greek (Nearchos anetheke): the piece must have been bought locally, used for a religious ceremony in the sanctuary and left there as an offering to the deity (Dunbabin 1962: 385 n. 4126, pl. 160). This example is not unique; another similar inscription exists in the sanctuary of Athena at Ialysos on the island of Rhodes, though it is unfortunately limited to three letters because of the vessel's fragmentary state (von Hase 1997: 317–318).

Other clues to Etruscan seafaring come from painted imagery: ships and maritime battles are themes that enjoyed great popularity in the Etruscan decorative repertory of the seventh century. One of the oldest painted tombs of Caere, the Tomb of the Ship, datable to the mid-seventh century, contains the depiction of a ship, possibly referring to the profession of the deceased, while on the Tragliatella pitcher (also from the neighborhood of Caere and datable between the third and last quarter of the seventh century), we see a helmsman taking his leave of his family, followed by a retinue of armed warriors that probably constitutes a private army and evokes ideas of a military expedition or a pirate raid.

The Archaic Period

From the last decades of the seventh century onward, Etruscan commerce in the Mediterranean takes place on a truly grand scale. Now the operations are no longer in the hands of a helmsman or an aristocrat who exchanges his goods with others of his own social rank. Rather, the transactions take place in public, usually in a seaside sanctuary organized by a new political-administrative entity, or in urban centers, which had their first beginnings in Etruria in the ninth and eighth centuries and which reach their complete organic development in the last decades of the seventh century (see further, Chapter 7). The port and its associated infrastructures are one of the services that the city provides. Commerce itself, to use the Greek terminology, shifts from prexis to emporía.

The Etruscan products that enter into the commercial circuit are essentially wine and wine vessels, from the large transport amphorae to the types used for serving, dipping, pouring, and drinking. The first are of rough impasto, the second of bucchero or clay that has been refined and painted (Etrusco-Corinthian pottery), or of bronze (infundibula). Thus two kinds of production, linked respectively to agricultural and artisanal activity, merge in the same product and become the basis for an export trade that, from its starting point in Etruria, touches the entire Mediterranean basin, with a high concentration on the southern French and western Iberian coasts all the way to the Atlantic (Huelva). There is no record of this commerce in the historical sources. The Etruscan ports most directly involved in these movements are those of Vulci and Caere. The period ranges from the second half of the seventh to the fifth century, with a peak in the first half of the sixth century and a gradual decline from mid-century onward. This runs parallel with the development of viticulture in Marseille and the diffusion of Massiliote wine amphorae in the localities that once received Etruscan wine. The local product, clearly less expensive than the import because of low transportation costs, found ready placement in local markets despite its undistinguished quality, as Martial remarks a few centuries later (Epigrams 3.82.23; 13.123.2).

Massiliote amphorae have been found, among other places, in several Etruscan seaside sites (e.g., Pisa, Gravisca, Pyrgi), probably as exchange merchandise. The Etruscan supply lines are different for the western and eastern basins of the Mediterranean, and even within the western area, the northern sector differs from the southern. Large wine amphorae of Etruscan production, both for transport (more capacious) and for table service (less capacious), have been found at more than a hundred sites in southern France and eastern Spain, as well as along the Spanish Atlantic (Py and Py 1974; Bouloumié 1979, 1982a, 1982b; Remesal and Musso 1991; Gori 2006; Gran-Aymerich 2006; Graells i Fabregat 2010). At various coastal sites in Provence and Languedoc, the quantity reaches several thousand. The function of the amphorae is for the ceremony of the symposium, and hence their presence implies the spread of this ceremony among the various sites. The existence of such massive exportation raises the question of what was offered in exchange: metals, salt, and slaves have all been suggested, but no proposal has gone beyond the stage of hypothesis. Most likely, the answer is not simple; all the possibilities suggested so far may be valid, and one does not exclude the others (as an introduction to the problem, see the contributions of Morel 1981, 2006). Certainly if Diodorus Siculus (Library of History 5.26) – writing a few centuries later, of course – declares that in Gaul an amphora of wine was bartered for a slave, he provides us with a clear idea of the kinds of exchange practiced there.

