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THE   CITIES  AND   CEMETERIES 


ETBUKIA. 


ETRUSCAN    MIRROR. 
REPRESENTING    "  PHUPHLUNS,"   "  SEMLA,''    AND   ''APULU;" 

OR 
BACCHUS,     SKMKLE,     AND     AHOLLQ. 


THE 


CITIES    AND    CEMETEEIES 


ETRURIA, 


BY    GEORGE     DENNIS. 


Parva  Tyrrkenum  per  itquor 
Vela  dareiu.  HORAT. 


REVISED    EDITION,    RECORDING    THE    MOST    RECENT    DISCOVERIES. 


IX    TWO    VOLUMES.— VOL.   I. 


WITH   MAP,   PLANS,   AND   ILLUSTRATIONS. 


LONDON : 

JOHN    MURRAY,   ALBEMARLE    STREET. 

1878. 

[TJic  Sight  of  Translation  is  reserved.] 


Rsverere  gloriam  vetcrem,  et  lianc  ipsam  senectutem,  qua;  in  bomine  •veneralrilis,  in 
urbibus  sacra.     Sit  apud  te  honor  antiquitati,  sit  ingentibus  factis,  sit  fabulis  quoque. 

Pux.  Epist.  VHI.  24. 

Quis  est  autem,  quern  non  moveat  clarissimis  rconumentis  testata  consignataque  Antiqxiitas  ? 

CICERO,  de  Div.  I.  40. 


THE  GETTY  RESEARCH 
INSTITUTE  LIBRARY 


TO 

THE    RIGHT    HONOURABLE 

SIE    HENEY    A.    LAYAED,    G.C.B., 

ffcr  Hhtjesfji's  ^mtassobor  to  UK  Sublime  |Jorfe, 

ETC.,        ETC.,        ETC.  ; 
THE    MOST    ILLUSTRIOUS    AND    MOST    SUCCESSFUL    EXCAVATOR    OF    THE    AGE; 

IX    ADMIRATION    OF 

THE    EMINENT    POWERS    AND    MANIFOLD    RESOURCES    WHICH    HAVE    RENDERED 

HIS    CAREER    ONE    CONTINUAL    TRIUMPH    OVER    DIFFICULTIES 

SUCH     AS     FEW     MEN     HAVE    HAD    TO    ENCOUNTER  ; 

AND 

IN      GRATEFUL      ACKNOWLEDGMENT      OF     ENCOURAGEMENT     AND     ASSISTANCE 

RECEIVED    FROM    HIM    DURING    ANTIQUARIAN    RESEARCHES    IN 

SICILY,     LYDIA,     AND     THE    CYRENAICA  ; 

THESE    VOLUMES 
ARE    RESPECTFULLY    DEDICATED. 


PEEFACE  TO  THE  FIRST  EDITION. 


THIS  work  is  the  fruit  of  several  tours  made  in  Etruria  betweeu 
the  years  1842  and  1847.  It  has  been  written  under  the  impres- 
sion that  the  Antiquities  of  that  land,  Avhich  have  excited  intense 
interest  in  Italy  and  Germany  during  the  last  twenty  or  thirty 
years,  deserve  more  attention  than  they  have  hitherto  received 
from  the  British  public ;  especially  from  those  swarms  of  our 
countrymen  who  annually  traverse  that  classic  region  in  their 
migrations  between  Florence  and  Rome.  A  few  Englishmen, 
eminent  for  rank  or  acquirements,  have  long  been  practically 
acquainted  with  the  subject — but  till  the  appearance  of  Mrs. 
Hamilton  Gray's  work  on  "  The  Sepulchres  of  Etruria "  the 
public  at  large  was  in  a  state  of  profound  ignorance  or  indiffer- 
ence. That  lad}r  is  deserving  of  all  praise  for  having  first  intro- 
duced Etruria  to  the  notice  of  her  countrymen,  and  for  having, 
by  the  graces  of  her  style  and  power  of  her  imagination,  rendered 
a  subject  so  proverbially  dry  and  uninviting  as  Antiquity,  not 
only  palatable  but  highly  attractive.  Her  work,  however,  is  far 
from  satisfactory,  as  all  who  have  used  it  as  a  Guide  will  con- 
fess ;  for  there  are  many  sites  of  high  interest  which  she  has  not 
described,  and  on  some  of  those  of  which  she  has  treated  many 
remarkable  monuments  have  been  subsequently  discovered.  It 
is  to  supply  such  deficiencies  that  I  offer  these  volumes  to  the 
public.  The  interest  and  curiosity  that  lady  has  aroused  in  the 


vi  PREFACE    TO    THE    FIRST    EDITION. 

mysterious  race  to  which  Italy  is  indebted  for  her  early  civiliza- 
tion, I  hope  to  extend  and  further  to  gratify. 

The  primary  object  of  this  work  is  to  serve  as  a  Guide  to  those 
who  would  become  personally  acquainted  with  the  extant  remains 
of  Etruscan  civilization.  The  matter  therefore  is  so  arranged 
that  the  traveller  may  readily  ascertain  what  monuments  he  will 
find  on  any  particular  site.  I  have  deemed  it  advisable  to  add 
succinct  notices  of  the  history  of  each  city,  so  far  as  it  may  be 
learnt  from  ancient  writers,  with  a  view  to  impart  interest  to  the 
traveller's  visit,  as  well  as  to  give  the  book  some  value  to  those 
who  would  use  it,  not  as  a  Hand-book,  but  as  a  work  of  classical 
and  antiquarian  reference.  Yet  as  the  former  is  its  primary 
character,  the  traveller's  wants  and  convenience  have  been  parti- 
cularly consulted — by  statements  of  distances,  by  hints  as  to 
means  of  conveyance,  as  to  the  accommodation  to  be  found  on 
the  road,  and  suiuhy  such-like  fragments  of  information,  which, 
it  is  hoped,  may  prove  the  more  acceptable  to  him,  as  they  are 
intended  for  his  exclusive  use  and  benefit. 

Some  apolog}"  may  be  thought  necessary  for  the  copious 
annotations  which  give  the  work  pretensions  to  something  more 
than  a  mere  Hand-book.  As  in  the  course  of  writing  it  I  have 
had  occasion  to  make  frequent  references  to  the  classics  and  to 
modern  works  on  archseolog}',  it  seemed  to  me,  that  by  the  in- 
sertion of  my  authorities  I  should  avoid  the  charge  of  loose  and 
unfounded  statements ;  while  at  the  same  time,  by  collecting  and 
arranging  these  authorities  according  to  the  several  subjects  on 
which  they  bore,  and  by  pointing  out  the  sources  whence  further 
information  might  be  derived,  I  should  be  rendering  service  to 
the  scholar  and  antiquary.  Yet  to  avoid  swelling  the  work  to  an 
undue  extent,  I  have  contented  myself,  for  the  most  part,  with 
simply  indicating,  instead  of  quoting.  Though  the  exhibition  of 
the  process  by  which  the  work  was  constructed  may  be  useless  or 
even  unpleasing  to  the  general  reader,  to  the  student  of  these 
matters  it  will  not  prove  unwelcome. 


PREFACE    TO    THE    FIRST    EDITION.  vii 

The  obligations  I  have  been  under  to  Cluver,  Miiller,  and 
other  writers,  living  as  well  as  dead,  I  must  here  acknowledge  in 
general  terms,  as  it  would  be  impossible  to  state  the  source 
whence  every  reference  or  suggestion  has  been  derived.  Yet 
wherever  I  have  availed  myself  of  the  labours  of  others,  I  have 
carefully  verified  their  authorities,  or,  when  that  was  impossible, 
have  transferred  the  responsibilit}*  to  the  proper  quarter. 

I  must  also  take  this  opportunity  of  paying  my  personal  tribute 
of  thanks  to  certain  living  antiquaries,  whose  names  stand  high 
in  European  estimation ;  particularly  to  Doctors  Braun  and 
Henzen,  the  secretaries  of  the  Archaeological  Institute  at  Home, 
for  their  kindness  in  affording  me  facilities  for  the  prosecution  of 
my  studies,  especially  by  placing  the  copious  library  of  the  Insti- 
tute at  my  command.  To  these  I  must  add  the  names  of  Pro- 
fessor Migliarini  of  Florence,  whose  obliging  courtesy  has  stood 
me  in  good  stead  when  in  that  city ;  and  of  Mr.  Birch,  of  the 
British  Museum,  who  has  favoured  me  with  his  notes  of  two 
sarcophagi  at  Musignano,  described  at  page  439  of  this  volume. 
Nor  niust  I  forget  to  mention  my  friend  and  fellow-traveller  Mr. 
Ainsley,  to  whom  I  am  indebted  for  the  free  use  of  the  notes  of 
his  Etruscan  tours,  as  well  as  for  several  sketches  used  in  illus- 
trating this  work. 

The  drawings  of  masonry,  tombs,  and  other  local  remains  have 
been  mostly  made  by  myself  with  the  camera  lucida.  Those  of 
portable  monuments  are  generally  copied  from  various  works  little 
knoAvn  in  England.  Most  of  the  plans  of  ancient  sites  are  also 
borrowed,  but  two  have  been  made  by  myself,  and  though  laying 
no  claim  to  scientific  precision,  will  be  found  sufficiently  accurate 
for  the  purposes  of  the  tourist.  The  general  Map  of  Etruria  has 
been  formed  principally  from  Segato's  Map  of  Tuscany,  aided  by 
Gell's  and  Westphal's  Campagna  di  Roma,  and  by  the  official 
maps  of  the  Pontifical  State. 

My  chief  aim  throughout  this  work  has  been  truth  and  accuracy. 
At  least  half  of  the  manuscript  has  been  written  in  Italy,  and  the 


viii  PREFACE    TO    THE    FILST   EDITION. 

greater  part  of  it  has  been  verified  l>y  subsequent  visits  to  the 
scenes  described.  Notwithstanding,  the  book  has,  doubtless,  its 
share  of  errors  and  imperfections.  Those  who  take  it  up  for  mere 
amusement  will  think  I  have  said  too  much,  the  scholar  and 
antiquary  that  I  have  said  too  little,  on  the  subjects  treated, — on 
the  one  hand  I  may  be  accused  of  superficiality,  on  the  other  of 
prolixity  and  dulness.  To  all  I  make  my  apology  in  the  words 
of  Pliny — Res  ardiia,  retustis  novitatem  dare,  noris  auctoritatem , 
obsoletis  nitorem,  obscuris  luccm,  fastlditis  gmtiam,  dubiis  fidcm, 
omnibus  rero  naturam,  ct  natura  suce  omnla — "  It  is  no  easy 
matter  to  give  novelty  to  old  subjects,  authority  to  new,  to  impart 
lustre  to  rusty  things,  light  to  the  obscure  and  mysterious,  to 
throw  a  charm  over  what  is  distasteful,  to  command  credence  for 
doubtful  matters,  to  give  nature  to  everything,  and  to  arrange 
everything  according  to  its  nature." 


PKEFACE  TO  THE   SECOND  EDITION. 

SINCE  the  publication  of  the  former  edition  of  this  work  in 
1848,  many  important  and  interesting  discoveries  have  been 
made  in  Etruria.  Long  forgotten  sites  have  been  recognised  as 
Etruscan  ;  cemeteries  of  cities,  known  or  suspected  to  have  that 
origin,  have  been  brought  to  light ;  and  excavations  have  been 
carried  on  with  more  or  less  success  in  various  parts  of  that 
land.  Many  painted  tombs  have  been  opened,  and  some  have 
unfortunately  been  closed.  The  interest  in  such  discoveries  has 
so  greatly  increased,  that  museums  have  been  established  in  not 
a  few  provincial  towns,  and  private  collections  have  become 
numerous.  The  subject  of  Etruscan  antiquities,  moreover,  has 
received  new  light,  and  acquired  fresh  interest  from  similar 
researches  in  other  parts  of  Italy,  especially  at  Palestrina,  and  in 
the  country  north  of  the  Apennines.  In  preparing  then  a  new 
edition,  it  has  been  my  task  not  only  to  visit  the  sites  of  these 
discoveries,  and  note  them  on  the  spot,  with  which  object  I  have 
made  four  tours  through  Etruria  during  the  last  three  years,  but 
to  collect  the  published  records  of  all  the  researches  made  since 
1848,  and  to  incorporate  notices  of  them  with  my  original  work. 
This  I  hope  to  have  so  far  accomplished,  that  I  believe  very  few 
discoveries  of  interest  made  since  that  date  will  be  found  to  be 
unrecorded  in  these  volumes.  In  short,  it  has  been  niy  aim  to 
present  to  the  public  as  complete  an  account  of  antiquarian 
researches  in  Etruria  down  to  the  present  day,  as  the  character 
of  my  work  will  permit.  In  one  instance  I  have  even  ventured 
to  overstep  the  limits  originally  assigned  to  it,  and  to  introduce  a 
description  of  the  recent  excavations  at  Bologna. 


x  PREFACE   TO    THE    SECOND   EDITION. 

Not  only  has  the  work  been  considerably  enlarged,  but  I  have- 
enriched  it  with  numerous  fresh  illustrations,  nni  with  twelve 
additional  plans  of  ancient  cities ;  several  of  them  rudely  drawn 
by  myself  on  the  spot,  yet  true  enough,  I  trust,  to  prove  useful 
to  those  who  may  visit  the  sites. 

I  have  little  indebtedness  to  plead  beyond  what  I  have  acknow- 
ledged in  the  course  of  the  work.  But  I  cannot  omit  to  offer  my- 
th anks  to  my  old  friend  Dr.  Henzen,  now  Chief  Secretary  to  the- 
Archaeological  Institute  of  Rome,  Avho  kindly  furnished  me  with 
introductions  to  those  local  antiquaries  in  Etruria,  who  could 
be  of  service  to  me ;  and  to  Padre  Evola  and  Padre  Di  Marzo, 
Directors  of  the  National  and  Communal  Libraries  of  Palermo, 
for  their  indulgent  courtesy  in  placing  at  my  disposal  whatever 
works  it  was  in  their  power  to  supply.  Nor  must  I  fail  to  record 
my  grateful  sense  of  the  kindness  of  another  friend  of  my  youth, 
E.  "W.  Cooke,  B.A.,  in  most  generously  placing  his  Italian  port- 
folio at  my  disposal,  from  which  I  have  selected  four  sketches  as 
illustrations. 

I  have  no  further  acknowledgments  to  make,  having  revised  the 
work  under  considerable  disadvantages,  during  the  intervals  of 
official  labour,  without  access  to  many  books  which  were  at  my 
command  in  writing  the  original  edition,  and  far  from  all  friends 
who  could  render  me  personal  assistance.  My  chief  sources  of 
information  have  been  the  admirable  publications  of  the  Archaeo- 
logical Institute  of  Rome. 

I  have  had  the  gratification  of  learning  that  the  former  edition 
of  this  work,  apart  from  literary  and  antiquarian  considerations,, 
has  received  the  approval  of  not  a  few  who  have  used  it  as  a 
guide,  on  account  of  the  conscientious  accuracj^  of  its  descriptions. 
I  trust  that  the  present  issue  will  maintain  its  reputation  in  this 
respect,  for  to  ensure  correctness  has  been  my  primary  endeavour^ 

GEOEGE    DENNIS. 
PALERMO,  October,  1878. 


CONTENTS  OF  VOLUME  I. 


INTKODUCTJON. 

PACE: 

Recent  researches  into  the  inner  life  of  the  Etruscans — Nature  of  the  docu- 
ments whence  our  knowledge  is  acquired — Monumental  Chronicles — Object 
of  this  work  to  give  facts,  not  theories — Geographical  position  and  extent 
of  Etruria — Its  three  grand  divisions — Etruria  Proper,  its  boundaries  and 
geological  features  — The  Twelve  Cities  of  the  Confederation — Ancient  and 
modern  condition  of  the  land — Position  of  Etruscan  cities — Origin  of  the 
Etruscan  race — Ancient  traditions — Theories  of  Niebuhr.  Mliller,  Lepsius, 
and  others — The  Lydiau  origin  probable — Oriental  character  of  the  Etrus- 
cans— Analogies  in  their  religion  and  customs  to  those  of  the  East — Their 
language  still  a  mystery— The  P^truscan  alphabet  and  numerals — Govern- 
ment of  Etruria — Convention  of  her  princes — Lower  orders  enthralled — 
Eeligion  of  Etruria.  its  effects  on  her  political  and  social  state — Mytho- 
logical system — The  Three  great  Deities — The  Twelve  Dii  Consentes — The 
shrouded  Gods — The  Nine  thunder-wielding  Gods — Other  divinities — Fates 
—  Genii — Lares  and  Lasas — Gods  of  the  lower  world — Extent  and  nature 
of  Etruscan  civilization — Literature— Science — Commerce — Physical  con- 
veniences— Sewerage — Roads — Tunnels — Luxury — The  Etruscans  superior 
to  the  Greeks  in  their  treatment  of  woman — Arts  of  Etruria — Architecture 
— To  be  learned  chiefly  from  tombs — Walls  of  cities — Gates — The  arch  in 
Italy  worked  out  by  the  Etruscans — Sepulchres — Peculiarities  which  dis- 
tinguish them  from  the  Roman — Imitations  of  temples  or  houses — Plastic 
arts — Character  and  styles  of  Etruscan  art — Works  in  terra-cotta — In 
bronze — Statues  ami  various  implements — Works  in  wood  and  stone — 
Sepulchral  sculpture — Scnralcl — Mirrors  and  Caskets,  with  incised  designs 
— Jewellery — The  pictorial  art  in  Etruria — Painted  tombs — Varieties  of 
style — Pottery  of  Etruria — Earliest  ware  not  painted,  but  incised,  stamped, 
or  relieved— Painted  vases  classified  and  described — Why  placed  in 
sepulchres — Tombs  rifled  in  bygone  times — Vases  of  native  or  Greek 
manufacture  .'—Attic  character  of  the  painted  vases — Etruscr.n  imitations 
of  Greek  vases — The  Etruscans  maligned  by  the  Greeks  and  Romans — 
European  civilization  indebted  to  Etruria — Pre-eminence  of  Tuscan 
intellect  in  all  ages  . xxv 

APPENDIX.     Greek  and  Etruscan  vases  classified  according  to  form  and  use     .    cv 


xii  CONTEXTS. 

CHAPTEK    I. 

VEIL—  THE  CITY. 

PACE 

Historical  interest  of  Veii — Site  determined  to  be  near  Isola  Farnese — First 
view  of  Veii — Isola — The  mill — Fragments  of  Walls — Forum  of  Roman 
Veii — Piazza  d'  Anni,  the  Arx  of  Veii — Capture  of  Veii — The  cHnicitlu* 
of  Camillas — La  Scaletta — Columbarium  in  the  cliffs — Ruins  of  a.  bridge 
• — Natural  bridge  called  Ponte  Sodo — Remains  of  the  ancient  walls  and 
gates — Use  of  bricks — Ponte  Formcllo — Ancient  road — Ponte  d'  Isola — 
Antiquity  of  Etruscan  bridges — Extent  of  the  Etruscan  city — Past  great- 
ness and  present  desolation — Roman  nniHicijiimii — Progress  of  destruc- 
tion— Interior  of  a  cajtantut — Shepherd  life  in  the  Campagna — History 
of  Veii — Fourteen  wars  with  Rome — Heroism  and  fate  of  the  Fabii — 
The  ten  years'  siege — Legend  of  the  Alban  Lake — Fall  of  Veii— Isola 
Farnese.  probably  the  necropolis  of  Veii — Hints  to  travellers  .  .  1 

APPENDIX.      Sepulchral  niches,  and  modes  of  sepulture — Veii   one  of   the 

Twelve — Isola  Farnese  not  the  Arx  of  Veii,  nor  the  Castle  of  the  Fabii      .    26 


CHAPTER    II. 

VEIL—  THE  CEMETERY. 

Little  to  be  seen  in  the  necropolis — Sepulchral  tumuli — Scenery  around  Veii 
— Grotta  Campana,  a  painted  tomb — Singular  parti-coloured  figures — 
Interpretation  of  the  paintings — Helmet  with  a  death-thrust — Great 
antiquity  of  the  tomb  proved  by  the  paintings  and  masonry — Sepulchral 
pottery  and  urns — Analogy  between  tombs  and  houses — No  epitaph  for 
the  Etruscan  hero .  31 


CHAPTER    III. 

CASTEL    GIUBILEO.—  FIDEN.E. 

The  banks  of  the  Tiber — Site  of  Antemnae — Anglo-Roman  sports — Campagna 
scenes  and  sounds — Sites  of  ancient  deeds — Ponte  Salaro — Site  and 
vestiges  of  Fidenae — Historical  notices — A  panorama 43 

APPENDIX.     The  eight  captures  of  Fidenae 53 


CHAPTER    IV. 

MONTE    MUSING  A\D  LAGO    DI    BRACCIANO. 

Vandals  in  Italy  —  Galcra — Via  Clodia  —  Baccano  and  its  lake  —  Monte 
Razzano — Campagnano — Monte  Musino —  Popular  legends — Scrofano — 
Lake  of  Bracciano — Site  of  Sabate  discovered — Aquae  Apollinares — 
Curious  deposit  of  coins — Forum  Clodii — Shores  of  the  lake  .  .  .54 

APPENDIX.     The  Via  Clodia,  from  Rome  to  Cosa        ...  .     (>1 


CONTEXTS.  xiii 

CHAPTER    V. 

SUTRI.—  SUTRIUM. 

PAGE 

Le  Sette  Vene — Monterosi — Konciglionc — Site  of  Sutrium — Ancient  walls, 
sewers,  and  gates — Village  antiquaries — History  of  Sutrium — Alliance  with 
'Home — The  proverb,  Ire  Sutrinm — Eock-hewn  church — Catacombs — 
Amphitheatre  of  Sutri — Iloman  or  Etruscan  ? — Its  peciiliarities  and  beauty 
— Tombs  in  the  Cliffs — Grotta  d'  Orlando — Legends  of  Sntri — Cave  of  the 
Madonna — Capranica — Vicus  Matrini — Road  to  Yetralla  .  .  .  .62 

APPENDIX.     Emplccton  masonry 80 

CHAPTER    VI. 

NEPI.—  NEPETE. 

Park -like  scenery — Xepi — Remains  of  its  ancient  walls — Picturesque  ravines — 

Few  traces  of  the  necropolis — The  modern  town — History  of  Xepete .        .     82 

CHAPTER    VII. 

CIVITA    CASTELLAXA.— PALERII  (VETERES). 

Road  from  Xepi — Beauties  of  the  C'ampngna— Civita  much  visited,  but  little 
explored— Etruscan  walls  and  tombs — Glen  of  the  Treia — Glen  of  the 
Salcto — Walls  and  ,  tombs — Conical  pit  sepulchres — Ponte  Terrano — 
Curious  cemetery  in  the  cliffs — Shafts  or  chimneys — Etruscan  or  Faliscan 
inscriptions  on  the  rocks — The  viaduct — Beauties  of  the  ravines  around 
Civita — A  word  to  travellers  ....  ,87 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

FALLERL—  FALERII  (XOVI). 

Tombs  with  porticoes  —  Singular  inscription  on  an  Etrusco-Roman  tomb  — 
Walls  and  towers  of  Falleri  —  Porta  di  Giove—  Cliffs  with  sepulchral 
niches  —  Porta  del  Bove  —  Magnificent  piece  of  walling  —  Extent  of  the 
city  —  Theatre  —  Convent  of  Sta.  Maria  di  Falleri  —  Is  the  city  Etruscan  or 
Roman  ?  —  Historical  notices  of  Falerii  —  The  three  cities  of  the  Falisci  — 
Legend  of  the  treacherous  schoolmaster  —  The  city  rebuilt  on  a  lower  site 
—  Civita  Castellana  an  Etruscan,  Falleri  a  Roman  site  —  Shepherd-guides  .  97 

APPENDIX.     The  three  towns  of  the  Falisci  —  Falerii  one  of  the  Twelve  — 

Faliscum  —  Falleri  not  the  Etruscan  Falerii    .....  112 


CHAPTER    IX. 

FESCENNIUM. 

Historical  notices  —  Site  of  Fcscennium  uncertain  —  Beauty  of  the  Ager  Faliscus 
—  Peculiarities  of  the  scenery  —  Corchiauo  —  Etruscan  remains  —Etruscan 


siv  CONTEXTS. 


inscription  carved  on  the  rock — Ancient  roads  and  watercourses — Tomb 
with  a  portico  and  inscription — Via  Amerina— Gallese — Vignanello — 
Soriano — Discovery  of  an  Etruscan  city — Fine  relic  of  the  ancient  walls — 
The  city  is  probably  Fesceuniura,  or  ^Equum  Faliscum  .  .  .  .115 

CHAPTER    X. 

FERONIA   AND   CAP  EX  A. 

History  of  Capena — Its  site — Difficult  of  access — Legend  of  St.  Domcnick 
— Soracte— View  from  the  ascent--  Convents  on  the  summit— S.  Oreste 
— Probably  an  Etruscan  site,  and  Feronia — The  shrine  of  Feronia — 
Geology  of  Soracte — Travellers'  trials — Local  remains  at  Capena — Cha- 
racter of  the  site — Scenery  of  this  district — Ilignano — lluins  at  S.  Abondio 
— Wolves  of  Soracte,  ancient  and  modern — Fire-proof  feet — Tombs  of 
Sabina 12-t 

CHAPTER    XI. 
ORfK—HOMTA. 

Voyage  up  the  Tiber — Beauty  of  this  river  scenery — Views  of  Soracte— Posi- 
tion of  Horta — Locanda  della  Campana — Scanty  records — Local  anti- 
quaries— The  necropolis — Excavations  —  Curious  relics  of  antiquity — 
Castellum  Amerinum — The  Vadimonian  Lake — Pliny's  description  of  it 
— Its  actual  condition — Why  chosen  as  battle-ground — Vale  of  the  Tiber 
— Bassano — Via  Amerina 136 

CHAPTER   XII. 

MONTE    CIMIXO.—  3IOXS   CIMINUS. 

Lake  of  Vico — View  from  the  summit  of  the  Pass — The  great  Etruscan  plain — 

Etruria  as  it  was,  and  is 146 

CHAPTER    XIII. 

VITERBO. —SURR1XA. 

Local  chroniclers — Annio  of  Viterbo,  and  his  forgeries — Vitcrbo  claims  to 
be  the  Fanum  Voltnmnae — More  probably  occupies  the  site  of  Surrina — 
Vestiges  of  an  Etruscan  town — The  Museum  of  Etruscan  relics — The 
Bazzichelli  Collection — Tomb  of  the  beautiful  Galiaua — Lions  of  Viterbo  .  150 

CHAPTER    XIV. 

FERENTO.  —FERENTINUM. 

Numerous  Etruscan  remains  around  Viterbo — Bacucco — Historical  notices  of 
Fercntinum— Remains  on  the  site — The  Theatre — Its  scena — Peculiar 
gateways — Series  of  arches — Architectural  renown  of  Ferentinum — Sin- 
gular sepulchres  entered  by  wells — Vitorchiano 156 


CONTENTS.  xv 

CHAPTEK    XV. 

BOMARZO. 

PACE 

"The  by-roads  of  Italy — Scanty  accommodation — Bomarzo — Etruscan  town  in 
the  neighbourhood — Name  unknown — Excavations  in  the  necropolis — 
Grotta  della  Colonna — Rusticated  masonry — Grotta  Dipinta — Ancient 
caricatures — Sea-horses  and  water-snakes— Serpents  on  Etruscan  monu- 
ments— Curious  sarcophagus — Characteristics  of  the  tombs  of  Bomarzo— 
Sepulchral  furniture — An  alphabet  potted  for  posterity — Return  to  Vitcrbo 
by  the  Ciminian  ............  1C4 

CHAPTER    XVI. 

CASTEL    D'   ASSQ.—CASTELLUM    AXIA. 

The  cicerone — The  Bulicamc — The  Etruscan  plain — Sepulchral  glens — A  street 
of  tombs — Sculptured  facades,  like  houses — Moulded  doorways — Inscrip- 
tions— Sepulchral  interiors — Economy  of  space — Produce  of  this  necro- 
polis— Sepulchral  varieties — The  site  is  but  recently  discovered — Antiquity 
of  the  tombs— Site  of  the  Etruscan  town — Not  the  Fanum  Voltumnse — 
More  probably  is  Castellum  Axia — Tombs  in  the  neighbourhood  .  .  1 75 

APPENDIX.     Etruscan  mouldings — Inscriptions 18G 

CHAPTER    XVII. 

MUSARXA. 

Etruscan  town  discovered  in  1850  by  Signor  Bazzichelli — Position  of  the  town 
— Walls — Gates — Two  Castles — The  Cemetery — Excavations  and  their 
results — Name  of  Musarna  very  doubtful 188 

CHAPTER    XVIII. 

NORCHIA.— ORCLE  ? 

This  necropolis  is  of  recent  discovery — Road  from  Viterbo  to  Vctralla — An  Etrus- 
can site — Inn  at  Vetralla — Path  to  Norchia — First  view  of  the  necropolis — 
The  temple-tombs — Who  formed  them  ? — The  pediments  and  their  sculptures 
— Bas-relief  under  the  portico — Date  of  the  tombs — Magnificent  facades  and 
mean  interiors — Sepulchral  varieties — Mouldings — No  inscriptions — Site 
of  the  Etruscan  town — Ancient  name  doubtful — Canina's  opinion — Pic- 
turesque beauty  of  the  site .  .  .  .193 

CHAPTER    XIX. 

BIEDA.—  BLERA. 

Scanty  notice? — Romantic  glens — A  true  city  of  the  dead — Site  of  the  ancient  and 
modern  towns — Ancient  bridge,  and  rock-hewn  roads — Sewers — Fragments 
of  the  ancient  walls — The  modern  town — Count  of  S.Giorgio — Feudal  power, 


xvi  CONTENTS. 

PACK; 

courtesy,  ami  hospitality — A  second  ancient  bridge — Rock-sunk  roads — 
The  Count's  domain — The  Cemetery  of  Blera — Great  variety  in  the 
sepulchres — Cornices — Door-mouldings — Conical  tomb  with  trench  and 
rampart — Sepulchral  interiors — S.  Giovanni  di  Bieda  ....  207 


CHAPTER    XX. 

PALO.—  ALSIUM. 

Coast-road  between  Rome  and  Civita  Yecchia — Maccarcsc — Fregense — Palidoro 
— Excavations  at  Selva  la  Rocca — 1'elasgic  antiquity  of  Alsiuin — A  city  of 
villas — Local  remains — Tumuli  of  Monteroni — Shafts  and  galleries  in  the 
mound — Palo  and  its  hostelry — Sea-shore  scenes 21  !> 

APPENDIX.     The  Via  Aurelia,  from  Rome  to  Centum  Cellar       ....  22l> 


CHAPTER    XXI. 

CERVETRI.—  AGYLLA   or.   C.ERE. 

Hints  to  travellers — Road  to  Cervetri — The  Vaccina  and  its  honours — Scenes 
of  Virgil's  pictures — The  village,  the  cicerone,  and  the  accommodation — 
Remote  antiquity  of  Agylla — Change  of  its  name  to  Cairo — Historical  notices 
— Desolation  of  the  site — Vestiges  of  antiquity — Picturesque  scenes — The 
Banditaccia,  a  singular  cemetery — A  city  of  the  dead — Tumuli — GROTTA 
BELLA  SEDIA — Arm-chair  of  rock — GROTTA  DELLE  CIXQUE  SEDIE — 
GEOTTA  DELL'  ALCOVA— Resemblance  to  a  temple — Architectural  interest 
— TOMB  OF  THE  TARQUINS— Probably  of  the  royal  family  of  Rome- 
Numerous  inscriptions — Sepulchral  niches — GROTTA  DE'  SARCOFAGI — 
Three  archaic  monuments  of  marble — GROTTA  DEL  TRICLINIO — Paintings 
on  its  walls  almost  obliterated — A  pretty  pair — Another  painted  tomb, 
more  archaic — TOMB  OF  THE  RELIEFS — Reliefs  around  the  walls — Typhoii 
and  Cerberus — Reliefs  on  the  pilasters  and  pillars — Curious  implements  of 
domestic  and  sacred  use — TOMB  OF  THE  SEATS  AND  SHIELDS — Its  plan 
that  of  a  Roman  house— Arm-chairs  and  foot-stools  hewn  from  the  rock — 
TOMB  OF  THE  PAINTED  TILES — High  antiquity  of  these  paintings — 
Difficult  interpretation — Similar  tiles  in  the  Louvre  described  and  illus- 
trated— Artistic  peculiarities — GROTTA  REGULINI-GALASSI — Peculiar  con- 
struction, and  high  antiquity — Very  archaic  furniture — The  Warrior's 
tomb  and  its  contents — His  household  divinities — The  Priest's  or  Princess's 
chamber,  and  its  wonderful  jewellery — The  side-chambers — Deplorable 
condition  of  this  sepulchre — Pelasgic  alphabet  and  primer  inscribed  on  a 
pot — Other  relics  of  the  Pelasgic  tongue — Monte  Abatone — GROTTA  CAM- 
PANA — Its  decorations  and  furniture — TOMB  OF  THE  SEAT,  Monte  d'Oro — 
Arm-chair  of  rock — GROTTA  TORLONIA — Singular  entrance  and  vestibule 
— Crumbling  dead — Tombs  at  La  Zambra — Terra-cotta  sarcophagus  in  the 
Louvre — Another  in  the  British  Museum— Both  from  Cervetri — Corinthian 
vases,  and  imitations  of  them — Hercules  strangling  the  priests  of  Busiris — 
Artena 227 

APPENDIX.     Shields  as  sepulchral  decorations — Genii  and  Junones  .        .  281 


CONTENTS.  xvii 

CHAPTER    XXII. 

SANTA    SEVERA.—  PYEGI. 

PAGE 

The  fortress  of  Santa  Severa  —  -Foundations  of  polygonal  masonry  —  Pyrgi  of 
Pelasgic  origin—  A  castle,  port,  and  nest  of  pirates  —  Its  temple  of 
Eileithyia  —  History  —  Necropolis  little  explored  .....  289 

CHAPTER    XXIII. 

SANTA    M  AEI  NELL  A.  —  P  UNICUM. 

Santa  Marinella,  and  its  tiny  bay  —  Remains  of  Punicum  —  Puntone  del  Castrato 

—  Excavations  by  the  Duchess  of  Sermoneta  —  Discovery  of  an  Etruscan 
town  —  What  was  its  name  1  —  The  Torre  di  Chiaruccia  —  Castrum  Novum  .  294 

CHAPTER    XXIY. 

CIVITA    VECCHIA.—  CENTUM   CELL^E. 

Ancient  and  modern  condition  of  this  port  —  Etruscan  relics  at  Civita  Vecchia 

—  Tombs  in  the  neighbourhood  —  Excavations  at  La  Tolfa  .        .        .  298 

CHAPTER    XXV. 

CORNETO. 

THR  CEMETERY. 


Corneto,  and  the  way  to  it  —  First  view  of  Tarquinii  and  its  Cemetery  —  Cor- 
neto,  its  inns,  interest,  and  antiquity  —  -Carlo  Avvolta  —  The  painted  Tombs 

—  GEOTTA     QUERCIOLA  —  First    impressions  —  An     Etruscan    banquet  — 
Dancers  —  Wild-boar  hunt  —  Greek  style  of  art  —  -Superiority  of  the  Etrus- 
cans to  the  Greeks  in  their  treatment  of  the  fair  sex  —  Colours  used  in  this 
tomb  —  GROTTA  DE'  CACCIATORI  —  Frantic  dances  —  Return  from  the  Chase 

—  Curious  sea-shore  scenes  —  Revels   in  the  open  air  —  GROTTA    BELLA 
PULCELLA  —  Sepulchral  recess-  —  Scene  of  revelry  —  The  pretty  maiden  — 
GROTTA  DEL  LETTO  FUXEBRE  —  An  empty  bier  —  Banquet  under  shelter 

—  Funeral  games  —  GROTTA  DEL  TRICLIXIO  —  Striking  scenes  —  Banquets 
and  dances  —  Peculiarities  of  the  figures  —  Etruscan  modesty  —  Incongruity 
of  festive  scenes  to  a  sepulchre  —  -Religous  character  of  music  and  dancing 
among  the  ancients  —  Are  these  scenes  symbolical  1  —  Colours  in  this  tomb, 
how  laid  on—  CAMERA  DEL  MORTO  —  Death-bed  scene  —  Tipsy  dance  and 
jollity  —  Archaic   character  of    the  figures  —  GROTTA    DEL    TIFONE—  Its 
peculiarities  —  Typhons  on  the  pillar  —  Etruscan  inscription  —  Funeral  pro- 
cession on  the  wall  —  Charun  with  his  mallet  and  snakes  —  Procession  of 
souls  and  demons  —  Etruscan  inscription  —  Date  of  these  paintings  —  Latin 
inscriptions  —  The   Pompeys  of    Etruria  —  Ariosto's  pictures  of  Etruscan 
tombs  —  GROTTA  DEGLI  SCUDI  —  A  mourning  genius  reading  an  epitaph 

—  A  fair  Etruscan  at  dinner  —  Another  pair  —  Trumpeters  —  Etruscan  inscrip- 
tions —  Chamber  hung  with  shields  —  GROTTA  DEL  CARDIKALE  —  Tern  pie- 
like  tomb  —  Paintings  on  the  walls  —  Byres'  work  —  Cisapennine  cockneys  — 
Spirited  combats  —  Souls  in  the  charge  of  good  and  evil  spirits  —  Scenes  in 

VOL.  i.  b 


xviii  COXTEXTS. 

PAGE 

the  Etruscan  Hades — Etniscan  Cupid  and  Psyche — Omnrs  inia  ma  net  nox 
— GROTTA  DELL'  ORCO — Three  tombs  in  one — Arnth  Yelchas  and  his 
beautiful  wife  in  Elysium — A  dusky  demon — Another  banquet — Ulysses 
blinding  Polyphemus — Pluto,  Proserpine,  and  Geryon  in  Hades — Shades 
of  Teiresias,  Mcmnon,  and  others — Theseus  and  Peirithoos  in  charge  of  the 
demon  Tuchulcha — The  sideboard — The  Montarozzi — GROTTA  DEL  YEC- 
CHIO— December  and  May— Other  revellers— GROTTA  DE'  VASI  DIPINTI 
— Family  banquet — Affectionate  children — Painted  vases  on  the  sideboard 
— Dance  among  the  trees — Character  of  the  paintings — GROTTA  DEL 
MORIBONDO — Death-bed  scene,  and  horse  waiting  for  the  soul — Style  of 
art — GHOTTA  DELLE  ISCRIZIONI — Funeral  games — Dice — Boxing — Wrest- 
ling— Horse-races — A  bacchic  dance — A  sacrifice— Primitive  character  of 
these  paintings — GROTTA  DEL  BARONE — Horse-races — The  prize  disputed — 
Brilliancy  of  the  colours — Archaic  character  of  the  paintings — GROTTA 
DEL  MARE — Marine  monsters — GEOTTA  FRANCESCA — Etniscan  ballerine 
— Spirited  figures — Dilapidated  paintings— GROTTA  DELLE  BIGHE — A 
symposium — Dances— Funeral  games  of  the  Etruscans — Character  and  date 
of  these  paintings— GROTTA  DEL  PULCINELLA — Men  on  foot  and  horse- 
back— Figure  in  fantastical  costume — GROTTA  DEL  CITAREDO — The  sexes 
dance  apart — Expressive  head  of  the  Citharcedus — Graco-Etruscan  art — 
Eeview  of  the  painted  tombs — Their  comparative  antiquity — Dcmonology 
of  the  Etruscans — Speculations  on  the  paintings — Sepulchral  luxury  of 
the  ancients — Other  painted  tombs,  now  closed  or  destroyed — Monkish 
record  of  them — The  tumuli  on  the  Montarozzi — The  Mausolco — Tumular 
sepulchres — Avvolta's  warrior-tomb— Vast  extent  of  this  cemetery — Exca- 
vations, ancient  and  modern— Tomb  of  the  Mercareccia — Lamentable 
decay  of  its  sculptures — Singular  chimney  or  shaft — Mysterious  caverns  .  i)01 

APPENDIX.  Chaplets  in  Etruscan  tombs  —  Grotta  della  Scrofa  Nera — 
Lost  tombs  delineated  by  Byres — Painted  tombs  recently  opened  and 
recloscd  .  ;W4 


CHAPTER    XXVI. 

CORNETO-TARQUINIA.—  THE  MUSKUMS. 

The  MUNICIPAL  MUSEUM—  Painted  sarcophagus  of  the  Sacerdote—  Of  the 
Magnate  —  Other  singular  sepulchral  monuments  —  Kylix  of  Oltos  and 
Euxitheos  —  Kylix  of  Theseus  and  Ariadne  —  Disk  of  the  horned  Dionysos 
—  MUSEO  BRUSCHI  —  Painted  vases  —  Bronzes  —  Flesh-hooks  —  Fragments  of 
paintings  from  the  Grotta  Bruschi  —  The  Warrior's  tomb—  Very  archaic 
contents  —  Pottery  of  Tarquinii  —  Beautiful  bronzes  —  Jewellery—  Picliefs  in 
ivory  ..............  401 

CHAPTER    XXVII. 

.—TiiK  CITY. 


Origin  of  Tarquinii  —  Legends  of  Tarchon  and  Tages  —  Metropolitan  claims  of 
Tarquinii  —  Legends  of  Dcmaratus  and  his  son  —  The  Tarquins  —  History  of 
Tarquinii  —  Scanty  remains  on  the  site  —  Scenery  —  The  Acropolis  and 
ancient  walls  —  Recent  excavations—  Tomb  on  the  site  of  the  city  —  Utter 
desolation  of  Tarquinii  ..........  417 


CONTENTS. 
CHAPTER    XXVIII. 


PAGE 

Graviscas,  the  port  of  Tarquinii  —  Its  site  disputed  —  Le  Saline  —  Legend  of  St. 
Augustine  —  Ruins  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Marta  —  Discovery  of  an  ancient 
arch  and  embankment  —  A  port  confessed  —  Here  stood  the  port  of  Tar- 
quinii —  Desolation  of  this  coast  .........  4:?',) 

APPENDIX.    The  Via  Aurelia  from  Pyrgi  to  Cosa      ......  4:>(J 


CHAPTER    XXIX. 

VULCI. 

Vulci  entirely  of  modern  renown  —  Montalto  —  Regisvilla  —  Ponte  Sodo  —  Ponte 
della  Badia  —  Magnificent  bridge,  draped  with  stalactites  —  Date  of  the 
bridge  and  aqueduct  —  Site  of  the  ancient  Vulci  —  Its  history  almost  a 
blank  —  The  Pelago  —  The  necropolis  —  Its  discovery  accidental  —  Lucien 
Bonaparte  —  Tomb  of  the  Sun  and  Moon  —  The  Campanari  painted  tomb  — 
The  Francois  painted  tomb  —  The  Bonaparte  excavations  —  Barbarism  of 
Italian  excavators  —  Necropolis  of  Vulci  unlike  that  of  Tarquinii—  The 
Cucumclla  —  Its  towers'and  contents  —  Analogy  to  the  sepulchre  of  Alyattes 
at  Sardis  —  Other  tumuli  —  Warrior  tombs  —  Grotta  d'Iside  —  Egyptian 
articles  in  an  Etruscan  tomb  —  Specimens  of  Etruscan  female  beauty  — 
Bronzes—  Painted  pottery  of  Vulci  —  Beautiful  wine-jug  ....  4.'!7 

APPENDIX.     The  Campanari  painted  tomb  at  Vulci  ......  4*55 


CHAPTER    XXX. 

CANIXO  AND   MUSIGNANO. 

Hints  to  travellers — Canino — Lucien  Bonaparte's  villa  at  Musignano — Cabinet 
of  yases  —  Bronzes  —  Portraits  of  the  Bonaparte  family  —  Interesting 
sarcophagi 4G7 

APPENDIX.     Eyes  on  the  painted  vases — Two  sarcophagi  representing  nuptial 

scenes  .....         471 

CHAPTER    XXXI. 

TOSCANELLA.—  TUSCANIA. 

Toscanella — Accommodation  for  the  traveller — Campanari  brothers — Their 
garden,  and  model  tomb — Banqueting-hall  of  the  dead — Etruscan  sar- 
cophagi explained — Etruscan  passion  for  jewellery — Painted  sculpture — 
Occupants  of  the  model  sepulchre — Tomb  of  the  Calcarello — Sarcophagus 
of  the  Niobids — Sarcophagi  of  stone  and  earthenware — Capital  of  Paris 
and  Helen — No  history  of  this  ancient  town — Extant  vestiges — Church  of 
S.  Pietro — The  necropolis  of  Tuscania — Grotta  Regina  and  its  labyrinth — 
Columbaria  in  the  cliffs — Campanari's  excavations — Origin  of  the  Gre- 
gorian Museum — Environs  of  Toscanella 473 

b  2 


xx  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER    XXXII. 

ISCHIA,    FARNESK,    AND   C'ASTKO. 

PAOK 

Etruscan  sites  —  Piansano  —  Ischia  —  Italian  squalor  —  Farnese  —  Castro — 
Picturesque  desolation — Remains  of  antiquity — Proverbial  gloom — Site  of 
Statonia  disputed — Valcntano — Lago  Mczzano — Lake  of  Statonia  and  its 
floating  island 481) 

CHAPTER    XXXIII. 

PITIGLIANO   AXD   SORANO. 

Phantom  perils — Pitigliano  and  its  "  Baby  " — An  Etruscan  site — Walls,  roads, 
and  tombs — Picturesque  beauty  of  the  ravines — Popular  legends— Sorano 
— Casa  Farfanti — Nox  ambrosia — Fiomantic  scenery — Scant  antiquities — 
The  mirror  of  the  Marchese  Strozzi  .  4% 


LIST  OF   ILLUSTRATIONS  IN  VOLUME  I. 


ETRUSCAN   MIRROR  (drawn  on  wood  by  G.  Scharf  )  from  a  cast  of  the  original 

Frontispiece. 

RHJETO-ETRUSCAN  BRONZES  FOUND  IN  THE   TYROL     .          .          Giovanelli    XXXVli 
THE  ETRUSCAN  ALPHABET' G.  D.      xlviii 

THE  SHROUDED  GODS  OP  ETRURIA Gerhard  Ivi 

HUT-URN,   PROM   THE  NECROPOLIS  OF  ALBA  LONGA        .          .          .      Birch  Ixix 

ETRUSCAN   CANDELABRUM Museo  Gregoriano  Ixxv 

KYLIX  OP   THE   EARLIEST   STYLE Birch    Ixxxix 

ARYBALLOS,   DORIC   STYLE Birch  XC 

ARCHAIC   LEBES,   FROM   ATHENS Birch  XC1 

ETRUSCAN   AMPHORA   OP   BUCCHERO Micali  Cvii 

TYRRHENE   AMPHORA CVlii 

LATE  PANATHENAIC  AMPHORA G.  D.  Cviii 

NOLAN  AMPHORA •  .          .          .          .      G.  D.  CYJii 

PELIKE cix 

STAMNOS ci?: 

APULIAN   STAMNOS G.  D.  CX 

LEKANE G.  D.  CX 

LEKANE  OR  LOPAS G.  D.  CX 

HYDRIA CX 

KALPIS CXI 

KRATER CXI 

LATE  KRATER,  ORVIETO Ann.  Instit.  Cxi 

KELEBE Cxii 

OXYBAPHON CXli 

PRIMITIVE   GREEK  LEBES Mon.  Instit.  CXlii 

ARCHAIC  LEBES Mon.  Instit.  cxiii 

OLPE CX1V 

ETRUSCAN  OLPE,   OF  BUCCHERO Micali  cxiv 

LATE  OLPE,  FROM   ORVIETO Ann.  Instit.  cxiv 

(ENOCHOii cxiv 

CENOCHOE,  DORIC  STYLE Birch  cxiv 

<ENOCHOK,  FROM  NOLA From  a  Photograph  cxv 

LATE   02NOCHOE,   SICILY G.  D.  CXV 

PROCHOOS                                          Lenormant  cxvi 


xxii  LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PACK 

PUOCHOOS,  OR  EPICHVSIS Lcnormant  cxvi 

KYATHOS CXvi 

KAXTHAROS cxvii 

KAXTHAROS.  LATK   VARIETY G.  D.  cxvii 

KARCHESIOX,   OF   BUCCHERO,   CETOXA G.  D.  cxvii 

KARCHESIOX,  OF  BUCCHERO,  CHiusi Des  Vergers  cxvii 

SKYPHOS cxviii 

SKYPHOS,   LATE   VARIETY G.  D.  cxviii 

MASTOS,  WITH   BACCHIC  FIGURES Micali  cxviii 

MASTOS.   IN   SHAPE   OF  A   HEAD Micali  CXVlii 

DEPAS G.  D.  cxix 

KRATERISKOS G.  D.  cxix 

KYATHOS,   IN   BUCCHERO Micali  CXX 

EARLY   KYLIX CXX 

KYLIX CXxi 

KYLIX Mon.  Inst.  cxxi 

LEPASTE CXxi 

PELLA From  a  Photograph  cxxi 

HOLKIOX cxxi 

HOLKION,   OF   BUCCHERO Micali  cxxii 

HOLKIOX.  OF  BUCCHERO Micali  cxxii 

RHYTOX.   WITH   A   DOG'S   HEAD CXxii 

RHYTOX.  WITH  A  GRIFFOX'S  HEAD Paiiofka  CXxii 

HHYTOX.  WITH  A   HORSE'S  FORE-QUARTERS          ....      Panofka  cxxii 

PHI  ALE   OMPHALOTOS,   WITH    RELIEFS Birch  CXxiil 

LEKYTHOS CXxiii 

LEKYTHOS,  WITH  POLYCHROME  FIGURES,  SICILY          From  a  Photograph  cxxiii 

LEKYTHOS,    LATE   VARIETY cxxiv 

LEKYTHOS,   LATE   VARIETY G.  D.  cxxiv 

ARCHAIC   LEKYTHOS G.  D.  CXxiv 

LATE  LEKYTHOS,  FROM  BEXGHAZi  ....      From  a  Photograph  cxxiv 

ARCHAIC  ARYBALLOS G.  D.  CXxiv 

ARYBALLOS CXxiv 

ARCHAIC  ARYBALLOS From  u  Photograph  cxxiv 

ARYBALLOS CXXiv 

BOMBYLIO8 CXXV 

BOMBYLIOS,   QUAINT   VARIETY CXXV 

ASKOS G.  D.  CXXV 

ASKOS CXXV 

KOTYLISKOS CXXV 

ALABASTROX CXXV 

ALABASTRON,   WITH   DOUBLE   FEMALE   HEAD        .          .          .           Mon.  Inst.  cxxv 

PYXIS Lenormant  cxxvi 

GROUP   OF   ARCHAIC   DORIC   VASES Birch  CXXVI 

ISOLA    FARXESE,   VEII G.  D.  ,") 

ROCK-CUT    TOMB    AT    VEII G.  D.  !> 

CASTLE    OF    THE    FABII G.  D.  21 

<;I:OTTA   CAM  PAN  A,  VEII Campana  :^1 

1'AIXTINGS   OX    THE    WALLS    OF    THE    GROTTA    C'AMPAXA     .          .    Micali  34 

DITTO                                                         DITTO                                                 Micali  i!5 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS.  xxiii 

PAGE 

PAINTINGS    ON    THE    WALLS    OF    THE    GROTTA    CAMPANA   .           .           Micali  36 

CINERARY    PITHOS,   GEOTTA    CAMPANA Micali  39 

CINERARY    UEN,   GROTTA    CAMPANA Micali  40 

THE    ANIO    AND    POXTE    SALARO            ....            E.  W.  Cooke,  E.A.  43 

AMPHITHEATRE    OF    SUTRI G.  D.  62 

VIEW    OF    SUTRI G.  D.  75 

PORTA    DI    G10VE,   FALLERI G.  D.  97 

PORTICOED    TOMB,   FALLERI G.  D.  98 

WALLS    OF    FALLERI G.  D.  101 

TOMBS    IN    THE    CLIFFS    AT    FALLERI G.  D.  103 

VIEW    OF    CORCHIANO G.  D.  115 

INSCRIPTION    ON    THE    ROCK    AT    CORCHIANO G.  D.  119 

CAPENA,   WITH    SORACTE    IN    THE    DISTANCE            .           .           .           .            G.  D.  124: 

ORTE    FROM    THE    ROAD    TO    THE    VADIMONIAN    LAKE      .           .           .       G.  D.  136 

TORRE   GIULIANA,  ON   THE   TIBER Arthur  Gleimie  139 

THEATBE    AT    FERENTO G.  D.  156 

ETRUSCAN    ALPHABET    ON    A    POT Bull.  Inst.  172 

VALLEY    OF    TOMBS,   CASTEL    I/ASSO G.  D.  177 

MOULDED    DOOR           ..'... G.  D.  180 

ROCK-HEWN    TOMB,   CASTEL    D'ASSO      .           .           .           .           .           .       Mon.  Inst.  185 

MOULDINGS    OF    TOMBS,   CASTEL    D'ASSO G.  D.  186 

INSCRIPTION    ON    A    CORNICE    OF    ROCK G.  D.  187 

THE    TEMPLE-TOMBS,   NORCHIA G.  D.  193 

MOULDINGS    OF    TOMBS    AT    NORCHIA G.  D.  203 

ANCIENT    BRIDGE,   BELOW    BIEDA G.  D.  211 

MOULDINGS    OF    TOMBS    AT    BIEDA G.  D.  216 

MOULDED    DOOE,   BIEDA G.  D.  216 

CONICAL    TOMB,   BIEDA G.  D.  217 

TERRA-COTTA   SARCOPHAGUS,  CERVETiu         .         .         .  From  a  1'hotograph  227 

TOMB    OF    THE    TARQUINS,   CERVETRI G.  D.  242 

ETRUSCAN    INSCRIPTION    FROM    THE    TARQUIN    TOMB     .           .           .            G.  D.  244 

TOMB   OF   THE   RELIEFS.  CERVETRI Sir  G.  Wilkinson  251 

PLAN    OF    TOMB    OF    SEATS    AND    SHIELDS,    CERVETRI   .           .            Mon.  IllSt.  256 

SECTION    OF    THE    SAME    TOMB Mon.  Inst.  256 

ETRUSCAN    PAINTED    TILES    FROM    CERVETRI.           .           .           .            Moil.  Inst.  261 

DITTO                                Mon.  Inst.  262 

DITTO                            Mon.  Inst.  263 

MOUTH    OF    THE    REGULINI-GALASSI    TOMB.   CERVETRI       .           .           .      G.  D.  265 

TERRA-COTTA   LARES  FROM   THIS  TOMB        .        .        .     Museo  Gregoriano  267 

PELASGIC    ALPHABET    AND    PRIMEE    .           .           .           .           .           .   Annali  Inst.  271 

ETRUSCAN    FUMIGATOR G.  D.  275 

ROCK-CUT    CHAIE    AND    FOOTSTOOL      .           .           .            .           .           .                  G.  D.  276 

HERCULES    SLAYING    BUSIEIS,    FEOM    A    VASE.   CEEVETRI       .            Mon.  Inst.  283 
SALTATRIX    AND    SUBULO,   GROTTA    TRICLINIO,   CORNETO  (drawn  on 

wood  by  G.  Scharf  )     G.  D.  301 

CITHARISTA    AND    SALTATRIX,    GROTTA    TRICLINIO           Ditto                       G.  D.  319 

ETRUSCAN    SALTATRIX,    GROTTA    TRICLINIO                            Ditto                       G.  D.  320 

TYPHON,   GROTTA    DE1    POMPEJ,   CORNETO G.  D.  329 

INSCRIPTION,   GROTTA    DE!    POMPEJ G.  D.  333 

WIFE    OF    ARNTH    VELCHAS,   GROTTA    DELL'    ORCO     .           .           .       Mon.  Inst.  346 


.xxiv  LIST    OF   ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAOB 

ARXTH    VELCHAS    AXD    HIS    WIFE    IX    ELYSIUM      .          .          .           Moil.  Inst.  347 

PLUTO,   PROSERPIXE,   AXD    GERYOX    IN"    HADES             .           .           .       MoH.  Inst.  351 

THESEUS    AND    PEIRITHOOS    IX    HADES Mon.  Inst.  35i"> 

BAXQUET-SCEXE,  TOMB   OF   THE    PAIXTED    VASES     .          .          .      Moil.  Inst.  35!» 

DAXCIXG    FIGURE,  FROM    THE    TOMB    OF    THE  PAIXTED    VASES .  Mon.  Inst.  361 

HEAD    OF     A    CITHARCEDUS. Annali  Infit.  378 

HEAD    OF    A    8ALTATRIX Annali  Ins'.  37!» 

MOULDIXG    OF    THE    MAUSOLEO G.  I).  38(i 

THE    MAUSOLEO,  OX    THE    MOXTAROZZI,  CORXETO                                             G.  I).  387 

BROXZE    DISK,  WITH    THE    HEAD    OF    THE    HOKXED    BACCHUS,  MllS.  Gregor.  401 

ETRUSCAX  STRIGIL Mus.  Gregor.  408 

KREAGR^:,  OR    FLESH-HOOKS Mils.  Grcgor.  41 1 

GATEWAY    IX    THE    WALLS    OF    TARQUIXII G.  D.  417 

AXCIEXT    CLOACA    OX   THE    MARTA    BELOW    CORXETO        .          .          .      G.  D.  430 

ETRUSCAX    KRATER Gruncr  437 

POXTE    DELLA    BADIA,  VULCI G.  D.  441 

EGYPTIAX    FLASK    AXD    OSTRICH    EGG,   PAIXTED,  VULCI         .          .         Micali  457 

UXGUEXT-POT.   IX    THE    FORM    OF    A    WOMAX Micali  458 

STATUE    OF    AX    ETRUSCAX    LADY Micali  45!» 

BUST    OF    AX    ETRUSCAX    LADY    IX     BKOXZi: Micali  460 

BPOOX    OF    IVORY Micali  401 

KYLIX,   OR    DRIXKIXG-BOWL.   FROM    VULCI Micali  462 

WIXE-JUG,  WITH    THE    HEAD    OF    PALLAS-ATHEXE,   VULCI   .            Moil.  InPt.  464 

SCEXE    FROM    AX    EYED    AMPHORA Micali  467 

SARCOPHAGUS    OF    THE    XIOBIDS.   TOSCAXELLA        ....            G.  I).  473 

ETRUSCAN    CAPITAL,   CIPPUS,  AXD    MOULDIXG G.  D.  481 

COLUMBARIUM    AT    TOSCAXELLA                                                                                  G.  D.  485 


LIST    OF    PLANS    IN   VOLUME  I. 


"N  PLAX   OF  VEII Adapted  from  Cell  1 

PLAX   OF  FIDEN.E From  Cell  48 

PLAX    OF  SUTRI G.  U.  65 

PLAX   OF  FALERII From  Canina  87 

PLAX   OF  FALLERI Adapted  from  Gell  105 

PLAN    OF  CASTEL    D'ASSO    AXD    ITS    NECROPOLIS             .           .           .            G.  D.  174 

PLAX    OF  XORCHIA    AXD    ITS    NECROPOLIS G.  D.  107 

PLAX    OF  BIEDA    AXD    ITS    NECROPOLIS G.  U.  206 

PLAX   OF  CJERE   AXD   ITS  XECROPOLis      .         .         .  Adapted  from  Canina  235 

PLAX  OF  PYRGI Fr0m  Canina  28!> 

/PLAX   OF  TAHQUIXII   AXD  ITS  NECROPOLIS      .        Adapted  from  Westphal  304 

PLAX   OF  VULCI   AXD   ITS  XECROPOLIS         .         .       Adapted  from  Knapp  438 


THE    ANUBIS-VASE ETRUSCAN    BLACK   WAKE. 


INTRODUCTION. 


ANTIQUARIAN  research,  partaking  of  the  quickened  energ}T  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  has  of  late  years  thrown  great  light  on 
the  early  history  of  Italy.  It  has  demonstrated,  in  confirmation 
of  extant  records,  that  ages  before  the  straw  hut  of  Romulus 
arose  on  the  Palatine,  there  existed  in  that  land  a  nation  far 
advanced  in  civilization  and  refinement — that  Rome,  before  her 
intercourse  with  Greece,  was  indebted  to  ETRURIA  for  whatever 
tended  to  elevate  and  humanize  her,  for  her  chief  lessons  in  art 
and  science,  for  many  of  her  political,  and  most  of  her  religious 
and  social  institutions,  for  the  conveniences  and  luxuries  of  peace, 
and  the  weapons  and  appliances  of  war — for  almost  everything 
that  tended  to  exalt  her  as  a  nation,  save  her  stern  virtues,  her 
thirst  of  conquest,  and  her  indomitable  courage,  which  were 


xxvi  INNER    LIFE   OF    THE    ETRUSCANS.     [INTRODUCTION. 

peculiarly  her  own ;  for  verily  her  sons  were  mighty  with  little 
else  but  the  sword — 

Stolidum  genus — 
Bellipotentes  sunt  magi'  quam  sapientipotentes.1 

The  external  history  of  the  Etruscans,  as  there  are  no  native 
chronicles  extant,  is  to  be  gathered  only  from  scattered  notices  in 
Greek  and  Roman  writers.  Their  internal  history,  till  of  late 
years,  was  almost  a  blank,  but  by  the  continual  accumulation  of  fresh 
facts  it  is  now  daily  acquiring  form  and  substance,  and  promises, 
ere  long,  to  be  as  distinct  and  palpable  as  that  of  Egypt,  Greece, 
or  Home.  For  we  already  know  the  extent  and  peculiar  nature 
of  their  civilization — their  social  condition  and  modes  of  life — 
their  extended  commerce  and  intercourse  with  far  distant 
countries — their  religious  creed,  with  its  ceremonial  observances 
in  this  life,  and  the  joys  and  torments  it  set  forth  in  a  future 
state — their  popular  traditions — and  a  variety  of  customs,  of  all 
which,  History,  commonly  so  called,  is  either  utterly  silent,  or 
makes  but  incidental  mention,  or  gives  notices  imperfect  and 
obscure.  We  can  now  enter  into  the  inner  life  of  the  Etruscans, 
almost  as  fully  as  if  they  were  living  and  moving  before  us, 
instead  of  having  been  extinct  as  a  nation  for  more  than  two 
thousand  years.  "We  can  follow  them  from  the  cradle  to  the 
tomb, — we  see  them  in  their  national  costume,  varied  according 
to  age,  sex,  rank,  and  office, — we  learn  the  varying  fashions  of 
their  dress,  their  personal  adornments,  and  all  the  eccentricities 
of  their  toilet, — we  even  become  acquainted  with  their  peculiar 
physiognomy,  their  individual  portraiture,  their  names  and  family 
relationships, — we  know  what  houses  they  inhabited,  what  furni- 
ture they  used, — we  behold  them  at  their  various  avocations — the 
princes  in  the  council-chamber — the  augur,  or  priest,  at  the  altar 
or  in  solemn  procession — the  warrior  in  the  battle-field,  or 
returning  home  in  triumph — the  judge  on  the  bench — the  artisan 
at  his  handicraft — the  husbandman  at  the  plough — the  slave  at 
his  daily  toil, — we  see  them  at  their  marriages,  in  the  bosom  of 
their  families,  and  at  the  festive  board,  reclining  cup  in  hand 
amid  the  strains  of  music,  and  the  time-beating  feet  of 
dancers, — we  see  them  at  their  favourite  games  and  sports, 
encountering  the  wild  boar,  looking  on  or  taking  part  in  the 
horse  or  chariot-race,  the  wrestling-match,  or  other  palsestric 

1  Old  Ennius  (Ann.  VI.  10)  said  this  of  ceiving  how  much  more  applicable  it  was 
the  JEacidre,  or  race  of  Pyrrhus,  not  per-  to  the  Romans. 


INTRODUCTION.]        MONUMENTAL    CHEONICLES.:  xxvii 

exercises, — we  behold  them  stretched  on  the  death-bed — the  last 
rites  performed  \)y  mourning  relatives — the  funeral  procession — 
their  bodies  laid  in  the  tomb — and  solemn  festivals  held  in  their 
honour.  Nor  even  here  do  we  lose  sight  of  them,  but  we  follow 
their  souls  to  the  other  world — perceive  them  in  the  hands  of  good 
or  evil  spirits — conducted  to  the  judgment-seat,  and  in  the  enjoy- 
ment of  bliss,  or  suffering  the  punishment  of  the  damned. 

We  are  indebted  for  most  of  this  knowledge,  not  to  musty 
records  drawn  from  the  oblivion  of  centuries,  but  to  monumental 
remains — purer  founts  of  historical  truth — landmarks  which, 
even  when  few  and  far  between,  are  the  surest  guides  across  the 
expanse  of  distant  ages — to  the  monuments  which  are  still  extant 
on  the  sites  of  the  ancient  Cities  of  Etruria,  or  have  been  drawn 
from  their  Cemeteries,  and  are  stored  in  the  museums  of  Italy 
and  of  Europe. 

The  internal  history  of  Etruria  is  written  on  the  mighty  Avails 
of  her  cities,  and  on  other  architectural  monuments,  on  her 
roads,  her  sewers,  her  tunnels,  but  above  all  in  her  sepulchres ;  it 
is  to  be  read  on  graven  rocks,  and  on  the  painted  Avails  of  tombs  ; 
but  its  chief  chronicles  are  inscribed  on  stela  or  tombstones,  on 
sarcophagi  and  cinerary  urns,  on  vases  and  goblets,  on  mirrors, 
and  other  articles  in  bronze,  and  a  thousand  et  cetera  of  personal 
adornment  and  of  domestic  and  Avarlike  furniture — all  found 
Avithin  the  tombs  of  a  people  long  passed  awa}r,  and  AA'hose  exist- 
ence Avas  till  of  late  remembered  by  feAv  but  the  traveller  or  the 
student  of  classical  lore.  It  Avas  the  great  reverence  for  the  dead 
and  the  firm  belief  in  a  future  life,  which  the  Etruscans  possessed 
in  common  Avith  most  other  nations  of  antiquity,  that  prompted 
them  to  store  their  tombs  Avith  these  rich  and  varied  sepulchral 
treasures,  which  unveil  to  us  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  arcana 
of  their  inner  life,  almost  as  fully  as  though  a  second  Pompeii 
had  been  disinterred  in  the  heart  of  Etruria ;  going  far  to  com- 
pensate us  for  the  loss  of  the  native  annals  of  the  country,3  of  the 
chronicles  of  Theophrastus,3  and  Verrius  Flaccus,4  and  the  twenty 
books  of  its  history  by  the  Emperor  Claudius.5 

<;  Parian  le  tombe  ove  la  Storia  e  muta." 

Etruria  truly  illustrates  the  remark,  that  "the  history  of  an  ancient 
people  must  be  sought  in  its  sepulchres." 

2  Varro,  ap.   Censorin.    de  Die   Natali,       Miiller,  Etrusker,  I.  pp.  2,  197. 
XVII.  6.    '•  "  Interp.  Mn.  X.  183,  198,  ed.  Mai. 

a  Schol.  Pindar.  Pyth.  II.    3,  cited   by  5  Suetonius,  Claud.  42.    Aristotle  also 


xxviii  DOMINION    OF    ETRURIA.  [INTKODUCTIOX. 

The  object  of  this  work  is  not  to  collect  the  disjecta  membra 
of  Etruscan  history,  and  form  them  into  a  whole,  though  it 
were  possible  to  breathe  into  it  fresh  spirit  and  life  from  the 
eloquent  monuments 'that  recent  researches  have  brought  to  light; 
it  is  not  to  build  up  from  these  monuments  any  theory  on  the 
origin  of  this  singular  people,  on  the  character  of  their  language, 
or  on  the  peculiar  nature  of  their  civilization, — it  is  simply  to  set 
before  the  reader  a  mass  of  facts  relative  to  Etruscan  remains, 
and  particularly  to  afford  the  traveller  who  would  visit  the  Cities 
and  Cemeteries  of  Etruria  such  information  as  may  prove  of 
service,  by  indicating  precisely  what  is  now  to  be  found  on  each 
site,  whether  local  monuments,  or  those  portable  relics  which 
exist  in  public  museums,  or  in  the  hands  of  private  collectors. 

Before  entering,  however,  on  the  consideration  of  the  local 
antiquities  of  Etruria,  it  is  advisable  to  take  a  general  view  of  her 
geographical  position  and  physical  features,  as  well  as  to  give  a 
slight  sketch  of  her  civilization. 

It  is  difficult  to  define  with  precision  the  limits  of  a  state, 
which  existed  at  so  early  a  period  as  Etruria,  ages  before  any 
extant  chronicles  were  written — of  which  but  scanty  records 
have  come  down  to  us,  and  whose  boundaries  must  have  varied 
during  her  frequent  struggles  with  her  warlike  neighbours. 

We  are  told  that  in  very  early  times  the  dominion  of  Etruria 
embraced  the  greater  part  of  Italy,6  extending  over  the  plains  of 
Lombardy  to  the  Alps  on  the  one,  hand,7  and  to  Vesuvius  and  the 
Gulf  of  Salerno  on  the  other ;  8  stretching  also  across  the  penin- 
sula from  the  Tyrrhene  to  the  Adriatic  Sea,9  and  comprising 
the  large  islands  off  her  western  shores.1 

wrote  on  the  laws  of  the  Etruscans.  Athen.  Osci,  the   original  inhabitants  ;  and  then 

Deipn.  I.  cap.  42.  founded    Capua  and    Nola.      If    Velleius 

6  In  Tuscoruiii  jure  pene  omnis  Italia  Paterculus  (I.  7)  may  be  credited,  this  was 
fucrat — Serv.  ad  Virg.  £11.  XI.  567;  X.  17  years  before  the  foundation  of  Rome. 
145  ;  Liv.  V.  33.  Cato  (ap.  eund. )  makes  it  as  late  as  471  B.C. 

7  Usque  ad   Alpes  tenuere.—  Liv.    loc.  Liv.  IV.  37  ;  Polyb.  II.  17;  Mela,  II.  4; 
cit. ;    Polyb.    II.    17 ;    Diodor.  Sic.    XIV.  Strabo,   V.   pp.    242,    247 ;  Plin.  III.   9  ; 
p.  321,  ed.  Rhod.  ;  Scylax,  Periplus,  cited  Serv.  ad  Virg.  Georg.  II.  533. 

by  Miiller,  Etrusk.  einl.  3,  9  ;  Justin.  XX.  9  Liv.  V.  33,  54  ;  Plut.  Camill.  16.   The 

5.    Catullus  (XXXI.  13)  calls  the  Benacus,  Adriatic  received  its  name  from  the  Etrus- 

iiow  the  Lago  di  Garda,  a  Lydian,  i.e.,  an  can  town  of  Atria.     Plin.  III.  20  ;  Strabo, 

Etruscan,  lake.  V.  p.  214. 

"  The  Etruscans  at  one  time  possessed  l  Elba,  called  Ilva  by  the  Romans,  and 

the  land  of  the  Volsci,  and  all  Campania,  JEthalia  or  .Ethale  by  the  Greeks,  belonged 

as  far  as  the  Silarus  in  the  Gulf  of  Psestum,  to  Etruria,  for  Virgil  (.En.  X.  173)  classes  it 

or,  as   one  account  states,   as  far  as  the  with  the  Etruscan  states  which  sent  assist- 

Ricilian  sea.     They  took  this  land  from  the  ance    to   .Eneas.     Diodorus,   XI.    p.    67  ; 

Greek  colonists,  who  had  driven  out  the  Pseudo- Aristotle,    de   Mirab.    Auscult.   c. 


INTRODUCTION.]     ITS    THEEE    GEAND    DIVISIONS. 


This  wide  territory  was  divided  into  three  grand  districts — 
that  in  the  centre,  which  may  be  termed  Etruria  Proper ;  that 
to  the  north,  or  Etruria  Circumpadana ;  and  that  to  the  south, 
or  Etruria  Campaniana.  And  each  of  these  regions  was  divided 
into  Twelve  States,  each  represented  by  a  city,2  as  in  Greece, 


95  ;  Hecat.  ap.  Steph.  sul  voce.  There  was 
a  close  connection  between  it  and  the 
neighbouring  maritime  city  of  Populonia  ; 
and  it  is  very  probable  that  it  was  a 
possession  of  that  city,  unless  both  were 
under  the  sway  of  Yolaterrce.  See  Vol.  II. 
pp.  138,  215. 

Corsica,  the  Cyrnus  of  the  Greeks,  was 
originally  colonised  by  the  Phocieans,  who 
were  driven  out  by  the  Etruscans,  says 
Diodorus  (V.  p.  295,  cf.  XI.  p.  67),  by 
the  Etruscans  and  Carthaginians  combined, 
according  to  Herodotus  (I.  166),  and  the 
island  probably  remained  in  the  hands  of 
the  former  to  the  last  days  of  their  in- 
dependence, when  it  passed  under  the 
dominion  of  Carthage.  Kallimachos,  Delos, 
19,  cited  by  Miiller,  einl.  4,  6.  It  would 
seem,  however,  that  Corsica  was  never 
fully  occupied  by  the  Etruscans,  for  it  was 
a  wild,  forest-grown,  little-populated  land, 
and  its  inhabitants  had  the  savage  manners 
of  a  primitive  state  of  society  (Strabo,  V. 
p.  224  ;  Diodor.  V.  p.  295  ;  Seneca,  Con- 
sol,  ad  Helv.  c.  6  ;  Theophrast.  Hist. 
Plant.  V.  8);  and  it  is  very  likely,  as 
Muller  conjectures,  that  it  was  a  mere  nest 
of  pirates. 

That  Sardinia  was  a  possession  of  the 
Etruscans  is  not  so  clear.  The  earliest 
settlers  were  Libyans,  Greeks,  Iberians, 
and  Trojans,  followed  by  the  Carthaginians, 
about  the  middle  of  the  third  century  of 
Kome.  Strabo  (V.  p.  225)  is  the  only 
ancient  writer  who  mentions  its  being 
under  Etruscan  domination,  and  he  says  it 
was  subject  to  the  Tyrrheni,  prior  to  the 
Carthaginian  rule.  By  these  Tyrrhenes 
Muller  (Etrusk.  einl.  4,  7)  thinks  Strabo 
meant  Etruscans,  not  Pelasgi,  because  he 
always  made  a  distinction  between  these 
races  ;  but  Niebuhr  (I.  p.  127,  Engl.  trans.) 
maintains  that  they  were  unquestionably 
Pelasgians. 

