The cities of Etruria were united by language, religion and political settlement, but their unity was not always robust and local warlords were able to act independently – as did Lars Porsena from his base in Clusium.
The Etruscan town of Veii was located across the Tiber sixteen kilometres upstream from Rome on the right bank of the Cremera, a small right tributary of the Tiber. Veii was positioned on a rocky plateau surrounded by cliffs and waterways except for a narrow neck of land on one side, and enclosed by a defensive wall running along the top of the cliffs.
Both cities controlled part of the opposite bank – the Romans an area on the coast, which prevented the Veientes from using the Tiber to reach the sea, and the Veientes the city of Fidenae, eight kilometres upstream from Rome, opposite the mouth of the Cremera. Veii’s control of Fidenae obviously presented a threat to Roman territory and to the control of her lucrative trade in salt and luxury goods in the valley.
The First Veientine War (c.483-474 BC) arose from a dispute over the control of the salt industry at the mouth of the Tiber. In 480 BC the consuls Marcus 02Fabius Vibulanus and Gnaeus 01Manlius Cincinnatus avenged an earlier defeat by a victory over the Veientes, but Fabius’ brother Quintus 01Fabius Vibulanus (cos. 485 BC) was killed in the battle.
The next year, however, the Veientes occupied the Janiculum, facing Rome across the Tiber. As a counterthrust some three hundred Fabii accompanied by four or five thousand dependents manned a camp on the Cremera River, which cut Veii’s communications with Fidenae. In 477 BC they were ambushed, and only one Fabii survived. Rome remained under threat but Etruscan power weakened and in 474 BC a forty-year treaty of peace was made between Rome and Veii.
According to Dionysius, the Romans had established settlers upon land taken from Fidenae in 498 BC; and Livy describes the town as a Roman colony. Before its conquest by Rome, Fidenae was probably already surrounded by two of Rome’s rustic (=rural) tribes, the Clustumina upstream and the Claudia downstream.
The Second Veientine War (437-435 BC or 427-425 BC) began when Fidenae defected from Rome and on the advice of Lars Tolumnius, king of Veii, executed four Roman ambassadors sent out to investigate. Rome sent an army under the dictator 01Aemilius Mamercinus to besiege the city. Tolumnius died in the conflict, slain by the tribune 01Cornelius Cossus (fl.437-413 BC), who was awarded the spolia opima (‘rich spoils’), armour, weapons, etc. for killing the enemy leader in single combat. Two years later the dictator Quintus 02Servilius Priscus Structus (fl.435-418 BC) brought about the capture of Fidenae by tunnelling under its citadel.
In the Third Veientine War (c.406-396 BC) the Romans took the initiative and put Veii under siege. For the first time the Roman army could not release its citizens to return to their farms after a short summer campaign, and the introduction of military pay became necessary.
For nine years the war did not favour the Romans. Their fortified camps in front of Veii were stormed by the Capenati and the Falisci – two tribes from further up the Tiber Valley anticipating Rome’s northern advance had rallied to Veii’s cause. In 396 BC the consular tribunes Gnaeus 01Genucius Augurinus and Lucius Titinius Pansa Saccus were routed by the same enemies. The Senate met the danger by appointing a dictator, 02Furius Camillus (c.81; fl.403-365 BC).
Veii finally fell in 396 BC, the accounts mentioning some unlikely exploits, involving the Delphic Oracle, a tunnel beneath Veii and the draining of Lake Alban. Veii was put to the sack, i.e. men were killed, women were raped, and the survivors sold into slavery. The territory of the city was annexed, doubling the size of the ager Romanus, and this was later settled by Roman farmers enrolled in four new tribes.
Rome came to terms with Veii’s allies in southern Eretria, pushing the Roman frontier further northwards to Sutrium and Nepete, ‘the gates of Etruria’, controlling the routes through the Ciminian Forest to central Eretria; and eastwards to Capena (395 BC) and Falerii Veteres (394 BC) north of the Tiber Valley. These towns were not taken over and Falerii survived to challenge Rome nearly forty years later.
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