In Carthage, on the other hand, large amphorae have not been found, but numerous wine vessels have (Thuillier 1985; von Hase 1989). These could have been used in ceremonies where wine was consumed, but perhaps not Etruscan wine. It is worth noting that this situation occurs, in general, in areas of Punic influence, where Phoenician wine would be readily accessible. It should also be borne in mind that Etruscan perfume vessels – artifacts that testify to the production and exportation of Etruscan perfumes – have been found in considerable quantities in Carthage, Sardinia, and eastern Spain, whereas they are rare in southern France (Asensi 1991; Frère 2006). Thus, the distinct patterns of distribution of these two types of vessels in the Mediterranean basin reflect different lifestyles in different areas. While this general picture is based on archaeological evidence, it is also colored by these regions’ excavation histories: in southern France, for example, the data come mostly from settlements, whereas in the other areas, it derives from tombs. Hence the picture might change if tombs were to be excavated in southern France.

In the excavations conducted at Marseille, a Phocaean colony founded around 600, copious amounts of Etruscan pottery – not only fineware but also coarse ware for the table or the kitchen – have been found in the vicinity of the Cathedral. This suggests a settlement of Etruscans engaged in the various operations connected with maritime trade (Sourisseau 2002; Marchand 2006). If this conjecture is correct, then it might pave the way to solving a long-debated question: were the Greeks or the Etruscans the conveyors of Etruscan goods? It may be prudent not to opt for a single solution: the two possibilities could easily coexist. However, an Etruscan settlement in the port area of Marseille or the testimony of Etruscan inscriptions found at coastal sites in southern France can be explained if the Etruscans are directly involved in seafaring. Nor should it be overlooked that different kinds of pottery, including Greek, bear Etruscan commercial marks (Johnston 1985), a fact that inserts the Etruscans into a large-scale commercial circuit.

In the eastern Mediterranean basin, the bucchero kantharos, the vessel used for drinking wine, is widely distributed along the Greek coasts of the Ionian Sea (Ithaca) as far as Ras-el-Basit at the mouth of the Orontes (see Gras 1976; von Hase 1989); the findspots are sanctuaries, residential areas, and tombs. Infundibula are also not uncommon in sanctuaries: examples have been recovered from Olympia, the Argive Heraion, the temple of Athena at Lindos, the temple of Apollo at Rhodes, and the sanctuary of Demeter at Cyrene (on the question, see Naso 2006a: 388–396). Here, too, the transport vessels for wine have not been found, making it most likely that the Etruscan vessels were used in ceremonies with local wine.

During the sixth century, Etruria is the preferred market for Greek products, in particular for painted Attic vases, first black-figure and then red-figure, many of them true masterpieces and almost all of them wine vessels (amphorae, kraters, pitchers, dippers, and cups). Probably wine came along with them. The carriers are East Greeks, who also transport large wine amphorae from workshops on the Ionian coast of Asia Minor. In the last decades of the century, the carriers are Aeginetan. It is no coincidence that a Laconian cup was found at the sanctuary of Athena Aphaia on Aegina, dating from the third quarter of the sixth century, with an Etruscan inscription (Johnston 1993; Cristofani 1993 [1994]), nor that an anchor inscribed in Greek (Figure 6.3) has been found at the sanctuary emporium of Gravisca dedicated to Aeginetan Apollo by Sostratos (Torelli 1971: 56), a wealthy merchant from Aegina (Herodotus 4.152.3), or that many Greek vases from the final years of the sixth century found in Etruria bear the commercial mark, So, corresponding to the first two letters of Sostratos’s name (Johnston 1979: 80–83).

Image described by caption.

Figure 6.3 Cippus inscribed in Greek and dedicated to Aeginetan Apollo, end of the sixth century BCE. From Gravisca. Tarquinia, Museo Nazionale Etrusco.

Photo: © 2015. Photo Scala, Florence – courtesy of the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali.

