WI: Etruscian empire, instead of Roman

Maybe this has been discussed before, but I really wonder what if the Etruscians, rather than Rome built up an empire... maybe even an empire similar huge as OTL Rome.
They sure need to have much more discipline than they had in OTL (as known, they rather celebrated than doing wars). And the Latins/ Romans need to be somehow weaker. Way weaker.

> How would such a scenario plausibly be possible?
> How far would they spread their empire? Would they conquer just the appenine peninsula or would they be able to spread further?
> What would be their capital?
> How would they react to the Greeks? Would they react to them similar as the Romans did? Or would they see them as an old enemy (because Etruscians were descendants of Troyans)?
> How much would other peoples be "etruscianized"? Lingually; would their language be the root of an European language family? And culturally; would Europe be nicer place for women, for example? (Etruscians were very women-friendly - that's one reason, I like them so much *smile* )
> How long could their empire last?


As you see, there are a lot of fascinating questions. :D
Would be really nice, if there are the one or another good, plausible TLs with that topic. :)
 
Calling for an Etruscan Empire is like calling for a Latin Empire. There was no "Latin" state, just like there's no "Etruscan" state. There's several city states. Anyway, it's very difficult to have any city state take over the Italian peninsula (or even most of it) through geography and diversity alone, and that Rome did it was nothing short of remarkable. The society would need to be a heavily militarized one that existed on expansion, and also be innovative enough to expand and use the conquered Italian tribes as an expanded manpower pool. The Romans were very good at this in a way a lot of societies weren't. So first step is to become the dominant power in Etruria. Likely by the time any Etruscan city state does this, they will have two major problems to expansion: The Gauls pressing and contracting the borders of Etruria (for example Bononia was originally the Etruscan city state of Felsina but by the time Rome entered the picture had come under Gallic control, and likely Samnite control of most of Campania, which, assuming the Romans aren't there to check them, there's not much reason to assume they don't succeed at this IOTL. The Romans were able to intervene and defeat the Samnites before this occurred of course, which is one of the reasons they ultimately won out.

I'm not entirely sure this Etruscan city state empire can break that much further out of the confines of Etruria and Latium.
 
The rise of Rome was one of those fluke things that wasn't supposed to happen until it did. Most likely, you'd have the Etruscans (if they take out the Romans) in Northern Italy, sandwiched between celts in the north and Carthage in the south. Unless you have a particularly charismatic leader take power, they'll just be one of the more powerful Carthaginian client states.

And if they did expand, most likely they would morph back into a Patriarchal plutocratic society as per par in that time period, if just because it is easier for a man to steal a woman's cattle/land/power than it is for a man to steal another man's during this period if just by the fact that men usually were the ones that had military training. Sure, woman might be treated as equals on a day-to-day serf to serf level, but in government the one in charge is the one with the pointy stick.

The thing about Etruscian is that it wouldn't have the "Greek Factor." OTL, the Romans had an easy time keeping the Greeks under control if just because the Romans spoke with a Greek alphabet and other things, thus making the Greeks more likely to stay under Roman control, which was a huge boost, since now there were many large and well established Greek states under Roman rule. The Etruscians would be seen as aliens, and thus the city-states would want to demand more and more power. Think an HRE, if half the coastline is competing Venice-s.

Could the Etruscians form a coherent and interesting society in the long run? Sure. But could they make a history-shattering world empire? I wouldn't bet on it.
 

Deleted member 97083

Anyway, it's very difficult to have any city state take over the Italian peninsula (or even most of it) through geography and diversity alone, and that Rome did it was nothing short of remarkable.
This is a bit of an exaggeration, Anatolia has just as many or more natural barriers than Italy, and has been united many times. Compared to other locations like Greece or Mesopotamia, Italy united extremely quickly after it developed indigenous powers.

The society would need to be a heavily militarized one that existed on expansion, and also be innovative enough to expand and use the conquered Italian tribes as an expanded manpower pool. The Romans were very good at this in a way a lot of societies weren't.
This is what ancient Roman propaganda tells us, but most ancient Mediterranean civilizations had this ability already.

Prior to the days of Caesar, you can name almost any innovation that the Romans made and someone in the Near East, or Carthage, or Greece had already done it. Nor were they unique in combining those innovations. The Persians had already done this, as had the Assyrians.
 
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Maybe this has been discussed before, but I really wonder what if the Etruscians, rather than Rome built up an empire... maybe even an empire similar huge as OTL Rome.
They sure need to have much more discipline than they had in OTL (as known, they rather celebrated than doing wars). And the Latins/ Romans need to be somehow weaker. Way weaker.

