Product Description: Beginning in the eighth century B.C., an expanse of central Italy extending from the edges of the Po River plain to the shores of the Tyrrhenian Sea became the setting for the civilization of the Etruscans. Although this people's geographic and linguistic origins remain controversial, the Etruscans were deeply rooted in the region and wove a tightly knit fabric of commercial and artistic trade throughout the Mediterranean...read more

Product Description: Rome continues to be the monumental expression of a legend. It is the eternal city where all roads of the ancient world converged, and through the millennia has been the model for the very concept of a universal empire. Through art, architecture, and urban planning, the empire expanded with an exceptional synthesis of technology, politics, law, and propaganda, conquering Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Near East...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)