From very early times Etruscan society was dominated by a firmly entrenched aristocracy that exercised strict control over the political, military, economic, and religious aspects of the peoples' lives. By the 6th century BC several city-states, including Tarquinii and Veii, dominated their respective geographic regions and dispatched colonists to adjacent areas. Some of their leaders, including the semilegendary Etruscan kings of Rome such as the Tarquins—Lucius Priscus and Lucius Superbus—may have achieved their positions because they were accomplished warriors. They continually aligned their independent cities with one another for economic and political gain. Warrior-kings also forged economic ties through marriage.

In response to the threat that these alliances posed to their own interests, the Romans, Greeks, and Carthaginians might also unite against the Etruscans. By the 5th century BC, Etruscan power was challenged and severely curtailed. The navy from the city of Syracuse soundly defeated an allied Etruscan fleet in a sea battle off the coast of Cumae in 474 BC. In an effort to regain the seas, an Etruscan federation aligned itself with Athens in the ill-fated assault on Syracuse in 413 BC. After a siege of some ten years, the city of Veii was defeated (396 BC) by Rome in its struggle to control the overland routes north. This victory marked the beginning of Rome's gradual conquest of Etruria, which was not completed until 283 BC.

The 3rd century BC was a particularly dark period for the Etruscans, as the Romans, having subdued most of the central and southern peninsula of Italy, turned their major attention northward. In turn, the Etruscan cities of Caere, Tarquinia, and Vulci were forced to pay tribute and to cede some of their territories to Rome. Dissension among the aristocracy and insurrections by the lower classes followed, resulting in the total collapse of the social structure of cities such as Volsinii. Realizing their plight, several Etruscan cities then entered into alliances with Rome.

Such alliances linked many Etruscan cities with Rome in such a way that Roman laws often had an impact on the Etruscan people. Attempts to rebel against Roman rule, at one point in alliance with the Umbrians and the Gauls, were defeated. The ties between Rome and Etruria were strengthened in the 1st century BC, when the Etruscans accepted the offer of Roman citizenship. Their newly gained status was soon eroded, however, when they supported the losing side in the Roman civil wars (88-86 BC; 83 BC). The victor, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, took extreme vengeance, razing cities, seizing land, and imposing restrictions on Etruscan civil rights.

The brutality of Sulla so devastated the Etruscans that their subsequent attempts at revolt were inconsequential. Over a century later, Augustus sent new colonists to Etruria. These people worked with, not against, the Etruscans, and succeeded in accelerating the Romanization of the region.