[Illustration: FIG. 2.3 Early Italy, to illustrate Etruscan and other sites. Inset: early Rome. (V. Scramuzza and P. MacKendrick, _The Ancient World_, Fig. 32a) REPUBLICAN ROME ROMAN NUMERALS INDICATE THE FOUR REGIONS (*CITY TRIBES) I SUCUSANA II ERSQUILINA III COLLINA IV PALATINE -- CITY OF THE FOUR REGIONS ---- SERVIAN CITY KEY 1 TABULARIUM 2 ARX 3 COMITIUM AND CURIA 4 BASILICA ÆMILIA 5 T. OF VESTA 6 REGIA 7 CLOACA MAXIMA 8 T. OF GREAT MOTHER 9 T. OF JUPITER VICTOR 10 FORUM BOARIUM 11 SUBLICIAN BRIDGE 12 ÆMILIAN BRIDGE 13 Pta. FLUMENTANA 14 Pta. CARMENTALIS 15 CAPITOLIUM 16 FORUM HOLITORIUM 17 T. OF TELLONA 18 CIRCUS OF FLAMINIUS 19 POMPEY’S THEATRE 20 T. OF QUIRINUS 21 T. OF FORTUNE 22 FABRICIAN BRIDGE 23 BRIDGE OF CESTIUS EARLY ROME AND ITALY ] * * * * * Archaeology tells us, too, that Etruscan civilization is a culture of cities. Ancient literary sources speak of a league of twelve Etruscan places (Fig. 2.3), most of which have yielded important archaeological material: from Veii, the great terracotta Apollo; at Cerveteri, Vetulonia, Orvieto, and Perugia, the remarkable rock-cut tombs; at Tarquinia, Vulci, and Chiusi, strikingly vivid tomb-paintings; at Bolsena, Roselle, and Volterra, mighty fortification walls; at Populonia, the slag-heaps from the iron works which made Etruria prosperous. But the most interesting, and some of the latest, evidence for Etruscan city-planning and fortifications comes from three sites, two in the northern Etruscan sphere of influence: Marzabotto on the River Reno, fifteen miles south of Bologna; Spina, near one of the seven mouths of the Po; and one in northern Etruria itself, Bolsena, ancient Volsinii. [Illustration: FIG. 2.4 Marzabotto: grid plan. (J. B. Ward Perkins, “Early Roman Towns in Italy,” Fig. 5)] The first recorded excavations at Marzabotto date from the 1860’s, but the ruins had been known since 1550. The striking discovery at Marzabotto was that the site (dated by pottery in its necropolis to the late sixth or early fifth centuries B.C.) had a regular, oriented, rectangular grid of streets (Fig. 2.4), enclosing house-blocks (_insulae_) averaging 165 × 35 yards. The main north-south street, or _cardo_, and the main east-west street, or _decumanus_, were each over forty-eight feet wide, the minor streets one third as broad. The streets were paved, as they were not in Rome until 350 years later. Drains ran beneath all the streets except the reserved area (the Romans were to call it the _pomerium_) just inside the circuit-wall. The house-plans resemble closely the fourth-century ones discovered in the 1930’s at Olynthus, on the Chalcidice Peninsula in Greece, by an American expedition. The house-doors had locks and keys. A number of the buildings were recognizable as shops, with back rooms for living quarters.