2  The  Twelve  Cities  of  Etruria  Proper 
will  be  presently  mentioned. 

In  Etruria  Circumpadana  there  were  also 
Twelve  cities,  founded  as  colonies  by  the 
Twelve  of  Etniria  Proper.  Liv.  V.  33; 


Serv.  ad  Virg.  .En.  X.  202.  The  capital 
is  said  by  Virgil  to  have  been  MANTUA 
(.En.  X.  203  ;  Serv.  ad  loc.),  though 
Pliny,  with  more  probability,  assigns  that 
honour  to  FELSINA,  now  Bologna.  H.  N. 
III.  20.  A  third  city  was  MELPUM,  of 
which  we  know  no  more  than  that  it  stood 
north  of  the  Po,  was  renowned  for  its 
wealth,  and  was  destroyed  by  the  Gauls  on 
the  same  day  that  Camillus  captured  Veii. 
Corn.  Nepos,  ap.  Plin.  III.  21.  ATRIA, 
or  Adria,  was  a  noble  city  and  port  of  the 
Etruscans,  and  gave  its  name  to  the 
Adriatic  Sea.  Plin.  III.  20  ;  Liv.  V.  33  ; 
Strabo,  V.  p.  214  ;  Pint.  Camill.  16  ; 
Varro,  L.  L.  V.  161  ;  Fest.  v.  Atrium. 
And  SPINA,  at  the  southern  mouth  of  the 
Po,  though  called  an  ancient  Greek  city  by 
Strabo  (loc.  cit. )  and  Scylax  (Geog.  Min.  I.), 
was  certainly  a  Pelasgic  settlement  (Dion. 
Hal.  I.  c.  18,  28),  and  probably  also  Etrus- 
can. Niebuhr,  I.  p.  36  ;  Muller,  Etrusk. 
einl.  3,  4.  Muller  thinks,  from  Strabo's 
mention  of  it,  that  RAVENNA  was  an  Etrus- 
can town,  and  its  name  is  certainly  sugges- 
tive of  such  an  origin.  But  Strabo  (V. 
p.  213)  says  it  was  founded  by  Thessalians, 
i.e.,  Pelasgians,  who,  on  being  attacked  by 
the  Etruscans,  allied  themselves  with  the 
Umbri,  who  obtained  possession  of  the  city, 
while  the  Thessalians  returned  home. 
CUPRA,  in  Picenum,  was  also  probably 
Etruscan,  for  its  temple  was  built  by  that 
people,  and  named  after  their  goddess. 
Cupra,  or  Juno.  Strabo,  V.  p.  241.  And 
although  PARJIA  and  MUTINA  (Modena)  are 
not  mentioned  in  history  as  Etruscan  towns, 
we  are  justified  in  regarding  them  as  of 
that  antiquity,  by  the  evidence  of  monu- 
ments found  in  their  territory,  which  Livy 
tells  us  once  belonged  to  the  Etruscans. 
Liv.  XXXIX.  55.  We  know  the  names  of 
no  other  Etruscan  cities  north  of  the  Apen- 
nines, though  Plutarch  (Camill.  16)  asserts 
that  there  were  eighteen  cities  of  wealth 
and  importance  in  that  region. 

There  were  Twelve  chief  cities  also  in 
Etruria  Campaniana.  Liv.  V.  33  ;  Strabo, 
Y.  p.  242.  The  metropolis  was  CAPUA, 


xxx  ETRURIA    PROPER.  [IXTHODUCTIOX. 

where  Athens,  Sparta,  Argos,  Thebes — or  in  Italy  of  the  middle 
ages,  where  Venice,  Genoa,  Pisa,  Florence — were  representatives 
of  so  many  independent,  sovereign  states,  possessed  of  extensive 
territory. 

Such  seems  to  have  been  the  extent  of  Etruria  in  the  time  of 
Tarquinius  Priscus,  when  she  gave  a  dynasty  to  Rome,  probably 
as  to  a  conquered  city.  But  ere  long  the  Gauls  on  the  north  and 
east,3  the  Sabines,  Saninites,  and  Greek  colonists  on  the  south,4 
succeeded  in  compressing  this  wide-spread  dominion  into  the 
comparatively  narrow  limits  of  the  central  region.  This  may  be 
called  Etruria  Proper,  because  it  was  the  peculiar  seat  of  the 
Etruscan  power — the  mother-country  whence  the  adjoining 
districts  were  conquered  or  colonised  —  the  source  where  the 
political  and  religious  system  of  the  nation  took  its  rise — the 
region  where  the  power  of  Etruria  continued  to  flourish  long 
after  it  had  been  extinguished  in  the  rest  of  Italy,  and  where  the 
name,  religion,  language  and  customs  of  the  people  were  pre- 
served for  ages  after  they  had  lost  their  political  independence, 
and  had  been  absorbed  in  the  world- wide  dominion  of  Home. 

It  is  of  Etruria  Proper  that  I  propose  to  treat  in  the  following 
pages. 

It  was  still  an  extensive  region  of  the  Italian  peninsula,  com- 
prehending almost  the  whole  of  modern  Tuscany,  the  Duchy  of 
Lucca,  and  the  Transtiberine  portion  of  the  Papal  State ;  being 
bounded  on  the  north  by  the  Apennines  and  the  river  Magra,  on 
the  east  by  the  Tiber,  on  the  west  and  south  by  the  Mediter- 
ranean. This  region  was  intersected  by  several  ranges  of  moun- 
tains, lateral  branches  or  offsets  of  the  great  spine-bone  of  the 

built  by  the  Etruscans  800  years  before  II.  2,  2  ;  Steph.  Byz.  s.  r.  ~2,vptv-riov) ;  ar.d 

Christ,    anil   called    by   them    Viilturnuni  Jliiller   would   include    Salernum.     POSEI- 

(Strabo,  loc.  cit. ;  Liv.  IV.  37  ;  V.  Paterc.  DONIA,    or   P.ESTCM,    also  appears  at  one 

I.   7  ;    Mela,  II.   4),   though  Servius  (ad  time  to  have  been  possessed  by  the  Etrus- 

JEn.  X.  145)  derives  its  name  from  Cnpys,  cans,   for   Aristoxenus   (ap.    Athen.    XIV. 

which    signified  a  "falcon"  in  Etruscan.  31)  says,  that  though  of  Greek  origin,  the 

NOLA   also   was   of  Etruscan   foundation.  inhabitants  had  been  completely  barbarized 

Veil.  Pater,  loc.  cit.  DIC.EARCHIA,  orPuteoli  by  the  Etruscans  or  Romans,  so  as  to  have 

(Pausan.  VIII.  7  ;  Steph.  Byz.  v.  Tlorio\oi),  changed  their  language  and  all  their  other 

POMPEII,  HERCULANEUM  (Strabo,  V.  p.  247),  customs,  retaining  only  one  Greek  festival, 

and  XUCERIA  (Philistos,  cited  by  Miiller,  in    which   they  annually   lamented    their 

einl.    4,   2)    were   all   once    possessed   by  degeneracy. 

the    Etruscans  ;    and    MARCINA    in    the  3  Liv.  V.  35  ;  XXXVII.  57  ;  Polyb.  II. 

Gulf  of   Pffistum,   supposed  to  be  Vietri,  17  ;  Diodor.  Sic.  XIV.  p.  321 ;  Plin.  III. 

was  built  by  them.     Strabo,   V.  p.   251.  19  ;  Pint.  Camill.16  ;  Isidor.  Orig.  XV.  1. 
SUHREXTUM,  also,  from  the  temple  of  the  4  Liv.  IV.  37  ;  Strabo,  V.  p.  247  ;  Plin. 

Etruscan  Minerva  on  its  promontory,  must  III.  9  ;  Dionys.  Hal.  VII.  p.  420,  ct  seq. 
have  belonged  to  that  people  (Stat.  Sylv. 


INTRODUCTION.]    GEOLOGICAL  FEATURES— TWELVE  CITIES,    xxxi 

peninsula — in  the  northern  part  in  long  chains,  stretching  in 
various  directions — in  the  south,  of  inferior  altitude,  lying  in 
detached  masses,  and  separated,  not  by  mere  valleys,  but  by 
vast  plains  or  table-lands.  The  geology  of  the  two  districts 
differs  as  widely  as  their  superficial  features.  In  the  northern, 
the  higher  mountains,  like  the  great  chain  of  the  Apennines,  are 
chiefly  composed  of  secondary  limestone,  and  attain  a  con- 
siderable altitude  ;  the  lower  are  formed  of  sandstone  or  marl. 
The  southern  district  shows  on  every  hand  traces  of  volcanic 
action — in  the  abundance  of  hot  springs  and  sulphureous  waters 
— in  wide  plains  of  tufo  and  other  igneous  deposits,  of  even  later 
date  than  the  tertiary  formations — and  in  the  mountains  which 
are  chiefly  of  the  same  material,  with  beds  of  lava,  basalt,  or 
scoriae,  and  which  have  been  themselves  volcanoes,  their  craters, 
extinct  long  before  the  days  of  history,  being  now  the  beds  of 
beautiful  lakes.  Here  and  there,  however,  in  this  southern 
region,  are  heights  of  limestone  ;  now,  like  Soracte,  rearing  their 
craggy  peaks  from  the  wide  bosom  of  the  volcanic  plain;  now, 
stretching  in  a  continuous  range  along  the  coast.  On  these 
physical  differences  depend  many  of  the  characteristic  features  of 
northern  and  southern  Etruria.  The  line  of  demarcation  between 
these  two  great  districts  of  Etruria  is  almost  that  which  till 
lately  was  the  frontier  between  the  Tuscan  and  Koman  States — 
i.  e.,  from  Cosa  north-eastward  to  Acquapendente,  and  thence 
following  the  course  of  the  Paglia  till  it  mingles  with  the  Tiber, 
near  Orvieto. 

Of  the  Twelve  Cities  or  States  of  Etruria  Proper,  no  complete 
list  is  given  by  the  ancients,  but  it  is  not  difficult  in  most 
instances  to  gather  from  their  statements,  which  were  the  chief 
in  the  land.  Foremost  among  them  was  TARQUINII,  where  the 
national  polity,  civil  and  religious,  took  its  rise.  This  city  was 
in  the  southern  division  of  the  land ;  so  also  were  YEII  and 
FALERIT,  long  the  antagonists,  with  CJ:RE,  the  ally,  of  Itome  ; 
and  VOLSINII,  one  of  the  last  to  be  subdued.  YULCI  also  was 
probably  of  the  number.  In  the  northern  region  were  VETU- 
LONIA  and  perhaps  RUSELLJE  near  the  coast,3  CLUSIUM  and  ARRE- 
TIUM  in  the  vale  of  the  Clanis,  and  CORTONA  and  PERUSIA  on 
the  heights  near  the  Thrasymene  :  while  VOLATERR.F,  stood 

0  Rusellse  is  generally  classed  among  the  the  preference  to  the  latter,  whose  claims 

Twelve,    but  the   question  resolves  itself  rest  on  monumental,  not  on  historical  evi- 

into  the   comparative  claims  of   that  city  dence. 
and  of  Yulci,  and  I  am  inclined  to  give 


xxxii  ANCIENT   AND    MODERN    CONDITION.    [INTBODUCTIOX. 

apart  and  ruled  over  a  wide  tract  in  the  far  north.6  Beside 
these,  there  were  many  other  towns,  renowned  in  history,  or 
remarkable  for  their  massive  fortifications  still  extant,  for  their 
singular  tombs,  or  for  the  wonderful  treasures  of  their  sepulchral 
furniture,  together  with  numerous  castles  and  villages  scattered 
over  the  country,  many  of  which  will  be  described  in  the  course 
of  this  work. 

Etruria  was  of  old  densely  populated,  not  only  in  those  parts 
which  are  still  inhabited,  but  also,  as  is  proved  by  remains  of 
cities  and  cemeteries,  in  tracts  now  desolated  by  malaria,  and 
relapsed  into  the  desert ;  and  what  is  now  the  fen  or  the  jungle, 
the  haunt  of  the  wild-boar,  the  buffalo,  the  fox,  and  the  noxious 
reptile,  where  man  often  dreads  to  stay  his  steps,  and  hurries 
away  as  from  a  plague-stricken  land — 

Rus  vacuum,  quod  non  habitet,  nisi  nocte  coacta, 
Invitus — 

of  old  yielded  rich  harvests  of  corn,  wine,  and  oil,7  and  contained 
numerous  cities,  mighty,  and  opulent,  into  whose  laps  commerce 
poured  the  treasures  of  the  East,  and  the  more  precious  produce 
of  Hellenic  genius.  Most  of  these  ancient  sites  are  now  without 
a  habitant,  furrowed  yearly  by  the  plough,  or  forsaken  as  unpro- 
fitable wildernesses ;  and  such  as  are  still  occupied,  are,  with  few 
exceptions,  mere  phantoms  of  their  pristine  greatness — mean 
villages  in  the  place  of  populous  cities.  On  every  hand  are 
traces  of  bygone  civilization,  inferior  in  quality,  no  doubt,  to  that 
which  at  present  exists,  but  much  wider  in  extent,  and  exerting 
far  greater  influence  on  the  neighbouring  nations,  and  on  the 
destinies  of  the  world. 


6  The  claims  of  these  several  cities  will  tra,  Vulci,  and  Salpinum — whose  claims,, 
be  discussed,  when  they  are  treated  of  he  thinks,  must  be  admitted,  and  suggests 
respectively.  The  above  is  the  classifica-  that  they  may  have  held  that  rank  at  dif- 
tion  which  appears  to  me  to  be  sanctioned  by  ferent  periods,  or  have  been  associated  re- 
ancient  writers  ;  it  agrees,  save  in  the  sub-  spectively  with  some  one  of  the  rest.  Noel 
stitution  of  Vulci  for  Rusellae,  with  that  of  des  Vergers  ranks  both  Vulci  and  Ruselhe 
Cluver  (Ital.  Ant.  II.  p.  453),  and  Cramer  among  the  Twelve,  and  excludes  Falerii. 
(Anc.  Italy,  I.).  Micali  (Ant.  Pop.  Ital.  Etrurie  et  les  Etrusques,  I.  p.  203. 

I.  p.  140)  adopts  it  with  the  exception  of  ~>  The  fertility  of  Etruria  was  renowned 
Falerii,  for  which  he  offers  no  substitute.  of  old.     Diodorus  (V.  p.  316)  says  it  was. 
Niebuhr  (I.    p.    118,  et  seq.)  admits  the  second  to  that  of  no  other  land.     Liv.  IX. 
claims  of  all,   save  Falerii  and   Cortona,  3ti  ;  XXII.  3 ;  Varro,  Re  Rust.   I.  9,  44. 
and    hesitates   to   supply   the    void    with  The   Romans,    even   in  very  early  times, 
Fasulaj,  Cosa,  or  Capena.     Miiller  (Etrusk.  used  to  receive  corn  from  Etruria,  in  times- 

II.  1,  2  ;  1,  3),  to  those  given  in  the  text,  of  famine.     Liv.  II.  34  ;  IV.  12,  13,  25, 
adds  five — Pisa?,  Fiesulas,  Saturnia  or  Gale-  52. 


INTRODUCTION.]    POSITION    OF    ETRUSCAN    CITIES.  xxxiii 

The  sites  of  the  cities  varied  according  to  the  nature  of  the 
.ground.  In  the  volcanic  district,  Avhere  they  were  most  thickly 
•set,  they  stood  on  the  level  of  the  plains,  yet  were  not  unpro- 
tected hy  nature,  these  plains  or  rather  table-lands  being  every- 
where intersected  by  ravines,  the  cleavings  of  the  earth  under 
volcanic  action,  which  form  natural  fosses  of  great  depth  round 
the  cliff-bound  islands  or  promontories  on  which  the  towns  were 
built.  Such  was  the  situation  of  A'eii,  Caere,  Falerii,  Sutrium, 
mid  other  cities  of  historical  renown.  The  favourite  position  was 
-on  a  tongue  of  land  at  the  junction  of  two  of  these  ravines.  In 
the  northern  district  the  cities  stood  in  more  commanding 
situations,  on  isolated  hills ;  but  never  on  the  summits  of  scarcely 
accessible  mountains,  like  many  a  Cyclopean  town  of  Central 
Italy,  which — 

"  Like  an  eagle's  nest,  hangs  on  the  crest 
Of  purple  Apennine.' ' 

"Low  ground,  without  any  natural  strength  of  site,  Avas  alwa}rs 
avoided,  though  a  few  towns,  as  Luna,  Pisa?,  Graviscre,  Pyrgi,  for 
maritime  and  commercial  purposes,  stood  on  the  very  level  of  the 
coast. 

The  position  of  the  cities  of  Etruria  is  in  some  measure  a  key 
to  her  civilization  and  political  condition. s  Had  they  been  on 
mountain-tops,  we  might  have  inferred  a  state  of  societ}-  little 
removed  from  barbarism,  in  which  there  was  no  security  or 
.confidence  between  the  several  communities.  Had  they  stood  on 
the  unbroken  level  of  the  plains,  we  should  have  seen  in  them 
£i\\  index  to  an  amount  of  internal  security,  such  as  nowhere 
existed  in  those  early  times.  Yet  is  their  medium  position  not 
inconsistent  with  a  considerable  degree  of  civilization,  and  a 
generally  peaceable  state  of  society.  They  are  not  such  sites  as 
were  selected  in  later  times,  especially  by  the  Romans ;  but  it  should 
be  borne  in  mind,  that  the  political  constitution  of  early  Italy,  as 
•of  Greece,  was  entirely  municipal — that  cities  were  states,  and 
citizens  soldiers — and  fortifications  were  as  indispensable  to  the 
cities  of  old,  as  standing  armies  and  fleets  are  deemed  to  be  to 
the  states  of  Modern  Europe.  The  Etruscans  especially  appear 
to  have  trusted  more  to  their  ramparts  than  to  the  valour  of  their 
warriors. 

Before  we  consider  the  institutions  of  Etruria,  it  may  be  well 

8  StraLo  (XIII.  p.  592')  cites  Plato  as  of  civilization,  illustrating  this  view  l>y  tlie 
pointing  out  the  position  of  cities  as  tests  successive  cities  of  the  Troad. 

VOL.    I.  C 


xxxiv         ORIGINAL    INHABITANTS    OP  ETEUEIA.  [INTRODUCTION. 

to  say  a  word  on  the  origin  of  the  people,  and  the  source  of  their 
civilization. 

It  must  be  remarked,  that  the  people  known  to  the  Romans 
as  Etruscans  were  not  the  original  inhabitants  of  the  land,  but 
a  mixed  race,  composed  partly  of  the  earlier  occupants,  partly 
of  a  people  of  foreign  origin,  who  became  dominant  by  right  of 
conquest,  and  engrafted  their  peculiar  civilization  on  that  pre- 
viously existing  in  the  land.  All  history  concurs  in  representing 
the  earliest  occupants  to  have  been  Siculi,  or  Umbri,  two  of  the 
most  ancient  races  of  Italy,  little  removed,  it  is  probable,  from 
barbarism,  though  not  nomade,  but  dwelling  in  towns.  Then  a 
people  of  Greek  race  from  Thessaly,  the  Pelasgi,  entered  Italy  at 
the  head  of  the  Adriatic,  and  crossing  the  Apennines,  and  allying 
themselves  with  the  Aborigines,  or  mountaineers,  took  possession 
of  Etruria,  driving  out  the  earlier  inhabitants,  raised  towns  and 
fortified  them  with  mighty  \valls,  and  long  ruled  supreme,  till 
they  were  in  turn  conquered  by  a  third  race,  called  by  the  Greeks 
Tyrrheni,  or  Tyrseni,  by  the  Romans  Etrusci,  Tusci,  or  Thusci,9 
and  by  themselves,  Rasena,1  who  are  supposed  to  have  established 
their  power  in  the  land  about  290  years  before  the  foundation  of 
Rome,  or  1044  before  Christ.2 

The  threads  of  the  histoiy,  however,  of  these  races  are  so 
entangled,  as  to  defy  every  attempt  at  unravelment ;  and  the 
confusion  is  increased  by  the  indiscriminate  application  of  the 
word  Tyrrheni,  which  was  used  by  the  ancients  as  a  synonym, 
sometimes  of  Pelasgi,  sometimes  of  Etrusci. 

Amid  this  confusion,  two  facts  stand  out  with  prominence. 
First — that  the  land  was  inhabited  before  the  Etruscans,  pro- 

9  Plin.  III.  8,  19  ;  Dion.  Hal.  I.  c.  30.  raseni.     Mannert.  Geog.  p.  308  ;  Cramer, 

ct'.  Herod.  I.  94.  They  were  called  Tyrseni,  I.    p.     161.      The    name     "Rasna,"    or 

it  is  said,  from  the  fortifications — rvpa-fts —  "Resna,"  is  sometimes  met  with  on  the 

they  were  the  first  to  raise  in  Italy  (Dion.  sepulchral   urns  of   Etmria.     A  chain  of 

Hal.  I.  loc.  cit. );  and  Tusci,  orThusci,  from  mountains  in  Tuscany,  not  far  from  Arezzo, 

their  frequent  sacrifices — airb  rov  6veiv—  is  said  to  have  retained  the  name  of  Rasena 

Serv.    ad  Virg.   .En.    II.   781  ;    X.    164  ;  to   the    present   day.     Ann.    List.    1856, 

Win.  III.  8  ;  cf.  Fest.  v.  Tuscos.     Etruria  p.  77. 

is  said  to  be  derived  from  eVepoj  and  'dpos,  ~  This  is  the  period  which  Muller(Etrusk. 

because   it  lay  beyond  the  Tiber.     Serv.  einl.    2,   2  ;  IV.  7,  8)  considers  the  com- 

ad  JEn.  XI.  598.     But  the  etymologies  of  mencement  of  the  Etruscan  era,  referred 

the  Romans  are  generally  forced,  and  rarely  to  by  Censorinus,   de  Die   Natali,   XVII. 

to  be  depended  on.    Thuscia  is  a  late  word,  Helbig  agrees  with  him.     Ann.  Inst.  1876, 

not  to  be  found  in  the  earlier  writers.  p.  227,  ct  seq.     Kiebuhr  (I.  p.  138),  how- 

1  Dion.    Hal.   I.   c.    30.     Some   writers  ever,  would  carry  the  first  Etruscan  sceculum 

take  Rasena  to  be  but  a  form  of  Tyrseni,  as  far  back  as  434  years  before  the  founda- 

either  a  corruption  from  it,  as  Tyr— seni=  tion  of  Rome,  or  to  1188  B.C. 
Ra— seni  ;  or  a  contraction  of  it,  as  Ty — 


IXTRODUCTIOX.]  ORIGIN    OF    THE    ETRUSCANS    DISPUTED,     xxxv 

perly  so  called,  took  possession  of  it.  And  secondly — that  the 
Etruscans  came  from  abroad.  From  what  country,  however,  is 
a  problem  as  much  disputed  as  any  in  the  whole  compass  of 
classical  inquiry. 

It  is  not  compatible  with  the  object  of  this  work  to  enter  full}' 
into  this  question,  yet  it  cannot  be  passed  by  in  silence.  To 
guide  us,  we  have  data  of  two  kinds — the  records  of  the  ancients, 
and  the  extant  monuments  of  the  Etruscans.  The  native  annals, 
which  may  be  presumed  to  have  spoken  explicitly  on  this  point, 
have  not  come  down  to  us,  and  we  have  only  the  testimony  of 
Greek  and  Roman  writers.  The  concurrent  voice  of  these — 
historians  and  geographers,  philosophers  and  poets — with  one 
solitary  exception,  marks  the  Etruscans  as  a  tribe  of  Lyclians, 
who,  leaving  their  native  land  on  account  of  a  protracted  famine, 
settled  in  this  part  of  Italy.3  The  dissentient  voice,  however,  is 
of  great  importance — that  of  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus — one  of 
the  most  accurate  and  diligent  antiquaries  of  his  times,  and  an 
authority  considered  by  many  as  sufficient  to  outweigh  the  vast 
body  of  opposing  evidence.  His  objections  are  two-fold.  First 
— that  Xanthus,  an  early  native  historian  of  Lydia,  well  versed  in 
the  ancient  history  of  his  land,  makes  no  mention  of  any  such 
emigration,  and  never  speaks  of  the  Etruscans  as  a  colony  from 
Lydia.  Secondly — that  neither  in  language,  religion,  laws,  nor 
customs,  was  there  any  similarity  between  the  Lydians  and 
Etruscans — i.e.  as  they  existed  in  his  day.  He  consequently 
maintained  that  the  Etruscans  were  autochthons — a  view  not 
held  by  any  other  ancient  writer  whose  works  have  come  down  to 

3  "The  father  of  history "  is  the   first  continued  to   exist,   but   at   length,    their 

that  records  this  tradition.     Herod.  I.  94.  condition  being  in  no  way  improved,  it  was 

It  is  mentioned  or  alluded  to  also  by  Strabo.  agreed  that  half  the  nation  should  emigrate, 

Plutarch,  and  Lycophron  among  the  Greeks,  under  the  conduct  of  Tyrrhenus,  the  king's 

and  by  a  crowd  of  Roman  writers — Cicero,  son.       After    various     wanderings,     they 

Pliny,  Seneca,  Valerius  Maximus,  Tacitus,  reached  the  coast   of   Umbria,   and  there 

Paterculus,  Appian,  Virgil,  Horace,   Ovid,  established     themselves,    exchanging    the 

Catullus,    Silius    Italicus,   Statius,  Tertul-  name  of  Lydians  for  that  of  Tyrrhenians, 

lian,  Festus,  Servius,  Justin,  and  Rutilius.  in  honour  of  their  leader.     A  more  pro- 

The   tradition    as   related    by    Herodotus,  bable  version  of  this  emigration   is  given 

echoed    by    Servius,    was    this :  • —  In   the  by  Anticleides,  an  Athenian  historian  (ap. 

reign    of    Atys    there  was    a    protracted  Strab.    V.    p.    221),    who  states  that  the 

famine  in  Lydia  ;  and  in   order  to  forget  Pelasgi  first  colonized  about  Leinnos  and 

their   misery  the  people    had    recourse  to  Imbros  ;    and  then  some  of   them  joined 

games  and  amusements,  and  invented  dice,  Tyrrhenus  the  Lydian  in  his  emigration  to 

and    ball,    the   pipes   and    the   trumpet  ;  Italy.     This  account  is  nearly  in  accordance 

abstaining    from   food    on    alternate    days  with  that  given  by  Plutarch  (Romulus,  2\ 

when  they  gave  themselves  up  to  these  new  that  the  Tyrrheni  passed  originally  L.om 

diversions.     For  eighteen  years  they  thus  Thessaly  to  Lydia,  and  thence  to  Italy. 

c  2 


xxxvi  MKBUIIR'S    THEORY.  [INTRODUCTION. 

us,  yet  suggested  to  him  by  the  fsict  that  they  were  unlike  every 
other  race  in  language,  manners,  and  customs.4  This  view  has 
been  adopted  by  Micali,  who  may  be  suspected  of  national  par- 
tialities, when  he  attempts  to  prove  that  the  early  civilization  of 
Italy  was  indigenous.5 

A  different  opinion  was  held  by  Niebuhr — that  the  Etruscans 
were  a  northern  tribe  who  invaded  Italy  from  the  Rluetian  Alps, 
and  conquered  the  Tyrrhene-Pelasgi,  the  earlier  possessors  of 
the  land, — that  the  true  Etruscans  were  these  Rhretian  invaders, 
and  that  the  term  Tyrrheni  was  strictly  applicable  only  to  the 
Pelasgic,  or  subject  part  of  the  population.  This  theory  is 
worthy  of  respect,  as  coming  from  such  a  source,  but  it  is  directly 
opposed  to  the  statements  of  ancient  writers.6  Nor  does  the 
well-known  fact  that  monuments  like  the  Etruscan,  and  inscrip- 
tions in  a  character  very  similar,  have  been  found  among  the 
Rhretian  and  Xoric  Alps,  come  to  its  aid.  For  though  we  are 
told  by  Livy  and  others,  that  the  Etruscans  occupied  lihretia,  it 
was  only  when  they  had  been  driven  by  the  Gauls  from  their 
settlements  in  the  plains  of  the  Po.  All  history  concurs  in 
marking  the  emigration  to  have  been  from  the  south  northwards, 
instead  of  the  contrary.7  The  subjoined  specimen  of  Ehreto- 
Etruscan  art  connrms  Livy's  testimony  as  to  the  degeneracy  and 
semi-barbarism  of  these  Etruscan  emigrants.8 


4  Dion.  Hal.  I.  c.  28,  30.  similar  to  those  of  Yoltcrra,  and  unlike  the: 

5  Micali,  Ant.  Pop.  Ital.  I.  cap.  VII.  works  of  the  Gauls  or  Romans. 

6  Niebuhr,   I.  p.  110,  et  *e<j.     So  great  '   Livy  distinctly  asserts  the  emigration 
an  authority  naturally  takes  in  its  train  a  to    have    been    from    the   plains    to    the 
crowd  of  German  writers,  not  unwilling  to  mountains,  on  the  invasion  of  the  Po-vale 
adopt  an  opinion  so  flattering  to  the  rutcr-  by   the    Gauls  ;    and   he,    as   a    native    of 
hind.     The  view,   however,  of  a   Khtetian  Padua,  speaks  with  the  more  authority  on 
origin  of  the  Etruscan  race  had  been  pro-  this  subject.     Alpinis  quoque  ea  gentibus 
viously  held  by  Freret,  and  by  Heyne.      It  hand  clubie  origo  est,  maxime  Rhretis,  quos 
is  founded  on  the  resemblance  of  the  name  loca  ipsa  efferarunt,   ne  quid  ex  antiquo 
''Rasena/' which  the  Etruscans  gave  them-  pnwter  sonum  linguae,   nee  eum  incorrup- 
selves,  to  Rhaeti — on  the  statement  of  the  turn,  retinerent.     V.  33.     He  also  states 
ancients  that  the  Rh»ti  were  of  Etruscan  that  the  Twelve  Etruscan  cities  of  Northern 
origin — on  the  analogy  certain  dialects  now  Ktruria  were  founded  subsequently  to  those 
spoken  in  these  regions  bear  to  the  Etrus-  of  Etruria  Proper,  being  so  many  colonies 
can — and  on  the  fact  that  no  earlier  popu-  of    the    original    Twelve    cities.       Uha-tos 
lation   than   the    Etruscan  is    recorded    to  Tlitiscorum    prolem  arbitrantur,   a    Gallis 
have  inhabited  those  mountains.  pulsos,  duce  Rharto.     Plin.  Nat.  Hist.  III. 

Niebuhr  (II.  p.  525)  even  supposes  that  24.     Galli  .  .  .  sedibus  Tuscos  expulerunt. 

at  one  time  the   Elruscan  race  extended  Tusci  quoque   duce   Rhscto,  avitis  sedibus 

north  of  the  Alps  into  Alsace  and  the  plains  amissis,   Alpes  occupavere  ;  et  ex  nomine 

of  Germany,  and  cites,   in  confirmation  of  ducisgenteslthaetorumcondiderunt.   Justin, 

his  view,  the  walls  on  Mont  Sainte  Odilie,  XX.  5. 
in    the   former    country,    which    are    very  8  These  figures  form  part  of  a  procession 


IXTIJODUCTIOX.] 


MUL  LEU'S    THEORY. 


A  modification  of  Niebuhr's  view  was  held  by  Otfried  Muller — 
that  the  later  element  in  the  Etruscan  nation  was  from  Lydia, 
yet  composed  not  of  natives,  but  of  Tyrrhene-Pelasgl  who  had 
settled  on  the  coasts  of  Asia  Minor ;  and  that  the  earlier  lords  of 
the  land  were  the  Rasena,  from  the  mountains  of  llluetia,  who 


FIG'JRKS    OX    KH.ETO-KTKUSCAX    BUCXZES,   FUL'XI)    IN    THE    TYROL. 


in  relief  found,  in  1845,  at  Ilatrai,  a 
village  on  the  northern  slope  of  Mount 
Brenner,  in  the  Tyrol.  Besides  this  were 
found  other  singular  reliefs,  one  of  which 
lias  pugilists  contending  with  the  cevtiis, 
very  like  the  scenes  in  the  tombs  at  Chiusi 
and  Tarquinii  ;  pieces  of  amber  and  coral, 
libulce  and  rings  of  bronze.  At  Sonnen- 
bnrg,  12  miles  distant,  many  similar  relics 
were  in  1844  brought  to  light  ;  together 
with  cinerary  urns  of  black  ware,  and 
knives  of  bronze.  A  few  years  previous, 
in  a  sepulchre  at  Zilli,  in  the  ancient  Xori- 
cnm,  were  found  two  bronze  casques,  with 
inscriptions  in  a  character  very  like  the 
Etruscan.  And  in  the  valley  of  Cembra, 
!t  miles  from  Trent  iu  the  Tyrol,  a  bronze 
si  tula,  or  bucket,  was  discovered  in  1828, 
bearing  five  inscriptions  in  a  similar  cha- 
racter ;  and  it  is  remarkable  that  it  was 
found  near  the  torrent  Lavis,  and  that  that 
very  word  occurs  in  one  of  the  inscriptions. 


(iiovanelli,  Pension  intorno  ai  Kezi,  ed 
una  inscrizione  Rezio-Etmsca  :  Le  antichit?!, 
iiezio-Etrusche  scoperte  Presso  Matrai  ; 
Micali,  Monument!  Inediti,  p.  331,  et  seq. 
tav.  53.  At  Vadena,  iu  the  Tyrol,  Etrus- 
can tombs  have  been  found,  one  bearing 
an  Etruscan  inscription  graven  on  its  lid. 
Ann.  Inst.  1856,  pp.  76-78.  Relics  of 
very  similar  character,  however,  are  dis- 
covered in  districts  never  possessed  by  the 
Etruscans.  Such  are  the  Euganean  inscrip- 
tions found  in  the  Venetian  territory,  in 
that  corner  of  Italy  which  Livy  tells  us 
never  belonged  to  the  Etruscans.  Liv.  V. 
33.  Such  are  the  helmets  \\ith  similar 
inscriptions,  discovered  in  1812  between 
Marburg  and  Radkersburg  .  in  Styria. 
Micali,  Mon.  Ined.  loc.  cit.  And  such  is 
the  gold  torque,  also  with  an.  Eugauean 
inscription,  found  in  1835  in  Wallachia. 
Micali,  op.  cit.  p.  337  ;  Bull.  Inst.  1843 
p.  93.  But  at  Castel  Yetro,  near  Modena 


xxxviii  OriNIOXS    OF    LEP3ITJS,  [rNTRODUc-nox. 

driving  back  the  Umbrians,  and  uniting  with  the  Tyrrheni  on 
the  Tarquinian  coast,  formed  tlie  Etruscan  race.9 

A  more  recent  opinion  is  that  of  Lepsius,  who  utterly  rejects 
the  Rhffitian  theory  of  Niebuhr  and  Miiller,  pronouncing  it  most 
improbable  that  the  arts  and  sciences,  the  literature  and  religious 
discipline,  the  refined  civilization  of  Etruria,  originated  with  a 
rude  race  of  mountaineers  from  the  Tyrol ;  although  they  may 
well  have  been  introduced  by  the  Tyrrhene-Pelasgi.  He  also 
rejects  the  Lydian  tradition  of  Herodotus,  chiefly  on  the  ground 
of  the  silence  of  Xanthus,  which  he  regards  as  conclusive  evidence 
against  it.  His  theory  is  that  the  Tyrrhene-Pelasgi,  leaving 
Thessaly,  entered  Italy  at  the  head  of  the  Adriatic,  made  their 
first  establishments  at  the  mouths  of  the  Po,  eventually  crossed 
the  Apennines,  and  occupied  Etruria,  after  conquering  the  Um- 
brians wrho  then  possessed  it,  from  whom  they  took  three 
hundred  cities.  He  thinks  there  was  no  subsequent  occupation 
of  the  land  by  any  foreign  people,  but  that  the  Umbrians  continued 
to  inhabit  it  as  a  subject  race,  like  the  Saxons  in  England  after 
the  Norman  conquest,  and  that  this  mixture  of  Umbrians  with 
Pelasgians,  produced  what  is  known  as  the  Etruscan  nation.1 

Mommsen,  the  historian  of  Rome,  rejects  alike  the  Lydian 
origin  of  the  Etruscans,  and  their  identity  with  the  Pelasgi,  or 
the  Tyrrhene  pirates  of  the  .Egsean  seas,  with  whom  they  had 

on  the  other  hand,  a   bronze  mirror  lias  an  Etruscan  sepulchral  inscription  has  been 

been  found  with  figures  precisely  in  the  found.    Lull.  Inst.  1871,  pp.  214-219.    At 

same  style  as  those  of  llhsetia,  and  appa-  Verona,  at  Ravenna,  at  Lusca,  near  Ales- 

rently  by  the  same  artist.     Cavedoni,  Ann.  sandriain  Piedmont,  and  at  Adria,  genuine 

Inst.  1842,  p.  67,  et  seq.  tav.  d'Agg.  H.  Etruscan    inscriptions    have    been    found 

In  this  northern  district  of  Italy  many  (Lanzi.    II.   p.    649  ;  Miiller,    I.   pp.    140, 

relics  have  been  found  which  substantiate  144,    164),  and   at  the   last-named   place 

its  recorded  possession  by  the  Etruscans.  painted  vases  of  great  Ixjauty,  like  those 

Of  the  recent  discoveries  at  Bologna,  and  of  Vulci  and  other  cemeteries  of  Central 

at  Marzabotto  in  its  neighbourhood,  a  de-  Etruria,    have   been   brought   to   light   in 

tailed  account  is  given  in  Chapter  LXIV.  abundance.     Lull.    Inst.   1834,    pp.    135, 

of  this  work.     At  Castel  Vetro,  and  Savig-  142  ;  Micali,  Mon.  Ined.  pp.  279-297,  tav. 

nano,   near   Modena,  a  number  of  tombs  45,  46.     In  the  hills  above  Rimini  also, 

have  been  opened  with  similar  furniture.  tombs  very  like  the  Etruscan  have  been  dis- 

Bull.  Inst.  1841,  pp.  75-79;  1868,  p.  209;  covered.     Torini,  I.  p.  241. 

Ann.  Inst.  loc.cit.    In  the  neighbourhood  of  9  Miiller,  Etrusk.  einl.  2,  4-12;  3,  10. 

Parma  numerous  objects  have  been  found  This  opinion  is  in  part  favoured  by  Plutarch 

proving  the  existence  of  the  same  race  in  (Ronml.  c.  2),  who  says  the  Tyrrheni  passed 

that  region   in   very   early   times.     Bull.  from  Thessaly  to  Lydia,  and  from  Lydia 

Inst.  1875,  pp.  140-149.     At  Arano  and  to  Italy.     Cf.  Strab.  V.  p.  221. 

Rovio,  in  the  district  of  Lugano,  at  Men-  1  Lepsius,     Ueber    die    Tyrrhenischen- 

drisio,  Ligurno,  Sesto  Calende,  and  in  the  Pelasger   in    Etrurien.     Nearly  the   same 

Canton  Ticino,  many  Etruscan  antiquities  view  was  held  by  the  late  Mr.  Millingen, 

have  been  discovered.     Bull.   Inst.  1875,  Trans.  Roy.  Soc.   Literat.  II.  1834.     Ann. 

pp.  200-203.    At  Trevisio  in  the  Valtelline,  Inst.  1 834,  p.  286. 


INTRODUCTION-.]  MOMAI8EX,    AXD    OTHEES.  xxxix 

nothing  whatever  in  common.  He  ascribes  the  confusion  between 
these  people,  made  by  the  ancients  as  well  as  by  the  moderns,  to 
the  accidental  resemblance  between  the  names  Tursenni  (Etrus- 
cans), and  the  Torrhcbi,  or  Tyrrhani,  of  Lydia,  which  resemblance 
seems  to  him  the  only  foundation  for  the  Lydian  tradition  of 
Herodotus.  As  the  principal  cities  of  Etruria  were  all  in  the 
interior  (?),  and  as  the  movements  of  the  Etruscans  in  historic 
times  were  always  from  north  to  south  (?),  he  thinks  the  Etrus- 
cans must  have  reached  the  peninsula  by  land,  and  that  their 
origin  must  be  sought  in  the  north  or  west  of  Italy,  and  pro- 
bably in  the  Rhaetian  Alps,  because  the  earliest  inhabitants  of 
that  mountainous  region  spoke  Etruscan  even  in  historic  times.2 

It  would  take  too  long  to  record  all  the  opinions  and  shades  of 
opinion  held  on  this  intricate  subject.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  the 
origin  of  the  Etruscans  has  been  assigned  to  the  Greeks — to  the 
Egyptians — the  Phoenicians — the  Canaanites — the  Libyans — the 
Tartars — the  Armenians — the  Cantabrians  or  Basques — the 
Goths — the  Celts,  an  old  theory,  revived  in  our  own  days  by  Sir 
William  Betham,  who  fraternises  them  with  the  Irish — and  to 
the  Hyksos,  or  Shepherd-Kings  of  Egypt.  I  know  not  if  they 
have  been  taken  for  the  lost  Ten  Tribes  of  Israel,  but,  cartes,  a 
very  pretty  theory  might  be  set  up  to  that  effect,  and  supported 
by  arguments  which  Avould  appear  all-cogent  to  every  one  who 
swears  by  Coningsby.3 

The  reader,  when  he  perceives  how  many-sided  is  this 
question,  will  surely  thank  me  for  not  leading  him  deeply  into 
it,  yet  may  hardly  like  to  be  left  among  this  chaos  of  opinions 
without  a  guiding  hand.  Amid  the  clash  and  conflict  of  such  a 
host  of  combatants,  who  shall  attempt  to  establish  harmony  ? — 
and  where  there  are  "giants  in  the  land,"  who  shall  hope  to 
prevail  against  them  ? 

No  one,  of  course,  in  our  daj's  accepts  in  full  the  legend  as 

2  Rb'mische  Geschichte,  I.  c.  9.  first  thousand  he  made  heaven  and  earth. 

3  Not  to  mention  minor  analogies,  there  In  the  second,  the  apparent  firmament,  and 
is  one  of  so  striking  a  character,  as  satis-  called  it  heaven.     In  the  third,   the    sea 
factorily   to   prove,    not   a    descent    from  and  all  the  waters  which  are  in  the  earth. 
Abraham,  but  an  intercourse  more  or  less  In  the  fourth,  the  great  lights — sun,  moon, 
direct  with  the  Hebrews,  and  at  least  an  and  stars.    In  the  fifth,  every  soul  of  birds, 
oriental  origin.     It  is  in  the  cosmogony  of  reptiles,   and  four-footed  animals,    in  the 
the  Etruscans,  who  are  said,  on  the  authority  air,  earth,  and  waters.     At  the  end  of  the 
of  one  of  their  own  historians,  to  have  be-  sixth,    man.      Suiclas,    sub  TOCC  Tup^is'ia. 
lieved  that  the  Creator  spent  12,000  years  To  say  that  we  recognise  here  a  blending  of 
in   his   operations  ;  6, 000   of   which  were  Etruscan  doctrines  with  the  Mosaic  account 
assigned  to  the  work  of  creation,  and  as  of  the  Creation, as  Miiller  (III.  2.  7)observes, 
many  to  the  duration  of  the  world.     In  the  does  not  make  the  analogy  less  remarkable. 


xl      THE  ETRUSCAN  ANL>  ROMAN  TRADITIONS      [ISTKODUCTIOX. 


recorded  by  Herodotus,  but  it  is  received  simply  as  bearing 
testimony  to  tbe  Lydian,  or  rather  I  should  say  Asiatic,  origin  of 
the  Etruscans.  For  1113'  own  part,  I  confess  that  I  do  not 
perceive  that  the  crowd  of  authorities  who  maintain  that  origin, 
have  been  put  Jtors  ilc  combat  by  the  dictum  of  Dionysius. 
There  seems  to  be  life  in  them  yet.  They  clearly  represent  the 
popular  traditions,  not  of  the  Romans  only,  but  of  the  Etruscans 
also,  for  what  was  current  on  such  a  matter  among  the  former, 
could  hardly  have  been  opposed  to  the  traditions  of  the  latter. 
Besides,  we  have  it  on  record  that  the  Etruscans  claimed  for 
themselves  a  Lydian  origin.  Tacitus  tells  us  that  in  the  time 
of  Tiberius,  deputies  from  Sardis  recited  before  the  Roman 
senate  a  decree  of  the  Etruscans,  declaring  their  consanguinity, 
on  the  ground  of  the  early  colonization  of  Etruria  by  the 
Lydians.1  This  popular  tradition  might  not  of  itself  be  decisive 
of  the  question,  but  when  it  is  confirmed  by  a  comparison  of  the 
recorded  customs  and  the  extant  monuments  of  the  two  peoples, 
as  will  presently  be  shown,  it  comes  with  a  force  to  my  mind, 
that  will  not  admit  of  rejection.'  I  cannot  yet  consent  to 
consign  it  to  "  the  limbo  of  unsubstantial  fabrics  "  to  which  it 
is  contemptuously  condemned  by  a  recent  writer  on  "  the 
Etruscans."6 


4  Tacit.  Ann.  IV.  55.  This  tradition 
appeai-s  to  have  been  at  least  as  old  as 
Romulus.  Plutarch  (Rom.  c.  2~>)  relates 
that  that  monarch,  when  he  conquered 
Veil,  and  granted  her  a  truce  for  100  years, 
led  the  vanquished  chief  of  the  Veientincs 
in  triumph  through  Home.  To  commemo- 
rate this  triumph  the  Romans,  whenever 
they  offered  a  sacrifice  for  any  victory, 
were  wont  to  lead  an  old  man  clad  in  a 
to(ja  prcetextd  and  wearing  a  golden  Itulhi 
round  his  neck,  from  the  Forum  to  the 
Capitol,  preceded  by  a  herald  who  shouted, 
"  i^ardians  to  .sell !  " 

3  The  argument  of  Dionysius  rests  on 
the  negative  authority  of  Xanthus.  Xanthus 
was  a  Lydian,  yet  wrote  in  Greek,  anil  was 
somewhat  earlier  than  Herodotus,  who  is 
said  to  have  taken  some  of  his  matter  about 
Lydia  from  him.  Ephorus,  ap.  Athen. 
XII.  11.  Yet  there  is  a  doubt  if  Xanthus 
were  really  the  author  of  the  history  attri- 
buted to  him,  as  Athena-us  (loc.  cit.)  plainly 
shows.  Herodotus  gives  the  tradition  as 
one  current  with  the  Lydians  of  his  clay. 
The  truthful  historian  of  antiquity,  whose 


great  merit  is  the  simple  trusting  fidelity 
with  which  he  records  what  he  heard  or 
saw,  could  not  have  invented  it.  He 
doubtless  heard  it,  and  booked  it  just  as 
he  heard  it,  not  caring  to  strip  it  of  its 
incredible  adjuncts.  Xanthus  probably 
rejected  it  as  unworthy  of  record,  on 
account  of  the  mythical  character  of  those 
adjuncts. 

6  Contemporary  Review,  Oct.  1875,  p. 
719.  Air.  Alexander  Murray  does  not 
advance  a  shadow  of  argument  in  support 
of  this  condemnation.  The  drift  of  his 
very  interesting  article  on  Etruscan  art  is 
to  suggest  the  probability,  from  a  considera- 
tion of  the  close  similarity  of  style  between 
the  early  silver  coins  of  Thrace,  and  the 
engraved  scarabs  of  Etruria,  that  the 
Etruscans  and  Greeks  had  common  fore- 
fathers in  the  Pelasgi,  and  that  this"1  people 
in  Italy  developed  into  the  Etruscans— a 
theory  not  very  unlike  that  propounded  by 
Lepsius.  But  this  is  a  very  limited  view 
of  a  many-sided  subject.  Mr.  Murray 
omits  to  take  into  consideration  the  many 
striking  oriental  analogies  in  the  earliest 


INTRODUCTION.]        EAVOUE    THE    LYDIAN    ORIGIN.  xli 

"NVhen  a  tribe  like  the  Gypsies,  without  house  or  home,  with- 
out literature  or  history,  Avithout  fixed  religious  creed,  hut 
willing  to  adopt  that  of  any  country  where  their  lot  may  he 
cast,  with  no  moral  peculiarity  beyond,  their  nomade  life  and 
roguish  habits — when  such  a  people  assert  that  they  come  from 
Egypt  or  elsewhere,  we  believe  them  in  proportion  as  we  find 
their  personal  peculiarities,  their  language,  habits,  and  customs, 
are  in  accordance  Avith  those  of  the  people  from  whom  they 
claim  their  origin.  Their  tradition  is  credible  only  when  con- 
firmed from  other  sources.  But  when  a  people,  not  a  mere 
tribe,  but  spread  over  a  large  extent  of  territory,  not  a  nomade, 
semibarbarous,  unlettered  race,  but  a  nation  settled  for  ages  in 
one  country,  possessing  a  literature  and  national  annals,  a 
systematic  form  of  government  and  ecclesiastical  polity,  and  a 
degree  of  civilization  second  to  that  of  no  contemporary  people, 
save  Greece, — a  nation  having  an  extensive  commerce,  and 
frequent  intercourse  with  the  most  polite  and  civilized  of  its. 
fellows,  and  probably  with  the  very  race  from  which  it  claimed 
its  descent, — when  such  a  people  lays  claim  traditionally  to  a 
definite  origin,  which  nothing  in  its  manners,  customs,  or  creed 
appears  to  belie,  but  many  things  to  confirm — how  can  we  set 
the  tradition  at  nought  ? — why  hesitate  to  give  it  credence  ? 
It  Avas  not  so  much  a  doubtful  fiction  of  poetry,  assumed  for  a 
peculiar  purpose,  like  the  Trojan  origin  of  Rome,  as  a  record 
preserved  in  the  religious  books  of  the  nation,  like  the  Chronicles 
of  the  JeAvs. 

If  this  tradition  of  the  Lydian  origin  of  the  Etruscans  be 
borne  out  by  their  recorded  manners,  and  by  monumental 
evidence,  it  must  entirely  outAveigh  the  conflicting  and  unsup- 
ported testimony  of  Dionysius.  Nay,  granting  him  to  have 
spoken  advisedly  in  asserting  that  there  Avas  no  resemblance 
between  the  tAvo  people  in  language,  religion,  or  customs,  it 
would  be  Avell  explained  by  the  lapse  of  more  than  a  thousand 
years  from  the  traditional  emigration  to  his  day,' — a  period  much 
more  than  sufficient  to  efface  all  superficial  analogies  between 
people  so  widely  severed,  and  subjected  to  such  different  ex- 
ternal influences,  and  a  period  during  which  the  Lydians  Avere 

artistic  works  of  the  Etruscans,  notably  in  for  Ly  commercial  relations,  however  inti- 
the  bucchero  ware,  and  other  such  analogies  mate,  with  the  East  ;  and  above  all,  he 
in  their  system  of  government,  their  creed,  forgets  the  isolated  character  of  their  Ian- 
religious  discipline,  habits,  and  customs,  guage,  which  bears  not  the  remotest  affinity 
in  which  they  differed  widely  from  the  to  that  of  Greece. 
Greeks,  and  which  are  not  to  be  accounted  ~'  Velleius  Paterculus  (I.  1)  states  that 


xlii      ASIATIC  CHARACTER  OF  THE  ETRUSCANS.     [INTRODUCTION. 

purposely  degraded  by  Cyrus,  till  they  had  '•'  lost  all  their 
pristine  virtue,"8  while  the  Etruscans,  though  also  subjected  to 
a  foreign  yoke,  continued  to  advance  in  the  arts  of  civili/ed  life.'1' 

No  fact  can  be  more  clearly  established  than  the  oriental 
character  of  the  civil  and  religious  polity,  the  social  and  domestic 
manners,  and  the  early  arts  of  the  Etruscans  ;  and  traces  of  this 
affinity  are  abundant  in  their  monuments,  especially  in  those  of 
the  most  remote  antiquity,  which  show  none  of  the  influence  of 
Hellenic  art. 

Like  the  Assyrians,  Babylonians,  Egyptians,  and  Hindoos, 
the  Etruscans  were  subject  to  an  all-dominant  hierarchy,  which 
assumed  to  be  a  theocracy,  and  maintained  its  sway  by  arro- 
gating to  itself  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  will  of  Heaven 
and  the  decrees  of  fate.  But  here  this  ecclesiastical  authority 
was  further  strengthened  \>y  the  civil  government,  for  the  priests 
and  augurs  of  Etruria  were  also  her  princes  and  military  chiefs ; 
so  that  with  this  triple  sceptre  of  civil,  religious,  and  military 
power,  they  ruled  the  people  "  as  the  soul  governs  the  body." 
This  state  of  things  was  purely  oriental.  It  never  existed  among 
the  Greeks  or  other  European  races  ;  unless  it  find  some  analogy 
in  the  Druidical  system.  The  divination  and  augury  for  which 
the  Etruscans  were  renowned,  and  which  gave  them  so  peculiar 
a  character  among  the  nations  of  the  Avest,  were  of  oriental 
origin.  Besides  the  abundant  proofs  given  in  Holy  Writ  of 
the  early  prevalence  of  soothsaying  in  the  East,  we  have  the 
authority  of  Homer  and  other  pagan  writers  ;  and  the  origin  of 
augury  is  particular^  referred  to  Caria,  an  adjoining  and  cognate 
country  to  Lydia.1  Cicero,  indeed,  classes  the  Etruscans  with 
the  Chaldees  for  their  powers  of  divination,  though  the}'  aifected 
to  read  the  will  of  Heaven,  not  in  the  stars,  or  in  dreams,  so 
much  as  in  the  entrails  of  victims,  the  flight  of  birds,  and  the 
effects  of  lightning.2 

the  Lyilian  emigration  took  place  shortly  even  in  Lydia  itself.     XIII.  p.  631. 

iifter  the  Trojan  War,   at  the  time  of  the  '  Plin.  VII.  57.    Telmessus  in  Caria  was 

murder  of  Pyrrh us  by  Orestes  at  the  temple  particularly  famed   for  its  aruspices  and 

of  Delphi.  soothsayers.     Herod.    I.    78,    84  ;    Cicero, 

*  Herod.    I.    155,    156;    Justin.    I.    7.  de  Divin.  I.  41,  42.    Clemens  of  Alexandria 

See  Urote's  "  G»eece,"  III.  p.  288,  et  seq.  (Strom.    I.   p.    306,   ed.    Sylb.)   says  the 

p  In  customs,   however,  as  will  be  pre-  Carians  were   the  first  who  divined  from 

sently  shown,  there  existed  strong  analogies  the  stars,  the  Phrygians  from  the  flight  of 

Ixitween  the  Lydians  and  Etruscans.     And  birds,  the  Etruscans  by  aruspicy. 

Dionysius'  statement  as  to  the  dissimilarity  -  Cicero,  loc.   cit.     The  same  power,  he 

of  language  is   of  no  account,   if  Strabo's  tells  us,  was  also  possessed  by  other  Asiatic 

assertion   be  true,   that   in  his  day  not  a  people — the  Phrygians,  Cilicians,  Pisidians, 

'vestige   remained   of   the   Lydian  tongue,  and  Arabs.     Cic.  de  Leg.  II.  13.     Divina- 


INTRODUCTION.]  OKIENTALISMS  IN  ETRUSCAN  MONUMENTS,    xliii 

The  evidence  of  extant  monuments  seems  to  point  to  a  close 
analogy  between  the  religious  creed  of  the  Etruscans  and  those  of 
oriental  nations.  Micali  has  written  a  work  with  the  express 
purpose  of  establishing  this  analogy  from  the  consideration  of 
Etruscan  monuments.3  He  contends  that  the  antagonism  of 
good  and  evil  in  the  government  of  the  universe,  which  entered 
so  largely  into  the  religious  systems  of  the  East,  was  held  by  the 
Etruscans  also,  and  is  set  forth  by  the  same  external  means  of 
expression — either  by  the  victories  of  deities  over  wild  beasts  or 
monsters,  or  by  combats  of  animals  of  different  natures.  Such 
representations  are  seen  in  the  colossal  reliefs  of  Persepolis — 
on  the  monuments  of  Bab}"lon  and  Nineveh — in  the  Osiris  and 
Typhon  of  Egypt — and  such  abound  on  works  of  Etruscan  art, 
particularly  on  those  of  most  ancient  character  and  date.  But 
how  far  these  representations  on  Etruscan  monuments  are  sym- 
bolical, and  how  far  they  are  parts  of  a  conventional,  decorative 
system  derived  from  the  East,  it  is  not  easy  to  pronounce.  Such 
subjects  are  found  also  on  works  of  primitive  Hellenic  art,  and 
especially  on  those  from  the  shores  of  Asia  Minor.  The  same 
may  be  said  of  monsters  of  two-fold  life — sphinxes,  griffons, 
chimseras — and  even  of  the  four-winged  demons  of  the  Assyrian 
and  Babylonian  mythology,  which  abound  also  on  Etruscan 
monuments,  and  are  likewise  found  on  early  Greek  vases.  Yet 
the  doctrine  of  good  and  evil  spirits  attendant  on  the  soul — 
obviously  held  by  the  Etruscans4 — favours  the  supposition  that 
they  held  the  dualistic  principle  of  oriental  creeds. 

tion  by  lightning  was  the  branch  for  which  can  "  thunder-calendar,"  for  every  day  in 
the  Etruscans  were  especially  distinguished,  the  year,  taken,  he  says,  from  the  books  of. 
.and  in  which  they  excelled  all  other  people.  Tages.  Servius  also  (ad  JEn.  I.  46)  men- 
Diod.  Sic.  V.  p.  316;  Dion.  Hal.  IX.  tions  Etruscan  books  on  Lightning.  Lucret. 
p.  563 ;  Seneca,  Nat.  Qusest.  II.  32  ;  VI.  381 ;  Cic.  de  Divin.  I.  33  ;  Amm. 
Lucan.  I.  587  ;  cf.  Cic.  in  Catil.  III.  8  ;  Marcell.  XXIII.  5.  The  entire  system  of 
A.  Gell.  IV.  5  ;  Claud,  in  Eutrop.  I.  12.  divination  among  the  Romans,  be  it  re- 
Cicero  believed  implicitly  in  their  skill  membered,  was  derived  from  the  Etruscans, 
in  soothsaying.  De  Divin.  I.  18,  41,  42.  It  continued  to  be  practised  by  them  even 
Himself  an  augur,  he  must  have  studied  to  the  close  of  the  Empire,  for  we  find  the 
deeply  the  books  of  the  Etruscans  on  the  Etruscan  arusp'tces  consulted  by  Julian  in 
subject.  the  fourth  (Amm.  Marcell.  XXV.  2,  7), 

and  under  Honoring  in  the  fifth  century  of 
ium  quis  non,  artis  scripta  ac  montimenta  ,,    •       -rj-  ,    ^    ,,       0      xi-u 

,  *.  our  era.     Zosim.  Hist.  V.  41.     bee  Muller, 

volutans, 

Voces  tristificas  chartis  promebat  Etruscis  ?       Etrusk.  III. 

De  Divin.  I.  12.  3  MonumeHti  Inediti,  a  illustrazione  della 

StoriadegliAntichi  Popoli  Italiani.  Firenze 
Joannes  Lydus  in  his  work  De  Ostentis,       1844. 

c.  27,  gives,  on  the  authority  of  Nigidius  4  Vol.  I.  pp.  287,  342  ;  II.  p.  182. 

Figulus,  a  "  Diarium  Toiiitruale,  or  Etrus-  • 


xliv       ASIATIC    ANALOGIES    IN    THE    CUSTOMS      [INTHOIH-CTIOX. 

The  analogy  of  the  Etruscan  customs  to  those  of  the  East 
did  not  escape  the  notice  of  ancient  writers.  And  here  let  me 
remark  that  the  Mysians,  Lydians,  Carians,  Lycians,  and 
Phrygians  being  cognate  races,  inhabiting  adjoining  lands,  what 
is  recorded  of  one  is  generally  applicable  to  all.'  "  The 
ascendancy  of  the  Lydian  dynasty  in  Asia  Minor,  with  its 
empire  (real  or  fabulous)  of  the  sea  during  its  flourishing  ages, 
would  naturally  impart  to  any  such  tradition  a  Lydian  form. 
In  any  attempt,  therefore,  to  illustrate  the  Etruscan  origin  or 
manners  from  Asiatic  sources,  our  appeals  may  safely  be 
extended  to  the  neighbouring,  whether  kindred,  or  merely 
connected,  races." (i  The  sports,  games,  and  dances  of  the 
Etruscans,  adopted  by  the  liomans,  are  traditionally  of  Lydian 
origin.'  The  musical  instruments  on  which  they  excelled  were 
introduced  from  Asia  Minor, — the  double-pipes  from  Phrygia, 
the  trumpet  from  Lydia.8  Their  luxurious  habits  were  so- 
strictly  oriental,  that  almost  the  same  language  is  used  in 
describing  them  and  those  of  the  Lydians.0  Even  the  common 
national  robe,  the  toga,  was  of  Lydian  origin.1  Dionysius  him- 
self, after  having  stated  that  there  was  no  resemblance  whatever 
between  the  customs  of  the  Etruscans  and  Lydians,  points  out 
that  the  purple  robes  worn  in  Etruria  as  insiynia  of  authority., 
were  similar  to  those  of  the  Lydian  and  Persian  monarchs,  dif- 
fering only  in  form  ~ — the  oriental  robe  being  square,  the  Etruscan 

•"'  Herodotus  (I.  171)  culls  the  Carians,  ad  Stat.  Theb.  IV.  224.     The  current  belief 

Mysians,  and  Lydians,  Ka.a(yvT)Toi.     Strabo  was   that   the   trumpet   was   of    Etruscan 

(XIII.  p.  628)  says  the  boundaries  between  origin.       Strabo,    V.    p.    220;    Diod.    Y. 

Lydia,    Phrygia,   Caria,   and   Mysia,   could  p.    316  ;    JEschyl.    Euiuen.    567  ;    Sophoc. 

not  be  determined,  and  had  given  rise  to  Ajax,  17  ;    Athen.   IV.   c.  82;  Yirg.   JJn. 

great  confusion.     Of.  XIV.  p.  (578  ;  Pliu.  VIII.    526 ;    Serv.    in   loc.  ;    Clem.    Alex. 

V.  30.  Strom.  I.  p.  306;  Pollux.  IV.  11.     Silius- 

6  Quarterly  Review,  No.  CLI.  p.  f>6.  Italicus  ( VIII.  490)   specifies  Vetulonia  as 

'  Liv.    VII.    2  ;    Val.    Max.    II.   4,   3  :  the  site  of  its  invention. 
Tertull.   de  Spect.  I.  5  ;  Appian,  de  Reb.  <J  Athen.   XII.  c.  11,   17  ;  XV.  c.   41  ; 

Punic.  LXVI.      Dice,  which  were  a  Lydian  Theopomp.  ap.  eund.  XII.  c.  14  :  Poseidon, 

invention  (Herod.  I.   l»4),  were  also  much  ap.  euud.  IV.  c.  38  ;  Diod.  Sic.  V.  p.  31<>. 

used  in  Etruria,  a.s  we  learn  from  history  So  Anacreon   (ap.  Athen.   XV.  c.  41)  uses 

(Liv.  IV.  17),  as  well  as  from  their  being  AvSotradys    for    i)$uira0ris,    and    JEsehylus. 

frequently  found  in  Etruscan  tombs.  (Pers.  41)  speaks  of  the  afipoSiatrot  Av5ui. 

8  Plin.'VII.  57.     Clem.  Alex.  Strom.  I.  l  Tertull.   de  Pallio,    I.  ;    cf.    Serv.    ad 

p.  306.  The  Lydian  pipes  were  also  famous,  Virg.  ^En.  IF.  781.     The  liomans  received 

Find.  Olymp.  V.  44.    One  tradition  ascribes  it  from  the  Etruscans,  who  have  therefore 

the  invention  of  the  trumpet  to  Tyrrhenus,  a  prior  right  to  the  title  of  yens  to;/(ita. 

the  Lydian  colonist  of  Etruria.      Pausan.  Liv.    I.    8  ;   Flor.    I.   5  ;   Plin.    VIII.    74  ; 

II.  2l";  cf.  Serv.  ad  Virg.  .En.  I.  71  ;  Sil.  IX.  63  ;  Diodor.  V.  p.  316  ;  Macrob.  Sat. 

Ital.  V.  12.     Another  refers  it  to  Maleus,  I.  6  ;  Festus  r.  Sardi. 
the  Etruscan  prince  of  Kegisvilla.    Lactant.  -  Dion.  Hal.  III.  c.  61. 


INTRODUCTION.]    AND  PHYSIOGNOMY  OE  THE  ETRUSCANS.        xlv 


toga,  or  Tyfievvos,  which  answered  to  it,  semicircular.  The  eagle, 
which  Home  bore  as  her  standard,  and  which  she  derived  from 
Etruria,  Avas  also  the  military  ensign  of  Persia.3  The  young 
women  of  Etruria  are  said,  like  those  of  Lydia,  to  have  obtained 
their  dowries  by  prostitution.1  The  singular  custom  of  the 
Lycians,  of  tracing  their  descent  \)y  the  maternal  line,  obtained 
also  among  the  Etruscans,  alone  among  the  nations  of  antiquity.  ' 
And  another  custom  which  essentially  distinguished  the  Etrus- 
cans from  the  Greeks,  and  assimilated  them  to  the  people  of 
Asia  Minor,  was  that  the}T  shared  the  festive  couch  with  their 
wives.6  Their  language  and  the  character  in  which  it  was  written 
have  very  marked  oriental  analogies.  But  in  their  tombs  and 
sepulchral  usages  the  affinity  of  Etruria  to  Lydia  and  other 
countries  of  Asia  is  most  strongly  marked  ;  and  it  is  to  be  learned 
not  only  from  extant  monuments,  but  from  historical  records. 
These  analogies  will  be  pointed  out  in  detail  in  the  course  of 
this  work. 

In  one  important  particular  there  is  also  a  striking  analogy  —  • 
in  physiognomy.  In  many  of  the  early  monuments  of  Etruria, 
the  oriental  type  of  countenance  is  strongly  and  unmistakably 
marked,  a  fact  well  illustrated  by  reference  to  the  loving  couple 
of  life-size  recumbent  on  the  terra-cotta  sarcophagus  from  Cervetri, 
now  in  the  Louvre,"  or  better  still,  to  the  similar,  but  nude  pair 
from  the  same  site  in  the  British  Museum,  who  are  portrayed  in 
the  woodcut  at  page  227  of  this  volume.  There  can  be  no 
mistake  here.  The  type  is  purely  oriental,  nay  Mongolian.  Any 
one  who  has  lived  among  Tartar  tribes  will  at  once  recognixe  the 
•characteristics  of  that  race,  especially  in  the  obliquely  placed  eyes, 
which,  as  Mr.  Isaac  Taylor  says,  no  Aryan  ever  possessed.  In 
the  Etruscan  portraits  of  later  times,  these  archaic  peculiarities 
are  in  great  measure  lost.  The  mixture  of  races,  it  may  be,  on 

3  Cf.  Dion.  Hal.  loc.  cit.   and  Xenopli.  XII,  11.     Horace  complains  of  his  Lyce  as 
Anab.  I.  10.  being  much  too  obdurate  for  an  Etruscan. 

4  Cf.  Herod.   I.  93,  and  Plant.  Cistell.  Od.  III.  10,  11.     Strabo  tells  us  that  the 
II.  3,  20.  —  ancient  Armenians  also    prostituted    their 

,  .        ,  .        „,  •laughters  before  marriage. 

non  enim  hie,  ubi  ex  lusco  mouo  6°       „ 

Tute  tibi  indigue  dotem  quseras  corpore.  bee  V  Ol-  lt  P*  1(JU' 

6  See   Vol.   I.   p.    309.     Herodotus   (I. 

Chastity,  if  we  may  believe  the  accounts  of  172)  mentions  that  the  Caunians,  a  people 

the  ancients,   was  little  valued  by  either  of  Asia  Minor,    were  accustomed  to   hold 

people  ;  and  this  is  a  point  in  which  they  symposia,    or   drinking-bouts,    with   their 

differed  widely  from  the  Greeks  and  early  wives  and  families.     Cf.  I.  146. 

llomaiis.     Strabo,  XI.  p.  532  ;   Theopom-  '  See  Vol.  I.  p.  279. 
pus,  ap.   A  then.    XII.   c.  14  ;  cf.    Athen. 


xlvi        RELATION    OF  ETRUBIA    TO    THE    EAST.     [INTRODUCTION-. 

the  one  hand,  and  the  influence  of  Greek  art  on  the  other,  tended 
to  assimilate  Etruscan  portraiture  to  the  European  type. 

The  relation  and  connection  of  Etruria  with  the  East  is  an 
established  fact,  admitted  on  all  hands  hut  variously  accounted 
for.ft  To  me  it  seems  to  be  such  as  cannot  be  explained  by 
commercial  intercourse,  however  extensive,  for  it  is  apparent  not 
merely  on  the  surface  of  Etruscan  life,  but  deep  within  it, 
influencing  all  its  springs  of  action,  and  imparting  a  tone  and 
character,  that  neither  Greek  example  and  preceptorship,  nor 
lloman  domination  could  ever  entirely  efface.  So  intimate  a 
connection  could  only  have  been  formed  by  conquest  or  colom'/a- 
tion  from  the  East.  That  such  was  possible  all  will  admit, — that 
it  was  not  improbable,  the  common  practice  of  antiquity  of 
coloni/ing  distant  lands  is  evidence  enough ;  sublime  memorials 
of  which  we  still  behold  on  the  shores  of  Italy  and  Sicily,  in 
those  shrines  of  a  long-perished  creed,  now  sacred  to  Hellenic 
genius.  Had  we  been  told  that  Mysia,  Caria,  Phrygia,  or  Lycia, 
was  the  mother-country  of  Etruria,  we  might  have  accepted  the 
tradition,  but  as  Lydia  is  specifically  indicated,  why  refuse  to 
credit  it  ?  To  what  country  of  the  East  we  may  be  inclined  to 
ascribe  this  colonization,  is  of  little  moment.  We  must  at  least 
admit,  with  Seneca,  that  "  Asia  claims  the  Etruscans  as  her 
own." — Tiiscos  Asict  sibl  vindicate 

LANGUAGE. 

That  which  in  an  investigation  of  this  kind  would  prove  of 
most  service  is  here  unfortunately  of  no  avail.  The  language 
of  Etruria,  even  in  an  age  which  has  unveiled  the  Egyptian 
hieroglyphics  and  the  arrow-headed  character  of  Bab}rlon,  still 
remains  a  mystery.  This  "  geological  literature,"  as  it  has  been 
aptly  termed,  has  baffled  the  learning  and  research  of  scholars  of 
every  nation  for  ages  past ;  and  though  fresh  treasures  are  daily 
stored  up,  the  key  to  unlock  them  is  still  wanting.  We  know 
the  characters  in  which  it  is  written,  which  much  resemble  the 
Pelasgic  or  early  Greek,1 — we  can  learn  even  somewhat  of  the 

s  Miiller   (Etnisk.    einl.    2,    7)    asserts  their    commercial     intercourse    with     tLe- 

"the  unmistakable  connection  between  the  Egyptians,  Phoenicians,  Carthaginians,  ami 

civilization  of  Etruria  and  Asia  Minor."  other  oriental  people. 
Even  Micali,  who  maintains  the  indigenous  9  Seneca,  Consol.  ad  Helv.  VI.  9. 

origin  of  the  Etruscans,    sets  forth  their  l  To   the   Pelasgi    is    referred    the  in- 

relation    with   the   East   in    a   prominent  troduction  of  letters  into  Latium.     Solin. 

light,  though  explaining  it  as  the  result  of  Polyhist.    VIII.      Another   tradition  says 


INTRODUCTION.]    THE  ETRUSCAN  LANGUAGE  A  MYSTERY,        xlvii 


genius  of  the  language  and  its  inflections  ;  but  beyond  this,  and 
the  proper  names  and  the  numerals  on  sepulchral  monuments, 
and  a  fe\v  words  recorded  by  the  ancients,2  the  wisest  must  admit 
their  ignorance,  and  confess  that  all  they  know  of  the  Etruscan 
tongue,  is  that  it  is  unique — like  the  Basque,  an  utter  alien  to 
every  known  family  of  languages.  To  the  other  early  tongues  of 
Italy,  which  made  use  of  the  same  or  nearly  the  same  character, 
we  find  some  key  in  the  Latin,  especially  to  the  Oscan,  which 
bears  to  it  a  parental  relation.  But  the  Etruscan  has  been 
tested  again  and  again  by  Greek,  Latin,  Hebrew,  and  every  other 
'ancient  language,  and  beyond  occasional  affinities  which  may  be 
mere  coincidences,  such  as  occur  in  almost  every  case,  no  clue  has 
yet  been  found  to  its  interpretation, — and  unless  some  monument 
like  the  Kosetta-stone  should  come  to  light,  and  some  Young  or 
Champollion  should  arise  to  decipher  it,  the  Etruscan  must  ever 
remain  a  dead,  as  it  has  always  emphatically  been,  a  sepulchral, 
language.3  Till  then,  to  every  fanciful  theorist,  who  fondly  hugs 


they  were  brought  to  the  Aborigines  by 
Evander  from  Arcadia,  and  that  the  ancient 
Latin  characters  were  the  same  as  the 
earliest  Greek.  Tacit.  Ann.  XI.  14. 
The  Etruscans  are  said  by  the  same 
authority  to  have  received  their  characters 
from  Corinth  through  Demaratus.  It  is 
certain  that  all  the  ancient  alphabets  of 
Italy  —  the  Umbrian,  Oscan,  Euganean, 
Messapian,  as  well  as  the  Etruscan — bear 
an  unmistakable  affinity  to  the  early  Greek. 
-  All  we  know  of  the  language  from  the 
ancients  is  confined  to  some  thirty  words, 
many  of  which  are  manifestly  disguised  by 
the  foreign  medium  through  which  they 
have  come  down  to  us. 

The  names  of  certain  Etruscan  deities 
are  also  known,  either  from  ancient  writers 
or  from  monuments.  Mr.  Isaac  Taylor 
(Etruscan  Researches,  p.  197  ct  seq.),  from 
a  careful  comparison  of  mortuary  inscrip- 
tions, has  determined  the  precise  mean- 
ing of  certain  words  used  in  sepulchral 
fonnulse  : — 

"Ril"  =  years. 

"  Avil"  or  "avils"  =  age,  or  aged. 

"  Leine"  =  lived. 

"  Lupu"  =:  died. 

If  to  this  we  add  that  the  general,  if  not 
precise,  meaning  of  two  or  three  other 
sepulchral  formula?  can  be  guessed  at,  and 
that  "Clan"  seems  to  mean  son,  "Sec," 


daughter,  and  "Hinthial,"  ghost,  or 
spectre,  we  have  the  full  extent  of  onr 
knowledge  of  the  Etruscan  vocabulary. 

