[Verginius Rufus]

I don't think the language had died out by Claudius' time. He wrote a history of the Etruscans in Greek, which would be very useful to have.

Part of a speech by Claudius survives on a bronze tablet found in Lyon in the 16th century. He goes off on a tangent talking about the Etruscan traditions concerning the figure the Romans called Servius Tullius (6th of the traditional 7 kings of Rome).

[raygun]

Claudius died in 54 and was the last person known to have been able to read eTruscan. Apart from his history, he wrote an eTruscan dictionary. It is cited by reference works that eTruscan became a dead language in 1 Century A.D. Don't know how viable a language would be after the last person konwn to be able to read it dies.