Roman History essays

Roman History essays Italy is a peninsula jutting out into the Medditerranean sea west of Greece. Italy has poor mineral resources and very few useful harbors, however it is wealty in both fertile land and precipitation. Three - quarters of the peninsula is covered in foothills and mountains. The alps, a mountian range to the north of Italy, cut off the peninsulas only land connection, which resulted, in the times of Ancient Rome, in the people The Etruscans were mysterious people who settled on the Italian Peninsula somewhere between 900 and 800 BC. No one is really certain about their origin, however archaeologists suspect that they came from the eastern Medditerannean. The Etruscans ruled in north-eastern Italy, between the Appentine mountian range and the Tyrrhenian Sea. Their civilization streched from the Arno River in the north to the Tiber River which is more towards the center of the Italian Peninsula. Te Tiber River is where the Roman Empire would sit years later. The Etruscans lived in independent city-states. In the earliest times, these city-states were ruled by a monarchy, but were later ruled by oligarchies that governed through a coucil and elected officials. The Etruscans were largely agricultural people, however they also had a strong miliatary,which they used to dominate te surrounding societies. These dominated populations were forced by the Etruscans to do their ricultural labor, which left time for the Etruscans to devote to commerce and industry. They were sophisticated people, with and alphebet based on the Greek alphabet, an original style in sculpture and painting, a religion based on human like gods, and a complicated set of rituals which they performed annually. While the Etruscans were concentrating on building their power over all of Italy and engaging in commerce, a city to their south began to the grow. This city seemed to immitate the Etruscans in many ways. This new kingd...