Chapter 1 — Ancient Rome was Greek

 Let’s start from the beginning.

Greek revisionism dates nearly as far back as Greek literature itself. It is not for nothing, for example, that the 5th century Greek historian Herodotus has been nicknamed ‘Father of History and Father of Lies’.

What concerns me most, however, is Greek revisionism with regard to Ancient Rome.

Already in the 4th century BC the Greek philosopher Heraclides Ponticus inexplicably described Rome as a “Greek city” — a city which he had actually never seen and had no direct knowledge of. Later in the 1st century BC (therefore after the Roman conquest of the Hellenic world) the Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus — citing the earlier Greek historian Xenagoras — claimed that Rome was founded by Greeks. In fact, Dionysius claimed not only that Rome was founded by Greeks, but also that the aboriginal people of Italy were also Greeks, and that the Latin language itself is mostly Greek.

The British classical historian Tim Cornell sharply criticized ancient Geek authors like Dionysius for inventing a pseudo-history in regards to Italy:

“Dionysius’ account is a classic example of what has been called the ‘hellenocentric’ view of Mediterranean prehistory. ... The method was hellenocentric because the Greeks connected the origins of non-Greek peoples with the activities of Greek heroes . . . the idea that the Aborigines were to be identified as Oenotrians from Arcadia was Dionysius’ own deduction. We can see here the actual formation of a piece of hellenocentric pseudohistory. It can be stated confidently that there is not the slightest chance that Dionysius’ conjecture is historically correct. The same applies to all the other hellenocentric stories about early Italy. ... In the Hellenistic period . . . it was natural for Greeks to assume that all historical and cultural changes were the result of migration and invasion... Today it is easy to see that these versions of prehistory are based not on evidence but on cultural prejudice. Nothing in the archaeological record of the Italian Bronze and Iron Ages proves, or even suggests, that any major invasions took place between c. 1800 and 800 BC. ... The distance between the [Greek] literary sources and the archaeological data is enormous and unbridgeable.” (Source: Tim Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars, 2012, pp. 39-41)

Other historians also noted this Hellenocentric phenomenon of revising history:

“Some twenty-five Greek accounts of the origins of Rome have come down to us . . . None of them agrees with the accepted Roman tradition. . . . Greek settlers in southern Italy for some reason identified the native populations with Arcadians. By mechanical transfer of the same conception to a northern district, Rome was believed [by the Greeks] to be a colony of Arcadians led by Evander. The latter name was arbitrarily picked up in a mythological catalogue.” (Source: Elias J. Bickerman, Origines Gentium, 1952)

“Dionysius’ thesis is that various peoples of Rome, even the so-called Aborigines, were of Greek origin. Rome is represented as the paradigmatic Greek polis... However, some critics have pointed out rather how ‘Hellenocentric’ Dionysius project is . . . Greek culture is identified with civilization itself . . . at the cost of denying the existence of an autonomous Roman culture altogether. . . . The Latin language, for example, is reduced to a dialect of Greek. . . . For Dionysius, there is no Roman culture.” (Source: Simon Goldhill, Being Greek Under Rome, 2007, p. 100)

“It was not just the Latins and the Romans that were connected to the mythical figure of Odysseus. Many other Italic populations were connected to the Greek hero. . . The Marsi were also connected to the Odyssaic genealogies. . . Such traditions . . . emphasized a connection between the Greek world and Italy. . . . they all referred [to] the Greek origins of Italic peoples. . . The Greeks had tried quite early on to suggest a familiarity with Italic peoples and with the city of Rome itself. . . Aristotle was the first known author to have claimed that Rome was a Greek city... Heraclides Ponticus defined Rome a Greek city.” (Source: Filippo Carlà-Uhink, The “Birth” of Italy, 2017, pp. 127-128)

“. . . the idea that Greece had contributed to Rome’s early development was nothing new. As early as the end of the fifth century, the Greek historian Hellanicus had claimed that Odysseus had played a role in the city's foundation. . . . But no ancient author argued more fervently, learnedly, and voluminously for the Greekness of early Rome than Dionysius. ... [According to Dionysius] Rome’s founding fathers descended from Greek migrants to Italy and established the city as a Greek colony. Moreover, Dionysius, like others of his time, argues that Latin is a Greek dialect... For Greeks living under Rome, Dionysius made Roman rule more palatable.” (Source: Adam Serfass, Views of Rome: A Greek Reader, 2018, pp. 19-20)

