European Kingdoms

Early Italy

Mesolithic & Neolithic Cultures Early Africa (Intro) Early Americas (Intro) Early Asia (Intro) Early China (Intro) Early Europe (Intro) Early Near East (Intro) Early Oceania (Intro)

The system which has evolved to catalogue the various archaeological expressions of human progress is one which involves cultures. For well over a century, archaeological cultures have remained the framework for global prehistory. The earliest cultures which emerge from Africa and the Near East are perhaps the easiest to catalogue, right up until human expansion reaches the Americas. The task of cataloguing that vast range of human cultures is covered in the related feature (see feature link, right).

Formed by a relatively narrow peninsula which emerges into the Mediterranean from Southern Europe, modern Italy's territory is characterised by a rugged central spine of mountains, the Apennines, which are bordered either side by fertile plains and valleys (for more on the naming of the Apennines, see the feature link). This mountain range has a surface area of 301,230 square kilometres, including the islands of Sardinia and Sicily. Archaeological investigation shows signs of Homo Heidelbergensis and Neanderthal occupation, with modern humans arriving around 40,000 years ago.

During the most recent ice age, water levels in the Mediterranean were lower than today, allowing land bridges to form to the islands of Elba and Sicily, and leaving the northern half of the Adriatic as a fertile plain. The human hunter-gatherers of the Palaeolithic prospered until the end of the ice age, around 10,000 BC, when large game became harder to find. The Neolithic began with the introduction of pottery and the later Gaudo culture in southern Italy, before these both gave way to the Bronze Age.

The greatest changes came between the twelfth to eighth centuries BC when West Indo-European proto-Italic tribes gradually made their way into Italy. They bumped up against Greek settlements in the south and the early Etruscans in the centre and west. The basis not only of the Roman republic and subsequent empire were laid by this migration, so was the ethnic mix of the modern country, albeit with a heavy Germanic addition in the north an centre in the form of the Lombards and Ostrogoths, and in the south by the Normans.

(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information by Edward Dawson, from A Genetic Signal of Central European Celtic Ancestry, David K Faux, from Investigating Archaeological Cultures: Material Culture, Variability, and Transmission, Benjamin W Roberts & Marc Vander Linden (Eds), from The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World, David W Anthony, from Researches into the Physical History of Mankind, Vol 3, Issue 1, James Cowles Prichard, from The Roman History: From Romulus and the Foundation of Rome to the Reign of the Emperor Tiberius, Velleius Paterculus, J C Yardley, & Anthony A Barrett, from An Historical Geography of Europe, Norman J G Pounds (Abridged Version), and from External Link: The Beaker phenomenon and the genomic transformation of northwest Europe (Nature).)

8000 BC

Cave drawings on Sicily are created around this time, with the proto-Sicani being given credit for the work by some modern experts. Early coastal settlements can also be found, such as at Addaura (near Palermo).

If the Sicani themselves are not responsible, then it is their Neolithic forebears, people who blend in with the later Sicani arrivals, possibly during the late Neolithic or Bronze Age periods. Alternatively, the Sicani are the aborigines who are influenced by the arrival of later peoples, such as the Elymi and Siculi around the tenth century BC.

The proto-Sicani cave paintings of about 8000 BC were created perhaps two thousand years after the first arrival of people on Sicily at the end of the most recent ice age

c.5200 BC

Pottery appears on Sicily, by which time proto-Sicani have also migrated to Malta, the first people to make the journey to this island in the middle of the Mediterranean. This proto-Sicani civilisation may be one of the most advanced in Europe at this time.

It also invents rudimentary wheels, which initially appear in the form of rounded stones which fit easily into the semi-circular wedges which are carved into the bases of large rectangular megaliths, thereby facilitating the rolling transport of these huge stones.

c.4000 BC

The native Sicilians begin building Europe's oldest free-standing monumental structures. The builders of these megalithic temples, the proto-Sicani, are culturally similar to the society of the Stentinello culture near Syracuse. Today these Neolithic temples are known as those of Zebbug, Gantija, Mnajdra, Hagar Qim, and Tarxien.

Perhaps copying the template created by earlier such structures - notably at Göbekli Tepe in Turkey - Sicily's monumental temple structures began to appear around 4000 BC

c.3300 BC

A hunter is killed in the Italian Alps by an arrow which strikes him in the shoulder. Speculation suggests that he is able to flee his attacker before blood loss and the cold cause him to collapse several hours later.

