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] as a nation sufficiently powerful to carry on war against Egypt, then the mistress of the Mediterranean world, and their commerce reached far and wide. They worked the iron mines of Elba, and the copper and tin mines of Tuscany, which were to them a source of wealth like the silver of Laurium to the Athenians, and the gold of Philippi to the Macedonians. They had the staples of their metal industry within their own borders, and in exchange for their manufactured bronze articles they received wealth from far distant regions, from Greece, Assyria, and Egypt, and from north Africa. Sapphires from the remote east found their way to them, as well as amber from the far north.

They were formidable rivals of the Phœnicians on the seas, and proof of their intercourse is given by the articles of Phœnician workmanship found in their tombs, such as the silver dish in the tomb at Palestrina, and the glass bottles in the cemeteries of Bologna.

The Etruskan power in Italy formerly extended from Vesuvius and the Gulf of Salerno as far as the Alps, and from the Tyrrhenian to the Adriatic Seas; and the statement by Livy that they formerly occupied Rhætia is proved by recent discoveries of their remains north of the Alps. Innumerable articles of Etruskan workmanship in the cemeteries of Hallstadt prove also that their