Caere and it can be assumed that these typical Etruscan ceramics were developed here or produced at least for the first time in large scale. In the Orientalizing Period from around 700 BC the early prosperity of the city is demonstrated in the graves of this period which often contain eastern imports and rich gold finds, notably in the extremely rich Regolini-Galassi tomb with its many fine gold offerings. From 530 to 500 BC Greek artists were active in the city and worked there for a generation producing color-painted hydras. Burials of the time became increasingly grand, with jewellery and other products of particularly fine manufacture, illustrating the continuing good fortunes of the city. At the height of its prosperity in the 6th century BC, the people of Caere (with the Carthaginians) emerged marginally victorious from clashes with the Phocaean Greeks. Caere had a good reputation among the Greeks for its values and sense of justice, since it abstained from piracy. It was one of only two Etruscan cities to erect its own treasury at Delphi, the "Agillei Treasury" dedicated to Pythian Apollo. This was generally not allowed to non-Greeks, and the legends regarding earlier Greek colonization in the wider area of Caere and Rome seem to have played an important role in allowing what was, from a political point of view, a bold act. (Delphi was also a political and intrigue centre for the whole Eastern Mediterranean and Near East area). Caere appears for the first time in documented history in 540 BC concerning the Battle of Alalia in which captured prisoners were stoned to death in the city, an act that was later attributed as the cause of an ensuing plague. In recompense, athletic contests were held every year in the city to honour the dead. In 509 BC, upon the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, the king Lucius Tarquinius Superbus and his two eldest sons Titus and Aruns went into exile in Caere. In spite of the difficulties affecting Etruria during the period, trade once again flourished through the 5th century BC, arguably due to the particularly good relations with the Rome, a traditional ally of the city. Communication with Rome was via branch roads from the Via Aurelia and Via Clodia. Caere was not spared by the crisis that affected the great centres of southern Etruria during the second half of that century, after the defeat