3  Lanzi  states  that  in  his  day,  besides 
the  three  classic  languages,  "the  Ethiopic, 
the  Egyptian,  the  Arabic,  the  Coptic,  the 
Chinese,  the  Celtic,  the  Basque,  the  Anglo- 
Saxon,  the  Teutonic,  the  Runic,  and  what 
not,"  had  been  consulted  in  vain  for  the 
key  to  the  Etruscan.  Lanzi  thought  he  had 
discovered  it  in  the  Greek,  and  to  establish 
his  theory  put  that  noble  language  to  sad 
torture,  from  which  sounder  criticism  has 
released  it.  Dr.  Arnold  (History  of  Rome, 
pref.  p.  xni.)  expected  the  interpretation 
of  the  Etruscan  to  be  discovered.  And 
Mtiller  (Etrusk.  einl.  3,  10)  entertained 
the  hope  that  in  some  secluded  valley  of 
the  Grisons  or  of  the  Tyrol,  a  renmant  of 
the  old  Rhtetian  dialect  might  be  discovered 
which  would  serve  as  a  key  to  the  Etrus- 
can. He  adds  that  Von  Horuiayr  held  the 
Surselvish  dialect  to  be  Etruscan.  Within 
the  last  few  years  Miiller's  hope  has  been 
in  some  degree  realised  by  the  labours  of  a 
German  scholar,  who  though  he  has  found 
no  key  to  the  interpretation  of  the  Etrus- 
can, has  atleast  shown  that  some  remnantsof 
a  dialect  very  like  it  remain  among  the  Alps 
of  Rluetia.  Steub,  Ueber  die  Urbewohner 
Rations  und  ihren  Zusammenhang  mit  den 
Etruskern.  Miinchen,  1843.  In  travelling 
in  1842  among  these  Alps  he  was  struck 


xlviii 


THE    ETRUSCAN    ALPHABET.          [IXTROTU-CTIOX. 


himself  into  the  belief  that  to  him  it  has  been  reserved  to  unravel 
the  mystery,  or  who  possesses  the  Sabine  faculty  of  dreaming 
what  lie  wishes,  we  must  reply  in  the  words  of  the  prophet. 
""  It  is  an  ancient  nation,  a  nation  whose  language  thou  knowest 
not" 

"Were  it  not  for  this  mystery  of  the  language,  the  oriental 
analogies  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  Greek  features  on  the  other, 
which  are  obvious  in  the  recorded  customs  of  Etruria  and  the 
monuments  of  her  art,  might  be  reconciled  by  the  theory  of  a 
Pelasgic  colony  from  Asia  Minor.  But  the  language  in  its  utter 
loneliness  compels  us  to  look  further  for  the  origin  of  the 
Etruscan  people. 

For  the  benefit  of  travellers,  who  would  spell  their  way  through 
•epitaphs,  I  subjoin  the  Etruscan  alphabet,  in  the  proper  order  of 
the  characters,  confronting  them  with  the  Greek. 


A 

K  (r  ?) 

E 

JMgamma 

Z 

Aspirate 


> 


£  :(:   rarely  ^     £ 
0  B    H 

OO0O0 

I 


N 

n 

S  accented 
O  koppa 
P 

V 

T 

T 


mv\H 


M/A 
P 


0 


Hi 


rarel 


w\ 


00 
>!/•  \J/ 

8$ 


•with  the  strange-sounding  names,  on  the 
high-roads  as  \vell  as  in  the  most  secluded 
valleys.  Mountains  or  villages  bore  the 
-appellations  of  Tilisuua,  Blisadona,  Na- 
turns,  Veltliurns,  Schludems,  Schlanders-, 
Villanders,  Firmisaun,  Similaun,  (rutidaun, 
Altrans,  Sistrans,  Axams,  —  \vherever  he 
turned,  these  mysterious  names  resounded 
in  his  ears  ;  and  lie  took  them  to  be  the 
relics  of  some  long  perished  race,  lie 
tested  them  by  the  Celtic,  and  could  find 
no  analogy  ;  but  with  the  Etruscan  he  had 
.more  success,  and  found  the  ancient 


traditions  of  a  Rhasto-Etruria  confirmed. 
Like  many  of  liis  countrymen  he  rides  hi.s 
hobby  too  hard  ;  and  seeks  to  establish 
analogies  which  none  but  a  determined 
theorist  could  perceive.  What  resemblance 
is  apparent  to  eye  or  ear  between  such 
words  as  the  following,  taken  almost  at 
random  from  his  tables?  —  Carcuna 
Tschirgant  ;  Caca  =  Tschiitsch  ;  Yelacarasu 
:-  Vollgross  ;  Caluruna  —  Goldrain  ;  Calusa 
Schleiss  ;  Calunuturusa=Schlanders  ; 
A'elavuna  =  Plawen. 


INTRODUCTION.]     CHARACTER    OF    THE    LANGUAGE. 


xlix 


The  Etruscan  alphabet,  it  will  be  seen,  wants  the  B,  F,  A,  H, 
^,  the  H,  and  both  the  O  and  H.1  In  the  custom  of  writing  from 
right  to  left,  and  of  frequently  dropping  the  short  vowels,  the 
Etruscan  bears  a  close  oriental  analog}'.  Indeed  it  is  probable 
that  like  the  Pelasgic,  the  Greek,  and  other  kindred  alphabets, 
this  had  its  origin  from  Phoenicia.6 

The  numerals  known  to  us  by  the  name  of  Roman,  are  in 
reality  Etruscan  ;  and  were  originally  not  only  read  from  right  to 
left,  but  were  inverted. 

Professor  Mommsen  points  out  that  there  are  two  distinct 
phases  in  the  Etruscan  language,  the  earlier,  as  ascertained  from 
the  most  ancient  monuments,  showing  an.  abundance  of  vowels, 
and  an  avoidance  of  the  juxta-positioii  of  two  consonants  ;  but  by 
the  gradual  suppression  of  the  vowels  this  sweet  and  sonorous 
tongue  was  transformed  into  one  insufferably  harsh  and  rough  ; 
forming  such  words  as  Tarchnas,  Elchsentre,  Achle,  Klutmsta, 
Alksti,  for  Tarquinius,  Alexandros,  Achilleus,  Clytsemnestra, 
Alcestis — in  short,  the  character  of  the  language  was  changed 
from  an  Italian  to  a  German  type.  There  are  certain  isolated 
analogies  to  other  Italic  tongues,  the  proper  names  in  particular 


4  In  the  Etruscan  alphabet  of  Bomarzo 
the  second  letter  is  a  ),  and  the  kappa  is 
wanting  ;  while  those  of  Chhisi,  which  are 
probably  of  earlier  date,  show  the  latter 
letter  alone.  In  the  alphabet  of  Rusellte, 
however,  which  is  apparently  the  most 
recent  of  all,  there  are  not  only  both  these 
characters,  but  the  koppa  in  addition.  It 
may  be  that  the  )  had  the  sound  of  the 
ijamma,  though  the  existence  of  that  letter 
in  the  Etruscan  alphabet  is  not  generally 
recognised.  The  fifth  letter  in  the  Etrus- 
can alphabet  has  the  force  of  "  ss  "  accord- 
ing to  Lepsius,  of  "  x  "  according  to  Miiller ; 
but  it  is  now  generally  recognized  as  the 
•equivalent  of  the  Greek  zcta.  In  the 
Bomarzo  alphabet  it  has  the  peculiar  form 
resembling  an  f .  For  the  Etruscan  alpha- 
bet found  at  Bomarzo,  see  p.  11 '2  of  this 
volume  ;  for  that  of  Rusellre,  see  Vol.  II. 
p.  224  ;  and  for  the  three  at  Chiusi, 
Vol.  II.  p.  306.  These  last  are  supposed 
to  be  the  most  ancient.  Gamurrini,  Ann. 
Inst.  1871,  pp.  156—166. 

6  Dr.  Helbig  very  ingeniously  demon- 
-strates,  from  a  consideration  of  the  length 
of  the  Etruscan  scccida,  as  given  by  Varro 
(ap.  Censorin.  XVII.  5),  that  the  alphabet 
must  have  been  introduced  into  Etruria 
VOL.  I. 


between  750  and  644  B.C.  Ann.  Inst. 
1876,  p.  227  et  scq.  Whether  the  cha- 
racters came  directly  from  Phoenicia  into 
Etruria,  or  were  received  through  Greece, 
is  a  disputed  point.  Miiller  maintains  the 
latter.  Etrusk.  IV.  6,  1.  Mommsen  is 
of  the  same  opinion,  and  thinks  they  were 
imported  by  the  Doric  Chalcidians,  who 
colonized  the  shores  of  Campania,  and  that 
the  Umbrians  received  them  from  the 
Etruscans.  Mr.  Daniel  Sharpe,  speaking  of 
the  discoveries  in  Lycia,  declares,  that  "it 
may  be  proved,  from  a  comparison  of  the 
alphabets,  that  the  Etruscans  derived  their 
characters  from  Asia  Minor,  and  not  from 
Greece."  Fellows'  Lycia,  p.  442.  The 
resemblance,  indeed,  of  the  Etruscan 
alphabet  to  the  Lycian  is  striking — still 
more  so  that  which  it  bears  to  the  Phry- 
gian, such  as  it  is  seen  on  the  tombs  of 
Dogan-lfi.  See  Walpole's  travels,  and 
Steuart's  Lydia  and  Phrygia.  Dr.  Kliig- 
mann  marks  three  periods  of  Etruscan 
inscriptions,  distinguishable  by  the  form  of 
the  letters.  The  first,  anterior  to  the  Pelo- 
ponnesian  War,  or  to  431  B.C.  The  second, 
from  that  date  to  the  First  Punic  War,  or 
to  264  B.C.  The  third,  from  the  Punic  War 
to  the  Empire.  Ann.  Inst.  1873,  p.  250. 

d 


1  KEYS    TO    THE    LANGUAGE.          [INTRODUCTION. 

being'  formed  in  accordance  with  the  universal  Italic  system,  but 
with  these  exceptions  the  Etruscan  language  is  as  distinct  from 
all  the  Gneco-Italic  tongues,  as  are  those  of  the  Celts  and  Slavs 
— a  distinction  recognized  hy  the  Romans  themselves,  who  spoke 
of  the  Etruscan  and  Gaulish  as  barbarous  languages,  of  the 
( >scan  and  Yolscian  as  rustic  dialects.  The  result  of  all  our 
investigations  into  the  character  of  this  mysterious  language,  is 
that  we  seem  to  have  sufficient  authority  for  classing  the  Etrus- 
cans among  the  peoples  of  Indo- Germanic  origin.7 

While  Professor  Corssen,  by  a  comparison  of  Etruscan  inscrip- 
tions with  other  early  languages  of  the  Peninsula,  arrives  at  the 
conclusion  that  the  Etruscan  is  an  indigenous  Italic  tongue,  the 
Earl  of  Crawford  and  Balcarres  has  been  led  by  confronting  it 
with  the  remains  of  the  old  German  dialects,  to  believe  he  has 
demonstrated  its  affinity  to  them,  especially  to  those  spoken  by 
the  Thuringian  tribes,  the  Yisi-Goths  and  Ostro-Goths.  I  say 
he  believes  he  has  proved  this,  for  to  say  more  were  to  hazard  a 
judgment,  which  in  matters  of  such  erudition  I  do  not  possess, 
but  as  I  do  not  hold  to  the  Rhsetian  origin  of  the  Etruscans,  I 
may  consistently  hope  that  the  verdict  of  philologists  on  his  lord- 
ship's theory  Avill  be  "not  proven."  The  Ilev.  Robert  Ellis  also 
maintains  the  Aryan  character  of  the  Etruscan  language,  believing 
it  to  have  close  affinities  to  the  Armenian,  yet  he  admits  the  non- 
Aryan  character  of  its  numerals,  which  he  pronounces  to  be  Ibero- 
African.  The  Rev.  Isaac  Taylor  stands  alone  in  regarding  the 
Etruscan  language  as  Turanian,  and  of  the  "  Altaic,  or  Finno- 
Turkic  family  of  speech,"  but  the  method  he  adopts  in  his  quest 
of  linguistic  affinities,  gathering  them  from  different  branches  of 
the  Turanian  stock  in  all  parts  of  the  world,  is  surely  not  philo- 
sophical, and  is  hardly  calculated  to  secure  our  confidence  in  his 
deductions.  "  The  key  to  the  Etruscan  language  "  Mr.  Taylor 
finds  in  a  pair  of  ivory  dice  discovered  at  Yulci  in  1847,  and 
incribed  with  the  monosyllables  MACH,  HUTU,  Ki,  SA,  ZAL,  THU. 
Professors  Max  Miiller  and  Corssen  have  questioned  that  these 
words  are  the  names  of  Etruscan  numerals ;  but  it  may  be  fairly 
presumed  that  the  words  were  inserted  in  this  instance  instead  of 
the  pips  from  1  to  6  which  are  found  on  all  other  specimens  of 
Etruscan  dice  as  yet  brought  to  light.  Granting  them  to  be  the 
Etruscan  names  of  the  numerals,  how  are  they  to  be  arranged  ? 
Here  the  interpreters  differ  widely,  Ellis,  Campanari.  and  Miglia- 
rini  adopting  one  order,  Taylor  another,  viz : — 

7  Rom.  Gesch.  I.  c.  9. 


INTRODUCTION.]     THE    GOVERNMENT    OF    ETEURTA.  li 

1  234  f,  6 

Mr.  Ellis—    Mach  Thu  Z:il          Huth  Ki  Sa. 

Mr.  Taylor— Mach  Ki  Zal  Sa  Thu  Huth. 

Until  their  order  is  determined,  the  discovery  of  these  nu- 
merals will  add  little  to  our  knowledge  of  the  Etruscan  language. 


GOVERNMENT. 

The  government  of  Etruria  in  external  form  bore  some  re- 
semblance to  a  federal  republic,  each  of  its  Twelve  States  or 
Cities  having  a  distinct  sovereignty,  yet  combining  in  a  league 
of  amity  and  mutual  assistance — such  a  confederation,  in  fact,  as 
existed  in  early  times  among  the  states  of  Greece.  Yet  the 
internal  government  of  each  state  was  an  aristocracy,  for  the 
Etruscans  hated  a  monarchy,  and  the  kings  Ave  read  of  oc- 
casionally in  Roman  history  were  either  the  chief  rulers  of  each 
state,  or  one  chosen  out  of  this  body  to  preside  over  all,  like 
the  Doges  of  Venice  or  the  Popes  of  Rome.  The  analogy  in  the 
latter  case  is  strengthened  by  the  double  functions,  political  and 
ecclesiastical,  of  the  Etruscan  Lucumones.  For  these  princes 
were  all  augurs,  skilled  in  divination  and  the  mysteries  of  "  the 
Etruscan  Discipline  ;  "  and  when  they  met  in  solemn  conclave  at 
the  shrine  of  the  great  goddess  Yoltumna,  to  deliberate  on  the 
affairs  of  the  Confederation,  one  was  chosen  from  among  them 
as  high  priest  or  pontiff.8  In  Etruria,  as  in  the  Papal  State,  the 
same  will  decreed  civil  laws,  and  prescribed  religious  observances 
and  ceremonies,  all  on  the  assumption  of  an  unerring  interpreta- 
tion of  the  will  of  heaven. 

Political  freedom  was  a  plant  which  nourished  not  in  Etruria. 
The  power  was  wholly  in  the  hands  of  priestly  nobles  ;  the 
people  had  no  voice  in  the  government,  not  even  the  power  of 
making  themselves  heard  and  respected,  as  at  Rome.  AVhatever 
may  have  been  the  precise  relation  between  the  ruling  class  and 
their  dependents,  it  is  clear  that  it  was  akin  to  the  feudal  system, 
and  that  the  mass  of  the  community  Avas  enthralled.  The  state 
of  society  was  not  precisely  that  of  the  middle  ages,  for  there  was 
more  union  and  community  of  interest  and  feeling  than 


8  Liv.  V.  1  ;  Serv.  adYirg.  .ZEn.  X.  202.  sena  in  his  sovereign  capacity  brought  down 
Servius  tells  us  that  each  of  the  Twelve  fire  from  heaven.  Plin.  II.  54.  When 
Cities  of  Etruria  was  ruled  by  a  lucumo,  Veil  set  up  a  real  king,  it  gave  great 
or  king,  one  of  whom  was  supreme ;  ad  offence  to  the  rest  of  the  Confederation. 
&n.  II.  278  ;  VIII.  05,  475 ;  XL  9.  For-  Liv.  V.  1. 

d  2 


lii  THE  LOWER  ORDERS  ENTHRALLED.    [INTRODUCTION. 

the  feudal  lords  of  Germany,  France,  or  England.  The  commons 
must  have  been  a  conquered  people,  the  descendants  of  the  early 
inhabitants  of  the  land,  and  must  have  stood  in  a  somewhat 
similar  relation  to  their  rulers,  to  that  which  the  Periceci  of 
Laconia  held  to  their  Dorian  lords,  or  the  subjugated  Saxons  of 
England  bore  to  their  Norman  conquerors.  That  they  were 
serfs  rather  than  slaves  seems  evident,  from  the  fact  that  they 
formed  the  class  of  which  the  Etruscan  armies  were  composed. 
The  Etruscans  possessed  slaves,  like  the  other  nations  of 
antiquity  ; 9  nay,  their  bondage  was  proverbially  rigorous,1 — but 
these  were  captives  taken  in  war,  or  in  their  piratical  expeditions. 
Niebuhr  shows  that  "  the  want  of  a  free  and  respectable  com- 
monalty— which  the  Etruscans,  obstinately  retaining  and  extend- 
ing their  old  feudal  system,  never  allowed  to  grow  up — was  the 
occasion  of  the  singular  weakness  displayed  by  the  great  Etruscan 
cities  in  their  wars  with  the  Romans,  where  the  victory  was 
decided  by  the  number  and  strength  of  the  infantry." '  It  was 
also  the  cause  of  the  inferiority  of  the  Etruscan  to  the  Greek 
civilization — of  its  comparatively  stationary  and  conventional 
character.  Yet  had  there  been  no  slaves,  and  had  the  entire 
population  been  of  one  race,  the  lower  classes  could  hardly  have 
escaped  enthralment,  for  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  of  a  system  of 
government  more  calculated  to  enslave  both  mind  and  body  than 
that  of  the  aristocratical  augurs  and  aruspices  of  Etruria. 

9  Liv.  V.  I.  22.  Diouysius  (XI.  p.  562)  -  Niebuhr,  I.  p.  122.  Engl.  trans.  The 
speaks  of  the  Etruscan  nobles  leading  the  great  historian,  however,  goes  too  far  in 
irtvfffTcu,  or  serfs,  out  to  battle  against  asserting  that  the  extant  works  of  the 
the  Romans;  and  the  "agrestium  co-  Etruscans  could  not  have  been  executed 
hortes  "  mentioned  by  Livy  (IX.  36),  without  taskmasters  and  bondmen  (p.  129). 
were  probably  of  the  same  class.  The  Indeed  the  distinction  between  the  public 
rebellious  slaves  who  usurped  the  supreme  works  of  the  Egyptians  and  Etruscans,  ad- 
power  at  Yolsinii  are  shown  by  Niebuhr  to  mitted  by  Niebuhr  himself — that  all  the 
have  been  also  serfs,  not  domestic  slaves.  works  of  the  latter  we  are  acquainted  with 
Hist.  Rom.  I.  p.  124 ;  III.  p.  546.  See  have  a  great  public  object — is  a  sufficient 
Vol.  II.  p.  22,  of  this  work.  refutation  of  this  position.  The  works  of 

1  This  would  appear  from  Martial,  IX.  the  Etruscans  are  not  ostentatious,  useless 

23.  4. —  piles,  but  such  as  might  be  produced  in 

T^          j.  •  i    rr>  industrious,   commercial,  vet  warlike  com- 

Et  sonct  mnumeni  compede  Tuscus  ager. 

mumties,  ol  no  great  extent,  and  under  the 

Cicero  says  the   Etruscan  pirates  used  to  influence  of  more  popular  freedom  than  was 

tie  their  living  captives  to  the  bodies  of  the  ever  enjoyed  in  Etruria.     The  temples  of 

dead  (ap.  Serv.  ad  .iEn.   VIII.   479)  ;  and  Piestum,    Agrigentum,     and    Sclinus,    are 

Virgil  relates  the  same  of  Mezentius,  the  examples  of  this 
tyrant  of  Agylla.      ;£n.  VIII.  485. 


13-TBODUCTiox.]         THE    RELIGION    OF    ETEUHIA.  liii 

RELIGION. 

The  religion  of  Etruria  in  her  earliest  ages  bore  some  resem- 
blance to  that  of  Egypt,  but  more  to  the  other  theological  systems 
of  the  East.  It  had  the  same  gloom}*,  unbending,  imperious 
character,  the  same  impenetrable  shroud  of  mysticism  and  sym- 
bolism ;  widely  unlike  the  lively,  plastic,  phantasy-full  creed  of 
the  Greeks,  whose  joyous  spirit  found  utterance  in  song.  The 
one  was  the  religion  of  a  caste,  imposed  for  its  exclusive  benefit 
on  the  masses,  and  therefore  not  an  exponent  of  national 
character,  though  influencing  it ;  the  other  was  the  creed  of  an 
entire  people,  voluntarily  embraced  from  its  adaptation  to  their 
wants — nay,  called  into  being  by  them — and  necessarily  stamped 
with  the  peculiar  impress  of  their  thoughts  and  feelings.  In 
consequence  of  increased  intercourse  with  other  lands  in  sub- 
sequent times,  the  mythology  of  Etruria  assimilated  in  great 
measure  to  that  of  Greece ;  yet  there  was  always  this  difference, 
that  she  held  her  creed,  not  as  something  apart  from  all  political 
S3rstems,  not  as  a  set  of  dogmas  which  deep-probing  philosophy 
and  shallow  superstition  could  hold"  in  common,  and  each  invest 
with  its  peculiar  meaning.  Xo  ;  it  was  with  her  an  all-pervading 
principle — the  very  atmosphere  of  her  existence — a  leaven 
operating  on  the  entire  mass  of  society — a  constant  presence 
ever  felt  in  one  form  or  other — a  power  admitting  no  rival,  all- 
ruling,  all-regulating,  all-requiring.  Such  was  its  sway,  that  it 
moulded  the  national  character,  and  gave  the  Etruscans  a  pre- 
eminently religious  reputation  among  the  people  of  antiquity.3 
Like  the  Roman  Catholic  in  after  times,  it  was  a  religion  of 
mysteries,  of  marvels,  of  ceremonial  pomp  and  observances.  It 
was,  however,  a  religion  of  fear.  The  deities  most  dreaded 
received  most  adoration,  and  their  wrath  was  deprecated  even 
by  the  sacrifice  of  human  life.  Its  dominance  was  not  without 
one  beneficial  effect.  It  bound  its  votaries  in  fetters,  if  not  of 
entire  harmony,  at  least  of  peace.  Those  civil  contests  which 
were  the  disgrace  of  Greece,  which  retarded  her  civilization,  and 
ultimately  proved  her  destruction,  seem  to  have  been  unknown 
in  Etruria.  Yet  the  power  of  her  religion  was'  but  negative  ;  it 
proved  ineffectual  as  a  national  bond,  as  an  incitement  to  make 
common  cause  against  a  common  foe.  The  several  States  were 
often  at  variance,  and  pursued  independent  courses  of  action,  and 

3  Liv.  V.   I — Gens  ante  omnes  alias  eo       arte  colendi  eas.     Arnob.  YII. — Genetrix 
magis  dedita  religionibus,  quod  excelleret       et  mater  superstitionis  Etruria. 


liv  MYTHOLOGICAL    SYSTEM    OF    ETRUBIA.     [INTRODUCTION. 

thus  laid  themselves  open  to  be  conquered  in  detail.4  But  so 
far  as  we  can  learn  from  history,  they  were  never  arraj'ed  in  arms 
against  each  other ;  and  this  must  have  been  the  effect  of  their 
common  religion.  Yet  it  was  her  system  of  spiritual  tyranny 
that  rendered  Etruria  inferior  to  Greece.  She  had  the  same 
arts — an  equal  amount  of  scientific  knowledge — a  more  extended 
commerce.  In  every  field  had  the  Etruscan  mind  liberty  to 
expand,  save  in  that  wherein  lies  man's  highest  delight  and  glory. 
Before  the  gate  of  that  paradise  where  the  intellect  revels 
unfettered  among  speculations  on  its  own  nature,  on  its  origin, 
existence,  and  final  destiny,  on  its  relation  to  the  First  Cause, 
to  other  minds,  and  to  society  in  general — stood  the  sacerdotal 
Lucumo,  brandishing  in  one  hand  the  double-edged  sword  of 
secular  and  ecclesiastical  authority,  and  holding  forth  in  the  other 
the  books  of  Tages,  exclaiming,  to  his  awe-struck  subjects, 
"Believe  and  obey!"  Liberty  of  thought  and  action  was  as 
incompatible  with  the  assumption  of  infallibility  in  the  governing 
power  in  the  days  of  Tarchon  or  Porsena,  as  in  those  of  Pius  IX. 

The  mythological  system  of  Etruria  is  learned  partly  from 
ancient  writers,  partly  from  national  monuments,  particularly 
figured  mirrors.  It  was  in  some  measure  allied  to  that  of 
Greece,  though  rather  to  the  early  Pelasgic  system  than  to  that 
of  the  Hellenes ;  but  still  more  nearly  to  that  of  lionie,  who  in 
fact  derived  certain  of  her  divinities  and  their  names  from  this 
source. 

The  three  great  deities,  who  had  temples  in  every  Etruscan 
city,  were  TINA  or  TINIA — THALXA  or  CUPRA — and  MEXRVA,  or 

MENERVA.5 

TINIA  was  the  supreme  deity  of  the  Etruscans,  analogous  to 
the  Zeus  of  the  Greeks,  and  the  Jupiter  of  the  llomans — "  the 
centre  of  the  Etruscan  god-world,  the  power  who  speaks  in  the 

4  Five  only  of  the  Twelve  assisted  tlie  of  the  towns,  might  easily  be  outnumbered 

Latins  against  Tarquinius  Priscus.      Dion.  by  a  garrison.      That  the  conquered  portion 

Hal.    III.   p.    189.     Arretium,  in  443,  re-  were  ready  to  unite  with  their  Etruscan 

fused  to  join  the   rest  in  their  attack  on  brethren  when  occasion  offered,  is  proved 

Sutrium,  then  in  the  power  of  the  Romans.  in  the  case  of  Nepete.    Liv.  VI.  10.    Qere, 

Liv.  IX.  32.    Veii,  just  before  her  capture,  however,  was  in  more  independent  alliance 

estranged  herself  from  the  rest  of  the  Con-  with  Rome,  but  even  she  at  one  time  was 

federation,    which  refused  succour  in   her  urged  by  the  sympathy  of  blood  to  sever  this 

need.      Liv.  V.  1,  17.     When  Sutrium  and  alliance  ;  and  it  does  not  appear  that  she 

Nepete  are  called  the  allies  of  Rome,  and  was  ever  in  arms  against  her  fellow  cities  of 

are  said  to  have  besought  assistance  against  the   Etruscan  Confederation.     See  Vol.    I. 

the  Etruscans  (Liv.  VI.  3,  9,  10),  this  must  p.  233. 

refer  to  the  Roman,  not  the  Etruscan  popu-  5  Serv.  ad  Virg.   JEn.   1.    42(5;  II.  29(>. 

lation.  for  the  latter,  from  the  small  size  To  these  three  Tarquin  added  Mercury. 


IXTRODUCTIOX.]  THEEE  GEEAT  GODS— TWELVE  DII  CONSENTED.  Iv 

thunder  and  descends  in  the  lightning."  He  alone  had  three 
separate  bolts  to  hurl,  and  is  therefore  always  represented  on 
Etruscan  monuments  with  a  thunder-bolt  with  triple  points  in 
his  hand.'' 

THALNA  or  CUPRA  was  the  Etruscan  Hera  or  Juno,  and  her 
principal  shrines  seem  to  have  been  at  Veii,  Falerii,  and  Perusia. 
Like  her  counterpart  among  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  she  appears 
to  have  been  worshipped  under  other  forms,  according  to  her 
various  attributes — as  Feronia,  Uni,  Eileithyia-Leucothea.7 

MEXRVA,  as  she  is  called  on  Etruscan  monuments,  answers  to 
the  Pallas-Athene  of  the  Greeks.  It  is  probable  that  the  name 
by  which  the  Romans  knew  her  was  of  purely  Etruscan  origin. s 
She  seems  to  have  been  allied  to  NORTIA,  the  Fortuna  of  the 
Etruscans.9  Like  her  counterpart  in  the  Greek  and  Roman 
mythology,  she  is  represented  armed,  and  with  the  a>gis  on  her 
breast,  but  has  sometimes  wings  in  addition.1 

There  were  Twelve  Great  Gods,  six  of  each  sex,  called  Dii 
Consentes  or  Complices.  They  composed  the  council  of  Tinia, 
and  are  called  "  the  senators  of  the  gods" — "the  Penates  of  the 
Thunderer  himself."  They  were  fierce  and  pitiless  deities, 
dwelling  in  the  inmost  recesses  of  heaven,  whose  names  it  was 
forbidden  to  utter.  Yet  they  were  not  deemed  eternal,  but 
supposed  to  rise  and  fall  together.2 

6  Pliii.  II.  53.      Seneca  (Nat.  Qwest.  II.  tive  of  her  as  a  goddess  of  births  and  light. 
41)  says  that  the  first  kind  of  bolt,  which  i.s  Feronia  is  said   by  Yarro  (V.    74)  to  be  a 
monitory  and  not  wrathful,  Jove  can  hurl  Sabine   goddess.      Gerhard    (Gotth.    p.    3) 
at  his  pleasure  ;    the  second  he  can  hurl  takes  her  to  be  equivalent  to  Juno,  Miiller 
only  with  the  consent  of  his  Council  of  the  (III.  3,  8)  to  Tellus  or  Mania.     See  Vol.  I. 
Twelve  Great  Gods  :  and  to  hurl  the  third  p.    129.      For  Uni,    see  Ann.  Inst.    1851, 
kind  he  is  obliged  to  consult  the  Shrouded  tav.  d'agg.  G.  H.    For  Eileithyia,  see  Vol.  I. 
Gods.     He  is  sometimes  represented  as  a  p.  292.     The  rites  of  the  Etruscan  Juno  are 
beardless  youth.      Gerhard,  Etrus.   Spieg.  described  by  Ovid,   Amor.   III.   eleg.   13  ; 
I.  taf.  14.     Some  have  sought  an  etymo-  cf.  Dion.  Hal.  I.  p.  17. 

logical  relation    between  Tina   and  Zeus  ;  s  So  thinks  Muller  (Etrusk.  III.  3,  2), 

others  to  Tonans,  and  others  even  to  the  notwithstanding  that  Varro  asserts  it  to  lie 

Odin  of  the  northern   mythology,   though  Sabine.     Ling.  Lat.  V.  74.     Muller  regards 

this  similarity  is  pronounced  by  Muller  to  her   as  the  only  Etruscan    divinity  whose 

lie  accidental.     Etrusk.  III.  3,  1.    Gerhard,  worship  was  transferred  to  Rome  in  all  its 

Gottheit.  p.  27.  purity. 

7  We   learn   the    name    of  Cupra   from  9  Gerhard  (Gottheit.  p.  10)  thinks  the 
Strabo,  Y.  p.  241,  who  states  that  the  town  relation   between    Minerva   and   Nortia  is 
of  that  name  in  Picenum  took  its  name  from  established  by  the  fact  of  the  annual  nail 
the  temple  built  there  by  the  Etruscans,  being  driven  into  the  temple  of  the  latter  at 
and  dedicated  to  this  goddess.     The  name  Volsinii,  and  of  the  former  on  the  Capitol. 
Cupra  lias   not   been   found    on   Etruscan  Gerhard  takes  Nortia  for  a  Pelasgic  divinity, 
inomiments,  where  the  goddess  is  generally  l  As  in  a  bronze  figure  from  Orte,  in  the 
called  Thalna,  though  Gerhard  (Gotth.   d.  Museo  Gregoriano,  see  Yol.  II.  p.  478. 
Etrusk.  p.  40)  thinks  this  name  is  descrip-  2  Arnob.  adv.   Nat.   III.   40  ;  Yarro,  de 


Ivi         SHROUDED  GODS— NIXE  THUNDER-GODS.    [INTRODUCTION. 


Still  more  awful  and  potent  were  "  the  shrouded  Gods," — Dii 
Involuti — whose  appellation  is  suggestive  of  their  mysterious 
character ;  they  ruled  both  gods  and  men,  and  to  their  decisions 
even  Tinia  himself  was  obedient.  They  were  also  called  Dii 
Superiores.3 


THE    SHROUDED    GuDS  .' 


The  Etruscans  believed  in  Nine  Great  Gods,  who  had  the  power 
of  hurling  thunderbolts ;  they  were  called  Xovensiles  by  the 
Iiomans.1  Of  thunderbolts  there  were  eleven  sorts,  of  which 
TINIA,  as  the  supreme  thunder-god,  wielded  three.3  CUPRA,  or 
Juno,  as  one  of  the  nine,  also  hurled  her  bolts.6  MENERVA,  the 
third,  hurled  hers  at  the  time  of  the  vernal  equinox."  SUMMANUS 
hurled  his  bolts  by  night  as  Jupiter  did  by  day,  and  received  even 


lie  Rust.  I.  1  ;  Martian  Capella,  de  Nupt. 
I.  14.  Gerhard  thinks  they  must  include 
the  eight  thunder-wielding  gods  known  to 
us,  to  which  he  would  add  Yertummis, 
Janus  or  Apollo,  Nortia  or  Fortuna,  and 
Yoltumua.  Gotth.  d.  Etrusk.  p.  23. 

3  Seneca,  Nat.  Qurest.  II.  41 ;  Festus, 
r.  Manubiae.  Gerhard  (Gottheit.  Etru&k. 
taf.  7)  gives  a  singular  plate  of  two  veiled 
figures,  sitting  back  to  back,  and  with  both 
hands  to  their  mouths,  which  he  thinks  may 
represent  "the  shrouded  gods."  They  are 
taken  from  a  drawing  in  the  public  archives 
of  Yiterbo,  supposed  to  be  a  copy  from 
some  Etruscan  monument,  found  in  former 


times ;  perhaps  a  mirror,  as  Gerhard 
suggests,  but  more  probably  a  bas-relief. 
See  the  above  wood-cut. 

4  Plin.  II.  53  ;  Manjlius  ap.  Arnob.  III. 
38.     Yarro  (Ling.    Lat.    Y.    74)  says  the 
name  of   Novensiles  is  derived   from  the 
Sabines.     Gerhard  considers  the  Novensiles 
to  belong,  without  doubt,  to  the  Etruscan 
mythology.     Gotth.  Etrusk.  p.  3. 

5  Plin.  loc.  cit.  :  Servius  (ad  JEn.  I.  46) 
states  that  in  the  Etruscan  books  on  Thing.% 
struck  by  Lightning,  mention  was  made  of 
twelve  sorts  of  thunderbolts. 

6  Serv.  loc.  cit.  ;  VIII.  429. 
'  Serv.  loc.  cit.  ;  XI.  259. 


INTRODUCTION.]      OTHER    ETRUSCAN    DIVINITIES.  Ivh 

more  honour  from  the  old  Romans  as  a  thunder- wielding  god, 
than  Jupiter  himself.8  VEJOVIS,  or  VEDIUS,  though  with  a  Latin 
name,  was  an  Etruscan  deity,  whose  bolts  had  the  singular  effect 
of  making  those  they  struck  so  deaf,  "  that  they  could  not  hear 
the  thunder,  or  even  louder  noises."9  Vulcan,  or  as  the  Etrus- 
cans called  him  SETHLAXS,  was  another  bolt-hurling  god.1  MARS 
was  also  one  of  these  nine.2  The  last  two  are  not  mentioned, 
but  it  seems  probable  that  one  was  SATURX,  or  it  may  be  their 
great  infernal  deity  MANXus.3  The  ninth  was  probably  Hercules 
— ERCLE,  or  HERCLE — a  favourite  god  of  the  Etruscans.1 

Besides  these,  were  other  great  deities,  as  VERTUMXUS,  or  "the 
changeable,"  the  god  of  wine  and  gardens,  the  Etruscan  Bacchus;5 
though  that  god  is  sometimes  also  called  PHUPHLUXS.G  Allied 
to  him,  probably  in  more  than  name,  was  VOLTUMXA,  the  great 
goddess  at  whose  shrine  the  confederate  princes  of  Etruria  held 
their  councils.7  With  her  also  may  be  analogous,  HORTA,  whose 
name  perhaps  indicates  a  goddess  of  gardens,  and  from  whom 
a  town  of  Etruria  derived  its  name.8  APLU,  or  Apollo,  often 
appears  on  Etruscan  monuments,  as  god  of  the  sun,  being  some- 
times called  UsiL;9  and  so  also  TURMS,  or  Mercury;1  and 
TURAX,  or  Venus;  ~  and  more  rarely  THESAX,  the  goddess  of  the 

H  Plin.  loc.  cit.  ;  Augustin.  cle  Civ.  Dei,  sented  armed  with  the  thunderbolt  as  well 

IV.  23.  as  with  his  club.     Gottheit.  d.  Etrusk.  p. 

'•'  Ammian.  Marcell.  XVII.  10,  2.  23.     Lanzi  (II.  p.   203)  took  the  ninth  to 

1  Serv.  ad  2En.   I.   40.     It  is  "  Vulca-  be  Bacchus, 

num"  in  some  editions,  and  Miilier  (Etrusk.  °  See  Vol.  II.  p.  33. 

III.  3,  5)  prefers  it  to  "  Jimonem,"  which  6  As  in  the  beautiful  mirror  represented 

is  Burmann's  reading.  in  the  frontispiece  to  this  volume.     The 

-  Serv.  ad  Jin.  VIII.  429  ;  cf.  Plin.  II.  name  seems  connected  with   "Pupluna,!' 

53.     The  name  of  the  Etruscan  Mars  is  not  the    Etruscan    form    of    Populoiiia.      See 

known,  but  that  of  the  Sabine Mars,  "Ma-  Vol.  II.  p.  220. 

mers,"  is  inscribed  in  Etruscan  letters  on  a  "  See  Vol.  II.  p.  33. 

fibula   in   the  Gregorian  Museum.     Bull.  s  See  Vol.  I.  p.  140.     Gerhard,  Gottheit. 

List.  1846,  p.  11.  p.  3"». 

3  The  Etruscans  are  said  to  have  believed  u  As  on  a  mirror  in  the  Museo  Gregoriano. 
that  thunderbolts  came   not  always  from  See  Vol.  II.  p.  482.      This  name,  however, 
heaven,  but  sometimes  from  the  earth  ;  or,  has  been  found  attached  to  a  female  divinity 
as  some  said,  from  the  planet  Saturn.   Plin.  on  another  mirror.   Bull.  Inst.  1847,  p.  117. 

II.  53.     On  this  ground  Miilier  (Etrusk.  :  The    name    of    this   god    on  Etruscan 

III.  3,   5)  thi)iks  Saturn  was  the  eighth.  mirrors  is  generally  "Turms,''or"Thurms ;" 
So  Gerhard,   Gottheiten   der  Etrusker,   p.  in  one  case  he  is  called   "Turms  Aitas, " 
23.     Servius  (ad  lEn.  VIII.  430),  indeed,  or  the  infernal  Mercury  (Vol.  II.  p.  482), 
says  that  some  ascribed  the  power  of  hurling  in  another,  "  Mirqurios. "    Gerhard,  Etrus. 
bolts  to  Auster.  Spieg.  II.  taf.  182.     He  was  associated  by 

4  Miilier  (III.  4,  2)  does  not  attempt  to  Tarquin  with  the  three  great  gods.     Serv. 
supply  the  ninth.     Gerhard,  however,  from  ad  JEn.  II.  296.    Callimachus  (ap.  Macro'o. 
the  evidence   of    monuments,    takes  it  to  III.  8)  said  that  the  Etruscans  called  this 
have  been   Hercules,    for  on  an  Etruscan  god  Camillus. 

gem  in  his  possession  that  god   is    repre-  -  This    name    is    so    often   attached    to 


Iviii  THE    GODS    OF    THE    ETRUSCANS.       [INTBODUCTION. 

dawn,  Eos- Aurora;3  and  LOSXA,  or  LALA — the  Etruscan  Luna, 
or  Diana.1  XKTHUNS,  or  Neptune,  also  appears  on  monuments,'"' 
though  rarely,  which  is  singular  considering  the  maritime 
character  of  the  people  ;  and  Janus  and  Silvanus  are  also  known 
as  Etruscan  gods,6  the  double  head  of  the  former  being  a  common 
device  on  the  coins  of  Volateme  and  Telamon.  Then  there  were 
four  gods  called  Penates — Ceres,  Pales,  Eortuna,  and  the  Genius 
Jovialis ; 7  and  the  two  Penates  of  Latium, — the  Dioscuri, — 
CASTUII  and  PULTUKE — were  much  worshipped  in  Etruria,  ns 
we  learn  from  monuments.8  The  worship  of  the  mysterious 
Oabeiri  testified  to  the  Pelasgic  origin  of  a  portion  of  the 
Etruscan  population.0 

All  these  deities  are  more  or  less  akin  to  those  of  other  ancient 
mythological  systems,  and  what  were  of  native  origin  and  what  of 
foreign  introduction,  it  is  not  always  easy  to  determine.  But 
there  were  others  more  peculiarly  Etruscan.  At  least  if  their 
counterparts  are  to  be  found  in  the  Greek  and  lloiiian  myth- 
ology, they  had  a  wider  influence  in  Etruria,  and  occupied  a 
more  prominent  place  in  the  Etruscan  Pantheon.  Such  is  the 
goddess  of  Eate,  who  is  generally  represented  with  wings,  some- 
times with  a  hammer  and  nail,  as  if  fixing  unalterably  her  decrees 

figures   of    Venus,    that   there    can   be  no  ad  3i.n.  II.    325),  but  Miiller  (III.    3,   4) 

question  of  the  identity.      Sometimes  she  says  justly,  if  the  name  be  not  Etruscan, 

is  represented  with    "  Atunis"   (Adonis),  that  people  must  have  had  a  god  of  the  sea. 

or  with    "  Elina  "   and    "  Menle  "   (Helen  fi  A  four-faced  Janus  was  worshipped  at 

and    Menelaus),    or   with    "Elina"    aiul  Falerii.    Serv.  ad  JEu.  VII.,  607  ;  Macrob. 

"Elsntre"  (Helen  and  Alexander).     Ger-  Sat.   I.    9.     Silvanus  was  a  Pelasgic  god, 

hard,  Et.  Spieg.  taf.  Ill,  115,  197,  198.  who   had    a    celebrated    shrine   at    Ctere. 

Tertullian  (Sped,,   c.   8)  says  this  goddess  Virg.  Mn.  VIII.  600  ;  cf.  Liv.  II.  7. 

was  called  Murt-ia.  '  Arnob.  loc.  cit. ;  Serv.  ad  Jin.  II.  325. 

:l  "  Thesan  "  occurs  on  two  mirrors  in  8  The  Dioscuri  are  not  recorded  as  Etrus- 

the  Gregorian  Museum  (Vol.  II.  p.   482).  can  divinities  by  ancient  writers,  but  they 

Gerhard   suggests  a  relation,    and   in    one  are  so  frequently  and  distinctly  represented 

case  an  identity,  between  Thesan  and  the  on  the  mirrors,  that  it  is  impossible  not  to 

Themis   of  the   Greeks.     Gotth.    p.    39  :  recognise  them  as  Etruscan  ;  indeed,  they 

Etrusk.  Spieg.  taf.  76.  are  often  mentioned  by  name.     Gerhard, 

*  "Losna"  is  attached  to  the  figure  of  Gottheit.  pp.  2,  22,  46. 

Diana   on   a  mirror.     Etrusk.   Spieg.  taf.  IJ  The  Cabeiri  were  the  great  gods  of  the 

171;  Lanzi,  II.  tav.  VIII.  6.     It  is  doubt-  Pelasgic  Samothrace;  and  certain  passages 

less  a  form  of  Luna.      "  Lala "  is  found  on  (Dion.    Hal.   I.  c.    23;  Macrob.  Sat.   III. 

another    mirror.     Gerhard,    Gottheit.   taf.  8)   which    ascribe    their    worship    to    the 

II.  7.  Tyrrhenes,  or  Etruscans,  may  refer  to  the 

5  The    name    "  Nethuns "    occurs   on    a  Pelasgi.    Miiller,  III.  3,  10.     But  Tarquin, 

mirror    in    the    Gregorian    Museum    (Vol.  it  is  said,  was  initiated  into  the  mysteries 

II.   p.   482).     Gerhard  (Gottheit.   pp.    2,  of   Samothrace.      Serv.   ad  &n.   II.    296. 

19)    regards  this  as  the  Latin  name,  and  Gerhard    sees  in  the  three   heads  on  the 

doubts  if  Neptune  were  an  Etruscan  deity,  Gate  of  Volterra,  and  in  certain  scenes  on 

though  he  is  said  to  have  been  one  of  the  mirrors,    the   three    mysterious    deities  of 

Penates  (Arnob.   adv.   Xat.  III.  40;   Serv.  Lemnos.     Gottheit.  p.  13. 


IXTRODUCTIOX.J  FATES— GENII— LAKES,  lix 

— an  idea  borrowed  by  the  Romans  ;  but  more  frequently  with 
a  bottle  in  one  hand  and  a  stylus  in  the  other,  with  which  to 
inscribe  her  decisions.  She  is  found  with  various  names 
attached;  but  the  most  common  are  LASA,  and  MEAN".1  A 
kindred  goddess  is  frequently  introduced  in  the  reliefs  on  the 
sepulchral  urns,  as  present  at  the  death  of  some  individual,  and 
is  generally  armed  with  a  hammer,  a  sword,  or  torch,  though 
sometimes  brandishing  snakes  like  a  Fury. 

AVhat  gives  most  peculiarity  to  the  Etruscan  mythology  is  the 
doctrine  of  Genii.  The  entire  system  of  national  divination, 
called  "the  Etruscan  Discipline,"  was  supposed  to  have  been 
revealed  by  a  Genius,  -  called  Tages — a  wondrous  boy  with  a 
hoary  head  and  the  wisdom  of  age,  who  sprung  from  the  fresh- 
ploughed  furrows  of  Tarquinii.3  But  the  worship  of  the  Lares 
and  Penates,  the  household  deities  who  watched  over  the  personal 
and  pecuniary  interests  of  individuals  and  families,  was  the  most 
prominent  feature  in  the  Etruscan  mythology,  whence  it  was 
borrowed  by  the  Romans.3  Thence  it  was  also,  in  all  proba- 
bility, that  the  Romans  obtained  their  doctrine  of  an  attendant 
genius  wratching  over  every  individual  from  his  birth — 

Genius  natale  comes  qui  temperat  astrum, 

who  was  of  the  same  sex  as  the  individual,  and  was  called  Genius 
when  male,  and  Juno  when  female.  Yet  we  find  no  positive 
proof  of  this  doctrine  among  the  Etruscans.4 

Last,  but  brought  most  prominently  before  the  eye  in  Etruscan 
sepulchral  monuments,  are  the  dread  powers  of  the  lower  world. 
Here  rule  MANTUS  and  MANIA,  the  infernal  deities  of  the  Etrus- 
can creed,  wThose  names  never  occur  on  the  native  monuments, 
but  are  ascertained  from  Latin  writers.5  In  fact,  in  two  painted 

1  See  Vol.  I.  p.  288.  on    Etruscan  sepulchral  urns  in  charge  of 

-  See  Vol.  I.  p.  418.  the  dead,  is  Mantus ;  though  generally  called 

3  Miillcr,  Etrusk.  III.  4,  6,  7  ;  Gerhard,  Charun.     Gerhard  (Gottheit.  taf.  VI.  2,  3, 
Gottheit.  d.  Etrusk.  p.  If).  gives  two  figures  from  urns  in  the  Museum 

4  The  Genii  or  demons  who  are  introduced  of   Volterra,  which,    being  crowned,    most 
(Hi  Etruscan  monuments  to  indicate  a  fatal  probably   represent   the    King   of    Shades, 
event,  are  generally  females — at  least  their  Thus   he  was  also   depicted  in  the  Cam- 
sex  in  many  instances  does  not  correspond  panari    tomb   at   Vulci.       See    p.    40*3    of 
with  that  of  the  defunct.     For  the  Genii  this  volume.     When  two  Charontic  males 
and  Junones  see  Vol.  I.  pp.  285-288.  are    introduced    into   the   same    scene,    as 

5  Mantus  is  the  Etruscan  Dispater.  Serv.  on  the  vase  illustrated  in  the  frontispiece 
ad    j£n.    X.    199.       From   him    the    city  to   Vol.    II.    of    this   work,    one    may   be 
Mantua  received  its  name.     Miiller  (III.  intended  for  Mantus,  or  that  which  is  not 
4,  10)  thinks  that  the  winged  figure,  armed  Charun  may  be  a  Thanatos,  a  personifica- 
with  a  mallet  or  sword,   often  introduced  tion  of  Death,  or  its  messenger.      Miiller 


Ix  MANTUS   AND    MANIA— CHAKUN.     [INTRODUCTION-. 

tombs  at  Corneto  and  Orvieto,  in  which  these  divinities  are  de- 
picted, they  are  designated  by  the  corresponding  Greek  appella- 
tions of  Hades  and  Persephone.  In  both  those  instances  Mantus 
is  represented  seated  on  a  throne,  with  a  wolf-skin  on  his  head, 
and  a  serpent  in  one  hand,  or  twining  round  his  sceptre.  Mania 
also,  in  the  tomb  at  Corneto,  has  her  head  bristling  with  snakes.0 
She  was  a  fearful  dehy,  who  was  propitiated  by  human  sacrifices.7 
Intimately  connected  with  these  divinities  was  CHARUX,  the  great 
conductor  of  souls,  the  infernal  Mercury  of  the  Etruscans,  the 
chief  minister  of  Mantus,  whose  dread  image,  hideous  as  the 
imagination  could  conceive,  is  often  introduced  on  sepulchral 
monuments ;  and  who,  with  his  numerous  attendant  demons  and 
Furies,  well  illustrates  the  dark  and  gloomy  character  of  the 
Etruscan  superstition.8 

The  government  and  religion  of  a  country  being  ascertained, 
much  may  be  inferred  of  the  character,  of  its  civilization.  With 
such  shackles  as  were  imposed  on  it,  it  was  impossible  for  the 
Etruscan  mind,  individually  or  collectively,  to  reach  the  highest 
degree  of  culture  to  which  society,  even  in  those  earl}'  ages, 
attained.  The  intellect  of  Etruria,  when  removed  from  the 
sciences  and  arts,  and  purely  practical  applications,  was  too  much 
absorbed  in  the  mysteries  of  divination  and  the  juggleries  of 
priestcraft.  Even  art  was  fettered  by  conventionalities,  imposed, 
it  seems,  by  her  religious  system.  Yet  there  is  recorded  evidence 
that  she  possessed  a  national  literature — histories,9  tragedies, L 


(III.    4,    9)   suggests    a    relation    to   the  was   transferred  from   the  Etruscan   into 

Mundus,  the  pit  in  the  Comitiuic,  which  the    Roman    mythology  ;    and    that     ^he 

was  regarded  as  the  mouth  of  Orcus,  and  answers  also  to  the  Lara  or  Larunda  of  the 

was  opened  three  days  in  the  year,  for  the  Romans.     Cf.    Gerhard,    Gmtheit.   p.    i.t;. 

souls  to  step  to  the  upper  world.     Varro,  For  the  various  derivations  of  the  name 

ap.    Macrob.    I.    16;    Fest.    n:    Mundus,  suggested    by    Roman    grammarians,     see 

Manalem  Lapidem.  Varro,   L.  L.  IX.  61  ;    Festus  v.  Maniaj  ; 

6  See  the  woodcuts,  Vol.  I.  p.  351  ;  II.  Servius  ad  &n.   I.  143  ;  III.  63.     lint  if 

p.  58.  the  name  of  this  deity  be  Etruscan  it  is 

~'  Mania   is   called   the   mother   of    the  useless  to  seek  its  origin  in  the  Latin. 
Lares  (Varro,  L.  L.  IX.  61  ;  Macrob.  I.  7  ;  s  See  Vol.  II.  pp.  191-193. 
Arnob.  adv.  Nat.   III.  41),  or  the  mother           1J  Varro,  ap.  Censorin.  XVII.  6.     Poly- 
or  grandmother  of  the  Maries  (Festus,  sub  bins  (II.    17)   speaks  of   histories   of   the 
voce).     Boys  used  annually  to  be  offered  to  Etruscan   dynasties.      There  was   also   an 
her  at  the  festival  of  the  Compitalia,  till.  historian  of  the  name  of  Vegoja,  a  frag- 
on  the  expulsion  of  Tarquinius  Superbus,  ment    of    whose    work    is    extant.       See 
the  heads  of  garlic  and  poppies  were  sub-  Miiller,  IV.  5,  3  ;  7,  8. 
stituted.      Macrob.     Sat.    I.    7.       Miiller  l  Varro   (Ling.    Lat.    V.    55)    mentions 
(Etrusk.    III.   4,    12,    13)   thinks   she   is  Volnius,  or  Volurnnius,  a  writer  of  Etrus- 
almost  identical  with  Acca  Larentia,  the  can  tragedies, 
foster-mother  of  Romulus,  a  divinity  who 


JXTRODUCTIOX.]   LITERATURE,  SCIENCE,  AND  COMMERCE. 


Ixi 


poems ; 3  besides  religious  ant!  ritual  books ; 3  and  the  Romans 
used  to  send  their  sons  into  the  land  of  their  hereditary  foes  to 
study  its  literature  and  language,4  just  as  in  later  times  the  "  old 
Christians "  of  Spain  sent  their  youth  to  receive  a  knightly 
education  at  the  Moslem  courts  of  Cordoba  and  Granada. 

History,  moreover,  attests  the  eminence  of  the  Etruscans  in 
navigation  and  commerce — for  they  were  for  ages  "  lords  of  the 
sea  "  5 — in  military  tactics,6  agriculture,  medicine,  and  other  prac- 


2  The  Fescennines,  or  songs  of  raillery, 
were  Etruscan.     See  Vol.   I.  p.  116.     The 
Etruscan  histr tones  or  actors,  danced  and 
sang  to  the  sound  of  the  double-pipes.   Liv. 
VII.    2.      In  their   religious  services  also 
the  Etruscans   sang  hymns  to  the  honour 
of  their  gods  or  heroes.     Dion.   Hal.  I.  c. 
21  ;  Serv.  ad  .En.  VIII.  285.     Lucretius 
(VI.  381)  speaks  of   "Tyrrhena  carmina" 
on   divination    by  lightning.     Miiller,   IV. 
5,  1. 

3  The  sacred  or  ritual  books  of  the  Etrus- 
cans are  mentioned  under  many  names  by 
ancient   writers  —  libri    Etrusci  —  charts 
Etn.isc.-e — scripta  Etrusca— Tusci  libelli — 
Etruscaj    discipline    libri  —  libri    fatales, 
rituales,    haruspicini,    fulgurales    et   toni- 
truales — libri    Tagetici — sacra    Tagetica — 
sacra  Acherontica — libri  Acherontici.     The 
ivuthor    of    these    sacred    works     on    the 
"Etruscan  Discipline,"  was  supposed  to  be 
Tages.     The  names  of  Tarquitins,  Csecina, 
Aquila,  Labeo,  Begoe,  Umbricius,  are  given 
as  writers  on  these  subjects,  probably  com- 
mentatoi-s  on  Tages. 

4  Liv.  IX.  36  :  Cicero,  de  Divin.  I.  41  ; 
Val.  Max.  I.  1,  1. 

5  Diod.    Sic.    V.    pp.    295,    300,    316  ; 
Strabo,    V.   p.    222.      They   rivalled    the 
Phoenicians  in  enterprise,  founding  colonies 
in  the  islands  of  the  Tyrrhene  Sea,   and 
even  on  the  coast  of  Spain,  where  Tarraco, 
now  Tarragona  (in  whose  name  we  recog- 
nise  that   of   Tarchon),    appears  to   have 
been  one  of  their  settlements  (Auson.  Epist. 
XXIV.    88) — a  tradition  confirmed  by  its 
ancient  fortifications.     Miiller,   Etrusk.   I. 
4,  6  ;  Abeken,  Mittelitalien,  p.  129.    Nay, 
the  Etruscans  would    fain   have  colonised 
the   far    "  island    of    the   blest,"    in   the 
Atlantic  Ocean,    probably  Madeira  or  one 
of  the  Canaries,  had  not  the  Carthaginians 
•opposed  them.     Diod.   Sic.  V.  p.  300.     It 
•was  this  mutual  spirit  of  maritime  enter- 
prise that  led  to  a  treaty  between  Carthage 


and  Etruria,  which  probably  defined  the 
limits  of  each  people's  commerce.  Ai'istot. 
Polit.  III.  9.  The  naval  greatness  of 
Etruria  is  symbolised  on  her  coins,  a  com- 
mon device  on  which  is  the  prow  of  a  ship, 
— copied  on  those  of  early  Rome  long  before 
that  city  had  a  fleet  or  had  achieved  a  naval 
triumph.  Ovid  (Fast.  I.  229)  assigns  a 
very  different  origin  to  the  prow  on  Roman 
coins,  but  he  relates  the  vulgar  tradition. 

Of  the  relations  of  Etruria  with  Egypt  in 
very  early  times  her  sepulchres  have  yielded 
abundant  proofs.  But  these  relations  were 
not  always  commercial,  or  of  a  friendly 
character.  It  is  recorded  in  hieroglyphics 
on  the  great  temple  of  Kamak,  that  as  early 
as  the  fourteenth  century  B.C.  the  Etrus- 
cans (Tourshas)  invaded  Egypt,  occupied  a 
portion  of  it,  and  even  threatened  Memphis, 
but  being  defeated  by  Meneptah  I.  of  the 
Nineteenth  Dynasty,  742  of  them  were 
slain,  and  890  hands  were  cut  off  by  the 
Egyptians.  De  Rouge,  Revue  Arch.  1867, 
pp.  35-45  ;  80-103.  That  Etruria  had 
commercial  relations  with  the  far  East, 
whether  direct  or  indirect  we  cannot  say, 
is  proved  by  the  discovery  in  a  tomb  at 
Vulci  of  a  shell  engraved  with  very  archaic 
winged  figures,  which  shell  has  been  pro- 
nounced by  conchologists  to  be  of  a  species 
found  only  in  the  remote  Indian  seas,  and 
chiefly  in  the  waters  of  Japan.  Bull.  Inst. 
1848,  p.  59.  It  is  evident  that  Etruria 
had  also  an  extensive  commerce  by  land, 
for  bronzes  which  are  recognized  as  Etruscan 
have  been  found  in  many  countries  north  of 
the  Alps.  See  p.  Ixxiii.  n.  3. 

6  The  military  tactics  of  the  Etruscans 
were  celebrated.  Diodor.  V.  p.  316.  They 
fought  in  phalanx,  and  from  them  the 
Romans  derived  this  their  earliest  mili- 
tary arrangement.  Diod.  Sic.  XXIII.  1. 
Exccrp.  Mai  ;  Athen.  VI.  p.  273  ;  cf. 
Liv.  VIII.  8.  Their  large  circular  shields 
were  also  adopted  by  the  Romans.  Diod. 


Ixii  TEACTICAL    SCIENCES    OF    ETEUEIA.     [INTRODUCTION. 

tienl  sciences ; 7  above  all  in  astronomy,  which  was  brought  by 
them  to  such  perfection,  that  they  seem  to  have  arrived  at  a  very 
close  approximation  to  the  true  division  of  time,  and  to  have  fixed 
the  tropical  year  at  precisely  365  days,  5  hours,  40  minutes.8 

If  we  measure  Etruria  by  the  standard  of  her  own  day,  we  must 
ascribe  to  her  a  high  degree  of  civilization — second  only  to  that 
of  Greece.  It  differed  indeed,  as  the  civilization  of  a  country 
under  despotic  rule  will  always  differ  from  that  of  a  free  people. 
It  resided  in  the  mass  rather  than  in  the  individual ;  it  was  the 
result  of  a  set  system,  not  of  personal  energy  and  excellence ;  its 
tendency  was  stationary  rather  than  progressive ;  its  object  was 
to  improve  the  material  condition  of  the  people,  and  to  minister 
to  luxury,  rather  than  to  advance  and  elevate  the  nobler  faculties 
of  human  nature.  In  all  this  it  assimilated  to  the  civilization  of 
the  East,  and  of  the  Aztecs  and  Peruvians.  It  had  not  the  earnest 
germ  of  development,  the  intense  vitality  which  existed  in  Greece ; 
it  could  never  have  produced  a  Plato,  a  Demosthenes,  a  Thucy- 
dides,  or  a  Pericles.  Yet  while  inferior  to  her  illustrious  con- 
temporary in  intellectual  vigour  and  eminence,  Etruria  was  in 
advance  of  her  in  her  social  condition  and  in  certain  respects  in 
physical  civilization,  or  that  state  in  which  the  arts  and  sciences 
are  made  to  minister  to  comfort  and  luxury.  The  health  and 
cleanliness  of  her  towns  were  insured  by  a  system  of  sewerage, 
vestiges  of  which  may  be  seen  on  many  Etruscan  sites ;  and  the 
Cloaca  Maxima  will  be  a  memorial  to  all  time  of  the  attention 
paid  by  the  Etruscans  to  drainage.  Yet  this  is  said  to  have  been 

Sic.  loc.  cit.  Another  account,  which  Nie-  dorus,  V.  p.  316.  Cf.  Plin.  XXIV.  05. 

buhr  (III.  p.  99)  calls  in  question,  ascribes  It  must  have  been  with  the  aid  of  science 

the  origin  of  the  Roman  armour  and  that  they  were  enabled  to  bring  down 

weapons  to  the  Samnites.  Sallust,  Catil.  51.  lightning  from  heaven;  though  the  priests 

The  Romans  probably  borrowed  the  helmet  made  the  people  believe  it  was  by  religious 

from  the  Etruscans,  as  well  as  the  word  rites.  Thus  Porsena  is  said  to  have  brought 

for  it — cassis.  Isid.  Orig.  XVIII.  14.  An  down  thunderbolts  by  invocation.  Plin. 

interesting  specimen  of  an  Etruscan  helmet,  II.  54.  And  though  Numa  is  said  to  have 

with  a  Greek  inscription,  showing  it  to  be  exercised  the  same  power,  which  proved 

of  the  spoils  taken  from  the  Etruscans  by  fatal  to  Tullus  Hostilius,  it  was  probably 

Hiero  of  Syracuse,  is  preserved  in  the  derived  from  Etruria.  Pint.  Numa;  Ovid. 

British  Museum.  Fast.  III.  327 ;  Plin.  loc.  cit.  ;  XXVIII.  4. 

7  Virgil  (Georg.  II.  533)  tells  us  that  "  This  is  Niebuhr's  opinion  (I.  p.  270). 

to  agriculture  Etruria  owed  her  great-  The  ancient  Aztecs  of  Mexico,  and  the 

ness — "  sic  fortis  Etruria  crevit. "  Muyscas  of  South  America,  before  their 

The  skill  of  the  Etruscans  as  physicians  is  intercourse  with  Europe,  had  arrived  at 

celebrated  by  jEschylus,  ap.  Theophrast.  a  still  nearer  approach  to  truth  in  their 

Hist.  Plant.  IX.  15  ;  and  Mart.  Capella,  computation  of  time.  Prescott's  Mexico, 

de  Geomet.  VI.  Their  acquaintance  with  I.  p.  98,  ct  scq.  ;  Conquest  of  Peru,  I.  p. 

the  vegetable  world  is  recorded  by  Dio-  117. 


IXTBODUCTIOX.]     CHARACTER    OF    HER    CIVILIZATIOX. 


Ixiii 


neglected  bv  the  Greeks.9    In  her  internal  communication  Etruria 

O  ••' 

also  shows  her  advance  in  material  civilization.  Few  extant 
remains  of  paved  ways,  it  is  true,  can  be  pronounced  Etruscan, 
but  in  the  neighbourhood  of  most  of  her  cities  are  traces  of  roads 
cut  in  the  rocks,  sometimes  flanked  with  tombs,  or  even  marked 
with  inscriptions,  determining  their  antiquity ;  and  generally 
having  water-channels  or  gutters  to  keep  them  dry  and  clean.1 
The  Etruscans  were  also  skilled  in  controlling  the  injurious 
processes  of  nature.  They  drained  lakes  by  cutting  tunnels 
through  the  heart  of  mountains,  and  they  diverted  the  course  of 
rivers,  to  reclaim  low  and  marshy  ground,  just  as  the  Yal  di 
C'hiana  has  been  rescued  in  our  own  times.2  And  these  grand 
works  are  not  only  still  extant,  but  some  are  even  efficient  as 
ever,  after  the  lapse  of  so  many  centuries. 

That  the  Etruscans  were  eminently  skilled  in  tunnelling, 
excavating,  and  giving  form  and  beauty  to  shapeless  rocks,  and 
for  useful  purposes,  is  a  fact  impressed  on  the  mind  of  every 
one  who  visits  the  land.  Their  tombs  were  all  subterranean, 
and,  with  few  exceptions,  hewn  in  the  rock,  after  the  manner  of 
the  Egyptians  and  other  people  of  the  East.  In  truth,  in  n<> 


'-'  Strabo,  V.  p.  235.  Strabo  says  that 
the  Greeks,  in  founding  their  cities,  con- 
sidered principally  the  strength  and  beauty 
of  site,  the  advantages  of  ports,  and  the 
fertility  of  the  soil ;  whereas  the  Romans 
paid  most  attention  to  what  the  others 
neglected  —  paved  roads,  aqueducts,  and 
common  sewers.  This  distinction  the  Ro- 
mans, in  all  probability,  owe  to  the  Etrus- 
cans. However,  it  is  certain  that  vestiges 
of  conduits  and  sewers  are  extant  in  many 
cities  of  Greece,  though  on  a  scale  inferior, 
it  is  said,  to  those  of  Rome.  Mure,  Tour 
in  Greece,  II.  p.  47.  At  Syracuse  the 
ancient  Greek  aqueduct  which  transverses 
Epipolse  still  supplies  the  modern  town 
with  water.  There  are  remains  of  ancient 
Greek  roads,  both  in  Greece  and  her  colo- 
nies in  Italy,  Sicily,  Africa,  and  Asia  Minor. 

1  The  Romans  are  said  to  have  been  in- 
debted to  the  Carthaginians  for  their  paved 
roads.  Isidor.  Orig.  XV.  16  ;  cf.  Serv.  ad 
^En.  I.  426.  But  from  the  little  intercourse 
the  Romans  maintained  with  that  people  in 
early  times,  it  seems  more  probable  that 
they  derived  this  art  from  the  Etruscans, 
who  were  their  great  preceptors  in  all  works 
of  public  utility.  There  is  no  positive  evi- 
dence of  this  ;  but  it  is  the  opinion  now 


generally  entertained.  Mieali  (Ant.  Pop. 
Ital.  I.  p.  150  ;  II.  p.  307)  indeed  main- 
tains that  there  are  remains  of  Etruscan 
paved  roads  still  extant,  such  as  that  from 
C«re  to  Veii,  and  thence  to  Oapena,  con- 
structed before  the  domination  of  the 
Romans. 

-  Such  is  the  interpretation  put  by  Nie- 
buhr  (I.  p.  132)  on  Plin.  III.  20—  Omnia 
ea  flumina,  fossasque,  primi  a  Sagi  feccre 
Tliusci  :  egesto  arnnis  impetu  per  trans- 
versum  in  Atrianorum  paludes.  Kiebuhr 
declares  the  channels  by  which  the  Po  still 
discharges  itself,  to  be  the  work  of  the 
Etruscans.  And  in  the  territory  of  Perugia, 
and  in  Suburbicarian  Tuscia,  are  traces  of 
many  lakes  drained  by  the  Etruscans,  and 
now  dried  up  ;  "the  tunnels  are  unknown 
and  never  cleared  out,  but  still  work." 
The  Emissary  of  Albano,  which  there  is 
everj-  reason  to  regard  as  an  Etruscan 
work,  is  a  triumphant  memorial  of  their 
skill  in  such  operations.  In  such  under- 
takings the  Etruscans  were  rivalled  Jjy  the 
Greeks  of  Bceotia,  who  in  early,  probably 
heroic  times,  constructed  katabothra  to 
drain  the  lake  Copais,  and  convey  the  super- 
abundant waters  of  the  Cephissus  into  the 
Euripus. 


ixiv  MATERIAL    CIVILIZATION.  [INTRODUCTION 

point  is  the  oriental  character  of  the  Etruscans  more  obviously 
marked  than  in  their  sepulchres ;  and  modern  researches  are 
daily  bringing  to  light  fresh  analogies  to  the  tombs  of  Lycia, 
Phrygia,  Lydia,  or  Egypt. 

In  physical  comfort  and  luxury  the  Etruscans  cannot  have 
been  surpassed  by  any  contemporaiy  nation.  Whoever  visits  the 
Gregorian  Museum  of  the  Vatican,  or  that  of  Signer  Augusto 
Castellani  at  Rome,  will  have  abundant  proofs  of  this.  Much  of 
it  is  doubtless  owing  to  their  extensive  commerce,  which  was  their 
pride  for  ages.  In  their  social  condition  they  were  in  advance  of 
the  Greeks,  particularly  in  one  point,  which  is  an  important  test 
of  civilization.  In  Athens,  woman  trod  not  by  the  side  of  man 
as  his  companion  and  helpmate,  but  followed  as  his  slave ;  the 
treatment  of  the  sex,  even  in  the  days  of  Pericles,  was  what 
would  now  be  called  oriental.  But  in  Etruria,  woman  was 
honoured  and  respected  ;  she  took  her  place  at  the  board  by  her 
husband's  side,  which  she  was  never  permitted  to  do  at  Athens  ; :5 
she  was  educated  and  accomplished,  and  sometimes  even  in- 
structed in  the  mysteries  of  divination  ;  4  her  children  assumed 
her  name  as  well  as  their  father's  ; a  and  her  grave  was  honoured 
with  even  more  splendour  than  that  of  her  lord.  It  is  not  easy 
to  say  to  what  Etruria  owed  this  superiority.  But  whatever  its 
cause,  it  was  a  fact  which  tended  greatly  to  humanize  her,  and, 
through  her,  to  civilize  Italy — a  fact  of  which  Rome  reaped  the 
benefit  by  imitating  her  example. 

AVe  have  now  to  consider  the  arts  of  the  Etruscans,  from  the 
remains  of  which  we  gather  our  chief  knowledge  of  this  people. 
That  which  is  most  peculiarly  their  own,  and  has  partaken  least 
of  foreign  influence,  is  their 

ARCHITECTURE. 

From  history  we  learn  veiy  little  of  this  art  among  them. 
AVe  know  that  they  were  the  chief  architects  of  early  Rome, 
that  the}'  built  the  great  temple  of  Jupiter  011  the  Capitol,  and 
constructed  the  Cloaca  Maxima,6  and  that  Rome,  whenever  she 

3  See  Vol.  I.  p.  309.  .r>65  ;  Fcst.   r.  rrtedia).      Yet  she  was  an 

4  Two  illustrious  examples  of  this  are  industrious  house-wife,  a  great  spinner  of 
Tanaquil,  the  wife  of  Tarquinius  Priscus,  wool    (Plin.    VIII.     74  ;    Fest.    v.    Gaia 
and  the  nymph  Begoe.     See  Vol.  I.  p.  478;  Csecilia),  and  an  excellent  helpmate  to  her 
of.   II.  pp.  163.     Tanaquil  is  also  said  to  husband.     Suidas,  r.  Atwcioy. 

have  been  deeply  versed  in  mathematics  l  See  Vol.  I.  p.  100. 

and  medicine  (Schol.  ad  Juven.   Sat.  VI.  c  Liv.  I.  56. 


INTRODUCTION.]          ETRUSCAN    ARCHITECTURE.  Ixv 

would  raise  any  public  building,  sent  to  Etruria  for  artificers. 
But  of  the  peculiarities  of  Etruscan  architecture  we  know  from 
history  little  more  than  Yitruvius  tells  us  of  the  plan  and  pro- 
portions of  a  temple  in  the  Tuscan  style.6  We  know  too  that 
Etruscan  houses  had  frequently  porticoes,7  and  a  court,  called 
atrium  or  cavcedhnn,  within  them,  so  arranged  that  the  water 
from  the  roof  fell  into  a  tank  in  the  centre — a  plan  adopted  by 
the  Romans.8  Unfortunately,  not  a  vestige  of  an  Etruscan 
temple,  beyond  some  doubtful  foundations,  is  now  extant,  to 
compare  with  Yitruvius'  description ;  9  yet  numerous  models  of 
temples  and  houses  are  to  be  seen  in  Etruscan  tombs,  either 
hewn  from  the  rock,  or  sculptured  on  sepulchral  monuments  ; 
and  there  is  no  lack  of  materials  whence  to  learn  the  propor- 
tions, style,  and  decorations  of  the  former,  and  the  arrange- 
ments, conveniences,  and  furniture  of  the  latter.  In  truth 
Etruria  presents  abundant  food  to  the  inquiring  architect ;  and 
he  who  would  make  the  tour  of  her  ancient  cities  and  ceme- 
teries, might  add  much  to  our  knowledge  of  the  early,  archi- 
tecture of  Italy.  He  would  learn  that  the  architecture  of  the 
Etruscans  bore  sometimes  a  close  affinity  to  that  of  Egypt, 
sometimes  to  that  of  Greece  or  Rome,  but  had  often  remarkable 
native  peculiarities.  He  would  learn,  also,  beyond  what  Yitruvius 
tells  him  of  the  practice  of  the  Etruscans  to  decorate  the  pedi- 
ments of  their  temples  with  figures  of  clay  or  of  bronze  gilt,1 
that  they  must  also  have  been  adorned  internally  with  paintings 
and  reliefs,  and  that  the  whole,  both  within  and  without,  must 
have  glowed  with  colour,  according  to  the  polychrome  system 
set  forth  in  the  tombs  and  sepulchral  monuments. 

