- chapter 5: The Villanovan culture –
aspects such as the “economy of plunder” exercised through piracy or the exacting of
tolls. The management of trade is the prerogative of some male fi gures, identifi able as
warriors by the rich panoplies of their tombs, which were generally placed at the center
of the burials of other members of the family clan.
If the goods and craftsmen show frequent movement, we must also imagine a dynamic
of social mobility among the aristocracy, not only due to matrimony, but also to the
pursuit of additional power and prestige. The use of gifts among prominent individuals,
especially those of obvious prestige such as weapons or decorated vases, had to represent
one of several forms of transfer of assets. The various modes of circulation, such as trade,
marriage gifts, acquisition of spoils of war, gift exchange, relationships and related
obligations of hospitality, the awarding of prizes for competitions, undoubtedly coexisted
in the same environments.
The hundred years between the mid-eighth and mid-seventh centuries bc may therefore
rightly be considered crucial for the relentless innovations that led to the passage from the
great proto-urban centers to Greek-type poleis (cities), and from oral to written language,
that is, from prehistory to history. A signifi cant boost in the acceleration of the formation
of urban communities in Tyrrhenian Italy has been attributed to contact with the Greek/
Euboean communities located in the Bay of Naples from circa 770 bc. Indigenous
communities established stable relations with the fi rst Greek immigrants, who came fi rst
as prospectors on reconnaissance: the material evidence of exchanges between indigenous
settlements and Greeks can be seen in the presence in funerary offerings at Tarquinia,
Cerveteri and Veii of two-handled cups mainly of Euboean manufacture, painted on the
zone between the handles with pendant semicircles (on the earliest examples) (Fig. 5.11),
or with chevrons, or, on the later versions, with a metope enclosing a bird. These vases
must be understood as a sign of relationships of hospitality, a custom acquired from
abroad, and probably stimulated by occasional Greek presence.
Initially techniques and fi gural models were assimilated, and soon thereafter, more
broadly cultural models were too (for example, with the introduction of writing, of a new
method of banqueting, of a heroic funerary ideology, that is, a new mode of aristocratic
living), such that the face of Etruscan society was profoundly changed. The principal
cause for the escalation of these contacts must be attributed to the Greeks’ interest in
exploiting the Etruscans’ metal resources. The communities with which the Greeks came
into contact, then, seem to be well organized, used to contacting populations of similar
or quite different cultures, fully interested in trade and ready to receive any sort of foreign
stimulus. We witness, for example, the rapid adoption of new ceramic techniques and
thus of foreign craftsmen.
For some scholars, the introduction of viticulture to Etruria and Latium is due to the
Greeks: paleobotanical data, however, seem to place the diffusion of vines in Italy in a
much earlier period. During the Villanovan period, whether in Etruria or Latium, we may
detect a massive production of vessels connected with wine: kraters, jars (olle), and stands
for both, two-handled cups (kantharoi), imitating more or less faithfully Greek models.
Undoubtedly introduced by the Greeks was the ceremonial consumption of wine, which
became a distinguishing element of aristocratic groups. Closely linked to contact with
the Greek world is a new production of vases, fi rst in purifi ed clay, and then in thin-
walled impasto turned on a fast potter’s wheel and fi red at high temperatures in kilns.
Moreover, among the grave goods classifi able in the eighth century bc, the increase in
iron objects such as weapons, tools or ornaments, must be attributed to a development