Etruscan decline

[aligern]

Help!  I contributed to an answer on Quora about the Etruscan military.  My points were that they had a problem with numbers in that their social structure delivered fewer effective warriors than the Roman system. To me it seems that the Etruscan equivalent of the triarii is the main fighting element  whereas the Romans converted their second and third classes of warfirs into effective fighters, hastati and principes, .  This gave tge Romans tge advantage that their lower social classes were first class heavy infantry whereas the Etruscan lower grades were neither so skilled nor so motivated.   Also , that the Romans out numbered the Etruscans , or at the very least outnumbered the firces  that the Etruscans  could bring against them.

I cannot remember whether I got the idea that the Etruscans were hampered by their social structure, but it certainly was not original, nor the idea that when the Romans began to take over the Etruscan territories the Romans could call upon greater numbers.
Any thoughts on sources gentlemen?  Of couse this very forum might be the fount.
Roy

[Mark G]

It wasn't Connelly, was it?

Greece and Rome at war?  I can't check as I'm still in building work purgatory. 

[aligern]

Might be, but I think it was more recent. Of course it might be in Duncan's WRG book which I have searched tge shelves for.
R

[Duncan Head]

I may have said something along these lines, but if so I don't recall where I got it from. The idea that the Etruscans were hampered by class divisions seems to go back a fair way. Michael Taylor (here though I am using an earlier  draft) says:

Etruscan society was notoriously riven by class divides, with literary sources suggesting a sharp schism between wealthy landowners at the top (ditissimi, dunatōtatoi, principes), a non-descript middle (cetera multitudo), and a serf-like underclass (penestai, servi, oiketai) beneath.

He cites Harris, Rome in Etruria and Umbria (1971); there is also D'Agostino, "Military Organisation and Social Structure in Archaic Etruria" in O. Murray & S. Price (eds), The Greek City: From Homer to Alexander (Oxford 1990) - neither of which I have read.

[aligern]

Thanks Duncan!
Roy

[DBS]

It may even go back to Toynbee - given his politics, the downfall of a social elite would have been a typical approach for him, but it is forty years since I was foolish enough as a young teenager to read him!

[Dangun]

I have no idea what the reality of the situation is, but I'd be interested to see how one establishes that the Etruscans were more or less class riven than the Romans.
Doesn't there have to be a better explanation?

I am not saying that culture doesn't matter, but having heard, "because Japanese XYZ," or, "because the Chinese XYZ," more often than I can count, i'd politely suggest that the anecdote about culture can distract us from a simpler and better explanation.

[Jim Webster]

I have no idea what the reality of the situation is, but I'd be interested to see how one establishes that the Etruscans were more or less class riven than the Romans.
Doesn't there have to be a better explanation?

I am not saying that culture doesn't matter, but having heard, "because Japanese XYZ," or, "because the Chinese XYZ," more often than I can count, i'd politely suggest that the anecdote about culture can distract us from a simpler and better explanation.

People often do 'cultural things' for perfectly good practical reasons. Or at least they were when they started doing them 

[aligern]

 My remembrance was that the class structures were similar, but the battlefield deployments were  perhaps different,  The Etruscans put the best equipped class in the front rank and followed them in the files with the  inferior classes.  That is, after all, the Greek way. The Romans put the Principes and the hastati in the front and trained and hardened them to be good fighters. Thus the Romans came to have an army of good fighters whereas tge Etruscans had a couple of ranks of good men and then dross.  If you have a very hierarchical system then the Etruscan organisation is what you end up with.  Tge  Roman plebs were perhaps more democratically involved and had more stake in society than their Etruscan equivalents.
On your point about practicalities, Rome is one big city state, the Etruscans are several independent cities that have to ally to stand up to Rome.  The politics if divided command and alliance  complications may have hindered them too.

[Dangun]

My remembrance was that the class structures were similar, but the battlefield deployments were  perhaps different,  The Etruscans put the best equipped class in the front rank and followed them in the files with the  inferior classes.  That is, after all, the Greek way. The Romans put the Principes and the hastati in the front and trained and hardened them to be good fighters. Thus the Romans came to have an army of good fighters whereas tge Etruscans had a couple of ranks of good men and then dross.  If you have a very hierarchical system then the Etruscan organisation is what you end up with.  Tge  Roman plebs were perhaps more democratically involved and had more stake in society than their Etruscan equivalents.
On your point about practicalities, Rome is one big city state, the Etruscans are several independent cities that have to ally to stand up to Rome.  The politics if divided command and alliance  complications may have hindered them too.

