It contains an important museum of Etruscan and Roman antiquities.
It is clear, however, that the Celtic and Etruscan elements together occupied the greater part of the district between the Apennines and the Alps down to its Romanization, which took place gradually in the course of the 2nd century B.C. Their linguistic neighbors were Ligurian in the south and south-west, and the Veneti on the east.
The Cilnii with whom Maecenas was connected were a noble Etruscan family.
The city was burnt, we are told, with the exception of the temples of Vulcan and Juno - the massive Etruscan terrace-walls, naturally, can hardly have suffered at all - and the town, with the territory for a mile round, was allowed to be occupied by whoever chose.
Latin will be counted the language of the earlier plebeian stratum of the population of Rome and Latium, probably once spread over a large area of the peninsula, and akin in sijme degree to the language or languages spoken in north Italy before either the Etruscan or the Gallic invasions began.
