In Etruscan mythology

Etruscan mythology

The Etruscans were a diachronically continuous population, with a distinct language and culture during the period of earliest European writing, in the Mediterranean Iron Age in the second half of the first millennium BC...

, Tyrrhenus was one of the founders of the Etruscan

Etruscan civilization

Etruscan civilization is the modern English name given to a civilization of ancient Italy in the area corresponding roughly to Tuscany. The ancient Romans called its creators the Tusci or Etrusci...

 Federation of twelve cities, along with his brother Tarchon

Tarchon

In Etruscan mythology, Tarchon and his brother, Tyrrhenus, were culture heroes who founded the Etruscan Federation of twelve cities, the Dodecapoli. One author, Joannes Laurentius Lydus, distinguishes two legendary persons named Tarchon, the Younger and his father, the Elder...

. Herodotus

Herodotus

Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...

 describes him as the saver of Etruscans, because he led them from Lydia

Lydia

Lydia was an Iron Age kingdom of western Asia Minor located generally east of ancient Ionia in the modern Turkish provinces of Manisa and inland İzmir. Its population spoke an Anatolian language known as Lydian....

 to Etruria

Etruria

Etruria—usually referred to in Greek and Latin source texts as Tyrrhenia—was a region of Central Italy, an area that covered part of what now are Tuscany, Latium, Emilia-Romagna, and Umbria. A particularly noteworthy work dealing with Etruscan locations is D. H...

. His name was given to the Etruscan people by the Greek. The Romans extended this use to the sea west of Etruria: the Tyrrhenian Sea.