The Etruscans, a rich and advanced people of uncertain origin living in Central Italy, created a small outpost in the hills of modern Fiesole a few centuries before the arrival of the Romans from the South. At that time the Arno valley was a big and unhealthy swamp, definitely not suited for human settlement. History suddenly broke into the region in 218 BC when Hannibal, the great enemy of Rome, invaded Italy and passed through the valley with the Carthaginian army. His soldiers were killed by diseases and he even lost an eye, but no Roman army dared to follow him into the dangerous swamps, so he was able to continue unchecked towards his dreams of conquest. But in the end modern Tuscany, called in Latin Etruria, was definitively subjugated and latinized by Rome during the 2nd century BC, even if the Etruscans had a great and lasting influence on the Roman civilization.

The official history of Florence begins in the year 63 BC: during a civil war Lucius Sergius Catilina, an ambitious nobleman, tried to seize supreme power, but his rebel army was defeated near Pistoia. Faesulae (the modern Fiesole, which had supported Catilina) was subsequently destroyed and the survivors forcibly moved from the hill to the valley where the Romans had just established a fortified village, Florentia. In this way they became the first inhabitants of Florence, but not the only ones as some retired Roman soldiers also settled there with their families. But why Florentia? (from the original Latin name come all of the modern foreign versions of the name of the city: Florence, Florencia, Florenz, Florencija...). Perhaps it was because the legendary founder of Florence was the centurion Fiorinus, but it’s unlikely. In Latin Florentia can mean “city of flowers” or “blossoming town”, however the new village, situated along important roads and in a fertile valley (the Romans had dried the swamps,) quickly grew and flourished and enjoyed the prosperity of the Roman empire in the following centuries, until the coming of the barbarians! Florentia survived the barbarian invasions and the fall of the Empire, but only after 1000 AD was it able to recover from the decadence of the early centuries of the Middle Ages.

Source:Studentsville, History of Florence