6  Yitruv.  IV.  7.  Miiller  (IV.  2,  3)  Greece,  and  Rome  are  yet  extant,  seems 

thinks  Vitruvlus  took  his  rules  of  an  to  be  that  they  were  constructed  principally 

Etruscan  temple  from  that  of  Ceres  in  of  wood,  which  may  be  learnt  from  Vitru- 

the  Circus  Maximus,  dedicated  in  the  year  vius  (IV.  7),  who  represents  the  epistylia, 

of  Rome  261.  It  is  still  disputed  whether  as  of  wood,  and  the  intercolumniations  on 

the  so-called  Tuscan  order  is  an  invention  that  account  much  wider  than  in  temples 

of  the  Etruscans,  or  a  mere  variety  of  the  of  the  Greek  orders.  Something  may  also 

Doric.  For  notices  of  the  Etruscan  temple,  be  learned  from  the  analogy  of  the  tombs, 

see  Miiller,  Etrusk.  III.  6  ;  IV.  2,  3 — 5  ;  whose  ceilings  are  generally  cut  into  the 

Inghirami,  Mon.  Etrus.  IV.  pp.  1 — 51  ;  form  of  beams  and  rafters,  or  into  coffers 

Abeken,  Mittelitalien,  pp.  202  —  233.  — lacunaria — as  in  the  Pantheon.  Canina 

Canina,  Etruria  Marittima,  II.,  p.  153  (Et.  Mar.  II.  p.  152)  accounts  for  this  use 

— 162.  of  wood  in  Etruscan  temples  by  the  want  of 

"  Diodor.  Sic.  V.  p.  316.  stone  of  sufficient  strength  to  form  epistylia  ; 

8  Yitruv.  VI.  3  ;  Yarro,  L.  L.  V.  161  ;  but  this  objection  is  applicable  only  to  the 
Festus,  v.  Atrium  ;  Serv.  ad  .ZEn.  I.  730.  tufo  in  the  southern  part  of  the  land,  and 

9  The  reason  why  no  Etruscan  temples  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Chiusi. 
are   standing,    while   so   many   of    Egypt,  '  Yitruv.  III.  3. 

VOL.   I.  e 


Ixvi  CITY    WALLS    AND    GATES.  [INTRODUCTION. 

The  remains  of  Etruscan  architecture  yet  extant  are  found 
in  the  walls  and  gates  of  cities,  in  sewers,  bridges,  vaults,  and 
tombs. 

Nothing  gives  a  more  exalted  idea  of  the  power  and  grandeur 
of  this  ancient  people  than  the  walls  of  their  cities.2  These 
enormous  piles  of  masonry,  uncemented,  yet  so  solid  as  to  have 
withstood  for  three  thousand  years  the  destroying  hand  of  man, 
the  tempests,  the  earthquakes,  the  invisible  yet  more  destructive 
power  of  atmospheric  action,  seem  destined  to  endure  to  the  end 
of  time  ;  yet  often  show  a  beauty,  a  perfection  of  workmanship, 
that  has  never  been  surpassed.  The  style  of  masonry  differs  in 
the  two  great  divisions  of  the  land,  and  is  determined  in  part 
by  the  nature  of  the  local  materials.  In  the  northern  district, 
where  the  rock  is  difficult  to  be  hewn,  being  limestone,  hard 
sandstone,  or  travertine,  the  walls  are  composed  of  huge  blocks, 
rectangular  in  general,  but  of  various  sixes,  and  irregular 
arrangement,  according  as  the  masses  of  rock  were  hewn  or 
split  from  the  quarry ;  and  in  some  instances  small  pieces  are 
inserted  in  the  interstices  of  the  larger  blocks.  There  are  also  a 
few  instances  of  the  irregular,  polygonal  style,  as  in  the  so-called 
O}Tclopean  cities  of  Latium  and  Sabina.  In  the  southern  district 
the  masonry  is  less  massive  and  very  regular,  being  isodomon, 
composed  of  parallelepiped  blocks  of  tufo  or  other  volcanic  rock, 
which  admits  of  being  easily  worked.3 

In  the  earliest  fortifications   the   gates   were   square-headed, 

-  There   was    a   tradition,    recorded   by  intended  city,  while  his  followers  turned 

Dionysius   (I.    c.    30),   that   the   Tyrrheni  all   the   clods   inward   to  the   city.      The 

were  the  first  who  raised  fortresses  in  Italy,  ridge  thus  raised  marked  the  line  of  the 

and  that  thence  they  received  their  name.  future  walls,  and  the  furrow  that  of  the 

•Cf.  Tzetz.  in  Lycoph.  717.  fosse.     Wherever  the  site  of  a  gate  was 

3  The  masonry  most  common  in  this  reached,  the  plough  was  lifted  from  the 
ilistrict  is  that  to  which  I  have  applied  the  earth,  and  carried  over  the  proposed  road- 
name  emplecton,  described  Vol.  I.  pp.  65,  way ;  for  the  walls  were  deemed  to  be 
80.  In  measurement  the  blocks  of  this  consecrated  by  the  ceremony  of  ploughing, 
masonry  generally  correspond  with  the  and  had  not  the  gateways  been  omitted, 
.ancient  Roman  foot  and  modern  Tuscan  there  could  have  been  no  entrances  into 
brace io.  See  Vol.  I.,  p.  t)<5  ;  II.  p.  339.  the  city.  On  either  side  of  the  walls  a 

The    peculiar     ceremonies    which     the  space  called  the  ponueriu.m  was  also  marked 

Romans  observed  in  founding  their  cities,  out,  which  was  ever  after  sacred  from  the 

and  which  were  observed  in  the  case  of  plough,  and  from  habitation.     Virgil  (.iEn. 

Rome  itself,  they  received  from  the  Etrus-  V.  755  ;  Serv.  in  loc.)  represents  -Eneas  as 

cans,  with  whom  this  was  a  very  sacred  founding  a  city  according  to  the  same  rite. 

rite.     A   day  was   chosen   that   was  pro-  For  authorities,  see  Vol.  II.  p.  228,  n.  9  : 

nounced   auspicious   by  the  augurs.     The  to  which  add,  Dio  Cass.  Excerp.  Mai,  II. 

founder,  having  yoked  a  bull  and  cow  to  a  p.  527  ;  Serv.  ad  JEn.  V.  755  ;  Isid.  Orig. 

brazen  plough,  the  bull  outside,  the  cow  XV.  2. 
within,  ploughed  a  deep  furrow  round  the 


INTRODUCTION.]  PEACTICE    OF    THE   ARCH.  Ixvii 

spanned  by  lintels  of  stone  or  wood,  and  the  arch,  when  found 
in  connection  with  such  masonry,  must  be  considered  of  sub- 
sequent construction.  But  in  walls  of  later  date  the  gates  were 
arched  on  the  perfect  cuneiform  s}"stem,  the  massive  voussoirs 
holding  together  without  cement.  Indeed  there  is  abundant 
evidence  in  the  architectural  remains  of  Etruria  that  the  perfect 
arch  Avas  known  and  practised  in  that  land  at  a  very  early  period ; 
and  that  the  Romans,  who  have  long  enjoyed  the  credit  of  its 
invention,  derived  it  from  the  Etruscans,  is  now  set  beyond  a 
doubt. 

That  the  world  is  indebted  to  Etruria  for  the  discovery  of  the 
principle  of  the  arch,  would  be  difficult  of  proof.  The  existence 
of  arches  among  the  tombs  of  Thebes  and  in  the  pyramids  of 
Nubia  on  the  one  hand,4  and  in  a  bridge  in  Laconia  and  a  gate- 
wa}r  in  Acarnania  on  the  other,'  raises  two  rivals  to  contest  the 
honour  of  originality  with  Etruria ;  and  a  third  may  perhaps  be 
found  in  Ass}rria,  if  Mr.  Layard's  views  of  the  date  of  the  monu- 
ments at  Nimroud  be  correct.  But  whichever  of  these  leading 
nations  of  antiquity  may  have  discovered  the  principle,  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  it  was  the  Etruscans  who  first  practised  it  in 
Italy ;  and,  considering  the  inventive  turn  of  this  people  and 
their  acknowledged  skill  in  architecture,  it  is  probable  that  the 
principle  of  cuneiform  sustentation  was  worked  out  by  them, 
whether  prior  or  subsequently  to  its  discovery  in  Egypt,  Greece, 

4  Sir   G.    Wilkinson    (Mod.   Egypt.    II.  Ancient  Egypt,  p.  234.     His  testimony  is 

pp.    189,    218)    speaks    of    some    tombs  confirmed    by  other   architects    who   have 

vaulted  with  sun-dried  bricks,  which  are  assured  me,  from  personal  inspection,  that 

"  proved  "  by  the  hieroglyphic  inscriptions  these  very  ancient    arches    are  apparent 

they  bear,  to  be  as  old  as  1540  years  B.  c.  merely,  not  real.  There  is  as  yet  no  evidence 

For  two  tombs  with  stone  arches,   one  at  to  prove  the  arch  much  earlier  than  six  ceu- 

the    foot   of   the   Pyramids,  the    other   at  times  before  Christ. 

Sakkara,  he  does  not  claim  an  antiquity  6  The    bridge    referred    to    is    that   of 

higher  than  600  years  before  our  era  (op.  Xerokampo,     in     the     neighbourhood     of 

cit.   I.  pp.  357,   368),   or  a  period  about  Sparta,  discovered  by  Dr.  lloss  of  Athens, 

coeval  with  the  Cloaca  Maxima.     This,  I  It  is  on  the  true  arch-principle,  and  sur- 

believe,   is  also  the  antiquity  claimed  by  rounded  by  polygonal  masonry  (Ann.  lust. 

Mr.  Layard  for  the  Assyrian  arches  he  has  1838,  p.  140  ;  Mon.  Inst.  II.  tav.  57)  ;  but 

discovered.     Mr.    Wathen,    a   professional  it  has  been  pronounced  to  be  of  late  date 

authority,  who  speaks  from  careful  exam-  and  Roman  construction.    The  gateway  is  a 

ination,  while  admitting  that  the  tomb  at  postern  in  the  city  of  ffiniadrc,  whose  walls 

the  foot  of  the  Pyramids  presents  an  in-  are  also    of   polygonal   masonry.     Indeed, 

stance  of  a  perfect  arch,  declares  that  in  this  city  is  remarkable  for  exhibiting  in  its 

that  of  Sakkara,  and  in  the  earlier  tombs  several  gates   the   progress   from  the  flat 

referred  to    by   Wilkinson,    the    supposed  lintel  to  the  perfect  arch.     See  Vol.  II.  p. 

vaulting  is  a  mere  lining  to  the  roof  of  the  250,  n.   2.     There    are   also  some  perfect 

tomb,  hollowed  in  a  friable  rock,  and  does  arches  in  the  polygonal  walls  of  (Enoanda, 

not  hold  together  on  the  wedge-principle.  in  the  Cibyratis,  in  Asia  Minor. 

c  2 


Ixviii 


THE    SEPULCHRES    OF    ETRURIA.        [INTRODUCTION. 


or  Assyria  it  is  impossible  to  determine.6  As  in  those  countries, 
there  are  here  also  extant  instances  of  pseudo-vaults,  prior  to  the 
invention  of  the  arch,  formed  by  the  gradual  convergence  of 
blocks  laid  in  horizontal  courses.  These  structures  must  be  of 
very  remote  date,  probably  before  the  foundation  of  Rome.7 


TOMBS. 

Archaeology  has  been  called  "the  science  of  sepulchres." 
Those  of  Etruria  are  verily  the  fount  whence  we  draw  our  chief 
knowledge  of  the  civilization  and  arts  of  this  wonderful  people. 
So  much  will  be  said  on  this  subject  in  the  course  of  this  work, 
that  it  is  not  necessary  here  to  say  much  of  the  Sepulchres  of  the 
Etruscans.  But  it  may  be  well  to  point  out  a  few  of  their 
characteristics.  A  leading  feature  is,  that  they  are  always  subter- 
ranean, being  frequently  hollowed  in  the  living  rock,  either  be- 
neath the  surface  of  the  ground,  or  in  the  face  of  a  cliff,  or  at  the 
foot  of  a  cliff,  which  was  shaped  by  the  chisel  into  a  monument, 
and  inscribed  with  an  epitaph.8  Where  the  rock  would  not 


6  The  earliest  arched  structure  men- 
tioned in  history,  and  now  evtant,  is  the 
Cloaca  Maxima  constructed  by  Tarquinius 
Priscus  (Liv.  I.  38  ;  Plin.  XXXVI.  24)— 
unless  the  vault  of  the  upper  prison  of  the 
Mamertine  be  really  that  ascribed  by  Livy 
(I.  33)  to  Ancus  Martins,  which  is  very 
doubtful  — and  it  dates  from  the  middle  of 
the  second  century  of  Rome,  or  about  six 
hundred  years  before  Christ.  How  much 
earlier  the  principle  of  the  arch  may  have 
been  discovered,  it  is  impossible  to  say  ; 
but  the  perfection  of  the  Cloaca  Maxima 
might  lead  us  to  suppose  a  long  previous 
acquaintance  with  this  mode  of  construction. 
Canina  (Cere  Antica,  p.  66)  refers  the  first 
use  of  the  true  arch  in  Italy  to  the  reign  of 
Tarquinius  Priscus  (616 — 578,  B.C.),  to 
which  conclusion  he  arrives  from  a  com- 
parison of  the  Cloaca  with  the  Tullianum  ; 
and  he  thinks  that  Tarquin  must  have 
brought  the  knowledge  of  it  from  Tarquinii, 
and  that  it  was  introduced  there  from 
Corinth  by  his  father  Demaratus ;  but  for 
this  there  is  no  authority  in  ancient  writers. 

~'  The  most  remarkable  instances  of 
pseudo-vaults  in  Etruria  are  the  Regulini- 
Galassi  tomb  at  Cervetri,  the  Grotta  Ser- 
gardi  near  Cortona,  and  the  sepulchres  lately 
opened  by  Signer  Mancini  beneath  Orvieto. 


A  tomb  of  similar  construction  has  been 
found  at  Cum  a?. 

8  The  only  tomb  of  purely  Roman  times 
that  I  remember  to  resemble  the  Etruscan 
is  that  of  the  Nasones,  on  the  Via  Flaminia, 
a  few  miles  from  Rome.  Early  tombs  of 
Etruscan  character,  however,  are  found  in 
Latium,  Sabina,  and  other  parts  of  Central 
Italy,  and  notably  at  Ardea  of  the  Rutuli. 
Noel  des  Vergers,  Etrurie,  I.  pp.  1 85-8.  So 
occasionally  also  on  Greek  sites.  But  of 
all  the  ancient  sepulchres  I  have  seen  out 
of  Italy,  those  of  Cyrene  bear  the  closest 
resemblance  to  the  Etruscan,  making  allow- 
ance for  the  difference  in  the  style  of  art. 
In  that  most  remarkable  and  abounding 
Greek  necropolis  are  streets  of  tombs 
carved  in  the  cliffs,  resembling  temples  or 
houses,  with  archaic  Doric  or  Ionic 
fagades,  and  bearing  Greek  inscriptions, 
or  else  built  up  in  the  form  of  small 
temples  on  the  surface  of  the  plain.  The 
city,  for  ages  desolate,  is  surrounded  by 
the  homes  of  the  dead,  which  have  long 
survived  the  habitations  of  the  living.  It 
has  always  struck  me  with  surprise  that 
at  Cyrene,  next  door  as  it  were  to  Egypt, 
there  should  be  little  or  nothing  of  Egyptian 
art  in  the  sculptured  architecture  of  the 
tombs,  while  that  style  is  a  prominent 


INTRODUCTION.]   CHARACTERISTICS  OF  ETRUSCAN  TOMBS.       Ixix 


readily  admit  of  such  excavation,  or  where  the  soil  was  loose  and 
friable,  the  tomb  was  sometimes  a  mere  pit,  or  was  constructed 
with  masonry  more  or  less  rude,  and  heaped  over  with  earth  into 
the  form  of  a  tumulus.  There  is  nothing  in  all  Etruria  like  some 
Greek  and  most  Roman  sepulchres,  built  up  above  the  surface  of 
the  ground ;  unless,  indeed,  the  tombs  disinterred  by  Signer 
Mancini  beneath  Orvieto  were  originally  left  uncovered  with 
earth.  The  object  of  the  Etruscans  seems  generally  to  have  been 
to  conceal  their  tombs  rather  than  to  display  them,  in  which 
they  differed  from  the  Romans. 9 

Another  characteristic  of  Etruscan  tombs,  which  distinguishes 
them  from  the  Roman,  and  allies  them  intimately  with  those  of 
Egypt  and  Asia  Minor,  is  that 
they  frequently  show  an  imi- 
tation, more  or  less  obvious, 
of  the  abodes  of  the  living. 
Some  display  this  analogy  in 
their  exterior  ;  others  in  their 
interior ;  a  few  in  both.    Some 
have    more    resemblance     to 
temples,     and    may    be     the 
sepulchres  of  augurs  or  arus- 
pices,  or  of  families  in  which 
the  sacerdotal  office  was  here- 
ditary.    Yet  it  must  be  con- 
fessed that  the  analogy  sug- 
gested by  the  external  monu- 
ment is  often  belied  by  the  sepulchre  it  covers  or  contains,  as  is 
the  case  Avith  the  tumuli  of  Corneto  and  Cervetri,  which,  exter- 
nally at  least,  resemble  the  huts  of  the  ancient  Phrygians,1  yet 


Hl'T-VHN    FROM    ALBA    LOXCA. 


characteristic  of  the  rock-hewn  monuments 
of  Norchia,  Castel  d'Asso,  and  Sovana. 

y  Yet  they  often  placed  stelce  or  cippi  over 
their  underground  sepulchres,  in  the  shape 
of  columns,  cubes,  pine-cones,  slabs,  lions, 
or  sphinxes.  The  strong  resemblance  the 
sepulchral  slabs,  with  reliefs  of  men  and 
animals,  found  at  La  Certosa,  near  Bologna, 
tear  to  those  which  marked  the  sites  of 
the  royal  tombs  at  Mycenae  (see  the  wood- 
cuts at  pp.  52,  81,  86,  93,  of  Schliemann's 
Mycenre),  is  worthy  of  notice. 

Etruscan  tombs,  like  the  Greek  and 
Roman,  are  occasionally  found  by  the  way- 


side, real  monuments — monimenta — warn- 
ings and  admonitions  to  the  living.  Varro, 
Ling.  Lat.  VI.  45. 

1  Yitruv.  II.  1,5.  I  have  pointed  out 
this  analogy  at  p.  278  of  this  volume,  yet 
I  doubt  if  it  be  more  than  accidental,  for 
the  tumulus  is  a  natural  form  of  sepulchre, 
which  would  suggest  itself  to  any  people  in 
any  part  of  the  world  in  an  early  stage  of 
culture,  from  the  facility  of  its  construction. 
In  a  rude  state  of  society,  the  body  would 
he  laid  on  the  ground,  or  within  it,  and 
earth  would  be  piled  over  it,  both  to  pro- 
tect it  from  wild  beasts,  and  to  mark  the 


Ixx      TOMBS  FREQUENTLY  IMITATIONS  OF  HOUSES.     [INTEOD. 

cover  tombs  generally  of  quadrangular  form.  The  idea  of  repre- 
senting the  abodes  of  the  living  in  the  receptacles  for  the  dead, 
which  is  quite  oriental,  was  not,  however,  confined  to  the  Etrus- 
cans among  the  early  people  of  Italy,  as  is  proved  by  the  singular 
cinerary  urns  found  in  the  necropolis  of  Alba  Longa,  which  are 
obvious  imitations  of  rude  huta  formed  of  boughs  and  covered 
with  skins,2  as  shown  in  the  woodcut  on  the  preceding  page. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  paintings  on  the  walls  of 
Etruscan  tombs  show  the  style,  though  perhaps  not  the  exact  sub- 
jects, of  the  internal  decorations  of  their  houses.  The  ceilings  are 
often  carved  to  imitate  beams  and  rafters,  or  adorned  with  coffers, 
and  the  walls  with  panelling — couches  and  stools  surround  the 
chambers — weapons  and  other  furniture  are  suspended  from  the 
walls — and  easy  arm-chairs,  with  foot-stools  attached,  all  hewn 
from  the  living  rock,  are  found  in  the  subterranean  houses  of 
these  Etruscan  "  cities  of  the  dead."  The  analogy  to  houses  in 
such  instances  has  been  truly  said  to  hold  in  everything  but  the 
light  of  day.  In  this  respect,  Etruscan  tombs  have  a  peculiar 
interest  and  value,  as  illustrative  of  the  plan,  arrangements,  and 
decorations,  external  and  internal,  of  Etruscan  houses  :  of  which, 
as  time  has  left  us  no  trace,  and  history  no  definite  description, 
we  must  gather  what  information  we  may  from  analogical  sources. 
In  the  temples  and  houses  of  Etruria,  be  it  remembered,  we  view 
those  of  early  Rome,  ere  she  had  sat  at  the  feet  of  her  more 
accomplished  preceptor,  Greece. 

PLASTIC  ARTS. 

Of  the  plastic  and  pictorial  arts  of  the  Etruscans  it  is  not 
easy  to  treat,  both  on  account  of  the  vast  extent  of  the  subject, 
and  because  it  demands  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  ancient 
art  in  general,  such  as  can  be  acquired  only  by  years  of  study 
and  experience,  and  by  the  careful  comparison  of  numerous 

site  of  its  interment,  and  the  more  illns-  they  were   covered.     For  no   tumulus  in 

trious  the  dead,  the  loftier,  safer,  and  more  Etruria  has  yet   been  found  to  contain  a 

conspicuous  would  be  the  tnouml.     I  cer-  conical  or  bell-shaped  chamber,  correspond- 

tainly  cannot  accept  Mr.   Taylor's  theory  ing  with  its  external  form  ;  and  the  Kpqirts 

("  Etruscan  Researches, "  p.  42)  that  these  or  podium  of  masonry,  with  which  many, 

sepulchral  mounds  are  intentional  imita-  if  not  all,  of  these  mounds  were  originally 

lions  of  tents,  and  that  the  masonry  en-  girt,  was  absolutely  necessary  to   sustain 

circling  their  base  was  in  itself  useless,  and  the  superincumbent  earth,  and  to  give  the 

therefore  evidently  a  mere  survival  of  the  structure  a  permanent  form, 
custom  of  surrounding   tents  with  heavy  2  See  Vol.  II.  p.  457. 

stones  to  keep  down  the  skins  with  which 


INTRODUCTION.]        THE    PLASTIC    ARTS    OF    ETBUBIA.  Ixxi 

works  of  various  ages  and  countries.  It  lias  been  laid  down  as 
an  axiom,  that  "  He  who  lias  seen  one  work  of  ancient  art  lias 
seen  none,  he  who  has  seen  a  thousand  has  seen  but  one."3  I 
feel,  therefore,  reluctant  to  enter  on  a  ground  to  Avhich  I 
cannot  pretend  to  do  justice,  especially  in  the  narrow  limits  to 
which  I  am  confined.  Yet  it  is  incumbent  on  me  to  give  the 
reader  a  general  view  of  the  subject,  to  enable  him  to  under- 
stand the  facts  and  observations  he  will  meet  with  in  the  course 
of  these  volumes. 

As  the  fine  arts  of  a  country  always  bear  the  reflex  of  its 
political  and  social  condition,  so  the  hierarchical  government  of 
Etruria  here  finds  its  most  palpable  expression.  In  the  most 
ancient  works  of  sculpture  the  influence  of  the  national  religion 
is  most  apparent ;  deities  or  religious  symbols  seem  the  only 
subjects  represented,  so  that  some  have  been  led  to  the  con- 
clusion that  both  the  practice  and  theory  of  design  were 
originally  in  the  hands  of  the  priests  alone.4  These  early 
Etruscan  Avorks  have  many  points  in  common  with  those  of 
the  infancy  of  art  in  other  lands,  just  as  babes  are  very  similar 
all  the  world  over :  yet,  besides  the  usual  shapelessness  and 
want  of  expression,  they  have  native  peculiarities,  such  as  dis- 
proportionate length  of  body  and  limbs,  an  unnatural  elongation 
of  hands  and  feet,  drapery  adhering  to  the  bocty,  and  great 
rigidity,  very  like  the  Egyptian,  yet  with  less  parallelism.  In 
truth,  the  earliest  works  of  Etruria  betray  the  great  influence  of 
Egypt ;  5  and  that  of  Assyria  is  also  often  manifest  in  early 
Etruscan,  as  in  early  Greek  art,  especially  in  the  decorations. 
By  degrees,  however,  probably  from  the  natural  progress  common 
to  all  civilized  countries,  Etruscan  art  stepped  out  of  the  con- 
ventionalities which  confined  it,  and  assumed  a  more  energetic 
character,  more  like  the  Greek  than  the  Egyptian,  yet  still  rigid, 
hard,  and  dry,  rather  akin  to  the  JKginetic  than  the  Athenian 
school,  displaying  more  force  than  beauty,  more  vigour  than 
grace,  better  intention  than  ability  of  execution,  an  exaggerated, 
rather  than  a  truthful  representation  of  nature.  It  was  onl}r 
when  the  triumph  of  Greek  art  was  complete,  and  the  world 

3  Gerhard,  Ann.  Inst.  1831,  p.  111.  some  maintained  that  this  rigid  and  recti- 

4  Micali,  Ant.  Pop.  Ital.  II.  p.  222.  linear  Etruscan  style  was  not  necessarily 

5  Strabo,  who  was  personally  acquainted  imported  from  the  Nile  ;  for  it  is  a  style 
with  the  antiquities  of  the  respective  lands,  which  nature  in  the  infancy  of  art  taught 
remarks     the    resemblance    between    the  alike  to  the  Egyptians,  Greeks,  and  Etrus- 
sculptured  works  of  Egypt,   Etruria,  and  cans,  as  it  was  not  so  much  art,  as  the 
early  Greece.     XVII.   p.    806.     It   is   by  want  of  art. 


Ixxii  FOUR    STYLES    OF    ETRUSCAN    ART.       [INTRODUCTION. 

acknowledged  the  transcendency  of  Hellenic  genius,  that  Etruria 
became  its  humble  disciple,  and  imitated,  often  with  much 
success,  the  grand  works  of  the  Greek  chisel  and  pencil.  A 
distinctive  national  character  is,  however,  generally  preserved, 
for  the  tendency  to  realism,  as  opposed  to  Greek  ideality,  betrays 
itself  even  in  the  best  works  of  Etruscan  art.0  The  four  styles 
into  which  Etruscan  art  may  be  divided  are — 1st,  The  Asiatic, 
which  has  Babylonian  as  well  as  Egyptian  affinities ;  2nd,  The 
Etruscan,  or  Tyrrhene,  as  it  is  sometimes  called ;  3rd,  The 
Hellenic,  or  Greece-Etruscan ;  4th,  That  of  the  Decadence, 
which  more  resembles  the  Roman.  The  peculiarities  of  style, 
indeed,  which  distinguish  Roman  art  from  Greek,  appear  in 
great  measure  to  have  t>een  borrowed  from  Etruria. 

This  classification  pertains  to  all  the  imitative  arts  of  the 
Etruscans.  Though  we  may  not  agree  with  those  who  affirm 
that  Etruscan  art  was  but  a  variety  of  Greek,  we  may  admit 
that  in  their  infancy,  while  contemporaneous,  they  bore  a  con- 
siderable resemblance.  Greek  art,  as  well  as  Etruscan,  was 
born  on  the  shores  of  Asia  Minor;  both  received  strong  im- 
pressions from  Egypt  and  Assyria ;  but  as  they  progressed  they 
began  to  diverge,  and  this  period  of  divergence  is  marked  by 
the  distinctive  national  style  of  Etruria.  Subsequently  they 
again  approached,  but  it  was  no  loiter  as  equals.  Etruria, 
confessing  her  inferiority,  became  the  docile,  earnest  pupil  of 
Greece,  and  was  indebted  to  that  influence  for  all  that  was  most 
excellent  and  refined  in  her  art-productions.  She  wanted,  how- 
ever, the  genius,  the  inspiration  of  her  master.  She  imitated 
his  form,  his  manner,  style,  and  general  character,  but  failed  to 
catch  his  spirit.  The  Etruscan  artist  carefull}"  studied  details, 
and  strove  to  copy  nature  with  fidelit}7,  but  failed  to  perceive 
that  the  distinguishing  excellence  of  a  Greek  work  of  art  lay 
in  the  harmony  of  all  its  pails,  which  rendered  them  all  sub- 
servient to  the  expression  of  one  leading  idea ;  and  that  mere 
skill  in  working  out  details  would  not  compensate  for  the 
absence  of  the  spirit  of  unit\r  and  harmony  pervading  the  whole. 

6  The  specimens  of   Etmscan   art   that  indeed  these  be  not  Etruscan,  either  impor- 

have  come  down  to  us  confirm  the  assertion  ted,    or   executed    when   the  land   of  the 

of  Quintilian  (XII.   10),  that  the  statues  Volsci  was   subject   to   Etruria.     Witness 

of  Etruria  differed  from  those  of  Greece  in  the  singular  painted  reliefs  in  terra-cotta, 

kind,  just  as  the  eloquence  of  an  Asiatic  found  at  Velletri  in  1784,  and  now  in  the 

differed  from  that  of  an  Athenian.     Very  Museum  of  Naples,  illustrated    by  Inghi- 

similar  in  style  to  those  of  Etruria  are  the  rami,  Mon.  Etrus.  VI.  tav.  T  4 — -X  4  ;  cf. 

early  plastic  works  of  Latinm  and  the  few  Micali,  Ant.  Pop.  Ital.  tav.  LXI. 
remains  of  Volscian  art  preserved  to  us,  if 


INTRODUCTION.]  WOEKS  IN  TEEEA-COTTA  AND  BEONZE.        Ixxiii 


Like  the  craftsman  described  by  Horace,  the  Etruscan  could 
express  with  accuracy  the  nails,  or  imitate  the  flowing  hair  of 
his  model,  but  he  was  an  inferior  artist  after  all — 

Infelix  operis  summa,  quia  ponere  totum 
Nesciet. 

Of  the  imitative  arts  of  Etruria  the  working  in  cla}r  was  the 
most  ancient,7  as  modelling  naturally  precedes  casting,  chiselling, 
or  painting.  For  their  works  in  terra-cotta  the  Etruscans  were 
renowned  in  ancient  times,8  and  early  Rome  contained  numerous 
specimens  of  them.9  The  Veientes  in  particular  were  famed  for 
their  works  in  clay. 

Then  followed  the  arts  of  casting  and  chiselling  in  bronze,  for 
which  the  Etruscans  were  greatly  renowned ; l  and  their  statues 
in  metal  not  only  filled  their  own  cities,  and  the  temples  of  Rome,2 
but  were  also  exported  to  other  lands.3  In  truth  the  Etruscans 
have  the  renown  of  being  the  inventors  of  this  art  in  Italy.4  In- 
numerable are  the  specimens  of  Etruscan  toreutic  statuary  that 
have  come  down  to  us,  and  widely  different  are  the  degrees  of 
excellence  displayed,  from  the  rudest,  most  uncouth  attempts  at 


7  Plin.  XXXIV.  16  :  XXXV.  45. 

8  Pneterea  elaboratam  hanc  arteni  Italias, 
et   maxime   Etrurise.      Varro,    ap.      Plin. 
XXXV.  45.     The  most  ancient  specimens 
of  Etruscan  glyptic  art  yet  disinterred  are. 
pronounced  by  Dr.  Helbig  to  be  three  female 
figures  in  terra-cotta,  draped  in  chiton  and 
peplos,  which  were  discovered  a  few  years 
since  in   a  tomb  at  Cervetri,  sitting  on  a 
chair  hewn  from  the  rock.       Bull.   Inst. 
1866,  p.  177. 

a  The  most  celebrated  were  the  fictile 
statue  of  the  god  in  the  temple  of  Jupiter 
Capitolinus,  executed  by  Turianus  of 
Fregense,  the  quadriga  on  the  fastigium 
of  that  temple,  and  the  fictile  statue  of 
Hercules  on  the  Capitol,  all  by  the  same 
artist  (Plin.  XXXV.  45  ;  Vitruv.  III.  3) ; 
though  the  quadriga  is  said  to  have  been 
executed  at  Veil  (see  vol.  I.,  p.  40). 
There  was  also  a  terra-cotta  statue  of 
Summanus  on  the  fastigium  of  the  same 
temple,  which  was  struck  down  by  light- 
ning. Cic.  de  Divin.  I.  10. 

1  Athenaeus  (XV.  c.  60)  speaking  of  the 
skill  of  the  Etruscans  in  making  lamps,  calls 
them  (piXoTfx^oi,  and  mentions  their  mani- 
fold art-productions  —  iruiKl\at  ipyeurtai. 
They  obtained  copper  from  their  own  mines 


of  Montieri — Moiis  JSris — near  Massa  ; 
tin  also  from  mines  near  Campiglia ;  and 
worked  in  bronze  earlier  than  in  iron, 
which  as  Lucretius  (V.  1286)  tells  us,  was 
a  later  discovery. 

Et  prior  seris  erat,   quaiu  ferri,   cognitus 
usus. 

They  had  also  an  abundance  of  iron  in  the 
mines  of  Elba. 

2  Volsinii   alone    is    said    to   have    con- 
tained 2000  statues.     Plin.  XXXIV.   16. 
Tuscanica  omnia  in   sedibus.     Varro,   ap. 
Plin.    XXXV.    45.     Tertullian   (Apologet. 
25)  says  they  inundated  the  City.     Etrus- 
can bronze  statues    gilt  also  adorned  the 
fastiyia  of  the  temples  at  Rome.      Vitruv. 
III.  3,  5. 

3  Plin.    XXXIV.    16.     Antiquaries    are 
now  generally  agreed  that  all  the  ancient 
bronzes  found  in  various   lands  north  of 
the  Alps,  from   Switzerland  to  Denmark, 
and  from   Ireland  to  Hungary  and  Walla- 
chia,  are  of  Etruscan  origin.    Lindenschmit, 
Desor,    Schuermans,     Virchow,     Worsaae, 
Gentlie,  cited  by  (jozzadini,  Mors  de  Clieval 
Italiques,  p.  40. 

4  Cassiodor.  Var.  VII.  15.     Clem.  Alex. 
Strom.  I.  p.  306. 


Ixxiv  THE    TOEEUTIC    AET    IN  ETEUEIA.       [INTRODUCTION. 

representing  the  human  form,  to  the  glorification  of  its  beauties, 
wrought  with  much  of,  if  not  all 

' '  The  cunning  they  who  dwell  on  high 
Have  given  unto  the  Greek." 

In  size  they  varied  no  less  :  from  the  minute  figures  of  deities, 
or  lares,''  to  statues  of  colossal  dimensions,  like  that  of  the 
Apollo  on  the  Palatine,  which  was  fifty  feet  in  height,  and  was 
as  wonderful  for  its  beauty  as  for  its  mass  of  metal.0  One  of  the 
most  interesting  monuments  of  this  art  extant  is  the  she-wolf  of 
the  Capitol,  which  has  a  historical  renown.7 

Not  only  in  the  representation  of  life,  but  in  instruments  for 
domestic  and  warlike  purposes,  did  the  Etruscan  metal-workers 
excel.8  Even  in  the  time  of  Pericles,  the  Athenian  poet  Phere- 
crates  sang  of  the  Etruscan  candelabra  ;9  "  and  what  testimony," 
asks  Miiller,  "  can  be  more  honourable  for  Etruscan  art  than 
the  words  of  the  cultivated  Athenian,  Kritias,  the  son  of 
Kallreschros,  a  contemporary  of  Mys,  who  reckons  as  the  best 
of  their  sort  the  Etruscan  gold-wrought  cups,  and  bronzes  of 
every  sort  for  the  decoration  and  service  of  houses ; l  by  which 
we  must  understand  candelabra,  kratcrcs,  goblets,  and  even 
weapons  ?  "  Even  Pheidias  himself  gave  to  his  celebrated 

5  These  are  the  "Tyrrhena  sigilla"   of  priating  to  himself  (Plutarch,  Camil.  12), 

Horace,   Ep.   II.    2,    180 ;   though   Micali  were    probably    adorned     with      reliefs. 

(Ant.   Pop.    Ital.    II.   p.   243)  thinks   the  Miiller,  Etrusk.  IV.  3,  4.  Even  as  late  as  205r 

term  refers  to   gems  and   scarabei.     The  B.C.,  under  the  Roman  domination,  Arre- 

"Tuscanica  signa  "  of  Pliny  (XXXI V.  16),  tium,  which  seems  to  have  been  the  Bir- 

which  were  exported  to  many  lands,  were  mingham  of  Etruria,  furnished  the   fleet 

probably  figures  of  larger  size.  which  Scipio  was  fitting  out  for  the  invasion 

fi  Plin.  XXXIY.  18.  of  Africa,  with   30,000  shields,  as  many 

"  There  is  no  doubt  that  it  is  either  the  helmets,  and   50,000  javelins,  pikes,  and 

figure  mentioned  by  Dionysius  (I.  c.  79)  as  spears,  besides  axes,  falchions,  and  other 

XoAKeoi'  •noirj/j.a.  iroAoiaj  fpya.ffias,  and  by  implements  sufficient  for  forty  ships  of  war, 

Livy  (X.   23)  as   existing  in  the  year  of  and  all  in  the   space   of  forty-five   days. 

Rome,  458,  or  that  recorded  by  Cicero  as  Liv.  XXVIII.  45. 

having    been    struck    by    lightning.      De  9  Ap.  Athen.  XV.  c.  60.  for  candelabra 

Divin.  II.  20  ;  in  Catil.  III.  8.     See  Vol.  see  Vol.  II.  pp.  190,  479. 
II.  p.  492.  l  Tvp<rr)vii  Sf  *cpoT«?  xpvff6rviros  tj>id\-ri, 

Pliny  (XXXV.  45)  tells  us,  on  the  autho-  Kot  iras  xoAK&t  OTIS  KOff^e'i  Sopor  ev  nvi 
rity  of  Varro,  that  under  the  Kings,  and  XPf'tct- 

for  some  years  after,   all  the  temples  at  Athen.  I.  c.  50. 

Rome  were  decorated  by  Etruscan  artists,  2  Miiller,  Etrusk.   IV.  3,   4.      Gerhard 

but   that   two    Greeks,    Damophilus    and  (Ann.  Inst.  1837,  2,  p.  143),  however,  is 

Gargasus,   painters   as  well  as   sculptors,  of    opinion    that   these    bronze    works  of 

were  employed  for  the  first  time  to  em-  the  Etruscans  had  their  origin  in  Greece, 

bellish  the  temple  of  Ceres  in  the  Circus  But  the  fact  that  Greek  inscriptions  have 

Maximus,  which  was  built  about  493  B.C.  never  been  found  on  any  of  the  Etruscan 

8  The   brass  gates   from   the   spoils   of  bronzes,    seems   opposed  to   this   opinion.' 

Veil,  which  Camillus  was  accused  of  appro-  The  inscriptions  on  the  painted  vases,  on 


INTRODUCTION.]        THE    SCULPTURE    OF  ETRURIA. 


Ixxv 


statue  of  Minerva  sandals  of  the  Etruscan  fashion.3  From  all 
this  we  learn,  that  if  Etruria  was  indebted  to  Greece  for  the 
excellence  she  attained  in  the  re- 
presentation of  the  human  form, 
the  latter  was  ready  to  admit,  and 
to  avail  herself  of  the  native  skill 
and  taste  of  her  pupil.  And  well 
ma}'  it  have  been  so ;  for  it  were 
impossible  that  the  Greeks  should 
not  admire  such  works  as  the 
bronze  lamp  in  the  Museum  of 
Cortona,  the  casket  from  Yulci, 
and  the  exquisite  specimens  of  gold 
filagree-work  in  the  Museo  Gre- 
goriano,  and  in  the  collection  of 
Signor  Augusto  Castellani. 

The  art  of  statuary  was  very 
ancient  in  Italy.  It  was  either  in 
wood  or  stone,  the  first  being  ap- 
plied in  very  remote  times  to  the 
images  of  the  gods.*  The  Etrus- 
cans made  use  of  this  primitive  ma- 
terial; for  a  very  ancient  Jupiter, 
carved  from  the  trunk  of  a  vine, 
was  worshipped  at  Populonia.0  Of 
their  works  in  stone  numerous  spe- 
cimens have  come  down  to  us,  some 
on  the  facades  or  walls  of  their  rock- 
hewn  sepulchres,  others  in  detached 

statues,  but  chiefly  on  sarcophagi  and  cinerary  urns  :  for  it  was 
their  custom  to  decorate  these  monuments  with  the  effigies  of  the 
deceased,  and  with  reliefs  of  various  descriptions.  The  extant 


ETRUSCAN    CANDELABRUM. 


the  other  hand,  which  confessedly  have  a 
Greek  origin,  are  almost  invariably  in  that 
language. 

:t  Pollux,  VII.  22 ;  cf.  Plin.  XXXVI.  4, 
4.  The  Etruscans  paid  particular  attention 
to  their  feet— much  more  than  the  Greeks, 
who  often  went  barefooted,  whereas  the 
former  wore  shoes  or  sandals,  richly  em- 
bossed and  gilt,  or  fastened  by  gilt  thongs 
(Pollux,  loc.  cit. ;  Plin.,  loc.  cit.  ;  Ovid. 
Amor.  III.  13,  26),  or  high  buskins  (Ovid, 
loc.  cit.  I.  14).  Thus  Etruscan  figures  are 


often  represented  naked  in  every  other 
part  bxit  the  feet.  As  in  other  articles  of 
costume,  the  Etruscans  here  set  the  fashion 
to  the  Romans.  It  is  probable  that  the 
sort  of  Etruscan  calccus,  which  Servius  (ad 
.&n.  VIII.  458)  says  was  worn  by  Roman 
senators,  was  the  boot  or  buskin  repre- 
sented on  the  figures  in  the  wall-paintings 
of  Tavquinii.  For  further  notices  on  this 
subject,  see  Miiller,  Etrusk.  I.  3,  10-11. 

4  Plin.  XXXIV.  16. 

5  Plin.  XIV.  2. 


Ixxvi    WORKS    SCULPTURAL  AND    SCALFIURAL.    [INTRODUCTION. 

sculpture  of  Etruria  is  indeed  almost  wholly  sepulchral.  It  is  not 
in  general  so  archaic  or  so  peculiarly  national  in  character  as  the 
works  in  metal,  and  betrays  rather  the  influence  of  Greek  than  of 
Egyptian  art.  The  most  archaic  productions  of  the  Etruscan 
chisel  are  the  cippi,  or  so-called  "  altars,"  of  fetid  limestone,  from 
Ohiusi  and  its  neighbourhood,  whose  bas-reliefs  show  a  purely 
native  style  of  art ;  together  with  a  few  large  figures  in  relief,  like 
the  warrior  in  the  Palazzo  Buonarroti  at  Florence,  and  the  other 
in  the  Museum  of  Volierra.6  The  latest  are  the  cinerary  urns  of 
Yolterra  and  Perugia,  which  have  often  more  of  a  Roman  than 
a  Greek  character,  and  were  probably  executed  in  the  period  of 
Roman  domination.7  Yet  it  is  from  works  of  this  description 
that  we  learn  most  of  the  manners,  customs,  inner  life,  and  reli- 
gious creed,  as  well  as  of  the  costume  and  personal  characteristics 
of  this  singular  people.  There  is  often  great  boldness  and  expres- 
sion in  Etruscan  sculpture,  and  generally  much  truth  to  nature ; 
but  it  rarely  attains  the  beaut}'  and  grace  which  are  found  in  the 
pictorial  and  toreutic  works  of  this  people,  and  never  the  perfec- 
tion of  this  art  among  the  Greeks,  to  whom  alone  did  heaven 
reveal  the  full  sentiment  of  human  beauty.8 

It  may  be  well  here  to  notice  those  works  of  the  Etruscans 
which  have  been  distinguished  as  scalptural,  or  graven,  such  as 
gems  or  scaralci  in  stone,  and  specula  or  mirrors  in  bronze. 

SCARAB;EI. 

Numerous  as  are  Etruscan  gems,  none  of  them  are  cameos,  or 
with  figures  cut  in  relief ;  all  are  intaglios  ;  and  all  are  cut  into 
the  form  of  the  scarabceus  or  beetle.  Nothing  seems  to  indicate  a 
closer  analogy  between  Etruria  and  Eg_ypt  than  the  multitude  of 
these  curious  gems  found  on  certain  sites  in  this  part  of  Italy. 
The  use  of  them  wras,  doubtless,  derived  from  the  banks  of  the 
Nile  ;  but  they  do  not  seem  to  stand  in  the  same  archaic  relation 

11  For  the  clppi  of  Chiusi,  see  Vol.  II.  alabaster  and  travertine,  neither  used  in 

p.  300.     For  the  warriors  in  the  Palazzo  very  early  times,   was   too   coarse   or  too 

Buonarroti  of  Florence  and  in  the  Museum  friable  to  do  justice  to  the  skill   of  the 

of  Volterra,  see  Vol.  II.  pp.  106,  188.  artist.     The  marble  of  Carrara,  to  which 

~'  Micali  (Ant.    Pop.   Ital.    II.    p.    24(5)  Rome   was   so   much   indebted,    does  not 

takes  the  Volterra  urns  to  be,  some  of  the  appear  to  have  been  known  to  the  Etrus- 

seventh  or  eighth  century  of  Rome,  others  cans  at  an  early  period,  though  that  of  the 

as  late  as  the  Antonines,  and  others  of  still  Maremma  and  of  the  Circoean  promontory 

later  date.     See  Vol.  II.  p.  187.  was  used  by  them  ;  yet  comparatively  few 

8  The  inferiority  of  Etruscan  sculpture  works  of  the  Etruscan  chisel  in  marble  have 

may  perhaps  in  part  be  attributed  to  the  come  down  to  us.     See  Vol.  II.  p.  67. 
local   stone,   which  except  in  the  case  of 


INTRODUCTION.] 


ETRUSCAN    SCAKAB2EI. 


Ixxvii 


to  Etruscan  art  as  the  other  works  which  betra}'  an  Egyptian 
analogy.  They  appear,  however,  to  have  served  the  same  purpose 
as  in  Egypt — to  have  been  worn  as  charms  or  amulets,  generally 
in  rings ;  yet  it  is  probable  that  the  Etruscans  adopted  this  relic 
of  foreign  superstition  Avithout  attaching  to  it  the  same  religious 
meaning  as  the  Egyptians  did,  who  worshipped  it  as  a  god — as  a 
symbol  of  the  great  Demiurgic  principle.9  The  Etruscan  sca- 
rabtei  have  a  marked  difference  from  the  Egyptian,  in  material, 
form,  and  decoration  ;T  and  the  frequent  representations  they 
bear  from  the  Greek  mythology  seem  to  prove  them  of  no  very 
early  date,3  for  such  subjects  rarely  appear  on  works  of  archaic- 
Etruscan  art.  From  the  heroic  or  pala?stric  subjects  on  these 
scarabs,  it  is  thought  that  they  were  symbols  of  valour  and  manly 
energy,  and  were  worn  only  by  the  male  sex.3 

Scarcibai  have  rarely  been  found  on  more  than  two  sites  in 
Etruria — Chiusi  and  Yulci.  At  the  latter  they  are  always  in 
tombs,  but  at  Chiusi  the}r  are  found  on  the  soil  in  a  certain  slope 
beneath  the  city,  called,  from  the  abundance  of  such  discoveries, 
"  The  Jewellers'  Field,"  where  they  are  turned  up  b}'the  plough, 
or  washed  to  light  by  the  rains.4 


• <J  Pliny  (XXX.  30)  tells  us  tlie  beetle 
received  this  adoration  because  it  rolled 
balls  of  dirt,  alluding  to  its  habit  of  push- 
ing backwards  with  its  hind  feet  small  bits 
of  dung  or  earth — verily  the  most  grovelling 
idea  of  Deity  that  the  human  mind  ever 
conceived.  Pliny  adds  that  Apion,  the 
Egyptian,  who  sought  to  excuse  the  de- 
graded rites  of  his  countrymen,  explained 
the  worship  of  the  beetle  by  some  similarity 
in  its  operations  to  those  of  the  sun  —  "a 
curious  interpretation,"  as  Pliny  remarks. 

1  The  genuine  Egyptian  scarabs  are  of 
smalt,  porphyry,  basalt,  or  some  very  hard 
stone  ;  the  Etruscan  are  of  carnelian,  sar- 
donyx, and  agate,  rarely  of  chalcedony  ;  a 
few  have  been  found  of  smalt.  The  Egyptian 
are  truthful  representations  of  the  insect ; 
the  Etruscan  are  exaggerated  resemblances, 
especially  in  the  back,  which  is  set  up  to 
an  extravagant  height.  The  flat  or  under 
part  of  the  stone,  which  is  always  the  side 
engraved,  in  the  Egyptian  bears  hierogly- 
phics, or  representations  of  deities ;  in  the 
Etruscan,  though  it  sometimes  shows  imi- 
tations of  Egyptian  subjects,  it  generally 
bears  figures  or  groups  from  the  Greek 
mythology  ;  the  deeds  of  Hercules,  and  of 
the  heroes  of  the  Theban  and  Trojan  wars, 


being  the  favourite  subjects.  More  rare 
are  figures  of  the  gods,  and  of  the  chimeras 
and  other  symbols  of  the  Etruscan  creed. 
And  not  a  few  have  paltestric  representa- 
tions. These  scarabs  often  bear  desiguatory 
inscriptions  in  Etruscan  characters. 

•  Great  difference  of  opinion  lias  been 
entertained  as  to  the  date  of  these  gems. 
Gori  (Mus.  Etrus.  II.  p.  437)  supposed 
them  to  be  coeval  with,  or  even  anterior 
to,  the  Trojan  War.  \Yinckelman,  though 
maintaining  their  high  antiquity,  took 
more  moderate  views.  But  it  is  now  the 
general  opinion,  founded  on  a  more  in- 
timate acquaintance  and  a  wider  range  of 
comparison,  that  they  cannot  be  referred 
to  a  very  archaic  period  of  Etruscan  art. 
Air.  Alexander  Murray,  in  an  able  article 
in  the  Contemporary  lleview  for  October, 
1875,  points  out  the  striking  analogy  these 
scarabs  of  Etruria  bear  to  the  early  silver 
coins  of  Thrace,  to  which  he  assigns  the 
date  of  at  least  500  B.C. 

a  One,  however,  which  I  have  seen  in 
the  possession  of  the  Canon  Pasquiui  of 
Chiusi,  was  found  set  in  an  earring  of  gold. 
Bull.  Inst.  1837,  p.  46. 

4  See  Vol.  II.  p.  297.  Scaralcei  are 
also  found,  though  rarely,  in  other  parts  of 


Ixxviii  ETEUSCAN    MIEEOES    OF    BEOXZE.      [INTRODUCTION. 


SPECULA, 

or  mirrors,  are  round  or  pear-shaped  plates  of  bronze,  often 
gilt  or  silvered,  with  the  edge  turned  up,  or  slightly  concave, 
having  the  outer  side  highly  polished,  and  the  inner  adorned  with 
figures  engraved  upon  it.  To  the  plate  is  attached  a  handle, 
often  carved  into  some  elegant  form  of  life.  The  disk  is  seldom 
more  than  six  or  seven  inches  in  diameter ;  it  is  generally 
encircled  by  a  wreath  of  leaves,  as  shown  in  the  specimen  en- 
graved for  the  frontispiece  of  this  volume.5 

For  a  long  time  these  instruments  went  by  the  name  of  patera, 
and  were  supposed  to  have  served  as  ladles  for  flour,  or  other 
light  dry  substances,  used  in  sacrifices.  Inghirami  was  among 
the  first  to  reject  this  idea,  and  show  them  to  be  mirrors0 — a  fact 
now  established  beyond  a  doubt.7  It  is  proved  by  representations 
of  them,  either  on  their  own  disks  or  on  painted  vases,  in  the 
hands  of  women,  who  are  using  them  as  mirrors — by  the  high 
polish  they  often  retain,  so  bright  indeed,  as  sometimes  to  fit 
them  for  their  original  purpose, — and  l>y  the  discovery  of  them  in 
caskets,  with  other  articles  of  the  female  toilet.8 


Italy,  as  at  Palestrina  in  Latium  (,Abeken,  as  were  used   by  the  luxurious  Romans. 

Mittelitalien,    p.    325).      They  have  also  Seneca,  Nat.  Qiuest.  I.  17. 
been  discovered  in  Greece,  c.y.  a  celebrated  G  Inghir.  Mon.  Etnis.  II.  pp.  1-77. 

one,    bearing  a  Greek  inscription,  found  '  Micali  alone,  to  the  last  of  his  life, 

among  the   ruins   of  .-Egina   (Bull.    List.  held  to  the  old  doctrine  of  patcnv,  a  word 

1840,  p.  140),  and  one  from  Attica,  now  now  so  completely  superseded  by  specula, 

in   the  Museum   of  Athens    (Ann.    Inst.  that  he  who  would  use  it  in  reference  to 

1837,  2,  p.  144).     In  the  British  Museum  these  instruments   would   scarcely  be  in- 

are   two   found  at  Leucas   in   Acarnania.  telligible. 

Gerhard  is  even  of  opinion  that  these  gems  s  Ann.  Inst.  1840,  p.  150;  see  also 
may  have  had  their  origin  in  Greece.  They  Gerhard's  Etruskische  Spiegel,  pp.  82 — 4, 
have  been  found  also  in  Asia  Minor,  at  for  proofs  of  these  instruments  being 
Tharros  in  Sardinia,  and  at  Curium  in  mirrors.  It  has  been  supposed  from 
Cypi-us,  where  some  have  decided  marks  of  certain  scenes  on  painted  vases,  where 
a  Phoenician  origin.  For  the  distinction  women  washing  themselves  at  fountains 
between  Egyptian  and  Phoenician  scarabs,  are  represented  with  these  instruments  in 
.see  an  article  by  Mr.  C.  W.  King  in  Cesnola's  their  hands,  that  they  served  a  secondary 
Cyprus,  p.  353.  purpose  of  casting  water  over  the  body, 
*  A  few  mirrors  have  been  found  with-  the  concave  side  serving  as  a  bowl  to  hold 
out  handles,  but  these  are  liable  to  be  con-  the  liquid.  Ann.  Inst.  1840,  p.  150 — 
founded  with  the  capmdce,  or  cases  for  these  Braun.  These  mirrors  are  generally  de- 
instruments,  which  are  formed  of  two  round  signated  "mystic"  by  the  Italians;  and 
plates  ornamented  in  a  similar  manner,  or  verily  if  mystic  be  synonymous  with  every - 
sometimes  with  reliefs,  and  hinged  together  thing  unreal,  unnatural,  and  iucompre- 
like  the  valves  of  an  oyster-shell.  No  in-  hensible,  the  term  is  often  not  misapplied, 
.stances  have  been  found  of  Etruscan  mir-  for  never  were  there  more  grotesque  and 
rors  in  the  precious  metals,  or  adorned  ludicrous  distortions  of  form  and  feature 
•with  precious  stones,  or  of  so  vast  a  size  than  are  to  be  found  on  many  of  them. 


INTRODUCTION.]  CLASSIFIED    ACCORDING    TO    SUBJECTS.        Ixxix 

Etruscan  S2iccckj  may  be  divided  into  three  classes. 

First — those  without  any  design  on  the  inner  surface.  More 
than  ordinary  decoration  is  in  these  cases  generally  expended 
on  the  handles.  Such  mirrors  are  veiy  rare. 

Secondly — those  with  figures  in  relief.  These  are  also  met 
with  hut  seldom.9 

Thirdly — those  with  designs  incised  on  the  inner  surface. 
These  may  be  subdivided  according  to  the  subjects  which  they 
bear.  First,  and  most  numerous,  are  those  which  have  scenes 
taken  from  the  cycle  of  Greek  mythology,  or  heroic  fable,  fre- 
quently illustrated  b}'  inscriptions,  which  are  invariably  in  the 
Etruscan  character,  and  often  nationalised  by  the  introduction  of 
Etruscan  demons.  Next,  those  which  bear  representations  or 
symbols  of  the  divinities  of  the  national  creed,  from  the  Nine  Great 
Gods  who  wielded  the  thunder,  through  all  the  grades  of  their  wild 
and  multiform  demonology,  to  the  lowly  Penates,  the  protectors  of 
the  individual  hearth.1  The  last  class  portrays  scenes  of  Etruscan 
life  and  manners ;  but  of  this  a  few  instances  only  are  known. 

The  art  exhibited  on  these  disks  is  not  of  primitive  character, 
although  a  few  have  been  found  with  archaic  features,  yet,  though 
often  extremely  rude  and  feeble,  it  partakes  less  of  the  short- 
comings of  the  period  of  infanc}'  than  of  the  carelessness  of  the 
Decadence ;  and  it  must  be  confessed  that,  except  in  compara- 
tively few  cases,  such  as  that  represented  in  the  frontispiece  to 
this  volume,  the  elevation  and  perfection  of  the  high  style  are  not 
displayed.2  These  mirrors  then  cannot  lay  claim  to  a  remote 
antiquity.  Their  date  indeed  is  pretty  well  determined  l>y  the 
fact  that  they  are  very  rarely  found  in  the  same  tomb  with  Greek 
painted  vases,  or  if  a  vase  by  chance  be  found  with  them,  it  is  in- 

He  who  turns  over  Gerhard's  illustrated  times  called  "Lasa"  (Vol.  I.  p.  288),  or  of 

volumes  will  find  amusement,  as  well  as  the  Dioscuri. 

instruction.    That  learned  antiquary  proves  "  The  beautiful   mirror  in  the  frontis- 

satisfactorily  that  these  mirrors  were  in-  piece  represents  "Phuphluns,"  or  Bacchus, 

struments  of  personal  rather  than  of  sacred  embracing  his  mother  "  Semla,"  or  Semele. 

use,  and  served  no  other   mysteries  than  It  was  found  at  Vulci,  and  is  in  the  pos- 

those  of  the  female  bath  and  toilet  (p.  76).  session  of  Professor  E.  Gerhard  of  Berlin, 

9  A  beautiful  specimen  of  this  class  is  who  has  illustrated  it  in  his  Etruskische 

in    the    Museo   Gregoriano,    representing  Spiegel,   taf.    LXXXIII ;    cf.   Mon.   Ined. 

Aiirora  carrying  Memnon.      See  Vol.  II.  Inst.  I.  tav.  LVI.  A.     The  illustration  here 

p.  481.     Another,  in  the  British  Museum,  presented  to  the  British  public  is  drawn 

represents  Minerva  overcoming  Hercules.  by  Mr.  George  Scharf,  from  a  cast  of  the 

An  exquisite  example  is  in  the  possession  original,  reduced  to  half   its  size.     It  is 

of  the  Marchese  Strozzi,  of  Florence.     See  one   of  the  most   beautiful   specimens   of 

Vol.  II.  p.  107.  Etruscan  design  on  metal  that  have  come 

1  The  most  frequent   representation   is  down  to  iis. 
that  of  the  winged  goddess  of  Fate,  some- 


Ixxx  MIRRORS    AND    CASKETS.  [INTRODUCTION. 

variably  either  of  the  Decadence,  or  of  local  origin.3  And  this  fact 
proves  that  the  importation  or  manufacture  of  Greek  vases  must  have 
ceased,  before  these  engraved  mirrors  came  into  use  in  Etruria. 
These  monuments  cannot  be  earlier  than  the  fifth  century  of 
Rome,4  and  are  probably  later.  Yet  there  is  no  branch  of  Etrus- 
can antiquities  more  genuinely  native — none  more  valuable  to  the 
inquirer,  for  the  information  it  yields  as  to  the  mysterious 
language  and  creed  of  that  ancient  race ;  for  the  inscriptions 
being  always  in  the  native  character,  and  designatory  of  the 
individual  gods  or  heroes  represented,  these  mirrors  become  a 
sure  index  to  the  Etruscan  creed, — "  a  figurative  dictionary,"  as 
Bunsen  terms  it,  of  Etruscan  mythology ;  while  at  the  same  time 
they  afford  us  the  chief  source  and  one  of  the  most  solid  bases 
of  our  acquaintance  with  the  native  language.5 

Akin  to  the  mirrors  are  the  cistc,  or  caskets,  of  bronze,  with 
incised  designs,  which  are  occasionally  found  in  Etruscan  tombs, 
and  chiefly  at  Yulci.  They  are  more  abundant  at  Palestrina,  the 
ancient  Praeneste,  but  whether  of  Etruscan  or  Latin  origin  is  not 
easy  to  say,  for  the  bronzes,  and  particularly  the  engraved  works 
of  the  two  lands,  bear  so  close  a  resemblance  that  they  often 
appear  to  be  the  productions  of  the  same  people,  and  even  of  the 
same  master.  The  cistc  of  Palestrina,  however,  like  the  mirrors, 
sometimes  bear  inscriptions  in  early  Latin.  The  art  exhibited 
on  these  caskets  is  in  some  cases  purely  Greek,  proving  them  to 
have  been  either  imported,  or  the  work  of  Greek  artists  resident 
in  Italy.  The  most  beautiful  cista  yet  discovered  is  that  known 
as  the  Ficoronian,  from  Palestrina,  now  in  the  Kircheriaii 
Museum  at  Rome,6  and  the  best  from  Etruria  is  one  from  Vulci 

3  This    is    the    experience     of     Signer  interred  them  also  in  Greek  tombs  in  the 
Tommasi  di  Merighi  of  Canino,  after  long  Cyrenaica,  but  all  without  designs  or  in- 
continued    excavations    at    Vulci.      Bull.  scriptions.       Gerhard   (A.nn.   Inst.    1837, 
Inst.  1869,  p.  174.     It  is  the  experience  2,  p.   143)  supposes  them  to  have  had  a 
also  of  those  who  have  dug  at  Chiusi  and  Greek  origin  ;  but  it  is  remarkable  that 
Corneto.     Bull.  Inst.  1870,  p.  59  ;  1871,  though  they  have  often  Greek  myths,  and 
p.  93.— Helbig.  Greek  names,  not  one  has  ever  been  found 

4  From  the  association  of  these  mirrors  in  Etruria  with  a  Greek  inscription,  though 
with  the  cistc  misticlte  in   the  tombs   of  the  inscriptions  on  the  painted  vases  are 
Palestrina  as  well  as  of  Yulci,  it  may  be  almost  invariably  in  that  language.     The 
concluded  that  they  came  into  use  as  sepul-  same  may  be  said  of  the  other  Etruscan 
chral  furniture,   at  least  as  early  as  the  works  in  bronze.     Ann.  Inst.  1834,  p.  57 
latter  half  of  the  third  century  B.C.  — Bunsen.    Several  mirrors,  however,  have 

5  Bull.    Inst.   1836,    p.   18.      Hitherto  been  found  with  Latin  epigraphs.     These 
these  mirrors  have  been  considered  as  pe-  are  generally  from  Palestrina.     Gerhard, 
culiarly  Etruscan,  but  of  late  years  others  Etrusk.     Spieg.     taf.     147,     171,     182 ; 
like  them  have  been  found  in  the  tombs  of  Inghirami,  Mon.  Etrus.  II.  tav.41. 
Athens,  .iftgina  and  Corinth.     I  have  dis-  6  Vol.  II.  p.  497. 


INTBODUCTIOH.]     JEWELLERY    FOUND    IX    ETRURIA.  bcxxi 

in  the  Gregorian  Museum.7  In  date  these  caskets  correspond 
with  the  mirrors,  with  which  they  are  generally  found,  and 
to  them  the  term  "  mystic  "  has  also  been  applied  with  as  little 
reason. 

JEWELLERY. 

In  these  volumes  the  jewellery  of  Etruria  is  frequently  men- 
tioned in  terms  of  high  admiration.  It  has  been  assumed  that 
all  the  beautiful  objects  in  gold  and  silver  found  in  Etruscan 
tombs  were  the  work  of  that  ancient  people.  But  Signer 
Augusto  Castellani,  the  eminent  jeweller  of  Rome,  is  of  a 
different  opinion,  and  as  his  authority  on  such  matters  is 
paramount,  I  make  no  apology  for  briefly  stating  his  views,  as 
communicated  to  me  personally,  and  as  published  in  his  pamphlet 
entitled  "  Orificeria  Italiana,"  Roma,  1872. 

The  most  ancient  jewellery  of  Italy  has  hitherto  generally 
been  ascribed  to  the  Etruscans,  but  Signer  Castellani  dis- 
tinguishes from  the  special  style  peculiar  to  that  people  two 
earlier  st3Tles  proper  to  races  who  preceded  them. 

First,  the  Pre-historic — a  simple  and  semi-barbarous  style, 
recognised  in  ornaments  found  in  the  earliest  tombs  of  Veii, 
Cervetri,  Corneto,  Chiusi,  Palestrina,  and  Bologna,  of  extremely 
rude  workmanship  and  primitive  forms,  wrought  with  little 
gold,  more  silver,  and  an  abundance  of  amber.  To  this  style 
belong  necklaces  and  bracelets  of  those  three  materials  mixed, 
or  of  coloured  glass,  often  with  pendants  in  the  shape  of  axes, 
vases,  or  other  utensils ;  fibuhe  of  eccentric  forms  in  gold,  silver, 
or  bronze,  adorned  with  amber  or  variegated  glass ;  thin  plates 
of  gold  marked  with  straight  or  hatched  lines ;  amulets  of  amber 
in  the  shape  of  monkeys,  and  other  animals  not  found  in  Italy. 
It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  articles  of  jewellery  of  similar 
character  and  style  have  been  discovered  also  in  Norway  and 
Sweden,  and  even  in  Mexico.  Signor  Castellani  does  not 
attempt  to  determine  to  what  particular  race  among  the  early 
inhabitants  of  Italy  this  primitive  style  should  be  ascribed,  but 
is  content  to  pronounce  it  Pre-historic. 

After  this  comes  a  style  of  widely  different  character,  not  a 
development  of  the  preceding,  but  so  remarkable  for  the 
exquisite  taste  and  elaborate  workmanship  it  exhibits  that  there 
can  be  110  doubt  of  its  distinct  origin.  This  style  Signor 
Castellani  attributes  to  the  people  who  immediately  preceded 

^  Vol.  II.  p.  430. 

VOL      T.  / 


Ixxxii       FEE-HISTORIC  AND  TYRRHENE  STYLES.  [INTBODUCTION. 

the  Etruscans  in  Italy,  i.e.  the  Pelasgians,  whom  he  prefers  to 
designate  as  "Tyrrhenes."  He  refuses  to  recognise  this  jewellery 
as  Etruscan,  because  it  is  found  not  only  in  Etruria,  but  at 
Palestrina,  Ciume,  Ruvo,  and  other  sites  in  Italy,  and  also  in 
Egypt,  Assyria,  Phoenicia,  and  the  Crimea,  showing  that  the 
people  who  produced  it  were  widely  scattered  throughout  the 
ancient  world,  and  particularly  on  the  coasts  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean and  Black  Sea;8  while  the  jewellery  of  the  Etruscans 
has  a  distinct  and  peculiar  character,  not  common  to  other 
people,  and  is  found  only  on  Etruscan  sites. 

The  materials  employed  in  this  "  Tyrrhene  "  style  are  gold, 
silver,  bronze,  amber,  ivory,  and  variegated  glass.  The  style  is 
easily  recognised  by  its  elegant  forms,  the  harmony  of  its  parts, 
and  the  purity  of  its  design,  but  chiefly  by  the  marvellous 
fineness  and  elaboration  of  its  workmanship.  The  patterns, 
which  are  always  simple  yet  most  elegant,  and  admirably 
harmonious,  are  wrought  by  soldering  together  globules  or 
particles  of  gold,  so  minute  as  hardly  to  be  perceptible  to  the 
naked  eye,  and  by  the  interweaving  of  extremely  delicate  threads 
of  gold ;  and  are  sometimes,  but  sparingly,  interspersed  with 
enamels.9  Tiny  figures  of  men,  animals,  or  chimteras,  exquisitely 
chased  in  relief  or  in  the  round,  form  another  and  favourite 
feature  in  the  ornamentation.  On  a  close  inspection  this 
jewellery  astonishes  and  confounds  by  its  wonderful  elaboration  ; 
at  a  little  distance  it  charms  the  eye  by  its  exquisite  taste,  and 

8  Some  of  the  gold  ornaments  found  by  415  ;  cf.  Ezek.  xxvii.  16,  22).     That  they 

Dr.  Schlieniann  at  Mycense  have  much  of  excelled   also   in   the  art  of  jewellery,  is 

the  character  of  this  style,  although  the  evident   from    Homer's   description   of    a 

designs  are  effected  not  by  granulated,  or  Phoenician  necklace  of  gold  set  with  amber 

f un  if orm,  but  by  repoussf  or  intaglio  work.  beads.     Odys.  xv.  459. 
See  Mycenre,  illustrations,  Nos.  281-292.  9  It  is  undoubted  that  both  the  Greeks- 

But  many  of  those  discovered  by  General  and  Etrftscans   were   acquainted  with  the 

Cesnola  at  Curium  in  Cyprus,  are  iinques-  art  of  enamelling,  but  they  used  it  spar- 

tionably    of    the    so-called    "Tyrrhene"  ingly    in    their    jewellery,    being    unwil- 

style,  and  are  not  to  be  distinguished  from  ling,  thinks  Signor  Castellani,  to  cover  too 

the  best  jewellery  found  in  Etruscan  tombs.  much  of  the   beautiful  hue  of  pure  gold, 

See  Cyprus,    plate   xxv.       And   this   fact  then  extremely  rare,  with  coloured  vitreous, 

favours  the  view  held  by  some  that  this  matter,  which  was  comparatively  common, 

early  yet  beautiful  jewellery  is  to  be  as-  Among  the  most  remarkable  works  extant 

cribed  to  the  Phoenicians,  who  at  a  very  in  enamelled  gold  of  Greek  and  Etruscan 

remote  period   were  renowned   as   skilful  origin,  he  specifies  a  crown  in  the  Campana 

workers    in     metal    (iro\i>8at'5aAoi — Iliad.  Museum,  a  necklace  exhibited  by  himself 

xxiii.  743  ;   Odys.  xv.  424  ;  cf.  2  Chron.  in  the  Loan  Collection  at  South  Kensington 

2,    14  ;    1   Kings,   7,   14),   and   manufac-  in  1862,  some  earrings  with  swans  found 

turers    of    trinkets — a.0vpfj.ara — in   which  at  Vulci,   and   others  with  peacocks  and1 

they  traded   to  foreign  lands   (Odys.  xv.  doves  in  the  Campana  collection. 


INTRODUCTION.]     ETRUSCAN    STYLE    OF    JEWELLERY.  Ixxxiii 

the  graceful  character  and  harmony  of  its  outlines.  In  fact  it  is 
the  perfection  of  jewellery,  far  transcending  all  that  the  most 
expert  artists  of  subsequent  ages  have  been  able  to  produce. 

To  this  style  belongs  the  most  beautiful  jewellery  discovered 
in  Etruria,  and  elsewhere  in  Italy,  such  as  the  gold  ornaments 
from  the  Regulini-Galassi  tomb,  now  in  the  Museo  Gregoriano, 
and  those,  still  more  beautiful,  recently  found  at  Palestrina,  and 
now  exhibited  at  the  Kircherian  Museum  at  Home. 

Signer  Castellani  points  out  that  the  Hindoo  jewellery,  even  of 
the  present  day,  bears  no  slight  resemblance  to  this  ancient  style. 
Though  inferior  in  execution,  and  betraying  a  decline  of  taste,  the 
method  adopted  of  soldering  minute  grains  or  fine  threads  of  gold, 
mixed  with  enamels,  to  the  object,  is  precisely  that  employed  by 
the  Tyrrhenes  of  old. 

The  genuine  Etruscan  jewellery,  says  Signer  Castellani,  is 
very  inferior  both  in  taste  and  execution  to  that  of  the  Tyrrhene 
style,  of  which  it  is  a  corruption.  There  is  the  same  sort  of  rela- 
tion between  these  styles  that  the  works  of  the  great  painters  of 
the  cinque  cento  bear  to  those  of  the  following  centuries.  The 
mode  of  workmanship  is  the  same,  yet  the  style  has  so  degene- 
rated that  it  may  be  pronounced  barocco.  No  longer  the  minute 
granulations,  the  delicate  thread-work,  the  charming  simplicity  in 
form  and  design  which  mark  the  earlier  style.  These  are  ex- 
changed for  forms  of  greater  breadth  and  fulness  ;  the  purity  of 
the  lines  gives  place  to  the  artificial  and  turgid,  and  the  whole, 
though  it  makes  a  more  striking  appearance,  has  far  less  elegance, 
harmony,  and  elaboration. 

Etruscan  jewellery  is  of  two  descriptions,  domestic  and  sepul- 
chral :  the  former  most  substantial  and  durable,  the  latter  very 
light  and  flimsy — witness  the  wreaths  of  gold  leaves  found 
encircling  the  helmets  of  illustrious  warriors.  The  amber, 
coloured  glass,  enamel,  and  ivory  used  in  the  preceding  style 
are  rare  in  this,  and  give  place  to  gems — chiefly  garnet,  onyx, 
and  carnelian.  Among  the  ornaments  for  personal  use  are 
earrings  of  various  forms  and  dimensions,  large  fibulce  and 
brooches,  massive  gold  rings,  lentoid  or  vase-shaped  bullte,  agate 
scarabcci;  but  in  all  these  productions  an  inflated  and  artificial 
style,  marking  the  decline  of  the  art,  is  conspicuous. 

The  chief  productions  of  this  style  come  from  the  tombs  of 
Corneto,  Yulci,  Chiusi,  and  Orvieto. 

This  ancient  style  of  jewellery  has  come  down  traditionally  to 
our  own  day.  In  a  remote  corner  of  the  Umbrian  Marches,  at  the 


Ixxxiv  THE    PICTORIAL    ART    OF    ETRURIA.     [INTRODUCTION. 

little  town  of  St.  Angelo  in  Vado,  hidden  in  the  recesses  of  the 
Apennines,  far  from  every  centre  of  civilization,  there  still 
exists  a  special  school  of  jewellery  by  which  some  of  the  processes 
employed  by  the  Etruscans  have  been  traditionally  preserved. 
The  beautiful  peasant-girls  of  that  district  at  their  wedding  feasts 
wear  necklaces  of  gold  filagree  beads,  and  long  earrings  of  the 
peculiar  form  designated  a  navicclla,  inferior  in  taste  and 
elegance  of  design  to  the  works  of  ancient  art,  yet  wrought  in  a 
method  which  Signor  Castellani  does  not  hesitate  to  pronounce 
Etruscan.1 

The  art  in  which  Etruscan  genius  and  skill  have  achieved 
their  greatest  triumphs  is  PAINTING.  This  art  is  of  veiy  ancient 
date  in  Italy;  for  we  hear  of  paintings  at  Crere  in  Etruria, 
which  were  commonly  believed  to  be  earlier  than  the  foundation 
of  Rome.3 

The  pictorial  remains  discovered  in  Etruria  are  of  two  kinds: — 
the  scenes  on  the  walls  of  sepulchres,  and  the  paintings  on 
potteiy. 

PAINTED  TOMBS. 