Modern-day Greek revisionists still rely heavily on Dionysius, Heraclides and other ancient writers, and seriously believe them. They are not a fringe: there is a rather large number of Greeks who actually believe that Rome was a Greek colony. They have books, articles and entire websites dedicated to promoting this claim. The most extreme protagonist and disseminator of these claims is a Greek Orthodox priest named John Romanides, who has a very large cult following among Eastern Orthodox and Greek nationalists. They claim — among other things — that the city of Rome was founded by Greeks; that the Romans were Greek; that the name ‘Rome’ itself is Greek; that the Latins were Greek; the Sabines were Greek; the Etruscans were Greek; that all these peoples spoke Greek; that the ancient Latin language was Greek; that modern Romance languages are therefore a form of Greek; etc. There is even a name for this ideology: it is called Aeolism.

This is a colossal theft of our history and an unparalleled usurpation of another people’s heritage, all because these envious megalomaniacs — not satisfied with already taking credit for the ancient Hellenic world — want to claim credit for everything the Romans achieved as well.

One thing is to claim individual figures of history (i.e. “Haydn was a Croat”, “Constantine was a Serb”), which is bad enough. Another thing is to claim the entire heritage of the Roman Empire and Western Civilization, to usurp a whole country, culture, history and origins of another people with whom you have nothing to do, and to take it all away from them so as to add their historic glories to the mantle of your own people — a people of peasants and herders who have achieved nothing worthy of note in 2,000 years.

This theft of our Roman history is not merely an Internet phenomenon, it is not carried out by a small fringe of ultranationalists: this is a common belief among Greeks and is a reflection of the typical Greek mentality. Aeolism and related ideas concerning Ancient Rome are nearly as common among Greeks as Dacomania is among Romanians.

As Vladimir Moss, an Orthodox critic of Romanides and himself a staunch revisionist, observed:

“Romanides’ essentially racist theories are easily refuted. But this does not prevent them from being accepted by Greek archbishops and bishops of both the Old and the new calendars because they fulfill a psychological need. This is the need to prove, despite all appearances, that the Greek nation is still as great today as it was in the heyday of the Byzantine Empire...”

We can find another perfect example on Quora.com, where a Greek user from Athens claimed that the Sabines were Greek Spartans, that the Trojans were Greek and that the Romans therefore were also Greek. Under his post, a different user fortunately responded and corrected him, saying:

“No, they were not a Greek tribe. There is a big difference between Greek myths and [real] history. About the Sabines, Greeks talked about “σαφινείς”; other scholars think that the word comes from German “sibja”; or Indo-European “swebh” (and so on). We can speculate on the name. In reality the Sabines were natives, one of the many Italic tribes that lived in Central Italy during the first millennium BC, and probably related to the Italic Ombrii.”

There is also a video on Youtube uploaded by a Greek ultranationalist titled ‘Rome was a Greek city’, with more than 24.000 views and hundreds of comments by Greek revisionists. On Youtube in general there are thousands of comments by Greeks promoting the “Greekness” of the Romans.

Then on TheApricity there is a Greek user named Pausanias who posted a thread titled ‘Ancient Rome was a Greek city; the Roman empire [was a] Hellenic empire’. And another Greek user named Petros Houhoulis who argued that the Roman Empire was “always Greek” and not Latin. Another Greek user named DarknessWin who said Romans had “some Greek blood”. The Greek user Epirus DNA who said that “Romans stole philosophy, education, medicine and the arts from Greece”. Then two Greek users Catgeorge and Kouros (formerly Keraunos) who claimed that the Romans were “culture-vultures who plagiarized everything from the Greeks” and that “Italy are plagiarists from Greeks.... Plagiarise everything Greece does. Even the Renaissance is not Italian”. The Greek user Hellenas who said “Roman civilization is just Latinized Greek civilization”. The Greek user Pontios according to whom “There can only be one Roman Empire and that is only with Greeks because we are the real Romans, everyone else has only copied our name, our culture, and our symbols. Italians aren't part of the Roman Empire... You just live on the lands of the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire was Greek, not Italian.” And finally a Greek user named wvwvw (formerly Raine) who claimed that Roman civilization is Greek, that Remus and Romulus were Greek, that the Trojans were Greek, that the Etruscans were Greek, that Julius Caesar was Greek, that the Latin language is Greek and that the Latin people were “Palasian Greeks closely related to the Hellenes and have nothing to do with the tribes of Italy”.

