# Was there really any migration from ancient Asia Minor to Italia? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 6, 2005, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-really-any-migration-from-ancient-asia-minor-to-italia/288640 "2005-02-06T09:01:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-really-any-migration-from-ancient-asia-minor-to-italia/288640/1 "2005-02-06T09:01:27Z")
The Aeneid. Virgil’s masterwork of political propaganda on behalf of Augustus’s imperial regime, in the form of epic poetry. Somehow the Romans got the idea they were descended from the Trojans via Aeneas who fled from the ruins of Troy to Italia. What had given the Romans this idea in the first place? Could it have had some nugget of fact in the background? I don’t know if the language spoken in Troy has ever been determined. I would guess Hittite as the most likely candidate. If not Hittite exactly, then most likely another of the Anatolian group of Indo-European languages. Latin, though distantly related to Hittite because both are Indo-European, belongs to the Italic group whose nearest relative seems to be Celtic. Not a close match linguistically, then. As the Latins were beginning to expand and absorb their neighbors, could they have mingled with some people whose ancestors actually did migrate from Asia Minor to Italia? The collapse of the Hittite Empire about 1200 BC is blamed on the incursions of the Sea Peoples, among whom were the Mycenean Greeks or Achaeans (Ahhiyawa in the Hittite records). Isn’t the fall of Troy to the Greeks dated around the same time? There had been Mycenean colonies in southwestern Anatolia even before then. One interpretation of the Trojan War is the Greeks seeing a chance to expand into the strategic location of northwestern Anatolia which could control valuable trade routes. Seems entirely plausible to me that the marauding by the Sea Peoples would have displaced some groups from their homelands in the eastern Mediterranean who would then have to move to a new location. To get around their enemies the Greeks to their west, they would need to detour first to North Africa, before reaching Italy. As in the Aeneid. There was a theory in ancient times that the Elymians, a people of western Sicily, had originated in Asia Minor and first traveled to North Africa before reaching Sicily. The Elymians lived too far away from Rome, and anyway their country wasn’t brought under Roman rule until the Punic Wars (western Sicily had been occupied by Carthage in the meantime). But if the Elymians had made it to Sicily, might not some other displaced people from Asia Minor have traveled to central Italy? If not, are we to conclude that the Romans’ alleged descent from Troy is sheer fiction? I was just wondering how, even long before Virgil, it had come to be such a cherished belief of Roman origin. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-really-any-migration-from-ancient-asia-minor-to-italia/288640/2 "2005-02-06T09:50:42Z")
I figure there’s as much truth in the Roman legend as there is in the old English one, that Brutus, another fugitive from Troy, founded Britain, conquering the native Giants who dwelt here and built on the banks of the Thames his capital, calling it Troynovaunt, or New Troy. I think the Roman poet responsible for the popularity of the Trojan origin was [Ennius](http://www.bartleby.com/65/en/Ennius-Q.html) , the Father of Roman epic. Still, if the Greeks could colonize parts of Italy there’s no reason why an earlier group of migrants from the East couldn’t have done the same. Where did the Etruscans come from? ---
**Author:** ![Can\_Handle\_the\_Truth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Can\_Handle\_the\_Truth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Can_Handle_the_Truth)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-really-any-migration-from-ancient-asia-minor-to-italia/288640/3 "2005-02-06T13:39:06Z")
Some think that the Etruscans came from Asia Minor. According to one of my history books, > [@](#): > > Who the Etruscans were and where they came from is almost as much a mystery now as it was in Roman times… It was most probably from the Orient that they came to settle in Italy, perhaps from Asia Minor… it was the work that the Etruscans put into developing the site of Rome that was resposible for the ascendancy of that town and its citizens… Greeks and Cathaginians both influenced Etruscan development, which, in turn, laid the foundations for many later Roman institutions… In my opinion, the Romans appropriated some “good” parts of Etruscan history for themselves, although there was a debate even then about the Etruscans’ origins. ---
