Etruria
or Tuscia (Turrenia, Turseia). A country of Italy once inhabited
by the people known as the Etruscans (Tusci). It lay west of the river Tiber and
the Apennines, extending to the sea, and including the valley of the Arno. When
authentic history begins, the Etruscans, in addition to this territory, held also
the valley of the Padus (Etruria Circumpadana) and a further strip south of the
Tiber (Etruria Campaniana). From the former territory they were crowded southward
by the Gauls (see Celtae), and from the latter the Romans subsequently drove them.
Etruria Proper was a confederation of twelve States or cities (duodecim populi
Etruriae), of which no complete list has reached us, though it is fairly certain
that the following towns were eleven of the twelve: Veii, Caere, Tarquinii, Clusium,
Cortona, Perusia, Volsinii, Vulci, Vetulonia, Volaterrae, and Arretium. The twelfth
was in all probability either Falerii, Populonia, or Rusellae. Of the northern
league, the following were important towns: Felsina (Bononia), Mantua, Ravenna,
Chiavenna, and Hatria or Hadria, which gives its name to the Hadriaticum Mare.
In the south, Capua and Nola were rich and powerful cities. Like Etruria Proper,
the northern league was one of twelve States.
Ethnology.--The earliest traditions to which we now have access
make the Etrurians a Lydian people. But this theory, which was carefully considered
by Dionysius of Halicarnassus in his work on the origins of Rome, appears to rest
upon no convincing evidence. Dionysius notes that it is not mentioned by Xanthus,
the historian of Lydia, and sums up the results of his own investigations by saying
that "the Etruscans do not resemble any other people either in language or
in manners." This conclusion is interesting, for Dionysius had given much
thought and time to the consideration of the question, and is said to have written
a work on the Etruscans in twenty books, during the reign of Augustus, when there
was a sort of Etrurian revival, in which everything Etruscan was the fashion.
The identification of the Etruscans with the Lydians was very likely due to a
confusion of the Lydian Torreboi with the name Tursenoi or Turrenoi, applied to
the Etruscans by the Greeks. The confusion was easier because of the maritime
prowess of both peoples and their piratical practices.
Modern investigators have not been deterred by the ill success
of Dionysius from attempting to solve the problem of the ethnological affinities
of the Etruscans; but no definite and generally accepted conclusions have yet
been reached. For purposes of investigation there have been collected some 6000
or more Etruscan inscriptions, the characters resembling Pelasgian or early Greek.
There are also vast collections of their pottery, bronzes, jewels, and other works
of Tuscan art. Fifteen bilingual inscriptions give some further aid on the side
of the language, but less than one might suppose, for they consist only of proper
names. The longest inscription yet discovered is that found at Perugia in 1822,
consisting of fortysix lines, in red, upon two sides of a block of stone (the
"Cippus Perusinus"). These records are in the main mortuary records
taken from tombs, walls, or the labels and seals of mortuary niches, or still
oftener painted upon urns or cut into sarcophagi. They usually give the name,
parentage, age, and rank of the deceased, with a list of the offices that he held.
The most noted investigations of the origins and affinities of the Etruscans have
been those of K. O. Muller, whose dissertation on the subject in two volumes received
a prize from the Academy of Sciences at Berlin, and Wilhelm Corssen (q.v.), who
also published two elaborate volumes. Later works are those of Deecke and Pauli.
By these scholars some progress has been made towards a knowledge
of the peculiarities of the Etruscan language. Besides proper names, some 200
other words have been deciphered, among them a number of numerals, including the
first six digits, the common words denoting relationships, and several verbal
forms. As a matter of general interest, the following list of Etruscan words may
be given from Pauli :
|
clan...........son
|
thu.............five. |
| puia...........wife. |
huth............six. |
| sekh...........daughter. |
suthinese........urn-niches. |
| lautni..........a freedman. |
tular............pillar (cippus). |
| cvil (cver)......gift, |
dedication. amce...........fuit. |
| mach..........one. |
ma.............est. |
| ci..............two. |
ture.............dat. |
| zal............three. |
turce............dedit. |
| sa.............four. |
arce.............habuit. |
Relationship is expressed by separate words (as above), or
(more commonly) by suffixes: thus, Aulesa, “wife of Aule,” Theprisa, “wife of
Thepri,” etc. Other linguistic facts that have been satisfactorily established
regarding the Etruscan tongue are these: the existence of gender, the use of enclitics,
the genitive singular in -s, the dative in -si or -thi, the absence of distinction
between the nominative and accusative in nouns, and the formation of a plural
in -r or -l.