This  is  a  most  important  class  of  monuments,  for  the  variet}r 
and  interest  of  the  subjects  represented,  and  the  light  the}r  throw 
on  the  customs,  domestic  manners,  and  religious  creed  of  the 
Etruscans,  as  well  as  on  the  progress  and  character  of  the  pictorial 
art  among  them.  We  find  these  "  chambers  of  imagery"  chiefly 
in  the  cemeteries  of  Tarquinii  and  Clusium,  though  two  have 
also  been  found  at  Cervetri,  Vulci,  and  Orvieto,  and  a  solitary 
one  at  Veii,  Bomarzo,  and  Vetulonia  respectively, — all  of  which 
will  be  described  in  the  course  of  this  work.  They  show  us 
Etruscan  art  in  various  periods  and  stages  of  excellence,  from  its 
infancy  to  its  perfection ;  some  being  coeval,  it  ma}r  be,  with  the 
foundation  of  Ptome,  others  as  late  as  the  Empire  ;  some  almost 
Egyptian,  others  peculiarly  native ;  some  again  decidedly  Greek 
in  character,  if  not  in  execution ;  others  resembling  the  Grseco- 
Ptoman  frescoes  of  Pompeii  and  Pastum.  There  is  the  same 

1  The  extraordinary  earrings  worn  liy  the  temples  at  Ardea  and  Lanuvium,  of  nearly 

women  of  Forio  in  the  Island  of  Ischia,  equal    antiquity.      He    remarks    on    the 

may   possibly  have  a  similar  traditional  speedy  perfection  this  art  attained,  as  it 

origin.  seemed    not  to   have    been    practised   in 

*  Plin.     XXXV.     G.     These    paintings  Trojan  times. 
were  extant  in  Pliny's  day;  so  also  some  in 


INTRODUCTION.]  THE    PAINTED    TOMBS.  Ixxxv 

wide  range  as  exists  between  the  works  of  Giotto  or  Cimabue, 
and  those  of  Raffaele  or  the  Caracci.  In  the  Campana  tomb 
of  Veii,  which  is  the  most  ancient  yet  discovered,  we  have  the 
rudeness  and  conventionality  of  very  early  art — great  exaggera- 
tion of  anatomy  and  proportions — and  no  attempt  to  imitate  the 
colouring  of  nature,  but  only  to  arrest  the  eye  by  startling- 
contrasts.3  Next  in  point  of  antiquity  are  the  painted  tiles  which 
lined  the  Avails  of  certain  tombs  at  Cervetri,  where  the  human 
figure  is  drawn  with  more  truth  to  nature,  though  in  bald  outline, 
and  an  attempt  is  even  shown  at  the  expression  of  sentiment,  the 
character  of  the  whole  remaining  purely  and  specifically  Etrus- 
can.4 In  the  earliest  tombs  of  Tarquinii,  though  of  later  date, 
the  Egyptian  character  and  physiognomy  are  strongly  pronounced. 
Of  better  style  are  other  tomb-paintings  on  the  same  site  and  at 
Orvieto,5  which,  though  retaining  a  native  character,  with  much 
conventionality  of  form  and  colouring,  show  more  correctness  of 
design,  and  a  degree  of  elegance  and  refinement  which  betrays  the 
influence  of  Hellenic  models.  Earlier  it  may  be,  yet  more  free 
and  careless,  are  most  of  the  wall-paintings  at  Chiusi,  which 
show  us  what  Etruscan  art  with  its  strong  tendency  to  realism 
could  effect,  before  it  had  felt  the  refining  influence  of  Greece.0 
Later,  and  far  better,  are  some  of  the  scenes  at  Tarquinii 
which  breathe  the  spirit  and  feeling  of  the  Hellenic  vases,  where 
there  is  a  grace  of  outline,  a  dignity  and  simplicity  of  attitude, 
and  a  force  of  expression,  which  prove  the  limner  to  have  been  a 
master  of  his  art,  though  this  was  not  wholly  freed  from  conven- 
tional trammels.  Still  later,  with  yet  more  freedom,  mastery, 
and  intelligence,  are  some  of  the  paintings  on  the  same  site, 
and  those  found  at  Vulci,  where  rigidity  and  severity  are  laid 
aside,  where  fore-shortening,  grouping,  composition,  and  even 
chiaroscuro  are  introduced ;  which  display,  in  a  word,  all  the  ease 
and  power  of  Grreco-Roman  frescoes  of  the  close  of  the  Republic 
or  commencement  of  the  Empire. 

There  was  little  variety  in  the  colours  used  in  Etruscan  wall- 
paintings.  In  one  early  tomb  at  Chiusi,  and  in  another  of  later 
date  at  Bomarzo,  the  colouring  is  bichromatic — black  and  red 
alone — "mbrica  picta  et  carbone."  At  Cervetri  an  early  tomb 
shows  black,  red,  and  white ;  the  Campana  tomb  at  Veii,  black, 
red,  and  yellow ;  the  painted  tiles  of  Cervetri,  these  four  colours 
burnt  in  with  the  tile.  It  was  with  these  four  colours  alone  that 

:i  Vol.  I.  p.  34.  5  Vol.  II.  pp.  55,  58. 

4  Vol.  I.  pp.  260-263.  6  Vol.  II.  pp.  320,  332,  333. 


Ixxxvi  TAINTED    URNS    AND    SARCOPHAGI.     [INTRODUCTION. 

the  greatest  painters  of  antiquitj',  Polygnotus,  Zeuxis,  Apelles 
and  others,  produced  their  immortal  works.7  Pliny  dates  the 
decline  of  the  pictorial  art  from  the  introduction  of  purple  and 
other  hues,  and  laments  that  in  his  day  there  was  not  a  picture 
worth  looking  at — "  nunc  nulla  nobilis  pictura  est."  In  the 
tombs  of  Tarquinii,  however,  even  in  those  which  show  the  most 
archaic  design,  blue  was  used,  and  in  one  of  the  earliest,  a 
decided  green.  The  colours  were  invariably  laid  on  in  fresco. 

The  Etruscans  painted  not  only  the  walls  of  their  tombs,-  but 
often  their  coffins  and  cinerary  urns.  The  latter,  being  generally 
of  the  Decadence,  show  crude  and  strongly  contrasted  hues  on 
their  reliefs,  which  are  coloured  in  accordance  with  native  con- 
ventionalities, and  without  any  pretensions  to  pictorial  skill. 
And  although  a  better  taste  is  occasionally  displayed,  there  is  too 
frequently  a  total  disregard  of  harmony  in  the  polychrome 
sculpture  of  Etruria.  On  the  marble  sarcophagi,  however,  in  a 
few  rare  instances,  AVC  find  some  of  the  most  exquisite  productions 
of  the  Etruscan  pencil,  as  regards  both  design  and  colouring,  or 
it  should  more  strictly  be  said,  of  the  pictorial  art  in  Etruria. 
Such  paintings  are  executed  on  the  flat  surface  of  the  marble. 
The  most  striking  example  of  this  monumental  decoration 
hitherto  brought  to  light,  is  the  Amazon  sarcophagus  in  the 
Etruscan  Museum  of  Florence,  which  some  critics  claim  as  a 
purely  Greek  work,  while  others  pronounce  it  to  be  the  produc- 
tion of  an  Etruscan,  deeply  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  Hellenic 
art.  In  this  instance  the  colouring,  though  soft  and  harmonious, 
is  less  conspicuous  for  beautj',  than  the  composition  and  design.8 

PAINTED  VASES. 

The  painted  vases  form  the  most  comprehensive  subject  con- 
nected with  art  in  Etruria.  The  vast  multitude  that  have  been 
brought  to  light,  the  great  variety  of  form,  of  use,  of  story  and 
myth,  of  degree  of  excellence  in  workmanship  and  design,  the 
many  questions  connected  with  their  origin  and  manufacture  not 
yet  satisfactorily  answered,  the  diversity  of  opinions  respecting 
them,  render  it  impossible  to  treat  fully  of  so  extensive  a  sub- 
ject in  a  narrow  compass.  M}r  remarks,  then,  must  necessarily 
be  brief,  and  are  offered  for  the  sake  of  elucidating  the  frequent 
references  to  ancient  pottery  made  in  the  course  of  this  work : 

7  Plin.  XXXV.  32  ;  Cicero,  Brutus,  18.  s  ?ee  Vol.  II.  p.  96. 


INTRODUCTION.]    PRIMITIVE    POTTERY    OF    ETRURIA.  Ixxxvii 

and  rather  with  the  hope  of  exciting  interest  in  the  subject  than 
with  the  expectation  of  satisfying  inquiry. 

The  most  ancient  vases  found  in  Etruria  are  not  painted,  but 
rudely  shaped  by  the  hand,  often  not  baked,  but  merely  dried  in 
the  sun,  without  glaze,  and  either  perfectly  plain,  or  marked  with 
bands  of  dots,  zig-zags,  hatched  lines,  meanders  and  other 
geometrical  patterns,  clumsily  scratched  on  the  clay  when  soft. 
Such  is  the  pottery  found  in  the  "  well-tombs  "  of  Chiusi  and 
Sarteano,  and  a  few  other  sites  in  Etruria,  and  of  the  same 
character  are  the  pots  discovered  in  the  necropolis  of  Alba  Longa, 
buried  beneath  a  stratum  of  pepcrino,  or  consolidated  volcanic 
ash,  and  those  found  on  the  Esquiline,  lying  beneath  the  walls 
of  Servius  Tullius.  Indeed,  this  very  primitive  pottery  is  by 
some  regarded  as  pre-Etruscan,  and  is  attributed  to  the  Um- 
brians,  Sicilians,  Oscans,  or  whatever  early  Italic  race  occupied 
the  land  prior  to  its  conquest  by  the  Etruscans.9  The  decora- 
tions on  these  vases  were  after  a  time  drawn  with  more  regularity 
and  variety,  and  ultimately  came  to  be  stamped  instead  of 
incised,  the  geometrical  designs  giving  place  to  imitations  of 
animal  life,  birds,  especially  ducks,  snakes,  and  rude  attempts  at 
representing  the  human  form.  Such  was  the  earliest  pottery 
of  Yeii  and  Caere  ;  but  on  those  sites  we  find  a  development  of 
the  art  in  large  jars  (pithoi),  in  stands,  of  brown  or  red  ware, 
with  heads  or  Egyptian-like  figures  in  compartments  or  bands 
encircling  the  vase,  and  in  flat  relief,  stamped  on  the  clay  when 
moist.  Still  later  apparently  was  the  buccltero  ware  of  Chiusi 
and  its  neighbourhood,  with  figures  in  prominent  and  rounded 

9  As  the  geometrical  style  of  decoration  that  of  the  northern   necropolis  of  Alba 

is  the  most  ancient,  and  as  it  is  found  on  Longa,  where  the  singular  hut-urns  have 

the  primitive  pottery  of  Greece,  the  Greek  been  disinterred  ;  nor  on  the  fragments  of 

islands,    Italy,    and   also   of   Central   and  vases  discovered   within   the  precincts  of 

Northern  Europe,  Professor  Conze  broached  the  temple  of  the  Dea  Dia,  in  the  grove  of 

the  opinion  that  it  must  have  been  intro-  the  Arvales  ;  nor  on  those  found   in  the 

tluced  into  Italy  as  well  as  into  Greece  by  lowest  vegetable  stratum  under  the  walls 

the  first  Aryan  invaders  from  beyond  the  of  Servius  Tullius.     It  was  only  after  Italy 

Alps.     This  view  is  combated  by  Dr.  Wolf-  had  been  inhabited    for   some    time   that 

gang  Helbig  (Ann.  Inst.  1875,  pp.   221-  this  system  of  decoration  was  developed  or 

253),  who  shows  that  the  earliest  inha-  introduced  ;  when  we  find  it  on  the  later 

bitants  of  Italy,  to  judge  from  their  re-  pottery  of  Poggio  Renzo,  and  of  the  Alban 

mains — the   people    of   the    terremare,   or  necropolis,  and  in  the  cinerary  urns  from 

fortified  villages  in  the  districts  of  Parma,  the    Benacci    and    Yillanova    diggings    at 

Modena,  and  Reggio,  had  no  such  decora-  Bologna.     Helbig,  finding  the  same  style 

tions  on  their  pottery,  or  works  in  bone,  of    decoration    on    pottery   discovered    at 

horn,  or  bronze.     Nor  are  such  decorations  Xineveh,  Jerusalem,   Gaza,   and  Ascalon, 

found  on  the  very  earliest  pottery  of  Sar-  assigns  to  it  an  Asiatic,  and   specifically 

teano,  or  of  Poggio  Ilenzo  at  Chiusi ;  nor  on  a  Semitic  origin. 


Ixxxviii  TAINTED  VASES— FIRST,  OR  ASIATIC  STYLE.  [INTBODUC. 

relief,  representing  deities,  chimceras,  and  other  symbols  of  the 
Etruscan  creed,  more  rarely  myths  and  scenes  illustrative  of 
native  life  and  customs.1  Though  very  archaic  and  Oriental  in 
style,  this  pottery  is  not  necessarily  in  every  instance  so  early 
as  it  appears;  for  the  peculiarities  of  a  remote  period  and 
primitive  stage  of  art  may  have  been  conventionally  preserved, 
especially  in  sepulchral  or  sacred  vessels,  from  one  age  to 
another.3 

The  earliest  vases  of  genuinely  Etruscan  character,  with 
painted  decorations,  which  are  extremely  rare,  bear  archaic 
figures  of  men  and  animals  rudely  drawn  in  opaque  white  on 
the  natural  red  of  the  clay,  or  in  red  on  a  creamy  ground  ;s 
and  in  style  they  generally  resemble  the  painted  vases  of  the 
First  or  Doric  style,  witli  which  they  are  probably  contemporary. 
Such  vases  have  been  found  chiefly  at  Cervetri.4 

The  painted  vases  found  in  multitudes  in  the  cemeteries  of 
Etruria,  and  commonly  called  Etruscan,  are  not  for  the  most 
part  of  that  origin,  but  Greek,  though  to  some  extent,  it  may 
be,  of  local  manufacture.  They  do  not,  therefore,  strictly  come 
under  our  notice.  Yet  as  they  have  been  disinterred  in  even 
greater  abundance  in  Etruscan  cemeteries  than  in  those  of  Greece 
and  her  colonies,  as  they  were  sometimes  imitated  by  native 
artists,  and  as  they  exerted  a  powerful  influence  on  Etruscan  art, 
it  is  impossible  to  exclude  them  from  our  consideration. 

The}'  may  be  divided  into  three  great  classes. 

First,  the  Egyptian,  Phoenician,  or  Babylonian,  as  it  is 
variously  termed  from  the  oriental  character  of  its  ornamenta- 
tion, which  has  led  some  to  ascribe  its  origin  to  those  several 
peoples ;  but  it  is  now  more  correctly  regarded  as  primitive 
Greek,  and  particularly  Doric.5  Yet  the  term  "  ASIATIC  "  may 
not  unaptly  be  applied  to  it  as  indicating  the  distinctive  charac- 

1  A  description  of  this  ware  is  given  in  cavations  at  Orvieto ;   but  as  such  tombs 
the  chapters  on  Florence  and  Chiusi,  Vol.  always  contain  more  than  a  single  body,  they 
II.  pp.  76,  307.    These  vases  are  very  rarely  may  have  served  for  interment  at  different 
found  in  the  same  tomb  with  those  that  periods  ;  or  the  bucc/tero  may  have  been 
are  painted,   or  if  so  accompanied,   it  is  interred  as  an  antique  relic. 

usually  with  those  of  the  First  or  Corin-  3  See  Vol.  II.  pp.  47,  489,  490. 

thian  style.    Bull.  Inst.  1875,  p.  99.    They  4  Some   of    these  vases   from   Cervetri 

are  generally  found  with  archaic  bronzes,  have  been  found  with  polychrome  decora- 

and  invariably  in  tombs  where  the  corpse  tions,  in  opaque  colours,  blue,  white,  and 

has  been  interred,  not  burnt.  vermilion,   laid   on   in   fresco,   as   on   the 

2  This  ware  has  in  some  very  rare  cases  walls  of  the  painted  tombs.     Micali,  Mon. 
been  found  in  the  same  tomb  with  painted  Ined.  tav.  4,  5  ;  Birch,  p.  447. 

vases  with  black  figures,  and  with  red  in  5  Gerhard,    Ann.    Inst.    1831,  pp.    15, 

the  early  severe  style,  as  in  Mancini's  ex-       201  ;  Bunsen,  Ann.  Inst.  1834,  pp.  63-70. 


INTRODUCTION.]        FKIM1TIVE    OE   IONIC    VASES.  Ixxxix 

teristics  of  its  style.  This  class  of  vases  is  .of  high  antiquity, 
by  some  supposed  to  date  as  far  back  as  twelve  centuries  B.C., 
and  it  cannot  be  later  than  540  B.C.,  the  epoch  of  Theodores 
of  Samos,  whose  improvements  in  metal-casting  marked  a  new 
era  in  ancient  art. 

The  most  primitive  vases  of  this  class  rarely  show  representa- 
tions of  animal  life,  but  are  adorned  with  annular  bands,  zig-zags, 
waves,  meanders,  concentric  circles,  hatched  lines,  suastikas,  and 
other  geometrical  patterns,  often  separated  into  compartments 
by  upright  lines,  like  diglyphs  or  trigryphs;  indeed  the  general 
style  of  ornamentation  closely  resembles  that  on  some  of  the 
fragments  of  painted  pottery  found  by  Dr.  Schliemann  at  Mycenae. 


KYLIX    OF    THE    MOST    PRIMITIVE    STVLE. 


An  example  of  this  primitive  style  is  given  in  the  kyliz  repre- 
sented in  the  annexed  woodcut,  and  another  in  the  Appendix  at 
p.  cxiii.,  which  shows  an  Athenian  lebes  with  three  horses  moulded 
on  the  lid.  These  very  archaic  vases  are  believed  to  be  primitive 
Ionic  Greek.  "  The  absence  of  all  human  figures  and  of  all  in- 
scriptions," says  Dr.  Birch,  "  and  their  analogies  with  Oriental 
art,  render  it  probable  that  some  of  them  may  be  as  old  as  the 
heroic  ages.  None  can  be  more  recent  than  the  seventh  century, 
i?.c."G 

Of  rather  later  date  are  the  vases  of  Doric  character,  which  are 
found  in  Etruria  as  well  as  in  Greece,  Sicily,  Magna  Grrecia,  and 
the  Greek  islands,  and  may  be  looked  for  on  any  ancient  site 
which  has  an  antiquity  of  not  less  than  six  centuries  B.C.  The 
figures,  which  are  painted  on  the  pale  yellow  ground  of  the  clay, 
are  generally  arranged  in  several  bands  encircling  the  vase,  and 

6  Ancient  Pottery,  p.    183.     Dr.  Birch       style  of  decoration  to  those  found  in  the 
points   out  the   resemblance  some  of  the       sepulchres  of  the  ancient  Peruvians, 
earliest   vases  cf  this  class  bear  in  their 


xc 


DORIC    OR    CORINTHIAN    VASES.        [INTRODUCTION 


are  brown  rather  than  black,  varied  occasionally  with  purple, 
white,  or  crimson.  They  consist  chiefly  of  wild  beasts — lions, 
panthers,  wolves,  boars ;  of  cattle — bulls,  goats,  rams,  antelopes ; 
of  birds — swans,  cocks,  owls  ;  or  of  sphinxes,  griffons,  and  other 
compound  mythical  beings;  arranged  in  pairs  of  opposite  natures, 
either  facing  each  other,  or  engaged  in 
combat ;  the  oriental  principle  of  antago- 
nism being  obviousl}'  set  forth,  as  shown  in 
the  annexed  woodcut  of  a  Doric  aryballos. 
Mixed  with  them  are  quaint  representa- 
tions of  fruit  and  flowers,  especially  of  the 
lotus.7  On  the  later  vases  of  the  Doric 
style,  human  figures  first  appear,  but  often 
under  the  form  of  demons  or  genii,  or  of 
the  four-winged  divinities  of  oriental  wor- 
ship. Many  vases  of  this  class  having 
been  found  at  Corinth,  and  notably  the 
celebrated  Dodwell  vase,8  now  at  Munich, 
they  have  received  the  designation  of 
"  Corinthian."  It  is  highly  probable,  in- 
deed, that  these  vases  were  introduced 
into  Etruria  \>y  Demaratus  of  Corinth, 
about  660  u.c.  A  few  admirable  examples,  supposed  to  be  im- 
portations from  Corinth,  have  been  discovered  in  the  necropolis 
of  Cervetri,  and  also  some  Etruscan  imitations  of  this  archaic 
style,  a_  specimen  of  which  is  given  at  p.  283  of  this  volume. 
The  design  on  these  Corinthian  vases  corresponds  in  great  part 
with  that  of  the  earliest  painted  tombs,  such  as  the  Grotta  Cam- 
pana  at  Veii,  and  also  with  the  most  archaic  Etruscan  bronzes. 
Were  we  to  seek  analogies  to  the  art  of  other  lands,  it  would  be 
to  the  earliest  works  of  the  Greek  chisel — to  the  reliefs  from 
the  Temple  of  Hercules  at  Selinus,  or  to  the  Agamemnon, 
Talthybios,  and  Epeios  from  Samothrace,  now  in  the  Louvre. 
These  "  Corinthian  "  vases  mark  the  transition  from  the  early 
Asiatic  style  to  that  of  the  Archaic  Greek,  or  Attic,  for  without 
tins  intermediate  class  there  appears  to  be  so  wide  a  difference 
between  these  styles,  as  to  lead  naturally  to  the  conclusion  that 
the)r  are  totally  distinct  in  their  origin. 

7  "The   backgrounds   with   flowers   ap-  semble  those  of  Solomon's  temple  and  the 

pear,    indeed,    to  have  been  copied  from  Babylonian   tapestries,    likewise   indicates 

oriental  or  Assyrian  art,  which  had  ceased  an  epoch  of  high   antiquity."     Uirch,   p. 

to  exist  in  the  sixth  century  B.  c.  ;  while  158. 

the  Asiatic  style  of  the  friezes,  which  re-  s  Supposed  to  date  from  574  B.C. 


ARYBALLOS,    DORIC    STYLE. 


INTRODUCTION.]     SECOND    OR   ARCHAIC    GREEK    STYLE. 


XCl 


The  annexed  woodcut  represents  an  archaic  lebes  from  Athens, 
now  in  the  British  Museum.  It  is  of  the  style  which  is  supposed 
to  have  preceded  the  Corinthian.  The  figures  are  of  a  maroon 
colour,  on  a  pale  yellow  ground. 


ARCHAIC  LEBES,  PROM  ATHENS. 

The  Second  class  of  vases  is  commonly  designated  "Etruscan," 
or  "  Tyrrhene,"  from  the  abundance  in  which  it  is  found  in  that 
part  of  Italy  ;  in  Campania  it  is  called  "  Sicilian,"  for  the  same 
reason.  The  more  correct  appellation  would  be  "Archaic  Greek," 
for  such  is  the  character  of  the  design,  and  the  subjects  and 
inscriptions  are  also  purely  Hellenic.  This  class  is  also  appro- 
priately designated  "  Attic,"  in  distinction  from  the  Doric  charac- 
ter of  the  preceding  class,  and  because  the  inscriptions  are  in 
that  dialect.  It  continued  to  exist  for  about  a  century,  from 
about  540  to  450  or  440  B.C.,  when  it  gave  place  to  a  still  higher 
development  of  the  ceramic  art.9 

The  Second  class  is  recognisable  b}T  its  figures  being  painted 


9  Dr.  Brunn  ascribes  a  large  portion  of 
the  vases  of  this  class  found  in  Etruscan 
tombs  to  a  much  later  period — to  the  third 
or  even  second  century  B.C.,  and  regards 
them  as  local  or  imported  imitations  of 
original  Greek  vases  of  this  class.  He 
arrives  at  this  conclusion  from  considera- 
tions both  of  palaeography  and  style,  which 
we  have  no  room  to  specify,  and  must  refer 
our  readers  to  his  work,  ' '  Probleme  in  der 
Geschichte  der  Vasenmalerei. "  That  the 
Archaic  Greek  style  was  sometimes  imi- 
tated in  a  subsequent  age  we  have  proofs 
in  the  Panathenaic  vases  of  the  Cyrenaica, 


which,  though  with  black  figures,  bear 
dates  of  the  fourth  century  B.C.,  one  as  late 
as  313  B.C.  But  that  the  generality  of  the 
vases  of  this  class  found  in  Etruria  cannot 
be  a  century  or  two  later  than  this,  as 
Brunn  opines,  is  clearly  demonstrated  by 
Helbig  in  his  review  of  Brunn's  pamphlet. 
Bull.  Inst.  1871,  pp.  85-96.  While  ad- 
mitting that  this  archaic  style  may  have 
been  conventionally  continued  longer  than 
is  generally  supposed,  Helbig  is  not  in- 
clined to  believe  it  was  carried  on  later 
than  the  end  of  the  fourth  centurv  B.C. 


xcii    CHARACTERISTICS  OF  THE  ARCHAIC  STYLE.  [IXTBODUCTIOX. 

black  on  the  ground  of  the  clay,  which  is  yellow,  warming  to  red. 
The  flesh  of  women,  the  hair  of  old  men,  the  devices  on  shields, 
and  a  few  other  objects  are  painted  white ;  the  armour  is  some- 
times tinted  purple,  and  crimson  is  occasionally  introduced  on 
the  drapery.  The  outlines,  the  muscles,  and  folds  of  drapery  are 
marked  by  incised  lines.  Though  the  faces  are  invariably  in  pro- 
file, the  eyes  of  the  men  are  always  round,  of  the  women  long  and 
almond-shaped,  of  that  very  form  usually  represented  in  Egyptian 
paintings.  In  this  class  the  human  figure  forms  the  principal 
subject  of  the  design,  which  in  the  earlier  works  is  hard,  severe, 
and  conventional ;  the  attitudes  rigid  and  constrained,  often 
impossible ;  the  forms  angular,  the  muscular  development  exag- 
gerated, the  extremities  of  the  limbs  unnaturally  attenuated,  the 
hands  and  feet  preposterously  elongated.  Yet  with  the  progress 
of  art  these  defects  were  in  great  measure  remedied,  and  the 
design  gradually  became  more  natural  and  free,  especially  in  the 
later  works  of  this  style,  which  sometimes  show  much  truth  and 
expression,  and  even  spirit,  with  vigour  of  conception,  and  a 
conscientious  carefulness  and  neatness  of  execution  quite  sur- 
prising. Yet  none  of  this  class  are  entirely  free  from  the  severity 
of  archaic  art.  The  figures  bear  the  same  relation  to  the  sculp- 
tured reliefs  of  JKgina,  that  those  on  the  Third  class  of  vases  do 
to  the  marbles  of  the  Parthenon ;  indeed,  these  may  be  said  to  be 
of  the  ^Eginetic  school,  for  they  correspond  not  only  in  style,  but 
in  date.  And  though  it  may  be  questioned  if  all  the  extant 
pottery  with  black  figures  can  claim  so  remote  an  antiquity,  and 
if  some  of  it  be  not  rather  a  more  recent  imitation,  the  type  of  it 
belongs  indisputably  to  the  archaic  period  of  Greek  art.  It  will 
be  understood  that  whenever  vases  with  black  figures  are  men- 
tioned in  the  course  of  this  work,  a  certain  degree  of  archaicism 
of  design  is  alwaj's  implied.  This  style  is  found  in  connection 
with  vases  of  more  beauty  and  variety  of  form  than  the  earlier 
class;  the  most  common  shapes  being  the  ampliora,  or  wine-jar; 
the  hi/dria,  or  water-jar  ;  the  kelcbe,  or  mixing-vase  ;  the  oinochoe, 
or  wine-jug ;  the  kylix,  or  drinking-bowl ;  and  the  Ickythos,  or 
oil-flask. 

The  subjects  depicted  on  vases  of  this  class  are  generally  taken 
from  the  Heroic  Cycle — the  deeds  of  Hercules  or  Theseus, 
events  of  the  Trojan  War,  or  the  wanderings  of  Ulysses,  combats 
of  the  Greeks  with  the  Amazons,  of  the  Gods  with  the  Giants, 
and  similar  fables  from  the  Hellenic  mythology.  Very  numerous 
also  are  scenes  from  the  Dionysiac  tltiasos, — Sileni  and  Maenads 


INTRODUCTION.]         THIBD    OE    PERFECT    STYLE.  xciii 

dancing  round  the  jolly  god,  who  sits  or  stands  in  the  midst, 
crowned  with  ivy,  and  holding  a  vine-branch  or  thi/rsos  in  one 
hand,  and  a  kantliaros  in  the  other.  Another  class  of  subjects, 
not  so  common,  is  the  Panathenaic.  On  one  side  of  the  vase  the 
great  goddess  of  Attica  stands  brandishing  her  lance  between  two 
Doric  columns,  crowned  with  cocks ;  on  the  reverse  are  foot, 
horse,  or  chariot-races,  or  the  wrestling,  boxing,  or  hurling- 
matches,  which  took  place  at  her  annual  festivals.  Such  vases, 
from  the  inscriptions  they  bear — "  One  of  the  prizes  from 
Athens  " — are  proved  to  have  been  given  to  the  victors  on  those 
occasions.1  These  subjects  are  peculiar  to  vases  of  the  Second 
class.  That  the  period  to  which  this  class  of  vases  belonged 
overlapped  that  of  the  following  class,  and  that  for  some  time 
in  the  fifth  century,  B.C.,  the  two  styles  were  contemporary,  is 
clear,  not  only  from  the  advanced  art  of  the  later  vases  of  the 
Second  class,  and  from  the  hard,  dry  design  of  the  earliest  of  the 
Third  class,  but  also  from  certain  instances  where  both  stj'les 
are  found  on  the  same  vase.  Thus  on  a  large  kyllx,  found  at 
Chiusi,  but  now  in  the  Museum  of  Palermo,  one  half  of  the  bowl 
is  adorned  with  black  figures  on  a  red  ground,  the  other  with  red 
upon  black. 

The  Third  class  of  Greek  vases  has  justly  been  denominated 
"  Perfect,"  as  it  partakes  of  the  best  art  of  that  wonderful  people. 
In  these  vases  the  ground  is  painted  black,  the  figures  being  left 
of  the  natural  reddish  yellow  of  the  clay,  and  the  details  are 
either  marked  with  black  lines,  or  with  brownish  red  in  the  more 
delicate  parts  of  the  figures  and  drapery.  These  vases  belong  to 
the  finest  period  of  Greek  art,  but  as  some  of  the  earliest  with 
red  figures  retain  the  severe  and  archaic  character  of  the  preceding 
style,  we  may  carry  their  age  back  to  about  460  B.C.  or  even  earlier.2 

1  The   inscription   is    TONA9ENE0EN-  bear  various  dates,  the  latest   being  313 

A0AON — Titiv ' AOyvridfi'  &QK<av — sometimes  B.C.      T\vo  of  those  in  the  British  Museum 

with  the  prefix  of  EMI  for  flfj-i;  as  in  the  dated  in   the   archonship  of  Pythodemos, 

earliest  known  vase  of  this  class,  found  by  335    B.C.,    were  found  at   Cervetri.     For 

Mr.    Burgon  at  Athens,   and  now  in  the  notices  of  the  Panathenaic  vases  see  Bockh, 

British  Museum.     Pseudo-archaic  vases  of  Bull.  Inst.   1832,  pp.  91-98  ;  Ambrosch, 

this  class  have  also   been    found  in  the  Ann.  Inst.  1833,  pp.  64-89;  Secchi,  Bull. 

Cyrenaica,  recognised  as  such  by  the  affected  Inst.  1843,  p.  75. 

archaicisms  of  style,  and  by  the  dates  with  2  Birch   states  that   recent    discoveries 

which   they  are   inscribed.      The   earliest  show  some  of  these  vases  to  be  as  old  as 

dated  vase  yet  known  is  one  of  six  I  clis-  480  B.C.,  and  certainly  prior  to  the  age  of 

covered  at  Teucheira  in  that  land,  and  it  Pheidias.     p.    202.       Bunsen    assigns   the 

dates  from  the  archonship  of  Polyzelos,  or  vases  of  this  style  to  a  period  between  the 

367  B.C.     Others,  in  the  British  Museum,  74th  and  94th  Olympiads  (484-404,  B.C.). 

the  Louvre,  and  the  Museum  of  Leyden,  Ann.  Inst.  1834,  p.  62. 


xciv    CHARACTERISTICS  OF  THE  PERFECT  STYLE.   [INTRODUCTION. 

They  continued  to  be  manufactured  down  to  about  38G  B.C.,  or 
to  the  accession  of  Alexander  the  Great,  from  which  period  dates 
the  decline  of  the  ceramic  art.  The  best  vases  of  this  class  are 
pre-eminent  in  elegance  of  form,  in  fineness  of  material,  brilliancy 
of  varnish,  and  in  exquisite  beauty  of  design,  divested  of  that 
archaic  severity  and  conventionality  which  distinguish  the  earlier 
classes.  The  sub-styles  into  which  this  class  may  be  divided, 
are  the  Strong  style,  or  the  earliest,  already  mentioned,  which 
belongs  to  the  days  of  Pericles  and  Polygnotus;  the  Fine  style, 
or  that  contemporary  with  Pheidias,  Zeuxis,  and  Parrhasius  ;  and 
the  Florid  or  latest  style,  which  marks  the  transition  from  the 
Perfect  class  to  the  Decadence,  and  was  contemporary  with 
Scopas,  Praxiteles,  and  Lysippus. 

The  subjects  illustrated  are  very  similar  to  those  on  vases  of 
the  Second  class,  with  the  exception  of  the  Panathenaic  scenes  ; 
those  of  Bacchic  character  are  also  of  less  frequent  occurrence, 
the  predominating  subjects  being  Greek  myths,  or  representa- 
tions of  Greek  manners.  Little  or  nothing  is  to  be  learned  from 
any  of  these  painted  vases  of  the  customs,  habits,  traditions,  or 
creed  of  the  Etruscans.  AYith  very  few  exceptions  all  are  purely 
Greek.  The  forms  with  which  this  style  is  associated  are  the 
amphora,  the  krater,  or  mixing-vase,  the  kalpis,  an  elegant  variety 
of  water-jar,  the  cenoclioe,  the  olpe,  the  kylix,  and  the  lekythos. 

There  is  a  class  of  vases  belonging  to  this  Third  style,  which 
have  polychrome  figures  on  a  white  ground,  the  colours  being 
red,  yellow,  blue,  purple,  brown,  and  sometimes  gold.  These 
vases  are  generally  of  the  lekythos  form.  They  are  rare  every- 
where, but  particularly  so  in  Etruria,  though  one  of  the  very  finest 
of  this  class  was  found  at  Vulci — the  krater  in  the  Gregorian 
Museum  which  represents  Mercury  handing  the  infant  Bacchus 
to  Silenus.3  Beautiful  specimens  of  this  style  have  been  found 
at  Athens  ;  a  few  also  at  Cameirus  in  Rhodes  :  and  I  have  brought 
a  few  to  light  in  my  excavations  in  Sicily  and  the  Cyrenaica. 

No  one  can  view  the  best  works  of  this  Third  class  without 
delight,  and  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  them  begets  in  the 
man  of  taste  an  unbounded  admiration.  They  are  the  source 
whence  Flaxman  drew  his  inspiration,  and  well  would  it  be  for 
the  student  of  art  to  follow  that  master's  example,  and  imbue 
his  mind  deeply  with  their  excellences  and  beauties.  The 
dignity  of  the  conception  and  force  of  expression,  at  times  rising 

s  See  Vol.  II.  p.  461. 


INTRODUCTION.]  THE    DECADENCE.  xcv 

into  the  sublime,  the  chaste  taste,  the  truth  to  nature,  the  purity 
and  simplicity  of  the  design,  and  the  force  as  well  as  the  delicacy 
of  the  execution,  well  entitle  the  best  vases  of  this  class  to  the 
appellation  of  "  Perfect."  Never,  perhaps,  do  they  attain  the 
perfection  of  art  displayed  in  the  highest  works  of  the  Greek 
chisel,  yet  there  is  a  mastery,  a  spirit  of  beauty  about  them 
which  marks  them  as  of  the  happiest  and  purest  period  of 
Hellenic  art.  Though  the  Greek  vase-painters  were  held  of 
small  account  in  their  own  day,  yet  if  the  excellence  of  art 
consist  in  conveying  ideas  by  the  fewest  and  most  simple  touches, 
the  merit  of  these  artists  is  of  a  very  high  order. 

The  conquest  of  Asia  by  Alexander,  by  introducing  metal  vases 
in  the  place  of  those  of  terra-cotta,  was  the  cause  of  the  decline  of 
Greek  ceramic  art.  The  period  of  Decadence  dates  then  from 
about  330  B.C.,  and  was  continued  to  about  150  B.C.,  when 
metal  had  quite  superseded  earthenware.  Vases  of  this  class 
continued  to  show  red  figures  on  a  black  ground,  but  white  was 
abundantly  introduced,  colour  more  sparingly,  and  gold  also 
occasionally  in  the  ornaments  and  other  accessories.  They  may 
be  recognised  chiefly  by  the  design,  which,  though  often  masterly 
in  the  earlier  vases  of  this  style,  is  injured  by  affectation, 
mannerism,  and  excess  of  ornament,  and  in  the  later  vases  is 
coarse  and  careless  in  the  extreme,  with  figures  stumpy  and  in- 
elegant. The  most  striking  vases  of  this  class  are  found  in  the 
tombs  of  Puglia  and  Basilicata.  They  are  often  of  enormous  size 
and  exaggerated  proportions,  and  of  shapes  unknown  in  the  purer 
days  of  ceramic  art.  The  multitude  of  figures  introduced,  the 
complexity  of  the  composition,  the  general  inferiority  and 
mannerism  of  the  design,  the  flourish  of  the  drapery,  the  lavish- 
ment  of  decoration,  in  a  word,  the  absence  of  that  chasteness  of 
taste  which  gives  the  Perfect  style  its  chief  charm,  indicate  these 
vases  to  belong  to  the  period  when  Greek  art  was  beginning  to 
trick  herself  out  in  meretricious  embellishments,  forgetful  of  her 
sublime  and  god-like  simplicity. 

The  vases  of  the  Decadence  found  in  Etruria  are  of  more 
modest  dimensions,  but  display  a  sad  decline  from  the  beauty  of 
the  earlier  styles.  They  are  almost  always  of  local  manufacture. 
Those  from  Yolterra  are  of  pale  clay,  'coarse  forms,  dull  varnish, 
most  careless  and  rustic  design  ;  large  female  heads  en  silhouette, 
and  scenes  in  which  nude  women  are  introduced,  are  the  favourite 
subjects.  At  Orvieto,  where  vases  of  somewhat  similar  cha- 
racter are  found,  there  is  also  a  peculiar  pottery  belonging  to  this 


xcvi      WHY  VASES  WERE  DEPOSITED  IN  TOMBS.  [INTRODUCTION. 


period,  adorned,  not  with  paintings,  but  with  reliefs  silvered,  in 
imitation  of  vases  of  that  metal. l 

"What  use  can  this  multitude  of  vases  have  served  ?  Though 
now  found  only  in  tombs,  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  they  were 
all  originally  of  sepulchral  application.  Those  with  Panathenaic 
subjects  were  given,  probably  full  of  oil,  as  prizes  at  the  national 
games,  as  in  Greece.  Others  may  have  been  given  as  prizes  at 
the  palajstric  fetes,  or  as  nuptial  presents,  or  as  pledges  of  love 
and  friendship ;  and  these  are  generally  marked  by  some  appro- 
priate inscription.  Many  were  doubtless  articles  of  household 
furniture,  for  use  or  adornment ; 5  and  a  few  seem  to  have  been 
express!}'  for  sepulchral  purposes,  either  as  decorations  of  the 
tomb,  or  to  contain  the  wine,  honey,  and  milk,  left  as  offerings 
to  the  mancs,c>  or  to  make  the  customary  libations,  or  more  rarely 
to  hold  the  ashes  of  the  dead.7  There  can  be  little  doubt,  what- 
ever purposes  they  may  have  originally  served,  that  these  vases 
were  placed  in  the  tomb  by  the  ashes  of  the  deceased,  together  with 
liis  armour  and  jewellery,  as  being  among  the  articles  which  he 
most  prized  in  life. 


4  Vol.  II.  p.  48.     A  choice  collection  of 
these  peculiar  vases  is  in  the  possession  of 
Signer  Augusto  Castellani,  at  Rome.     The 
fact  of  them  all  wanting  a  bottom  shows 
them  to  have  been  made  merely  for  deco- 
rative purposes.     Bull.  Inst.  1871,  p.  18. 
Ann.   Inst.  1871,  pp.   5-27  ;  Kliigmann, 
tav.  d'agg.  A— C. 

5  Yet  many  of  them  are  only  varnished 
outside,  and  but  partially — not  at  all  within; 
so  that  they  could  hardly  have  served  for 
liquids.     Ann.   Inst.  1831,   p.   97.     Many 
may  have  been  xised  by  the  relatives  at  the 
parcntalia,  or  funeral  feasts,  and  left  as 
sacred  in  the  tomb. 

6  The  notion  of  feeding  the  souls  of  the 
departed    was    very  general    among    the 
ancients.     In  Egypt  the  tomb  of  Osiris,  in 
the  isle  of  Phihe  in  the  Nile,  contained  360 
lihatory   vessels — xoai — which  were  daily 
filled  with  milk  by  the  priests.     Diod.  Sic. 
I.  p.  I!*,  ed.  Rhod.      In  Greece  the  souls 
were  supposed  to  be  fed  by  the  libations 
and  feasts  held  at  the  sepulchre.     Lucian, 
de  Luctu,  p.  809,  ed.  1615.     And  so  in 
Italy,  where  the  iiwncs  were  appeased  by 
libations  of  wine,    milk,   and  blood  ;  and 
the   wail  ing-women    therefore   beat    their 
breasts  to  force  out  the  milk,   and   tore 
their  flesh  to  make  the  blood  flow  ;  all  for 


the  satisfaction  of  the  departed.  Serv.  ad 
Mn.  V.  78.  A  similar  custom,  possibly 
of  equal  antiquity,  prevails  in  China,  of 
making  an  annual  "feast  for  the  hungry 
ghosts."  It  was  the  custom  of  the  ancients 
to  burn  on  the  funeral  pyre  the  vases  con- 
taining oil,  honey,  or  other  offerings  to  the 
dead.  Horn.  Iliad.  XXIII.  170  ;  Virg.  .£n. 
VI.  225  ;  Serv.  in  loc.  Vases  are  often 
found  in  the  tombs  of  Etruria,  as  well  as 
of  Greece,  and  her  colonies  in  Italy  and 
Sicily,  which  retain  manifest  proofs  of 
subjection  to  fire. 

~'  This  is  sometimes  the  case  with  those  of 
Sicily  and  Magna  Gratia,  especially  of  Apulia 
and  Lucania,  and  frequently  with  the  vases 
of  La  Certosa  at  Bologna  ;  more  rarely  with 
those  of  Etruria  Proper.  A  quaint  but 
beautiful  conceit  on  certain  of  these  cine- 
rary vases  is  uttered  by  Sir  Thomas  Browne, 
in  his  Hydriotaphia,  chap.  III.  "  Most 
imitate  a  circular  figure,  in  a  spherical  and 
round  composure  ;  whether  from  any 
mystery,  best  duration,  or  capacity,  were 
but  a  conjecture.  But  the  common  form 
with  necks  was  a  proper  figure,  making 
our  last  bed  like  our  first ;  nor  much  nn- 
like  the  urns  of  our  nativity,  while  we  lay 
in  the  nether  part  of  the  earth,  and  in- 
ward vault  of  our  microcosm. " 


INTRODUCTION.]    TOMBS    EIFLED    IN    PAST    AGES.  xcvii 

That  these  vases  are  found  in  such  multitudes  in  Etruria  is 
the  more  astonishing  when  we  remember  that  almost  all  the 
tombs  which  contain  them  have  been  rifled  in  bygone  times.  It 
is  extremely  rare  to  find  a  virgin  sepulchre.  At  Vulci,  where  the 
painted  vases  are  most  abundant,  not  one  tomb  in  a  hundred 
proves  to  be  intact.  It  is  obvious  that  those  who  in  past  ages 
violated  these  sepulchres  were  either  ignorant  of  the  value  of  the 
vases,  or  left  ihem  from  superstitious  motives — most  probably  the 
former,  for  they  are  often  found  broken  to  pieces,  as  though  they 
had  been  dashed  wantonly  to  the  earth  in  the  search  for  the  precious 
metals.  We  know  that  the  sepulchres  of  Corinth  and  of  Capua 
were  ransacked  by  the  Romans  in  the  time  of  Julius  Ciesar,  for  the 
sake  of  these  painted  vases,  which  were  called  necro-Corinthian, 
and  were  then  highly  prized  and  of  immense  value  ;  the  art  of 
making  them  having  been  lost ; l  but  how  it  came  to  pass  that 
the  Romans  never  worked  the  vast  mines  of  the  same  treasures 
in  Etruria,  some  almost  within  sight  of  the  Seven-hilled  City, 
it  is  difficult  to  comprehend.  They  could  hardly  have  been 
ignorant  of  the  custom  of  the  Etruscans  to  bury  these  vases  in 
their  sepulchres,  and  religious  scruples  could  not  have  deterred 
them  from  spoliation  in  Etruria  more  than  in  Greece  or  the 
south  of  Italy.  Such,  however,  is  the  fact,  and  the  abundance 
of  these  vases  in  Etruscan  tombs  forbids  us  to  believe  that  the 
extensive  system  of  rifling,  to  which  they  have  evidently  been 
subjected,  was  by  Roman  hands.  It  was  more  probably  carried 
forward  at  the  close  of  the  Empire,  or  by  the  barbarian  hordes 
who  overran  Italy  in  the  early  centuries  of  our  era.3  Plunder 

1  Sueton. ,  J.  Caes.  81.     Strabo  (VIII.  p.  sanctioned  the  spoliation  of  ancient  sepul- 

381)  says  the  Romans  did  not  leave  a  tomb  chres,    yet   restricted    it   to    the   precious 

untouched  at  Corinth  in  their  search  for  metals,  commanding  the  ashes  to  be  left — 

the  vases  and  bronzes.     Robbers  of  tombs  "  quia    nolumus    lucra    qtiseri,     qufe   per 

were  not  uncommon  in  ancient  times,  in  funesta  scelera  possunt  reperiri  ;  "  and  he 

Egypt  and  Greece  as  well  as  in  Italy,  and  justified  his  decree  on  the  ground  that  that 

were  execrated,   as  body-snatchers   are  at  was  not  stolen  which  had  no  owner,  and 

the  present  day.     Pliny  states  that  in  his  that  that  ought  not  to  be  left  with  the 

time  fictile  vases,   by  which  he  probably  dead,  which  would  serve  to  keep  the  liv- 

means   those   that  were   painted,    fetched  ing— "  Non  est  enirn  cupiditas  eripere  quw 

more  money  than  the  celebrated  Murrhine  nullus   se   dominus   ingemiscat   amisisse." 

vases,  the  cost  of  which  he  records  (XXXV.  Cassiodor.  Var.  IV.  34.     The  same  feeling 

46  ;  XXXVII.  7) ;  and  which  are  supposed  was   shown    in   the   laws   of    the   Twelve 

to   have   been   of    porcelain.     That   these  Tables,  which  forbade  the  burial  of  gold 

painted  vases  were  very  rare  in  his  day  is  in  sepulchres, — "Neve  aurum  addito,"— 

confirmed  by  the  fact  that  not  one  has  yet  unless  the  teeth  of  the  corpse  happened  to  lie 

been  discovered  among  the  ruins  of  Pompeii  fastened  with  it.     "  Quoi  auro  denies  vincti 

or  Herculaneum.    Bull.  Inst.  1871,  p.  95.  escunt,  ast  im   cum  illo  sepelire  urereve, 

•  It  is  known  that  Theodoric,  the  Goth,  se  t'raude  esto."     Cicero,  de  Leg.  II.  24. 
VOL.   i.  (j 


xcviii     WERE  THE  VASES  FOUND  IN  ETRUEIA     [INTRODUCTION. 

was  obviously  the  sole  object,  for  the  tombs  of  the  poor,  though 
opened,  are  left  untouched ;  while  those  of  the  rich  have  been 
despoiled  of  the  precious  metals,  the  vases  have  been  thrown 
down,  the  sarcophagi  and  urns  overturned,  and  everything  left 
in  confusion,  as  though  no  corner  had  been  unransacked.  In 
the  middle  ages,  traditions  of  subterranean  treasures  were  rife 
in  this  land,  and  sorcerers  were  applied  to  for  their  discovery,3 
but  it  does  not  appear  that  any  systematic  researches  were  carried 
forward,  as  in  earlier  times,  and  again  in  our  own  day. 

In  the  consideration  of  these  vases  the  question  naturally 
arises — if  they  are  mostly  of  foreign  character,  either  oriental 
or  Greek,  how  came  they  in  Etruscan  tombs  ?  This  is  a  ques- 
tion which  has  puzzled  many  a  learned  man  of  our  age.  At  the 
first  view  of  the  matter,  when  the  purely  Hellenic  nature  of  the 
design  and  subjects,  and  especially  the  inscriptions  in  the  Greek 
language  and  character,  are  regarded,  the  natural  response  is 
that  they  must  have  been  imported ;  a  view  which  receives 
confirmation  from  the  recorded  fact  of  an  extensive  commerce 
in  pottery  in  ancient  times.4  Yet  when,  on  the  other  hand,  we 
bear  in  mind  the  enormous  quantities  of  these  vases  that  have 
been  found  in  the  Etruscan  soil,  that  these  spoils  of  the  dead 
which  within  the  last  fifty  years  alone  have  been  reaped  by  the 
excavator,  may  be  reckoned,  not  by  thousnnds,  but  by  myriads, 
and  that  what  have  hitherto  been  found  on  a  few  sites  only,  can 
bear  but  a  very  small  proportion  to  the  multitudes  still  entombed 
— when  the  peculiarities  of  style  attaching  to  particular  localities 
are  considered,  the  pottery  of  each  site  having  its  distinguishing 
characteristics,  so  that  an  experienced  eye  is  seldom  at  a  loss  to 
pronounce  in  what  part  of  the  ancient  world  any  given  vase  was 
found — it  must  be  admitted  that  there  are  strong  grounds  for 
regarding  many  of  them  as  of  local  manufacture.5  Antiquaries, 

3  Mioali,  Mon.  Ined.  p.  362.  instance,    occur    in    juxtaposition.     Ann. 

4  Plin.    XXXV.    46.— Haec    per    maria  Inst.    1831,   pp.    72,    122,    171,    et    &eq. 
terrasque  ultro  citroquc  portantur,  insigni-  This  unknown  tongue,  which  is  frequently 
bus  rotse  officinis.     The  pottery  of  Athens  found  on  vases  of  the  Archaic  style,  may, 
•was  carried  by  the  Phoenician  traders  to  in  some  cases  be  Etruscan  in  Greek  letters, 
the  far  western  coast  of  Africa,  and  bar-  Ann.  Inst.  1831,  p.  171.     In  the  place  of 
tered  for  leopard-skins  and  elephant-teeth.  characters  a  row  of  dots  is  sometimes  found, 
See  Grote's  Greece,  III.  p.  364.  as  though   the  copyist  would   not  venture 

5  There  are,  moreover,  facts  which  con-  to  imitate  what  he   did   not  comprehend, 
firm   this  view.     The   inscriptions,  though  Yet  from  the  extensive  commercial  inter- 
in  Greek   characters,  are  not  unfrequently  course    of   Etruria   with    Greece   and    her 
utterly  unintelligible — such  collocations  of  colonies,  many  of  the  Etruscans  must  have 
letters  as  arc  foreign  to  every   dialect  of  known  Greek.     Sometimes  a  genuine  in- 
Greek.      Half    a    dozen    consonants,    for  scription  appears  to  have  been  incorrectly 


INTRODUCTION.]     OP  LOCAL  OR  FOREIGN  MANUFACTURE?    xcix 

however,  are  much  divided  in  opinion  on  this  point,  some  main- 
taining all  these  vases  to  be  importations  from  Greece  or  her 
colonies  ;  others,  to  be  of  Etruscan  manufacture,  in  imitation 
of  Greek ;  and  others,  again,  endeavouring  to  reconcile  con- 
flicting facts  by  imagining  an  extensive  population  of  Greeks 
settled  for  ages  in  Etruria,  or  at  least  bodies  of  Hellenic  artists, 
like  the  masonic  corporations  of  the  middle  ages. 

But  after  all  what  are  the  speculations  of  most  antiquaries 
worth,  where  there  are  no  historic  records  for  guidance,   and 
few  other  palpable  data  from  which  to  arrive  at  the  truth — where, 
in  a  word,  the  question  resolves  itself  into  one  of  artistic  feeling, 
as  much  as  of  archteological  erudition  ?6     Not  to  every  man  is  it 
given  to  penetrate  the  mysteries  of  art — to  distinguish  the  copy 
from  the   original  in  painting  or  sculpture.     Long  experience, 
extensive  knowledge,  and  highly- cultivated  taste,  are  requisite 
for  the  discernment  of  those  minute,  indefinite,  indescribable, 
but  not  less  real  and  convincing  differences  between  the  original 
and  the  imitation.     So  it  is  with  the  ceramographic  art.     When 
men,  who  to  vast  antiquarian  attainments  add  the   experience 
of  many   years,    whose    natural    taste    has   led   them   to    make 
ancient  art  in  general,  and  Greek  vases  in  particular,  their  express 
study — who  have  visited  every  collection  in  Europe,  and  have 
had  thousands  of  specimens  year  after  year  submitted  to  their 
inspection  and  judgment — when  such  men  as  Gerhard,  Braun, 
and   Brunn,  renowned   throughout   Europe  for  their  profound 
knowledge   of  the    archaeology  of   art,   give    their    opinion   that 
there  is  something  about  many  of  the  vases  of  Etruria,  some- 
thing in  form,  design,  or  feeling,  which  stamps  them  as  imita- 
tions of  those  of  Greece,  distinguishable,  by  them  at  least,  from 
the  genuine  pottery  of  Attica — we   may  be    content  to  accept 
their  opinion,  though  unable  personally  to  verify  it.     This  view 
does  not  preclude  the  supposition  that  most  of  the  vases  found 
in   Etruria   are   of  Greek    manufacture,    either  imported   from 


copied,  the  blunders  being  such  as  could  Frenchman,     "peuvent     difficilement     se 

hardly  have  been  made  by  Greeks.     Many  reduire   en    regie,     et,    sous    ce    rapport, 

of  the  vases  also  have  Etruscan  monograms  beaucoup     d'amateurs     presque     ignorans 

beneath   the    foot,   scratched    in   the   clay  I'emporteraient  sur  les  plus  celebres  anti- 

apparently  before  it  was  baked.     On  the  quaires,  parccque,  pour  1'antiquite  figured, 

vases   of   Nola  such   monograms  are    also  les  livres  et  les  plus  vastes  etudes  suppleent 

found,  but  in  Oscan  characters.     Gerhard,  inoins  au  gout,  que  le  gout  et  1'intelligence 

Ann.  Inst.  1831,  pp.  74,  177.  no  peuvent  supplier  a  1'erudition."     Due 

6  "  Des  jugemens  qui  emanent  du  senti-  de  Luynes,  Aim.  lust.  1832,  p.  146. 
ment,"    observes    a    shrewd   and    learned 


c  ATTIC    CHARACTER    PREVALENT.      [INTRODUCTION. 

Greece  or  her  colonies,  or  made  by  Greek  residents  in  the 
former  land.  Gerhard,  indeed,  divides  these  vases  into  three 
classes. 

I.  Those  purely  Greek  in  character. 

II.  Those  also  Greek,  but  modified  as  if  by  Greek  residents 
in  Etruria. 

III.  Those  of  Etruscan  manufacture,  in  imitation  of  Greek. 

It  is  clear  that  though  the  art  of  painted  pottery  originated  in 
Greece,  it  was  more  highly  developed  in  Etruria  and  other 
parts  of  Italy.  For  there  is  a  much  greater  variety  of  form 
and  style  in  the  vases  of  these  countries  than  in  those  of 
Greece,  and  the  descriptions  common  to  both  lands  are  carried 
to  a  much  larger  size  in  Italy.7 

It  is  worthy  of  remark  that  most  of  the  painted  vases  of 
Etruria — all  those  of  the  Second  and  Third  styles — have  an 
Athenian  character.  The  deities  represented  are  chiefly  Attic 
— Athene,  Poseidon,  Phcebos,  Artemis,  Hermes,  Dionysos,  and 
Demeter.  The  myths  also  are  generally  Attic  ;  so  are  the  public 
games,  and  the  scenes  taken  from  ordinary  life.  Even  the 
inscriptions,  with  a  few  exceptions,  are  in  Attic  Greek,8  and 
belong,  says  Gerhard,  to  a  period  of  short  duration,  and  which 
can  be  determined  with  precision,  being  confirmed  by  the  forms 
of  the  vases,  \>y  the  design,  and  the  subjects  represented.  It  was 
not  prior  to  the  74th  Otympiad  (484  B.C.),  nor  later  than  the 
124th  (284  B.C.) — or  between  the  third  and  fifth  centuries  of 
Home,  when  the  Greek  colonies  of  Italy  were  in  the  height  of 
their  power,  and  before  Etruria  had  lost  her  independence.9 
The  Attic  character  of  these  vases  is  the  more  remarkable,  for 
from  the  only  record  we  have  of  Greek  artists  emigrating  to 
Etruria — namely,  with  Demaratus,  the  Corinthian — we  might 

"Gerhard,    Bull.    lust.    1332,    p.    75;  in  the  feminine,  it  probably  marks  a  nuptial 

Ann.  Inst.  1837,  2,  p.  134,  et  scq.  present.     Other  salutatory  expressions  are 

8  The  inscriptions  are  for  the  most  part  sometimes  found,  such  as  XAIPE  2T  "hail 

designatory  ;    the    several    figures    having  to    thee  ! "    or    HO2ONAEnOTEET*PON 

their  appellations  attached.     The  names  of  "  happy  as  possible  !  "     On  the  vases  for 

the  potter  and  painter  .are  also  not  unfre-  domestic  use  we  often  find  XAIPEKAiniEI 

qucntly  recorded  ;  the  former  being  united  — "hail,      and    drink!"     or     sometimes 

with   EnOIEI   or  EIIOIE2EN  ;   the   latter  FIIEIME     "drink    me!"     as   though   the 

with   ErPA*2E.     Other  inscriptions  refer  goblet  itself  were  speaking.     The  inscrip- 

to  the  possessor  of  the  vase,    and   either  tions  on  the  Panathenaic  vases  have  already 

mention    his    name   with    the  addition    of  been    mentioned.      The  places   where   the 

KAAO2,    or  have   merely  the  latter  word  vases  were  made  are  never  indicated,  as  on 

alone,  or  HO  IIAI2  KAAO2,   showing  the  the  red  pottery  of  Arretium. 

vase  to  have  been  a  gift  to  some  "beautiful  9  Ann.  Inst.  1831,  pp.  99,  ct  seq.  201  ; 

youth."    When  this  inscription  is  repeated  Bull.  Inst.  1831,  pp   164  —  7. 


INTRODUCTION.]     ETRUSCAN  IMITATIONS  OF  GREEK  VASES.         ci 


have  expected  that  Doric  vases  and  Doric  inscriptions  would 
have  prevailed,  whereas  the  fact  is  that  such  vases  are  of  com- 
paratively rare  occurrence,  and  that  such  inscriptions  are  still 
more  rare,  found  only  on  archaic  pottery  of  the  Corinthian 
class. 

There  are  certain  vases  not  mentioned  ahove,  hecause  of  such 
rare  occurrence  as  hardly  to  form  a  class,  which  are  undoubtedly 
of  Etruscan  manufacture  ;  as  they  bear  both  Etruscan  subjects 
and  Etruscan  inscriptions.1  I  am  enabled  to  offer  to  the  notice 
of  the  reader  a  specimen  of  these  vases  more  remarkable  than 
any  yet  discovered.  It  is  a  krater  with  volute  handles,  in  the 
late  style,  with  a  Bacchic  dance  on  one  side,2  and  on  the  other  a 
striking  scene  of  the  parting  of  Admetus  and  Alcestis,  whose 
names  are  attached,  between  the  figures  of  Charun  armed  with 
his  mallet,  and  of  another  demon  brandishing  serpents.  I  have 
given  it,  as  a  very  rare  and  curious  specimen  of  undoubted 
Etruscan  ceramography,  in  its  natural  colours,  as  a  frontispiece 
to  the  second  volume  of  this  work.3 

With  the  vases  I  close  mv  notices  of  Etruscan  art. 


1  Very  few  of  this  class  are  known.    One, 
an  amphora  of  ancient  style,  having  birds 
with  human  heads,    bears  the  inscription 
in    Etruscan  letters    "Kape  Mukathesa." 
Another,    a  stamnos   in   the  Third  style, 
shows  a  Victory  writing  the  Etruscan  word 
•'Lasna"    in   an   open  book.     Two  other 
ampkorce  of  late  style  have  inscriptions  in 
a  mixture  of  Greek  and  Etruscan,  and   one 
beai-s  the  name   "Aruns"  in  Etruscan  on 
the  handle.     Two  others  are  krateres — one 
with  Actaeon  ("  Aitaiun  "  in  Etruscan  cha- 
racters),   defending    himself    against    his 
dogs  ;  rev.  Ajax  ("  Aivas  ")  falling  on  his 
sword  ;  the  other  showing  Ajax  slaying  a 
Trojan    captive,    and   "  Charun "   standing 
by,  ready  to  seize  his  victim  ;  rev.  Charun 
amid  a  group  of  three  women,  one  called 
"  Pentasila  "  (Penthesilea),  another  desig- 
nated   "  Hinthial  Turrnucas."  Ann.   Inst. 
1331,  pp.  73,  175  ;  1834,  pp.  54—56  ;  pp. 
264—294  ;  Mon.  Ined.  lust.  II.  tav.  8,  9. 

2  See   the   woodcut   at   p.  437    of  this 
volume. 

3  This  krater  was  found  at  Vulci,  and 
was  formerly  in  the  possession  of  Dr.  Emil 
Braun  of  llome,  through  whose  kindness  I 
was  enabled  to  offer  this  illustration,   re- 
duced from  a  tracing  of  the  original.     The 
scene  represents  Admetus — "ATMITE"- 


at  his  last  hour,  when  a  Thanatos,  or 
winged  messenger  of  Death  is  come  to 
claim  him,  and  threatens  him  with  ser- 
pents. As  it  had  been  decreed  by  the 
Fates  that  if  one  of  his  nearest  relatives 
would  become  his  substitute  his  life  would 
be  spared,  his  wife  Alcestis — "  ALKSTI,"  in 
Etruscan — comes  forward  to  devote  herself 
in  his  room,  and  takes  a  farewell  embrace, 
while  a  second  demon,  apparently  Charun 
himself,  stands  behind  her  with  his  mallet 
raised,  about  to  strike  the  fatal  blow. 

The  inscription  between  the  last  two 
figures  would  run  thus  in  Roman  letters — • 
"EcA.  ERSCE.  NAC.  ACHRUM.  PHLERTHRCE." 
It  has  been  considered  by  Dr.  Braun  (Bull. 
Inst.  1847)  pp.  81—86)  to  imply  that  Eca 
(a  proper  name)  dedicated  this  vase  to 
Acheron.  But  if  I  may  suggest  another 
version,  in  a  matter  which  must  be  prin- 
cipally conjecture,  I  would  say  that  "Eca  " 
can  hardly  be  a  proper  name,  for  it  is 
found  frequently  in  connection  with  Suthi, 
as  a  formula  on  sepulchral  monuments, 
and  is  probably  equivalent  to  hcec,  or  ecce. 
"Ersce,"  in  which  Dr.  Braun  finds  an 
analogy  to  epyov,  I  would  interpret  by  one 
of  the  few  Etruscan  words  whose  meaning 
has  come  down  to  us  from  the  ancients — 
arse,  which  Festus  says  meant  arerte. 


cii  ETRUSCANS  MALIGNED  BY  GREEKS  &  ROMANS.  [INTRODUCTION. 

Such  is  the  people  to  whose  Cities  and  Cemeteries  I  propose 
to  conduct  the  reader.  From  what  has  heen  already  stated,  he 
will  expect  to  find  traces  of  no  mean  degree  of  culture,  and 
should  he  test  my  descriptions  with  his  own  eyes,  he  will  not  he 
disappointed.  The  Etruscans  were  undoubtedly  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  nations  of  antiquity— the  great  civilizers  of  Italy — 
and  their  influence  not  only  extended  over  the  whole  of  the 
ancient  world,  but  has  affected  every  subsequent  age,  and  has 
njt  been  without  effect,  however  faint,  on  the  civilization  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  and  of  regions  they  never  knew. 

When  we  consider  the  important  part  they  played  among  the 
nations  of  old,  it  is  astonishing  that  the  records  of  them  are  so 
vague  and  meagre.  They  did  not,  it  is  true,  like  the  Greeks  and 
Romans,  trumpet  their  own  fame  to  posterity,  or  at  least,  if  it 

cannot  be  said 

— nulli  nota  poet* 
Ilia  fuit  tellus,  jacuit  sine  carmine  sacro, 

none  of  the  works  of  their  poets  and  historians  have  come  down 
to  us.4  And  thus,  had  it  not  been  for  their  tombs,  we  should 
have  known  them  only  through  the  representations  of  the  Greeks 
and  Romans,  which  give  us  a  most  unfavourable  impres- 
sion of  them.  For  the  Greeks  describe  them  as  pirates  and 
robbers,5  or  as  effeminate  debauchees  ; c  the  Romans  brand  them 

"Xac"  is  a  particle,  to  which  we  have  5  Many  of  the  passages  containing  this 
no  clue,  and  whose  meaning  must  be  charge  refer  doubtless  to  the  Tyrrhene- 
learned  from  the  rest  of  the  sentence.  Pelasgi  rather  than  to  the  Etruscans,  pro- 
"  Achrura  "  is  apparently  Acheron.  Who-  perly  so  called,  but  as  the  former  race 
ther  "Phlerthrce"  be  one  word  or  two,  its  formed  an  ingredient  in  the  population  of 
meaning  is  pretty  obvious,  for  "Phlere,"  Etruria,  it  is  difficult  always  to  draw  the  dis- 
or  "Phleres,"  occurs  frequently  on  votive  tinction.  Yet  there  is  still  evidence  enough 
bronzes,  and  in  connection  with  "Turce,"  to  convict  the  Etruscans  of  this  practice, 
and  is  generally  admitted  to  be  a  dedica-  Strabo,  V.  pp.  219,  220  ;  VI.  p.  267  ; 
tory  formula.  The  meaning  of  the  whole,  Diod.  Sic.  V.  p.  292  ;  XI.  p.  66.  The 
then,  I  take  to  be  this — "Lo!  she  saves  Romans  also  laid  this  charge  distinctly  to 
him  from  Acheron,  and  makes  an  offering  the  Etruscans.  Cicero,  de  llepub.  II.  4  ; 
of  herself."  Dr.  Birch  takes  it  for  the  Serv.  ad  JEn.  VIII.  479  ;  X.  184.  See 
speech  of  Charun,  and  translates  it,  "I  Niebuhr,  I.  p.  127,  et  seq.  Piracy,  how- 
bear  thee  to  Acheron."  Ancient  Pottery,  ever,  in  those  days,  be  it  remembered,  was 
p.  461.  For  another  interpretation  see  an  honourable  profession — a  legitimate  field 
Bull.  Inst.  1847,  pp.  86— 88  ;  for  Lord  for  glory.  Thucyd.  I.  5  ;  Justin.  XLIII.  3. 
Crawford's,  see  Etruscan  Inscriptions,  p.  6  For  the  charges  of  inordinate  luxury 
37  ;  for  Mr.  Taylor's,  see  Etruscan  Re-  see  the  statements  of  Timajus,  Poseidonius, 
searches,  p.  308.  and  Theopompus  ap.  Athen.  IV.  c.  38  ; 
4  "Troy  herself,"  says  Philostratus,  XII.  c.  14,  cf.  17;  Diod.  Sic.  V.  p.  316; 
"  would  not  have  been,  had  not  Homer  Dion.  Hal.  II.  p.  105  ;  IX.  p.  575. 
lived.  He  was  verily  the  founder  of  Ilium"  Niebuhr  (I.  p.  141)  rejects  the  statements 
(cited  by  Lanzi,  Sagg.  II.  p.  174).  of  Theopompus  011  this  head,  not  only  on 


INTRODUCTION.]     INFLUENCE  OF  ETRUSCAN  CIVILIZATION.       ciii 

as  sluggards,  gluttons,  and  voluptuaries.7  Yet  the  former  ac- 
knowledged their  power  at  sea,  their  commercial  enterprise,  and 
their  artistic  skill ;  and  the  latter  were  forced  to  confess  that 
to  Etruria  they  owed  most  of  their  institutions  and  arts  :  neither, 
however,  have  paid  that  tribute  to  her  civilization  which  we  now 
learn  to  be  due,  and  the  Romans  have  not  admitted  their  full 
amount  of  indebtedness  to  it — a  fact  which  is  seen  in  the  silence 
or  merely  incidental  acknowledgment  of  their  historians  and 
poets,  who  would  willingly  have  referred  all  the  refinement  of 
Rome  to  a  Hellenic  source. 

Though  the  ancients  were  reluctant  to  admit  the  full  worth  of 
Etruria,  it  may  be  questioned  if  Niebuhr  is  correct  in  asserting 
that  she  has  received  from  the  moderns  more  than  her  due  share 
of  attention  and  praise.  How  far  we  Transalpines  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  are  indebted  to  her  civilization  is  a  problem  hardly 
to  be  solved ;  but  indelible  traces  of  her  influence  are  apparent  in 
Italy.  That  portion  of  the  Peninsula  where  civilization  earliest 
flourished,  whence  infant  Rome  drew  her  first  lessons,  has  in 
subsequent  ages  maintained  its  pre-eminence.  It  was  on  the 
Etruscan  soil  that  the  seeds  of  culture,  dormant  through  the 
long  winter  of  barbarism,  broke  forth  anew  when  a  genial  spring 
smiled  on  the  human  intellect :  it  was  in  Etruria  that  immortality 
was  first  bestowed  on  the  lyre,  the  canvas,  the  marble,  the 
literature,  the  science  of  modern  Europe.  Here  arose 

"  the  all  Etruscan  three  — 
Dante  and  Petrarch,  and  scarce  less  than  they, 
The  Bard  of  Prose,  creative  spirit !  he 
Of  the  Hundred  Tales  of  love." 

It  was  Etruria  which  produced  Giotto,  Brunelleschi,  Fra  Ange- 
lico,  Luca  Signorelli,  Fra  Bartolemeo,  Michel  Angelo,8  Hilde- 

account  of  his  being  unworthy  of   credit,  no  better  than  their  neighbours  in  purity 

but  because  "there  are  no  licentious  repre-  of  life. 

sentations  on  any  Etruscan  works  of  art."  7  Virg.   lEn.   XI.   732 — Semper  inertes 

Though  the  accounts  of  Theopompus  may  Tyrrheni  ! 

be  exaggerated,  as  Miiller  (Etrusk.  I.  3,  12)  At   non   in   Venerem   segnes   nocturnaque 

supposes,  yet  Niebuhr  is  greatly  mistaken  bella  ; 

as  to  the  purity  of  the  Etruscans.     For  to  Aut,  ubi  curva  chores  indixit  tibia  Bacchi, 

say  nothing  of  the  painted  vases,    which  Expectare  dapes,  et  plena?  pocula  mensa?. 

are  illustrative  rather  of  Greek  than  Etrus-  Hic  amor>  hoc  studium. 

can    manners,    and    on    which    the    most  Cf.  Greorg.  II.  193;  Catul.  XXXIX.  11. 

abominable  indecencies  are  sometimes  re-  8  Raffaele  also,    if   he  does  not  belong 

presented,    there    is   evidence   enough    on  strictly  to  Etruria   Proper,   was   born  not 

works  of  undoubtedly  Etruscan  art,  such  far  from  the  frontiers,  and  in  a  region  once 

as  sepulchral  paintings  and  bronze  mirrors,  possessed  by  the    Etruscans.     Besides    he 

to  convict  the  Etruscans  of  being  little  or  was  educated  in  the  Perugiau  school.     If 


civ    PRE-EMINENCE  OF  THE  TUSCAN  INTELLECT.   [INTRODUCTION. 

brand,  Macchiavelli,  "  the  starry  Galileo,"  and  such  a  noble  band 
of  painters,  sculptors,  and  architects,  as  no  other  country  of 
modern  Europe  can  boast.  Certainly  no  other  region  of  Italy 
has  produced  such  a  galaxy  of  brilliant  intellects.  I  leave  it  to 
philosophers  to  determine  if  there  be  anything  in  the  climate  or 
natural  features  of  the  land  to  render  it  thus  intellectually  pro- 
lific. Much  may  be  owing  to  the  natural  superiority  of  the  race, 
which,  in  spite  of  the  revolutions  of  ages,  remains  essentially  the 
same,  and  preserves  a  distinctive  character ; 9  just  as  many  traits 
of  the  ancient  Greek,  Gaul,  German,  and  Spaniard  may  be  recog- 
nised in  their  modern  descendants.  The  roots  of  bygone  moral, 
as  well  as  physical,  culture,  are  not  easily  eradicated.  The  wild 
vine  and  olive  mark  many  a  desert  tract  to  have  been  once 
subject  to  cultivation.  And  thus  ancient  civilization  will  long 
maintain  its  traces  even  in  a  neglected  soil,  and  will  often 
germinate  afresh  on  experiencing  congenial  influences, — 

"  The  wheat  three  thousand  years  interred 
Will  still  its  harvest  bear." 

How  else  comes  it  that  while  the  Roman  of  to-day  retains 
much  of  the  rudeness  of  former  times — while  the  Neapolitan  in 
his  craft  and  wiliness  betrays  his  Greek  origin,  and  the  Sicilian 
the  lawlessness  of  his  African  forefathers — the  Tuscan  is  still  the 
most  lively  in  intellect  and  imagination,  the  most  highly  endowed 
with  a  taste  for  art  and  literature  ?  May  it  not  also  be  to  the 
deep-seated  influences  of  early  culture  that  he  owes  that  superior 
polish  and  blandness  of  manner,  which  entitle  Tuscan}'  pre- 
eminently to  the  distinction  claimed  for  it  of  being  "  a  rare  land 
of  courtesy  ?  " 

we  were  to  claim  as  the  sons  of  Etruria  the  9  Micali    (Ant.    Pop.    Ttal.    I.   p.    101; 

natives  of  those  lands  beyond  the  Apennines  III.    p.    11),    maintained    the   analogy   in 

and  the  Tiber  which  once  belonged  to  her,  physical    and    craniological    development, 

there  would  he  very  few  illustrious  Italian  between    the    ancient   Etruscans    and    the 

names,  either  of  ancient  or  modern  times,  modern  inhabitants  of  Tuscany, 
which  would  be  excluded  from  the  category. 


No.    1.      EXKUSCAN    OlNUCHOJi,    OF    BUCCHKKO. 