A window into the mind of that last Greek user can be observed when, in response to an Italian user who refuted her assertions, she says: “Myth and Historia had the same meaning in Ancient Greece.” This perfectly encapsulates the Greek mentality, and by extension the Balkan mentality in general: they do not believe in critical history. For them, mythology and history are the same thing; legends and folklore are true and factual, without the need of evidence, source criticism or critical examination. Hence why they can believe anything, even the absurd and demonstrably false claim that the Romans were Greeks — merely because ancient Greek mythology wrongly traced another nation’s lineage to some Greek hero or god.

Greeks hate the Romans, yet at the same time they want to be the Romans.

Even in cases when they do not claim direct responsibility for creating Rome, chauvinistic Greeks will still try to take credit for Roman achievements and history in an indirect or implicit way. The primary way they do this is by greatly exaggerating the Hellenic influence on Roman civilization, constantly conjecturing or assuming Greek influences and origins to every facet of Roman culture, to such an extent that they effectively attribute all of Roman culture and civilization to the Greeks (without explicitly asserting that the Romans themselves were Greeks). These exaggerations have become so widespread and accepted as ‘common knowledge’, especially in the Anglosphere, I’m sure you have probably already heard of them.

Some examples:

“Romans were basically Greeks but with better tech”

“Romans stole/copied everything from the Greeks”

“Roman gods were Greek gods”

“Roman architecture is Greek architecture”

“Romans mostly spoke Greek and preferred Greek over Latin”

Etc.

All of which is either completely wrong, partially wrong or hugely exaggerated.

For example, the Roman religion was completely different from the Greek one. Also there were numerous Roman gods which were exclusive to Italians and had no counter-parts in the Hellenic world. To name only a few: there was Janus, Libera, Quirinus, Orcus, Feronia, Pales, Proserpina, Minerva, the Lares, Lucina, Diana, Fauna, Bellona, Sammanus, Silvanus, Terminus, Tiberinus, Pomona, Picus, Sancus, Flora, Egeria, Carmenta, Abundantia, Annona, Pietas and Dis Pater. All of these gods are Italic or Etruscan in origin, and have nothing to do with ancient Greek mythology.

The ridiculous idea that the Romans “stole” Greek religion derives from the fact that classical writers saw similarities between some of the gods that both Romans and Greeks worshipped, albeit under different names, and equated them to each other (rightly or wrongly). You can imagine the observation: “You have a Moon god? We have a Moon god too! You celebrate the winter solstice? Wow, so do we!”.

The reason why some gods and festivals were similar is because the Romans and Hellenes were both Indo-Europeans (at least in terms of language and religion). Hence why you sometimes find similar gods also among ancient Germanic, Slavic and Baltic peoples, even though their ancient religions are very different. Why? Because of the Proto-Indo-Europeans, who gave rise to the various religions of the Indo-European peoples... The gods were not “stolen”, but existed independently of each other, with different names, different attributes, and often times with different mythologies or origin stories, which in many cases also conflicted with one another. The gods were already worshipped long before the Romans had any contact with Greeks, and long before they had any knowledge of the Greek pantheon. The goddess Fortuna, for example, was venerated in Italy long before anyone associated her with Tyche; the chief deities Jupiter and Mars were worshipped in Rome long before they ever heard of Zeus or Ares.

The Greeks were hardly the first people to invent religion or mythology. There are numerous gods who the ancient Greeks themselves ‘copied’ or adopted from other non-Greek peoples, which is conveniently ignored; some of those cases will be discussed later.

Furthermore, beyond the various gods and deities, the cults, rituals and practices of the Hellenic and Roman religions were not the same. The Vestal Virgins, for example, was a uniquely Roman institution without parallel in the Hellenic world; as was the office of Pontifex maximus, the College of Pontiffs, the Rex sacrorum, the cult of the she-wolf, the Capitoline Triad and the festival of the October Horse, all of which were absent in Greek religious tradition. To say their religions were the same is like saying Protestantism and Catholicism are the same, or that Chinese folk religion and Shinto are the same.

Roman architecture, moreover, was not Greek either. The Romans made numerous contributions to the development and advancement of architecture, such as domes, arches and vaults (which Greeks lacked), not to mention the invention of concrete, all of which were unique to Roman engineering and had an immense impact on architectural development, making Roman architecture quite distinct from Greek architecture. It is indisputable that Roman engineering and infrastructure far surpassed the Greeks, and this manifested itself also in architecture, both civil and military.

