Etruscan language

“ What was true of the antiquities would be true also, he argued, of the Etruscan language, and the object of the Saggio di lingua Etrusca was to prove that this language must be related to that of the neighbouring peoples—Romans, Umbrians, Oscans and Greeks. He was allied with E. Q. Visconti in his great but never accomplished plan of illustrating antiquity altogether from existing literature and monuments. ”

“ Of course, until the affinities of the Etruscan language are determined, from which [Pg 513] we are still as far off as ever [1236] , Etruscan origins must remain chiefly an archaeological question. Even the help afforded by the crania from the Etruscan tombs is but slight, both long and round heads being here found in the closest association. Sergi, who also brings the Etruscans from the east, explains this by supposing that, being Pelasgians, they were of the same dolicho Mediterranean stock as the Italians (Ligurians) themselves, and differed only from the brachy Umbrians of Aryan speech. ”

“ What better basis for a gentleman’s education could possibly be discovered? It’s the great dead language of the future. If Etruscan didn’t exist, it would be necessary to invent it.”
“Which is precisely what the pedagogues will have to do,” said Chelifer, “there being no Etruscan literature beyond the inscriptions and the rigmarole on the mummy-wrappings at Agram.”
“So much the better,” replied Mr. Cardan. “If we wrote it ourselves, we might find Etruscan literature interesting. ”

“ Etruscan literature composed by Etruscans would be as boring as any other ancient literature. But if the epics were written by you, the Socratic dialogues by me, the history by some master of fiction like Miss Thriplow—then we’d possess a corpus in which the rare schoolboys who can derive some profit from their education could take a real interest. And when, a generation hence, we have become as much out of date in our ideas as Tully or Horace, the literature of Etruria will be re-written by our descendants. Each generation will use the dead language to express its own ideas. ”

“ But though the Romans were long familiar with the literature and customs of Etruria, and adopted many Etruscan words into their language, neither of these causes influenced the literary development of the Romans in any appreciable degree. Italian philology and ethnology have been much complicated by reference to the Etruscan element. It is best to regard it, like the Iapygian, as altogether outside the pale of genuine Italic ethnography. ”

“ COMPARISON OF THE LATIN LANGUAGE WITH THE GREEK—ERAS OF LATINITY—ORIGIN OF THE ROMANS—ELEMENTS OF THE LATIN LANGUAGE—ETRUSCAN INFLUENCE. The various races which, from very remote antiquity, inhabited the peninsula of Italy, necessarily gave a composite character to the Latin language. But as all of them sprang from one common origin, the great Indo-European stock to which also the Hellenic family belonged, a relation of the most intimate kind is visible between the languages of ancient Greece and Rome. ”

“ The remains of the Etruscan tongue which have reached us, numerous as they are, and presenting so many data to aid in deciphering it, occupy a position of isolation so complete, that not only has no one hitherto succeeded in its interpretation, but no one has been able even to determine precisely its proper place in the classification of languages. Two periods in the development of the language may be clearly distinguished. ”

“ In order to indicate the uncertain nature of the light which for a long time to come is all we can expect from Italian archaeology, I have only to remind you that one of the chief questions we have to ask of it is the relation of the mysterious Etruscan people to the other Italian stocks, in respect of language, religion, and art. ”

“ From the few examples which have been here given, it is evident that the Pelasgian element of the Etruscan was most influential in the formation of the Latin language, as the Pelasgian art and science of that wonderful people contributed to the advancement and improvement of the Roman character. ”

“ Had he known all that men of ordinary learning know upon the subject, he would have known that of the remaining two or three-and-thirty ascertained Etruscan words, some are of two—some of three—some of four syllables—but not one of them all a monosyllable. Yet thus ignorant even of the commonest rudiments of learning on his subject, he takes it upon him to talk of men of real learning in the following strain—
"That the language of Etruria has hitherto defied the laborious investigations of the learned of Italy, is now on all hands admitted. ”

“ It is not here the place to develop the moral of Etruscan history, or to investigate the political and social condition of the Etruscan people; though the links we have of the former, and the glimpses of the latter seen athwart the prejudices and mortified pride of the Roman historians, give the subject a fascinating interest. It is said that when the Roman armies invaded the territory of the northern Etruscan states, and their commander asked the name of the first city they approached, the unsuspecting subject of the Lars replied only,—not understanding the barbarian language,—Χαιρε, "Hail!" ”

“ The Etruscans had quite an aristocratical constitution, and they lived in their towns in the midst of a large subjected country; under such circumstances, it could not but be of great importance to them, that the people should adopt their language.
The Rasena came down from the Alps as conquerors, since, according to Livy and Strabo, not only the Rhætians, but also the other Alpine tribes, the Camunians, the Lepontians on the Lake of Como, were of Etruscan race. That they were forced by the Gallic conquest to retire from the plain into the Alps, has never been said by any of the ancients ”

“ Many of the Etruscan cities contain interesting remains of their early civilised state; but their entire literature, supposed to have been extensive, has perished, and their language is only known through monumental inscriptions. Their religion was polytheistic, but embraced a belief in a future life. There is abundant evidence that they had attained to a high degree of civilisation; the status of women was high, the wife ranking with the husband; their buildings still extant attest their skill as engineers and builders ”

“ From these ancient germs placed in new soil is modern civilisation derived.
FOOTNOTES:
[398] See E. Meyer, Geschichte des Alterthums, ii, 703; cp. A. Schwegler, Römische Geschichte, i, 274-79, as to the survivals. The reversion of the remaining Etruscan aristocracy in Rome to the language of the common people, under stress of strife with Etruria, is a phenomenon on all fours with the abandonment of French by the upper-class English in the fourteenth century, as a result of hostility with France. ”

