But domestic and foreign enemies destroyed this race of rulers. At the beginning of the fourth century they were attacked simultaneously by the Gauls from the north, by the Samnites90 from the south-east, and by the Romans from the south. The Gauls inundated for some time the whole of Etruria and presently captured Rome as well, but were driven back again to North Italy. The Samnites seized Capua; but a far heavier blow was the loss of the great city of Veii, the southernmost city of Etruria proper, which was captured by the Romans in 396 B.C.91 In spite of the alliance with Carthage, the maritime power of the Etruscans also declined in the course of the fourth century, but it was not until the third century that they received the death-blow at the hands of the Romans and Latins. That they were still dangerous antagonists at the beginning of the third century may be seen from Livy’s account, but at the end of the century, during the second Punic war, their rebellious spirit was easily quelled, and even Hannibal could not tempt them to unite in revolt.92 At that time the country was still rich, as is plainly shown by the requisitions for Scipio’s army.93 It was not until the following century that Etruria sank into deep poverty; in the time of the Gracchi the country was almost a waste.94 Plautus describes the Etruscan people as very immoral; in the Cistellaria (562) the poet speaks of those who procure their dowry ignobly, like the Tuscans, by selling their bodies, and in the Curculio (482) the Etruscan quarter of Rome is referred to as ‘inhabited by persons who sell themselves’. Then followed in the first century B.C. the military colonies of Sulla,95 which gradually Romanized the country. Inscriptions, especially from the borderland of Umbria, which had been partly Etruscan, bear ample witness to the way in which the language changed even within the old Etruscan families. About the middle of the first century parts of the country were ravaged by P. Clodius Pulcher and his bands of soldiers.96 Then comes the foundation of new military colonies by Caesar and, finally, the complete Romanization of the country under Augustus. Propertius97 describes, not without pathos, the extermination of the last Etruscan strongholds during the Perusian war in the year 40 B.C.: ‘eversosque focos antiquae gentis Etruscae’.

The knowledge of the Etruscan language was preserved all through antiquity by the Etruscan soothsayers. The emperor Claudius was versed in Etruscan, and delivered a long address in the Senate about the preservation of the old Etruscan ritual against the invasion of new, oriental elements. The other emperors had, as a rule, an Etruscan soothsayer in their suite, whom they consulted before taking any important step, and this custom survived down to the introduction of Christianity. Julian the Apostate was accompanied by hosts of Etruscan soothsayers, who, however, undoubtedly read the sacred books in the Latin translation by Tarquitius Priscus,98 and, as late as 408, we learn that Tuscan soothsayers and scribes still existed. If any of them at that time could still read the language, then Etruscan, as a dead and sacred language, had survived the disappearance of the people by about half a millennium.99