How remote it sounds—interpreting divine will through lightning bolts and sheep livers—like something from Stonehenge or the labyrinths of Crete. Yet as late as the fifth century A.D. these services were ordered in Christian Rome: Pope Innocent I, frightened by the approach of Alaric’s Visigoths, consulted Etruscan fulgiatores and haruspices.
How remote, psychically, is Etruria? Well, my neighbor knocks on wood, millions consult the horoscope, and I myself don’t much care for room 13. Interpret that as you please. Now back to the facts.
This incomplete collection of sacred books is just about all the Etruscan literature we have. Otherwise there are only scraps, threads, allusions, and those brief monotonous remarks on funerary items, on mirrors, weapons, and little boxes:
I BELONG TO LARTHIA.
TARCHUNIES HAD ME MADE.
VEL PARTUNU, SON OF VELTHUR AND RAMTHA SATLNEI, DIED AGED TWENTY-EIGHT.
ASKA MI ELEIVANA, MINI, MULVANIKE MAMARCE VELCHANA, which of course means: “I am an oil bottle donated by Mamarce Velchana.”
A contemporary of Cicero mentions some tragedies written by Velna, or Volnius, but that is all we know, not the titles, not even the century. Indeed, there may not have been much Etruscan literature. If there was, it failed to excite the Romans.
In 1964 three rectangular sheets of gold were discovered near the port of Santa Severa. All were inscribed—one in Phoenician, two in Etruscan—perhaps telling a wonderful story, perhaps describing a voyage from Lydia. So, as you might imagine, there was whooping and dancing among Etruscologists. Unfortunately the Phoenician is not a translation of the Etruscan; linguists are convinced of that. Still, the plates have been helpful because the messages are similar: the king of Caere, Thefarie Velianas, is dedicating a shrine to the Lady Astarte inthe month of the Sacrifice of the Sun. This ceremony, which must have been widely proclaimed, occurred about 500 B.C.
Latin inscriptions from the period of Roman hegemony often are found on monuments or on the pedestals of statues. One speaks of a military commander who led an army against “C,” which would mean Caere. He led another force against Sicily, thus becoming the first Etruscan general to cross the water, and when he returned from this punitive expedition he was rewarded with an eagle and a golden crown. Clearly he was a great general. His name, almost obliterated, appears to be “Vel X, son of Lars.”
What seems to resist oblivion, outlasting all other created things, including the greatest plays and the most exquisite poems, outlasting murals, statues, bronze mirrors, and stone sarcophagi, is pottery, the humble craftsman’s daily product. It is just about indestructible. Certain plastics may last until the end of the world—maybe longer, if anybody cares—but pottery shards are practically as durable, which is a bit of luck. They are easily glued together, very often they fit to perfection although the object may have been shattered millennia ago, and the most ordinary scraps reveal quite a lot because, almost from the beginning, potters have decorated their pots. Changes of taste, form, and technique accurately measure the passing years. The examination of pots and cups and plates, therefore, becomes a fundamental discipline of the archaeologist.
Kylix, alabastron, rhyton, hydria—Etruscan potters, often adapting Greek forms, steadily manufactured them, century upon century. Thousands have survived intact, or faintly chipped, and we can only guess how many would be around if grave robbers were more considerate.
For instance, the famous blackware called bucchero. Lawrence described these vases and dishes as opening out “like strange flowers, black flowers with all the softness and the rebellion of life.” Another Englishman, George Dennis—the same Dennis of whom Professor Pallottino disapproves—tells of being present during an excavation at Vulci in 1843. Under orders from Lucien Bonaparte’s widow, the workmen divided whatever they found into two groups: jewelry, richly painted Greek vases and so forth, which fetched a good price, on one side;everything of slight commercial value, such as bucchero dishes, on the other side. Whereupon, says Dennis, everything of little or no value was deliberately smashed. Widow Bonaparte did not want to dilute the market. “At the mouth of the pit in which they were at work, sat thecapo, or overseer—his gun by his side. . . .”
One is reminded of Genghis Khan destroying what he was unable to use because he could not imagine what else should be done with it. Or Diego de Landa burning the elegant Mayan codices. Or those Mohammedan soldiers who broke into the library at Alexandria and helped themselves to 700,000 books—fuel enough to heat the public baths for six months.
Today what remains of Etruria?
A stone leopard. Dice. Chariot fragments. Several lead discs. An ivory writing tablet. Those three sheets of gold. Odd, mysterious items
