- chapter 7: Urbanization in Southern Etruria –
the sixth to fi fth centuries at Veii, Tarquinia and other sites. Although these constructions
resemble utilitarian public works, aside from defense, their purpose is not unlike that of
elaborate cemeteries and cult buildings in that they also projected order, reassurance and
prestige, while demarcating space in a way that is consonant with the development of a
more formal, even juridical, notion or defi nition of a city.^37
Another aspect of settlement evolution from 650–600 bc is the establishment at Veii
(Piazza d’Armi) of a central track with side streets at right angles defi ned by cut grooves
demarcating plots of ground, suggesting a re-organization of space along rectilinear,
block-like principles in this zone. This may have respected older EIA alignments,
although the area does not seem to have been heavily built up until the sixth century.^38
Open public spaces are implied at several sites.^39 At Tarquinia too, a by-product of
the quadrangular cult precincts juxtaposed on Civita in the seventh century (above)
must have been the creation of rectilinear passageways, even if a more elaborate street
system with paved surfaces and underground conduits only appeared later, around the
end of the sixth century.^40 Orthogonal planning is evident in the street-tombs at Caere
(600–550 bc), at Orvieto (circa 550 bc) and, most strikingly, in the precisely gridded
city blocks (insulae) at the northern town of Marzabotto (circa 540–500 bc), which
incorporated workshops and even a temple (see Chapter 15).^41 In addition to various
surprisingly modern features (wells, pavements, drains, wide streets, atrium houses)
Marzabotto seems to have had smaller burial grounds relative to the residential zone and
to the older southern Etruscan cities. Priorities had evidently changed. Perhaps there
was also more awareness of the health risks in cramped and crowded urban settings.^42
Grid plans, which are better suited to certain sites – generally on level or virgin ground –
were doubtless intended to regulate space and intra-community relations and activities,
while mitigating tensions or rivalries, as required by the changing social confi gurations
of the sixth century.^43 They were evidently adopted widely as one formal solution to
the challenges of town planning at this time by authorities with considerable decision-
making power in southern Italy, Sicily and the Etruscan world, further indicating the
close cultural links between these areas.^44
Distribution maps show an increasingly busy rural landscape in the late eighth and
seventh centuries, with secondary centers emerging (which could be quite substantial,
and include their own elites), as well as hamlets and small farms, probably reliant
on good relations with the emerging regional metropolis, which was the catalyst for
rural development and agricultural intensifi cation.^45 Whatever the centralizing and
exploitative tendencies of the city, with its enhanced political and decision-making
powers, as well as size, it could provide some protection against outsiders or rivals, as
well as a manufacturing center and regional market for the exchange of raw materials
and fi nished goods. Recent research has stressed the evolution of increasingly hegemonic
territorial relations in the sixth and fi fth centuries, which included the use of frontier
shrines and a more effi cient road network.^46
Of particular signifi cance was the relationship between metropolis and local harbor
or coastal emporium, most obvious in the juxtaposition of Caere and Pyrgi, Tarquinia
and Gravisca, Vulci and Regisvilla. This association probably dates from the EIA in
embryonic form (above). Castellina del Marangone, a coastal site equidistant from Caere
and Tarquinia and already occupied in the Middle-Final Bronze Age, shows intensifi cation
of exchange and production activity in the eight to seventh centuries.^47 In the sixth
century, however, these maritime sites were monumentalized with shrines and temples,