A technical term employed to define a complex political organization that was not simply hierarchical in a pyramidal manner. Etruscan politics may have had much of this quality since it was composed of the dynamic rivalry of multiple descent groups in any single city, none of which appear to have achieved absolute supremacy. As a consequence, the control of power did not follow the same pattern, although the settlement system of Etruria, particularly South Etruria, was apparently centralized.
See also STATE FORMATION.
Historical Dictionary of the Etruscans. Simon K. F. Stoddart.