> How would such a scenario plausibly be possible?
> How far would they spread their empire? Would they conquer just the appenine peninsula or would they be able to spread further?
> What would be their capital?
> How would they react to the Greeks? Would they react to them similar as the Romans did? Or would they see them as an old enemy (because Etruscians were descendants of Troyans)?
> How much would other peoples be "etruscianized"? Lingually; would their language be the root of an European language family? And culturally; would Europe be nicer place for women, for example? (Etruscians were very women-friendly - that's one reason, I like them so much *smile* )
> How long could their empire last?


As you see, there are a lot of fascinating questions. :D
Would be really nice, if there are the one or another good, plausible TLs with that topic. :)

One thing is that Etruscans formed several city states so them should somehow unite as one nation and it not be easy. Unlike Romans Etruscans weren't militaristic people. So I doubt that them have desire expand anywhere outside of Italy. And even Roman conquests lasted centuries and there wasn't very easy. Capital depends about which city state conquer all others. Were Etruscans really descendants of Troyans. I know that they were from Anatolia but Troy? But I don't know how they would react to Greeks. Probably see them as competitors. Probably that territory will be etruscianize. Such event is always pretty unavoidable. But I don't think that it will be so wide-spreared language as Latin and its successor languages. Culture is surely very different. United Etruscan nation might last several centuries.
 
This is a bit of an exaggeration, Anatolia has just as many or more natural barriers than Italy, and has been united many times. Compared to other locations like Greece or Mesopotamia, Italy united extremely quickly after it developed indigenous powers.
Anatolia has effectively been politically united 3 times in its history, by the Persians, the Romans, and then the Ottomans/Turkey. Otherwise, it was notoriously hard to control and always Balkanized in some form.


This is what ancient Roman propaganda tells us, but most ancient Mediterranean civilizations had this ability already.

Prior to the days of Caesar, you can name almost any innovation that the Romans made and someone in the Near East, or Carthage, or Greece had already done it. Nor were they unique in combining those innovations. The Persians had already done this, as had the Assyrians.
It was new to Italian and Greek societies.
 
One thing is that Etruscans formed several city states so them should somehow unite as one nation and it not be easy. Unlike Romans Etruscans weren't militaristic people. So I doubt that them have desire expand anywhere outside of Italy. And even Roman conquests lasted centuries and there wasn't very easy. Capital depends about which city state conquer all others. Were Etruscans really descendants of Troyans. I know that they were from Anatolia but Troy? But I don't know how they would react to Greeks. Probably see them as competitors. Probably that territory will be etruscianize. Such event is always pretty unavoidable. But I don't think that it will be so wide-spreared language as Latin and its successor languages. Culture is surely very different. United Etruscan nation might last several centuries.
They share the Aeneid legend with Rome.
 
Maybe this has been discussed before, but I really wonder what if the Etruscians, rather than Rome built up an empire... maybe even an empire similar huge as OTL Rome.
They sure need to have much more discipline than they had in OTL (as known, they rather celebrated than doing wars). And the Latins/ Romans need to be somehow weaker. Way weaker.

> How would such a scenario plausibly be possible?
> How far would they spread their empire? Would they conquer just the appenine peninsula or would they be able to spread further?
> What would be their capital?
> How would they react to the Greeks? Would they react to them similar as the Romans did? Or would they see them as an old enemy (because Etruscians were descendants of Troyans)?
> How much would other peoples be "etruscianized"? Lingually; would their language be the root of an European language family? And culturally; would Europe be nicer place for women, for example? (Etruscians were very women-friendly - that's one reason, I like them so much *smile* )
> How long could their empire last?


As you see, there are a lot of fascinating questions. :D
Would be really nice, if there are the one or another good, plausible TLs with that topic. :)

Hard to say on all accounts, Etruscan studies is... Fluid. A lot of what he know/assume is from Roman sources, archaeologically speaking we have a lot of Etruscan artwork and structures but remember Italy has been inhabited for a long time so there has been a lot of rebuilding and recycling of materials. On Roman sources a lot of culturally significant attributions come through a lens of Roman history which came (in many cases centuries) after the fact.

Things like better treatment of women, well it's the ancient world and few cultures saw women beyond walking breeding machines or property. Also the Romans saw equality of women as barbarous, so sources on equality should be taken with a grain of salt. Crediting a culture as treating their women as equals for the Romans was the modern equivalent of calling people pussies basically. Femininity was seen as weakness and remember history and propaganda were deeply intertwined by the Romans, so it may be flat out false.

