ancient Italic people, any of the peoples diverse in origin, language, traditions, stage of development, and territorial extension who inhabited pre-Roman Italy, a region heavily influenced by neighbouring Greece, with its well-defined national characteristics, expansive vigour, and aesthetic and intellectual maturity. Italy attained a unified ethnolinguistic, political, and cultural physiognomy only after the Roman conquest, yet its most ancient peoples remain anchored in the names of the regions of Roman Italy—Latium, Campania, Apulia, Bruttium, Lucania, Samnium, Picenum, Umbria, Etruria, Venetia, and Liguria.
The Etruscans formed the most powerful nation in pre-Roman Italy. They created the first great civilization on the