Book: Ceramics - Art or Science? Author: Dr. Stan Jones

10. European Pottery to the Fall of the Romans

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Carthage controlled the maritime trade west of Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, where they had many settlements; through to Spain. For some time the Carthaginians, Phoenicians and Greeks vied relatively peacefully for control of Corsica but they fell out when Greece tried to settle there in numbers, leading to a naval battle in 535 BC, which the Greeks technically won, but they pulled out anyway.

The Etruscan control of Rome came to an end when the Romans expelled the Etruscans from there in 509 BC and declared themselves a Republic. The Etruscans also battled with the Greeks of Syracuse, but lost a major naval battle 474 BC. In 396 BC the Etruscan city-state of Veii fell to a siege by the Romans, sealing the ultimate fate of the Etruscans. Most of the Greek cities declined after 400 BC apart from Cumae and Tarentum. In the 4th century BC the Celts destroyed the Etruscan civilisation in the Po valley, and even reached Rome burning much of it around 387 BC.

The Greeks and Carthaginians continued to fight over Sicily. In 317 BC, Agathocles, a potter, became ruler at the city of Syracuse, which had a population as great as 500,000 people. He even led an army to North Africa laying waste to Carthaginian lands. The subsequent rulers of Sicily supported both Rome and Carthage at various times until the Romans, in need of the agricultural produce from Sicily, forced the Carthaginians to concede their territory in Sicily in 241 BC. The Romans then controlled all of Sicily apart from the kingdom of Syracuse itself.

By the middle of the 3rd century BC, the Romans had moved north and taken control of all the Etruscan land, although most Etruscan cities kept some autonomy and relative peace until in 90 BC Rome decreed that all Italic people were their citizens, destroying any ideas of independence. Civil war broke out and the old Etruscan cities in the north were brutally devastated, and it was not until the reign of Augustus (31 BC-14 AD) that stability was restored, by which time the Etruscan language had withered to be replaced by Latin. However, over the preceding centuries the Etruscans had been a major formative influence on the development of the Romans and their Culture, teaching them the alphabet, numerals, and many aspects of arts and crafts. Examples of these that we now take as the epitome of “Roman” Culture include gladiatorial combat, military triumph and purple-bordered togas.

10.7 The Romans

The Latini tribe was active as early as 1,100 BC in the area of present Rome. Rome traditionally was founded by descendants of Aeneas, a refugee from the Trojan War. One of them succeeded Latinus, the king of the local tribe, and Romulus was said to be his descendant who founded Rome in 753 BC. Over the next 150 years it became a substantial fortress town and early Rome imported much of its pottery from Etruria. The Latin language is derived from the early Indo-European language, so is related to Sanskrit, Greek, Germanic and Celtic. Early Latin inscriptions survive from about 600 BC. As mentioned above, in 509 BC the last of the kings of Rome who paid tribute to the Etruscans was not replaced and Rome entered a period known as the Early Republic (509-280 BC). Initially the Romans were ruled by a triumvirate of a religious priest-king and two military Consuls. The latter, usually generals, were elected by army centurions. There was also a Senate that might have existed in the earlier period to advise the king, but then debated issues and advised the Consuls and the Roman people. Later the Romans implemented other variants of this ruling structure as they adapted to the growing Empire. Roman history during the Early Republic is poorly documented and accounts available to us were written by much later historians, often from late in the 2nd century BC. This is because it was from this time that the struggle between Rome and Carthage was considered sufficiently worthy for Greek historians to pay some attention.

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