The Egyptian monuments speak of a people called Tursha as taking
part with the Sardinians, Teucri, and other people from the coasts of “the North”
in an invasion of Egypt about B.C. 1200; but the Tursha can not be definitely
identified with the Tyrrhenians any more than can the Tyrrhenians with the Etruscans.
Support is given to the Lydian hypothesis by the discovery made in 1886 by two
French scholars, who found in the island of Lemnos a sepulchral monument with
two Etruscan inscriptions, though of a dialectic character. Now, Thucydides states
that Lemnos was inhabited by Tyrrheni, so that in the finding of these inscriptions
Pauli sees evidence of the identity of the two peoples.
An interesting discovery was made in 1891 by Prof. Krall of
Vienna. About 1850, a mummy was deposited in the Museum of Agram by an Austrian
traveller who had brought it from Egypt. When unrolled, it was found that the
linen cloths in which it had been wrapped were covered with written characters.
These, when examined in 1867 by Brugsch Pasha, were pronounced by him to be Ethiopic.
In 1877 Sir Richard Burton explained them as Nabathean. It remained for Prof.
Krall to prove that the characters are Etruscan, and that the words which they
embody are found in the existing inscriptions of Etruria. They form, in fact,
a book, of which the text originally consisted of twelve columns. More than two
hundred lines are intact, including the last paragraph of the book. The mummy
around which the linen bands were wrapped is that of a woman, and the gilding
on the face and shoulders proves it to belong to the Greek or Roman period. Now,
as Etruscan was still spoken and read in the first century A.D., it is easy to
see how an Etruscan book could have found its way to Egypt, when both Etruria
and Egypt were parts of the same Empire. The few words of the book that had been
identified in 1893 make it probable that it is one of the semireligious, semi-magical
works for which the Etruscans were celebrated. With the material for study and
comparison afforded by the continuous text of this book, the problem of the Etruscan
language seems likely to be brought at least measurably near to a satisfactory
solution. The transcription and photographs of the text, with an account of Prof.
Krall's discovery, were published by the Imperial Academy of Vienna in 1892 (Die
Etruskischen Mumienbinden des Agramer National-Museums).
Until lately philologists were in the main divided into two
great camps on the question of the racial and linguistic affinities of the Etruscans--one
set of scholars holding to the theory of a Semitic origin and the other to that
of an Aryan. But the actual failure of Dr. Corssen to establish the Aryan hypothesis
has to some extent simplified the problem, and the controversy is now carried
on over the Semitic theory and the Ugro-Altaic, this last having been very ingeniously,
though not convincingly, set forth by Dr. Isaac Taylor in his Etruscan Researches
(London, 1874). There are many coincidences that make the Semitic hypothesis seem
plausible. There are Semitic peculiarities traceable in the language--e. g. the
reduplication of consonants, the omission of short vowels, and the retrograde
writing. The religion of the Etruscans was a species of mysticism like that of
the Semites of Carthage; their ruling class was a priesthood and their theology
a system of casuistry, as with the Jews; while their rites were gloomy and horrible,
like those of the Phoenicians. Again, their art possesses the peculiar rigidity,
the conventionality, and the lack of expression that mark the art and architecture
of the Asiatic Semites. Finally, their physical characteristics were Semitic in
that the Etruscans depicted themselves upon their monuments as short, thickset,
with large heads and clumsy limbs, and the aquiline nose that is one of the most
noticeable peculiarities of the Semitic peoples. But while these coincidences
are striking, they are not conclusive, and perhaps the most reasonable view is
that of Muller, who regards the Etruscans as an Asiatic non-Aryan people intermingled
with Aryan elements derived from the tribes which they gradually conquered and
subdued. Their earliest home in Italy was on the Padus, and as late as Livy's
time the people of the Rhaetian Alps spoke a dialect of Etruscan. The theory of
a blending of two races, or rather of the grafting of an Aryan branch upon a nonAryan
stock, would account for the two main features that present themselves in the
Etruscan problem--the fact that, in the main, the Etruscans have nothing in common
with their neighbours of Italy, and the additional fact that their language does
seem to show some slight traces of Aryan influence--about as much, for instance,
as that of the British Kelts left upon the dialect of their Teutonic conquerors.