Other Roman innovations in architecture and engineering include triumphal arches, aqueducts, roads, bridges, amphitheatres, basilicas, rotundas, villas, insulae (multi-story apartments), thermae (Roman baths), castra (Roman forts and camps), forums, circuses, truss roofs, indoor heating (hypocaust), indoor plumbing, reservoir dams, the use of water-proof hydraulic mortar and fired clay bricks (Roman brick). All of this came to us from the Roman world.

It is one thing to speak of Greek influences; it is quite another to attribute the whole of Roman architecture to mere imitation of the Greeks. Furthermore, even if this were so, it must be remembered that Greek architecture itself derived its forms and inspiration from Egypt, the Achaemenid Empire and Minoan Crete. The latter in particular significantly influenced the Mycenaeans and Hellenes also in terms of art, lifestyle and burial practices; and the Minoans, it should be noted, were not Greeks. If anything, therefore, — if one wishes to assert that Roman architecture is merely a copy of Greek architecture — the ultimate “credit” would go to other ancient eastern civilizations, not to the Greeks:

“The Minoans were not Greeks, and their language, religion, and social structures were not Greek. ... Evidence suggests that the Minoans emerged from a fusion between existing Cretan inhabitants and invaders from Asia Minor during the era 2900-2200 BCE. These people became master seafarers and built a society inspired partly by contact with the Egyptian Old Kingdom (ca. 2650-2250 BCE). ... The Minoans’ importance for Greek history is that they supplied the model for the Greeks’ Mycenaean civilization which arose on the mainland around 1600 BCE. The Mycenaean fortress palaces at Mycenae, Tiryans, and elsewhere were warlike imitations of Minoan palaces on Crete. Mycenaean skills in metalworking, pottery-making, and other handicrafts were improved by copying Cretan models.” (Source: Encyclopedia of the Ancient Greek World, 2014, p. 211)

Nor did the Romans “mostly speak Greek”, nor did any Roman speak it as a native language. Those who say that the Romans “mostly spoke Greek” or “preferred Greek” exaggerate and blow out of proportion a fad which had become chic among some members of the wealthier upper class during the period of the middle Republic. These individuals had become enamored by Hellenic culture, precisely because it was something strange, exotic and un-Roman. Their native language was not Greek, it was Latin; some of them learned Greek later in life as a secondary language, so as to appear well-educated and refined. It is more or less comparable to 18th century German and Russian aristocrats who would learn French, and not much different from today when university students study a foreign language such as Spanish or Mandarin.

Not everyone agreed with this trend of studying Greek, however. Gaius Marius, for example, refused to learn Greek because, in his own words, it was the “language of slaves”. And Cato the Elder was so hostile towards the Greeks that he refused to speak Greek when visiting Athens, choosing instead to address the Athenians in Latin. Philhellenism was extremely controversial and was met with great opposition. Those Romans who had too much knowledge of Greek or who aped degenerate Greek customs were met with hostility and ridicule, and were severely criticized by other Romans. Cicero for example relates that his grandfather had made the following remark, disparaging those who learned Greek: “Our countrymen are like Syrian slaves put up for sale: the better they know Greek, the more worthless they are.”

Cicero himself was rebuked by the governor of Sicily, Lucius Caecilius Metellus, for having spoken in Greek while addressing the local senate in Syracuse. Metellus described this action as indignus, meaning ‘undignified’: it was inappropriate and unbecoming for a Roman to lower himself by speaking the language of a subjugated people, rather than utilizing the Roman language (Latin). In the 1st century AD the Roman historian Valerius Maximus opined that Roman magistrates throughout the Empire upheld Roman greatness (maiestas) by insisting that all court proceedings be held in Latin and he praised them for forcing Greek ambassadors to use Latin interpreters and translators, since speaking Latin inculcated respect for Roman power and symbolized Romanness.

