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The Etruscans in Campania  "Etruscan"
generally evokes the image of the great pre-Roman
civilization in central Italy, a still somewhat mysterious
people about whom we would like to know a lot more than we
ever will. You don't generally think of Etruscans this far
south, in the Campania region of Italy, near Naples; yet,
they were here. (Clearly, their ambitions stretched
southwards but were eventually thwarted.) Indeed, Parthenope (then to become Neapolis—Naples)
was
somewhat
of
a
late-comer
in
the area and could be founded only when Etruscan
influence had weakened and almost disappeared, which it
had by the mid-400s b.c., the presumptive date of the
founding of Parthenope. A few miles north of Naples is the town of Santa Maria Capua Vetere, the modern name for the ancient city of Capua, called Campeva in ancient histories. (The modern town of Capua is right next door, but “ancient Capua” means modern Santa Maria Capua Vetere.) Well before the Romans, Campeva was founded by the Etruscans in about 600 b.c. and used to be considered the southernmost identifiably Etruscan town in Italy (but see the link to "Pontecagnano," below); Campeva is well to the south of "Etruria" and not one of the 12 famous towns of the Etruscan confederation in north-central Italy, all of which are north of Rome. The Etruscans were not Indo-Europeans (as we know from their language). To my knowledge, there is no consensus among scholars whether they (1) came from somewhere else, possibly what is now southern Turkey—as stated by Greek historian, Herodotus, or (2) are a remnant of a pre-Indo-European people indigenous to the Italian peninsula. (But see update below.) They were in Italy, however, by the tenth century b.c. They expanded into their confederation and a number of other towns in central Italy by the seventh century and were at the height of their power by about 600. By that time they had also settled their southernmost outpost in Italy, Amina (later known to the Romans as Picentia and today as Pontecagnano) on the plain just south of modern-day Salerno. They then started to fade as they came into contact with the newly encroaching immigrants of Magna Graecia, who built towns at Cuma and Paestum, limiting further Etruscan expansion along the southern coast. In the 400s BC the Etruscans of Capua also came into contact with—and were eventually subdued by—the belligerent native Italic people known as the Samnites (an Oscan tribe and one of a group of tribes referred to in the literature as “Sabellian”—from Sabine), who were about to engage the young and not-yet-imperial Romans in centuries of war for the domination of central Italy.  The
Etruscans were also defeated in important naval battles
with the Greeks from Siracuse (Sicily), first off of Cuma
in 474 BC and then at Elba in 453; with
that, the Etruscans lost control of the waters of the
Tyrrhenian Sea. Their “last gasp,” so to speak, was in 414
when they went to the aid of the Athenian army that was
besieging Siracuse in what is called in the history of the
Peloponnesian War,
the “Sicilian expedition.” (The two-year war was an utter
disaster for the Athenians, leading to the eventual
overthrow of the Athenian democracy.) The Etruscans were
then further pressed by invading Celts in around 400 b.c.
and thereafter simply dissolved into the fabric of
Sabellian- and then Roman-controlled Italy. Their cultural
influence is still seen even further south than Capua,
however, in such things as the well-known tomb decorations
in Paestum (photo, above).
Their presence in the area near Capua and to the south
towards Naples figures in the display at the new
archeology museum in nearby
Succivo.references: "The Etruscans and the Sicilian Expedition of 414-413 B.C." by M.O.B Caspari in The Classical Quarterly, Vol.5, No. 2 (Apr., 1911) pp.113-115. update on Etruscan origins: In 2007, Professor Alberto Piazza, from the University of Turino reported to the European Society of Human Genetics that there is overwhelming evidence that the Etruscans were settlers from old Anatolia (now in southern Turkey). That conclusion was based on comparative DNA studies. "We think that our research provides convincing proof that Herodotus was right", said Professor Piazza, "and that the Etruscans did indeed arrive from ancient Lydia." ^back up to alphabetical index to portal index for archaeology |