Thus, Etruria, even if it produces (and exports) wine, continues to import this commodity from Greece, evidently because it is of a superior quality to that produced locally. It is significant that the interior of an Attic cup by Exekias (c.540), found in Vulci, bears the image of Dionysus, the god of wine, sailing in a ship with a mast festooned with grapevines; its owner may have been a producer and merchant of wine, who wanted to portray himself as Dionysus. The same context would explain the myth of the kidnaping of Dionysus by Etruscan pirates who, terrified by the god, dive into the sea to save themselves; the myth, generated in a Greek setting, alludes to the Etruscans’ unsuccessful attempt to seize control of the Mediterranean wine trade from the Greeks (see further, Chapter 26).

It is useful to remember that the Etruscan return is represented not only by raw materials like foodstuffs and metals, but also by handcrafts like the bucchero vases mentioned above (see further, Chapter 15), or the ivory and bone boxes found throughout the Mediterranean basin (Martelli 1985).

From the beginning of the sixth century, three powers control the seaborne commerce of the Tyrrhenian basin: the Phocaeans, the Carthaginians, and the Etruscans. The arrival of a group of Phocaeans in Alalia, a Phocaean colony on the east coast of Corsica, after the Persian conquest of Asia Minor (546), and the raids carried out on the island by the last to arrive, are the reason for the Etruscan alliance with the Carthaginians against the Phocaeans in the Tyrrhenian, in support of the Corsicans. The war will have its epilogue in the Battle of the Sardinian Sea, in which Etruscans and Carthaginians annihilate the Phocaeans’ fleet, forcing them to abandon Corsica and find refuge first in Reggio Calabria and then in Elea (Herodotus 1.163–64; Ant. ap. Strabo Geography 6.1.1 C252; Diodorus Siculus 5.13.3–5). The Tyrrhenian basin also had well-defined lines of demarcation: the Etruscans controlled Corsica and were based in Alalia (which Diodorus Siculus will call Karalis) and in Nicaea, while the Carthaginians held Sardinia and the East Greeks the upper and lower Tyrrhenian (the Gulf of Lion, and Reggio and Elea, respectively) (on the question, with additional bibliography, see Giuffrida-Ientile 1983; Gras 1985a; Cristofani 1989; Domínguez Monedero 1991; Bernardini, Spanu, and Zucca 2000).

During this period, the Etruscans can be reckoned as a real sea power, especially the Caeretans, who, according to Herodotus, were the Etruscans responsible for the conflict with (and victory over) the Phocaeans in the Sardinian Sea. The wine trade with southern France also continues, as attested by the Grand Ribaud F shipwreck, recovered from the waters of Marseille, which contained about 1000 large wine amphorae of Caeretan manufacture. Moreover, between the last decades of the sixth and the first decades of the fifth century, the Caeretans adopted a pro-Carthaginian policy, especially at sea. An ivory tessera hospitalis found in a Carthaginian tomb has the name of a Carthaginian inscribed in Etruscan (Puinel Karthazie) (Figure 6.4). An analogous tessera found in Rome in the Area Sacra di S. Omobono likewise bears, in Etruscan, the name of a probable native of Sulcis (Araz Siquetenas Spurianas), a Carthaginian colony on Sardinia, or perhaps someone so closely involved in business with Sulcis as to be identified as Sulcitan in “Etruscan” Rome. These tesserae, datable to the middle decades of the sixth century, clearly attest to the Punic presence in Etruscan markets.

Image described by caption.

Figure 6.4 Tesserae hospitalis with the name of a Carthaginian inscribed in Etruscan (Puinel Karthazie), mid-sixth century BCE. Ivory. From a tomb in Carthage.

Drawing: Maggiani 2006: fig. 2.1. Reproduced with permission of Edizioni Quasar di Severino Tognon Srl.

