Originally Posted by
Pax Augusta
There is the well-known story of the Etruscan Lucius Tarquinius Priscus who became King of Rome, the story was told by Emperor Claudius, considered an expert on Etruscan civilization and who had written in Greek the Tyrrhenica, a twenty-book Etruscan history, and a text on the Etruscan language. Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, born to a Greek father from Corinth and to an Etruscan mother from Tarquinia, was forced to migrate from Tarquinia to Rome because in Tarquinia the foreign origin of his father did not grant him access to public office. This story tells us that the Etruscans did not look kindly on those with foreign origins, but we don't know much more than that. We don't know if it was really so, and if it was so always during 1000 years. Because we must never forget that the Etruscan civilization lasted 10 centuries, 1000 years or so, the Etruscans were quite numerous and were spread over a very wide territory, which went from northern Italy to extensions in Campania, in Magna Graecia. If the Etruscans had a not very open attitude towards foreigners, most likely what happened in Rome, which was from the beginning the fusion of several different pre-Roman ethnic groups, will end up influencing gradually the attitude of the Etruscans as well.