BUT there is a long well written TL on such a topic called "The Weighted Scales" which I think you will enjoy ;)

https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...d-scales-the-world-of-an-aborted-rome.195565/
 
The Weighted Scales doesn't lead to an Etruscan empire though, if anything the Etruscans fair just as poorly...

True they don't go full Roman in terms of conquering the known world but it is something. I'm in agreement with you, I don't think they Etruscans could expand beyond Etruria.
 
The Weighted Scales doesn't lead to an Etruscan empire though, if anything the Etruscans fair just as poorly...

True they don't go full Roman in terms of conquering the known world but it is something. I'm in agreement with you, I don't think they Etruscans could expand beyond Etruria.
 
The Weighted Scales doesn't lead to an Etruscan empire though, if anything the Etruscans fair just as poorly...

True they don't go full Roman in terms of conquering the known world but it is something. I'm in agreement with you, I don't think they Etruscans could expand beyond Etruria.
 

Deleted member 97083

Anatolia has effectively been politically united 3 times in its history, by the Persians, the Romans, and then the Ottomans/Turkey. Otherwise, it was notoriously hard to control and always Balkanized in some form.
Not exactly true. From the Persian conquest in 547 BC, the Anatolian Peninsula has been united from 547 to 323 BC, from 66 BC to 1071 AD, and from 1487 to 2016 AD.

In that time, it has only been disunited in two (comparatively) short periods from 323 to 66 BC and 1071 to 1487 AD.

Therefore in the last 2,563 years, Anatolia has been united for 1,890 (74%) of those years. Not too shabby for a peninsula with every conceivable kind of geographical barrier. The Italian Peninsula might as well be a flat, green plain by comparison.

It was new to Italian and Greek societies.
Tyranny, organized militarism, and a centralized state wasn't new to Greeks, especially after Philip and Alexander.

But yes, it was largely new to Italic societies.

However, many city-state systems in ancient history have seen a warlord suddenly unite all the city states, destroying the old political order and establishing a fairly unified, militaristic one. The Greeks, Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians, possibly Egyptians, all experienced this. A combination of economic and military pressure is also possible, as in the rise of Carthage over the other Phoenician colonies.

My point is, there's nothing that Rome or Carthage did politically that is impossible for the Etruscans to do. The aspects of the Roman system that gave them an advantage also hadn't developed yet. If Rome could reinvent 500-year-old Mesopotamian strategies and create a state of the art army, why not the Etruscans?
 
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Not exactly true. From the Persian conquest in 547 BC, the Anatolian Peninsula has been united from 547 to 323 BC, from 66 BC to 1071 AD, and from 1487 to 2016 AD.

In that time, it has only been disunited in two (comparatively) short periods from 323 to 66 BC and 1071 to 1487 AD.

Therefore in the last 2,563 years, Anatolia has been united for 1,890 (74%) of those years. Not too shabby for a peninsula with every conceivable kind of geographical barrier. The Italian Peninsula might as well be a flat, green plain by comparison.
Of course, once an area is united it's much easier to stay united. But the difficulty is in uniting it.

Tyranny, organized militarism, and a centralized state wasn't new to Greeks, especially after Philip and Alexander.
It was not, but that is not what i was saying. I was saying the Roman ability to incorporate their conquered subjects fully into their core army and have them share in the wealth and plunder, was. This was not something the Greek city states did, nor was it what the Diadochi states did. This was something unique to Rome.


However, many city-state systems in ancient history have seen a warlord suddenly unite all the city states, destroying the old political order and establishing a fairly unified, militaristic one. The Greeks, Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians, possibly Egyptians, all experienced this. A combination of economic and military pressure is also possible, as in the rise of Carthage over the other Phoenician colonies.
All of these are over the same group of people. Greeks did not apply this method to non-Greeks like the Romans did with non-Latins. Carthage certainly didn't apply anything remotely like this.

why not the Etruscans?
Because what we know about the Etruscans shows them to not be a very militaristic society to start with, unlike the Latins or Oscans.
 

Deleted member 97083

It was not, but that is not what i was saying. I was saying the Roman ability to incorporate their conquered subjects fully into their core army and have them share in the wealth and plunder, was. This was not something the Greek city states did, nor was it what the Diadochi states did. This was something unique to Rome.
Oh I see. Well, even that aspect wasn't uniquely Roman--the Seleucids for example used a lot of native auxiliaries. The Ptolemies did too after the Battle of Raphia. While these were not given the same status as Greek troops, the Romans didn't give auxiliaries the same status as Romans either for many years.

