Etruscans

“ 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. ”

“ THE ETRUSCANS The ancestors of the historic Etruscans were probably Aegean sea-rovers who settled in the Italian peninsula before the beginning of the eighth century B.C. The immigrants mingled with the natives and by conquest and colonization founded a strong power in the country to which they gave their name—Etruria. At one time the Etruscans appear to have ruled over Campania and also in the Po Valley as far as the Alps. Their colonies occupied the shores of Sardinia and Corsica. Their fleets swept the Tyrrhenian Sea. The Etruscans for several centuries were the leading nation in Italy. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They had faded into a mythic kind of historical existence, which modern writers would have been rash to invest with a more virtually historical character before the palpable discoveries of recent years had revealed to us those ancient Etruscans, in their very habits, as they lived—still, though in the tomb, wearing their bronze armour, their gold jewels, and their robes of state, and surrounded by their favourite weapons, within those subterraneous chambers, still perfect after the lapse of ages, even to the curious paintings on the walls and roofs ”

“ 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 Etruscans seem at first to have been pushed off the hills into the plains by the others, and there was frequent fighting between the plain people and the hill people. For their protection from the attacks from the plains, the early kings of Rome built walls round the seven hills; but the Etruscans, though they had given way at first to the Latins and Sabines, must have come back as conquerors. They were a powerful people. They imposed their own kings upon the Romans, and Romans and Etruscans together became the strongest nation in the country. ”

“ Nevertheless, passion and hatred against the Romans were stronger motives than prudence. The Etruscans, with the exception of a few townships, had in the hope of this reinforcement again taken up arms, violating even their accustomed faith with regard to armistices; Perusia, for instance, did not keep the thirty years’ peace. Now as the Etruscans were indeed a wealthy, and with their serfs to fight at their side, a valiant people, but wanting in generals; the Samnites determined to march through the land of the Pentrians, Marsians, Sabines, and Umbrians, to Etruria. ”

“ Thus it seems certain that though the earliest immigrants, known to the later Etruscans as the Rasena, may have come down from the north, still they were joined by a migration from the east before they had developed a civilization of their own, and it is this double race that became the Etruscans as we know them in tradition and by their works. ”

“ In this second year of the war, there was also a rising of the Etruscans and the Umbrians: but they soon made their peace with the Romans. Their rebellion took quite a different character from that of the Italians:—a prætor conquers the Etruscans, and they get the franchise at once. The Etruscans had formerly furnished no troops for the Roman army: yet now they were ready to take up arms for an honour to which they had not hitherto attached any value. The Roman of rank had in the Marsian a very dangerous rival for all the offices ”

“ But when the arch is made the life of the whole building, standing out in all its boldness and majesty, the work is infinitely nobler than when accompanied by the incongruous Grecian mask. The original Etruscans had the independence so to use the grand principle they were the first properly to appreciate, and the creations [Pg 156] of their hands are of the greatest intrinsic worth. Their roads and bridges, tombs and city walls, cloacæ and tunnels are so extraordinary that, after twenty-five centuries, they remain unsurpassed even by their gigantic conquerors. ”

“ The Etruscan state was a federation of twelve cities, embracing a large part of central and northern Italy—from near Naples as far north perhaps as Milan and the great Lombard plain. Etruscans thus dominated the largest, and certainly the fairest, parts of Italy. Before Rome was founded, the Etruscan cities were populous and opulent commonwealths. Together they formed one of the great naval powers of the Mediterranean. Of their civilization, we have abundant knowledge from architectural remains, and, from thousands of inscriptions still extant. ”

“ The history of Sculpture in Italy divides into two distinct, yet connected, subjects of inquiry, embracing two very dissimilar dynasties—the Etruscan and the Roman. Of the former interesting people we know far too little commensurate with their power, and the influence which they appear to have exercised upon the spirit and progress of ancient art. The Thyrreneans, or Etruscans, it is certain, possessed, at a very early period, the empire of almost the whole Italian peninsula, and, to a very considerable extent, whatever of refinement existed in those primitive times. ”

