st regal family which
ruled over Rome, that of the Tarquins, was of Etruscan origin,
whether it belonged to Tarquinii, as the legend asserts, or
to Caere, where the family tomb of the Tarchnas has recently been
discovered. The female name Tanaquil or Tanchvil interwoven with
the legend, while it is not Latin, is common in Etruria. But
the traditional story--according to which Tarquin was the son of
a Greek who had migrated from Corinth to Tarquinii, and came to
settle in Rome as a --metoikos-- is neither history nor legend,
and the historical chain of events is manifestly in this instance
not confused merely, but completely torn asunder. If anything more
can be deduced from this tradition beyond the bare and at bottom
indifferent fact that at last a family of Tuscan descent swayed the
regal sceptre in Rome, it can only be held as implying that this
dominion of a man of Tuscan origin ought not to be viewed either
as a dominion of the Tuscans or of any one Tuscan community over
Rome, or conversely as the dominion of Rome over southern Etruria.
There is, in fact, no sufficient ground either for the one hypothesis
or for the other. The history of the Tarquins had its arena in
Latium, not in Etruria; and Etruria, so far as we can see, during
the whole regal period exercised no influence of any essential
moment on either the language or customs of Rome, and did not at
all interrupt the regular development of the Roman state or of the
Latin league.

The cause of this comparatively passive attitude of Etruria towards
the neighbouring land of Latium is probably to be sought partly
in the struggles of the Etruscans with the Celts on the Po, which
presumably the Celts did not cross until after the expulsion of the
kings from Rome, and partly in the tendency of the Etruscan people
towards seafaring and the acquisition of supremacy on the sea and
seaboard--a tendency decidedly exhibited in their settlements in
Campania, and of which we shall speak more fully in the next chapter.

The Etruscan Constitution

The Tuscan constitution, like the Greek and Latin, was based on the
gradual transition of the community to an urban life. The early
direction of the national energies towards navigation, trade, and
manufactures appears to have called into existence urban commonwealths,
in the strict sense of the term, earlier in Etruria than elsewhere
in Italy. Caere is the first of all the Italian towns that is
mentioned in Greek r