ABSTRACT
Civilization does not truly begin to develop in the western Mediterranean until the beginning of the 8th century BC. This begins according to the legend when the Phoenicians, led by Elissa, princess of Tyr, found Carthage on the Tunisian coast. Then the Greeks establish colonies in Sicily and in the south of the Italian peninsula in the middle of the 8th century BC. These colonies become a cultural ensemble called Greater Greece. But the capital event for Italy during this same period is the arrival of yet another people who settle to the north of the Tiber. According to Herodotus, these new arrivals came from Anatolia. In response to an extended period of famine, the king of the Lydians has his son Tyrrhenios lead half of his people out of their homeland. They take to the sea, traveling westward to Tuscany and Umbria where they become a new people: The Etruscans – or the Tyrrhenians as they are called by the Greeks. In the 6th century BC they spread onto the plain of the river Po, and to the south as far as Campania. Their beautiful urban civilization profoundly marks the Italian countryside; the cities have their own water supply, the streets are straight and aligned at right angles, with gutters and extended underground sewage networks, following the Aegean and Oriental traditions. The Etruscan economic miracle rests on three pillars: the mastery of commerce, the exploitation of iron mines, and the development of land for agriculture.
