THE POLITICAL POWER IN EARLY ITALY
The Greek cities of Sicily and Magna Graecia suffered from sharp internal divi-sions. Narrow oligarchies, composed of the descendants of the first settlers, for a long time controlled the best land and the public offices. At Syracuse, they were called the gamoroi, those who shared the land; in other cities, the governing groups were called the hippeis or horsemen. In addition to these wealthy families, Greeks of a less exalted status formed the citizen body or demos, and their military service could be essential to the survival of the state, although this demos typically had little in the way of political rights. Such divisions, as well as the sharper divide between Greek and non-Greek, made the internal stability of many cities precarious. Civil wars and coups and the expulsion of defeated factions were not uncommon; and civil strife could result in the establishment of a tyranny, the per-sonal rule of a single individual backed by an armed following.
From the middle of the sixth century, these Greek city-states of Sicily and southern Italy, already disturbed by internal problems, entered into a period of wider, more serious conflict, into which even non-Greeks were drawn. The more powerful cities, able to dominate the native populations in their hinterlands, began to press on the territories of others. During the sixth century Sybaris was the most powerful Greek city in Italy; in 510, however, after being weakened by civil strife, it was defeated and destroyed by its neighbor Croton. Then in the fifth century, Rhegium and Locri (both farther west) ended Croton’s preeminence. During this century, Syracuse successfully dominated many of its smaller Greek neighbors.
Beginning in the late eighth century, a number of communities in southern Etruria— Caere, Tarquinii, Vulci, and Veii—began to develop rapidly into city-states. By the end of the seventh century, others could be found in northern Etruria, at Populonia, Rusellae, and Volaterrae, as well as inland in the valleys of the Tiber and Arno rivers. These cities possessed a common language, and many features of their government, social organization, and religion were similar; they also had some sense of a shared identity. Yet Etruscan city-states were never united politically, and frequently they were rivals and even enemies.
The major centers of Etruria controlled substantial territories. Political power and public cult were concentrated at the core, reducing other settlements in the ter¬ritory to a subordinate role, or forcing their abandonment when the inhabitants were moved to the city. The larger cities often spread over several hundred acres, although buildings did not occupy all of this space. Smaller dependent settle¬ments, some as extensive as twenty-five acres (10 ha), could be found toward the fringes of a larger community’s territory, too far away for the land there to be cul¬tivated by people from the center. Villages occupying less than about ten acres (4 ha) surrounded the central city, as did hamlets or isolated farms that covered two to three acres (1 ha) at most. In certain instances some lesser settlements contained a religious structure or elite dwelling, and even fortifications. In addition, a few towns of intermediate size, seldom exceeding one hundred acres (40 ha), preserved a precarious independence in zones that were isolated from major settlements. Most such towns, however, eventually succumbed to their stronger neighbors: Murlo was destroyed twice, first c. 600 and finally c. 530; Acquarossa was eclipsed around 500.