Later known by archaeologists as Oetzi 'the Iceman', his body is perfectly preserved by the Alpine ice sheets until a melt-back in the twentieth century reveals him to German tourists in 1991. He still wears his goatskin leggings and grass cape, and his copper-headed axe lies nearby.

3000 - 2500 BC

Copper tools appear on Sicily, suggesting external influences or a fresh wave of migrants. Within about five hundred years, bronze tools are prevalent across Sicily and the natives have contacts with peoples outside the island.

This proto-Sicani culture also appears on Malta, and it thrives during the early Bronze Age. In the north, the Bell Beaker culture is beginning its widespread advance.

Proto-Italics & Italic Tribes (West Indo-Europeans) / Bell Beaker Culture (Bronze Age) (Italy)
c.2600 - 1800 BC

Indo-Europeans - Italic Tribes (Intro) Anatolian Tribes Balkans Tribes Baltic Tribes Celtic Tribes Germanic Tribes Italic Tribes Indo-Iranian/Aryan Tribes Slavic Tribes Tocharians (Intro)

Italic peoples were part of a group of languages and cultures which appear to be related, originating from a single source. Their story is one which links back to the earliest appearance of this single source: Indo-Europeans who migrated into Central Europe from the late third millennium BC onwards.

These migrants formed the origin of the proto-Italics - not just the ancestors of tribes which later entered Italy itself but all of these initial arrivals in Central Europe. They formed part of a centum branch of Indo-Europeans (a West Indo-European-speaking branch), people who all spoke the same language but who later divided into two main language groups: Italic and the later-arriving Celtic (see below). A date for the split is conjectural, but 3100-2600 BC seems likely (see the feature link for a more detailed discussion).

It was these West Indo-Europeans who, upon their arrival in central Europe, picked up the influence of the originally-Iberian Bell Beaker horizon (see the index link, right, for a full list of early human cultures). They did so enthusiastically, turning it into a true Bell Beaker culture, and many of them continued their migration westwards into France while others of their number remained in northern Italy and around the Alps and southern Germany, also practitioners of Bell Beaker culture.

The remainers were eventually joined by a second migratory group of Indo-Europeans who settled to their north to become the Q-Celtic-speaking proto-Celts.

The earlier Italic settlers were themselves Q-Italic speakers, and it was they whom formed the basis of all later Italic Tribes. The very closely-related proto-Illyrians of the northern Balkans may have been little different to start with - if at all. But even these Italics divided into two main groups, one of which included the Latins and Faliscans who largely retained their Q-Italic language (perhaps because they became surrounded by Etruscans who probably prevented any outside influences from reaching them), while the bulk of the rest developed into P-Italic speakers.

(Information by Edward Dawson and Peter Kessler, with additional information from The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World, David W Anthony, from The La Tene Celtic Belgae Tribes in England: Y-Chromosome Haplogroup R-U152 - Hypothesis C, David K Faux, from A Genetic Signal of Central European Celtic Ancestry, David K Faux, from Researches into the Physical History of Mankind, Vol 3, Issue 1, James Cowles Prichard, from The Roman History: From Romulus and the Foundation of Rome to the Reign of the Emperor Tiberius, Velleius Paterculus, J C Yardley, & Anthony A Barrett, from An Historical Geography of Europe, Norman J G Pounds (Abridged Version), and from External Link: The Beaker phenomenon and the genomic transformation of northwest Europe (Nature).)

2500 BC

It would seem to be around this time that a process begins in which the so-called West Indo-European tribes, most of whom speak dialects which are intelligible to each other and quite probably to South-West Indo-Europeans too, start a long process of fracturing and dividing.

There is also an unrelated group which is not as closely related to these two which follows a path along the northern reaches of Europe, eventually to become the Germanic-speaking people.

By around 3000 BC the Indo-Europeans had begun their mass migration away from the Pontic-Caspian steppe, with the bulk of them heading westwards towards the heartland of Europe (click or tap on map to view full sized)

West Indo-European speakers appear to form a divide into two groupings due to location and contacts. One of these can be linked to the Bell Beaker culture which continues to migrate further west. Of the remainder, the northern group becomes isolated from direct contact with the Mediterranean civilisations and these people become the proto-Celts of the Urnfield culture.

c.1300 - 800 BC

The southern group of West Indo-Europeans and South-West Indo-Europeans appear to be prompted to migrate westwards and southwards, into the Italian piedmont and western Balkans respectively, and through Illyria and northern Italy.