“ At Florence, at Arezzo, at Cortona, at Perugia, the collections which each city has brought together make us familiar, if we are not so already, with much of Etruscan art and Etruscan life. Or shall we say that what they really make us familiar with is more truly Etruscan death? Our knowledge of most nations of remote times comes largely from their tombs and from the contents of their tombs, and this must specially be the case with a people who, like the Etruscans, have left no literature behind them. ”

“ The Etruscans had entered Italy probably from the East at some time between the eleventh and the eighth centuries b.c.; but before their coming they had advanced in culture beyond the Latins whose territories they touched on the Tiber. By the sixth century certainly the Romans had come into close political and commercial relations with them, and indeed had already felt their power, for an Etruscan dynasty ruled at Rome. In spite of the patriotic efforts of Roman historians, we can now see that the Etruscan domination lasted long after the traditional expulsion of the kings. ”

“ Accordingly, the early Roman historical traditions evidently point to a period during which Rome was subject to Etruscan rule. When the Etruscan dynasty passed away, its influence in many respects still remained. The religion and mythology of Etruria left an indelible stamp on the rites and ceremonies of the Roman people. The Etruscan deities were the natural gods of Rome before the influence of Greek poetry introduced the mythology of Homer and Hesiod into her Pantheon. The characters and attributes of these deities were totally different from those of Greece. ”

“ The spirit of the inspiration of pure art is lacking in their work. They were excellent craftsmen, and Rome is said to have learned certain points in the uses of casting metal and in masonry from Etruscan artisans. They were also an agricultural people, who did much towards improving the soil wherever they settled. The Etruscans were a very religious, or at least a superstitious race, full of faith in augury, constantly consulting natural oracles, such as the flight of birds and variations of the atmosphere, and, like the Greeks, they had their household gods or lares. ”

“ Until the fatal dissension which permitted the Romans to conquer Veii, the Etruscan states calmly and steadily repelled all invasion,—rarely, as in the time of Porsenna, turning aside to retaliate on Rome,—and still pursued their peaceful career, the sages of Egypt and the artists and poets of Greece giving wisdom and grace to their daily lives,—their temples the richest, their domestic life the fairest, their political condition the most prosperous, and their commerce the widest of all Italy, if not of all Europe. ”

“ The Tiber makes Rome; the Arno makes Florence. In prehistoric and early historic times, the mountainous region which forms the basin of these two rivers was occupied by a gifted military race, the Etruscans, who possest a singular assimilative power for Oriental and Hellenic culture. Intellectually and artistically, they were the pick of Italy. Their blood still runs in the veins of the people of Tuscany. Almost every great thing done in the Peninsula, in ancient or modern times, has been done by Etruscan hands or brains. ”

“ Influence of the Etruscans.—The Romans, a semi-barbarous people, always imitated their more civilized neighbors, the Etruscans. They drew from them especially the forms of their religion: the costume of the priests and of the magistrates, the religious rites, and the art of divining the future from birds (the auspices) . When the Romans found a city, they observe the Etruscan rites: the founder traces a square enclosure with a plough with share of bronze, drawn by a white bull and a white heifer. Men follow the founder and [Pg 203] carefully cast the clods of earth from the side of the furrow. ”

“ The Etruscan Ash-urns. The reliefs on the Etruscan and Roman sarcophagi carry us to Italian soil and furnish us with a much larger field for pursuing our subject than could be found in Greek sculpture. Of all the Italian races with whom the Greeks came into contact, the Etrurians were by far the most advanced in civilization ”

“ In the painted tombs of ancient Etruria you may see the familiar devil with his three-pronged fork thrusting souls back into the seething flood of a heathen hell, as Orcagna's here thrust them back similarly into that of its more modern Christian successor. All Etruscan art is full throughout of such horrors. You find their traces abundantly in the antique Etruscan museum at Florence; you find them on the mediæval Campo Santo at Pisa; you find them with greater skill, but equal repulsiveness, in the work of the great Renaissance artists. The 'ghastly glories of saints' the Tuscan revels in. ”

“ This is no place in which to discuss the origin of that extraordinary people whose language and parentage, though they lived and laboured side by side with the most cultivated and inquisitive of European nations, is practically dead to us. It is enough at this point of our history to note that the Etruscans were the first to seal their personality, with the seal of a visible and tangible intelligence, upon this corner of the world, and it is quite probable that they made one of their earliest colonies upon the jutting spur of a line of hills which would have attracted them upon arrival. ”

“ Some of these are the perfection of intaglio: nothing in the gem-cutting of the Greeks could be more exquisite and purely beautiful than they are as intaglio. Yet, excellent as is the work, there is an essential difference between the Etruscan and Greek design, which no similarity of workmanship will ever conceal,—a difference as radical as that between Roman and Greek sculpture, and still more marked. ”

“ Over all these ruled Mantus and Mania, the counterparts of Pluto and Persephone in Greece. As a result of this complete hierarchy of divine powers the priesthood of Etruria was large, powerful, and of such fame that Etruscan haruspices were sent for from distant places to interpret the sacrifices and the oracles (Livy v. i. 6, xxvii. 37. 6) .
Art.—The evidence drawn from tradition and custom which we have so far considered in relation to the origin and beliefs of the Etruscans has taken us into the prehistoric times much earlier than those when the handicrafts developed into true fine arts. ”

“ Etruscan art is a remarkable evidence of dexterity mechanically acquired and mechanically retained, but it is, as little as the Chinese, an evidence even of genial receptivity. As scholars have long since desisted from the attempt to derive Greek art from that of the Etruscans, so they must, with whatever reluctance, make up their minds to transfer the Etruscans from the first to the lowest place in the history of Italian art. ”