The gold tablets of Pyrgi (produced at the end of the sixth century) likewise document a joint dedication (sanctuary? temple? statue? ex voto?) to Uni-Astarte on the part of Caeretans and Carthaginians, probably to seal a commercial accord, which implies the introduction of the Phoenician cult of Astarte into the sanctuary of Pyrgi and her assimilation to the Etruscan goddess Uni (Colonna 2010 and Chapter 18 here). The presence of a text in Phoenician-Punic, designed to be fixed to a wooden support and read by visitors to the sanctuary, indicates that Carthaginians circulated freely here. Agreements of this sort must have been fairly common if, as Aristotle (Politics 3.9.6–7, 1280a) declares, by way of example, that through them different peoples can feel “like citizens of a single city.” It is the same principle that governs the first commercial treaty between Rome and Carthage in 509–508 (Scardigli 1991: 47–87; Colonna 2010). In these years, most probably, the Caeretans founded a treasury in the great Greek sanctuary of Delphi (Strabo Geography 5.2.3 C220).

The Classical Period

During the fifth century, the Etruscans of the coastal cities also maintain their maritime trade with southern France and eastern Spain. This is shown, for example, by two Vulcian rod-tripods from Agde and Ampurias (Gran-Aymerich 2006: 257), the bronze wine vessels from the vicinity of Córdoba (Marzoli 1991), and the transaction for the purchase of a ship by Etruscans inscribed on a lead tablet from Pech-Maho. However, their chief objective was to extend their dominion over the lower Tyrrhenian. They also make expeditions to Lipari and the other Aeolian Islands, sometimes as victors and sometimes unsuccessfully, as is shown by the dedications offered by both the Etruscans and the Liparesians at the sanctuary of Delphi to honor their respective victories.

Etruscan artifacts have also been found in the eastern basin of the Mediterranean: a rod-tripod from Vulci was discovered on the Athenian Acropolis and there are bronze and gold furnishings that have been recovered from Athenian houses (Crit. and Pherecr. ap. Athen. I 28B; XV 700C). In any case, Etruscan naval power must have represented a real danger in the lower Tyrrhenian given that Anaxilaos, tyrant of Reggio, attempted to protect his city from the Etruscans with bastions and built a naval base in the Straits of Messina (Strabo Geography 6.1.5 C256). Likewise, Dionysius of Phocaea sailed to Sicily with a fleet to make pirate raids against the Carthaginians and Etruscans (Herodotus 6.17). These efforts, blocked by an expansion movement in the eastern basin of the Mediterranean, aim westward, passing beyond the Pillars of Hercules in an attempt to occupy the “Happy Islands” (perhaps the Canary Islands) in the Atlantic, but the Etruscans are blocked in this effort by their own Carthaginian allies, who evidently began to worry about their ascendancy at sea.

In the years between the first and second quarters of the fifth century, Etrusco-Carthaginian domination over the Mediterranean basin is brought up short: the Syracusans first defeat the Carthaginians at Himera in 480 and then the Etruscans, initially in the waters of Cumae in 474 and then off the island of Elba in 453, victories that allowed them to become the dominant power in the western basin of the Mediterranean. The victory of Cumae is celebrated as the triumph of the Greeks over the Etruscans: at Olympia, the victor, Hieron of Syracuse, dedicated Etruscan helmets taken as war booty. The Syracusan presence alternates with that of Athens, which, by defeating the Persians at Salamis in 480, had become the dominant power in the eastern basin of the Mediterranean. The Syracusans put into effect a plan, more economic than military, to strike a blow against the Athenians by blockading the ports of southern Etruria, which were the chief mercantile outlet for Attic crafts, and founding the colony of Portus Syracusanus on the eastern coast of Corsica to keep the central Tyrrhenian sea under its control.

