by them, and soon Etruscan privateers
roamed over the sea far and wide, and rendered the name of the
Tyrrhenians a terror to the Greeks. It was not without reason that
the Greeks reckoned the grapnel as an Etruscan invention, and called
the western sea of Italy the sea of the Tuscans. The rapidity
with which these wild corsairs multiplied and the violence of their
proceedings in the Tyrrhene Sea in particular, are very clearly
shown by their establishment on the Latin and Campanian coasts.
The Latins indeed maintained their ground in Latium proper, and
the Greeks at Vesuvius; but between them and by their side the
Etruscans held sway in Antium and in Surrentum. The Volscians became
clients of the Etruscans; their forests contributed the keels for
the Etruscan galleys; and seeing that the piracy of the Antiates was
only terminated by the Roman occupation, it is easy to understand
why the coast of the southern Volscians bore among Greek mariners
the name of the Laestrygones. The high promontory of Sorrento with
the cliff of Capri which is still more precipitous but destitute
of any harbour--a station thoroughly adapted for corsairs on the
watch, commanding a prospect of the Tyrrhene Sea between the bays
of Naples and Salerno--was early occupied by the Etruscans. They are
affirmed even to have founded a "league of twelve towns" of their
own in Campania, and communities speaking Etruscan still existed in
its inland districts in times quite historical. These settlements
were probably indirect results of the maritime dominion of
the Etruscans in the Campanian sea, and of their rivalry with the
Cumaeans at Vesuvius.

Etruscan Commerce

The Etruscans however by no means confined themselves to robbery
and pillage. The peaceful intercourse which they held with Greek
towns is attested by the gold and silver coins which, at least from
the year 200, were struck by the Etruscan cities, and in particular
by Populonia, after a Greek model and a Greek standard. The
circumstance, moreover, that these coins are modelled not upon
those of Magna Graecia, but rather upon those of Attica and even
Asia Minor, is perhaps an indication of the hostile attitude in
which the Etruscans stood towards the Italian Greeks. For commerce
they in fact enjoyed the most favourable position, far more
advantageous than that of the inhabitants of Latium. Inhabiting
the country from sea to sea, they commanded the great Italian free
ports on th