 Like many ancient societies, the Italics and the Etruscans conducted campaigns during summer months, raiding neighboring areas, attempting to gain territory and combating piracy/banditism as a means of acquiring valuable resources such as land, prestige and goods.It is also likely individuals taken in battle would be ransomed back to their families and clans at high cost.The Greeks had founded many colonies in Southern Italy (that the Romans later called Magna Graecia), such as Cumae, Naples and Taranto, as well as in the eastern two-thirds of Sicily, between 750 and 550 BC.