The only Etruscan port left open to major traffic is that of Populonia in northern Etruria, inasmuch as it is a port for provisioning minerals and metals. Here high-quality Greek vases continue to arrive from the second half of the fifth through the fourth centuries, and it remains a stop on the so-called “port route” followed by commercial vessels plying the Tyrrhenian (Martelli 1981). This was one of the points of departure for the (many) Greek and Etruscan wares found in tomb groups in Alalia (Jehasse and Jehasse 1973, 2001). The emporia on the Tyrrhenian coast continued to function, but only on a reduced scale. One indication is the hoard of nine Athenian and Sicilian coins offered in the sanctuary of Pyrgi at the time of the Peloponnesian War. This deposit should be ascribed to a Greek who frequented the ports of Etruria, or to an Etruscan who frequented the Greek and Sicilian ports and who had taken part in the attack on Syracuse (Colonna 1965). One sign of the critical condition of Etruscan seafaring is their participation, limited to three penteconters and a few cities, on the Athenian side in the siege of Syracuse (415–413) during the Peloponnesian War (Thucydides 6.88.6; 103.2). It is not clear whether this expedition or some other is the point of reference for a Latin inscription of Julio-Claudian date that mentions Velthur Spurinna of Tarquinia, who was apparently the first to lead an Etruscan army in Sicily (Torelli 1975: 30–38).

That the Etruscans were expert navigators on the high seas is indicated by the vessel portrayed in the mid-fifth-century Tomb of the Ship in Tarquinia, which – whatever its interpretation (about this see Colonna 2003 and, most recently, Petrarulo 2012) – displays a series of technical details that indicate real, rather than figurative, experience (Cherici 2006). Likewise, Theophrastus (History of Plants 5.8.3) reports that Etruscan ships were recognizable because their keels were made from the trunk of a single beech tree. These sailed the Tyrrhenian sea, but as mercenaries (Diodorus Siculus 19.106.2; 20.11.1; 61.6; 21.3) and as pirates (Diodorus Siculus 16.82.3), practicing a raider economy. The evidence is various: in 384 the Syracusans, in order to finance a war against the Carthaginians, sack the sanctuary of Pyrgi, procuring great wealth on the pretext that they are liberating the Tyrrhenian basin from Etruscan pirates (Diodorus Siculus 15.14.3–4; Pseudo-Aristotle Economics 2.1349b; Aelian Historical Miscellany 1.20; Polyaenus Stratagems 5.2.21). Later, in 325– 324, the Athenians decide to send colonists to the Adriatic to protect their commerce from the Etruscans (Inscriptiones Graecae 2.1629), while in 299 the Delians invest thousands of drachmas in organizing their defense against Etruscan pirates (Inscriptiones Graecae 11.2.148.73: on the question Gras 1976: 361– 363). Finally, perhaps in the third century the Etruscans, in their capacity as pirates, are paid by the Argives to steal the statue of Hera from the temple of Samos (Menod. ap. Athen. 15.672B–C).

If we return to the fifth century we find that the crisis of Etruscan seafaring on the Tyrrhenian coast is counterbalanced by the prosperity of the Adriatic maritime trade, connected with the ports of Adria and Spina, which already had relations with the Greek world in the previous century. These ports are the point of arrival for great quantities of painted Greek vases which were also distributed among the inland areas of Emilia and Lombardy, and the point of departure for grain from the Po Valley, and also, as has been suggested, for minerals and metals from Etruria proper. Spina acquires great renown and such conspicuous wealth that, like Caere, it dedicated a treasury in the sanctuary of Delphi (Polem. ap. Athen. 18.606a; Dionysius of Halicarnassus Roman Antiquities 1.18.4; Strabo Geography 5.1.7 C214; 9.3.8 C 421; Pliny the Elder Natural History 3.20.120). The votive offerings of the latter may have included a diphros from the first half of the fifth century, for the bronze revetments of the feet, of an Etruscan-Padanian type, have been found in a votive deposit at the sanctuary (Naso 2006c: 373–374). It is indicative that c.390, Syracuse, continuing its program of striking at Athens through its export trade of local products to the Etruscan area, founds three colonies (Ancona, Adria, and Issa), which are located in a triangle whose corners are set on the eastern and western coasts of the mid and upper Adriatic to control commercial traffic. This political stance, and the descent of the Celts into the Po Valley, will lead, ultimately, to the decline of the cities of Padanian Etruria, and Spina, in particular, was reduced, by Roman times, to a modest village (Strabo Geography 5.1.7 C214).

