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Updated: June 6, 2025
The law of appeal to the people carried by Valerius the consul. Two more tribes added. War declared against the Samnites. Several successful actions. In an engagement against the combined forces of the Etruscans, Umbrians, Samnites, and Gauls, Publius Decius, after the example of his father, devotes himself for the army. Dies, and, by his death, procures the victory to the Romans.
But the human figures in these scenes were conventional: there was nothing in them to stir the finer feelings, to produce a love of beauty, to raise man above the ordinary daily level. The Greeks knew of earlier works of art; but they declined to be seduced, as the Phoenicians and Etruscans were seduced, into a facile imitation of them.
Yet its power had increased to such a degree, especially owing to the defeat of the Etruscans, that not even on the death of Æneas, nor subsequently between the period of the regency of Lavinia, and the first beginnings of the young prince's reign, did either Mezentius, the Etruscans, or any other neighbouring peoples venture to take up arms against it.
Etruria Proper at Peace and on the Decline Thus the Etruscans, after the loss of their possessions in Campania and of the whole district to the north of the Apennines and to the south of the Ciminian Forest, remained restricted to very narrow bounds; their season of power and of aspiration had for ever passed away.
This reform evidently arose among the western Etruscans, and while it did not find reception beyond the Apennines, became naturalized among all the Sabellian tribes, and especially among the Umbrians.
On the other hand, the Etruscans repeated, and at the same time corrupted, the ornamental architecture of the Greeks: for while they transferred the laws established for building in stone to architecture in wood, they displayed no thorough skill of adaptation, and by the lowness of their roof and the wide intervals between their columns gave to their temples, to use the language of an ancient architect, a "heavy, mean, straggling, and clumsy appearance."
As the lower classes advanced in knowledge and intelligence they insisted on a share of the government. They fought their way to it. They united Rome, mastered the other Latin cities, and admitted them to partnership in her power. She conquered the Etruscans and the Samnites.
Her deeds of valor surpassed those of the bravest warriors, and many Trojans and Etruscans fell pierced with her darts or struck down by her battle-axe. At last an Etruscan named Aruns, who had watched her long, seeking for some advantage, observed her pursuing a flying enemy whose splendid armor offered a tempting prize.
But the Etruscans were driven back, by the aid of the Latin cities, beyond the Tiber. It took Rome one hundred and fifty years to recover what she had lost. The dictator, or commander, was chosen by one of the consuls, and his authority was supreme, but lasted only for six months. He had all the powers of the ancient kings.
He took the capital of the Aequi, reduced the Volsci to subjection, and marched at once upon Sutrium to relieve that city, whose inhabitants had not heard of his successes, but were still besieged by the Etruscans. The Sutrians had just surrendered, and had been turned out of their city by the enemy with nothing but the clothes they had on.
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