In January 1974 I started my doctoral thesis supervised by Prof. O.-H. Frey (Marburg an der Lahn) at the University of Hamburg, on the subject: ‘Arms, armour and warfare in Central Italy during the Iron Age, ninth to sixth century B.C.’. During the work on this subject, it soon became evident that a detailed treatment would not be possible if the work were restricted to the geographical region of Italy. Many questions and problems appeared, the answers to which could not be found in Italy only, but in other geographical areas, surrounding more or less the whole Mediterranean and the foothills of the Alps. These connections and influences in Etruria determined to a great extent the historical development of the Central Italian military systems. Of course these military influences came at different times and from different sources, with Etruria taking a key position because of its extraordinarily favourable geographical, topographical and other natural conditions. Therefore Etruria had a special importance in the taking up and passing on of foreign elements of warfare from the Iron Age onwards, which influenced and even determined the military history of this region during the whole first millennium B.C. On the other hand the new military technology, which mostly reached Etruria first, was passed on after a delay from Etruria to Latium in the south and to Umbria in the east, then to the Adriatic Coast and to northern Italy and finally in a modified and selected form also beyond the Alps, to the under-developed peoples of Central Europe.