The Hellenistic Period

In the last centuries of their civilization, the Etruscans never cut their bond with the sea: their activities in the Mediterranean, commercial and military, continued. Red-figure vases of the Volterra Group, superposed red-figure vases from the Sokra and Phantom groups, vases from the Genucilia Group, and Volterran and Arretine black-glazed vases, were all exported to various sites in the western basin of the Mediterranean (Jolivet 1980; most recently Serafini 2008 [2009]; Morel 2009). Coins from the mint of Populonia have also been found in Alalia, Marseille, and Catalunya (Jehasse and Jehasse 1973: 545 n. 2310; Gran-Aymerich 2006: 256, fig. 12). The Hellenistic period coins from Populonia and Vetulonia have marine images on their reverses, such as an octopus or dolphins placed to either side of an anchor or a trident (Catalli 1990: 48; 82– 84). An Etruscan mirror produced at the end of the fourth century was recovered from a tomb in Ampurias (Almagro Gorbea 1951), while a krater tyrrhenikos is listed in the inventory of the sanctuary of Delos in 280 (Naso 2006c: 370). From Gouraya in Algeria comes a tessera hospitalis from the third-second centuries in the form of a bronze disc with the name of an Etruscan (Larth from the gens Pumpu) (Briquel 2006). And some Etruscan cities donated marine supplies to the expedition in which Publius Cornelius Scipio confronted Hannibal in Africa: Tarquinia gave linen for the sails of the ships, Volterra ship frames, and Perugia, Chiusi, and Roselle supplied fir trunks to use for shipbuilding (Livy History of Rome 28.45.15–18). In several Etruscan centers on the Tyrrhenian coast, Iberian vases have also been found, made of gray ceramic ware and sombrero de copa (Bruni and Conde 1991). Furthermore, conspicuous groups of Etruscans crossed the Mediterranean, at least to judge from the discovery of the liber linteus in Egypt and cippi with boundary inscriptions in the inland regions of Tunisia, texts directed at a vast public capable of reading Etruscan texts outside Etruria.

4. Conclusions

In short, the sea in general and the Mediterranean in particular did not impose a boundary on the Etruscans but, instead, opened various paths of communication, generating contacts and conflicts between them and other peoples, thereby creating rich cultural opportunities for all sides. In the second half of the eighth century, and on a larger, more conspicuous scale in the following centuries, goods, models, and masters arrived in Etruria over the Mediterranean from more culturally advanced societies in Greece and the Near East. These masters brought about a radical change that involved artisanal and artistic production, literacy, urban organization, lifestyle, and hence culture in its broadest sense. It is indicative that cities such as Caere, Tarquinia, and Vulci show evidence of a crisis between the fifth and fourth centuries, when the activity of their ports is blocked by Syracuse. In other words, Etruscan civilization can be described as a great civilization that linked its fortunes, for better or worse, to the sea.

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GUIDE TO FURTHER READING

Bartoloni 2012 is a work by multiple authors, who address different problems related to the Etruscan world in an introductory fashion. Berti and Guzzo 1993 is a catalogue of an exhibition on Spina, in which many finds from the site, several previously unpublished, are exhibited and catalogued; it also includes essays by various authors on visits to the Adriatic Sea in the last millennium BCE. Camporeale 2015 is a collected work on Etruscan civilization, which is divided into two sections: the first part addresses general issues, the second traces the historical development of various Etruscan cities; it includes many references to the sea. Cristofani 1989 is a scientific description, in light of the written sources and archaeological finds, of the various problems inherent in the relationship of the Etruscans with the sea. Gras 1985a deals with the problems of Etruscan trade in the early centuries of their history, and the commerce that took place, for the most part, by sea. Gras 1995 looks at the relationship between the various ancient peoples who lived in the Mediterranean basin. Heurgon 1969 provides a description of aspects of the everyday life of Etruscans, with diverse references to reports they had with other maritime peoples. Pettena 2002 concerns the commercial activities and military of the Etruscans in relation to the sea.

NOTES