The Etruscan culture provided a basic framework for the hallmarks of later Roman society and artwork: the Romans cremated their dead, as the Etruscans did, and housed their ashes in cinerary urns along Etruscan lines. The earliest government of the Romans was a monarchy, and periodically, those kings were Etruscans themselves. The closest, and therefore the earliest, influence which became assimilated to the Roman identity was that of the Etruscans, the neighboring Italic culture concentrated in the northern half of the peninsula in regions comprising primarily Tuscany, Umbria, and Lazio today.
However, the Roman culture is marked by a willingness to assimilate the markers- often the architecture, artforms, and even religious cults- of the peoples it conquered into its own conglomeration. Roman history is defined by its stages of conquests carried out upon its ever-expanding set of neighbors. From out of the shadow of this myth, Roman identity spread to the far corners of the known world of antiquity and influenced the character of European culture through the present day. We recall that Etruscan bronze-workers were put to the task of realizing a monumental suckling she-wolf, which became an emblematic image for Roman identity for centuries to come. The Latin-speaking Italic tribe which rose to supremacy first on the Italian peninsula, and later on the world stage of ancient Europe, North Africa, and the Levant, was centred on the city of Rome, legendarily founded by Romulus.
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