ABSTRACT
Southern Italy and Sicily were colonized by the Greeks in the course of the eighth to the sixth centuries BC; and it was for long assumed that the Latin alphabet was a product of direct contact between Romans and Greeks. However, it is now generally accepted that the link between the two scripts is provided by Etruscan. The Etruscans appear in history about 900 BC. Their period of greatest political, economic and ideological power covered the eighth to the sixth centuries. The following centuries saw a gradual decline in their influence, though the Etruscan city-states were not finally absorbed into the Roman Empire until the first century BC. The language ceased to be used for sacral purposes at about the same time. There is no way of knowing how long it survived as a spoken language.