The international system in the Near East has recently been creaking under the strain of increasing waves of peasants and the poor leaving the cities and abandoning crops. Around the end of the thirteenth century the entire region is also hit by drought and the loss of surviving crops.

Climate-induced drought in the thirteenth century BC created great instability in the entire eastern Mediterranean region, resulting in mass migration in the Balkans, as well as the fall of city states and kingdoms further east (click or tap on map to view full sized)

The same climate-induced hardships also hit the descendants of Indo-European settlers along the Danube and in Romania, descendants who have already expanded into the northern Balkans. They begin to search out food and better circumstances, perhaps also helped on by the growing dominance of the Urnfield culture (in the local form of the Gava culture) to the north.

Due to terrain, they divide further into semi-isolated tribes. They became more civilised in their habits and the forms of technology they use due to contact with southern Greeks and Etruscans. Those in the Balkans in part cross by sea into the Italian peninsula, and settle mostly along the south-eastern coast.

Those groups which have filtered down from the north Italian piedmont occupy swathes of central Italy, with two tribes, Latins and Faliscans, crossing over the Apennines to the west coast (probably disrupting the Apennine culture in the process). Because of their semi-isolation to the west of Italy their language does not undergo the 'qu/kw' to 'p' shift which occurs across most of the West Indo-European dialects.

Early Etruscan civilisation was heavily influenced by the Phoenicians and Greeks and, in turn, it influenced early Roman (Latin) culture

Apennine Culture / Terramare Culture (Bronze Age) (Italy)
c.1800 - 1200 BC
Incorporating the Grotta Nuova, Protoapennine B, & Subappennine

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The Bronze Age Apennine culture appeared in Italy from the early second millennium BC onwards, spanning most of the peninsula as it emerged from the preceding Neolithic period. There do exist earlier elements which can be linked to it, which have been labelled proto-Apennine, and which can be dated to the beginning of the third millennium BC. Start and finish dates vary by modern source, but usually agree on a period between 2000-1600 BC.

The Apennine can be broken down into four phases - early, middle, late, and a sub phase - although more recently archaeologists have begun to prefer to consider as 'Apennine' only ornamental pottery style of the later phase of the Middle Bronze Age (which may account for some of the modern dating variances). This Middle Bronze period phase is now preceded in central Italy by the Grotta Nuova facies and in southern Italy by the Protoapennine B facies, while it is succeeded by the Subappennine facies of the thirteenth century BC ('Bronzo Recente').

Its pottery was a burnished blackware which was incised with patterns, usually dots, spirals, or combinations of both. Its people were alpine cattle herders who for the most part frequented the arable land along the mountainous stretch of central Italy. They had permanent settlements, usually small defendable sites, but also used temporary camps when moving their herds between pastures.

The Terramare culture existed alongside the Apennine in Italy, being confined mainly to the north, around the valley of the River Po where it predates Etruscan influence there. Its dating is generally given as being half a century behind the broader Apennine, between 1750-1150 BC, while the name comes from the black earth residues found in settlement mounds.

The people of the Terramare were bronze users, possibly descendants of the Bell Beaker folk of northern Italy, although a few stone objects have also been found at their sites. They also made clay figures of animals, and sometimes of humans too. While their origins are unknown they are generally perceived as being indigenous, although this is open to debate if they are to be linked to the Bell Beaker folk. Possibly they were a mix of both, which could make them the ancestors of the Ligurians of the first millennium BC, with their confused origins.

(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information by Edward Dawson, from The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World, David W Anthony, from An Historical Geography of Europe, Norman J G Pounds (Abridged Version), from The Apennine Culture of Italy, D H Trump (Cambridge University Press, 2014), from The Bronze Age in Europe: an introduction to the prehistory of Europe, c.2000-700 BC, John M Coles & A F Harding (Taylor & Francis, 1979), and from External Link: The Beaker phenomenon and the genomic transformation of northwest Europe (Nature).)

2000 - 1500 BC

An eruption of Mount Vesuvius can be dated to this period. It destroys several Apennine culture settlements, although the occupants have time to make a hurried evacuation beforehand. The settlements are buried in much the same manner as Pompeii in AD 79, and archaeologists are able to uncover one of them in 2001, at Croce del Papa near Nola (immediately to the east of Naples). They find preserved household items, animals, and even the footprints of the fleeing populace.

