If the prehistoric folk who lived on the Tavoliere, in the _terremare_, and around the _nuraghi_, if the later Villanovans and Siculans have any reality for us, we owe our insights into their culture to the patience, critical spirit, and intelligence of Bradford, Pigorini’s critics, Lilliu, Ducati, Orsi, and other archaeologists. Their work has pushed back the frontiers of Italian history nearly two millennia, and revealed to us how the energy and capacity for creative borrowing of provincial Italians contributed to the ultimate strength and coherence of the Roman state, or how the Italians fought the Romans when they proved high-handed. To Roman culture of historical times another great contribution was made by the Etruscans. 2 The Etruscans Between Tiber and Arno there flourished, while Rome was still a collection of mud huts above the Tiber ford, a rich, energetic, and mysterious people, the Etruscans, whose civilization was to influence Rome profoundly. Their riches have been known to the modern world ever since the systematic looting of the fabulous wealth of their underground tombs began, as early as 1489. Visitors to the Vatican and Villa Giulia Museums in Rome, and, better still, the Archaeological Museum in Florence, can marvel at the splendid weapons, rich gold-work, and handsome vases with which more or less scientific grave-robbers have enriched the collections in the last hundred years. Travellers to Tarquinia, on the Tuscan seaboard, can wonder at the strange, vivid paintings and seemingly indecipherable inscriptions on the walls of mysterious and intricate underground chambers. Etruscan bronze-work inspired the sculptors of the Renaissance, Etruscan tombs were drawn by the pen of the great engraver Piranesi, Etruscan cities and cemeteries were described by perhaps the most interesting author, certainly the best stylist, who ever wrote on archaeology, the Englishman George Dennis. Dennis’ _Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria_, though its last edition appeared in 1883, is still the best general introduction to Etruscology. His achievement is the more remarkable in the light of the conditions under which he worked: execrable roads, worse lodging, and malaria stalking the whole countryside. In his day Etruscan tombs were exploited exclusively in the interest of the art dealers, with methods utterly unscientific. Artifacts without commercial value were ruthlessly destroyed: it is heart-rending to read Dennis’ account of the rape of Vulci: