490 Kathryn Lomas
of social visibility that their Greek contemporaries is, therefore, well documented, and
not just a figment of Theopompus’ imagination, but the spin that he puts on it—that
it indicates immorality and provides evidence for the decadence of the Etruscans—is a
reflection of his own sense of their otherness.
This focus on the social role of women as an indicator of ethnic character is interesting.
Many other stereotypes about the Etruscans are found in ancient literature. Other Greek
writers stress the warlike and ferocious aspects of the Etruscans rather than decadence,
and say that they were noted pirates as well as successful in war, particularly at sea
(Herodotos 1.167; Strabo,Geography5.2.3, 6.2.2–3). Romans acknowledged Etruscan
learning and expertise, particularly in religious matters (Cicero,De Divinatione1.92;
Valerius Maximus 1.1.13). However, none of these supposed characteristics of the Etr-
uscans attracted anywhere near the same anxiety as the idea that their women were
decadent and uncontrolled. This focus on supposedly aberrant female behavior seems
to have been a powerful means of categorizing the Etruscans as ethnically “other.”
Gender, Ethnicity, and Cultural Change
The part played by gender in creating and maintaining ethnic and cultural identities in
contexts of ethnic change or contact—for instance, in newly founded colonies, or during
the period of Romanization—is particularly complex and difficult to unravel. Gender
roles in colonies, and gendered responses to Romanization, have received comparatively
little attention, but there are increasingly persuasive signs that male and female responses
to ethnic/cultural change could differ.
Intermarriage across ethnic and political boundaries was not uncommon in Italy, par-
ticularly among the elite, a fact that created a complex network of social, political, and
cultural connections across state and ethnic boundaries. The very existence of the Roman
laws ofconubium(intermarriage) demonstrates that intermarriage between Romans and
non-Romans was sufficiently frequent as to require legal regulation, and a famous inci-
dent during the Social War, in which the Roman and Marsic armies refused to fight each
other on the grounds that they would be fighting kinsmen, further underlines the point.
This placed women very much in the forefront of ethnic and cultural interaction. In most
Italian societies, women played an important role in maintaining family identities and tra-
ditions, and in marriages between people of different ethnicities, women would have had
a pivotal role in integrating families from different communities.
This was particularly important in new colonies. Since the social roles of women
differed from those of men, and they played little part in public life, it is perhaps to be
expected that gender would not be a significant factor in the formation of ethnic identity
in a newly founded community, but this appears to be a considerable oversimplification.
Ancient colonization—both Greek and Roman—is now increasingly regarded as a fluid
process of migration and settlement, rather than a structured, state-organized, process
(Osborne 1998; Bispham 2006). If it is envisaged as a process ofad hocsettlement
by primarily male groups, which may arrive as war-bands, landless men, or (as in the
case of Roman colonization) discharged veterans, then we are presented with a very
different type of society from that suggested by a model of state-organized settlement.