The most ancient Villanovan necropoleis are found at Quattro Fontanili, Valle la Fata, Grotta Gramiccia and Vaccherecchia and probably respectively correspond to seperate villages. The material presents similarities with that of the cities of the same period in Southern Etruria. An important thing to note is the presence, dating from the first years of the VIIIth century B.C., of ceramic materials imported mostly from Euboia in Greece, which documents the contacts between the Etruscans with Greek sailors who landed in the area of the river Tiber. The first chamber tombs appear in the VIIth century B.C.

These tombs are sometimes painted as in the case of the Tomb of the Ducks and of the Bell Tomb, both of which are more modest in size and in the quality of the grave goods than are the tombs in nearby Tarquinia and Caere. Nonetheless, from one of these tombs found near Formello, an exceptional masterpiece of protocorinthian ceramic work has come to light: the famous Chigi olpe, now in the Villa Giulia Museum in Rome.

The necropoleis now extend to Casale del Fosso, Riserva del Bagno, Picazzano, Monte Michele, Monte Campanile, Pozzuolo and Oliveto Grande. Between the end of the VIth and Vth century B.C., Veii enjoyed its period of greatest artistic prosperity, due to the presence of a school of sculptors who worked in terracotta, the executors of the outstanding masterpieces, that decorated the roof and cult images of the Minerva (and Apollo?) temple, known as the Portonaccio Sanctuary, which was dicovered on the necropolis of Veii. Ancient sources mention the name of Vulca, an artist of Veii, who was famous in the Rome of the Tarquinians and who has become the only Etruscan artist known by his name who has survived the course of the ages...

The acroterial statues of the Portonaccio temple (now at the Villa Giulia Museum in Rome), life sized representations of the rare myth of the struggle of Hercules with Apollo for the Cerynthian deer, have been attributed to Vulca. Archaeological evidence is insufficiant for a precise description of the city during the Vth century B.C.

Its nearness to Rome, with whom the city was traditionally at odds, hastened its fall and in 396 B.C. it was the first of Etruscan cities to fall to the rival after a long siege. The city never regained its independence even though its location at an important cross-road near the Faliscan field favoured its continuity.

In the Augustan age, a municipium was created there which allowed for a superficial revival of the city, but the general state of political and economic decay throughout the imperial age contributed to the slow and progressive abandonment of the city centre which was complete by the beginning of the first millennium A.D.