Modern Naples lies beneath the slumbering volcano of Vesuvius, one of a long line of settlements there which have risked an eruption and which have sometimes been destroyed by one

1600 BC

The Middle Apennine begins in peninsula Italy, but it shows signs of influences from the Balkans, suggesting an influx of new people. This has to be West Indo-Europeans and their related groups farther east along the Danube, seemingly as part of an early phase of migration into the Italian peninsula.

There is a large variety in pottery types for this phase, including bowls with elaborate, upstanding handles, and vessels which have been decorated with curvilinear and zigzag geometric designs.

c.1200 BC

Drier climactic conditions are causing a social breakdown further east, where the collapse of the Hittite empire is a major act in a century of turmoil. The same climate-induced hardships also hit the descendants of Indo-European settlers along the Danube and in Romania, descendants who have already expanded into the northern Balkans.

They begin to search out food and better circumstances, perhaps also helped on by the growing dominance of the Urnfield culture (in the local form of the Gava culture) to the north. In Italy similar Indo-European groups, of the proto-Italic variety, begin or continue to penetrate deeply into the Italian peninsula.

This map showing Late Bronze Age cultures in Europe displays the widespread expansion of the Urnfield culture and many of its splinter groups, although not the smaller groups who reached Britain, Iberia, and perhaps Scandinavia too (click or tap on map to view full sized)

Two tribes in this migration - the Latins and Faliscans - cross over the Apennines to reach the western coast  at about the same approximate time at which the Apennine culture begins to fade out. It is succeeded in central and upper Italy by the new culture which these migrants create, the Villanova culture.

Villanova Culture (Late Bronze Age / Iron Age) (Italy)
c.1100 - 700 BC
Incorporating Latial Culture

Third & Second Millennium BC Cultures Early Africa (Intro) Early Americas (Intro) Early Asia (Intro) Early China (Intro) Early Europe (Intro) Early Near East (Intro) Early Oceania (Intro)

Located in central and upper Italy, this was probably the first Iron Age culture in the peninsula, taking over from where the Bronze Age Apennine and Terramare cultures had left off. Its uncertain origins lay in the eastern Alpine region, clearly prior to the Raeti migration there around the fifth and fourth centuries BC.

Its people seem to have migrated from multiple locations farther east (suggesting proto-Italics and/or proto-Illyrians). There are also some visible links to the Celtic-dominated Hallstatt culture and the preceding proto-Celtic Urnfield culture which encompassed large swathes of Central Europe, most notably in terms of burial practices. It is impossible to pin down any specific origins for the people of the Villanova, but general trends of this period do point out some good possibilities.

However, they may instead have been indigenous to Italy, even though the similarities between them and the Hallstatt culture suggest an element of connection. Others label them as proto-Etruscans (see the map link, right, for the disposition of Late Bronze Age cultures). The start of the Villanova also coincides with the arrival of the Adriatic Veneti at the top of the Adriatic Sea, although links here are less likely. The Villanova can broadly be divided into two phases: a proto-Villanovan culture (Villanovan I) between 1100-900 BC, and the Villanovan culture proper (Villanovan II) between 900-700 BC, when Etruscan cities began to be founded. A Latin variant has been categorised which is often labelled Latial culture.

The name Villanova comes from the site in northern Italy at which the first archaeological finds relating to this advanced culture were unearthed. The remnants of a cemetery were found in 1853 near Villanova (Castenaso, to the south-east of Bologna), and were uncovered over the course of the next two years. Most of the cremation burials were untouched, and the urns which held the ashes of the dead were of an unusual double cone-shaped pottery. In a cemetery of nearly two hundred burials, six were placed apart from the rest, as if they should be accorded a special status.

The Villanova culture eventually gave way to an increasingly Greek-influenced eastern Mediterranean cultural dominance which was taken up by the politically and militarily dominant Etruscans. Many of the larger Villanovan settlements were built over in Etruscan times, probably by the same Iron Age populations which had built the earlier Villanovan settlements in the first place.

(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information by Edward Dawson, from Investigating Archaeological Cultures: Material Culture, Variability, and Transmission, Benjamin W Roberts & Marc Vander Linden (Eds), from The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World, David W Anthony, from Researches into the Physical History of Mankind, Vol 3, Issue 1, James Cowles Prichard, from The Roman History: From Romulus and the Foundation of Rome to the Reign of the Emperor Tiberius, Velleius Paterculus, J C Yardley, & Anthony A Barrett, and from An Historical Geography of Europe, Norman J G Pounds (Abridged Version).)

c.1100 - 900 BC

'Villanovan I Proto-Culture' appears in the valley of the River Po, in Etruria, and in parts of the Emilia Romagna. The Villanova replaces the earlier Apennine culture which seems already to have faded perhaps half a century before this new cultural resurgence.

