A true scholar, Sibylle von Cles-Reden modestly disclaims any pretense to an extensive definition of the Etruscans, whose mysterious society is the subject of this book. But despite the fact that no students have yet come upon the track to their true inner nature, this is a full and satisfying survey that analyses much of the Etruscan society through its careful comments on ancient artifacts and writings. Flourishing in the 400 years before the Roman ascendance to power, the Etruscans were a people of unestablished origin who came to master the middle Italian peninsula and to develop a society marked by high standards of art, of equality between men and women and of sea trade. Hunting for clues through space and time, the author describes the main centers of Etruscan life - Caere, Tarquinia, Vulci, Lake Bolsena, Orvieto and Velathri. Perhaps the most important things left to the archeologists of today are the tombs. These and the speculations to which they give rise lead to the well founded supposition that the Etruscans were a fateful people and that - while they reached peaks of cultural development - they were somehow resigned to the fact that they must someday fall and may have recognized that hour in defeat by the Romans.