Evidence for the Etruscan domination of the seas, which reached
its height between the seventh and sixth century BC, comes from archeological data and the literary sources. In the "Homeric" hymn to Dionysus, the god is seized by Tyrrhenian pirates whom he succeeds in turning into dolphins. Other authors speak of an
Etruscan colonization of Corsica, Sardinia, the Balearic Islands, and the coasts of Spain. The two main Italian seas, the Tyrrhenian and the Adriatic, derive their names from the people of the Etruscans (the Tyrrhenes) and from Hatria or Adria (a Veneto-