APPENDIX    TO    THE    INTRODUCTION. 
ON    THE   FORMS  AND    USES  OF  GREEK    AND    ETRUSCAN  VASES. 

THE  Vases  found  in  Etruscan  tombs  are  of  various  forms,  and  served 
different  purposes ;  therefore  to  enable  the  reader  to  understand  the  frequent 
mention  made  of  them  under  their  technical  names  in  the  course  of  this 
work,  I  propose  to  arrange  them  under  their  respective  classes. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  greater  part  of  the  figured  vases  found 
in  Etruria  are  not  Etruscan,  although  often  so  designated,  but  are  Greek, 
whether  imported  from  Greece  and  her  colonies,  or  of  local  manufacture  by 
Hellenic  colonists,  is  a  question  not  yet  satisfactorily  determined.  But  the 
subjects  on  the  painted  vases,  the  inscriptions  they  bear,  and  the  art  they 
display,  are  so  unmistakably  Greek  as  to  determine  their  origin  beyond  a 
doubt,  and  to  distinguish  them  markedly  from  the  ware  proper  to  Etruria. 
Etruscan  imitations  of  Greek  vases  are  occasionally  brought  to  light,  but  the 
genuine  pottery  of  Etruria  is  quite  Oriental  in  character,  without  a  trace  of 
Hellenic  influence.  It  is  never  painted,  but  is  decorated  with  simple 
geometrical  patterns,  scratched  or  stamped  on  the  clay,  or  witli  figures  in 
relief,  as  shown  in  the  woodcut  No,  1,  at  the  head  of  this  Appendix.  It  is  of 
brown  or  black  ware,  made  with  the  hand  and  not  with  tha  latha,  sun-dried 


cvi  THE    FORMS    AND    USES    OF  [APPENDIX  TO 

and  unglazed,  of  rude  workmanship,  and  often  of  clumsy  form,  and  its 
adornments  betray  none  of  the  elegance  and  refinement  which  breathe  more 
or  less  from  all  the  works  of  the  Greeks.  Yet  in  form  these  Etruscan  vases 
do  not  differ  so  widely  from  the  Greek,  that  they  cannot  be  classified  with 
them,  and  I  shall  therefore  apply  to  them  the  nomenclature  of  the  latter,  so 
far  as  it  can  be  ascertained.  The  generic  name  by  which  this  early  Etruscan 
ware  is  now  known  is  "  bucchero,"  and  by  this  term  it  will  be  mentioned  in 
the  following  pages.  The  term  applied  by  the  Greeks  to  black  sepulchral 
pottery  was  Libyes,  or  "  niggers." 

The  names  of  these  ancient  vases  have  been  ascertained,  in  a  few  in- 
stances, from  monumental  sources,  being  attached  to  pots  of  certain  forms 
introduced  into  scenes  on  painted  vases ;  as  the  word  "  hydria  "  is  written 
over  a  water-jar,  on  the  celebrated  Fran§ois  vase  at  Florence  (Vol.  II., 
p.  114)  ;  but  more  generally  we  have  only  the  descriptions  given  of  vases 
by  certain  ancient  authors,  especially  Athenasus,  which  descriptions  being  in 
many  instances  vague,  ambiguous,  or  contradictory,  are  far  from  throwing  a 
satisfactory  light  on  the  subject.  It  must  be  confessed  that,  even  after  the 
critical  researches  of  Panofka,  Gerhard,  Letronne,  Ussing,  and  Thiersch,  into 
this  subject,  the  nomenclature  of  many  of  the  shapes  of  ancient  vases  is  in 
great  measure  arbitrary  or  conventional.  As  to  the  forms  of  numerous 
vases  mentioned  by  Athenreus  we  are  still  utterly  in  the  dark.  We  are, 
however,  able  to  recognise  the  characters  of  the  most  common  shapes  and  to 
classify  the  vases  according  to  the  purposes  they  were  intended  to  serve. 

Of  the  illustrations  here  given  of  the  forms  of  ancient  vases  I  would 
observe,  that  having  been  taken  from  various  sources,  and  drawn  at  different 
periods,  they  are  on  no  uniform  scale,  so  that  a  large  Arase  will  often  appear 
from  the  woodcut  to  be  smaller  than  another  to  which  it  is  really  very  supe- 
rior in  size,  e.g.  Nos.  6  and  7.  The  woodcuts  indicate,  therefore,  the  form 
and  character  of  the  several  descriptions  of  vases,  not  their  relative  size. 

Many  of  these  woodcuts  will  probably  be  familiar  to  my  readers  from 
having  appeared  in  the  two  editions  of  Dr.  Birch's  work  on  "  Ancient 
Pottery,"  but  availing  myself  of  my  right  to  claim  my  own  thunder,  I  must 
mention  that  they  originally  illustrated  the  first  edition  of  this  work,  ten  years 
before  they  did  duty  for  Dr.  Birch. 

The  following  classification  will,  I  think,  comprise  all  the  most  common 
forms  of  Greek  vases. 

Class  I.  Vases  for  holding  or  storing  liquids,  fruits,  &c., — pithos,  amphora, 
pelike,  stamnos,  lekane. 

II.  Vases  for  carrying  water, — hydria,  kalpis. 

III.  Vases  for  mixing  or  cooling  wine, — krater,  kelebe,  oxybaphon,  lebes, 
psykter. 

IV.  Vases  for  drawing  and  pouring  out  wine,  &c., — oinochoe,  olpe,  prochoos, 
kytithos,  situla. 

V.  Vases   for   drinking, — Jcantharos,    karchesion,    skyphos,    mastos,    depas, 
kyathos,  kylix,  lepaste,  pella,  holkion,  kerus,  rhyton,  phiale,  kothon. 

VI.  Vases    for  ointments    or    perfumes, — lekythos,    aryballos,    bombylios, 
askos,  kotyliskos,  alubastos,  pyxis. 

Class  I. — VASES  FOR  HOLDING  OR  PRESERVING  LIQUIDS  AND  FOOD. 

The  largest  vase  of  this  class  was  the  pithos,  or  wine-jar,  a  tall  jar  with 
a  full  body  and  wide  mouth,  with  a  lid,  and  generally  without  handles.  It 


THE  INTRODUCTION.]     GEEEK   AND    ETEUSCAN   VASES. 


No.   2.      PITHOS,  FROM  VEIL 


served  also  to  hold  oil,  fruit,  and  other  solids,  and  resembled  in  size  and 
shape  the  large  oil-jars  of  Southern  Europe.  The  visitor  to  Pompeii  may 
remember  in  the  street  of  Mercury  three  oil-shops,  full  of  these  large  pithoi, 
of  coarse  red  ware,  several  of  them  mended  of  old  with  rivets  of  lead.  The 
pithos  was  used  also  as  an  urn  to  contain  burnt 
human  ashes,  and  in  the  early  days  of  Etruria,  was 
often  decorated  with  bands  of  small  Egyptian-like 
figures  in  relief,  and  was  also  ribbed.  An  illustra- 
tion of  this  jar  as  a  cinerary  urn  is  given  in  the 
woodcut  annexed,  No.  2.  It  was  sometimes  used 
also  to  hold  the  corpse,  for  two  such  jars  being 
placed  mouth  to  mouth,  served  as  a  rude  coffin,  and 
thus  arranged  they  are  not  unfrequently  found  in 
the  tombs  of  the  Troad.  It  was  this  form  of  vase 
which  served  as  the  habitation  of  Diogenes,  for  his 
"  tub  "  is  thus  represented  on  ancient  monuments, 
— hence  the  Greek  proverb  "  the  life  of  a  pithos" 
to  express  a  mean  and  miserable  existence.  It  was 
a  brazen  vase  of  this  form,  in  which  Eurystheus,  in 
his  terror  at  the  bristly  monster  of  Eryrnanthus,which 
Hercules  was  bringing  him  on  his  shoulders,  endea- 
Aroured  to  hide  himself — a  subject  often  depicted, 
and  with  infinite  humour,  on  the  early  Attic  vases. 

The  amphora,  called  by  the  Greeks  amphoreus,  is  a  two-handled  vase  of 
various  forms,  but  generally  tall  and  full-bellied.     This  is  the  most  common 
of   all  ancient  vases,  and  is  found  in  connection 
with  every    period  and    style  of    art.     The   more 
ordinary  description  was   of  coarse  unglazed    but 
very  hard  ware,  with  a  long  cylindrical  body  and 
long  neck,  and  with  two  angular  handles,  on  the 
shoulders   of    which    was    generally    stamped    the 
name  of  the  magistrate  for  the  year,  Avith  some- 
times the  month  in  addi- 
tion, and  the  device  of  the 
town  where  the  vase  was 
made.     The  foot  always 
tapered  to  a  point  for  pe- 
netrating the  earth,  as  the 
pot  could  not  stand  with- 
out support.    Amphorae  of 
this  form  are  rarely  found 
with  decorations. 

Amphorce,  even  when 
decorated  with  paintings, 
are  occasionally  found 
with  a  pointed  base,  of 
which  a  beautiful  ex- 
ample is  preserved  in  the 
Museum  of  Perugia.  See 
woodcut,  No.  3. 

In  the  early  relieved  ware  of  Chiusi,  the  amphora  was  of  a  quaint  and 
peculiar  form,  of  which  the  annexed  woodcut  (No.  4)  is  an  illustration. 


No.    3.      AMPHORA    WITH 
POINTED    BASK. 


No.   4.      ETKUSCAN    AMi'HOEA 
OP    BUCCHERO. 


THE    FOEMS    AND    USES    OF 


[APPENDIX  TO 


The  ampJinra  used  in  tlio  earliest  stylo  of  painted  vases,  is  often,  like  the 
style  itself,  designated  "  Egyptian."  It  has  plain  handles,  and  the  shoulders 
of  the  vase  are  rounded  so  as  to  meet  the  neck  almost  at  right  angles. 

Amphorae  of  the  Second  or  Archaic  Greek 
style,  are  commonly  called  "  Tyrrhene."  They 
have  a  fuller  body  and  a  thicker  neck,  and  the 
greatest  diameter  of  the  vase  is  at  about  half 
its  height.  They  are  generally  distinguished  by 
squared  handles,  ornamented  with  floral  decora- 
tions, and  their  shoulders,  instead  of  meeting 
the  neck  abruptly,  form  with  it  a  graceful  curve. 
See  woodcut  No.  5.  To  this  same  period  belongs 
the  "  Dionysiac  "  amphora,  which  differs  gene- 
rally from  the  former  in  having  ribbed  or  reeded 
handles,  and  in  having  a  taller  and  narrower  neck  ; 
though  it  is  chiefly  distinguished  by  the  Bacchic 
character  of  its  subjects.  Good  examples  of 
the  Dionysiac  ampliora  are  given  in  the  woodcut 
No.  5.  TYRRHENE  AMPHORA.  at  p.  3G1  of  this  volume,  which  represents  a  scene 
in  the  "  Tomb  of  the  Painted  Vases"  at  Corneto. 

The  "  Panathenaic  "  ampliorce,  or  the  vases  given,  filled  with  oil,  as  prizes 
at  the  pala'stric  games  held  at  Athens  in  honour  of  the  patron-goddess,  are 


No.  6.     I.ATK    PAXATHK.NAIO    AMl'HoRA. 


No.  7.     NOLAN    AilPHuKA. 


also  distinguished  by  their  subjects  rather  than  by  their  shape  ;  the  archaic 
vases,  like  the  Burgon  amphora  in  the  British  Museum,  which  is  thought  to 
be  the  earliest  specimen  of  this  class  extant,  being  full-bellied,  while  those 
of  later  date  are  taller  and  more  elegant,  as  in  the  woodcut  Xo.  G,  which  is 


THE  INTRODUCTION.]     GREEK   AND    ETRUSCAN    VASES.  cix 

taken  from  one  of  six  of  these  vases  I  found  at  Teucheira  in  the  Cyrenaica, 
and  which  are  now  in  the  British  Museum.  All  these  vases  have  on  one 
side  a  figure  of  Athene  Promachos,  with  helmet,  shield,  and  spear,  in  the 
attitude  of  attack,  flanked  by  two  Doric  columns,  generally  surmounted 
by  cocks,  and  usually  bear  the  inscription — "  Of  the  prizes  from  Athens." 
The  reverse  always  shows  one  of  the  contests  of  the  pentathlon,  probably 
that  for  which  the  vase  was  awarded  as  a  prize.  Comparatively  few  of  these 
vases  have  been  discovered  in  Etruria.  The  Panatlienaic  vases  have  invari- 
ably black  figures  on  a  yellow  ground,  although  the  later  ones,  like  that 
represented  in  the  woodeut,  being  of  the  Macedonian  period,  are  pseudo- 
archaic,  or  mere  imitations  of  the  earlier  style. 

The  "  Nolan "  amphora  is  always  of  the  Third  style,  with  red  figures, 
rarely  more  than  one  or  two  on  each  side,  on  the  black  ground  of  the  vase. 
In  shape  it  is  slighter  and  more  elegant  than  the  forms  already  described  ;  its 
handles  are  either  reeded  or  twisted.  Vases  of  this  kind  are  found  not  only 
at  Nola,  but  in  Sicily,  and  also  in  Etruria,  principally  at  Vulci.  For 
elegance  of  form,  surprising  brilliancy  of  lustre,  simplicity  and  purity  of 
design,  and  beauty  of  execution,  these  Nolan  amphora,  stand  pre-eminent 
among  the  ceramic  productions  of  antiquity.  See  woodcut  No.  7. 

To  the  same  period  and  style  belongs  the  pelike,  a  description  of  amphora 
shaped  like  a  pear,  with  its  greatest  diameter  near  the  base,  and  tapering 
upwards  to  the  neck.  It  is  of  comparatively  rare  occurrence  in  Etruria,  and 
almost  always  has  red  figures,  though  in  Sicily  it  is  sometimes  found  with 
black.  See  woodcut  No.  8. 


NO.  8.    PELIK.E.  No.  9.     STAMNOS. 

Other  varieties  of  the  amphora  are  found,  chiefly  in  Puglia  and  Basilicata, 
of  much  larger  size,  with  taller  and  more  slender  forms,  and  handles  elabo- 
rately moulded  and  decorated,  in  harmony  with  the  more  florid  character  of 
the  paintings  which  adorn  these  vases.  Numerous  examples  of  them  may 
be  seen  in  the  Museum  at  Naples,  where  they  are  designated  according  to 
the  decorations  of  their  handles,  as  vaso  a  girelle,  a  rotelle,  a  mascheroni,  a 
volute,  or,  from  some  peculiarity  of  form,  as  vaso  a  langella,  a  tromba.  This 
nomenclature,  be  it  observed,  is  almost  confined  to  Naples.  It  is  not  recog- 
nised in  the  higher  parts  of  Italy,  still  less  in  the  countries  north  of  the  Alps. 

Connected  with  this  same  class,  though  by  Gerhard  referred  to  that  of 
mixing-jars,  is  the  stamnos,  a  very  high-shouldered,  short-necked,  plethoric 
vase,  with  two  small  handles,  not  upright  as  in  all  the  other  varieties  of  the 
amphora.  Vases  of  this  form  are  generally  found  with  red  figures.  They 
are  still  called  by  the  same  name  in  modern  Greece.  They  were  used  to 
hold  wine,  oil,  or  fruit.  See  woodcut  No.  9.  The  Apulian  stamnos  is  a 


ex 


THE    FORMS    AND    USES    OF 


[APPENDIX  TO 


small  and  late  variety  of  the  same  form,  with  tall  upright  handles  and  a 
lid,  and  is  occasionally,  though  seldom,  found  in 
Ktruria.  It  probably  served  to  hold  honey  or 
sweetmeats.  See  woodcut  No.  10. 

The  lekane  was  another  vase  for  preserving  food, 
and  was  somewhat  of  the  form  of  a  tureen  or 
sugar-basin,  having  a  full  deep  body,  with  a  wide 
mouth,  a  lid,  and  two  handles  generally  upright. 
The  woodcut  No.  11  shows  an  example.  Vases  of 
this  form,  when  of  large  size,  were  used  for  wash- 
ing the  feet,  as  well  as  for  other  domestic  but  less 
cleanly  purposes  ;  and  also  for  playing  the  Sicilian 
game  of  the  kottabos. 

Another  form  of  the  Ickanc,  shown  in  the  wood- 
No.  10.  AMI-ULIAH  STAMNOS.    cut    No.   12,   is  called   by   Panofka  the  lopas.     It 
was  probably  this  variety  which  was  given  full  of 
sweets  or  savoury  meats,  as  a  nuptial  present,  and  which  the  bride  carried 


No.    11.     LKKAJJE. 


No.    12.     LKKANK. 


to  the  house  of  the  bridegroom.     The  lekanis  and  Iclcanislcns  were  smaller 
varieties,  and  probably  served  for  fruits  or  sweets  at  the  table. 


Class  II. — VASES  FOR  CARRYING  WATER. 

The  characteristic  feature  of  water-jars  is  that  they  have  three  handles, 
two  small  horizontal  ones  at  the  shoulders,  and  one  large  vertical  one  at  the 
neck.  The  generic  term  is  liydria,  but  when  used  spe- 
cifically, this  name  is  applied  to  those  of  the  earliest 
style  which  have  a  squareness  about  the  shoulders,  as 
shown  in  the  woodcut  No.  13,  while  a  later  and  more 
elegant  variety,  with  the  shoulders  rounded  off,  is 
generally  called  Jcalpis.  See  woodcut  No.  14.  But 
this  distinction  is  conventional.  The  hydria  is  gene- 
rally found  in  connection  with  the  earlier  styles,  with 
black  figures,  the  kulpis  with  red  figures,  though  the 
latter  is  also  occasionally  found  bearing  archaic  de- 
signs. Another  point  of  difference  is  that  the  Jtydria 
has  its  principal  subject  on  the  body,  and  another  with 
No.  1'6.  HYDKIA.  smaller  figures  on  the  shoulder  ;  the  designs  on  the 
kalpis  are  always  confined  to  the  body  of  the  vase. 

The  Injtlria  is  more  commonly  found  in  Etruria,  the  kulpis  in  the  South  of 
Italy.     These  water-jars  were  used  by  women  alone,  for  whenever  men  are 


THE  INTRODUCTION.]     GEEEK    AND    ETRUSCAN   VASES. 


represented  carrying  water,  it  is  invariably  in  an  amphora.  On  certain 
early  Attic  vases,  maidens  are  depicted  on  their  way  to  and  from  the 
fountain.  Each  carries  a  hydria 
on  her  head,  which  when  empty 
is  lying  on  its  side,  just  as  the 
women  of  Central  Italy  carry 
their  water-pots  at  the  present 
day.  But  the  hydria,  when  of 
bronze,  was  also  used  as  a  cine- 
rary urn,  and  the  kalpis  was 
often  given  as  a  nuptial  present 
to  Athenian  brides,  filled  with 
the  water  of  the  celebrated 
fountain  of  Callirrhoe.  It  was 
also  used  for  perfumes,  probably 
when  too  small  to  serve  any 
other  purpose,  for  vases  of  all 
forms  are  frequently  found  in 
miniature  in  Greek  and  Etruscan 
tombs,  which  can  have  been 
mere  toys,  or  have  served  only 
for  the  toilet.  No.  14.  KALI-IS. 


Class  III. — MIXING-JARS. 

These  are  characterised  by  their  wide  mouths,  for  the  convenience  of  dipping 
the  cups  or  ladles  ;  for  the  wine  having  been  brought  in  the  amphora  to  the 
banquet,  was  there  poured  into 
the    krater,   mixed   with  water, 
and  handed  round  to  the  guests. 
Krater  is  the   generic  term,  its 
name    being    expressive    of    its 
use  ;    but  it  is  applied  specific- 
ally to  the  elegant  form  shown 
in  the  woodcut  No.  15,  which  is 


No.    15.     KRATER. 


No.   16.     LATE    KRATER,  OKVIETO. 


confined  to  the  third  style  of  vase-painting.  In  Naples  it  is  known  as  a 
"vaso  a  campana."  A  late  but  elegant  variety  of  the  krater  is  shown  in 
the  woodcut  No.  16.  The  more  archaic  style  is  generally  connected  in 
Etruria  with  the  kelebe,  which  is  known  by  its  peculiar  pillared  handles, 


CXll 


THE    FORMS    AND    USES    OF 


[APPENDIX  TO 


although  the  earlier  vases  of  this  form  have  often  curved  handles,  as  in  the 
woodcut  No.  17.     Vases  of  this  shape  are  more  commonly  found  in  Sicily  and 

Southern  Italy  than  in  Etruria,  and  are 
there  termed  "vasi  a  colonette"  They 
were  frequently  used  as  cinerary  urns. 
The  vase  represented  in  the  woodcut 
No.  18,  is  sometimes  called  an  am- 
phora with  volute  handles,  but  con- 
sidering the  width  of  the  mouth  it 
should  more  properly  be  classed  among 
the  kratcres.  In  this  instance,  it  is  an 
Etruscan  imitation  of  a  Greek  vase. 
See  Vol.  I.,  p.  463.  This  form  is  not 
usual  in  Etruria,  though  common 
17.  KKLKUE.  enough  in  Magna  Gnecia,  where  it 


1.lPr/27l'-/A.'//  -  //  .',1,1,1  III  It  i\.i\\  \  .V     -\  \,\  \      'V    i 


^af»^»Wf 


No.    18.     KTRUSCAN    KRATKR 


.No.    19.     LATK    K.KATER,   FEKUUIA. 


UXYBAPHON. 


would  be  designated  as  "  vaso  a  volute."  It  is 
exemplified,  however,  in  the  Francois  vase,  the 
monarch  of  Attic  vases,  found  at  Chiusi,  and  now 
in  the  Musco  Etrtisco  at  Florence.  See  Vol.  II., 
pp.  81,  113.  A  late  but  highly  decorated  variety 
of  this  form  from  Perugia  is  shown  in  the  annexed 
woodcut,  No.  19,  which  at  Naples  would  be  called 
a  "  vaso  a  mascheroni." 

The  oxybaphon  is  another  mixing-jar,  of  bell-shape 
(see  woodcut  No.  20),  not  of  frequent  occurrence 
in  Etruria,  though  common  in  Magna  Gnecia  and 


THE  INTRODUCTION.]     GREEK    AND    ETRUSCAN    VASES.  cxiii 

Sicily.  By  some  the  name  has  been  supposed  to  mark  it  as  a  vinegar-cup 
— being  derived  from  ogvs  and  ftiinria  ;  but  as  its  form  and  size  establish 
an  analogy  to  the  krater,  the  "  sharpness "  in  its  etymology  must  refer 
rather  to  time  than  to  taste,  and  its  name  must  be  significant  of  "  dipping 
quickly."  It  is  found  only  in  connection  with  the  later  styles. 

Another  vase  of  this  class  was  the  lebes,  a  large  vessel  of  caldron-shape, 
erroneously  confounded  with  the  holmos,  or  mortar.  This  form  of  vase  is  of 
very  early  date,  and  is  frequently  mentioned  by  Homer  (e.g.  II.  XXIII.  259) 
as  awarded  for  a  prize  in  the  public  games.  It  was  often  of  metal,  and  stood 
on  three  feet ;  but  it  was  also  of  earthenware,  a  very  primitive  specimen 
of  which,  from  Athens,  is  given  in  the  woodcut  No.  21,  with  three  horses  on 


No.    21.     PRIMITIVE    GREEK    LEBES. 


No.    22.     ARCHAIC    LEBES. 


the  lid,  and  the  mysterious  suastika  among  its  adornments.  A  later,  but 
still  very  archaic  example  from  Athens,  of  large  size,  with  a  foot,  and  two 
handles,  is  in  the  British  Museum,  showing  two  large  lions,  facing  each  other, 
and  each  holding  a  paw  over  a  flower ;  the  ground  of  the  vase  being  studded 
with  rude  geometrical  patterns  instead  of  flowers,  among  which  the  suastika 
is  also  prominent.  An  illustration  of  this  singular  vase  is  given  at  p.  xci.,  of 
the  Introduction.  The  bottom  of  the  lebes  is  sometimes  pointed  or  rounded 
to  fit  into  a  stand,  like  a  huge  cup  and  ball,  as  in  the  vase  illustrated  in  the 
woodcut  No.  22,  which  though  of  the  archaic  Doric  period,  is  of  later  date 
than  the  preceding  examples. 

The  holmos,  or  mortar,  with  which  the  lebes  has  often  been  confounded, 
was  in  the  shape  of  a  horn  probably  truncated,  and  about  a  cubit  in  height. 
Menesthencs,  ap.  Athen.  XI.  8G.  It  had  straight  sides,  like  many  mortars  at 
the  present  day. 

In  this  class  must  be  included  the  psykter,  or  wine-cooler,  which  was  a 
large  vase  resembling  a  krater  in  form,  but  containing  an  inner  pot  for  the 
wine,  and  a  mouth  or  spout  in  its  neck  for  the  introduction  of  snow  be- 
tween the  inner  and  outer  walls  of  the  vase,  and  an  orifice  in  the  foot  to  let 
VOL.  i.  h 


CX1V 


THE    FORMS    AXD    USES    OF 


[APPENDIX  TO 


the  water  ofT.  The  purpose  of  this  vase  is  obvious,  and  is  indeed  implied  in 
its  name  ;  although  the.  description  of  it  given  by  Athena-ns  (XI.  108)  is 
applicable  rather  to  a  large  goblet,  from  which  1'lato,  in  his  Symposium, 
represents  Socrates  quailing  liberal  potations  all  night  long.  It  is  a  form  of 
very  rare  occurrence,  and  generally  found  with  black  figures.  There  is  an 
example  in  the  British  Museum  of  amphora-like  form,  having  a  Bacchic  sub- 
ject on  one  side,  and  Theseus  slaying  the  Minotaur  on  the  other.  Another 
psykter  exists  in  the  Etruscan  Museum*  of  Florence,  where  the  form  is  that 
of  a  krater,  and  the  figures  are  yellow  on  a  black  ground.  See  Vol.  II.,  p.  83. 

Class  IV. — VASES  FOR  DRAWING  AND  POURING  OUT  LIQUIDS. 

The  ewer  or  jug,  of  whatever  form,  in  which  the  wine  was  transferred  from 
the  krater  to  the  goblets  of  the  guests,  was  generically  called  oinochoe,  but 
this  term  is  applied  specifically,  though  conventionally,  to  a  jug  with  a  trefoil 
spout,  while  that  with  a  round  even  mouth  without  a  spout  is 
called  an  olpe,  or  olpis,  a  term  strictly  applicable  to  the  leathern 
bottle  or  flask,  containing  the  oil  with  which  the  athletes 
anointed  themselves  in  the  jmhestra.  The  ordinary  form  of 
the  olpe  is  shown  in  the  woodcut  No.  23.  An  earlier  variety 
from  Chiusi,  with  a  cock-crowned  lid,  illustrated  in  the  wood- 
cut No.  24,  is  of  bucchero,  the  early  black  ware  of  Etruria.  The 
next  cut  shows  another  variety  from  Orvieto,  with  ribbed  body, 
ivy  foliage  painted  on  the  neck,  and  handle  decorated  with  a 

No.  23.  OLVK 


No.  24.     ETKUSCAN    OLPK.       No.   26.     OINOCHOK. 


No.   27.     OINOCHOK,   DO1UC    STYLE. 


head  in  relief,  No.  25.  This  vase  is  of  late  date,  but  the  olpe  form  is  gene- 
rally associated  with  the  most  archaic  styles  of  vase-painting,  an  example  of 
which  is  given  in  the  woodcut,  No.  80,  at  the  end  of  this  Appendix. 


THE  INTRODUCTION.]     GREEK    AN       ETRUSCAN    VASES. 


CXY 


The  ordinary  form  of  oinochoe  is  seen  in  the  woodcut,  No.  26.  Varieties 
in  the  early  black  relieved  ware  of  Ktruria  are  shown  in  woodcut  No.  1,  and 
at  p.  318,  Vol.  II.  Of  the 
archaic  Doric  or  Corinthian 
style  an  example  is  given 
in  woodcut  No.  27,  which 
shows  quaint  animals  and 
flowers  in  brown  and 
purple  on  a  pale  yellow 
ground.  A  more  elegant 
variety  is  exhibited  in  the 
Nolan  jug,  No.  28 ;  a  still 
later  and  beautiful  variety 
in  the  ribbed  vase,  with 
ivy  foliage  and  ribbons 
painted  on  its  neck,  No. 
29  ;  a  charming  though 
fantastic  specimen  at  page 
4G4  of  this  volume  ;  and 
examples  in  bronze  in 
woodcuts  Nos.  30,  31. 


No.   28.    OINOCHOE,    FROM 
NOLA. 


LATE    OINOCHOK, 
SICILY. 


No.   30.     BRONZE    OINOC110K. 


No.    31.     OINOCHOJi    OP    BRONZE. 


The  procJioos  is  but  a  smaller  variety  of  the  oinochoe,  being  used  for  the 
same  purpose,  or  as  a  jug  from  which  water  was  poured  on  the  hands  of 

h  2 


ex  vi 


THE    FORMS    AND    USES    OF 


[APPENDIX  TO 


guests.  It  is  generally  supposed  to  have  the  form  of  the  woodcut,  No.  32. 
A  variety  of  it,  with  a  long  spout,  was  termed  prwhoog  makrostomos,  of 
which  an  example  is  seen  in  the  woodcut,  No.  33,  although  Dr.  Birch  prefers 
to  designate  that  form  epichysis.  These  long  beaked  pots  seem  adapted  to 
the  pouring  out  of  oil  at  the  pala-stric  exercises. 


z= 


No.  32.  PKOCHOUS. 


No.  33.    I'ROCHOUS. 


No.   34.     KYATIIOS. 


No.    35.     SITULA    OK    BKUtfZE. 


The  terms  oinochoe,  olpe,  and  prochoos  are  of  generic  application,  and  as  we 
have  but  doubtful  authority  for  attaching  them  to  any  specific  shape  of 
ewer,  the  above  distinction  may  be  regarded  as  conventional,  and  as 
adopted  for  the  sake  of  convenience. 

The  Jcyathos,  though  generally  classed  among  the  goblets,  was  also  used 
as  a  ladle  for  drawing  the  wine  from  the  mixing-jar.  See  woodcut, 
No.  34. 

The  situla,  or  pail,  for  drawing  water,  was  almost  always  of  metal,  and 
was  so  similar  to  the  bucket  of  modern  times,  as  hardly  to  require  a  descrip- 
tion. An  example  of  a  bronze  situla  in  the  Etruscan  Museum  at  Florence  is 
given  in  woodcut  No.  35.  This  form  is  sometimes  rounded  at  the  bottom, 
and,  in  archaic  examples,  is  decorated  externally  with  incised  or  relieved 
figures,  as  in  two  other  situlae  in  the  said  Museum  (Vol.  II.  p.  104),  and  in 
another  beautiful  specimen  in  that  of  Bologna  (Vol.  II.  p.  523). 


Class  V. — Curs  AND  GOBLETS. 

Thri  drinking  cups  of  the  ancients  were  of  various  forms  ;  indeed  the 
Athenians  alone  are  said  to  have  had  no  less  than  72  different  descriptions 
of  goblets.  The  most  common  forms,  especially  in  Etruria,  were  the  kan- 
thiirnst  and  the  skyphos.  The  kintharos  was  a  two-handled  cup,  sacred  to 
Dionysus  (Plin.  XXXIII.  53  :  Macrob.  Sat.  V.  21)  in  whose  hands  it  is 


THE  INTRODUCTION.]     GREEK    AND    ETRUSCAN    VASES. 


generally  represented  on  painted  vases.  The  cup  itself  is  rarely  found 
decorated  with  paintings,  at  least  in  Etruria,  where  it  is  generally  of  plain 
blaek  ware.  This  vase  is  supposed  to  take  its  name  from  some  resemblance 
in  form  to  that  of  the  beetle — Kavffapos — but  it  more  probably  took  it 
from  the  boat  or  vessel  of  the  same  name  (Athen.  XI.  47,  48),  though  it  is 
also  said  to  have  been  called  from  the  potter  who  invented  it  (Philetserus, 
ap.  Athen.  loc.  cit.).  The  usual  form  is  shown  in  the  wroodcut  No.  36  ;  a 
late  variety  with  handles  differently  arranged,  m  the  woodcut  No.  37. 


No.    36.      KANTHAROS. 


No.    37.      KANTHAROS. 


The  Karchesion,  which  was  also  a  Bacchic  cup,  "  cape  Maaonii  carchesia 
Bacchi"  (Virg.  Georg.  IV.  380)  appears  to  have  resembled  the  Kantharos, 
but  to  have  been  larger,  heavier,  slightly  compressed  in  the  middle,  and 
with  long  "  ears  "  or  handles  reaching  to  the  bottom.  It  is  a  form  very 
rarely  met  with.  Macrobius  (V.  21)  tells  us  it  was  extremely  rare  among 
the  Greeks,  and  never  found  among  the  Latins.  Athenaeus  says  it  is  an 
extremely  old  form  of  vase.  It  was  traditional  that  Jupiter  gave  a  golden 
vase  of  this  shape  to  Alcmena,  as  a  love-token,  which  cup  was  supposed  to 
have  been  preserved  at  Sparta  (Athen.  XL  49).  The  form  is  found  in  the 
early  black  ware  of  Chiusi,  and  the  finest  specimen  I  have  seen  is  in  that 


No.   38.      KARCHESION,    OP    BUCCHERO. 


No.    39.       KARCHESION,   OP    BUCCHERO. 


ware  and  in  the  possession  of  Signor  Luigi  Terrosi  of   Cetona.     It  is  repre- 
sented in  the  woodcut,  No.  38.     A  still  more  quaint  example  with  a  lid,  and 
relieved  decorations,  is  given  in  the  accompanying  illustration  of  a  vase  from 
Chiusi,  taken  from  the  work  of  M.  Noel  DCS  Vergers  ;  see  woodcut  No.  39. 
A  very  common  cup  among  the  ancients  was  the  skyphos,  which  seems  to 


cxvm 


THE    FORMS    AND    USES    OF 


[APPENDIX  TO 


have  been  a  generic  name,  but  the  term  is  applied,  conventionally,  to  a  full- 
bellied  bowl  with  two  horizontal  handles.  It  was  the  cup  of  the  peasantry, 
and  was  originally  of  wood  and  served  for  milk  or  whey,  but  afterwards 
was  made  of  terra-cotta  or  silver.  The  name  is  derived  from  <r/ea0iy,  a 
little  boat  (Anglicc,  skiff,  and  ship).  The  slcyphos  was  the  cup  of  Hercules, 
as  the  kantharos  was  that  of  Dionysos  (Macrob.  V.  21).  The  usual  form  is 
shown  in  the  woodcut  No.  40,  a  shape  which  Panofka  calls  the  koiylos,  and 
Dr.  Birch  takes  to  be  also  that  of  the  kothon,  or  cup  of  the  Spartan  soldiers. 
A  later  and  more  elegant  example  is  given  in  a  cup  in  my  own  possession, 
No.  41,  with  painted  decorations;  the  incurved  handles  indicating  an  imita- 


No.    40.      SKYl'HOS. 


No.   41.      SK.YP110S. 


tion  of  metal.  Vases  of  this  description  have  sometimes  a  pointed  bottom, 
so  that  to  be  laid  down  they  must  be  emptied.  A  variety  of  this  goblet, 
from  its  resemblance  to  a  woman's  breast,  Avas  called  a  mastos,  a  name  given 
to  it  by  the  Paphians  (Apollod.  Cyren.  ap.  Athen.  XI.  74).  It  was  generally 
decorated  with  Bacchic  figures,  as  in  the  woodcut  No.  42  ;  and  Avas  some- 
times shaped  like  a  head  crowned  with  iA'y,  as  in  the  cut  No.  43.  Both 
these  examples  are  from  Vulci. 


No.  4:i.     MASTOS. 


No.  43.     MASTOS. 


The  kothon  Avas  another  form  of  cup  carried  by  the  Spartan  soldiers  on 
their  expeditions,  on  account  of  its  convenient  form.  For  the  brim  being 
curved  inwards  the  cup  retained  whatever  sediment  there  might  be  in  the 
Avater,  Avhile  the  pure  fluid  alone  Avas  imbibed.  It  is  described  as  a  circular, 
short-eared,  and  thick-mouthed  cup,  having  a  single  handle,  and  being  of 
striped  colours  (Athen.  XI.  GG,  G7).  Birch  appears  to  confound  it  Avith  the 
*kij2>ho8,  and  attaches  the  name  of  kothon  to  the  form  illustrated  in  woodcut 
No.  40.  But  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  name  applies  to  a  flat,  thick, 


THE  INTRODUCTION.]     GREEK   AND    ETRUSCAN    VASES. 


and  round-lipped  bowl,  with  a  single  short  handle,  apparently  for  sus- 
pension, of  which  1  possess  several  specimens,  five  and  a  half  inches  in 
diameter,  and  two  inches  high,  all  marked  with  black  and  red  stripes  on 
the  hard  yellow  clay. 

The  depas,  or  aleison,  was  a  cup  with  two  ears  or  handles  (Asclepiades 
ap.  Athen.  XI.  24,  who  quotes  Homer,  Od.  XXII.  9).  But  the  term  depas 
appears  to  be  generic,  and  to  be  often  used, 
without  any  specific  application,  like  the 
word  poterion,  yet  as  the  name  was  ap- 
plied to  the  cup  of  the  Sun,  in  which 
Hercules  crossed  the  sea  to  Erytheia 
(Athen.  XI.  38,  39),  it  was  probably 
proper  to  cups  of  a  bowl-shape.  I  am 
inclined  to  believe,  with  Panofka,  that 
when  used  specifically  the  term  is  ap- 
plicable to  the  form  given  in  the  annexed 
woodcut,  No.  44,  which  is  copied  from  a  No.  44.  UEPAS. 


has  given   rise  to   much 


vase  in  my  possession. 

The  form   of    the   Homeric   Se'iras 

difference   of    opinion.     Aristotle   (Hist.   Anim.  IX.  40)   uses  the  term  to 
illustrate  the  forms  of  bees'  cells,  with  a  common  base.     There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  he  referred  to  certain  cylindrical  vases,  like  dice-boxes,  with  a 
bottom  half-way  up,  so  as  to  form  a  double  cup,  examples  of  which  have 
been  recently  found  in  the  cemeteries  of  Bologna,  and  which  answer  to  the 
description  of  the  dactylotos  given  by  Philemon,  ap.  Athen.  XI.  34.     But  the 
Homeric  vase  had  two  handles,  and  this  has  none.     Dr.  Schliemann  thought 
he  had  found  the  SeVas  of  Homer  in  tall,  straight-sided  cups,  "  like  cham- 
pagne glasses  with  enormous  handles,"  which  he  unearthed  at  Hissarlik  (Troy, 
pp.  86,  158,  171)  ;   but    that    form  is  evidently    the   holmos    described    by 
Athcmeus,  XL  86.      The    golden  cup  the   Doctor  found    among    "  Priam's 
Treasure  "  (p.  326),  of  boat-shape,  with  a  handle  on  either  side,  to  enable 
it  to  be  passed  easily  from  hand   to 
hand,  has  a  far  better  claim  to  be  the 
Homeric   SeVas.     So  also   the  golden 
cups  he  disinterred   at  Mycenae  (see 
the  illustrations  at  pages  231,  234,  of 
his  "  Myceme  "),   are   undoubted    in- 
stances of  this  celebrated  form.     But 
we  learn  from  Athenauis  (XI.  24,  65) 
that  opinions   differed   as  widely   as 
to  the  form  of  this  vase  among  the 
ancient    Greeks    as    among    modern 
archaeologists. 

Another  elegant  form  of  vase,  which 
is  a  Tcrater  in  miniature,  is  the  krateris- 
kos  or  krateridion,  which  from  its  small 
size  must  be  classed  among  the  cups. 
The  woodcut,  No.  45,  is  from  a  vase 
in  my  collection. 

The  kyathos  was  a  cup  with  a  single  handle,  and  like  the  kantharos,  is 
often  represented  in  the  hands  of  Dionysos  on  the  painted  vases.  Unlike 
the  /Mntharos,  however,  it  is  frequently  found  in  painted  pottery,  an 


No.    45.       K.RATEK1SKOS. 


cxx 


THE    FORMS    AND    USES    OF 


[APPENDIX  TO 


instance  of  which  is  given  in  the  woodcut,  No.  46.     The  kyathos,  though 

used  as  a  cup,  also  served  as  a  ladle  to  draw  wine  from  the  krater  (Plato, 

ap.  Athcn.  X.  23),    as    already 

mentioned.      The    kyathos    was 

also  a  measure,  equal  to  |$  of  a 

pint.      In    the    Etruscan    black 

ware  this  form  is  not  uncommon, 

and  is  shown  in  the  cut,  No.  47, 

which   represents  an  early  vase 

in  the  relieved  ware  of  Chiusi. 


No.    47.       KYATHOS.   IN    BUCCHERO. 


No.    40.      KYATHuS. 


KAltLY    KYLIX. 


Very  like  the  kyathos  was  the  kotylos  or  kotyle,  a  small  deep  cup  with  one 
handle,  said  to  be  the  most  beautiful  of  all  cups,  and  also  the  most  con- 
venient to  drink  from.  Its  precise  shape  has  not  been  ascertained.  It  must 
have  been  in  very  common  use,  for  there  was  an  old  Greek  proverb,  quoted 
by  Athena-us  (XI.  57),  which  said, — 

"  There  is  many  a  slip 
Between  cotyle  and  lip." 


No.    49.       KAKLY    KYLIX. 

The  kyli.r,  the  most  elegant  of  all  ancient  goblets,  is  a  wide  Hat  bowl  on 
a  slender  stem.  The  most  primitive  form  resembled  a  rude  bowl  of  wood 
on  a  clumsy  stand,  .and  was  decorated  with  meanders,  and  other  geometrical 
patterns  ;  an  example  of  it  is  given  in  the  woodcut  at  page  Ixxxix  of  the 
Introduction.  The  earliest  form  with  black  figures  on  the  yellow  ground 
of  the  clay  is  shown  in  the  woodcuts,  Nos.  48  and  49.  The  later  kylix  saitk 


THE  INTRODUCTION.]     GREEK   AND    ETRUSCAN    VASES.  cxxi 

to  the  form  shown,  woodcut  No.  50  ;  and  still  later,  those  with  yellow  figures 
assumed  the  more  elegant  shape  given  in  the  woodcuts  Nos.  51,  52.     These 


No.   50.       KYLIX,    FJlOil   VULOI. 

vases  were  generally  painted  inside  as  well   as  out  ;  but  in  the  earlier  and 
more  compact  variety,  shown  in  the  woodcut,  No.  48,  the  paintings  are  often 


No.   51.      KYLIX. 


No.    i>'2.      KYLIX. 


confined  to  the  interior  of  the  bowl.  A  late  variety  of  the  kylix  is  without 
a  stem,  and  has  only  a  moulded  base.  This  form  is  supposed  to  be  the 
lepaste,  and  to  have  borrowed  its  name  from  its  resemblance  to  the  limpet 
— Xen-cfc — see  the  woodcut,  No.  53.  It  is  not  of  frequent  occurrence  in 
Etruria. 

The  pellet  or  pellis,  was  another  sort  of  cup,  with  a  wide  bottom,  shaped 
somewhat  like  a  pail,  and  originally  used  for  milking  cows  and  ewes 
(Athcn.  XI.  91).  It  is  shown  in  the  woodcut,  No.  54. 


No.  53.   LEPASTE. 


No.  54.  PELLA. 


55.  HOLKIOU. 


The  term  holJcion  is  often  applied  to  a  cup-shaped  vase  on  a  tall  stem,  but 
without  handles,  as  in  the  woodcut,  No.  55.  Birch  assigns  the  name  of 
holmos  to  a  vase  of  this  form,  though  elsewhere  his  description  of  the 
holmos  accords  with  that  of  the  lebes  given  at  p.  cxiii,  No.  22.  The  holkion 
is  a  form  very  common  in  the  Etruscan  archaic  black  ware,  and  is  often 


THE   FORMS    AND    USES    OF 


[APPENDIX  TO 


adorned  with  figures  in  relief,  either  in  bands  as  in  the  woodcut,  No.  56,  or 
studding  the  edges,  or  stein  of  the  vase,  as  in  No.  57. 


No.  5(5.       HOLK10N,    OF    BUCCHEUO. 


No.    57.       11OLKION,    OF    BUUCHEKO. 


Another  class  of  cups  is  that  made  in  imitation  of  the  head  or  body  of 
some  animal.  The  earliest  form  was  the  keras,  which  was  originally  the 
horn  of  an  ox,  adapted  as  a  drinking-cup.  The  form  is  often  represented 
on  ancient  vases,  but  rarely  found  in  terra  cotta.  It  was  succeeded  by 
the  rliyton,  a  fantastic  goblet,  terminating  sometimes  in  the  human  head, 
but  more  frequently  in  the  head  of  some  animal.  It  is  particularly  described 
at  p.  91  of  Vol.  II.  The  rhyton  is  said  by  Athcnanis  (XI.  97)  to  have  been 
invented  by  Ptolemy  Philadelpb.ua  scarcely  three  centuries  before  Christ, 
yet  he  also  mentions  that  the  word  was  used  by  Demosthenes.  Theo- 
phrastus  says  the  rhyton  was  given  to  heroes  alone  (cf.  Athen.  XI.  4). 
It  was  certainly  of  late  date,  for  it  is  never  found  in  connection  with  the 
earlier  styles  of  vase-painting.  Varieties  of  the  rhyton  arc  given  in  the 


No.    58.       RHYTON. 


No.    59.       RHYTON. 


No.   CO.       RHYTON. 


woodcuts,  Nos.  58,  59,  GO.  The  last  form  was  most  common  among  the 
Etruscans  ;  and  even  women  are  sometimes  represented  in  effigy  reclining 
at  the  banquet,  with  the  \\orsc-rhyton  in  their  hand. 

The  cup,  however,  most  frequently  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  recumbent 
figures  on  Etruscan  sarcophagi  and  cinerary  urns  is  the  phiale,  or  flat 
saucer-like  bowl,  without  a  stand  ;  like  the  ^ofcra  of  the  Romans. 
Instead  of  a  handle,  it  has  often  a  prominent  boss  in  the  centre,  as  in 
a  shield,  into  whose  cavity  two  fingers  of  the  hand  were  introduced 
from  beneath,  to  keep  it  steady.  This  form  was  designated  phiale 
oinphalutos,  or  meeomphalos,  from  the  boss  in  the  centre,  and  sometimes 
nkatos,  from  its  resemblance  to  a  boat.  The  woodcut,  No.  61,  shows  a 
bowl  of  tin's  description  with  a  hollow  boss  in  the  centre,  surrounded 


THE  INTRODUCTION.]     GEEEK   AND    ETRUSCAN    VASES.  cxxiii 

by  a  race  of  four  quadrigae  in  relief.     Such  bowls   are  to  be  seen  in  the 
British  Museum  as  well  as  in  the  Etruscan  Museum  at  Florence. 


No.   til.       PHIALE    OMl'HALOTOS,    WITH    RELIEVED    DECORATIONS. 


Class  VI. — OINTMENT  AND  PERFUME  VASES. 

The  principal  vase  of  this  class  is  the  lekythos,  or  oil-flask,  the  form  of 
which  is  well  ascertained.     In  the  earlier  lekythoi  with    black    figures,    the 
body  is  full,  largest  at    the  shoulder,  and    taper- 
ing gradually  to  the  base  •  the  neck  is  short  and 
joins  the  shoulder  with  a  graceful  curve.     In  the 
later  style  with  yellow  figures,  the  body  is  nearly 
cylindrical,   the    neck    longer,    and    the    shoulders 
Hatter,  the  general  form  being  much  improved  in 
elegance.     See  woodcut,  No.  62. 

The    lekythos   is    much    more    abundant    in   the 
tombs  of  Greece,  Magna  Grsecia,  and   Sicily,  than 
in    those    of    Etruria.      In    Greek 
tombs  it  was  always   laid  by  the 
side  of  the  corpse,  or  on  its  breast, 
or    placed    in    the    corners    of    the 
sepulchre.      In    Sicily   it    is    often 
found    of    large  size.     The  largest 
lekythos  in  the  British  Museum  is 


LEKYTHOS. 


Ko.   ()3.      LEKYTHOS. 


one  I  disinterred  in  the  necropolis 
of  the  ancient  Gela  in  that  island. 
An  illustration  of  it  is  given  in  the 
woodcut,  No.  63.  The  figures  in 
this  instance  are  painted  with  va- 
rious colours  on  a  white  ground  ;  a 

description  of  decoration  A'ery  rare  in  Etruria,  but  common  in  Sicily  as  well 
ns  at  Athens,  which  has  yielded  very  beautiful  lekythoi  with  polychromatic 
designs,  generally  of  a  later  date  than  those  of  Sicily. 

The  lekythos  of  a  later  period  was  of  smaller  size,  but  of  superior  elegance, 
with  an  egg-shaped  body  on  a  broad  base,  with  a  still  more  slender  neck. 


THE    FORMS   AND    USES    OF 


[APPENDIX  TO 


and  a  boll-shaped  mouth.     This  form  is  shown  in  the  woodcut,  No.  64,  and 
is  sometimes  called  an  aryballos.     A  more  depressed  form  is  given  in  the 


No.   64.     LEKYTHOS. 


No.   65.     LKKYTHOS.  No.   66.     AKCHAIC   LEKYTHOS. 


woodcut,  No.  65.     Both  these  forms  are   more  abundant  in  Magna  Gnrcia 

than  in  Etruria.     A  very  early  variety,  found  only  in  connection  with  the 

most  archaic  designs  on  a  pale  yellow 
clay,  is  that  like  a  truncated  jug,  No.  66. 
The  latest  variety,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
also  of  white  clay  with  polychrome  designs 
of  flowers,  vases,  and  instruments,  and  is 
illustrated  in  the  woodcut,  No.  67,  repre- 
senting one  from  my  excavations  in  the 
Cyrenaica,  now  in  the  British  Museum. 

The  last  four  shapes  are  often  deno- 
minated aryballos,  a  name  given  to  such 
vases  as  resembled  a  purse,  in  being  wide 
at  the  bottom  and  contracted  at  the  top, 
like  a  purse  drawn  together,  as  Athemeus 

tells  us,  though   he   adds  that  some  give  the  name  to   purses  from  their 

resemblance  to  vases  of  this  form. 

The  earliest  form  of  the  aryballos  was  that  in  the  cut,  No.  68,  but  often 

without  a  base,  as  in  No.  69,  and  as  in  the  Doric  vnse  of  this  form  illus- 


No.   67.       LATE    LEKYTHOS. 


No.  68. 

ARCHAIC    ARYBALLOS. 


No.  70. 

EARLY    ARYBALLOS. 


trated  at  p.  xc  of  the  Introduction.  Such  forms  are  found  only  with  the 
most  archaic  di  signs,  of  birds,  beasts,  or  ehiuuvras.  A  very  early  and 
quaint  variety  is  shown  in  the  woodcut,  No.  70.  A  later  form  is  given  in 
the  cut,  No.  71.  Like  the  Ifkytlios,  the  aryballos  was  used  for  unguents, 
and  was  often  carried  on  the  person  by  a  strap  or  string,  for  anointing  the 
body  after  the  bath. 


THE  INTRODUCTION.]     GREEK    AND    ETRUSCAN    VASES. 


cxxv 


Akin  to  these,  and  applied  to  the  same  purposes,  was  the  bombylios,  a 
narrow-necked  pot,  which  received  its  name  from  the  gurgling  sound  caused 
b}-  the  flow  of  the  liquid  from  it.  See  the  woodcut,  No.  72.  A  quaint 
variety  is  shown  in  the  cut,  No.  73. 

The  askos  is  so  called  from  its  resemblance  to  the  goat-skin,  still  so 
generally  used  in  the  South  of  Europe  for  the  transport  of  wine  and  oil. 


The  annexed  cuts  show  two  varieties  of  this  form,  Nos.  74,  75.  Pots  of  these 
forms,  and  of  large  size,  are  still  common  in  Spain  and  Portugal,  where  they 
are  used  for  water.  By  the  ancients  they  seem  to  have  been  employed 
for  the  toilet  alone. 

The  kotyliskos  is  a  small  pot  with  a  single  handle,  in  other  respects 
like  an  amphora  in  miniature.  See  the  woodcut,  No.  76.  It  was  used  for 
unguents  or  perfumes. 

The  alabastos,  or  alabastron,  is  a  name  applied  to  those  forms  of  oint- 
ment-vases, which  have  no  feet ;  and  to  such  as  are  in  the  shape  of 
animals  —  hares,  monkeys,  ducks  —  or  of 
heads  and  limbs  of  the  human  body.  The 
most  ordinary  form  of  this  pot  is  shown  in 
the  woodcut,  No.  77.  Alabastoi  are  often  of 
oriental  alabaster,  but  are  also  found  of 
terra-cotta  with  a  white  or  cream-coloured 
ground  and  black  figures.  The  woodcut, 
No.  78,  shows  an  alabastos  of  stone  from 
Chiusi,  carved  into  female  faces  above,  and 
having  a  hole  in  the  crown  for  pouring  out 
the  ointment  or  perfume.  Another  example 
of  an  alabastron  in  the  shape  of  a  figure  of 
Isis  is  given  in  the  cut,  Vol.  I.,  p.  458. 
Vases  of  this  form  were  also  used  to  hold 
ink  or  paint,  for  on  Etruscan  mirrors,  a  Lasa 
or  Fate  is  not  unfrequently  represented  with 
an  alabastos  in  her  left  hand,  and  a  stylus  in 
her  right. 

Among  the  vases  which  served  the  pur- 
poses of  the  toilet,  was  the  pyxis  or 
casket,  in  which  the  ladies  deposited  their 
jewellery.  It  was  originally,  as  its  name 
implies,  made  of  box-wood,  but  was  sometimes  of  metal,  or  of  ivory,  and 


No.  77. 

ALABASTRON. 


No. 

ALABASrRON. 


CX  XVI 


GREEK    AND    ETRUSCAN    VASES.       [APPENDIX  TO 


also  of  terrn-cotta,  as  in  the  woodcut,  No.  79,  and  was  tlion  frequently 
decorated  with  beautiful  paintings  in  tin;  best  slyle  of  ceramic  art.  Several 
exquisite  specimens,  one  of  them  adorned  with  polychrome  figures,  from 
the  tombs  of  Athens,  are  preserved  in  the  British  Museum. 


Ko.  79.    PYXIS. 

In  the  nomenclature  of  these  vases  I  have  in  most  instances  followed 
Gerhard,  as  his  system  is  now  generally  adopted  by  antiquaries  in  Germany 
and  Italy. 


No.    80.       GROUP    OP    ARCHAIC    DORIC    VASES. 
LEKYTHOS — OLPE — ARYDALLOS — LEKANE  —  KYATHOS. 


THE    INTRODUCTION. J  CXXV-ii 


APPENDIX   No.  II. 

ON  AN  ANCIENT  CITY  RECENTLY  DISCOVERED  IN  THE 
TUSCAN    MAREMMA. 

I  have  just  been  informed  by  my  friend,  Mr.  R.  P.  Pullan,  of  the  existence 
of  very  extensive  ruins  on  a  height  called  Monte  Leone,  a  few  miles  to  the 
east  of  Monte  Pescali,  in  the  Maremma,  north  of  Grosseto.  He  had  heard  of 
a  great  wall  on  this  spot  from  Conte  Bossi  of  Florence,  who  every  winter 
visits  this  district  for  purposes  of  sport,  and  under  the  guidance  of  that 
gentleman  he  explored  the  site  in  May,  1877.  He  has  already  given  some 
notice  of  his  discovery  in  the  "  Academy  "  of  7th  July  last,  but  he  has 
favoured  me  with  further  particulars  to  the  following  effect. 

Monte  Leone  lies  about  two  hours'  ride  to  the  east  of  the  town  of  Monte 
Pescali,  on  the  same  range  of  heights  which  form  the  southern  boundary  to 
the  valley  of  the  Bruna,  and  at  the  distance  of  about  six  miles  from  Colonna 
di  Buriano.  For  the  first  hour  the  way  lies  through  the  valley,  then  it  turns 
to  the  right,  and  ascends  an  oak-covered  hill  which  rises  between  Monte 
Pescali  and  Monte  Leone.  After  an  ascent  of  about  an  hour,  lines  of  old 
wall  come  into  view  at  intervals,  peeping  through  the  brushwood  on  the 
opposite  side  of  the  ravine  to  the  east,  and  at  a  considerable  height  up  the 
hill-side  ;  but  to  reach  these  remains  it  is  necessary  to  make  a  detour  by  way 
of  Batignano,  and  thence  northward  to  Monte  Leone.  This  height  is  covered 
witli  brushwood,  thick  and  tangled,  chiefly  a  sort  of  tall  heather,  through 
which  it  is  difficult  to  force  one's  way.  The  wall  is  very  extensive,  inclos- 
ing all  the  upper  part  of  the  hill,  and  Mr.  Pullan  calculates  that  it  may  be 
at  least  ten  miles  in  circuit.  Owing  to  the  density  of  the  brushwood  it  is 
accessible  only  in  parts.  The  first  portion  he  reached  disappointed  him,  as 
it  was  a  mere  heap  of  rough  stones,  piled  together  without  any  arrangement. 
In  other  parts,  the  construction  appeared  more  systematic,  but  the  masses  of 
stone  were  still  rough  and  unhewn,  mere  boulders,  piled  up  to  the  height  of 
seven  or  eight  feet,  without  cement  or  jointing  of  any  kind.  The  wall, 
which  he  found  on  measurement  to  be  fully  twenty  feet  in  thickness,  was 
composed  of  three  parts, — an  outer  and  inner  facing,  constructed  of  larger 
masses  about  three  feet  six  inches  long,  and  an  intervening  space  filled  with 
smaller  stones  or  mere  rubble.  All  the  stones  were  alike  undressed  ;  he 
looked  in  vain  for  any  traces  of  tooling  on  them.  At  one  end  of  the  inclo- 
sure,  on  a  northern  spur  of  the  height,  he  observed  a  semicircular  work, 
about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  in  diameter,  with  an  outer  wall  of  similar  construc- 
tion, some  twenty  or  thirty  feet  in  advance  of  it.  He  could  perceive  no 
traces  of  gateways,  and  no  remains  of  buildings  within  the  inclosure. 

These  facts,  as  well  as  the  very  rude  style  of  construction,  led  him  at  first 
to  take  these  walls  for  the  enceinte  of  a  camp,  and  he  remembered  that  the 
Cisalpine  Gauls,  before  their  defeat  by  the  Romans  at  Telamon,  225  B.C., 
were  encamped  somewhere  in  this  neighbourhood.  But  the  great  extent  of 
the  inclosure,  and  the  unusual  thickness  of  its  wall,  seemed  to  preclude  that 
idea.  The  former  appeared  even  too  spacious  for  an  ancient  city,  and  the 


cxxviii  A    NEWT  A'    DISCOVERED    CITY.  [APPENDIX. 

construction  of  the  latter  was  so  unlike  that  of  any  Etruscan  wall  he  had 
*  ver  seen,  being  neither  of  the  true  Cyclopean  style  described  by  Pausanias — 
like  certain  ancient  walls  in  Central  Italy,  those  of  Civitclla,  Olevano,  and 
Monte  Fortino,  for  instance — nor  like  any  of  the  varieties  of  Etruscan 
masonry  which  approach  more  or  less  to  regularity  in  the  arrangement  of 
the  blocks,  that  he  was  naturally  led  to  entertain  doubts  of  its  Etruscan 
antiquity.  lie  was  rather  inclined  to  regard  these  as  the  ruins  mentioned  by 
Leandro  Albert!,  under  the  name  of  Vctulia  or  Vctulonia,  which  that  old 
writer  describes  as  those  of  a  city  surrounded  by  walls  of  large  uncemented 
blocks,  situated  in  a  dense  wood,  and  embracing  a  great  extent  of  country  ; 
and  he  was  the  more  inclined  to  this  view  from  the  consideration  that 
Alberti,  having  never  seen  those  remains,  but  describing  them  at  second- 
hand, may  have  been  mistaken  as  to  their  exact  position,  which  he  places 
much  further  to  the  north,  near  Populonia.  It  is  not  easy,  however,  to 
believe  .that  this  ancient  site  discovered  by  Mr.  Pullan  is  identical  with  that 
described  by  Leandro  Alberti.  A  reference  to  his  description,  given  at 
p.  206  of  vol.  ii.,  will  show  wide  discrepancies,  especially  as  regards  situa- 
tion. The  ancient  remains  which  Alberti  took  for  those  of  Vetulonia,  he 
places  between  the  Torre  cli  San  Vinccnzo  and  the  headland  of  Populonia, 
three  miles  from  the  sea,  five  from  the  iron  mines,  and  north  of  the  Cornia — 
that  is,  in  the  near  neighbourhood  of  Campiglia.  But  this  newly  found  site 
is  more  than  thirty  miles  distant  from  that  town  as  the  crow  flies  ,  and  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  the  manuscript  to  which  Alberti  was  indebted  for  his 
description,  placed  the  supposed  Vetulonia  in  the  position  indicated  by  him, 
for  it  was  verified  by  Inghirami.  The  real  question  appears  to  be,  whether 
the  detailed  description  of  Zacchio  was  the  mere  creation  of  that  writer's 
imagination,  as  Inghirami  supposed,  or  whether  the  ruins,  if  they  actually 
had  an  existence  and  were  extant  in  Zacchio's  day,  have  not,  during  the  last 
four  centuries,  totally  disappeared  under  the  pilferings  of  the  peasantry. 

As  attention  has  now  been  directed  to  this  extensive  inclosure  discovered 
by  Mr.  Pullan,  its  character  and  antiquity  cannot  long  remain  a  mystery. 


H 


THE    CITIES   AND    CEMETERIES 

OF 

ETRURIA. 

CHAPTER     I. 

VEIL— THE  CITY. 

Hoc  tune  Veii  f  uere :   quse  reliquiae  ?  quod  vestigium  ? — FLOKU.S. 

Sic  magna  fuit  censuque  virisque 
Perque  cleceiu  potuit  tantum  darfe  sanguiuis  annos  ; 
Nunc  humilis  veteres  tantummodo  Troja  ruinas, 
Et  pro  divitiis  tumulos  osteadit  avoruin.  — OVID.  Met. 

OF  all  the  cities  of  Etruria,  none  takes  so  prominent  a  place 
in  history  as  Veii.  One  of  the  earliest,  nearest,  and  unquestion- 
ably the  most  formidable  of  the  foes  of  Rome — for  nearly  four 
centuries  her  rival  in  military  power,  her  instructress  in  civilisa- 
tion and  the  arts — the  southern  bulwark  of  Etruria — the  richest 
city  of  that  land — the  Troy  of  Italy — Veii  excites  our  interest  as 
much  by  the  length  of  the  struggle  she  maintained,  and  by  the 
romantic  legends  attending  her  overthrow,  as  by  the  intimate 
connection  of  her  history  with  Rome's  earliest  and  most  spirit- 
stirring  days.  Such  was  her  greatness — such  her  magnificence 
— that,  even  after  her  conquest,  Veii  disputed  with  the  city  of 
Romulus  for  metropolitan  honours ;  and,  but  for  the  eloquence 
of  Camillus,  would  have  arisen  as  Roma  Nova  to  be  mistress  of 
the  world.1  Yet,  in  the  time  of  Augustus,  we  are  told  that  the 
city  was  a  desolation,3  and  a  century  later  its  very  site  is  said  to 
have  been  forgotten.3  Though  re-colonised  under  the  Empire, 
it  soon  again  fell  into  utter  decay,  and  for  ages  Veii  was  blotted 
from  the  map  of  Italy.  But  when,  on  the  revival  of  letters, 
attention  was  directed  to  the  subject  of  Italian  antiquities,  its 
site  became  a  point  of  dispute.  Fiano,  Ponzano,  Martignano, 
and  other  places,  found  their  respective  advocates.  Some,  with 

1  Liv.  V.  51—55.  -  Propert.  IV.  Eleg.  x.  29.  3  Florus,  I.  12. 

VOL.     I.  B 


2  VEIL— THE  CITY.  [CHAP.  i. 

Castiglioni,  placed  it  at  Civita  Castellana ;  others,  with  Cluverius, 
at  Scrofano,  near  Monte  Musino ;  Zanchi  at  Monte  Lupolo,  above 
Baccano ;  while  Holstenius,  Nardini,  and  Fabretti  assigned  to  it 
the  site  which  more  recent  researches  have  determined  beyond  a 
doubt  to  belong  to  it.  This  is  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Isola 
Farnese,  a  hamlet,  about  eleven  miles  from  Home,  on  the  right 
of  the  Via  Cassia,  which  agrees  with  the  distance  assigned  to 
Veii  by  Dionysius  and  the  Peutingerian  Table. 

The  ancient  road  from  Home  seems  to  have  left  the  Via  Cassia 
about  the  fifth  milestone,  not  far  from  the  sepulchre  vulgarly, 
but  erroneously,  called  that  of  Nero  ;  and  to  have  pursued  a 
serpentine  course  to  Veii.  Instead  of  pursuing  that  ancient 
track,  now  distinguishable  only  by  the  sepulchres  and  tumuli  at 
its  side,  travellers  usually  push  on  to  La  Storta,  the  first  post- 
house  from  Rome,  and  beyond  the  ninth  milestone  on  the  Via 
Cassia.  Hence  it  is  a  mile  and  a  half  to  Isola  by  the  carriage 
road ;  but  the  visitor,  on  horse  or  foot,  may  save  half  a  mile  by 
taking  a  pathway  across  the  downs.  When  Isola  Farnese  comes 
into  sight,  let  him  halt  awhile  to  admire  the  scene.  A  wide 
sweep  of  the  Campagna  lies  before  him,  in  this  part  broken  into- 
ravines  or  narrow  glens,  which,  by  varying  the  lines  of  the  land- 
scape, redeem  it  from  the  monotony  of  a  plain,  and  by  patches  of 
wood  relieve  it  of  its  usual  nakedness  and  sterility.  On  a  steep 
cliff,  about  a  mile  distant,  stands  the  hamlet  of  Isola — consisting 
of  a  large  chateau,  with  a  few  small  houses  around  it.  Behind  it 
rises  the  long,  swelling  ground,  which  once  bore  the  walls,, 
temples,  and  palaces  of  Veii,  but  is  now  a  bare  down,  partly 
fringed  with  wood,  and  without  a  habitation  on  its  surface.  At. 
a  few  miles'  distance  is  the  conical,  tufted  hill  of  Musino,  the 
supposed  scene  of  ancient  rites,  the  Eleusis,  or  Delphi,  it  may 
be,  of  Etruria.  The  eye  is  next  caught  by  a  tree-crested  mound 
in  the  plain  beyond  the  site  of  the  city  ;  then  it  stretches  away  to- 
the  triple  paps  of  the  Monticelli,  and  to  Tivoli,  gleaming  from 
the  dark  slopes  behind  ;  and  then  it  rises  and  scans  the  majestic- 
chain  of  Apennines,  bounding  the  horizon  with  their  dark  grey 
masses,  and  rests  with  delight  on  La  Leonessa  and  other  well- 
known  giants  of  the  Sabine  range,  all  capt  with  snow.  Oh,  the 
beauty  of  that  range  !  From  whatever  part  of  the  Campagna  you 
view  it,  it  presents  those  long,  sweeping  outlines,  those  grand,, 
towering  crests — not  of  Alpine  abruptness,  but  consistently  with 
the  character  of  the  land,  preserving,  even  when  soaring  highest,, 
the  true  Italian  dignity  and  repose. 


CHAP,  i.]  GENERAL    VIEW    OF    VEIL  3 

Isola  is  a  wretched  hamlet  of  ruinous  houses,  with  not  more 
than  thirty  inhabitants.  Even  the  palace,  which  belongs  to  the 
Bospigliosi  famil}',  is  falling  into  decay,  and  the  next  generation 
will  probably  find  the  place  uninhabited.  The  caverns  which 
yawn  in  the  cliffs  around  whet  the  traveller's  interest  in  the 
antiquities  of  Veii.  In  the  little  piazza  are  several  relics  of 
lloman  domination,  sculptural  and  inscriptive. 

It  is  necessary  to  take  Isola  on  the  way  to  the  ancient  city,  as 
the  cicerone  dwells  there,  and  the  key  of  the  Painted  Tomb  is  to 
be  there  obtained. 

He  who  would  make  the  tour  of  Veii  must  not  expect  to  see 
numerous  monuments  of  the  past.  Scarcely  one  Etruscan  site 
has  fewer  remains,  yet  few  possess  greater  interest.  Veii  lives  in 
the  page  of  history  rather  than  in  extant  monuments ;  she  has 
no  Colosseum,  no  Parthenon,  no  Pyramids — few  fragments  even 
from  which  the  antiquarian  Cuvier  may  reconstruct  her  frame. 
The  very  skeleton  of  Veii  has  crumbled  to  dust — the  city  is  its 
own  sepulchre — si  monumentum  requiris — circumspice  ! 

Yet  is  there  no  want  of  interest  in  a  spot  so  hallowed  by  legend 
and  history.  The  shadow  of  past  glory  falls  as  solemnly  on  the 
spirit  as  that  of  temple  or  tower.  It  is  something  to  know  and 
feel  that  "  here  was  and  is  "  not.  The  senses  may  desire  more 
relics  to  link  the  present  to  the  past ;  but  the  imagination  need 
not  here  be  "  gravelled  for  lack  of  matter." 

Since  there  are  such  scanty  remains  at  Veii,  few  will  care  to 
make  the  entire  circuit  of  the  city,  yet  there  are  three  or  four 
spots  of  interest  which  all  should  visit — the  Arx — the  Colum- 
barium— the  Ponte  Sodo — and  the  Painted  Tomb.  Beyond  this 
there  are  but  scattered  fragments  of  walls — the  sites  of  the  gates, 
determined  only  by  the  nature  of  the  ground — and  the  remains  of 
several  bridges. 

I  shall  detail  the  track  I  took  on  my  first  visit,  and  the  reader, 
with  the  aid  of  the  Plan,  will  be  enabled  to  trace  the  site  of 
every  object  of  interest  within  and  around  the  walls  of  Veii. 

My  guide  led  the  way  into  the  glen  which  separates  Isola  from 
the  ancient  city,  and  in  which  stands  a  mill — most  picturesquely 
situated,  with  the  city-cliffs  towering  above  it,  and  the  stream 
sinking  in  a  cascade  into  a  deep  gulley,  over-shadowed  by  ilex. 
The  road  to  the  mill  is  cut  through  tufo,  which  presents  some 
remarkable  features,  being  composed  of  very  thin  strata  of 
calcined  vegetable  matter,  alternating  with  earthy  layers,  showing 
the  regular  and  rapidty  intermittent  action  of  some  neighbouring 

B  2 


4  VEIL— THE  CITY.  [CHAP.  i. 

volcano — the  now  extinct  crater  of  Baccano  or  of  Bracciano.  The 
bed  formed  by  an  igneous  deposit  had  been  covered  with  vegeta- 
tion, which  had  been  reduced  to  charcoal  by  a  subsequent  eruption, 
and  buried  beneath  another  shower  of  earthy  matter,  which  in  its 
turn  served  for  a  hotbed  to  a  second  crop  of  vegetation.  That 
these  eruptions  occurred  at  very  short  intervals  is  apparent  from 
the  thinness  of  the  charcoal  layers.  The  whole  mass  is  very 
friable,  and  as  this  softness  of  the  rock  precluded  the  formation 
of  a  water-trough  on  one  side,  so  frequently  seen  in  Etruscan 
roads,  to  carry  off  the  water  from  above,  small  pipes  of  earthen- 
ware were  here  thrust  through  the  soft  tufo  in  one  of  the  cliffs, 
and  may  be  traced  for  some  distance  down  the  hill.4  From  the 
mill  a  path  leads  up  to  the  site  of  one  of  the  ancient  gates  (A  in 
the  Flan).  Near  this,  which  commands  the  view  of  Isola,  given 
in  the  woodcut,  which  is  from  a  sketch  by  the  author,  are  some 
remains  of  the  walls,  composed  of  small  rectangular  blocks  of 
nenfro.5 

Following  the  line  of  the  high  ground  to  the  east,  I  passed 
several  other  fragments  of  the  ancient  walls,  all  mere  embank- 
ments, and  then  struck  across  bare  downs  or  corn-fields  into  the 
heart  of  the  city.  A  field,  overgrown  with  briers,  was  pointed 
out  by  my  guide  as  the  site  of  excavations,  where  were  found, 
among  other  remains,  the  colossal  statue  of  Tiberius,  now  in  the 
Vatican,  and  the  twelve  Ionic  columns  of  marble,  which  sustain 
the  portico  of  the  Post-office  at  Rome.  This  was  probably  the 
Forum  of  the  Roman  "  Municipium  Augustnm  Veiens"  which 
rose  on  the  ruins  of  Etruscan  Veii.  The  columbarium,  or  Roman 
sepulchre,  hard  by,  must  have  been  without  the  limits  of  the 
municipium,  which  occupied  but  a  small  portion  of  the  site  of  the 
original  city ;  when  first  opened,  it  contained  stuccoes  and 
paintings  in  excellent  preservation,  but  is  now  in  a  state  of  utter 
ruin. 

