Etruria

Country in central Italy, w. of the A pennines and n. of the Tiber. Its inhabitants, called Etruscans or Tuscans, and by the Greeks Tyrrhenians, were believed by the ancients to have come from Lydia, by some moderns to have been of Rhætian stock, and by a recent American writer to have been Libyans and akin to the Berbers. They anciently bore sway from the Alps to the Gulf of Sorento, and were strongest ab. 600 B.C. Their government was a close aristocracy. They gave to the Romans many of their religious and political institutions; were conquered by Rome 283 B.C., and received Roman franchise 91 B.С.