“ Etruscan Origins.
But Montelius (with most other modern ethnologists) rejects the land route from the north, and brings the Etruscans by the sea route direct from the Aegean and Lydia (Asia Minor) . They are the Thessalian Pelasgians whom Hellanikos of Lesbos brings to Campania, or the Tyrrhenian Pelasgians transported by Antiklides from Asia Minor to Etruria, and he is "quite sure that the archaeological facts in Central and North Italy ... prove the truth of this tradition [1235] ." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At this time every mariner on occasion was a pirate, and the Etruscans were especially interested to exclude the Greeks so that they might keep for themselves the trade of the west coast of Italy.
The famous Etruscan vases, which have been taken [Pg 201] from the tombs by the thousand to enrich our museums, were imitations of Greek vases, but manufactured by the Etruscans. They represent scenes from Greek mythology, especially the combats about Troy; the human figures are in red on a black ground.
Religion.—The Etruscans were a sombre people. Their gods were stern, often malevolent. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Etruscans now at once stand still, which is natural in an oligarchically governed nation: when such a people has once settled down to rest, there is no example of its ever having been aroused again and gained fresh life. Thus we may link together all the facts which are confusedly told by the Romans. ”

“ Etruscans were connected with the present inhabitants of Northern Asia, the Finns, Laplanders, Tartars, Mongols, and Chinese, who have no temples or places of special honour for their idols, but assemble once a year or oftener at the graves of their ancestors to worship the dead. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Paulus Diaconus gives a different explanation, founded on the supposed expulsion of the Etruscans in fulfilment of an oracle ('vatum responso expulsis Etruscis') ; and from this Niebuhr and Bunsen, following him, have supposed that an Etruscan city existed here in ancient times. There appears to be no sufficient evidence of such a settlement." R. Burn, Rome and the Campagna, chapter 11. ”

“ Hellanicus of Lesbos, a Greek historian, nearly contemporary with Herodotus, and quoted by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, asserted that the Etruscans were a tribe of Pelasgi, not from Lydia, but from Greece, who being driven out of their country by the Hellenes, sailed to the mouth of the Po, and leaving their ships in that river, built the inland town of Cortona, whence advancing, they peopled the whole territory afterwards called Tyrrhenia16. ”

“ The first five cases are filled with clumsy black ware, ornamented in some cases with figures in relief, and extracted from tombs discovered on the site of the oldest Etruscan towns, which circumstance has led antiquaries to allow the Etruscans the honour of having fashioned these rude specimens of pottery; but as the samples display a higher degree of skill they refuse to allow the Etruscans the merit of having improved the clumsiness of their early handiwork. In the sixth and seventh cases are pale vases with deep red figures, chiefly of animals upon them, chiefly from Canino and Vulci. ”

“ To the latter category it is now possible to refer with certainty only the Etruscans (for the chronology and limits of their occupation of Italian soil see Etruria: section Language) . Of all the other tribes that inhabited Italy down to the classical period, of whose speech there is any record (whether explicit or in the form of names and glosses) , it is impossible to maintain that any one does not belong to the Indo-European group. ”

“ In the last three generations archaeologists have attacked and in great measure solved the problem of the origin of the Etruscans, the nature of their cities, their political organization, their religious beliefs and practices, the degree of originality in their creative arts, their life and customs. The result is a composite picture of the greatest people to dominate the Italian peninsula before the Romans. ”

“ The Greek doctrines were also introduced among the Etruscans and combined with the beliefs of this people as to an underworld in which the Manes of the dead were threatened by horrible demons and protected by beneficent genii. This Greek influence and its alliance with the native traditions appear in Etruria in a great number of funeral monuments on which we find represented many figures which, according to mythology, peopled the kingdom of Pluto. ”