This collection of essays focuses on the peoples and communities of ancient, and mainly pre-Roman Italy. Alongside the Etruscans, a range of less well-known ancient peoples of the Italian peninsula are increasingly coming into focus, and it is now possible to write the history of these communities; a history that led eventually to the formation of Roman Italy and ultimately of the Roman empire. 'Ancient Italy' consists of a series of studies, covering the Ligurians and Celts in north-west Italy, the Veneti, Picenes, the Etruscans, the Faliscans, the Latins, the Samnites, the peoples of...

Riva offers a reading of the socio-political transformations that led to the formation of urban centres in Tyrrhenian Italy.

In this survey of the burial and settlement evidence of late Iron Age Etruria, Corinna Riva offers a new reading of the socio-political transformations that led to the formation of urban centres in Tyrrhenian Central Italy. Through a close examination of burial ritual and the material culture associated with it, Riva traces the transformations of seventh-century elite funerary practices and the structuring of political power around these practices in Etruria, arguing that the tomb became the locus for the articulation of new forms of political authority at urban centres. Challenging...

Using archaeological insights and discoveries, the author describes the birth, growth and demise of ancient people, whose nemesis was the growing power of Rome. She discusses the mysterious Etruscan language; the 6th-century BCE growth of Etruscan cities and Mediterranean trade; and the fatal incorporation of Etruria into Rome's political orbit.

Of all civilizations of the ancient Mediterranean, it is perhaps the Etruscans who hold the greatest allure. This is because, unlike their Greek and Latin neighbours, the Etruscans left behind no textual sources. Using fresh archaeological insights and discoveries, the author describes the birth, growth and demise of this enigmatic ancient people.