This hypothesis is at least reasonable, unless we are willing to accept the conclusion
of the scholars who disparagingly regard the Etruscan people and the Etruscan
language as sui generis, representing a race and a speech that have become extinct.
Conestabile and others hold that the Etrurian people contained
two distinct elements--the one native and servile, the other foreign and occupying
the relation of lordship. Caere and Cortona are said to have been Pelasgic cities
before they were possessed by the Etruscans; and certain inscriptions once classed
as Etruscan are now ascribed to the more ancient Pelasgi. Livy states that the
dialect of the Etrurians who inhabited the towns differed from that of the Etrurians
of the country districts. Again, as Dr. Taylor points out, the rapid destruction
of the Etrurian power in Campania and in the valley of the Padus makes it probable
that it was a dominion of conquest rather than of colonization, and that the Rasena,
or Etruscans proper, were a ruling aristocracy, of high culture and great ability,
but few in number. All this is, in the main, corroborative of Muller's view.
Government and Civilization.--The Etrurian government was a
federal league of the twelve cities already mentioned, each ruled by magistrates
annually elected from a class of priestly nobles of hereditary rank. These magistrates
bore the titles Lauchme (Lucumo), Purtsvana (Porsena), and Marunuch, roughly corresponding
to the Roman officers of Consul, Imperator, and Dictator. The official insignia
afterwards used in Rome--the purple robe, the praetexta, the lictors and fasces,
the sella curulis, and the apparitores--were derived from Etruria. The representatives
of the twelve towns met at the temple of Voltumna at a place not now known. Books
of laws existed in accordance with which the internal affairs of the State were
managed (Libri Disciplinae), as well as the religious rites and the division of
the people.
That the civilization of the Etruscans was a highly developed
one is shown by the little that we know of their social laws as well as by the
evidences of their wealth, luxury, and power. The position of women was a high
one; the wife was the social equal of the husband, as is shown by the sepulchral
honours paid her, and by the pictures of domestic life pourtrayed on the sarcophagi
and the vases. For a long time the Etruscans ranked as one of the three great
naval powers of the Mediterranean. They are known, also, to have been familiar
with the sciences, to have been skilled in mining, metallurgy, astronomy, and
medicine, while their knowledge of engineering was conspicuous in the massive
walls of their cities, built of huge blocks, perfectly fitted without cement,
and in their roads, tunnels, and chambered tombs.
In art and art-manufactures, the Etruscans stand very high.
Their jewellery, which is in patterns formed by soldering on minute grains of
gold, excites admiration, while their bronze-work, coinage, and mirrors are of
very fine workmanship. Vast numbers of painted vases, found chiefly in tombs,
possess both an historical and an artistic value.
The religion of the Etruscans played a most important part
in their lives, since they were proverbially devoted to the exercises of their
faith, and we have, in fact, already noted that their very form of government
was largely a system of sacerdotalism. Hence Livy describes the nation as gens
ante omnes alias dedita religionibus; the early Fathers of the Christian Church
denounced Etruria as genetrix et mater superstitionis; and Dionysius even went
so far as to derive the name Tuscus from thuoskoos= thurifer. Their sepulchral
monuments show them to have entertained a belief in a future life; while Varro,
Cicero, and Martianus Capella all speak of the important part which divination
played in their daily life--their affairs of State, even, being regulated by haruspices
and augurs. The deities of Greece and Rome appear in their mythology [e. g. Ani
(Ianus), Maris (Mars), Nethuns (Neptunus), Uni (Iuno), Artumes (Artemis), Velch
(Vulcanus)], besides whom there are a number of native gods, such as Fufluns,
Tinia, Turms, Thesan, answering roughly to Bacchus, Iupiter, Mercury, and Aurora.
The Sun and Moon figure as Usil and Lala. Other gods, some of whom are occasionally
mentioned by the Roman writers, are Manius and Mania, king and queen of the lower
world, Nortia (Fortuna), into the door of whose temple at Volsinii nails (clavi
annales) were driven to mark the successive years, Summanus, the god of night,
Vertumnus, the god of Autumn, and the Novensiles, a collective name of all the
gods who hurled thunderbolts.