**Author:** ![Can\_Handle\_the\_Truth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Can\_Handle\_the\_Truth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Can_Handle_the_Truth)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-really-any-migration-from-ancient-asia-minor-to-italia/288640/4 "2005-02-06T13:52:10Z")
There’s also this from the Encyclopaedia Britannica: > [@](#): > > Many features of Etruscan culture were adopted by the Romans, their successors to power in the peninsula. > > The origin of the Etruscans has been a subject of debate since antiquity. Herodotus, for example, argued that the Etruscans descended from a people who invaded Etruria from Anatolia before 800 BC and established themselves over the native Iron Age inhabitants of the region, whereas Dionysius of Halicarnassus believed that the Etruscans were of local Italian origin. Both theories, as well as a third 19th-century theory, have turned out to be problematic, and today scholarly discussion has shifted its focus from the discussion of provenance to that of the formation of the Etruscan people. > > To the south they were drawn into Latium and Campania from the end of the 7th century, and in the 6th century they had a decisive impact on the history of Rome, where the Etruscan dynasty of the Tarquins is said to have ruled from 616 to 510/509 BC. > > Rome before the Etruscan advent was a small conglomeration of villages. It was under the new masters that, according to tradition, the first public works such as the walls of the Capitoline hill and the Cloaca Maxima (a sewer) were constructed. Considerable evidence of the Etruscan period in Rome’s history has come to light in the region of the Capitol. ---
**Author:** ![percypercy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8baadc/32.png) [@percypercy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/percypercy)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-really-any-migration-from-ancient-asia-minor-to-italia/288640/5 "2005-02-06T18:42:48Z")
People seem to think the Trojans may have spoken Luvian, a language related to Hittite. The name Luivan actually even comes from a Hittite word, Luiva, referring to part of the region. From here: [http://www.bartleby.com/61/92/L0299275.html](http://www.bartleby.com/61/92/L0299275.html) And here’s a site that compares the Hittites and the Trojans. There are some interesting similarities. [http://www.thetroyguide.com/id7.html](http://www.thetroyguide.com/id7.html) -Lil ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-really-any-migration-from-ancient-asia-minor-to-italia/288640/6 "2005-02-06T19:11:24Z")
It is worth noting that my college Ancient History courses indicated that the Mediterranean teemed with merchant shipping, even during the Bronze Age. So, some settlement, by merchants, may have taken place. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-really-any-migration-from-ancient-asia-minor-to-italia/288640/7 "2005-02-06T21:43:13Z")
The Sibylline cult at Cumae near Naples was thought to have originated in Asia Minor. In classical times the Sibyls in Italy were Etruscan. Is there any resemblance between Etruscans and Hittites or Luwians? ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2005, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-really-any-migration-from-ancient-asia-minor-to-italia/288640/8 "2005-02-19T14:57:47Z")
The Tyrrhenians/Etruscans have been identified with one of the bands of Sea Peoples mentioned in the Egyptian records, the trš (Tursha?). This would imply that rather than driving people out of Asia Minor and causing them to migrate to Italia, the marauders themselves moved to Italia. Herodotus thought the Etruscans were of Lydian origin and migrated to Italia. In his version, there was a long drought in Lydia and the king sent his son Tyrrhenus away with half of the people to find a new home. The only thing this has in common with the Aeneid is the theme of a king’s son leaving Asia Minor to found a new kingdom in Italia. The circumstances are different, and the early Romans defined themselves ethnically in opposition to the Etruscans (even though they started as a province of Etruria). Probably because their languages were totally different. No similarities found between Etruscan (a language isolate) and Lydian (which is Indo-European of the Anatolian branch) for that matter. Herodotus’s story doesn’t hold up on the linguistic basis. What we seem to have is two parallel legends of Bronze Age migration from Asia Minor to Italia, to explain the origins of the Romans and Etruscans in apparently two different migrations. Neither one adds up linguistically. The Italic languages are closer to Celtic, which would suggest their arrival in Italy from central Europe. Etruscan has no known relatives. Neither shows an Anatolian connection. Was there any real event behind the Aeneas legend? Or did the Romans and Etruscans both hear about Anatolian migration to Italy and appropriate such stories to themselves? ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2005, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-really-any-migration-from-ancient-asia-minor-to-italia/288640/9 "2005-03-19T22:23:20Z")
So does anyone know the answers to my questions? **Tamerlane** , have you been on vacation? _Gratias vobis._