During this period, in the eleventh and tenth centuries BC, Illyrian peoples migrate into south-western Italy, probably across the shortest point between Italy and the Balkans, in modern Albania. The Illyrians form the Iapyges group, which subsequently splits into several sub-branches: the Dauni, Messapii, and Peucetii.

The bowl on the left is a restored eighth or seventh century BC Villanovan example, while the chalice and kantharos are Etruscan from the seventh to sixth centuries BC

In general, the later Iron Age tribes of the Italics are formed by people who migrate westwards across the Adriatic, while the pre-Indo-European natives are either subsumed, or are pushed west to Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily.

c.1000 - 700 BC

According to the archaeological record, the Latins appear to develop along different cultural lines from their Italic cousins to the east. Instead, a Latin variant of Villanovan culture emerges (which is often called Latial culture).

Funerary urns are produced in the form of miniature huts known as tuguria, in small numbers at first, during the latter Phase I of the culture (1000-900 BC), but in far greater numbers during Phase II (900-770 BC). The wattle-and-daub huts themselves remain the principle form of dwelling for the Latins until the mid-seventh century BC.

According to Thucydides, during the tenth century the arrival of the more warlike Oenotri and Opici in northern Calabria triggers the migration of the Elymi, Itali, and Siculi into the 'toe' of Italy and onto Sicily. Antiochus of Syracuse, writing around 420 BC, confirms this.

Alongside the native population, Sicily became an important Greek colony during the second half of the first millennium BC, a symbol of Greek cultural power in southern Italy

c.900 - 700 BC

This is the 'Villanovan II' cultural phase. It is during this period that the early Etruscan city of Tarchna (modern Tarquinia) is founded, at least as early as the ninth century BC. This predates the founding of most other Etruscan cities and is the result of late Villanovan decline and a process whereby Villanovan settlements move towards a nucleus which is close to the agricultural areas.

These concentrated settlements evolve naturally into the early cities of the Etruscan period. At Tarchna there is a cluster of Villanovan tombs immediately predating its appearance. The Villanova regions of northern Italy generally show a marked increase in Greek influences in this period, but also links with the Balts, shown by the widespread use of amber.

c.800 BC

Etruscan civilisation begins to flourish and eventually achieves regional dominance in a near-seamless break by which means that the Villanova culture is subsumed.

An example of this are Villanovan villages which are located on the west bank of the River Fiora. Having become stagnant in the early 600s BC, these slowly expand and merge to form the Etruscan city of Velch (modern Volci) in the mid-500s BC.

Italo-Illyrian pottery was at its height between about 800-350 BC, albeit with significant Greek influences, and the vessels shown here date to the third quarter of that period, the 'Subgeometric II' of 550-450 BC

Elements of Villanova culture may survive for a further two or three hundred years in some areas, as the major centres of Padan Etruria, around Bologna and Modena, are only founded in the sixth century BC. Italy's Iron Age is now in full swing.

Iron Age Italy
c.800 BC - AD 400

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The period in which the Villanova culture dominated much of Italy also witnessed the greatest changes in the ethnic make-up of the Italian peninsula. Between the twelfth and eighth centuries BC various West Indo-European proto-Italic groups gradually made their way into Italy from the direction of the Danube. They bumped up against Greek settlements in the south and the early Etruscans in the centre and west. The basis not only of the Roman republic and subsequent empire were laid by this migration, so was the ethnic mix of the modern country, apart from a post-Roman Germanic admixture.

Just as the Etruscans were achieving regional and cultural dominance outside the Greek colony areas, those proto-Italic groups were drifting southwards and establishing tribal holdings. Those tribes which formed over the next few centuries included the Brutii, Chones, Dauni, Frentani, Hirpini, Iapyges, Itali, Latins, Lucani, Marsi, Marrucini, Messapii, Morgetes, Oenotri, Opici, Paeligni, Peucetii, Picentes, Sabini, Samnites, Umbri, Veneti, Vestini, and Volsci. On Sicily the Elymi, Sicani, and Siculi were to be found. On Sardinia were the Sardi, and on Corsica were the Corsi. The Italian Iron Age had begun (archaeological cultures are included in this link).

