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The John Batchelor Show

S8 Ep268: ETRUSCANS AND THE WOMEN OF EARLY ROME Colleague Daisy Dunn. Dunn discusses the Etruscans, noting their advanced dentistry and the shock Greeks felt at Etruscan men and women dining together openly. Transitioning to Rome, they recount the violent founding

The John Batchelor Show

John Batchelor

Arts, Books, News, Society & Culture

4.52.8K Ratings

🗓️ 31 December 2025

⏱️ 13 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

ETRUSCANS AND THE WOMEN OF EARLY ROME Colleague Daisy Dunn. Dunn discusses the Etruscans, noting their advanced dentistry and the shock Greeks felt at Etruscan men and women dining together openly. Transitioning to Rome, they recount the violent founding myth of the Rape of the Sabine Women. The segment details the tragedy of Lucretia, whose rape and subsequent suicide led Brutus to overthrow the monarchy and establish the Roman Republic, making her a paragon of virtue. NUMBER 11
1600 RAPE OF THE SABINE WOMEN

Transcript

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0:00.0

This is CBS, I on the World. I'm John Baxter with Daisy Dunn. The book is The Missing Thread,

0:10.6

a women's history of the ancient world. The Etruscans. The Andruscans are a people of the Italian

0:18.1

peninsula before Rome.

0:23.8

And the question is always, where did Rome come from?

0:26.2

There's a version from the Aeneid, written by Virchal.

0:31.9

But there's also evidence that the Etruscans contributed to the building of Rome,

0:36.4

people leaving the Etruscan cities and coming to the Tiber.

0:39.1

However, where did the Etruscan come from?

0:45.6

Daisy, you introduce us to DNA and modern archaeology. What have they discovered about the Etruscan background? It's quite controversial. People have been wanting to know where the

0:51.2

Etruscans actually came from for a very, very long time.

0:54.3

And there are stories in some of these early Greek sources, which some DNA analysis seems to

0:59.4

support. And one of those stories is that people came originally to central Italy from what is now

1:06.5

Turkey at a time of great difficulty and plague.

1:11.1

People came off in boats and people have looked at scientists today,

1:14.8

have looked at the analysis of people's DNA and also cow cattle DNA as well.

1:20.5

And they found there are some similarities between people from Turkey and the southern

1:25.8

area of Italy as well.

1:30.0

Other people dispute that and say that DNA analysis is quite difficult to sort of verify and they're more inclined to see the Etruscans

1:37.6

as being the native peoples of Italy. So we don't know exactly where they came from, but we know

1:43.9

that they were very, very

1:44.9

prominent. They were very skilled, and they were the people who were dominating Italy way before

1:49.9

the Romans became prominent. The women were of great note. I believe they wear cosmetics like the

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