To me, your points about training, and the size and coordination of Rome versus allied Etruscan cities, sounds more compelling than class-riven-ness.

Did you just make the Victor Davis Hanson argument? 

[aligern]

No Nicholas I did not follow VDH there, unless you would see the Etruscans as Easterners . The Romans and the Etruscans are in the same martial koine. The Etruscans  are throwing pila too ,their defensive equipment is 'Later Hoplite Greek' , but they throw weapons. There is at least one battle where  both sides go at it so fast that they drop their shafted weapons in order to get it on, note its both sides
As I understand Hanson to fit his argument there has to be an Eastern versus a Western army so the Westerners can close and the easterners can flee. 
I do think that a difference in class status could  result in the Etruscans having less top grade fighters whereas the Romans, with a flatter social structure, had far greater depth of effective motivated fighters.
Of course such social structure issues do affect military performance. I would cite Italy inWW2 as an example and as an extreme the Confederacy in the ACW where a large part of the male population was not even allowed to fight.
Roy

[Duncan Head]

It may even go back to Toynbee...

Older than Toynbee - try Niebuhr, The History of Rome, I, Cambridge, 1828:

In his own reading of the sources, Niebuhr contrasted the success of the Roman state with the Etruscan 'nation' of cities, ruled by noble ruling classes that maintained a feudal system throughout its history; in doing so, Niebuhr illustrated the doomed fate of oligarchic constitutions. Moreover, because Niebuhr saw the Etruscan 'nation' as born out of conquest from Raetia, the Alpine area of north-eastern Italy, the relationship between the ruling classes, the nobility and the clients was always one of serfdom or subjugation even in extreme circumstances, as in the case of the serf revolt at Volsinii; the Etruscan state, in other words, never developed a plebeian estate.

(from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12138-018-0464-z)

(The revolt at Volsinii was 265 BC; the magistrates asked for help from Rome, the rebels defeated a Roman army and killed the consul Q Fabius Gurges, another Roman army then destroyed the city.)

[DBS]

It may even go back to Toynbee...

Older than Toynbee - try Niebuhr, The History of Rome, I, Cambridge, 1828:

Not surprised - I never got round to reading Niebuhr, and was certainly never encouraged so to do by my professors.  Thank you.

[DBS]

On your point about practicalities, Rome is one big city state, the Etruscans are several independent cities that have to ally to stand up to Rome.  The politics of divided command and alliance  complications may have hindered them too.

If Tim Cornell's guesstimates on urban acreage circa 500BC are anywhere near accurate, then Rome already by then dwarfed the Etruscan cities - Tim estimated Rome at about 300ha, Veii was about 200ha, and of the remaining Etruscan states, only Caere, Tarquinii and Vulci topped 100ha.  In the rest of Italy, Tarentum in turn dwarfed Rome with 500ha, but she was of course not on the military horizon for Rome at that time.  My point being that this is in the period when we know the absolute least about social or military structures for any of the non Greek players, let alone supposed differences and subtleties between them.  Whilst there may have been social issues which reinforced Roman advantages, I tend to suspect sheer size may have been the key factor.  It also means that this size has been achieved under the supposed monarchy, not the republican system.  That is without even getting into the age old debate about whether the Tarquins were dodgy Etruscans with dodgy Etruscan values...

Now, one could then speculate about whether social issues - such as the supposed willingness of Rome to admit foreigners and outcasts to citizen status - were critical in allowing Rome to grow to such a remarkable size so early, but even there we do not know whether their alleged openness to immigrants was uniquely a Roman trait or a more common Italian attitude which has just been highlighted for Rome because of their overwhelming success in the long run.

And Harris might argue that another factor was the sheer psychotic determination of the Romans to fight wars on a much more existential basis than was fashionable, though again I would be cautious in mapping his theories back to the sixth and fifth centuries.

[Dangun]

If Tim Cornell's guesstimates on urban acreage circa 500BC are anywhere near accurate, then Rome already by then dwarfed the Etruscan cities.

Another great not-culture argument.

Now, one could then speculate about whether social issues - such as the supposed willingness of Rome to admit foreigners and outcasts to citizen status - were critical in allowing Rome to grow to such a remarkable size so early, but even there we do not know whether their alleged openness to immigrants was uniquely a Roman trait or a more common Italian attitude which has just been highlighted for Rome because of their overwhelming success in the long run.

There is something about the network benefits or efficiencies of cities that mean the sizes are very skewed, you get a size begets size process.

But just a thought, you probably don't need immigration for the city scaling, but rather just suck up under-utilised labour from rural areas.
I think