Veii

But the Romans did borrow from them institutions like the toga, the Latin alphabet, and the gods of their traditional religion.

Early in its history, Rome came into conflict with the nearest Etruscan cities, in particular the powerful town of Veii, which it defeated in the late fifth century BCE.

Another early enemy was the Gauls, who lived in the region of the Rhine and Seine rivers.

They invaded both Italy and Greece during the fourth and third centuries and almost destroyed Rome itself in 390.

The Roman center panicked before it had engaged, and the left wing was driven into the river and drowned under the weight of its own armor.

Most of the survivors didn't flee to Rome, and instead, they fled to Veii, the Etruscan city Rome had conquered only a few years earlier.

For the rest of Roman history, July eighteenth was the Dies Alienus, a tragic day on which no public business was conducted.

That said, the observance can only be traced in surviving sources to the first century BC, and might be a later invention.

The besiegers didn't do well either because Livy says disease broke out in the Gallic camp among the ruins in the heat of a Roman summer.

The Gauls, in an effort to stop the outbreak of disease, built huge funeral pyres, and Romans would forever call large fires like that Gallic pyres after this event.

Meanwhile, a young soldier named Pontius Cominius floated down the Tiber on cork to carry messages between the capital and the Roman survivors regrouping at Veiis.

The Gauls supposedly spotted his tracks on the cliff and tried the same route by night, and here's where Rome's animals would come to the rescue.

The place is now occupied by a convent, under the wall of which I gathered Orynthogalum nutans, and from its neighbourhood I enjoyed a panoramic view, surely the most glorious, in its combination of natural beauty and grandeur of historical recollections, to be found anywhere on earth.

The eye ranged from Terracina on one side to Veii on the other, and beyond Veii to the hills of Sutrium and Nepeti, once covered by the Simian forests, then deemed an impenetrable barrier between the interior of Etruria and Rome.

Below my feet the Alban mountain, with all its forest-covered folds, and in one of them the dark blue lake of Nemi, that of Albano, I think, was invisible.

To the north, in the dim distance, the eternal city.

Generally, that was enough for any conflict Rome was likely to face in their little chunk of Italy, but if needed, they could call on their allies in the Latin League to almost double the full size of the army.

To give you a sense of the extremely small scale of early Roman warfare, their first two true conquests, Phaedinae in 435 BCE and Veii in 394, were both within 10 kilometers of Rome itself and are part of the modern city.

Still, by the mid-390s, while Artaxerxes II was intervening in the Corinthian War over in Greece, Rome had expanded its dominion to outright rule two neighboring cities.

No small feat for a middling city-state.

Plutarch, Diodorus Siculus, and Livy, early Rome's most famous historian, all wrote about the Battle of the Alia, but they also describe significantly different battles.

The short version, regardless of author, is that the Romans did not take many precautions against the Senones and suffered a grievous defeat.

Many of the Roman survivors fled to the recently conquered city of Veii, while the Gauls marched on Rome itself.

The invaders besieged the Capitoline Hill and plundered the surrounding settlement before moving on to the south.

Induced by the relationship subsisting between them and the Fidenations, for they also were Etrurians, and urged on beside by their dangerous vicinity of situation, in case the Roman arms were to be turned against all their neighbors, made an incursion into the Roman territories, in the manner of a predatory rather than of a regular war.

And thus, without encamping or waiting the approach of the enemy's army, they returned to Veii, carrying home the plunder collected in the country.

On the other side, the Roman commander, not finding the enemy in the country, and being prepared for and determined on a decisive action, crossed over the Tiber.

The Veiians, hearing that he was forming a camp, and that he intended to advance to their city, marched out to meet him, for they chose rather to engage in the open field than to remain shut up and fight from the walls and houses.

There, unassisted by any stratagem, the Roman king, through the mere force of his veteran troops, obtained the victory, and pursued the routed enemy to their walls.

The city was so strong, and so well secured, both by art and by nature, that he did not choose to attempt it, but led home his troops, and, in his way, ravaged the enemy's country for the sake of revenge rather than of booty.

These devastations, having distressed the Veiians no less than the loss of the battle, they sent deputies to Rome to sue for peace.