History.--Varro records a tradition that the Etruscan State
was founded in the year B.C. 1044, and the Roman legends represent the Etruscans
as a powerful and wealthy people at the time when Rome was founded. Later, but
still during the early years of Rome, Etruria figures in history as a great naval
power, allied with Carthage against the Greeks, and having kings of its own race
dominant over the Romans, as the Roman historians themselves admit in recording
the legend of the migration of the Tarquins from Tarquinii to Rome, and the sway
of the Tarquinian dynasty. An Etruscan cemetery has been discovered on the Esquiline
at Rome; the Caelian Hill bears the name of an Etruscan chief, Caeles Vibenna,
while one of the oldest quarters of the city near the Palatine bore the name Vicus
Tuscus. That the period of Etruscan domination at Rome was one of much prosperity
to the city is seen by the stories that have been transmitted to us of the magnificence
of the Tarquins, and more forcibly by the vastness of the engineering works constructed
at that time, such as the Cloaca Maxima, the Capitoline temple, and the Servian
Wall.
Even after the expulsion of the kings from Rome, Etruria was
still the greatest military power in Italy, and for a century the young Republic
of Rome taxed all its energies in resisting the single Tuscan State of Veii, whose
people in B.C. 476 actually succeeded in capturing the Ianiculum. During the period
from B.C. 540 to 474, the Etruscans divided with the Greeks and Carthaginians
the control of the Mediterranean, expelling the Greek colonists from Corsica (B.C.
538), an island which they still held in 453. In B.C. 525 they attacked the Greeks
in Cumae, but in 474, Hiero of Syracuse, in a great naval battle fought off the
Campanian coast, broke their naval power, and won a victory which is celebrated
by Pindar in an extant ode. In 414, however, a contingent of their Etruscan ships
was sent to aid the Athenians in their ill-fated expedition against Sicily. From
this time the power of Etruria rapidly declined. In Campania, the Greeks of Cumae,
aided by the Samnites, routed the Etruscan forces, and the Samnites carried Capua
by storm; while in the north of Italy the Gauls swept down from the Alps, and,
after overwhelming city after city, crossed the Apennines and made their way into
the heart of Etruria. The rich Etruscan city of Melpum fell in B.C. 396, and not
many years later, attacked by the Romans on the south, the southern province submitted
to the Latin arms. In 311, the Romans crossed the boundary formed by the Ciminian
Forest, in spite of several successive defeats sustained by them at the hands
of the Etruscans, and won a decisive victory in the year 283 at the Vadimonian
Lake. Tarquinii almost immediately fell; and in 280 Volaterrae, the great northern
fortress of the Etruscans, having succumbed, the long struggle ended with the
complete triumph of the Roman arms.
Though conquered, the Etruscan cities appear to have been treated
with mildness and consideration, and to have sustained towards Rome the position
of allies rather than subjects. In the Second Punic War they furnished supplies
to the Roman fleet, and later they were actually admitted to the Roman franchise
(B.C. 89). Some of the greatest names in the later history of the Roman State
are the names of men of Etruscan lineage. Pompeius Magnus (Pompu), Maecenas, and
the family of Caecina were among these; and under the emperors many other distinguished
men show in their lineage kinship with the noble families of Etruria. In fact,
as stated above, during the Augustan age an Etruscan fad generally prevailed at
Rome, like our Anglomania of to-day or the Gallomania of 1856-70; and Etruscan
ancestry was a thing to be proud of.
The debt of Rome to her Etruscan neighbours has been variously
regarded. In the Latin language, apart from a comparatively few terms of religion,
augury, and warfare, there are no real traces of Etrurian influence. To the Romans,
the Etruscans were always an alien race, with whom, indeed, they traded and fought,
and whose divination they employed; yet they never owned kinship with them, but
rather let them hold the same relation towards Rome as did the Carthaginians,
with whom the Latins also fought and traded. Yet the sway of the Etruscan kings
at Rome did add much to the Roman ceremonial and the usages of Roman life. To
Etruria are due the insignia of office, the fasces, the curule chair; and to the
same source Rome owed the circus, the gladiatorial shows, the races, the triumph,
the early monetary system, the rudiments of military science, the knowledge of
augury, the tibicines, the lituus, and the art of building substantial houses,
aqueducts, and sewers.
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