I  next  entered  on  a  wide  down,  overrun  with  rank  vegetation, 
where  tall  thistles  and  briers  played  no  small  devilry  with  one's 
lower  limbs,  and  would  deny  all  passage  to  the  fair  sex,  save  on 
horseback.  On  I  struggled,  passing  a  Roman  tomb,  till  I  found 
traces  of  an  ancient  road,  slightly  sunk  between  banks.  This 


4  These  pipes  may  be  Roman,  for  tululi  tufo   of    the  Campagna  by  its   colour,    a 
fictiles  were  often  used  by  that  people  for  dark  grey,   and  by  its  superior  hardness 
the  conveyance  of  water.  and  compactness — a  difference  thought  to 

5  A  volcanic  stone,  a  species  of  tufo,  dis-  be  owing  to  its  having  cooled  more  slowly, 
tinguished  from  the  ordinary  red  or  yellow 


CHAP.   I.J 


EOMAX    VEIL-THE    ARX. 


was  the  road  from  Rome  to  the  municipium,  and  after  crossing 
the  site  of  the  ancient  city  in  a  direct  line,  it  fell  into  the  Via 
Cassia.  I  traced  it  a  long  distance  southwards  across  the  briery 
down,  and  then  into  a  deep  hollow,  choked  with  thickets,  where 
I  came  upon  large  polygonal  blocks  of  basalt,  such  as  usually 
compose  Roman  pavement.  This  was  without  the  limits  of  the 
Etruscan  city  in  a  narrow  hollow,  which  separated  the  cit}*  from 


ISOLA    FARNESE,    FROM    THE    WALLS    OF    VEIL 

its  Arx.  At  this  spot  is  a  fragment  of  the  ancient  walls.  The 
road  ran  down  the  hollow  towards  Rome,  and  was  probably 
known  as  the  Via  Yeientana.  There  are  no  remains  of  the  gate. 
The  Arx  is  a  table-land  of  no  great  extent,  rising  precipitously 
from  the  deep  glens  which  bound  it,  save  at  the  single  point 
where  a  narrow  ridge  unites  it  to  the  cit}r.  Such  a  position  would 
mark  it  at  once  as  the  citadel,  even  had  it  not  traditionally  retained 
its  ancient  designation  in  its  modern  name,  Piazza  d'Armi ;  and 
its  juxta-position  and  connection  with  the  city  give  it  much 
superior  claims  to  be  so  considered,  than  those  which  can  be 
urged  for  the  height  of  Isola  Farnese,  which  is  separated  from 
the  city  by  a  wide  hollow.  There  is  also  every  reason  to  believe 
that  this  was  the  site  of  the  earliest  town.  Here  alone  could  the 


6  VEIL— THE  CITY.  [CHAP.  i. 

founder  of  Veil  have  fixed  his  choice.  The  natural  strength  of 
its  position,  and  its  size,  adapted  it  admirably  for  an  infant 
settlement.  In  process  of  time,  as  its  population  increased,  it 
would  have  been  compelled  to  extend  its  limits,  until  it  gradually 
embraced  the  whole  of  the  adjoining  table-land,  which  is  far  too 
extensive  to  have  been  the  original  site ;  so  that  what  was  at  first 
the  whole  town  became  eventually  merely  the  citadel.  Such  was 
the  case  with  Athens,  Rome,  Syracuse,  and  man}'  other  cities  of 
antiquity.  There  may  possibly  have  been  a  second  settlement  at 
Isola,  which  may  have  united  with  that  on  the  Arx  to  occupy  the 
site  of  the  celebrated  cit}' ;  just  as  at  Home,  where  the  town  of 
Romulus,  confined  at  first  to  the  hill  of  the  Palatine,  united  with 
the  earlier  town  on  the  Capitoline,  to  extend  their  limits  as  one 
city  over  the  neighbouring  heights  and  intervening  valleys. 

I  walked  round  the  Piazza  d'Armi,  and  from  the  verge  of  its 
cliffs  looked  into  the  beautiful  glen  on  either  hand,  through  which, 
far  beneath  me,  wound  the  two  streams  which  girded  Veii,  and 
into  the  broader  and  still  more  beautiful  hollow,  through  which, 
after  uniting  their  waters,  they  flowed,  as  the  far-famed  Cremera, 
now  known  as  La  Valca,  to  mingle  with  the  Tiber.7  Peculiar 
beauty  was  imparted  to  these  glens  by  the  rich  autumnal  tints  of 
the  woods,  which  crowned  the  verge  or  clothed  the  base  of  their 
red  and  grey  clift's — the  dark  russet  foliage  of  the  oaks,  the 
orange  or  brilliant  red  of  the  mantling  vines,  being  heightened 
by  the  contrast  of  the  green  meadows  below.  Scarcehr  a  sign  of 
cultivation  met  the  e}re — one  house  alone  on  the  opposite  cliff- 
no  flocks  or  herds  sprinkled  the  meadows  beneath — it  was  the 
wild  beauty  of  sylvan,  secluded  nature. 

Far  different  was  the  scene  that  met  the  e}re  of  Camillus,  when 
he  gazed  from  this  spot  after  his  capture  of  Veii.8  The  flames 
ascending  from  the  burning  city9 — the  battle  and  slaughter  still 
raging — the  shouts  of  the  victors  and  shrieks  of  the  vanquished 
— here,  his  victorious  soldiers  pressing  up  through  the  hollow 
ways  into  the  city,  eager  for  spoil — there,  the  wretched  inhabi- 
tants flying  across  the  open  country — yon  height,  studded  with 
the  tents  of  the  Roman  army — the  Cremera  at  his  feet  rolling- 
reddened  down  the  valley  towards  the  camp  of  the  Fabii,  whose 
slaughter  he  had  so  signally  avenged — all  these  sights  and  sounds 

7  The  larger  and  more  northerly  stream       menta  Mai,  XII.  13. 

is  the  Fosso  di   Formello,   the  other  the  9  The  city  was  not  consumed,  but  Livy 

Fosso  de'  due  Fossi.  (V.  21)  states  that  the  Roman  soldiers  set 

8  Plut.   Camillus.     Dionys.    Hal.  Frag-       it  on  fire. 


CHAP,  i.]  THE   CUNICULTJS    OF    CAMILLUS.  7 

melted  the  stern  warrior  to  tears  of  mingled  pity  and  exultation. 
Veii,  so  long  the  rival  of  Borne,  had  fallen,  and  her  generous 
conqueror  mourned  her  downfall.  Like  Troy,  she  had  held  out 
for  ten  long  years  against  a  beleaguering  army :  and  like  Troy 
she  fell  at  last  only  by  the  clandestine  introduction  of  an  armed 
foe. 

The  stoiy  of  the  ctiniculus,  or  mine  of  Camillas,  is  well  known; 
how  he  carried  it  up  into  the  temple  of  Juno  within  the  citadel 
— how  he  himself  led  his  troops  to  the  assault — how  they  over- 
heard the  Etruscan  aruspex,  before  the  altar  of  the  goddess, 
declare  to  the  king  of  Yeii  that  victory  would  rest  with  him  who 
completed  the  sacrifice — how  they  burst  through  the  flooring, 
seized  the  entrails  and  bore  them  to  Camillus,  v/ho  offered  them 
to  the  goddess  with  his  own  hand — how  his  troops  swarmed  in 
through  the  mine,  opened  the  gates  to  their  fellows,  and  obtained 
possession  of  the  city.  Verily,  as  Livy  sapiently  remarks,  "  It 
were  not  worth  while  to  prove  or  disprove  these  things,  which  are 
better  fitted  to  be  set  forth  on  a  stage  which  delighteth  in  marvels, 
than  to  be  received  with  implicit  faith.  In  matters  of  such  anti- 
quity, I  hold  it  sufficient  if  what  seeineth  truth  be  received  as 
such." 

I  wandered  round  the  Arx  seeking  some  traces  of  this  temple 
of  Juno,  which  was  the  largest  in  Veii.  The  sole  remains  of 
antiquity  visible,  are  some  foundations  at  the  edge  of  the  plateau, 
opposite  the  city,  which  may  possibly  be  those  of  the  celebrated 
temple,  though  more  probably,  as  Gell  suggests,  the  substruc- 
tions of  towers  which  defended  the  entrance  to  the  citadel. 
Several  sepulchral  monuments  have  been  here  discovered ; 
among  them  one  of  the  Tarquitian  family,  which  produced  a 
celebrated  writer  on  Etruscan  divination,1  and  which  seems  from 
this  and  other  inscriptions  to  have  belonged  to  Veii.  As  none  of 
these  relics  were  Etruscan,  they  in  no  wajr  militate  against  the 
view  that  this  was  the  Arx,  but  merely  show  that  it  was  without 
the  bounds  of  the  Eoman  municipium. 

Of  the  cuniculus  of  Camillus  no  traces  have  been  found.  Not 
even  is  there  a  sewer,  so  common  on  most  Etruscan  sites,  to  be 
seen  in  the  cliff  beneath  the  Arx,  though  the  dense  wood  which 
covers  the  eastern  side  of  the  hill  may  well  conceal  such  open- 
ings ;  and  one  cannot  but  regard  these  sewers  as  suggestive  of  the 
cuniculus,  if  that  were  not  a  mere  enlargement  of  one  of  them  to 
admit  an  armed  force.  Researches  after  the  cuniculus  are  not 

i  Plin.  N.  H.  I.  lib.  2.     Macrob.  Saturn.  III.  7.  cf.  II.  16. 


VEIL—  TIIE  CITY. 


[CHAP.  i. 


likely  to  be  successful.  Not  that  I  agree  with  Niebuhr  in  doubt- 
ing its  existence  ;  for  though  it  were  folly  to  give  full  credence 
to  the  legend,  which  even  Livy  and  Plutarch  doubted,  yet  there 
is  nothing  unnatural  or  improbable  in  the  recorded  mode  of  the 
city's  capture.  When  a  siege  of  ten  years  had  proved  of  no 
avail,  resort  might  Avell  have  been  had  to  artifice  ;  and  the  soft 
volcanic  rock  of  the  site  offered  every  facility  for  tunnelling.2 
But  if  the  cuniculus  were  commenced  in  the  plain  at  the  foot  of 
the  height,  it  would  not  be  easy  to  discover  its  mouth.  The 
entrance  would  probably  be  by  a  perpendicular  shaft  or  well, 
communicating  with  a  subterranean  passage  leading  towards  the 
Arx. 

Returning  into  the  hollow,  through  which  runs  the  Via 
Veientana,  my  eye  was  caught  by  a  curious  flight  of  steps,  high 
in  the  cliff  on  which  the  city  stood.  I  climbed  to  them,  and 
found  them  to  be  of  uncemented  masonry,  too  rude  for  Roman 
work,  and  similar  in  character  to  the  walls  of  the  Etruscan  city  ; 


Niebuhr  (ii.  p.  481,  Eng.  trans.)  re- 
jects the  account,  given  by  Livy,  of  the 
capture  of  Veii :  first,  as  bearing  too  close 
a  resemblance  to  the  siege  and  taking  of 
Troy,  to  be  authentic  ;  and  next,  because 
"  in  the  whole  history  of  ancient  military 
operations  we  shall  scarcely  find  an  authen- 
tic instance  of  a  town  taken  in  the  same 
manner."  He  thinks  that  the  legend  of 
the  cuniculus  arose  out  of  a  tradition  of  a 
mine  of  the  ordinary  character,  by  which  a 
portion  of  the  walls  was  overthrown  ;  be- 
cause the  besiegers  would  never  have  re- 
orted  to  the  arduous  labour  of  forming  a 
cuniculus  into  the  heart  of  the  city,  "when, 
by  merely  firing  the  timbers,  by  which,  at 
all  events,  the  walls  must  have  been  propt, 
they  might  have  made  a  breach."  Now, 
though  there  are  many  circumstances  at- 
tending the  capture,  of  too  marvellous  a 
character  to  be  admitted  as  authentic  his- 
tory, I  must  venture  to  differ  from  that 
great  man  when  he  questions  the  formation 
of  the  cuniculus.  The  fact  is  stated,  not 
only  by  Livy  (V.  21),  but  by  Plutarch 
(Camil.),  Diodorus  (XIV.,  p.  307),  Florus 
(I.  12),  and  Zonaras  (Ann.  VII.  21). 
The  capture  of  Fidense  by  means  of  a 
similar  mine  (Liv.  IV.  22),  Niebuhr  thinks 
not  a  whit  better  attested  than  that  of 
Veii ;  but  Dionysius  mentions  a  similar 
capture  of  Fidense,  as  early  as  the  reign 


of  Ancus  Martius  (III.  p.  ISO)  ;  and  Livy 
records  the  taking  of  Nequinum  or  Narnia. 
in  a  similar  manner,  in  long  subsequent 
times  (X.  10).  "When  Niebuhr  states  that 
the  walls  of  Veiii(might  have  been  breached 
by  firing  the  timbers  of  the  mine,  it  is 
evident  that  he  had  not  visited  the  site, 
and  wrote  in  perfect  ignorance  of  its  cha- 
racter. Such  a  remark  would  apply  to  a 
town  built  in  a  plain,  or  on  a  slight  eleva- 
tion ;  but  in  a  case  where  the  citadel  stood 
on  a  cliff,  nearly  two  hundred  feet  above 
the  valley  (if  Isola  were  the  Arx,  the  height 
was  yet  greater),  it  is  obviously  inapplic- 
able ;  and  this  Niebuhr,  in  fact,  admits, 
when  he  says  that  "in  Latium,  where  the 
strength  of  the  towns  arose  from  the  steep 
rocks  on  which  they  were  built,  there  was. 
no  opportunity  of  mining."  His  argument, 
then,  against  the  cuniculus  of  Camillus 
falls  to  the  ground,  because  founded  on  <i 
misconception  of  the  true  situation  of  Veii. 
His  error  is  the  more  surprising  as  he  had 
the  testimony  of  Dionysius  (II., p.  116), 
that  Veii  "stood  on  a  lofty  and  cliff- bound 
rock." 

Holstenius,  who  regarded  Isola  Farnese 
as  the  Arx  of  Veii,  speaks  of  the  cuniculus 
of  Camillus  being  "  manifestly  apparent " 
in  his  day  (Adnot.  ad  Cluv.,  p.  54),  but  he 
probably  mistook  for  it  some  sewer  which 
opened  low  in  the  cliff. 


CHAP.   1.] 


LA    SCALETTA. 


therefore,  I  doubt  not  that  this  was  a  staircase  leading  to  a  postern 
gate  of  ancient  Veii.  The  lower  part  having  fallen  with  the  cliff, 
these  eight  upper  steps  alone  are  left,  and  they  will  not  remain 
long,  for  the  shrubs  which  have  interlaced  their  roots  with  the 
uncemented  blocks,  will  soon  precipitate  them  into  the  ravine. 


KOCK.-CUT    TOMB    AT    VEIL 


This  curious  staircase,  La  Scaletta,  as  it  is  called  by  the  peasants, 
came  to  light  in  1840,  in  consequence  of  the  earth  which  con- 
cealed it  having  been  washed  away  by  unusually  heavy  rains.  It 
is  marked  P  in  the  Plan. 

From  the  Arx  the  line  of  the  walls  ran  northward,  as  indi- 
cated by  the  cliffs.  I  passed  a  few  excavations  in  the  rocks, 
and  the  sites  of  two  gates,3  and  at  length  reached  a  wood,  belosv 


3  The  road  from  the  second  gate  (F.  in  the 
Plan)  ran  past  the  Tumulus  of  Vaccareccia 
towards  Pietra  Pertusa,  a  remarkable  cut 
through  a  rock  near  the  Via  Flaininia  and 


four  miles  from  Yeii.  The  rock  presents 
the  appearance  of  an  island  rising  out  of  a 
plain,  which  seems  to  have  been  originally 
a  lake  (Gell,  Memor.  Instit.  I.  p.  13). 


10  VEIL— THE  CITY.  [CHAP,  i 

which,  on  the  banks  of  the  stream,  is  a  piece  of  broken  ground, 
which  presents  some  curious  traces  of  ancient  times.  It  is  a 
most  picturesque  spot,  sunk  in  the  bosom  of  the  woods,  and  strewn 
with  masses  of  grey  rock,  in  wild  confusion,  full  of  sepulchral 
excavations — literally  honey-combed  with  niches ;  whence  its 
appellation  of  "  II  Colombario."  In  one  place  the  rock  is  hol- 
lowed into  a  chamber  of  unusually  small  size,  with  room  for  only 
a  single  sarcophagus  (see  the  woodcut  on  p.  9,  which  is  from  a 
sketch  by  the  author).  The  niches  are  of  various  forms,  some  not 
unlike  Etruscan,  but  all,  it  seemed  to  me,  of  Roman,  construction. 
The  most  ancient  Etruscan  tombs  of  Veii  are  chambers  excavated 
in  the  rock,  with  rock-hewn  couches  for  bodies  or  sarcophagi.  As 
the  city  was  deserted  soon  after  its  capture  in  the  year  of  Rome 
358,  all  its  Etruscan  sepulchres  must  have  been  prior  to  that 
date,  and  many  of  the  niches  within  tombs  are  probably  of  high 
antiquit}T,  as  in  them  have  been  found  vases,  mirrors,  and  other 
objects  of  a  purely  Etruscan  character.  The  smaller  niches 
served  to  hold  lamps,  perfume  vases,  cinerary  urns,  or  votive 
offerings,  and  those  of  elongated  form  contained  the  bodies  of  the 
dead.4  But  the  niches  in  the  face  of  these  cliffs  have  pecu- 
liarities, which  mark  them  as  of  Roman  origin,  especially  the 
hole  sunk  within  the  niche  for  an  olla  or  cinerary  pot,  as  in  the 
Roman  columbaria,  instances  of  which  are  very  rare  in  Etruscan 
cemeteries.5  Many  of  them  are  cut  in  the  walls  of  rock,  which 
flank  an  ancient  road  sunk  through  a  mass  of  tufo  to  the  depth 
of  from  twelve  to  twenty  feet.  Such  roads  are  common  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Etruscan  cities ;  several  other  instances  occur 
around  Veii.  In  this  case  part  of  the  polygonal  pavement  is 
remaining  with  its  kerb-stones,  and  the  ruts  worn  by  the  ancient 
cars  are  visible.  On  the  top  of  the  rock,  on  one  side,  are  remains 
of  walls,  which  prove  this  to  be  the  site  of  one  of  the  city-gates. 
(G.  in  the  Plan.) 

The  road  led  directly  from  the  Formello  up  to  the  gate,  and 
had  evidently  crossed  the  stream  by  a  bridge.  This  is  no  longer 
standing ;  but  several  large  hewn  blocks  of  tufo  lie  in  the  water ; 
and  a  little  further  up  the  stream,  on  the  side  opposite  the  city, 
is  a  piece  of  walling,  which  has  undoubtedly  been  the  pier  of  the 
bridge.6 

*  See    the  Appendix  to   this   Chapter,  of  the  inscriptions  found  on  the  spot. 
Note  I.  6  Marked  R.  on  the  Plan.     It  is  20  feet 

b  Abeken   (Mittelital.    p.   258)    regards  wide,  now  only  about  5  or  6  feet  high,  of 

these  niches  as  Roman  from  the  evidence  Email  blocks  of  tufo  cemented,  in  6  courses, 


CHAP,  i.]  COLUMEABIUM.— PONTE    SODO.  11 

I  continued  to  follow  the  upward  course  of  the  Formello 
towards  the  Ponte  Sodo.  The  banks  of  the  stream,  on  the  inner 
or  city  side,  rose  steep,  rock}',  and  fringed  with  wood — the  ash, 
beech,  and  ilex  springing  from  the  grey  rocks,  and  hanging  in 
varied  hues  over  the  torrent.  Here  and  there,  at  the  verge  of 
the  steep,  portions  of  the  ancient  walls  peeped  through  the 
foliage.  Among  them  was  a  grand  fragment  of  walling  filling  a 
natural  gap  in  the  cliff.7  On  the  other  hand  were  bare,  swelling 
mounds,  in  which  the  mouths  of  caves  were  visible,  the  tombs 
of  ancient  Veii,  now  half  choked  with  earth.  One  tomb  alone, 
the  Grotta  Campana,  which  will  be  particularly  described  in  the 
following  chapter,  now  remains  open.  Here  are  also  several 
vaults  of  Roman  reticulated  work. 

It  would  be  easy  to  pass  the  Ponte  Sodo  without  observing  it. 
It  is  called  a  bridge  ;  but  is  a  mere  mass  of  rock  bored  for  the 
passage  of  the  stream.  AVhether  wholly  or  but  partly  artificial 
may  admit  of  dispute.  It  is,  however,  in  all  probability,  an 
Etruscan  excavation — a  tunnel  in  the  rock,  two  hundred  and 
forty  feet  long,  twelve  or  fifteen  wide,  and  nearly  twenty  high. 
From  above,  it  is  not  visible.  You  must  view  it  from  the  banks 
of  the  stream.  You  at  first  take  it  to  be  of  natural  formation, 
yet  there  is  a  squareness  and  regularity  about  it  which  prove 
it  artificial.  The  steep  cliffs  of  tufo,  yellow,  grey,  or  white,  over- 
hung by  ilex,  ivy,  and  brushwood — the  deep,  dark-mouthed  tunnel 
with  a  ray  of  sunshine,  it  ma}7  be,  gleaming  beyond — the  masses 
of  lichen-clad  rock,  Avhich  choke  the  stream — give  it  a  charm 
apart  from  its  antiquity.8 

and  much  more  neat  and  modern  in  appear-  some  nine  or  ten  centuries  before  Christ, 
ance   than   the  usual   Etruscan   masonry.  8  Sodo,   or    solid,   is  a    term    commonly 

Yet  it  is  unlike    late    Roman   work,    and  applied  to  natural  bridges,   or  to  such  as 

more  resembles  the  remains  of  the  ayyer  in  their  massive  character  resemble  them, 
of  Servius  Tullius,  in  the  gardens  of  Sallust  Gell  (II.,  p.   328)  thinks  that  the  deep 

at  Rome.      Canina,  who  gives  a  drawing  hollow   through  which  the  Formello  here 

of  this  pier  (Etruria  Marittiraa,  tav.  28),  flows  was  not  its  original  bed,  but  I  could 

represents  it  as  of  a  kind  of  masonry  very  see  no  traces  of  a  former  channel,  and  am 

common  on  early  Etruscan  sites,  and  which  inclined  to  believe  in  the  natural  character  of 

I  take  to  be  the  emplecton  of  Vitruvius.  the  hollow,  by  which  the  stream  approaches 

See  Chapter  V.,  p.  79.  the  Ponte  Sodo,    and  to  think  that  there 

7  Canina  gives   an  illustration  of    this  was  a  natural  channel  through   the  rock 

piece  of  wall  (op.  cit.  I.,  p.  120,  tav.  26),  enlarged  by  art  to  obviate  the  disastrous 

and  represents  it  as  of  IS  courses  in  height,  consequences    of    winter    floods.       Canina 

and  of  emplecton,  at  least  in  that  style  of  (Etr.  Marit.  I.  p.  121)  believes  the  Ponte 

masonry  to  which  that  name  is  applied  to  be  artificial. 

throughout  this  work,    although   he    does  Nibby    (III.,   p.    432)  calls  the    Ponte 

not  so  apply  it.     He  takes  it  for  part  of  Sodo  70  feet  long.     He  could   not  have 

the  earliest  fortifications  of   Yeii,    dating  measured  it,  as  I  have,  by  wading  through 


12  VEIL— THE  CITY.  [CHAP.  i. 

Upon  this  natural  bridge  is  a  shapeless  mound  in  the  midst  of 
an  ancient  roadway.  Gell  sees  in  it  the  ruins  of  a  square  tower, 
though  it  requires  a  brisk  imagination  to  perceive  such  traces  in 
this  overgrown  mass ;  }'et  from  its  position,  and  from  fragments 
of  walling  hard  by,  it  is  evident  that  this  was  the  site  of  a  double 
gateway.9  (H  in  the  Plan.)  These  fragments  are  traceable  on 
both  sides  of  the  gate.  To  the  left  they  rise  high,  and  form  the 
facing  to  an  ayycr  or  embankment  which  extends  along  the  verge 
of  the  slope  for  a  considerable  distance.  The  blocks  are  smaller 
than  usual  in  Etruscan  cities,  being  only  sixteen  inches  deep, 
and  eighteen  to  twenty-four  in  length ;  yet  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  these  were  the  once  renowned  fortifications — egregii 
mnri1 — of  Etruscan  Veii.  A  portion  of  the  wall  hereabouts  has 
been  described  and  delineated  by  Gell,  as  being  composed  of 
immense  tufo  blocks,  ten  or  eleven  feet  long,  based  on  courses 
of  thin  bricks,  a  yard  in  length.  Again  and  again  have  I  beat 
the  bush  far  and  wide  in  quest  of  this  singular  fragment  of 
masonry,  but  have  never  been  fortunate  enough  to  stumble  on  it ; 
nor  have  I  met  with  any  one  who  has  seen  it.  Of  late  years  the 
wood  has  been  greatly  cleared  on  this  side  the  city,  but  the 
fragment  is  still  sought  in  vain  ;  and  whether  it  has  been  torn 
to  pieces  by  the  peasants,  or  lies  hid  in  some  of  the  thorny 
brakes  it  is  impossible  to  penetrate,  I  cannot  say. 

it.     It  is  not  cut  with  nicety,   though  it  duct,  and  the  shafts  for  wells  l>y  which  the 

is  possible  that  the  original  surface  of  the  citizens  drew  water  (II.,  p.  331).     At  this 

rock    has    been    injured    by   the    rush    of  end  of  the  tunnel,  the  roof  is  cut  into  a 

water  through  the  tunnel,  for  the  stream  regular  gable  form,  and  is  of  much  greater 

at    times  swells  to  a  torrent,   filling  the  elevation  than  the  rest ;   it  is  continued 

entire  channel,  as  is  proved  by  trunks  of  thus  only  for  thirty  or  forty  feet,  as  if  the 

•trees  lodged  in  clefts  of  the  rock  close  to  original  plan  had  been  abandoned, 

the  roof,  which   remind  one   that  this   is  9  Double  gates  such  as  this  were  com- 

the   Cremera  rapax  of    Ovid    (Fast.    II.  mon   in  Italy  —  the  Porta  Carmeutalis  of 

205).     There  are  two  oblong  shafts  in  the  Rome,    the  gates   at  Pompeii  and   Segni, 

ceiling,    with   niches   cut    in   them    as    a  for   instance  —  and   not   unknown  to  the 

means    of  descent    from  above,    precisely  Greeks,    being  represented  on  monuments 

such   shafts  as  are  seen  in  the  tombs  at  and  mentioned  by  their  writers.      It  may 

€ivita     Castellaua,     Falleri,     and     other  be  doubted,  however,  whether  the  plura) 

Etruscan    sites.       Here    they   must    have  number  applied  to  gates,  as  to  the  cele- 

been  formed  for  the  sake  of  carrying  on  brated  Scsean  gates  of  Troy  (irvAai  2/cataJ), 

the  work  in  several  places  at  once.  There  had  reference  to  a  gate  like  this,   or  to 

is  a  third  at  the  upper  entrance  to  the  one  with  a  double  portal  connected  by  a 

tunnel,    but  not  connected  with  it,  as  it  passage,  as  the  Porta  all'  Arco  of  Yolterra. 

is   sunk  into  a  sewer  which   crosses  the  Canina  (Arch.  Ant.   V.  p.   9fj)  thinks  the 

mouth  of  the  tunnel  diagonally,    showing  latter.     The  plural  term  would  also  apply 

the  latter  to  have  been  of  subsequent  for-  to  a  single  gate  with  folding  doors — portto 

mation  to  the  system  of  drainage  in   the  bipatenten — Virg.  3Ln.  II.  330. 

city.     Gell  mistook  the  sewer  for  an  aque-  1  Liv.  V.  2. 


CHAP,  i.]     .  THE    WALLS    OF    VEIL  13 

A  little  above  the  Ponte  Sodo,  where  the  ground  sinks  to  the 
edge  of  the  stream,  and  where  many  troughs  in  the  rocky  banks 
indicate  the  spots  whence  blocks  have  been  quarried  for  the  con- 
struction of  the  city,  I  observed,  on  the  left  bank,  a  fragment  of 
walling  with  the  same  peculiarities  as  that  described  by  Gell,  and 
more  massive  than  any  other  I  had  seen  at  Veii.  From  its  posi- 
tion with  regard  to  the  gate,  which  may  here  be  traced  on  the  city 
side  of  the  stream,  it  had  evidently  formed  the  pier  of  a  bridge. 
Its  width  was  ten  feet.  The  largest  block  was  only  three  feet 
nine  inches  by  two  feet  four,  but  this  was  massive  in  comparison 
with  those  of  the  city  walls.  The  absence  of  cement  proved  its 
antiquity.  The  whole  rested  on  three  layers  of  long  sun-burnt 
bricks,  or  tiles.3  Yet  their  position  was  no  proof  of  the  antiquity 
of  their  collocation,  for  they  might  have  been  inserted  in  after- 
times  to  repair  the  foundations,  just  as  the  massive  walls  of 
Volterra  are  here  and  there  underbuilt  with  modern  masonry. 
There  is  nothing,  however,  in  the  material  which  militates  against 
the  antiquity  of  the  structure.  Bricks  were  used  in  the  remotest 
ages,  and  in  most  parts  of  the  ancient  world.3  The  Etruscans, 
so  skilled  in  pottery,  must  have  been  acquainted  with  their  use  ; 
Arretium,  one  of  the  cities  of  the  League,  is  said  to  have  been 
walled  with  brick ;  and  we  know  that  the  Veientes  in  particular 
were  famed  for  their  manufactures  of  baked  earth."  If  the  bricks 
in  this  masonry  really  formed  part  of  the  original  structure,  the}' 
lead  one  to  suspect  that  the  walls  of  other  Etruscan  cities  may 
have  been  formed  in  part  of  the  same  materials,  which,  when  the 
cities  fell  into  deca}r,  would  have  formed  a  quarry  for  the  con- 
struction of  villages.  The  destruction  of  Etruscan  fortifications, 
however,  in  the  volcanic  district  of  the  land,  may  be  accounted 
for  without  this  supposition — the  small  size,  lightness,  and  facility 
of  cleavage  of  the  tufo  blocks  composing  the  extant  fragments, 
must  in  all  ages  have  proved  a  temptation  to  apply  them  to  other 
purposes. 

About  three  quarters  of  a  mile  above  the  Ponte  Sodo  is  another 

2  This  site  is  marked   S.    in  tlie  plan.  their  early  use  in  Egypt,  corroborated  by 
On    a  subsequent    visit,   I  was  grieved    to  extant    monuments  ;    and    Herodotus   in- 
see    that   this  pier   had  been  almost  de-  forms  us  that  the  walls  of  Babylon  were 
stroyed.     Canina  gives   a  drawing  of  this  built  of  brick.     For  their  use  in  Greece, 
pier.     Etr.  Marit.  tav.  29.  see  Pausanias    (I.    42,   II.   27,   V.   5,  X. 

3  According  to  Sanchoniatho,  bricks  were  35);  and  in  other  countries,  see  Vitruvius 
invented  before  mankind  had   learned   to  (II.  viii.  9)  and  Pliny  (N.  H.  XXXV.  49). 
construct  villages,  or  to  tend  flocks.     The  4  Plut.  Publicola.  Serv.  ad  .ZEn.  VII.  188. 
Tower  of  Babel  was  built  of  bricks.      We  Festus  roce  llatumena. 

.have  the   testimony  of  Moses  also    as  to 


14  VEIL— THE  CITY.  [CHAP.  i. 

bridge,  called  Ponte  Formello,  whose  piers  are  of  nenfro,  un- 
doubtedly ancient,  possibly  of  Etruscan  construction,  though  not 
of  the  earliest  period ;  but  the  existing  arch  is  of  mediaeval  brick- 
work. The  road  which  crosses  the  Formello  by  this  bridge  runs 
to  the  village  of  Formello  and  to  Monte  Musino,  six  miles 
distant. 

Crossing  this  bridge,  and  following  the  line  of  the  ancient  walls 
as  indicated  by  the  nature  of  the  ground,  I  presently  came  to  a 
cross-road,  cut  through  tufo  banks,  and  leading  into  the  city. 
(Gate  K.)  It  is  clearly  an  ancient  way;  fifty  years  ago  its  pave- 
ment was  entire,5  but,  owing  to  the  pilferings  of  the  peasantry, 
scarcely  a  block  is  now  left. 

The  road  that  crosses  the  Formello  runs  direct,  for  half-a-mile, 
to  the  Ponte  dell'  Isola,  a  bridge  over  the  Fosso  de'  due  Fossi, 
the  stream  which  washed  the  southern  walls  of  Veii.  The  city 
walls  followed  the  line  of  bank  on  the  left,  which  turns  off 
towards  the  mill,  while  the  road  leads  directly  to  the  Ponte 
d'  Isola.  This  is  a  picturesque  bridge  of  a  single  arch,  twenty- 
two  feet  in  span.6  Antiquaries  have  pronounced  it  to  be 
of  very  ancient  date — connected  with  the  original  plan  of  the 
city.  But  to  my  eye  the  very  small  size  of  the  blocks,  and 
the  cement  used  in  its  construction,  are  opposed  to  so  high  an 
antiquity. 

A  doubt  may  arise  as  to  the  antiquity  of  these  bridges  at  Veii,. 
as  well  as  of  any  others  which  claim  an  Etruscan  origin,  seeing 
that  no  stone  bridge  was  erected  at  Home  before  the  year  575, 
the  date  of  the  Pons  ^Emilius,7  long  after  the  entire  subjugation 
of  Etruria,  and  more  than  two  centuries  after  the  capture  of  Veii. 
Is  it  possible  that  the  .Romans,  if  they  found  such  structures 
existing  in  the  conquered  land,  could  have  refrained  from  intro- 
ducing such  additions  to  the  beauty  and  convenience  of  the  City  ? 
— how  could  they  have  remained  satisfied  for  centuries  with  a 
single  bridge,  and  that  of  wood  ?  But  it  must  be  remembered 
that  the  Tiber  was  one  of  the  ramparts  of  Home ;  that  the  Pons 
Sublicius  was  equivalent  to  a  draw-bridge,  being  so  constructed 
as  to  be  readily  taken  to  pieces  on  an  emergency;  that  it  was 
maintained,  in  its  wooden  state,  as  a  religious  duty,  and  com- 
mitted to  the  especial  care  of  the  priests,  who  hence  derived  their 

6  Nibby,  III.  p.  433.  is  not  unlike  that  of  the  Ponte  Formello, 

6  The   piers   are    14.J    feet  wide ;   the  and  of  the  pier  of  the  ruined  bridge  near 

lower  courses  are  of  nenfro ;  the  rest  of  the  Columbarium  gate. 

tufo  ;   all  alike  cemented.     The  masonry  ~>  Plut.  Numa. 


CHAP,  i.]        AXCIEXT    BRIDGES.— FORMER    GRANDEUR.  15 

name  of  pontifices ;  and  it  was  not  till  after  the  conquest  of 
Etruria,  the  downfall  of  Hannibal,  and  when  all  fear  of  a  foe  at 
the  gates  of  the  City  Avas  removed,  that  a  permanent  bridge  was 
constructed.  The  Romans  of  that  day  had  no  need  to  go  beyond 
their  own  walls  for  the  model  of  a  stone  arch  ;  they  had  had  it 
for  ages  in  the  Cloaca  Maxima. 

From  the  Ponte  d'Isola,  a  pathway  leads  to  the  mill.  Here  I 
had  completed  the  circuit  of  Yeii.  Gell  calls  it  more  than  four 
miles  in  circumference,  but  his  own  map  makes  it  of  much 
greater  area.  Nibby  seems  nearer  the  truth,  in  calling  it  seven 
miles  round,  which  more  nearly  agrees  with  the  statement  of 
Dionysius  that  Yeii  was  equal  in  size  to  Athens,8  said  to  have 
been  sixty  stadia  in  circumference,  i.e.  seven  miles  and  a  half,9 
or  at  the  lower  estimate  of  ten  stadia  to  the  mile,  the  common 
itinerary  stadia  of  Greece,  six  miles  in  circuit.  The  Rome  of 
Sen-ins  Tullius,  which  Dionysius  also  compares  to  Athens,  was 
about  the  same  extent.1 

Such  then  is  Veil — once  the  most  powerful,2  the  most  wealthy 
city  of  Etruria,3  renowned  for  its  beauty/  its  arts  and  refinement, 
which  in  size  equalled  Athens  and  Rome,  in  military  force  was 
not  inferior  to  the  latter,5  and  which  for  its  site,  strong  by  nature 
and  almost  impregnable  by  art,6  and  for  the  magnificence  of  its 
buildings  and  the  superior  extent  and  fertility  of  its  territory, 
was  preferred  by  the  Romans  to  the  Eternal  City  itself,  even 
before  the  destruction  of  the  latter  by  the  Gauls/ — now  void 
and  desolate,  without  one  house  or  habitant,  its  temples  and 
palaces  level  with  the  dust,  and  nothing  beyond  a  few  fragments 
of  walls,  and  some  empty  sepulchres,  remaining  to  tell  the  tra- 
veller that  here  Yeii  was.  The  plough  passes  over  its  bosom, 
and  the  shepherd  pastures  his  flock  on  the  waste  within  it.  Such 

8  Dionys.  II.  p.  116.  of  the  conquerors.     Eutrop.  I.  18. 

9  So  says  the  Scholiast  on  Thucydules,  4  Liv.  V.  24. 

II.    13  ;    but  the  great  historian  himself  3  Pint.  Camillus. 

merely  states  that  the  extent  of  that  part  6  Urbe  valida  muris  ac  situ  ip^o  rou- 

of  the    city  which  was   guarded    was    43  nita,  Liv.  I.   15,  V.    2.     Dionys.   loc.  cit., 

stadia  ;    and   the   Scholiast  adds  that  the  and  IX.  p.  593  ;  Pint,  fiomul.  and  Camil. 

unguarded  part,  or  the  space  between  the  7  Liv.  V.  24.   Arnold  (I.  p.  212)  questions 

Long  Walls,  which  united  the  city  with  the  the  authority  of  Livy  on  this  head,   and 

Pirreus,   and  the    Phaleric   Wall,  was   17  also  the  sincerity  of  the  Romans,  if  they 

stadia  in  breadth.  said  it ;    without  good  grounds,   it  seems 

1  Dionys.  IV.  p.  219  ;  and  IX.  p.  624.  to  me.      Dionysius  (Frag.    Mai,  XII.   14) 

2  Dionys.  II.  p.  116  ;  Liv.  IV.  58.  in  s-ome  measure  confirms  Livy  by  saying 

3  Liv.  II.    50;  V.   20,  21,  22.     Florus  Veii  was  in  no  way  inferior  to  Home  as  a 
(I.    12)  and  Plutarch   (Camil.)   attest  its  residence. 

wealth  by  the  spoil  that  fell  into  the  hands 


16  VEIL— THE  CITY.  [CHAP.  r. 

must  it  have  been  in  the  earlier  years  of  Augustus,  for  Propertius 
pictures  a  similar  scene  of  decay. 

Et  Veil  veteres,  et  vos  turn  regna  fuistis  ; 

Et  vestro  posita  est  aurea  sella  foro  ; 
Xunc  intra  muros  pastoris  buccina  lenti 

Cantat,  et  in  vestris  ossibus  arva  metunt. 

Veii,  thou  hadst  a  royal  crown  of  old, 
And  in  thy  forum  stood  a  throne  of  gold  ! — 
Thy  walls  now  echo  but  the  shepherd's  horn, 
And  o'er  thine  ashes  waves  the  summer  corn. 

Lucan  also  speaks  of  its  desolation  : — 

Gabios,  Veiosque,  Coramque 
Pulvere  vix  tectae  poterunt  monstrare  ruinas. 

How  are  we  to  account  for  this  neglect  ?  The  city  was  certainly 
not  destroyed  by  Camillas,  for  the  superior  magnificence  of  its 
public  and  private  buildings  was  a  temptation  to  the  Romans  to 
desert  the  Seven  Hills.  But  after  the  destruction  of  Rome  by 
the  Gauls,  Veii  was  abandoned,  in  consequence  of  the  decree  of 
the  Senate  threatening  with  the  severest  punishment  the  Roman 
citizens  who  should  remain  within  its  walls ;  and  Niebuhr's 
conjecture  may  be  correct,  that  it  was  demolished  to  supply 
materials  for  the  rebuilding  of  Rome,  though  the  distance  would 
almost  preclude  the  transport  of  more  than  the  architectural 
ornaments.  Its  desolation  must  have  been  owing  either  to  the 
policy  of  Rome  which  proscribed  its  inhabitation,  or  to  malaria;* 
otherwise,  a  city  which  presented  so  many  advantages  as  almost 
to  have  tempted  the  Romans  to  desert  their  hearths  and  the 
sepulchres  of  their  fathers,  would  scarcely  have  been  suffered  to 
fall  into  utter  decay,  and  remain  so  for  nearly  four  centuries. 
The  Romans  most  probably  ceased  to  maintain  the  high  cultiva- 
tion of  its  territory,  and  it  became  unhealthy,  as  at  the  present 
<lay.  This  was  the  case  with  the  Campagna  in  general,  which 
in  very  early  times  was  studded  with  towns,  but  under  Roman 
domination  became,  what  it  has  ever  since  remained — a  desert, 
whose  wide  surface  is  rarely  relieved  by  habitation. 

After  the  lapse  of  ages  the  site  was  colonised  afresh  \yy 
Augustus ;  but  the  glory  of  Veii  had  departed — the  new  colony 

8  Eionysius,  however  (Excerpta  Mai,  it  now-a-days  ;  some  of  the  inhabitants  of 
XII.  14),  tells  us  the  air  of  Veii  was  very  Isola  being  constant  sufferers  from  the 
healthy,  which  is  more  than  can  be  said  of  malaria  fever. 


CHAP,  i.]  PRESENT    DESOLATION".  17 

occupied  scarcely  a  third  of  the  area  of  the  ancient  city,  and 
struggled  for  a  century  for  existence,  till  in  the  days  of  Adrian  it 
again  sunk  into  decay.  Yet  it  is  difficult  to  credit  the  assertion 
of  Floras,  that  its  very  site  was  forgotten.  "  This,  then,  was 
Veii ! — who  now  remembers  its  existence  ?  What  ruins  ? — what 
traces  of  it  are  left?  Hardly  can  we  credit  our  annals,  which 
tell  us  Veii  has  been."  9  For  the  inscriptions  found  on  the  spot 
prove  that  the  colony  continued  to  exist  to  the  fourth  century  of 
our  era. 

I  have  now  described  my  first  walk  round  Veii ;  but  many  a 
day,  and  in  all  seasons,  have  I  spent  in  wandering  over  the  site 
and  around  the  walls  of  this  once  renowned  city.  I  was  wont 
to  take  up  my  quarters  at  La  Storta,  and  step  over  at  day- 
break; and,  with  a  luncheon  in  my  pocket  and  a  draught  from  the 
Cremera,  I  cared  not  to  return  till  the  landscape  was  veiled  in 
the  purple  shadows  of  evening. 

Every  time  I  visit  Veii  I  am  struck  with  the  rapid  progress  of 
destruction.  Nibby  and  Gell  mention  many  remains  which  are 
no  longer  visible.  The  site  has  less  to  show  on  every  succeed- 
ing year.  Even  masonry,  such  as  the  pier. of  the  bridge  over 
the  Fosso  di  Formello,  that  from  its  massiveness  might  seem  to 
defy  the  pilferings  of  the  peasantry,  is  torn  to  pieces,  and  the 
blocks  removed  to  form  walls  or  houses  elsewhere,  so  that,  ere 
long,  it  may  be  said  of  Veii,  "  Her  very  ruins  have  perished  " — 
ttiam  perire  ruince. 

Occasionally,  in  my  wanderings  on  this  site,  I  have  entered, 
either  from  curiosity  or  for  shelter,  one  of  the  capanne  scattered 
over  the  downs.  These  are  tall,  conical,  thatched  huts,  which 
the  shepherds  make  their  winter  abode.  For  in  Italy,  the  low 
lands  being  generally  unhealthy  in  summer,  the  flocks  are  driven 
to  the  mountains  about  May,  and  as  soon  as  the  great  heats  are 
-past,  are  brought  back  to  the  richer  pastures  of  the  plains.  It 
is  a  curious  sight — the  interior  of  a  capanna.  A  little  boldness 
is  requisite  to  pass  through  the  pack  of  dogs,  white  as  new-dropt 
lambs,  but  large  and  fierce  as  wolves,  which,  were  the  shepherd 
not  at  hand,  would  tear  in  pieces  whoever  might  venture  to 
approach  the  hut;  but,  with  one  of  the  pecoraj  for  a  Teucer, 

9  Flor.  I.  12.     The  Roman  colony — the  Strabo,  who  wrote  in  the  reign  of  Tiberius, 

Municipium  Auyustum  Veiens  of  the  in-  speaks  of  it  as  an  insignificant  place  in  his 

scriptions — could  never  have  been  of  much  time— as    one    of   the  TroAt^vat  crvxvcu  of 

importance,  though  the  inscriptions  mention  Etraria  (V.  p.  226). 
several  temples,  a  theatre,  and  baths;  for 
VOL.    I. 


18  VEIL— THE  CITY.  [CHAP.  i. 

nothing  is  to  be  feared.  The  capanne  are  of  various  sizes.  One 
I  entered  not  far  from  Veii  was  thirty  or  forty  feet  in  diameter, 
and  nearly  as  high,  propped  in  the  centre  by  two  rough  masts, 
between  which  a  hole  was  left  in  the  roof  for  the  escape  of  smoke. 
"Within  the  door  lay  a  large  pile  of  lambs — there  might  be  a 
hundred — killed  that  morning  and  ahead}'  flayed,  and  a  number 
of  shepherds  were  busied  in  operating  on  the  carcasses  of  others; 
all  of  which  were  to  be  despatched  forthwith  to  the  Roman 
market.  Though  a  fierce  May  sun  blazed  without,  a  huge  fire 
roared  in  the  middle  of  the  hut ;  but  this  was  for  the  sake  of 
the  ricotta,  which  was  being  made  in  another  part  of  the 
capanna.  Here  stood  a  huge  caldron,  full  of  boiling  ewes' -milk. 
In  a  warm  state  this  curd  is  a  delicious  jelly,  and  has  often 
tempted  me  to  enter  a  capanna  in  quest  of  it,  to  the  amazement 
of  the  pecoraj,  to  whom  it  is  "  vilior  alga."  Lord  of  the  caldron, 
stood  a  man  dispensing  ladlefuls  of  the  rich  simmering  mess  to 
his  fellows,  as  they  brought  their  bowls  for  their  morning's 
allowance ;  and  he  varied  his  occupation  by  pouring  the  same  into- 
certain  small  baskets,  in  which  it  is  conveyed  to  market ;  the 
serous  parts  running  off  through  the  wicker,  and  the  residue 
caking  as  it  cooled.  On  the  same  board  stood  the  cheeses,  pre- 
viously made  from  the  cream.  In  this  hut  lived  twenty-five  men, 
their  nether  limbs  clad  in  goat-skins,  with  the  hair  outwards, 
suggestive  of  the  satyrs  of  ancient  fable ;  but  they  had  no  nymphs, 
to  tease,  nor  shepherdesses  to  woo,  and  never 


• "  sat  all  day 


Playing-  on  pipes  of  corn,  and  versing  love 
To  amorous  Phillida." 


They  were  a  band  of  celibats,  without  the  vows.  In  such  huts 
they  dwell  all  the  year  round,  flaying  lambs,  or  shearing  sheep, 
living  on  bread,  ricotta,  and  water,  very  rarely  tasting  meat  or 
wine,  and  sleeping  on  shelves  ranged  round  the  hut,  like  berths, 
in  a  ship's  cabin.  Thus  are  the  dreams  of  Arcadia  dispelled  by 
realities  ! 

To  revert  to  the  early  history  of  Veii.1     That  she  was  one  of 
the  most  ancient  cities  of  Etruria  may  be  inferred  from  the  pitch 

1  It  has  been  suggested  by  Orioli  (Ann.  another,  Mantus  (Serv.  ad  2En.   X.   198). 

Tnst.  1833,  p.  22)  that  Veii  may  be  derived  According  to  Festus  (ap.  Paul.  Diac.)  Veia 

from  Vedius,  or  Vejovis,  one  of  the  Etrus-  is  an  Oscan  word,  signifying  plaustrum,  a 

can  deities,  just  as  Mantua  was  derived  from  waggon  ;  hence  probably  velio. 


CHAP,  i.]         SHEPHERD    LIFE    IN   THE    CAMPAGNA.  19 

of  power  she  had  attained  in  the  time  of  Eomulus.2  That  she 
was  one  of  the  Twelve  of  the  great  Etruscan  Confederation 
cannot  be  doubted.  Her  vast  size,  superior  to  that  of  every 
other  Etruscan  city  whose  limits  can  be  ascertained — the  great 
extent  of  her  territory,  and  the  numerous  towns  dependent  on 
her3 — her  power,  opulence,  and  magnificence — would  make  it 
sufficiently  evident,  without  the  express  testimony  of  Livjr  and 
Dioirysius  to  the  fact.4 

Of  the  history  of  Veii  we  know  no  more  than  her  contests 
with  Rome.  She  is  one  of  those  numerous  cities  of  antiquity, 
whose  records  are  mere  tissues  of  wars — bloody  trails  across  the 
field  of  history.  While  regretting  that  our  knowledge  of  them 
is  confined  to  such  events,  we  should  remember  that,  had  not 
such  wars  been  chronicled,  the  very  names  of  these  cities  would 
most  probabty  never  have  come  down  to  us.  Whatever  mention 
of  Yeii  we  find  in  ancient  writers  is  as  the  antagonist  of  Rome. 
No  less  than  fourteen  wars  with  that  power  are  on  record.  The 
Veientes  indeed  are  called  by  Floras  "the  unceasing  and  annual 
enemies  of  Rome  " — assidui  vero  et  anniversarii  hostes. 

The  first  six  wars  were  with  the  Kings  of  Rome,  and  as  in 
all  this  history  the  man,  and  not  the  lion,  drew  the  picture,  we 
are  told  that  the  Roman  monarchs  were  always  triumphant, 
whether  against  Veii  alone,  or  the  united  forces  of  Etruria.5 

2  Dion.  Hal.  II.  p.  116.     She  is  called  opinion  that  Sabate,  on  the  Lake  of  Brac- 
"  antiquissima   et    ditissima    civitas"    by  ciano,  was  in  the  Veientine  territory;  and 
Eutropius  (I.   18).     Veii  is  not  mentioned  that  even  Sutrium  and  Nepete  were  also 
by  Virgil  among  the  cities  of  Etruria  in  the  included.     On  the  north,  it  met  the  Ager 
time  of  Jineas,  but  nothing  can  be  fairly  Faliscm.     On  the  east,  it  must  have  em- 
deduced  from  this  against  her  antiquity,  braced  all  the  district  south  of  Soracte  and 
seeing  that  the   poet  is  equally  silent  of  eastward  to  the  Tiber,  or,  in  other  words, 
Arretium,  Perusia,  Volsinii,   Busellse,  and  the  Ager  Cape.natis,  because  Capena  was 
Volaterra,   some  of  which  most  assuredly  a  colony  of  Veii  (Cato  ap.  Serv.  ad  Jin.  VII. 
existed   at  that  period,    as   Perusia,    tra-  697.    Niebuhr,  I.  p.  120;  Miiller,  Einl.  2, 
ditionally  very  ancient  (Serv.  loc.  cit.)  and  14;  and  II.  1,  2);  and  Feronia,  under  So- 
Volaterra,    of    whose   colony    (Populouia)  racte,    was  also  in  the   Ayer  Capenatis, 
Virgil  makes  mention  (Jin.  X.  172).  Fidense  was  another  colony  of  Veii.      Of 

3  Plut.  Romul.      Dion.  Hal.  III.  p.  181;  the  Ayer    Veiens,  we  further  know  that 
also  Frag.    Mai,    XII.    14.     The  territory  it  produced  a  red  wine  of  inferior  quality, 
of   Veii,    before  it   was   curtailed  by  the  too  bad  to  be  drunk  on  festive  occasions : 
Romans,  extended  on  the  south  and  east  Horat.  II.  Sat.  3,  143;  Pers.  Sat.  V.  147; 
to  the  Tiber  (Plin.   III.    9),  and    on   the  Mart.  I.  epig.  104,  9;  II.  53,  4;  III.  49. 
south-west    to    the    sea,    embracing    the  Pliny   (XXXVII.    69)   and   Solinus   (I. 
Salinse,  or  salt-works,  at  the  mouth  of  the  p.  16)  speak  of  a  precious  stone  found  at 
river  (Dion.  Hal.  II.  p.  118;  Plut.  Romul.).  Veii, — Veientana  gemma — which  was  black 
On  the  west,  it  adjoined  the  territory  of  bordered  with  white  ;  perhaps  onyx. 
Caere,  though  the  frontier  line  is  not  de-           4  See  the  Appendix,  Note  II. 

fined.      Miiller  (Etrusk.    II.    2,    1)  is  of  5  Tarquinius    Priscus,    indeed,    is    said 

c  2 


20  VEIL— THE  CITY.  [CHAP.  i. 

Seventh  War. — In  the  year  245,  Veil  joined  Tarquinii  in  the 
attempt  to  replace  Tarquinius  Superbus  on  his  throne.  They 
encountered  the  forces  of  the  young  Republic  near  the  Arsian 
Wood ;  Aruns,  the  son  of  Tarquin,  and  Brutus,  the  first  Consul, 
fell  by  each  other's  hands,  and  the  victory  remained  undecided. 
In  the  following  night  an  unearthly  voice,  thought  to  be  that  of 
the  god  Silvanus,  was  heard  proceeding  from  the  wood — "  The 
Etruscans  have  lost  one  more  man  in  the  fight ;  the  Romans 
are  therefore  the  victors."6  This  war  terminated  with  the  cele- 
brated march  of  Porsenna  on  Rome.  Too  well  known  are  the 
romantic  events  of  that  campaign  to  need  recording. 

"  How  well  Horatius  kept  the  bridge 
In  the  brave  days  of  old," — 

how  Scsevola  braved  the  fire,  and  Cloelia  the  Avater — and  how  the 
Clusian  chieftain  strove  to  emulate  these  deeds  of  heroism  by  his 
chivalrous  magnanimity — all  these  events  are  familiar  to  us  as 
household  Avords. 

In  the  year  272  broke  out  the  ninth  Avar  with  Rome,  during 
which  occurred  the  most  interesting  incident  in  the  annals  of 
Yeii.  In  the  year  275,  the  Avar  still  continuing,  the  Veientes  at 
one  time  even  threatening  the  City  itself,  which  Avas  pressed  upon 
at  the  same  time  by  the  ^Equi  and  Volsci,  an  instance  of  patriotic 
devotion  was  called  forth,  such  as  few  ages  have  produced.  Cseso 
Fabius,  the  consul,  and  chief  of  the  noblest  and  most  powerful  of 
Roman  gentes,  rose  in  the  Senate,  and  said — "  Well  know  ye, 
Conscript  Fathers,  that  to  keep  the  Veientes  in  check  there  is 
need  of  a  fixed  garrison,  rather  than  of  a  powerful  army.  Look 
ye  to  our  other  foes ;  leave  it  to  the  Fabii  to  deal  Avith  Veii.  We 
Avill  engage  to  uphold  the  majesty  of  the  Roman  name.  The 
Republic  hath  need  of  men  and  money  elseAvhere ;  be  this  Avar  at 
our  own  cost."  The  next  day  the  whole  gens  of  the  Fabii,  three 

to  have  conquered  the  whole  of  Etruria,  account  for  the  introduction  of  the  Etrus- 

which  in  token   of   submission  sent  him  can  symbols  of  royalty — the  twelve  lictors 

tlie  Etruscan  insiynia  of  authority,  thence-  with  their  fasces,  the  gcklen  crown,  the 

f  >rth   adopted   by  the   Romans.     Dionys.  ivory  chair,  the  purple   robe,   the  eagled 

Hal.  III.  pp.   193,  195;  Flor.  I.   5.     Nei-  sceptre — which  were  traditionally  adopted 

linhr  (I.  p.  379)  justly  questions  the  truth  about  this  time.     But  it  were  more  reason- 

of  this  tradition  of  the  entire  conquest  of  able  to  account  for  their  introduction   by 

Etraria  by  Tarquin,  which  is  not  noticed  the  accession  cf  an  Etruscan  prince  to  the 

by  Livy  or  Cicero;   yet  thinks  the  union  throne  of  Rome. 

of  Rome  with  Etruria  may  be  seen  in  it.  6  Liv.  II.  6,  7;  Dion.  Hal.  V.  p.  288 — 

It  seems  probable  that  this  conquest  was  290  ;  Plut.  Publicola. 
an    invention    of    the    old    annalists,    to 


CHAP.   I.] 


WAES    OF   VEII    WITH    ROME. 


21 


hundred  and  six  in  number,  all  of  patrician  blood,  marched  forth 
from  Rome,  the  consul  himself  at  their  head,  amid  the  admiration, 
the  prayers,  and  joyful  shouts  of  the  citizens.  One  single  family 
to  meet  an  entire  people,  the  most  powerful  of  Etruria !  "Never," 
says  Lny,  "  never  did  an  army  so  small  in  number,  or  so  great  in 
deeds,  and  in  the  admiration  of  their  countrymen,  march  through 
the  streets  of  Rome."7  When  they  reached  the  Cremera,  they 
pitched  their  camp  on  a  precipice-girt  hill,  and  further  protected 


CASILK    OF    TJlli    i'Abii. 


it  by  a  double  fosse  and  numerous  towers.  There  they  main- 
tained themselves  for  a  year  against  all  the  efforts  of  their 
enemies  to  dislodge  them,  ravaging  the  lands  of  Veii  far  and 
wide,  and  routing  the  forces  sent  against  them — till  in  the  year 
276  the  Consul  JEmilius  Mamercus  defeated  the  Veientes,  and 
forced  them  to  sue  for  peace.8 


~<  Liv.  II.  4S,  49;  Dion.  Hal.  IX.  p.  571 
— 573.  Dionysius  says  there  were  fully 
4000  in  the  band,  most  of  them  ireAcroi  re 
Kal  f-rcupoi,  and  306  only  of  the  Fabian 
yens.  Festus  also  says  (vocc  Scelerata 
Porta)  that  there  were  some  thousands  of 


clicntes.  Loth  these  statements  Niebuhr 
(II.  p.  195)  thinks  greatly  exaggerated.  A. 
Gellius  (XVII.  21),  says  there  were  306 
"with  their  families." 

8  Liv.  II.  49 ;  Dion.  Hal.  IX.  p.  573  - 
576. 


22  .  VEIL— THE  CITY.  [CHAP.  i. 

Tenth  War.— In  the  following  year,  277,  the  Veientes  ftgain 
declared  war  against  Rome,  and  commenced  by  attacking  the 
Fabii,  who  had  not  withdrawn  from  their  camp.  Knowing  that 
open  force  was  of  little  avail  against  these  heroes,  they  had  re- 
course to  stratagem.  They  sent  out  flocks  and  herds,  as  if  to 
pasture ;  and  the  Fabii  beholding  these  from  the  height  of  their 
castle,  sallied  forth,  eager  for  the  spoil.  As  they  were  returning 
with  it  the  Etruscans  rushed  from  their  ambush,  and  over- 
whelming them  by  numbers,  after  a  long  and  desperate  resistance, 
cut  them  to  pieces,  not  one  escaping  save  a  boy,  who  lived  to 
preserve  the  race  and  be  the  progenitor  of  Fabius  Maximus.9 
The  slaughter  of  the  Fabii  was  but  the  prelude  to  a  signal 
victory  of  the  Veientes ;  and,  had  they  followed  up  their  ad- 
vantage, Rome  itself  might  have  fallen  into  their  hands.  As  it 
was,  they  took  possession  of  the  Janiculan,  where  they  main- 
tained themselves  for  many  months,  till  they  were  routed  by 
the  Roman  Consuls,  from  whom  they  obtained  a  truce  for  forty 
years.1 

Twelfth  "War. — In  the  year  316  the  Ficlenates  threw  off  the 
yoke  of  Rome,  and  declared  for  Veii.  The  Veientes  espoused 
their  cause,  and  put  to  death  the  ambassadors  sent  by  Rome  to 
demand  an  explanation.  The  Etruscan  army  encountered  their 
foes  on  the  banks  of  the  Tiber,  below  Fidena?,  the  scene  of  so 
many  former  defeats,  and  were  again  routed  by  the  Dictator 
Mam.  ^milius ;  their  king,  Lars  Tolumnius,  being  slain  by  the 
sword  of  A.  Cornelius  Cossus;2  yet  two  years  after,  the  allied 
army  of  Veii  and  Fidense  marched  up  to  the  very  gates  of  Rome, 
but  were  routed  by  the  Dictator  A.  Servilius,  who  captured 
Fidenre.3 

So  again  in  the  thirteenth  war  which  broke  out  in  326,  the 
Veientes  and  the  Fidenates  crossed  the  Tiber,  and  struck  terror 
into  the  City  of  Romulus.  Their  course,  however,  was  soon 

»  Liv.  II.  50  ;  Dion.  Hal.  IX.  p.  577—  (II.  p.  202),  nor  by  Arnold  (I.  p.  217),  who 

580.  Floras,  1. 12.  Dionysius  gives  another  prefers  it  to  the  other  tradition.  Ovid  (Fast, 

version  of  this  slaughter,  which,  however,  II.  195 — 242)  recounts  the  story  as  given 

he  discredits  as  improbable.     It  is  that  the  in  the  text.     See  also  Diodor.  Sic.  XI.  p. 

whole  body  of  the  Fabii  left  their  camp  to  40,    ed.    Rhod.      A.    Gellius,    XVII.    21. 

offer  up  a  sacrifice  at  their  family  shrine  in  Dion.  Cass.  Excerpta  Mai,  XXI. 

Rome;  and,  journeying  along,  heedless  of  *  Liv.  II.  51,  53,  54.      Dion.  Hal.  IX. 

danger,  they  were  suddenly  attacked  by  the  pp.  582 — 5,  592-4. 

Veientes,  who  rushed  from  their  ambush,  2  Liv.  IV.  17— 19.  Propert.  IV.  Eleg.  10 

and  cut  them  to  pieces.    Dionysius'  reasons  Dion.  Hal.  Excerpta  Mai,  XII.  2. 

(IX.  p.  578)  for  regarding  this  version  as  3  Liv.  IV.  21,  22. 
apocryphal  are  not  deemed  valid  by  Niebuhr 


CHAP.  i.J  THE    TEN    YEAES     SIEGE.  23 

checked ;  for  they  were  again  utterly  routed  by  Mam.  ^Emilius 
and  Cornelius  Cossus,  on  the  very  field  of  their  former  triumph. 
Fidense  was  taken  and  destroyed,  and  Veii  obtained  a  truce  for 
twenty  years.4 

Fourteenth  War. — In  347,  the  truce  having  expired,  war 
broke  out  afresh ;  and  in  349  the  Romans  laid  seige  to  Veii,5  a 
fate  which  would  earlier  have  befallen  her,  had  it  not  been  for 
the  great  strength  of  her  position  and  fortifications,  which  ren- 
dered her  conquest  almost  hopeless  ;  but  Rome  being  at  peace 
elsewhere,  was  noAV  enabled  to  pour  out  all  her  strength  against 
her  ancient  foe.6  In  352  Veii  obtained  the  assistance  of  the 
Falisci  and  Capenates,  who  saw  that  she  was  the  bulwark  of 
Etruria  against  Rome,  and  should  she  fall,  the  whole  land  would 
be  open  to  invasion,  and  they,  as  the  nearest,  would  be  the  next 
to  suffer.  The  diversion  thus  created,  together  with  dissension 
in  the  Roman  camp,  operated  greatly  in  favour  of  the  Veientes, 
so  that  at  one  time  they  had  possession  of  the  Roman  lines  ; 
but  they  were  ultimately  driven  out,  and  their  allies,  put  to  the 
rout.7  In  356,  when  the  siege  had  already  endured  eight  years, 
a  remarkable  phenomenon  occurred,  which  was  considered  a 
portent  of  some  fearful  event.  In  the  height  of  summer,  when 
elsewhere  the  streams  were  running  dry,  the  waters  of  the  Alban 
Lake,  without  any  evident  cause,  suddenly  rose  to  an  extraor- 
dinary height,  overflowing  their  barrier — the  crater-lip  of  an 
extinct  volcano — and  threatened  to  burst  it  and  devastate  the 
Campagna.  Sacrifices  were  offered  up,  but  the  gods  Avere  not 
appeased.8  Messengers  were  despatched  from  Rome  to  consult 
the  oracle  at  Delphi  as  to  the  meaning  of  this  prodigy.  In  the 
mean  time,  at  one  of  the  outposts  of  the  camp  before  Veii,  the 
soldiers,  as  often  happens  in  such  situations,  fell  to  gossiping 
with  the  townsfolk  instead  of  fighting ;  and  one  of  them,  a 
Roman  centurion,  who  had  made  acquaintance  with  an  old 
citizen,  renowned  as  a  soothsa3rer,  began  one  day  to  lament  the 
fate  of  his  friend,  seeing  that  when  the  city  was  taken,  he  would 
be  involved  in  the  common  destruction.  But  the  Veientine 
laughed  thereat,  saying,  "  Ye  maintain  an  unprofitable  war  in 
the  vain  hope  of  taking  this  city  of  Veii,  knowing  not  that  it  is 
revealed  by  the  Etruscan  Discipline,  that  when  the  Alban  Lake 
shall  swell,  the  gods  will  not  abandon  Veii,  unless  its  waters  be 

4  Liv.  IV.  30—35.  6  Liv.  IV.  61;  V.  1. 

5  Liv.  IV.  58,  61.     Diod.  Sic.  XIV.  p.  7  Liv.  V.  8,  12,  13. 

247.  8  Dionys.  Frag.  Mai,  XII.  8. 


24  VEIL— THE  CITY.  [CHAP.  i. 

drained  off,  so  as  not  to  mingle  with  the  sea."  The  centurion 
pondered  these  words  in  his  mind,  and  the  next  day  met  the 
old  soothsayer  again,  and  under  pretext  of  consulting  him  on 
certain  signs  and  portents,  led  him  far  from  the  walls  of  Veii; 
then  suddenly  seizing  him  in  his  arms,  hore  him  off  to  the 
Roman  camp.  Thence  he  was  taken  before  the  Senate,  to  whom 
he  repeated  his  prophecy,  saying  that  the  gods  would  not  have  it 
concealed,  for  thus  it  was  wiitten  in  the  hooks  of  Fate.  The 
Senate  at  first  distrusted  this  prophecy ;  but,  on  the  return  of 
the  messengers  from  Delphi,  it  was  confirmed  by  the  oracle  of 
the  god — "Romans,  beware  of  letting  the  water  remain  in  the 
Alban  Lake :  take  heed  that  it  flow  not  to  the  sea  in  a  natural 
channel.  Draw  it  off,  and  diffuse  it  through  your  fields.  Then 
shall  ye  stand  victors  on  the  walls  of  Veii."  In  obedience  to- 
the  oracle  a  tunnel  was  bored  through  the  rocky  hill,  which  still, 
as  the  Emissary  of  Albano,  calls  forth  the  admiration  of  the 
traveller;  and  verily  it  is  a  marvellous  work  for  that  early  age 
— the  more  so,  if  completed,  as  Livy  asserts,  within  the  short 
space  of  one  year.9  In  357  the  Yeientes  received  further  suc- 
cour from  Tarquinii,  by  wrhich  their  prospects  of  deliverance 
were  raised ;  more  especially  when  their  allies  obtained  a  victory, 
which  struck  terror  into  the  citizens  of  Rome,  who  hourly  ex- 
pected to  see  a  triumphant  foe  beneath  their  walls.1  But  the 
tables  were  soon  turned ;  for  Camillus,  now  appointed  dictator, 
first  routed  the  forces  of  the  allies,  and  then,  taking  a  hint,  it 
may  be,  from  the  Alban  Emissary,  which  was  \>y  this  time  com- 
pleted, began  to  work  his  celebrated  cuniculus,  "  a  very  great  and 
most  laborious  undertaking,"  into  the  citadel  of  Veii.  Then, 
were  the  oracle  and  the  prophecy  of  the  soothsa}rer  accomplished, 
and  Veii  fell,  proving  her  power  even  in  her  final  overthrow — 

Vincere  cum  Veios  posse  laboris  erat — • 

"for,  though  beleaguered,"  as  Livy  states,  '"'for  ten  long  years, 
with  more  injury  to  her  foe  than  to  herself,  she  was  at  last  over- 
come by  stratagem,  not  by  open  force."3 

It  is  instructive  to  observe  how  similar  are  the  fruits  of  super- 
stition in  all  ages,  and  under  various  religious  creeds.    The  scene 

9  For  an  account  of  the  Alban  prodigy,  ]  Liv.  V.  1C,  18. 

see  Dionys.    Frag.  Mai,  XII.  cap.   8—11;  2  Propert. ,  Lib.  IV.  Eleg.  X.  24. 

Liv.  V.  15,   16,   17,   19;  Cic.  de  Divin.  I.  3  Liv.  V.  19,  21,  22;  Flor.  I.  12;  Plut. 

44,  and  II.   32;  Val.  Max.  I.  6,  3;  Pint.  Camil. 
Caiuil. ;  Zonaras,  Annal.  VII.  c.  20. 


CHAP,  i.]  THE   FALL    OP    VEIL  25 

between  Camillas  and  the  statue  of  Juno,  the  patron  goddess  of 
Veil,  which  he  wanted  to  remove  to  Borne,  is  precisely  such  as 
has  been  reported  to  occur  in  similar  circumstances  in  more 
recent  times.  Said  Camillus  to  the  goddess,  "  Wilt  thou  go  to 
Rome,  Juno?"  The  image  signified  assent  by  bowing  her  head; 
and  some  of  the  bystanders  asserted  that  they  heard  a  soft  voice 
whispering  assent.4  Ancient  writers  frequently  report  such 
miracles — that  statues  broke  into  a  sweat,  groaned,  rolled  their 
eyes,  and  turned  their  heads — precisely  such  miracles  as  are 
related  by  modern  enthusiasts  or  impostors. 

The  relation  which  the  height  of  Isola  Farnese  bore  to  the 
ancient  city  has  been  the  subject  of  much  difference  of  opinion. 
Some  have  regarded  it  as  the  Arx  of  Veii,  which  Camillus 
entered  through  his  cuuiculus.  That  it  may  have  been  inhabited 
and  fortified  at  an  early  period  is  not  improbable  ;  but  there 
are  strong  reasons  for  believing  that  it  was  not  so  in  the  time 
of  Camillus.  Others,  with  still  less  probability,  have  considered 
it  the  site  of  the  Castle  of  the  Fabii.5  To  me  it  seems  evident 
that  at  the  time  of  the  conquest  it  was  nothing  more  than  part 
of  the  necropolis  of  Veii.  The  rock  is  hollowed  in  every  direction 
into  sepulchral  caves  and  niches,  most  of  them  apparently  Etrus- 
can ;  not  only  in  the  face  of  its  cliffs,  but  also  on  the  table-land 
above.  Now  it  is  clear  that  such  must  have  been  its  character  in 
the  days  of  Camillus,  for  the  Etruscans  never  inhabited  nor 
walled  in  a  site  that  had  been  appropriated  to  burial;  and 
though  it  may  originally  have  been  fortified,  yet  once  made 
sacred  to  the  dead,  it  must  ever  have  remained  so.  The  principal 
necropolis  of  Veii  lay  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  city,  but  the 
Etruscans  did  not  confine  their  cemeteries  to  any  particular  side 
of  their  cities,  but  availed  themselves  of  any  ground  that  was 
convenient  for  the  purpose  of  burial. 

To  see  the  Ponte  Sodo,  the  Columbario,  and  the  Painted 
Tomb,  which  are  within  a  short  distance  of  each  other,  will  not 
occupy  more  than  two  hours ;  the  Arx,  tying  in  another  direction, 
will  require  another  hour ;  and  the  entire  circuit  of  the  city,  in- 
cluding the  above  lions,  can  be  accomplished  in  four  or  five. 
The  cicerone  will  provide  asses,  if  required, — possibly  saddles. 
Visitors  should  bring  their  own  provender  with  them,  or,  the 
guide  will  provide  refreshment,  which  may  be  eaten  without 

4  Liv.  V.  22.     Pint.  Camil.     Dionysius       According  to  Livy,   it   was  not    Camillus 
(Excerp.   Mai,  XII.   17)  says  the  goddess       who  put  the  question, 
repeated  her  assent  in  an  audible  voice.  5  See  Appendix,  Note  III. 


:26  VEIL— THE  CITY.  [CHAP.  i. 

alarm,  in  spite  of  the  suspicion  expressed  by  a  lady  writer  that 
Isola  is  a  sort  of  Cannibal  Island.6  All  fear  of  bandits,  suggested 
in  the  same  quarter,  may  be  dispensed  with, 'and  "  mounted  con- 
•tadini,  covered  with  togas  and  armed  with  long  iron-shod  poles," 
may  be  encountered  without  trepidation  as  honest  drovers  in  quest 
•of  cattle. 

Veii  is  of  such  easy  access  that  no  visitor  to  Borne  should 
fail  to  make  an  excursion  thither.  It  is  not  more  than  a  couple 
of  hours'  drive  from  the  gates,  and  though  there  be  little  of 
attraction  on  the  road, beyond  views  of  the  all-glorious  Campagna, 
and  though  the  site  of  the  ancient  city  be  well-nigh  denuded  of 
its  ruins,  yet  the  intense  interest  of  a  spot,  so  renowned  in 
history, — 

' '  And  where  the  antique  fame  of  stout  Camill 
Doth  ever  live — " 

.and  the  tomb  now  open  with  its  marvellous  paintings  and  strange 
furniture,  which  carry  the  mind  back  with  realising  force  to  the 
earliest  days  of  Rome,  render  a  trip  to  the  site  of  Veii  one  of  the 
most  delightful  excursions  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Eternal 
•City. 


APPENDIX    TO    CHAPTER    I. 

NOTE  I. — SEPULCHRAL  NICHES,  AND  MODES  OF  SEPULTURE.     See  p.  10. 

Sepulchral  niches  are  found  in  the  rocks  in  the  neighbourhood  of  other 
•ancient  cities  in  the  southern  district  of  Etruria,  but  nowhere  in  such  abun- 
dance and  variety  as  at  Veii.  Hollowed  rocks  like  these,  with  their  faces 
full  of  small  sepulchral  niches,  are  almost  unique  in  Etruria,  though  abun- 
dant at  Syracuse,  and  other  Greek  sites  of  Sicily.  Tombs  full  of  niches  are 
not  unfrequent  in  Etruria,  but  as  they  are  almost  always  found  in  exposed 
•situations,  rifled  of  all  their  furniture,  it  is  difficult  to  pronounce  on  their 
antiquity.  Their  similarity  to  the  columbaria  of  the  Romans,  is  suggestive 
of  such  an  origin,  while  the  want  of  the  olla  hole,  already  mentioned,  and 
the  fact  of  being  hollowed  in  the  rock,  instead  of  being  constructed  with 
masonry,  distinguish  them  from  the  Roman  columbaria.  It  is  not  improbable 
that  these  pigeon-holed  tombs  of  Etruria  are  of  native  origin,  and  that  the 
Romans  thence  derived  their  idea  of  the  columbaria,  most  likely  from  those 
•of  Veii,  the  nearest  city  of  Etruria.  Canina  (Etr.  Marit.  I.  p.  123)  is  of  this 
opinion,  and  takes  these  niches  at  Veii  to  be  all  prior  to  the  Roman  conquest. 
By  some  the  pigeon-holed  tombs  in  Etruscan  cemeteries  are  regarded  as  of 
late  date,  indicating  a  period  when  burning  had  superseded  burial.  Micali 

6  Sepulchres  of  Etruria,  p.  109. 


CHAP,  i.]  ANCIENT  .MODES    OF    SEPULTUBE.  27 

(Mon.  Ined.,  pp.  1C3,  370),  who  is  of  this  opinion,  thinks  all  such  tombs  on 
this  site  posterior  to  the  fall  of  Veii.  But  cremation  was  of  far  higher 
antiquity.  The  Greeks,  in  the  earliest  times,  certainly  buried  their  dead  ; 
such  was  the  custom  in  the  time  of  Cecrops,  and  of  fable  (Cic.  de  Leg.  II. 
capp.  22,  25),  yet  in  Homeric  times  burning  was  practised,  as  in  the  case  of 
Patroclus  and  of  Hector.  The  expense  of  the  pyre,  however,  as  we  find  it 
described  by  Homer  (II.  XXIII.  164,  et  seq. ;  XXIV.  784,  et  seq.^),  and  by 
Virgil  (JEn.  XI.  72,  et  seg.),  must  have  put  it  out  of  the  reach  of  the  com- 
munity. My  own  excavations  in  various  Greek  cemeteries  convince  me  that, 
with  that  people,  burial  was  the  rule,  burning  the  exception.  De  Jorio,  a 
practised  excavator,  maintains  that  burial  among  the  Greeks  of  Magna 
Grascia  was  to  burning  as  ten  to  one — among  the  Romans  as  one  to  ten 
(Metodo  per  frugare  i  Sepolcri,  p.  28  ;  cf.  Serradifalco,  Ant.  di  Sic.  IV.  p.  197). 
Philosophic  notions  of  purification  or  of  resolving  the  frame  into  its  original 
elements,  may  have  had  to  do  with  the  practice  of  burning.  My  own  ex- 
perience as  an  excavator  in  Greek  cemeteries  convinces  me  that  both  methods 
were  practised  coevally.  Cinerary  urns  were  generally  deposited  in  a  hole  at 
no  great  depth  and  covered  with  a  slab  or  tile.  So  at  least  I  have  invariably 
found  them  in  Greek  necropoles,  mixed  with  tombs  hollowed  in  the  rock,  or 
constructed  of  masonry. 