In a general context, an integrative strategy had been implemented by the Assyrians and Achaemenids in their armies to great success.

The most effective things about the Romans, I would say, would be that they (unintentionally) combined Assyrian-style military tactics and organization, with Greek-style citizenship and trade. The Assyrians, while they had the strongest, most integrated and advanced army of the time, also had a feudal, starving, semi-enslaved populace and a pillage economy. The Greeks had comparatively ineffective armies until Philip and Alexander, but they had a citizen class, a not-entirely-feudal peasant class, and relieved overpopulation by establishing colonies which led to significant trade income.

All of these are over the same group of people. Greeks did not apply this method to non-Greeks like the Romans did with non-Latins. Carthage certainly didn't apply anything remotely like this.
All the Etruscans spoke the same or a similar language, so a unification of Etruria is similar to the Argeads' unification.

We don't know exactly how Carthage united because its early era is so enigmatic and mythical, but at the time of colonization, there was nothing to indicate that all the colonies would be subservient to Carthage. Later, at the time the Carthaginians started fighting the Greeks and Romans, they had united the Phoenician colonies of the western Mediterranean.

Because what we know about the Etruscans shows them to not be a very militaristic society to start with, unlike the Latins or Oscans.
True but a non-militaristic society can transform into a militaristic one very quickly, if threatened by foreign invasion, or faced with heavy social stratification and concentration of land into the upper class. Of course in the latter case, you may get a self-defeating Sparta.
 
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Oh I see. Well, even that aspect wasn't uniquely Roman--the Seleucids for example used a lot of native auxiliaries. The Ptolemies did too after the Battle of Raphia. While these were not given the same status as Greek troops, the Romans didn't give auxiliaries the same status as Romans either for many years.
The Seleucids never used auxiliaries as part of their core army. Their manpower rested on their Greek citizen phalanx. That's why their empire could be crippled in one or two battles. The Ptolemies used them once and were rewarded with a revolt. The Romans had massive manpower reserves not because there were a lot of Romans but because of how they used their conquered enemies.
In a general context, an integrative strategy had been implemented by the Assyrians and Achaemenids in their armies to great success.
Yes, but not in the Mediterranean world.
 

Deleted member 97083

The Seleucids never used auxiliaries as part of their core army. Their manpower rested on their Greek citizen phalanx. That's why their empire could be crippled in one or two battles. The Ptolemies used them once and were rewarded with a revolt. The Romans had massive manpower reserves not because there were a lot of Romans but because of how they used their conquered enemies.

Yes, but not in the Mediterranean world.
True. In that case, what if a southern Etruscan colony, populated by Etruscans, Italians, and Greeks, became the center of a new civilization? Perhaps this colony could be right next to Veii and founded on a spot with seven hills. Such an Etruscan colony could be pretty successful.
 
Calling for an Etruscan Empire is like calling for a Latin Empire. There was no "Latin" state, just like there's no "Etruscan" state. There's several city states. Anyway, it's very difficult to have any city state take over the Italian peninsula (or even most of it) through geography and diversity alone, and that Rome did it was nothing short of remarkable. The society would need to be a heavily militarized one that existed on expansion, and also be innovative enough to expand and use the conquered Italian tribes as an expanded manpower pool. The Romans were very good at this in a way a lot of societies weren't. So first step is to become the dominant power in Etruria.
Romans were the dominant power in Latium since 6th century BC, but did not control Latium before Latin war about 340 BC.
What would happen if Veii successfully conquers Rome? Would their priority be advancing to the rest of Latium, or dominating the fellow Etruscans?
 
Given that the Etruscans were a bunch of city states (as noted), the easiest way to get an 'Etruscan Empire' is for them to band together in the face of an external threat. Such an 'empire' (league would be a better term, no doubt) would probably have something like what we'd think of as a 'federal' structure, which might actually stand it in better stead in the long run. Empires like Rome, where the only important place was the base city (at least initially) are a tough model to expand to empire.

A League, on the other hand, can simply keep adding members.

You'd probably need them to start colonizing like the Greeks did, and the Phoenicians, to get more city states scattered around the western Med to serve as nuclei for new provinces/areas of expansion.

OR. They could adopt *Koine and accept the various Greek colonies in the western Med as members. Such an Empire might end up being rather more 'Greek' than 'Etruscan' - but, hey, that's what happened to the Roman Empire, too, eventually.
 
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