1000 BC to 510 BC

Greeks, Etruscans and early Rome

From the eighth century BC Greeks founded cities in southern Italy and Sicily, such as Syracuse around 733 BC, a region later called Magna Graecia. Phoenicians settled western Sicily and Sardinia. In central Italy the Etruscans built rich city-states, and Rome, by tradition founded in 753 BC, was a small Latin town on the Tiber ruled by kings.