An Illyrian people who came from the east and took possession of the region named for them (Venetia) in Italy c 1000 BC. The Venetic language is known from more than 400 funerary and votive inscriptions and from Classical writings. It is an Indo-European language of Archaic type bearing similarities to the Latin and the Germanic. The principal centers of the Veneti were Padua and Este. Their culture developed from the 9th century to the period of Romanization, with relationships with the Golasecca, Villanovan, and Etruscan cultures and with the transalpine Hallstatt culture. They peaked in the 6th-4th centuries BC and produced figured bronze situlae (conical vessels). The Veneti were horse breeders and peaceful traders and navigators. They protected by the waters of the lower Po and the lower Adige and preserved their independence against Etruscan expansion and Celtic invasion. In the 3rd century BC, they established a peaceful alliance with Rome.