The most distinctive group within Italy is formed by the Greek colonies of the south, strung out along the coast from Cumae to
Tarentum. Founded as self-contained cities from the eighth century onwards, they ensured that territories which they controlled
became in every essential respect part of the Greek world. From the fifth century onwards, however, these territories became
increasingly subject to attack and conquest by the peoples of the mountainous interior. Bruttians in the toe, Lucanians in the instep,
Samnites further north, a variety of small tribes including the Marsi to the east of Rome, were all anxious to control the fertile lands
and established wealth of the coast. The consequence, however, was sometimes very far from being a process of take-over and
barbarization.
These peoples of the mountainous interior spoke similar languages (labelled as 'Italic' by scholars) and certainly in historical times
regarded themselves as related to each other. Further north, the Latins on the coast and the Sabines and Umbrians in the interior
spoke languages belonging to the same 'Italic' group, but had a rather different history from the peoples further south. Legend
regarded both Sabines and Latins as playing a part in the formation of the Roman state, and the history of the two peoples was
always very closely intertwined. But the crucial influence both on Rome and on Umbria was Etruria. Here, from the eighth century
onwards, there developed by a combination of internal evolution and outside, largely Greek, influence (the Etruscan language is
neither Greek nor Italic) an advanced urban civilization; this civilization was essentially homogeneous, although the different
Etruscan cities remained separate political entities.
Umbrian civilization in the early period was on the whole a pale imitation of Etruscan, and the Etruscan script was used to write the
Umbrian language; but at Rome something rather different happened. The villages on the hills around what became the Forum
linked up into a single city in the course of the sixth century; a similar process probably occurred at about the same time in the case
of other Latin communities, such as Gabii or Praeneste. The material culture of archaic Latium has much in common with Etruscan;
but Rome never became either culturally or politically a mere Etruscan dependency.
The story of Campania is even more complex. Here the Greek cities of the coast, principally Cumae and Neapolis, coexisted in the
late archaic and classical period with an Etruscan principality based at Capua. The arrival of the Samnites in the fifth century did
not lead to the destruction of the civilization which had emerged in Campania, although no Etruscan city survived as such and only
Neapolis survived as a Greek city. Rather the Samnites became the new ruling class. The incorporation of this area by Rome in the
fourth century was probably the most important formative experience in the history of the republic.
The contrast between Latium and Campania on the one hand and Picenum and Apulia on the other hand is instructive. In both areas
a population which seems to have had little in common with the group of peoples extending from the Umbrians to the Bruttians
underwent a certain development as a result of contact with the Greek world, in the case of Picenum passing Greek traders, in the
case of Apulia the Greek city of Tarentum. But Picenum remained materially backward, barely literate, and hardly urbanized; and
although Apulia came to possess a number of cities of native origin, the area seems to have run out of steam, culturally and
politically, at the same time as did the Greek cities of the south, between the fourth and the third centuries.
Cutting across the ethnic differences there were important differences in economic and social structures. The Greek colonies were
of course fully fledged poleis, and it is clear that places such as Etruscan Veii or Capua, Latin Rome or Praeneste, -were in many
respects similar. But much of central Italy remained without cities down to the age of Cicero. Here the pattern was of scattered
villages and farmsteads, often within reach of a fortified hill-top, where it was possible to take refuge in time of war, but which was
never built up or lived in, indeed which did not even fulfil the political or religious functions of a city. A clear example of this
pattern of settlement is provided by Pietrabbondante, where the greatest of the Samnite sanctuaries, which served also as a meeting
place, lay on the open hillside below a hill-top fort, both sanctuary and fort being completely detached from any trace of settlement.
One should not suppose, however, that the absence of cities meant the absence of settled agriculture. Naturally, the Greek poleis
recruited their armies from the free peasant element of their populations, and the same was true of Rome. It must have been true
also of the other communities of early Italy. For the Roman conquest of Italy involved a sequence of battles between the Roman
heavy-armed infantry and that of their enemies; and the existence of heavy-armed infantry implies the existence of free peasants.
This must be true for Etruria, although what our sources talk about is the serf element of the population (one thinks of Sparta where
the helots supported a hoplite, not an aristocratic society); it must be true of Samnium, although our sources often give the
impression that the population consisted of shepherds. And in fact, if one travels in Italy, as opposed to merely looking at a map,
one comes time and again on pockets of good land, often at a great height, where arable farming is possible and was certainly
practised in antiquity.