Even though some senators had knowledge of Greek and thus could understand the Greek ambassadors, they still preferred to respond only in Latin in order to illustrate Rome’s political dominance and superiority over the Greeks. Emperor Tiberius, despite knowing Greek, banned Greek words from official Roman documents, in order to maintain the purity of the Latin language. Tiberius also refused to allow a Greek soldier to speak in Greek. Meanwhile, Emperor Claudius denied a Greek the right to sit on a jury because he did not know Latin, and revoked the citizenship of a man from Lycia because he could not speak Latin. As Cassius Dio records: “he took away his citizenship, saying that it was not proper for a man to be a Roman who had no knowledge of the language of the Romans.” (Source: Cassius Dio, Roman History, 60.17)

Knowledge of Latin was a prerequisite for Roman citizenship and authority. As late as the 5th century AD — under the Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius II — an official named Cyrus was removed from office in Egypt for having written a legal document in Greek. Latin was compulsory for an official career; and anyone who lacked perfect mastery of Latin could not become a Roman official. And the Romans certainly did not ‘prefer’ Greek: all of the major classics of Roman literature were written in Latin: Virgil’s The Aeneid, Julius Caesar’s De Bello Gallico, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Livy’s History of Rome, Pliny’s Natural History, the writings of Cicero, Horace, Seneca, Catullus, Sallust, Ennius, Plautus, etc.

At all times Latin remained the language of administration, the military, the senate, politics, law, trade, and contrary to popular belief, Latin was the primary language of education for Romans. They were absolutely not a bilingual people; neither the aristocracy nor the common people of Rome generally spoke Greek: they spoke Latin. Latin was so important and so widespread that it was spoken by populations from Britain to North Africa, later became the native language of several major countries, was the lingua franca of Western Europe throughout the entire Middle Ages and remained the language of literature and scholarship into the Early Modern Period. If the Romans were speaking Greek or preferred Greek over Latin, then none of this would have been possible.

In summary, it is a very grave historical error to suggest that Greek was the primary language of the Roman Empire, or that it was universally spoken by the Roman aristocracy, or that the Roman upper class was “Hellenized”. The importance of Greek among the Roman aristocracy is greatly exaggerated. Some Romans were able to speak Greek (as a secondary language, learned through higher education, just as some Greeks learned Latin); certain Roman aristocrats even greatly admired Greek (mockingly referred to as Greeklings by Juvenal), and a few occasionally wrote in Greek (just as some Greeks, such as Claudian, wrote in Latin; and just as I now am writing in English). But that is no reason to exaggerate the importance of Greek, and to infer that Greek was spoken by every Roman aristocrat in their daily life, or that Greek was considered a “Roman language”, or that it had a prestige or official status anywhere near equivalent to Latin — because it certainly did not. The Russian and German nobility went through a phase where many of their aristocrats became fascinated with French; this does not mean that Russians were French, or that the French language had anything to do with German culture. Most of us nowadays can speak English; in some of our countries it is even mandatory to learn English in schools as a second language. This does not make us English, nor does it mean that we identify with England, nor does it mean that our culture is profoundly English; it is merely expedient and convenient for communication with foreign audiences.

One blogger was recently inspired to publish a brief article in response to a Youtube video which repeated this false linguistic myth often spread by Greek nationalists and English Hellenophiles: Believe It or Not, the Romans Spoke Latin

And beneath the article you will find a comment by a Greek nationalist (or perhaps a highly misinformed English Hellenophile) who repeats the typical mantras: all educated Romans were bilingual; Latin is a Greek dialect; Rome was a Hellenic city-state; southern Italians are Greeks, etc.

English Hellenophiles are nearly as bad as Greeks, because they spread all of the same exaggerations as Greek nationalists do, while giving it a veneer of scholarly impartiality and therefore plausibility. The Roman Empire, Roman architecture, Roman religion, Roman culture, Roman language: all of it would be “Greek” according to them, or at the very least heavily imitated and copied from the Greeks. Roman civilization, therefore, would be nothing more than a continuation of the Hellenistic one.

Modern-day Greeks and Hellenophiles in general also tend to use the term ‘Hellenized’ very loosely and quite inaccurately, frequently applying it to peoples who merely had a similar custom as the Hellenes or adopted one or two things from the Hellenes. For example, if an ancient population made pottery which was influenced by Mycenaean pottery or if a people adopted an ancient Greek script to write their own non-Greek language, these lunatics will label those peoples as ‘Hellenized’. That is just as ridiculous as defining Anglo-Saxons as ‘Latinized’ simply because they use the Latin alphabet. The Greeks themselves adopted much of their ancient culture from foreign groups like the Minoans and even their script came directly from the Phoenicians, yet these hellenophilic scholars never refer to the ancient Greeks as being ‘Phoenicianized’ or ‘Semiticized’. There is a serious Grecomania which inundates the field of classical studies, and way too much reliance on the word of ancient Greek authors whom Hellenophiles tend to uncritically believe.