A part of their lands was taken from them, and a truce granted for a hundred years.

Induced by the relationship subsisting between them and the Fidenaeans, for they also were Etrurians, and urged on beside by their dangerous vicinity of situation, in case the Roman arms were to be turned against all their neighbors, made an incursion into the Roman territories in the manner of a predatory rather than of a regular war.

And thus, without encamping or waiting the approach of the enemy's army, they returned to Veii, carrying home the plunder collected in the country.

On the other side, the Roman commander, not finding the enemy in the country, and being prepared for and determined on a decisive action, crossed over the Tiber.

The Veientians, hearing that he was forming a camp, and that he intended to advance to their city, marched out to meet him.

Some think that the term vindicta was taken from him, his name having been Vindictius.

After him it obtained as a rule that whoever was made free in that manner should be considered and admitted a citizen.

Tarquinius, on being informed of these transactions, became inflamed, not only with grief for the disappointment of such promising hopes, but with hatred and resentment, and finding every pass shut against secret plots, determined to have recourse to open war, and to that end he went round to all the cities of Etruria, in the character of a suppliant, addressing himself particularly to the people of Veii and Tarquinii, entreating them not to suffer him, who was sprung from themselves and of the same blood, who was lately possessed of so great a kingdom, now exiled and in want, to perish before their eyes, together with the young men his sons.

Others had been invited from foreign countries to Rome to fill the throne, but he, when in possession of the government, and while he was employing its arms in extending the limits of the Roman empire, was expelled by a villainous conspiracy of men who were most closely connected with him, who, because no one of their number was qualified to hold the reins of government, had forcibly shared the several parts of it among them, and had given up his property to be plundered by the populace, to the intent that all might be equally guilty.

and because the etruscans were opposed to the romans in many wars that i may give a clearer notion of this method of theirs i shall enlarge a little in my account of the etruscan people in italy before the romans became supreme the etruscans were very powerful both by sea and land and although we have no separate history of their affairs we have some slight records left us of them and some indications of their greatness we know for instance that they planted a colony to which they gave the name of hadria on the coast of the upper sea which colony became so renowned that it lent its name to the sea itself which to this day by the latins is called the hadriatic we know too that their arms were obeyed from the tiber to the foot of the mountains which enclosed the greater part of the italian peninsula although two hundred years before rome grew to any great strength they had lost their supremacy in the province now known as lombardy of which the french had possessed themselves for that people whether driven by necessity or attracted by the excellence of the fruits and still more of the wine of italy came there under their chief belovices and after defeating and expelling the inhabitants of the country settled themselves therein and there built many cities calling the district gallia after the name they then bore and this territory they retained until they were subdued by the romans These Etruscans, therefore, living with one another on a footing of complete equality when they sought to extend their power, followed that first method of which I have just now spoken.

Their state was made up of twelve cities, among which were Chiusi, Veii, Friuli, Arezzo, Volterra, and the like, and their government was conducted in the form of a league.

they could not however extend their conquests beyond italy while even within the limits of italy much territory remained unoccupied by them for reasons presently to be noticed The second method is to provide yourself with allies or companions, taking heed, however, to retain in your own hands the chief command, the seat of government, and the titular supremacy.

This was the method followed by the Romans.

You'll understand.

Kewpie, the original Japanese mayonnaise.

romans also went forth in strength and gave them battle and getting the better of them imposed harder terms than before and so returned home and in this way they came gradually to establish their name abroad and to add to their power These methods they continued to employ until they changed their system of warfare, which they did during the siege of Veii, when, to enable them to carry on a prolonged war, they passed a law for the payment of their soldiers, whom, up to that time, they had not paid, nor needed to pay, because till then their wars had been of brief duration.

Nevertheless, while allowing pay to their soldiers that they might thus wage longer wars and keep their armies longer in the field when employed on distant enterprises, they never departed from their old plan of bringing their campaigns to as speedy an end as place and circumstances allowed, nor ever ceased to plant colonies.

Yeah, God.

Yeah, the, the, the Siege of Veii was, was interesting.

Took them 10 years.

Yeah.