Chapter Six of The Beginnings of Rome: Italy From the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (Circa 1,000 to 264 B.C.) by T.J. Cornell is titled The Myth of 'Etruscan Rome.' N.S. Gill has discussed it already with helpful notes: Cornell and the Etruscan Myth. (We will be discussing Chapters Five through Seven on Wednesday.)
These two paragraphs from Section 7: Conclusion, pp.171/172 give an indication as to what arguments to look for when reading this chapter:
"Let us now sum up the results of this discussion. Rome was never an Etruscan city. It was an independent Latin settlement, with a cosmopolitan population and a sophisticated culture. Its material life was similar to (indeed often indistinguishable from) that of neighbouring Etruscan cities, but that does not make it Etruscan, nor does it imply any cultural supremacy or priority on the Etruscan side.
"It is important to be clear about the purpose of this discussion. The aim is not to prove that Etruscan influence on early Rome has been exaggerated in modern studies (although in some of them it undoubtedly has), but rather that the idea of 'Etruscan Rome' completely misconceives the nature of the relationship between Rome and the Etruscans. On the model of a cultural koiné, 'Etruscan Rome' is as misleading a description of Rome as 'Roman Etruria' would be of archaic Etruria. Rather, the Etruscan cities, Rome, and other communities in Tyrrhenian central Italy shared the same common culture, formed from an amalgam of Greek, orientalising, and native Italic elements. In attributing an Etruscan origin to various features of archaic Rome modern historians are committing the same error as their late republican predecessors, who assumed that archaic Romans and Etruscans were profoundly different from one another in their institutions, customs and mental outlook. Nothing could be further from the truth. The supposed opposition is both false and anachronistic, and any attempt to separate authentic and original elements of Roman culture from alien Etruscan intrusions is doomed from the start."
And fascinating (IMHO) arguments they are. Enjoy!
One of the chapter's illustrations is a drawing of The Apollo of Veii. The above image is from Wikimedia Commons and part of this page. There is an excellent, detailed website dedicated to the statue: Apollo di Veio.
