As far as the literary sources for Etruscan history are concerned, it must be realized that Greek and Roman historical writers were concerned exclusively with the Greek and Roman views of the episodes. These episodes brought Etruria into contact with the Greek states and with the growing power of Rome. The geographical distribution of the Villanovan culture covers southern Etruria and Tuscany south of the Apennines, central Emilia and the eastern Romagna to the north, Fermo in the Marche, and parts of Campania. The exchanges between Etruria and the outside world that had begun during the first half of the eighth century were subsequently put on a more solid footing by the activities of the second generation of Western Greeks. The monumental tumuli, erected in the Orientalizing period over multiple chamber tombs containing exotic luxury goods, are replaced by more numerous and more modest single-family chambers.

Within twenty years of Alexander's death his empire had split into separate states, whose rulers had taken the title of king. The new kings were forceful and ambitious men who relied on their armies and mostly ruled in lands where monarchy was traditional. The new monarchies presented Greeks with ideological problems. Wherever they lived, they had to adjust to a dominant royal power and to find an acceptable place for monarchy within their political philosophy. It has been widely argued that the Antigonid monarchy in Macedonia differed in important respects from monarchy in the other kingdoms. Hellenistic monarchy was closely associated with religion and the gods. More varied in both its form and its implications is the religious practice commonly known as ruler-cult. The legacy of Hellenistic kingship lived on in the Roman Empire, its ideology and its institutions, secular and religious alike, now adapted to the requirements of a universal monarchy.