From 241 BC and the end of the First Punic War, the Latin city of Rome was undisputed master of Italy. It also became undisputed master of increasingly greater territories outside Italy, until it governed the largest empire the world had ever seen up to that point. Rome dominated Italy for the best part of six hundred years, but its fading and termination led to a series of invasions and relatively short-lived rulers which served to divide the country into a patchwork of states. By then, however, Italy's Iron Age had already given way to its Medieval period.

(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information by Edward Dawson, from Investigating Archaeological Cultures: Material Culture, Variability, and Transmission, Benjamin W Roberts & Marc Vander Linden (Eds), from The Roman History: From Romulus and the Foundation of Rome to the Reign of the Emperor Tiberius, Velleius Paterculus, J C Yardley, & Anthony A Barrett, from An Historical Geography of Europe, Norman J G Pounds (Abridged Version), and from External Link: Polybius, Histories.)

800 BC

Etruscan civilisation gradually subsumes the preceding Villanova culture, while also dominating the Marsi to the south, and edging out the Umbri to the east. The Etruscans of the eighth and seventh centuries BC are significantly influenced by eastern Greek culture, probably providing the basis for Herodotus' claim that they are descended from Lydian colonists.

This map shows not only the greatest extent of Etruscan influence in Italy, during the seventh to fifth centuries BC, but also Gaulish intrusion to the north, which compressed Etruscan borders there (click or tap on map to view on a separate page)

Etruria is dominated by a collection of city states, twelve of which form the Etruscan League over time to defend the region against attacks by Greeks and Phoenicians, sometimes known as the Dodecapolis.

Two other Etruscan leagues also form, one of which is Campania in the south, led by the city state of Capua (and containing what is now the city of Naples). This league dominates the Opici people in that region. The other is that of the Po Valley city states in the north-east, which include Adria (modern Atria) and Spina (in the Veneto region of modern Italy). This one abuts Ligurians to its south, the pre-Alpine Raeti to its north, and the Golasecca culture which largely dominates this region.

Overall, Etrurian dominance covers western central Italy, along with a wide swathe towards, but not quite reaching, the Adriatic Veneti, and a stretch of territory along the western coast as far south as the aforementioned Naples. The city of Alalia dominates eastern Corsica, completing a semi-circle of territory which forms the border with the Phoenicians of Carthage and the Greeks of southern Italy and Sicily.

The Opici probably dominated much of Campania to start with, but were pushed out of the eastern parts by the Samnites, dominated themselves by the Etruscans, and then defeated by Rome

c.600 BC

The first century BC writer, Livy (Titus Livius Patavinus), writes of an invasion into Italy of Celts during the reign of Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, king of Rome.

As archaeology seems to point to a start date of around 500 BC for the beginning of a serious wave of Celtic incursions into Italy, this event has either been misremembered by later Romans or is an early precursor to the main wave of incursions.

Livy writes that two centuries before major Celtic attacks take place against Etruscans and Romans in Italy, a first wave of invaders from Gaul fights many battles against the Etruscans who dwell between the Apennines and the Alps.

474 BC

It seems that the Celtic arrival in northern Italy has not been entirely welcomed. The Etruscans, who themselves have been migrating northwards to the River Po from central Italy, have been clashing increasingly with the Celts for domination of the region.

The Ligurians have undoubtedly been squeezed farther southwards, towards the Mediterranean coastline, while the Raeti and Lepontii are similarly squeezed to the north, into the Alps themselves.

The origins of the Euganei, Ligurians, Raeti, Veneti, and Vindelici are confused and unclear, but in the last half of the first millennium BC they were gradually being Celticised or were combining multiple influences to create hybrid tribes (click or tap on map to view full sized)

A pivotal showdown against the Etruscans takes place at the Battle of Ticinum in this year (which must be located close to the main Celtic settlement of Mediolanum which had been 'founded' by the Bituriges and Insubres tribes around a century before).

The Etruscan force, which is little more than a well-armed militia, is butchered by the Celts in a ferociously fought battle. This victory confirms Celtic domination of the region for the next couple of centuries, so that it is called Gallia Cisalpina (Gaul on 'our' side of the Alps, 'ours' being the Latin and Italic side).

