Once the Etruscans was a mighty and powerful people, masters of the richest areas of Italy and feared by the other peoples. In almost all the texts in Greek and Roman literature, however, the Etruscans are described as cruel, pirates at sea, living in luxuriousness and allowing their women too much freedom. What we can see now is a people with a very different culture from that of the Greeks and Romans. When the Etruscans started to lose in the battles with the Romans, they were despised and seen by the others as week, unmanly and too fond of an easy living.