Returning to the claim that Roman civilization was merely an extension of Hellenic culture, these exaggerators forget that Rome was founded in the 8th century BC. They forget also that Rome traces its history even further back, to the earlier Latin city of Alba Longa, founded in the 12th century BC, from which sprang Remus, Romulus and the original Latin inhabitants of Rome. Rome was a Kingdom (753 BC - 509 BC) and a Republic (509 BC - 27 BC) before becoming an Empire (27 BC - 476 AD). Thus there are several centuries of Roman history long before Augustus and Julius Caesar, long before the foundation of the Roman Empire, long before the subjugation of the Greeks. Rome had already risen and conquered a large part of the Mediterranean before any Hellenistic influences could assert themselves. That is to say, the Romans were already great, already powerful, and already had a civilization of their own, long before they came into contact with the Hellenic world. If this were not the case, then the Romans would not have been able to conquer and subjugate the Hellenic world in the first place. The Romans were able to do this precisely because they had already become a great and powerful people, highly advanced and well-organized, with their own laws, customs, traditions and civic structure.

The exaggerators forget, moreover, that already before Rome there were the Etruscans, who flourished in Italy since about 900 BC. The Etruscans — more than any other people, aside from the Latins themselves — had the greatest impact on Roman culture and history. They were, together with the Latins and Sabines (both Italic peoples), one of the original three tribes of Rome, which were divided into the following: 1) the Ramnes, representing Rome’s Latin population; 2) the Tities representing the Sabines; and 3) the Luceres representing the Etruscans.

The Etruscans provided Rome with its early political arrangements (monarchy, army) and urban infrastructure (walls, forum, drainage system); it was probably the Etruscans who turned Rome into a fully developed city-state. Roman temples were initially modeled on Etruscan ones, while the toga derived from the Etruscan tebenna. Popular characteristics of Roman culture, such as gladiatorial games and chariot racing, also are believed to have been inherited from the Etruscans. The Etruscan alphabet was the basis for Old Italic script, which gave rise to the Latin alphabet. The words toga palmata (a magistrate’s robe), sella curulis (magistrate’s chair or throne), curia (court, assembly, governing council) and fasces (a bundle of rods with a double-bladed axe, carried by magistrate’s attendants, i.e. lictors) are all of Etruscan origin. The word populus (think Senatus Populusque Romanus; SPQR) is also of Etruscan derivation and originally referred to the people assembled for war, i.e.  an army, rather than the general populace. Finally, even the name of Rome itself has an Etruscan origin, as do the names of its legendary founders Remus and Romulus. Until the 1st century AD many educated Romans studied the Etruscan language and Etruscan literature as well.

Because of this, Greeks and Philhellenists have even begun to exaggerate ancient Greek influences on the Etruscans, so as to claim a sort of Greek responsibility for Etruscan civilization as well. They do this through Wikipedia and other avenues, which I will discuss more later.

Naturally, all this begs the question ‘Who were the Etruscans?’. Well, they certainly were not Greeks! At one time it was commonly thought that they were Iron Age immigrants who had come to Italy from Anatolia (Asia Minor). Perhaps not surprisingly, it was the aforementioned ancient Greek historian Herodotus — nicknamed ‘Father of Lies’ — who first reported the legend that the Etruscans were of Asian origin, a belief which then persisted among scholars for nearly 2,500 years. However, based on archaeological evidence, it has been proven that the Etruscans were in fact natives of Italy. And so it is now the most commonly-accepted hypothesis that they were direct descendants of the Villanovan and proto-Villanovan cultures which flourished in the Late Bronze Age.

That they were autochthonous to Central Italy has been demonstrated also in genetic studies (Ghirotto et al. 2013). Moreover, other recent genetic studies (Antonio et al. 2019) have confirmed that there was no significant genetic difference between the early Etruscans and Iron Age Latins, showing that although the Etruscans did not speak an Indo-European language, they were still biologically similar to the Italic populations. And needless to say, they were not Greeks.

Genetic similarities between Proto-Villanovan/Etruscan samples and modern-day populations:

Based on the most recent studies, the Proto-Villanovans and Etruscans were genetically closest to populations in modern-day Italy and Corsica (who are also Italians, despite Corsica being part of France).

At any rate, the point here is that the Greeks have been trying to claim credit for Rome as far back as the centuries before Christ.