400 BC

Etruscan society undergoes changes from about the mid-fifth century BC, along with an economic slump. While the cities are recovering from the slump, the political changes become more fully evident in the fourth century.

The city states gradually begin replacing kings or tyrants with republics which are governed by the aristocracy, possibly based on Roman lines. The old system is clearly no longer working and Etruscan domination of Italy is starting to come under severe threat from Rome's increasing power and prominence in local politics.

This Etruscan villa was excavated at the town of Vetluna (near modern Grosseto in Tuscany), and seems to have belonged to a wealthy family at a time of peace with Rome, in the third century BC

c.400 - 391 BC

Following the route set by Bellovesus and the Bituriges around 600 BC, other bodies of Celts have gradually invaded northern Italy, probably due to overpopulation in Gaul and the promise of fertile territory just waiting to be captured.

The first of these is the Cenomani around 400 BC, followed by the Libui and Saluvii. Then the Boii and Lingones cross the Pennine Alps, with the Senones the last to arrive. The Alpine Medulli tribe may also find its home there as part of this migration, amongst Ligurians which soon become Celto-Ligurians.

343 - 341 BC

The end of the Golasecca culture comes when Rome achieves regional domination. This could be said to occur at the conclusion of the First Samnite War in this period. The Samnites have continued to expand into former Etruscan Campania, forcing Greek city states along the coast to request Rome's aid. Rome delivers it whilst being distracted by the Latin War against its other Italic allies.

265 - 264 BC

Etruscan dominance of Italy is effectively ended by the razing to the ground of the city of Velzna by Rome, which is now the greatest political and military power in the peninsula. Over the next two centuries the Italic tribes are gradually granted Roman citizenship, and thereafter are gradually absorbed into Roman Italy, losing their individual identities.

The ancient River Liris (now divided into the Liri and the Gari) along its upper length was an early home to the Volsci, and later formed Rome's border with the Samnites

231 - 222 BC

The two most extensive Gallic tribes of northern Italy, the Boii and Insubres, send out the call for assistance against Rome to the tribes living around the Alps and on the Rhône. Rather than each of the tribes sending their own warriors, it appears that individual warriors are effectively hired from the entire Alpine region as mercenaries.

Polybius calls them Gaesatae, describing it as a word which means 'serving for hire'. They come with their own kings, Concolitanus and Aneroetes, who have probably been elected from their number in the Celtic fashion.

The war begins in earnest in 225 BC, but although the Gauls are initially successful, decimating and routing a Roman army with superior tactics, they are undone by a fresh Roman army. Buoyed by its victory, Rome attempts to clear the entire valley of the Padus, but over three campaigning seasons they instead manage to pacify and subjugate the Celts.

By 222 BC, the final tribe to stand against them, the Insubres, are left with no option but to surrender, their unnamed chief making a complete submission to Rome. This act effectively ends the Gallic War in northern Italy, as Rome now dominates all of the tribes there.

While most of the Gauls of the third century BC fought fully clothed, their Gaesatae mercenaries tended to fight with nothing more than their weapons, and not even the trousers shown here

91 - 88 BC

The Etruscans, Frentani, Hirpini, Iapyges, Lucani, Marrucini, Marsi, Paeligni, Picentes, Samnites, and Vestini fight the Social War (Italian War, or Marsic War) against Rome. The war is the result of increasing inequality in Roman land ownership, and the spark for conflict is delivered by the assassination of the reforming Marcus Livius Drusus, whose efforts would have led to citizenship for all of Rome's allies. The tribes are successful, which also gains citizenship for the Adriatic Veneti and the neighbouring Tarvisii.

27 BC - AD 395

The office of dictator is offered to Caesar Augustus (Octavian), who wisely declines it. He opts instead for the power of a tribune and consular imperium without holding any office other than that of Pontifex Maximus and Princeps Senatus - a politic arrangement which leaves him as functional dictator without having to hold the controversial title or office itself.

The Roman empire is born, and it survives in various forms until AD 395, at which point it is formally partitioned into Eastern and Western sections. An official register of all the offices, other than municipal, which exist in the Roman empire at this time is compiled in the Notitia Dignitatum (see feature link).

During his long 'reign' as Rome's first citizen, Augustus brought peace to the city and oversaw its transition from failing republic to vigorous and expanding empire

By the time the empire is fading out of existence, starved of supplies and resources by external events which are largely out of its control, the medieval period has already begun. Medieval Italy will not operate as a unified single state for the next millennium and-a-half.