The  practice  of  the  Romans  also  in  the  earliest  times  was  to  bury,  not 
burn  their  dead  (Plin.  Nat.  His.  VII.  55),  the  latter  mode  having  been  adopted 
only  when  it  was  found  that  in  protracted  wars  the  dead  were  disinterred. 
Yet  burning  also  seems  to  have  been  in  vogue  in  the  time  of  Numa,  who, 
as  he  wished  to  be  interred,  was  obliged  to  forbid  his  body  to  be  burned 
(I'lut.  Numa).  Perhaps  the  latter  custom  had  reference  only  to  great  men. 
Ovid  represents  the  body  of  Remus  as  burnt  (Fast.  IV.  853-6).  In  the  early 
times  of  the  Republic,  interment  was  the  general  mode  ;  cremation,  however, 
seems  to  have  gradually  come  into  use  — the  Twelve  Tables  speak  of  both 
{Cic.  de  Leg.  II.  23) — yet  certain  families  long  adhered  to  the  more  ancient 
custom,  the  Cornelian  gens  for  instance,  the  first  member  of  which,  who  was 
burnt,  was  Sylla  the  Dictator,  who,  having  dishonoured  the  corpse  of  Marius, 
feared  retaliation  on  his  own  remains  (Plin.  loc.  cit.  Cic.  de  Leg.  II.  22). 
Burning,  at  first  confined  to  heroes,  or  the  wealthy,  became  general  under 
the  Empire,  but  at  length  fell  out  of  fashion,  and  was  principally  applied  to 
the  corpses  of  freedmen  and  slaves,  and  in  the  fourth  century  after  Christ 
was  wholly  superseded  by  burial.  Macrob.  Sat.  VII.  7. 

With  the  Etruscans  it  is  difficult  to  pronounce  whether  inhumation  or  cre- 
mation was  the  earlier,  as  instances  of  both  together  are  found  in  tombs  of 
very  remote  antiquity.  With  them,  as  with  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  both 
methods  seem,  in  later  periods  of  their  history,  to  have  been  practised  con- 
temporaneously. In  certain  sites,  however,  one  or  the  other  mode  was  the 
more  prevalent.  At  Volterra,  Chiusi,  Perugia,  and  the  northern  cities  gene- 
rally, cremation  was  the  fashion  ;  at  Tarquinii,  Ca?re,  and  the  other  cities  of  the 
great  southern  plain,  it  was  rare,  and  interment  was  almost  universal.  The 
antiquity  of  cremation  is  confirmed  by  the  cinerary  hut-urns  of  Albano, 
which  analogy,  as  well  as  the  position  in  which  they  were  found,  indicates 
to  be  of  very  ancient  date — by  the  well-tombs  of  Poggio  Renzo,  the  earliest 
sepulchres  of  Chiusi — and  by  the  very  archaic  character  of  some  of  the 
"ash-chests"  and  cinerary  pots  found  in  Etruscan  cemeteries. 


28  VEIL— THE  CITY.  [CUAP.  i. 


NOTE  II. — VEII  ONE  OF  THE  TWELVE.    Sec  p.  19. 

That  Veii  was  one  of  the  Twelve  principal  cities  of  Etruria  is  implied  by 
Livy  (II.  G),  and  by  Dionysius  (V.,  p.  288),  when  they  state  that  it  united 
with  Tarquinii,  the  metropolis  of  Etruria,  in  assisting  Tarquinius  Superbus  to 
recover  his  throne,  and  again,  where  the  example  of  Veii,  in  throwing  off  the 
yoke  of  Servius  Tullius,  was  followed  by  Ca?re  and  Tarquinii  (Dion.  Hal.  IV., 
p.  231),  undoubtedly  cities  of  the  Confederation.  It  is  stated  explicitly, 
where  Tullius  grants  peace  to  the  Twelve  Cities,  but  mulcts  the  aforesaid 
three,  which  commenced  the  revolt,  and  instigated  the  rest  to  war  against 
the  Romans.  It  is  clearly  shown  by  Dionysius  (Frag.  Mai,  XII.  13),  when 
he  calls  it  "  a  great  and  flourishing  city,  not  the  least  part  of  Etruria ; "  and 
also  (VI.,  p.  3i)8),  when  he  calls  Veii  and  Tarquinii  "  the  two  most  illustrious 
cities  of  Etruria;"  and  again  (IX.,  p.  577),  when  he  says  that  the  Veientes, 
having  made  peace  with  Rome,  "  the  eleven  Etruscan  people  who  were  not 
parties  to  this  peace  having  convened  a  council  of  the  nation,  accused  the 
Veientes,  because  they  had  made  peace  without  consulting  the  rest."  It  is 
also  clearly  shown  by  Livy  (V.  1),  in  that  the  king  of  the  Veientes  was  dis- 
appointed because  another  bad  been  chosen  by  the  suffrages  of  the  Twelve 
Cities  to  be  high-priest  of  the  nation,  in  preference  to  himself.  Livy  elsewhere 
(IV.  23)  states,  that  Veii  and  Falerii  sent  ambassadors  to  the  Twelve  people 
to  demand  a  council  of  the  nation,  at  the  Voltumnse  Fanum.  This  might, 
at  first  sight,  be  interpreted  as  indicating  these  two  cities  as  not  of  the 
Twelve  ;  but  on  further  consideration  it  will  be  seen  that  the  term  "  Twelve 
Cities"  was  a  common,  or  as  Muller  (II.  1,  2,  n.  20)  calls  it,  "  a  standing  ex- 
pression," and  is  not  opposed  to  the  idea  of  the  two  cities  being  included. 
They  sought  for  a  convention  of  the  Twelve,  of  which  they  formed  a  part. 
Had  it  not  been  so  they  could  scarcely  have  acted  an  independent  part :  the 
cities  to  which  they  were  subject  would  have  made  the  demand.  When,  at 
a  later  date,  Capena  joined  Falerii  in  a  similar  request  (Liv.  V.  17),  it  should 
be  remembered  that  Veii  was  then  closely  beleaguered,  and  Capena  being 
her  colony,  might  aptly  act  as  her  representative.  Where  Livy  mentions 
the  Twelve  Cities,  after  the  fall  of  Veii  (VII.  21),  it  can  only  mean  that  the 
number  being  a  fixed  one  in  each  of  the  three  divisions  of  Etruria,  like  the 
Thirty  Cities  of  Latium,  and  the  Twelve  of  the  Acha?an  League,  the  place  of 
the  city  that  was  separated  was  immmediately  supplied  by  another  (Niebuhr. 
I.,  p.  119).  But  were  all  these  historical  proofs  wanting  to  show  Veii  to 
have  been  one  of  the  Twelve,  her  large  size,  as  determined  by  existing  re- 
mains— an  extent  second  to  that  of  no  other  Etruscan  city — would  be 
evidence  enough. 

NOTE  III. — ISOLA  FARNESE,  and  the  CASTLE  OF  THE  FABII.     See  p.  25. 

Though  at  first  view  it  would  seem  that  a  site  so  strongly  fortified  by 
nature  as  the  rock  of  Isola,  would  naturally  have  been  chosen  for  a  citadel, 
yet  there  is  good  ground  for  rejecting  the  supposition.  Its  isolation — sepa- 
rated as  it  is  from  the  city  by  a  broad  glen  of  considerable  depth,  is  strongly 
opposed  to  the  idea.  Nibby,  indeed,  who  regards  Isola  as  the  Arx,  takes  a 
hint  from  Holstenius  (Adnot.  ad  Cluv.,  p.  54),  and  thinks  it  may  have  been 
connected  with  the  city  by  means  of  a  covered  way  between  parallel  Avails, 
as  Athens  was  with  the  Pirajus  ;  but  no  traces  of  such  a  structure  are  visible, 


CHAP,  i.]      ISOLA   FARNESE.— CAMP    OF    THE   FABII.  29 

and  it  probably  never  existed  save  in  the  worthy  Professor's  imagination. 
Livy  (V.  21)  makes  it  clear  that  the  Arx  adjoined  the  city,  for,  on  the  former 
being  captured  by  Camillus,  the  latter  immediately  fell  into  his  hands,  which 
could  not  have  been  the  case  had  Isola  been  the  Arx,  for  its  possession  by 
an  enemy,  in  those  days  of  non-artillery,  would  have  proved  an  annoyance, 
but  could  have  little  affected  the  safety  of  the  city.  There  is  every  reason 
to  believe,  as  already  shown,  that  Isola  was  only  a  portion  of  the  necropolis. 
If  nothing  more  than  Iloman  columbaria,  and  Roman  funeral  inscriptions, 
had  been  found  on  the  spot,  there  would  be  room  for  doubt,  seeing  that 
sepulchral  remains  of  that  nation  have  also  been  found  on  the  Piazza  d'Armi, 
the  true  Arx,  as  well  as  within  the  walls  of  Etruscan  Veii ;  which  fact,  how- 
ever, only  proves  the  small  size  of  the  Roman  municipium.  But  the  numerous 
Etruscan  tombs  on  the  height  of  Isola,  and  the  absence  of  every  trace  of 
such  sepulture  on  the  Piazza  d'Armi,  seem  alone,  independently  of  their 
position  with  regard  to  the  city,  to  afford  a  strong  argument  in  favour  of 
the  opinion  that  the  latter,  and  not  Isola,  was  the  Arx  of  Veii. 

It  is  surprising  that  Isola  should  ever  have  been  mistaken  for  the  Castle  of 
the  Fabii.  The  objection  raised  by  Gell,  that  it  is  not  on  the  Cremera,  scarcely 
seems  valid,  for  who  is  to  pronounce  with  certainty  which  of  the  two  con- 
fluents bore  the  ancient  name  ?  It  seems  incredible,  however,  that  the  band 
of  the  Fabii  should  have  been  allowed  to  take  up  a  position  at  so  short  a 
distance  from  Veii,  overlooking  its  very  walls,  and  that  they  should  have 
succeeded  in  raising  a  fortress  here,  and  strengthening  it  with  a  double  fosse 
and  numerous  towers  (Dion.  Hal.  IX.,  p.  573).  Dionysius  says  they  fixed  their 
camp  on  an  abrupt  and  precipice-girt  height  on  the  banks  of  the  Cremera, 
which  is  not  far  distant  from  the  city  of  Veii ;  a  description  which  will 
apply  to  any  such  site  between  Veii  and  the  Tiber,  though  scarcely  to  the  hill 
of  Isola,  hardly  two  bow-shots  from  the  walls.  Ovid  (Fast.  II.  205),  as  well 
as  Dionysius,  seems  to  imply  that  their  camp  was  between  Veii  and  Rome, 
and  Livy  (II.  49)  indicates  a  similar  position,  when  he  says,  that  they  were 
on  the  frontier  between  the  Etruscan  and  Roman  territories,  protecting  the 
one  from  foes,  and  devastating  the  other  ;  and  again  more  decidedly,  when 
he  asserts  that  the  Veientes,  on  attacking  the  castle  of  the  Fabii,  were  driven 
back  by  the  Roman  legions  to  Saxa  Rubra,  where  they  had  a  camp.  Now, 
Saxa  Rubra  was  on  the  Via  Flaminia,1  some  miles  distant,  and  it  is  evident 
that  had  Isola  been  the  Castellum  Fabiorum,  the  nearest  place  of  refuge  for 
the  Veientes  would  have  been  their  own  city,  and  it  is  not  to  be  believed 
that  they  could  not  have  reached  some  one  of  its  many  gates  even  though 
attacked  in  flank  by  the  Roman  horse,  as  Livy  states.  The  site  claimed  for 
the  Fabian  Camp  by  Nibby  and  Gell,  but  first  indicated  by  Nardini  (Veio 
Antico,  p.  180),  is  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Cremera,  near  its  junction  with 
the  Tiber,  on  the  steep  heights  above  the  Osteria  della  Valchetta,  and  over- 
hanging the  Flaminian  Way,  about  half-way  between  Veii  and  Rome,  on 
which  height  are  still  remains  of  ancient  buildings,  though  not  of  a  style 

1  Cluverius (Ital.  Antiq.  II.. p.  527) places  79),  but  from  the  Peutingerian  Table  and 

Saxa  Rubra  at  Borghetto,  ten  miles  from  Jerusalem  Itinerary,  which  agree  in  placing 

Home;  Holstenhis,  Cramer,  and  Gell,  some-  it  on  this  Via,  nine  miles  from  Rome.    That 

what  nearer  the  City,  at  Prima  Porta,  five  it  was  not  far  from  the  City  is  clear  from 

miles  from  Yeii.     That  it  was  on  or  near  Cicero   (Phil.   II.   31).     Martial  (IV.,   ep. 

the  Flaminian  Way  is  evident,  not  only  from  64.  15)   shows  that  it  could  be  seen  from 

a  passage  in  Tacitus,  "Antonius  per  Fla-  the  Janiculan,  and  that  it  was  a  place  of 

iiiiniam  ad  Saxa  Rubra  venit  "  (Hist.  III.  small  importance — breres  Rubras. 


$6  VEIL— THE  CITY.  [CHAP.  r. 

which  can  be  referred  to  so  early  a  period.  The  Fabii  could  not  have  chosen 
a  more  favourable  spot  than  this  for  holding  the  Veientes  in  check,  because 
it  dominated  the  whole  valley  of  the  Cremera,  then  the  boundary,  as  Livy 
implies,  between  the  Roman  and  Etruscan  territories,  protected  the  former 
from  incursions,  and  also  held  in  check  the  Fidenates,  should  they  have 
rebelled  and  attempted  to  form  a  junction  with  their  kinsmen  of  Veii.  See- 
the woodcut  at  p.  21,  made  from  a  sketch  by  the  author. 

The  ruins  on  the  summit  of  this  height  are  of  late  Roman  and  of  mediaeval 
times — there  is  not  a  fragment  that  can  be  referred  to  the  Republican  era  ; 
only  in  the  face  of  the  cliff  is  a  sewer  cut  in  the  rock,  like  those  on  Etrus- 
can sites,  showing  the  spot  to  have  been  inhabited  at  an  earlier  period  than 
the  extant  remains  would  testify.  On  the  height  on  the  opposite  side  of  the 
glen,  are  some  Roman  ruins  of  opus  incertum,  of  prior  antiquity. 

Neither  of  these  eminences  has  more  than  situation  to  advance  as  a  claim 
to  be  considered  the  site  of  the  "  Presidium  Cremera}."  If  we  look  for  an 
objection,  we  might  suggest  that  the  distance,  six  miles,  from  Veii,  seems, 
too  great,  but,  till  a  stronger  claim  is  urged  for  some  other  site,  we  may  be 
content  to  regard  this  as  the  Thermopylae  of  the  Fabii. 


GROTTA    CAMPAJTA,    A3    IT    WAS    DISCOVERED. 


CHAPTER    II. 

YEII. — THE  CEMETERY. 

Non  e  il  raondan  romore  altro  ch'  un  fiato 

Di  vento,  ch'  or  vien  quinci,  eel  or  vien  quindi, 

E  muta  nome,  perche  muta  lato. — DANTE. 

The  noise 

Of  worldly  fame  is  but  a  blast  of  wind 
That  blows  from  diverse  points,  and  shifts  its  name 
Shifting  the  point  it  blows  from. — GARY. 

IT  is  to  be  regretted  that  so  little  is  to  be  seen  of  the  long-for- 
gotten dead  of  Veii.  It  was  the  largest,  and,  in  Romulus'  time,, 
the  most  mighty  of  Etruscan  cities,  and  jret  in  scarcely  another 
cemetery  are  there  so  few  tombs  to  be  seen.  The  hills  around 
the  city  without  doubt  abound  in  sepulchres,  all  hewn  out  of  the^ 
rock  according  to  the  universal  Etruscan  custom,  but  with  the 
exception  of  those  around  the  hamlet  of  Isola,  which  from  the 
exposure  of  ages  have  lost  almost  all  form  and  character,  one 
alone  remains  open  to  give  the  traveller  an  idea  of  the  buiying- 
places  of  the  Veientes.  Yet  excavations  are  frequently,  almost 
}Tearly,  carried  forward,  mostly  by  dealers  in  antiquities  at  Rome; 
but  as  lucre  is  their  sole  object  they  are  content  to  rifle  the 
tombs  of  everything  convertible  into  cash,  and  cover  them  in 
immediately  with  earth.  Many  tombs,  it  is  true,  have  no  peculiar 
features — nothing  to  redeem  them  from  the  common  herd  of 


32  VEIL— THE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  n. 

sepulchres,  of  which,  ex  uno  disce  omnia  ;  but  some  discrimina- 
tion should  be  exercised  as  to  this,  and  the  filling  up  should  not 
be  left  to  caprice  or  convenience.  Surely,  among  the  multitude 
that  have  been  opened,  some  containing  treasures  in  gold, 
jewellery,  and  highly  ornamented  bronzes,  not  a  few  must  have 
been  found  remarkable  enough  for  their  form  or  decorations  to 
have  demanded  preservation. 

Of  tumuli  there  is  no  lack,  though  they  are  not  so  abundant  as 
at  Cervetri  and  Corneto  :  some  of  them  have  been  proved  to  be 
Roman.  That  on  the  east  of  the  city,  called  La  Vaccareccia, 
with  its  crest  of  trees  so  prominent  an  object  in  the  Campagna, 
has  been  excavated,  but  without  success.  Like  the  rest,  it  was 
probably  raised  over  some  Lucumo  or  distinguished  man  among  the 
Veientes,  but  whether  it  be  the  tomb  of  Propertius,  king  of  Veii, 
or  of  Morrius,  the  Veientine  king  who  instituted  the  Salian  rites 
and  dances,  as  Gell  suggests,  or  of  some  other  prince  unknown  to 
fame,  is  mere  matter  of  conjecture. 

This  tumulus  is  worthy  of  a  visit  for  the  magnificent  view 
which  it  commands  of  the  Campagna.  There  are  several  other 
tumuli  or  barrows  in  the  valley  of  the  Cremera  below  the  Arx, 
and  also  on  the  heights  on  the  right  bank,  which  may  have  been 
raised  over  the  slain  in  some  of  the  bloody  combats  between  the 
citizens  and  Romans  during  the  ten  years'  siege,  or  they  may  be 
individual  or  family  sepulchres.  On  these  heights  Gell  thinks 
Camillus  must  have  pitched  his  camp  in  the  last  siege  of  Veii. 
At  their  base  is  a  singular  archway  in  the  rock,  whether  natural 
or  artificial  is  not  easy  to  say,  called  L'  Arco  di  Pino,  which,  with 
its  masses  of  yellow  and  grey  tufo,  overhung  with  ilices,  forms  a 
most  picturesque  object  in  form  and  colouring,  and  claims  a  place 
in  the  visitor's  sketch-book.  Several  other  large  tumuli  lie  on 
the  west  and  north  of  the  city,  and  may  be  observed  on  the  right 
of  the  modern  road  to  Baccano. 

The  solitary  tomb  remaining  open  in  the  necropolis  of  Veii  was 
discovered  in  the  winter  of  1842—43  by  the  late  Marchese  Cam- 
pana,  so  well  known  for  his  unrivalled  collection  of  Etruscan 
vases  and  jewellery.  It  is  of  very  remarkable  character,  and 
has  fortunately  been  preserved  for  the  gratification  of  the  traveller, 
with  its  furniture  untouched,  almost  in  the  exact  condition  in 
which  it  was  discovered. 

"When  I  first  knew  Veii,  its  necropolis  possessed  no  interest ; 
though  a  thousand  sepulchres  had  been  excavated,  not  one  re- 
mained open,  and  it  was  the  discovery  of  this  tomb  that  led  me 


CHAP,  ii.]  GROTTA    CAMPANA.  33 

to  turn  my  steps  once  more  to  the  site.  As  I  crossed  the  ancient 
city,  I  perceived  that  the  wood  which  had  covered  the  northern 
side  had  been  cut  down,  so  as  no  longer  to  impede  the  view. 
The  eye  wandered  across  the  valley  of  the  Formello,  and  the  bare 
undulations  of  the  necropolis  opposite,  away  to  the  green  mass 
of  Monte  Aguzzo  northwards,  with  the  conical  and  tufted  Monte 
Musino  behind  it,  and  the  village  of  Formello  on  a  wooded  slope 
below — a  wild  and  desolate  scene,  such  as  meets  the  eye  from 
many  a  spot  in  the  Campagna,  and  to  which  the  baying  of  the 
sheep-dogs  in  the  valley  beneath  me,  and  the  sharp  shriek  of  the 
falcon  wheeling  above  my  head,  formed  a  harmonious  accompani- 
ment— and  yet,  whether  from  the  associations  connected  with 
this  region,  or  the  elevating  effect  of  the  back-ground  of  glorious 
Apennines,  it  is  a  wildness  that  charms — a  desolation  that,  to  me 
at  least,  yields  a  delight  such  as  few  scenes  of  cultivated  beauty 
can  impart.  From  this  point  I  descried  the  site  of  the  tomb,  in 
a  hill  on  the  other  side  of  the  valley  of  the  Formello,  where  deep 
furrows  on  the  slopes  marked  recent  excavations. 

The  tomb,  in  compliment  to  its  discoverer,  has  been  termed 

LA   GROTTA  CAMPAXA. 

Half  way  up  the  slope  of  a  mound,  the  Poggio  Michele,  is  a 
long  passage,  about  six  feet  wide,  cut  through  the  rock  towards 
the  centre  of  the  hill.  At  the  entrance  on  each  side  crouches 
a  stone  lion,  of  that  quaint,  singular  style  of  sculpture,  that 
ludicrously  clumsy  form,  which  the  antiquary  recognises  as  the 
conventional  mode  among  Etruscan  sculptors  of  representing  the 
king  of  beasts.  At  the  further  end  of  the  passage  crouch  two 
similar  lions,  one  on  each  side  of  the  door  of  the  tomb — all 
intended  as  figurative  guardians  of  the  sepulchre.8  The  passage 


8  Ingliirami  (Mon.  Etrus.  I.,  p.  2 1C)  re-  Thus,  Solomon  set  lions  around  his  throne 

jects  this  notion,  on  the  ground  that  they  (1  Kings  X.,  19,  20),  and  the  Egyptians  and 

could  not  frighten  violators,  who,  if  they  Hindoos  placed  them  at  the  entrance  of  their 

had  overcome  their  dread  of  the  avenging  temples.     That  they  were  at  a  very  early 

Manes,    so    as   to   attempt   to  plunder  a  period  used  by  the   Greeks  as  figurative 

sepulchre,  would  not  be  deterred  by  mere  guardians,  is  proved  by  the  celebrated  gate 

figures  in  stone.      But   he  argues  from  a  of  Mycense.     The  monuments  of  Lycia,  now 

modern  point  of  view,  and  does  not  allow  in  the  British  Museum,  and  the  tombs  of 

for  the  effect  of  such  palpable  symbols  of  Phrygia,   delineated  by  Steuart   (Ancient 

vengeful    wrath,    upon    the    superstitious  Monuments  of  Lydia  and  Phrygia),  show 

minds  of  the  ancients.    Figures  pf  lions,  as  this  animal  in  a  similar  relation  to  sepul- 

images  of  power,  and  to  inspire  dread,  are  chres;  and  moreover  establish  a  strong  point 

of  very  ancient    use,   and  quite  oriental.  of  analogy  between  Etruria  and  the  East. 
VOL.  i.  D 


VEIL— THE  CEMETERY. 


[CHAP.  ii. 


is  of  ancient  formation,  and  has  merely  been  cleared  out  by  the 
spade  of  the  excavator. 

The  door,  of  which  the  custode  keeps  the  key,  is  a  modern 
addition — the  ancient  one,  which  was  a  slab  of  stone,  having 
been  broken  to  pieces  by  former  excavators  ;  for  it  is  rare  to  find 
an  Etruscan  tomb  which  has  escaped  the  spoilers  of  every  previous 
age,  though  the  earliest  riders,  after  carrying  off  the  precious 


metals  and  jewellery,  often  left  every  other  article,  even  the  most 
beautiful  vases,  untouched.  It  is  a  moment  of  excitement,  this — 
the  first  peep  within  an  Etruscan  painted  tomb ;  and  if  this  be 
the  first  the  visitor  has  beheld,  he  will  find  food  enough  for 
wonderment.  He  enters  a  low,  dark  chamber,  hewn  out  of  the 
rock,  whose  dull  greyish  hue  adds  to  the  gloom.  He  catches 
an  imperfect  glance  of  several  jars  of  great  size,  and  smaller  pieces 
of  crockery  and  bronze,  lying  on  benches  or  standing  on  the  floor, 
but  he  heeds  them  not,  for  his  eye  is  at  once  riveted  on  the 
extraordinary  paintings  on  the  inner  wall  of  the  tomb,  facing  the 
entrance.  Were  there  ever  more  strangely  devised,  more 
grotesquely  designed  figures  ? — was  there  ever  such  a  harlequin 
scene  as  this.  Here  is  a  horse  with  legs  of  most  undesirable 
length  and  tenuity,  chest  and  quarters  far  from  meagre,  but  barrel 
pinched  in  like  a  lady's  waist.  His  colour  is  not  to  be  told  in  a 
word — as  Lord  Tolumnius'  chestnut  colt,  or  Mr.  C.  Vibenna's  bay 


CHAP,  ii.]        SINGULAR    PAINTINGS    IN    THE    TOMB. 


35 


gelding.  His  neck  and  fore-hand  are  red,  with  yellow  spots — his 
head  black — mane  and  tail  yellow — hind- quarters  and  near  leg 
black — near  fore-leg  corresponding  with  his  body,  but  off-legs 
yellow,  spotted  with  red.  His  groom  is  naked,  and  his  skin  is  of 
a  deep-red  hue.  A  boy  of  similar  complexion  bestrides  the  horse  ; 
and  another  man  precedes  him,  bearing  a  hammer,  or,  it  may  be, 
a  liipennis,  or  double-headed  axe,  upon  his  shoulder ;  while  on  the 


croup  crouches  a  tailless  cat  or  dog,  parti-coloured  like  the  steed, 
with  one  paw  familiarly  resting  on  the  boy's  shoulder.  Another 
beast,  similar  in  character,  but  with  the  head  of  a  dog,  stands 
beneath  the  horse.  This  is  but  one  scene,  and  occupies  a  band 
about  three  feet  deep,  or  the  upper  half  of  the  wall. 

In  the  baud  below  is  a  sphinx,  standing,  not  crouching,  as  is 
usual  on  ancient  Egyptian  monuments,  with  a  red  face  and 
bosom,  spotted  with  white — straight  black  hair,  depending  behind 
— wings  short,  with  curling  tips,  and  striped  black,  red,  and  yellow 
— body,  near  hind-leg  and  tail  of  the  latter  colour,  near  fore-leg 
black,  and  off-legs  like  the  bosom.  A  panther,  or  large  animal 
of  the  feline  species,  sits  behind,  rampant,  with  one  paw  on  the 
haunch,  the  other  on  the  tail  of  the  sphinx ;  and  beneath  the 
latter  is  an  ass,  or  it  may  be  a  deer,  of  smaller  size  than  the  pan- 
ther. Both  are  painted  in  the  same  curious  parti-colours  as 
those  already  described. 

D  2 


VEIL— THE  CEMETERY. 


[CHAP.  it. 


On  the  opposite  side  of  the  doorway  (for  there  is  a  door  in 
this  wall,  opening  into  an  inner  chamber),  in  the  upper  band,  is  a 
horse,  with  a  boy  on  his  back,  and  a  "  spotted  pard  "  behind 
him  sitting  on  the  ground.  In  the  lower  band  is  another  similar 
beast  of  great  size,  with  his  tongue  lolling  out  and  a  couple  of 
dogs  beneath  him.  All  these  quadrupeds  are  of  the  same  curious 
patchwork  of  red,  yellow,  and  black.9 

To  explain  the  signification  of  these  figures  I  pretend  not. 
In  quaintness  and  peculiarity  of  form  they  strongly  resemble  the 


animals  represented  on  the  vases  of  the  most  archaic  style,  and 
like  them  had  probably  some  mystic  or  symbolic  import ;  but  who 
shall  now  interpret  them  ?  who  shall  now  read  aright  the  hand- 
writing on  these  walls  ?  Panthers  are  frequently  introduced  into 
the  painted  tombs  of  Etruria,  as  figurative  guardians  of  the  dead, 
being  probably  sacred  to  Mantus,  the  Hades  of  the  Etruscans. 
The  boys  on  horseback  I  take  to  be  emblematical  of  the  passage 
of  the  soul  into  another  state  of  existence,  as  is  clearly  the  case 
in  many  cinerary  urns  of  later  date  ;  and  the  figure  with  the 
hammer  is  probably  intended  for  the  Charon  of  the  Etruscans. 
There  is  nothing  of  an  Egyptian  character  in  the  faces  of  the 
men,  as  in  some  of  the  oldest  monuments  of  Etruria,  where  the 
figures  have  more  or  less  of  the  Egyptian  physiognomy,  according 


9  These  harlequin  figures  are  not  unique. 
They  have  been  found  also  in  a  painted 
tomb  at  Cervetri,  and  to  a  lesser  extent 


are  to  be  seen  in  the  tombs  of  Tarquinii, 
where,  however,  they  cannot  pretend  to  so 
high  an  antiquity. 


CHAP,  ii.]        INTEEPEETATION    OP   THESE    PAINTINGS.  37 

to  their  degree  of  antiquity.  The  features  here  on  the  contrary 
are  very  rudely  drawn,  and  quite  devoid  of  any  national  pecu- 
liarity, seeming  rather  like  untutored  efforts  to  portray  the 
human  face  divine.1  Indeed,  in  this  particular,  as  well  as  in  the 
uncouth  representations  of  flowers  interspersed  with  the  figures, 
and  of  the  same  parti-coloured  hues,  there  is  a  great  resemblance 
to  the  paintings  on  early  Doric  vases — nor  would  it  be  difficult 
to  find  points  of  analogy  with  Assyrian  reliefs  on  the  one  hand, 
and  with  Mexican  paintings  on  the  other.  The  sphinx,  though 
with  an  Egyptian  coiffure,  has  none  of  that  character  in  other 
respects,  for  the  Egyptians  never  represented  this  chimsera  with 
wings,  nor  of  so  attenuated  a  form.  The  land  of  the  Nile  how- 
ever may  be  seen  in  the  ornamental  border  of  lotus-flowers, 
emblematical  of  immortality,  which  surmounts  the  figures. 

On  either  side  of  this  tomb,  and  projecting  from  the  walls,  is 
a  bench  of  rock  about  two  feet  and  a  half  high,  on  each  of  which, 
when  the  tomb  was  opened,  lay  a  skeleton ;  but  exposure  to  the 
air  caused  them  very  soon  to  crumble  to  dust.  One  of  these 
had  been  a  warrior,  and  on  the  right-hand  bench  you  still  see 
portions  of  the  breast-plate,  and  the  helmet  entire,  which  once 
encased  his  remains.  Observe  the  helmet — it  is  a  plain  bronze 
casque  of  the  simplest  form.  On  one  side  of  it  is  a  hole,  which 
seems  by  the  indentation  of  the  metal  to  have  been  caused  by  a 
hard  blow.  Turn  the  casque  about  and  you  will  observe  on  the 
opposite  side  a  gash,  evidently  formed  by  the  point  of  a  sword 
or  lance  from  within  ;  proving  this  to  have  been  the  fatal  wound 
which  deprived  the  wearer  of  life. 

"  Through  teeth  and  skull  and  helmet 

So  fierce  a  thrust  was  sped, 
The  good  sword  stood  a  hand-breadth  out 
Behind  the  Tuscan's  head." 

On  the  same  bench  you  see  the  iron  head,  much  corroded,  and 
the  bronze  rest  of  a  spear — it  may  be  the  very  weapon  which 
inflicted  the  death-wound.  And  how  long  since  may  that  be  ? 
If  it  were  not  subsequent  to  the  decorations  of  the  tomb — and 
the  fact  of  this  warrior  being  laid  out  on  one  of  the  rock-hewn 
benches,  goes  far  to  prove  him  one  of  its  earliest  occupants — it 
must  have  been  in  very  remote  antiquit}T.  The  most  untutored 
eye  can  perceive  at  a  glance  that  the  paintings  belong  to  a  very 
early  age  of  the  world.  After  having  carefully  studied  every 

1  The  wooclcut  on  p.  34  fails  to  give  the  strange  rudeness  of  the  features. 


38 


VEIL— THE    CEMETERY. 


[CHAP.  ir. 


other  painted  tomb  now  open  in  Etruria,  I  have  not  a  moment's 
hesitation  in  asserting,  that  this  is  in  point  of  antiquity  pre- 
eminent ;  and,  I  believe,  that  few  other  tombs  in  Italy,  though 
unpainted,  have  any  claim  to  be  considered  anterior  to  it.  Its 
great  antiquity  is  confirmed  \)y  its  contents,  all  of  which  are  of 
the  most  archaic  character.  Campana  was  of  opinion  that  if  it 
did  not  precede  the  foundation  of  Rome  it  was  at  least  coeval 
with  that  event.  I  am  not  inclined  to  assign  to  it  an  inferior 
antiquity.2  The  wall  within  the  doorway  is  built  up  with  masonry 
of  very  rude  character,  uncemented,  belonging  to  an  age  prior  to 
the  invention  of  the  arch  ;  for  the  door  is  formed  of  blocks  gra- 
dually converging  towards  the  top,  as  in  the  oldest  European 
architecture  extant — in  the  style  of  the  Cyclopean  gateways  of 
Greece  and  Italy — those  mysteries  of  unknown  antiquity.  On 
one  side  of  the  door  indeed  there  is  some  approximation  to  the 
arch — cuneiform  blocks  like  voussoirs,  and  one  also  in  the  place 
of  a  key-stone;  but  if  this  be  not  mere  accident,  as  might  be 
supposed  from  the  blocks  not  holding  together  as  in  a  true  arch, 
it  shows  merely  a  transition  period,  when,  though  somewhat  of 


2  It  is  now  universally  admitted  that 
the  decorations  of  this  tomb  are  the  earliest 
works  yet  known  of  Etruscan  wall -paint- 
ing. It  is  more  easy,  however,  to  deter- 
mine their  relative  antiquity,  than  to  fix 
their  precise  date.  Though  there  are 
features  unquestionably  oriental,  there  is 
here  no  imitation  of  the  Egyptian,  all  is 
genuinely  national,  and  characteristic  of 
the  primitive  Etruscan  school. 

Dr.  Helbig,  of  the  Archaeological  Institute 
of  Rome,  says  of  these  paintings,  ' '  The 
design  is  rude,  and  shows  a  want  of  deci- 
sion almost  childish.  The  bodies  of  the 
beasts  are  all  out  of  proportion.  The 
artist  could  not  express  the  finer  parts  of 
the  human  form,  such  as  the  fingers,  and 
the  eye,  which  is  represented  without  a 
pupil,  and  in  two  of  the  figures  is  out  of 
its  proper  place ;  nor  in  the  countenances 
is  there  any  variety  of  form  and  expression. 
The  influence  of  archaic  Greek  art  is  clearly 
distinguishable.  The  bodies  of  the  men 
are  delineated  according  to  the  same  laws 
of  style  which  we  find  in  the  Corinthian 
and  Attic  vases."  Ann.  Inst.  1863, 
pp.  337—341.  Dr.  H.  Brunn,  of  Munich, 
cannot  admit  that  these  paintings  show 
the  true  archaic  Greek  style,  and  is  of 
opinion  that  the  rudeness  and  defects  of 


the  design,  which  he  would  ascribe  rather 
to  the  u nskilf ulness  of  the  individual  artist, 
than  to  the  imperfect  development  of  the 
art,  give  them  an  appearance  of  higher 
antiquity  than  really  belongs  to  them.  He 
does  not,  however,  dispute  that  they  are 
the  earliest  works  of  pictorial  art  yet 
discovered  in  Etruria.  Ann.  Inst.  1866, 
p.  418. 

Few  painted  tombs  have  been  discovered 
in  Greece.  One  in  the  island  of  .ZEgina  has 
only  four  figures  sketched  in  charcoal  on  the 
walls  of  rock,  representing  a  Bacchic 
dance.  The  style  is  free  and  masterly. 
Several  painted  tombs  also  have  been  found 
at  Paestum,  a  few  at  Cyrene  in  Libya,  and 
some  also  in  Lycia,  Pausanias  (VII.  c.  22) 
describes  one  near  the  city  of  Tritsea, 
painted  by  Nicias,  the  Athenian.  "  On 
an  ivory  chair  sits  a  young  woman  of  great 
beauty  ;  before  her  stands  a  maid-servant, 
holding  an  umbrella,  and  a  youth  quite 
beardless  is  standing  by,  clad  in  a  tunic 
and  a  purple  chlamys  over  it,  and  by  him 
stands  a  slave  with  some  javelins  in  his 
hand,  leading  dogs  such  as  are  used  by 
hunters.  We  were  not  able  to  divine  their 
names  ;  but  we  all  alike  conjectured  that 
here  a  husband  and  wife  were  interred  in 
the  same  sepulchre." 


CHAP,  ii.]         GBEAT    ANTIQUITY    OP    THIS    TOMB. 


39 


the  principle  of  the  arch  was  comprehended,  it  was  not  brought 
to  perfection.  Now  as  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  the 
arch  was  known  to,  and  practised  by,  the  Etruscans  at  a  very 
early  period,  prior  to  the  reign  of  the  Tarquins,  when  the  Cloaca} 
of  Rome  were  constructed,  it  is  obvious  that  the  masonry  in  this 
tomb  indicates  a  very  high  antiquity. 

The  skeleton  on  the  other  bench  was  probably  that  of  the  wife 
of  this  warrior,  as  no  weapons  or  armour  were  found  on  the  couch. 
But  these  were  not  the  sole  occupants  of 
the  tomb.  The  large  jars  on  the  floor  were 
found  to  contain  human  ashes,  probably  of 
the  dependents  of  the  family ;  if  so,  they 
would  indicate  that,  among  the  Etruscans 
of  that  age,  to  bury  was  more  honourable 
than  to  burn — or  at  least  they  prove  that 
both  modes  of  sepulture  were  practised  at 
a  very  early  period.  There  are  four  of 
these  jars  (see  the  annexed  woodcut),  about 
three  feet  high,  of  dark  brown  earthenware, 
and  ornamented  with  patterns  in  relief  or 
colours ;  also  several  smaller  jars  of  quaint, 
squat  form,  with  archaic  figures  painted  in  CINERARY  JAR,  GROTTA 
the  earliest  style  of  Greek  art,  representing  CAMPANA. 

in  one  instance  a  dance  of  Bacchanals.3     A 

bronze  pr&fericulum  or  ewer,  and  a  light  candelabrum  of  very 
simple  form,  stand  on  the  bench,  by  the  warrior's  helmet. 
Several  bronze  specclg,  or  mirrors,  and  small  figures  of  men 


3  This  is  some  of  the  earliest  painted 
pottery  of  Veil,  and  is  very  similar  to  that 
found  at  Caere.  That  of  purely  Etruscan 
manufacture,  peculiar  to  Veii,  consists  of 
vases  and  jars  of  similar  description,  of 
plain  black  or  brown  ware,  but  with  figures 
scratched  upon  the  clay  when  wet,  or  else 
moulded  in  very  low  relief.  Such  plain 
ware  is  the  most  abundant  on  this  site  ; 
painted  vases  are  comparatively  rare. 
Those  in  the  archaic  style  with  animals 
and  chimseras  are  sometimes  of  extraor- 
dinary size,  larger  than  any  Panathenaic 
vases.  There  are  also  some  with  black 
figures  in  the  archaic  style,  and  even  with 
red  figures  on  a  black  ground,  sometimes  of 
a  noble  simplicity  ;  yet,  in  spite  of  the 
beauty  of  conception  and  design,  the  ri- 
gidity and  severity  of  the  early  school  are 


never  wholly  lost.  We  may  hence  infer  that 
vase-painting  had  not  reached  its  per- 
fection when  Veii  was  captured.  This  is 
a  fact  worthy  of  attention  as  tending  to 
fix  the  era  of  the  art.  For  as  Veii  was 
taken  in  the  year  of  Home  358,  and  re- 
mained uninhabited  and  desolate  till  the 
commencement  of  the  Empire,  we  have 
sure  grounds  for  ascribing  all  the  pottery 
found  in  its  tombs  to  a  period  prior  to  39t> 
B.C. 

For  a  description  of  the  vases  of  Veii, 
see  "  Descrizione  de'  Vasi  dell*  Isola 
Farnese,  &c. ,  di  Secondiano  Campanari, 
Roma,  1839,"  with  a  review  of  the  same 
in  Bull.  Inst.  1840,  pp.  12—16.  Also 
Micali,  Mon.  Ined.,  p.  156,  et  seq.  tav. 
XXVII. ;  and  p.  242,  tav.  XLI. 


40 


VEIL— THE  CEMETERY. 


[CHAP.  n. 


or  gods  in  terra- cotta,  and  of  animals  in  amber,  were  also  found 
in  the  tomb. 

Of  similar  description  is  the  furniture  of  the  inner  and  smaller 
chamber.  The  ceiling  has  two  beams  carved  in  relief ;  showing 
that  even  at  a  very  early  period  Etruscan  tombs  were  imita- 
tions of  the  abodes  of  the  living.  A  low  ledge  of  rock  runs  round 
three  sides  of  the  chamber,  and  on  it  stand  as  many  square 
cinerary  urns  or  chests  of  earthenware,  about  eighteen  inches 
long  and  a  foot  high,  each  with  an  overhanging  lid,  and  a  man's 
head  projecting  from  it,  as  if  for  a  handle ;  probably  intended 
for  a  portrait  of  him  whose  ashes  are  stored  in  the  urn4  (see  the 
annexed  woodcut).  On  the  same  ledge  are 
eight  tall  jars,  some  plain,  others  painted — 
banded  red  and  yellow.  Two  stand  in  pans 
of  terra-cotta,  with  a  rim  of  animals  of 
archaic  form,  beautifully  executed  in  relief. 
There  are  other  smaller  jars  or  vases,  all 
probably  of  cinerary  character.  In  the  cen- 
tre of  the  apartment  stands  a  low  brazier 
of  bronze,  nearly  two  feet  in  diameter ; 
which  must  have  served  for  burning  per- 
fumes to  destroy  the  effluvium  of  the 

CINERARY   TJRN,    GROTTA  J 

CAMPAKA.  sepulchre. 

The  walls  of  this  inner  chamber  are  un- 

painted,  save  opposite  the  doorway,  where  six  disks  or  "  crowns," 
as*  Campana  calls  them,   are  represented  as  suspended.     They 


4  Such  urns  as  this  are  almost  the  only 
•specimens  yet  found  of  the  fictile  statuary 
for  which  Veii  was  of  old  renowned, 
though  a  few  antefixce  and  decorated  tiles 
have  been  brought  to  light.  The  fictile 
quadriga  made  at  Veii  by  order  of  Tar- 
quinius  Superbus  was,  like  the  Palladium, 
one  of  the  seven  sacred  things,  on  the 
preservation  of  which  the  power  and  safety 
of  Home  were  believed  to  depend — the 
others  being,  Cybele's  needle,  the  ashes 
of  Orestes,  Priam's  sceptre,  Ilione's  veil, 
and  the  Salian  bucklers.  Serv.  ad  /En. 
VII.  188.  The  legend  of  the  quadriga  is 
worth  recording.  Tarqiiin  had  bespoken 
one  or  more  such  cars  of  earthenware  to 
adorn  the  pediment  of  his  new  temple  on 
the  Capitoline,  according  to  the  Etruscan 
fashion  in  architecture  ;  but  the  clay, 
nstead  of  shrinking  as  usual,  swelled  so  as 


to  burst  the  mould,  and  not  to  be  extracted 
from  the  furnace  ;  and  the  Etruscan  sooth- 
sayers interpreting  this  as  betokening  in- 
crease of  dominion  to  the  possessor,  the 
chariot  was  retained  at  Yeii.  Shortly  after, 
however,  a  chariot-race  was  held  at  this 
city,  and  the  victor  having  received  his 
crown  was  leaving  the  arena,  when  his 
horses  suddenly  took  fright,  and  dashed  off 
at  full  speed  towards  Home  ;  nor  did  they 
stop  till  they  arrived  at  the  foot  of  the 
Capitol,  where  they  threw  out  and  killed 
their  driver  at  the  gate,  afterwards  called 
from  his  name,  Ratumena.  Whereon  the 
Veientes,  terrified  at  this  second  portent, 
gave  up  the  earthen  quadriga  to  the 
Romans.  Plut.  Publicola.  Festus  v.  Ra- 
tumena. Plin.  H.  K  VIII.  65.  XXVIII. 
4.  XXXV.  45. 


CHAP.  iL]       ANALOGY  BETWEEN  TOMBS  AND  HOUSES.  41 

are  fifteen  inches  in  diameter,  and  are  painted  with  a  mosaic- 
work  of  various  colours,  black,  blue,  red,  yellow,  and  grey,  in 
such  small  fragments,  and  with  such  an  arrangement,  as  if  they 
were  copies  of  some  kaleidoscopic  effect.  They  are  too  small  for 
shields  ;  and  the  whole  disk  being  filled  with  colour,  precludes 
the  idea  of  crowns  or  chaplets.  They  were  probably  intended  for 
paterce  or  drinking-bowls,  and  the  colour  may  indicate  some  st}Tle 
of  ornamentation  of  which  no  examples  have  come  down  to  us.5 
Above  them  are  many  stumps  of  iron  nails,  formerly  supporting 
vases,  the  originals,  it  may  be,  of  these  painted  disks ;  and 
around  the  door  between  the  two  chambers  are  many  similar 
traces  of  nails.  It  was  a  common  custom  to  suspend  vessels, 
and  jugs  of  terra-cotta  or  bronze  in  this  manner  in  Etruscan 
tombs ;  but,  as  no  fragments  of  such  were  found  at  the  foot  of 
the  wall,  it  is  probable  that  something  of  a  more  perishable 
nature,  or  so  valuable  as  to  have  been  removed  by  previous 
spoilers,  was  here  suspended. 

At  the  entrance  of  this  double-chambered  tomb,  and  opening 
on  the  same  passage,  is  another  small  tomb,  evidently  an  appen- 
dage to  the  family- vault,  and  apparently  of  more  recent  formation. 
It  is  the  porter's  lodge  to  this  mansion  of  the  dead — and  not 
metaphorically  so,  for  Etruscan  tombs  being  generally  imitations 
of  houses,  the  analogy  may  be  concluded  to  hold  throughout ;  and 
these  small  chambers,  of  which  there  are  often  two,  one  on  each 
side  of  the  ostium,  or  doorwa}r,  answer  to  the  cellulce  janitoris, 
or  ostiarii — not  here  within  the  entrance,  as  usual  in  Roman 
houses,  but  just  outside — janitor  ante  fores — and  it  is  highly 
probable  that  the  lions  here  found  were  in  place  of  the  dog 
in  domestic  houses — custos  liminis — Cave  canem  !  Here  were 
probably  interred  the  slaves  of  the  family,  who  were  fre- 
quently buried  at  the  doors  of  their  masters'  sepulchres.  This 
little  chamber  has  a  bench  of  rock  on  one  side,  on  which  are 
rudely  carved  the  legs  of  a  couch,  with  a  hypopodium  or  long 
low  stool  beneath  it;  representing  respectively  the  banqueting- 
couch  and  accompanying  stool,  so  often  pictured  on  the 
walls  of  Etruscan  tombs.  The  body  was  probably  extended 
on  its  rocky  bier  without  coffin  or  sarcophagus.  No  vestiges 
of  it,  or  of  its  habiliments,  now  remain — nothing  beyond  sundry 
small  articles  of  pottery,  perfume-vases,  drinking-cups,  plates, 

5  The  analogy  of  a  phiala  with  similar       Corneto,  leaves  no  doubt  that  these  disks 
decorations,  depicted   in   the  hands  of  a       were  intended  to  represent  drinking-cups. 
banqueter  in  the  Grotta  della  Pulcella,  at 


42  VEIL — THE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  n. 

bowls,  and  bronze  mirrors — the  usual  furniture  of  Etruscan 
sepulchres. 

The  rock  out  of  which  these  tombs  are  hewn  is  not  tufo,  but 
an  arenaceous  clay,  of  greyish-brown  hue,  indurating  by  exposure 
to  the  aii\  This  is  a  fair  specimen  of  the  Etruscan  tombs  found 
at  Veii,  though  in  general  they  have  not  more  than  a  single 
chamber.  Sometimes  they  are  formed  with  a  rounded,  sometimes 
with  a  gabled  ceiling,  always  alike  hewn  out  of  the  rock. 

One  peculiarity  of  this  sepulchre  remains  to  be  noticed.  In 
most  Etruscan  tombs  there  is  some  inscription,  either  on  sar- 
cophagus, or  um,  on  cippus,  or  tile,  or  it  may  be  on  the  inner 
walls,  or  external  facade  ;  but  to  whom  this  belonged,  no  epitaph, 
no  inscription  whatever,  remains  to  inform  us.  Here  was  interred 
some  bold  but  unfortunate  chieftain,  some  Veientine  Lucumo,  not 
less  brave,  not  less  worthy,  it  may  be,  of  having  his  name  pre- 
served, than  Achilles,  Ulysses,  ./Eneas,  or  half  the  heroes  of 
antiquity ;  but  he  had  no  bard  of  fame  to  immortalise  his  deeds. 

"  Vain  was  the  chief's,  the  hero's  pride  ! 
He  had  no  poet — and  he  died  ; 
In  vain  he  fought,  in  vain  he  bled  ! — 
He  had  no  poet — and  is  dead." 

More  than  this  we  know  not  of  him.  His  deeds  may  have  been 
sung  by  some  native  Homer — some  compatriot  may  have  chronicled 
his  valour  with  the  elegance  and  poetic  fire  of  a  Li\y,  or  the 
dignified  pen  of  a  Tacitus,  but  they  and  their  works  have  alike 
perished  with  him.  It  might  be  that  his  renown  was  so  great 
that  it  was  deemed  a  vain  thing  to  raise  a  monumental  stone — his 
deeds  spoke  for  him — they  were  such  as  his  friends  and  admiring 
countrymen  fondly  imagined  could  never  die  ;  so  they  laid  him 
out  on  his  rocky  bier,  fresh,  it  would  seem,  from  the  battle-field, 
with  his  battered  panoply  for  a  shroud,  and  there 

"  They  left  him  alone  with  his  glory." 


rum  a  Hketcii  by  Ji.  }>' 


THE    AMO    AND    PONTE    SALAHO. 


CHAPTER    III. 

CASTEL    GTOEILEO.-FWEN^K. 

....  tot  vacuas  urbes  ! — LUCAN. 

Revolving,  as  we  rest  on  the  green  turf, 

The  changes  from  that  hour  when  He  from  Troy 

Went  up  the  Tiber.  ROGERS. 

IF  from  Yeii  the  traveller  follow  the  course  of  the  Cremera  for 
five  or  six  miles  it  will  lead  him  to  the  Tiber,  of  which  it  is  a 
tributary.  In  the  cliffs  of  the  lonely  but  beautiful  ravine  through 
which  it  flows  he  will  observe  in  several  places  sepulchral  caves, 
particularly  at  the  end  nearer  Yeii ;  and  on  reaching  the  mouth 
of  the  glen,  he  will  have,  on  the  right,  the  ruin-capt  heights  which 
are  supposed  by  Xibby  and  Gell  to  have  been  the  site  of  the 
Castle  of  the  Fabii. 

Exactly  opposite  the  mouth  of  this  glen,  and  on  the  other 
bank  of  the  Tiber,  rises  the  hill  which  was  once  crowned  by  the 
city  of  Fidena?.  This,  though  beyond  the  bounds  of  Etruria 
Proper,  being  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Tiber,  was  an  Etruscan 
city,1  and  in  all  probability  a  colony  of  Veii ;  for  Livy  speaks 
of  the  consanguinity  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  two  cities,  though 

1  Liv.  I.  15.     Strab.  V.,  p.  226.     Plutarch  (Romul.)  says  Fideuae  was  claimed  by  VeiL 


44  FIDEKE.  [CHAP.  in. 

some  writers  assign  to  it  a  Latin  origin.2  It  seems  at  least  to  have 
been  dependent  on  Veii,  and  was  frequently  associated  with  her 
in  opposition  to  Rome.  Its  history,  indeed,  save  that  on  several 
occasions  it  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Romans,  is  almost  identical 
with  that  of  Yeii. 

The  traveller  who  Avould  visit  the  site  of  Fidenae  had  better  do 
so  from  Rome  ;  for  unless,  like  Cassius,  he  be  prepared  to 

"  leap  into  the  angry  flood 
And  swim  to  yonder  point," 

he  will  find  no  means  of  crossing  "  the  troubled  Tyber  ;  "  and 
rapid  and  turbulent  is  the  current  at  this  point,  as  it  was  in 
ancient  times.3  It  is  but  a  short  excursion — only  five  miles — 
from  Rome,  and  the  road  lies  across  a  very  interesting  part  of  the 
Campagna.  There  are  indeed  two  roads  to  it.  One,  the  carnage 
road,  runs  direct  from  the  Porta  Salara,  and  follows  the  line  of 
the  ancient  Via  Salaria.  But  the  traveller  on  foot  or  horseback 
should  quit  the  Eternal  City  by  the  Porta  del  Popolo,  and  leaving 
the  Florence  road  on  the  left,  take  the  path  to  the  Acqua  Acetosa. 
Here  a  green  hill — one  of  those  bare,  square  table-lands,  so  com- 
mon in  the  Campagna — rises  on  the  right.  Ascend  it  where  a 
broad  furrow  in  the  slope  seems  to  mark  the  line  of  an  ancient 
road.  You  are  on  a  plateau,  almost  quadrangular  in  form,  rising 
steeply  to  the  height  of  nearly  two  hundred  feet  above  the  Tiber, 
and  isolated,  save  at  one  angle  where  it  is  united  to  other  high 
ground  by  a  narrow  isthmus.  Not  a  tree — not  a  shrub  on  its  turf- 
grown  surface — not  a  house — not  a  ruin — not  one  stone  upon 
another,  to  tell  you  that  the  site  had  been  inhabited.  Yet  here 
once  stood  Antemnas,  the  city  of  many  towers — turrigerse  An- 
temnfe/ — one  of  the  most  ancient  of  Italy. — 

-Antemnaque  prisco 


Crustumio  prior.5 

2  Dionysius    (II.,    p.    116)    says    that  ordinary  confusion  between  the  Tuscans  and 

Fidente  was  originally  a  colony   of   Alba,  Tyrrhenes.      Miiller  (Etrus.   Einl.   2.    14) 

formed   at  the  same  time  as   Nomentum  thinks    there    must    have    been    in    the 

and  Crustumeria.     Virgil,    /En.   VI.   773.  population    of    Fidena*    the    same    three 

Steph,  Byz.  sub  voce.     Solinus  (Polyhistor,  elements  as  in  that  of  Home — Etruscans, 

II.,  p.   13)  says  it  was  settled  by  Ascanius  Latins,  and  Sabines.     Livy  (I.  27)  makes 

himself.     According  to  Plutarch  (Uomul.),  it   clear  that  the  native  language  of   the 

Fidenos,    in    the    time   of  Romulus,   was  Fidenates  was  not  Latin, 

possessed  by  the  Sabines.     Niebuhr  (II.,  3  Dionysius  (III.  p.  165)  notices  this  fact, 

p.  45?,  trans.)  thinks  the  Fidenates  were  4  Virg.  .2En.  VII.  631. 

originally  Tyrrheni,   and    that  when  Livy  °  Sil.   Ital.  VIII.    37.     cf.    Dion.  Hal. 

calls  them  Etruscans,    it   is  through   the  II.,  p.  103. 


CHAP,  in.]  CAMPAGNA    SCENES    AND    SOUNDS.  45 

Not  a  trace  remains  above  ground.  Even  the  broken  potteiy, 
that  infallible  indicator  of  bygone  civilisation,  which  marks  the 
site  and  determines  the  limits  of  habitation  on  many  a  now  deso- 
late spot  of  classic  ground,  is  here  so  overgrown  with  herbage 
that  the  eye  of  an  antiquary  would  alone  detect  it.  It  is  a  site 
strong  by  nature,  and  well  adapted  for  a  city,  as  cities  then  were  ; 
for  it  is  scarcely  larger  than  the  Palatine  Hill,  which,  though  at 
first  it  embraced  the  whole  of  Eome  was  afterwards  too  small  for 
a  single  palace.  It  has  a  peculiar  interest  as  the  site  of  one  of 
the  three  cities  of  Sabina,  whose  daughters,  ravished  by  the 
followers  of  Romulus,  became  the  mothers  of  the  Roman  race.6 
Antemnse  was  the  nearest  city  to  Rome — only  three  miles  distant 
— and  therefore  must  have  suffered  most  from  the  inhospitable 
violence  of  the  Romans. 

It  was  a  bright  spring  morning  when  I  first  visited  the  spot. 
All  Rome  was  issuing  from  its  gates  to  witness  the  meeting  of 
the  huntsmen  at  the  tomb  of  Crecilia  Metella.  Shades  of  Flaccus 
and  Juvenal !  can  ye  rest  amid  the  clangour  of  these  modern 
Circenses  ?  Doth  not  the  earth  weigh  heavy  on  your  ashes, 
when  "savage  Britons,"  whom  ye  were  wont  to  see  "led  in 
chains  down  the  Sacred  AVay,"  flaunt  haughtily  among  your 
hearths  and  altars  ? — when,  spurning  the  sober  pleasures  of 
the  august  and  solemn  city,  in  the  pride  of  their  wealth  and 
power,  they  startle  all  Rome  from  its  propriety  by  races 
and  fox-lmiits,  awakening  unwonted  echoes  among  the  old 
sepulchres  of  the  Appian  Way,  and  the  ruined  aqueducts  of  the 
Campagna  ? 

Here,  beyond  the  echo  of  the  tally-ho,  I  lay  down  on  the  green 
sward  and  gave  myself  up  to  enjoyment.  Much  Avas  there  to 
afford  delight— the  brightness  and  beauty  of  the  scene  — the  clear 
blue  sky — the  genial  warmth  of  the  sun,  by  no  means  oppres- 
sive, but  just  giving  a  foretaste  of  his  summer's  might — there 
was  the  interest  of  this  and  other  sites  around — and  there  was 
Livy  in  my  hand.  No  one  can  thoroughly  enjoy  Italy  without 
him  for  a  companion.  There  are  a  thousand  sites  and  scenes 
which  might  be  passed  by  without  interest,  but  which,  once 
touched  by  the  wand  of  this  magician,  rise  immediately  into  life 
and  beauty.  Be  he  more  of  a  romancer  than  historian — I  care 
not ;  but  piize  him  as  among  the  first  of  Roman  poets.  To 
read  him  thus,  reclining  on  the  sunny  sward,  with  all  the  influ- 

6  Liv.  I.  9,  10;  Dionys.  II.,  p.  101 ;  Plut.  Roruul.  The  other  two  were  Csenina 
and  Grustumium. 


40  FIDEN^J.  [CHAP.  in. 

ences  of  nature  congenial,  and  amid  the  scenes  he  has  described, 
was  perfect  luxury. 
Here  no  sound — 

Conf  usoi  sonus  urbis  et  illietabile  murmur — 

told  of  the  proximity  of  the  cit}r.  Rome  seldom,  save  on  great 
festive  occasions,  raises  her  voice  audibly.  Never  does  she  roar 
tempestuously  like  London,  nor  buzz  and  rustle  like  Paris  or 
Naples — at  the  most  she  utters  what  Carlyle  would  call,  "  an 
inarticulate  slumberous  mumblement." 

"  The  City's  voice  itself  is  soft,  like  Solitude's." 

She  is  verily  more  "  blessed  "  in  the  want  than  in  the  possession 
of  the  "  noise  and  smoke  "  of  Horace's  time. — 

Omitte  mirari  beatae 

Fumum  et  opes  strepitumque  Romce. 

Far  beneath  me,  at  the  foot  of  the  steep  cliff  which  bounds 
Antemnse  to  the  north,  flowed  the  Anio,  not  here  the  "head- 
long" stream  it  shows  itself  at  Tivoli,  and  higher  up  its  course/ 
but  gliding  soberly  along  to  lose  itself  in  the  Tiber.8  Beyond 
it,  stretched  a  long  level  tract  of  meadow-land,  dotted  with 
cattle  ;  and,  bounding  this,  a  couple  of  miles  or  more  distant, 
rose  another  eminence  crested  by  some  building  and  jutting  out 
from  the  adjoining  heights  till  it  almost  overhung  the  Tiber. 
This  was  Castel  Giubileo,  the  site  of  the  ancient  Fidenee.  On 
the  low  hills  to  the  right,  Romulus,  when  at  war  with  that  city, 
laid  his  successful  ambush.9  But  in  the  intervening  plain  was 
fought  the  desperate  conflict  between  the  Romans  and  the  allied 
forces  of  the  Veientes  and  Fidenates,  in  the  reign  of  Tullus 
Hostilius.  With  Livy's  vivid  page  before  me,  it  required  little 
imagination  to  people  the  scene  anew,  and  to  picture  the  Romans 
encamped  at  the  confluence  of  the  streams  at  my  feet,  and  the 
army  of  Veil  crossing  the  Tiber,  and  joining  the  troops  of  Fidense 
in  yonder  plain.  Tullus  Hostilius  marches  his  forces  along  the 
Tiber  to  the  encounter.  Mettus  Fuffetius,  his  ally,  the  leader 

7  "  Prseceps   Anio."     Hor.     I.    Od.    7,       qui  Anio  influit  in  Tiberim."    cf.  Servius 
13.     Statius,  Silv.  I.,  5,  25.  (ad  Mn.    VII.  631)  and  Festus  (v.    Am- 

8  Varro  (de  Ling.  Lat.  V.  28)  says  the       nenses). 

name    of    the   city  was  derived  from  its  9  Liv.  I.  14.     Dion.  Hal.  II.,  p.  117. 

position.     "Antemnaj,  quod  ante  amnem       Plut.  Romul.     Frontin.  Strat.  II.  5.  1. 


CHAP,  in.]  SITE    OF    ANTEMN^.  47 

of  the  Albans,  meditating  treachery,  and  willing  to  throw  his 
weight  into  the  heavier  scale,  is  creeping  up  the  hills  on  the 
right,  where  with  his  array  he  remains  a  spectator  of  the  combat, 
till  fortune  befriends  the  Komans.  Here  I  see  the  Fidenates 
flying  back  to  defend  their  city;  and  there  the  Veientes  are 
driven  into  the  Tiber,  or  cut  down  in  numbers  on  its  banks. 
And  I  shudder  to  behold  in  imagination  the  terrible  vengeance 
inflicted  by  the  victorious  Roman  upon  his  treacherous  ally.1 

On  the  same  field  was  fought  many  a  bloody  fight  between 
the  Romans  and  Etruscans.  Here,  in  the  }rear  of  Rome  317, 
the  Fidenates,  with  their  allies  of  Veii  and  Falerii,  were  again 
defeated,  and  Lars  Tolumnius,  chief  of  the  Veientes,  was  slain.2 
And  a  few  years  later,  Mamilius  JEmilius  and  Cornelius  Cossus, 
the  heroes  of  the  former  fight,  routed  the  same  foes  in  the  same 
plain,  and  captured  the  city  of  Fideme.3  Here  too,  Annibal 
pitched  his  camp  when  he  marched  from  Capua  to  surprise  the 
City.4 

I  turned  to  the  right,  and  there,  at  the  foot  of  the  hill,  the 
Ponte  Salaro,  a  venerable  relic  of  antiquity,  spanned  the  Anio. 
It  may  be  the  identical  structure  which,  in  the  year  of  Rome 
393,  was  the  scene  of  many  a  fierce  encounter  between  the 
Romans  and  Gauls  encamped  on  opposite  banks  of  the  stream, 
and  on  which  Manlius  Torquatus  did  combat  with  the  gigantic 
Celt  who  had  defied  the  Roman  host,  and  like  another  David, 
smote  his  Goliath  to  the  dust.5 

I  turned  to  the  left,  and  the  ruins  on  the  further  bank  of  the 
Tiber  marked  the  supposed  site  of  the  Castle  of  the  Fabii ; 
nearer  still  several  crumbling  towers  indicated  the  course -of  the 
Flaminian  Way ;  and  yon  cave  at  the  base  of  a  cliff  was  the  cele- 
brated tomb  of  the  Nasones.  Further  down  the  Tiber  was  the 
Ponte  Molle,  the  scene  of  Constantine's  battle  with  Maxentius, 
and  of  the  miracle  of  the  flaming  cross.  On  every  hand  was 
some  object  attracting  the  eye  by  its  picturesque  beauty,  or 
exciting  the  mind  to  the  contemplation  of  the  past. 

The  Ponte  Salaro  is  on  the  line  of  the  ancient  Via  Salaria,  the 
high  road  to  Fidenae.  It  is  a  very  fine  bridge,  of  three  arches ; 
the  central  one,  eighty  feet  in  span,  and  about  thirty  above  the 

1  Liv.  I.  27,  28.     cf.  Dion.  Hal.  III.,  3  Liv.  IV.  32,  33,  34. 
p.    161—172.      Flor.    I.    3.      Val.   Max.  4  Liv.  XXVI.  10. 

VII.  4.  1.     Ennius,  Ann.  II.  30,  et  seq.  5  Liv.  VII.  9,    10.     Serv.  ad  .En.    VI. 

A.  Viet.,  Vir.  111.,  IV.  825.     Aul.  Gell.  IX.  13.    cf.  Dio  Cassius, 

2  Liv.  IV.  17,  18,  19.  Excerp.  Mai,  torn.  II.  p.  530. 


Height  of  Castel 

Giubileo. 
ChapeL 

Ancient  sower. 
Cave. 
Cutting     in     the 

rock. 
Tomb. 
Sites  of  the  Gates. 


PLAN    OF 


CHAP,  in.]  SITE    OP    THE    ANCIENT    CITY.  49 

stream  ;  the  side  ones  stilted,  and  not  more  than  twelve  feet  in 
span.  The  structure  is  faced  with  .travertine  ;  but  this  indicates 
the  repairs  made  by  Narses  in  the  sixth  century  after  Christ ; 
the  original  masonry,  which  is  uncovered  in  parts,  is  of  tufo, 
in  the  Etruscan  style,  and  may  possibly  be  of  Etruscan  con- 
struction ;  as  it  may  be  presumed  were  many  of  the  public  edifices 
of  Rome  and  her  territory  for  the  first  few  centuries  of  her 
existence.  Its  masonry  is  rusticated,  and  in  the  arrangement 
and  dimensions  of  the  blocks  precisely  similar  to  that  of  the 
ancient  walls  at  Sutri,  Nepi,  Civita  Castellana,  Bieda  and  other 
Etruscan  sites  in  the  southern  district  of  the  land.6 

Just  beyond  the  bridge  is  an  osteria,  in  what  was  once  a  Roman 
sepulchre,  where  he  who  foots  it  to  Fidenre  may  refresh  himself 
with  decent  wine.  The  road  runs  through  the  meadows  for  a 
couple  of  miles  to  Castel  Giubileo.  In  the  low  hills  to  the  right 
are  caves,  which  have  been  tombs.  Just  before  Fidense,  at  a 
bend  in  the  road,  stands  the  Villa  Spada,  the  height  above  which 
is  supposed  to  be  the  site  of  the  Villa  of  Phaon,  the  scene  of 
Nero's  suicide. 

The  first  indications  of  the  ancient  city  are  in  the  cliffs  on 
the  right  of  the  road,  in  which  are  remains  of  tombs  with  niches, 
and  a  sewer,  all  excavated  in  the  rock  beneath  the  city-walls 
— walls,  I  say,  but  none  exist,  and  the  outline  of  the  city  is  to  be 
traced  only  by  the  character  of  the  ground  and  the  extent  of  the 
fragments  of  pottery.  The  height  above  the  tombs  bears  these 
unequivocal  traces  of  bygone  habitation ;  and  at  certain  parts  on 
the  edge  of  the  cliffs  are  remains  of  opus  inccrtum,  probably  of 
some  Roman  villa.  The  hill  of  Castel  Giubileo,  on  the  other 
hand,  has  also  formed  part  of  the  cit}r,  and  its  steep,  lofty,  and 
isolated  character  leaves  little  room  to  doubt  that  here  was  the 
Arx  of  Fidenre.  A  farm-house  now  crests  its  summit,  raised  to 
that  elevation  for  protection,  not  from  man's  attack,  but  from 
a  more  insidious  foe,  the  malaria  of  the  Campagna.  The  ancient 
Via  Salaria,  whose  course  the  modern  road  follows,  passed 
between  these  two  eminences,  as  does  the  railroad,  that  is, 
through  the  very  heart  of  Fidenre.  In  the  cliff  beneath  the 
farm-house  is  another  tomb.  The  whole  face  of  the  steep,  when 
I  first  visited  it,  was  frosted  over  with  the  bloom  of  wild  pear- 
trees,  and  tinted  with  the  flowers  of  the  Judas-tree — 

6  This  bridge  was  blown    up  in    1867,       portion    now    remaining    of    the   ancient 
•when  Garibaldi  was  threatening  Rome,  and       structure, 
has  been  rebuilt,  the  piers  being  the  only 

VOL.  I.  E 


50  FIDEN^J.  [CHAP.  in. 

"  One  white  empurpled  shower 
Of  mingled  blossoms." 

Had  the  whole  of  the  city  been  comprehended  on  this  height, 
it  would  be  easy  to  understand  Livy's  description;  "the  cit)v 
lofty  and  well-fortified,  could  not  be  taken  by  assault ;  "  7  but  as. 
it  also  covered  the  opposite  eminence,  the  walls  which  united  them 
must  have  descended  in  two  places,  almost  to  the  level  of  the 
plain.  These  were  the  vulnerable  points  of  Fidenae,  and  to  them 
was  perhaps  owing  its  frequent  capture.  It  seems  probable,  from 
the  nature  of  the  position,  that  the  earliest  town  was  confined  to 
the  height  of  Castel  Giubileo.  Yet,  in  this  case,  Fidenae  would 
scarcely  answer  the  description  of  Dionysius,  who  says,  "  it  was 
a  great  and  populous  city  "  in  the  time  of  Romulus.8  This  was 
doubtless  meant  in  a  comparative  sense,  in  reference  to  the  neigh- 
bouring towns.  Fidenae,  however,  could  never  have  been  of  great 
size  or  importance.  It  was  little  more  than  two  miles  in  circuit. 
Its  vicinity  to  and  frequent  contests  with  Rome  gave  it  a  pro- 
minence in  history,  to  which,  from  its  inferior  size  and  power,  it 
was  hardly  entitled. 

Making  the  circuit  of  Castel  Giubileo,  you  are  led  round  till 
you  meet  the  road,  where  it  issues  from  the  hollow  at  the 
northern  angle  of  the  city.9  Besides  the  tombs  which  are  found 
on  both  sides  of  the  southern  promontory  of  the  city,  there  is 
a  cave,  running  far  into  the  rock,  and  branching  off  into  several 
chambers  and  passages.  Fidenae,  like  Veii,  is  said  to  have  been 
taken  by  a  mine ; l  and  this  cave  might  be  supposed  to  indicate 
the  spot,  had  not  Livy  stated  that  the  cimicuhts  was  on  the 
opposite  side  of  Fidenae,  where  the  cliffs  were  loftiest,  and  that 
it  was  carried  into  the  Arx. 

The  chief  necropolis  of  Fidenae  was  probably  on  the  heights  to 
the  north-east,  called  Poggio  de'  Sette  Bagni,  where  are  a  number 
of  caves ;  and  here,  also,  are  traces  of  quarries,  perhaps  those  of 
the  soft  rock  for  which  Fidenae  was  famed  in  ancient  times.2 

The  ruin  of  Fidenae  is  as  complete  as  that  of  Antemnae.  The 
hills  on  which  it  stood  are  now  bare  and  desolate ;  the  shepherd 
tends  his  flocks  on  its  slopes,  or  the  plough  furrows  its  bosom. 
Its  Avails  have  utterly  disappeared  ;  not  one  stone  remains  on 

7  Liv.  IV.  22.  more  expressly  by  Livy  (IV.  22). 

8  Dion.  Hal.  II.,  p.  llfi.  '  Liv.  loc.  cit.     Dionysius  (III.,  p.  180) 

9  This   is   tlie    steepest  and    most   ini-  mentions  a   prior   capture   of  Fidenze    by 
pregnable  side  of  Fidense,  and  as  such  is  Ancus  Martins  by  means  of  a  cunicvlus. 
referred  to  by  Dionysius  (V.,  p.  310),  and  -  Vitruv.  II.  7.     Plin.  XXXVI.  48. 


CHAP.  in.J  HISTORY    OF    FIDEN^E.  51 

another,  and  the  broken  pottery  and  the  tombs  around  are  the 
sole  evidences  of  its  existence.  Yet,  as  Nibby  observes,  "  few 
ancient  cities,  of  which  few  or  no  vestiges  remain,  have  had  the 
good  fortune  to  have  their  sites  so  well  determined  as  Fidenas." 
Its  distance  of  forty  stadia,  or  five  miles  from  Rome,  mentioned 
by  Dionysius,3  and  its  position  relative  to  Veil,  to  the  Tiber,  and 
to  the  confluence  of  the  Anio  with  that  stream,  as  set  forth  by 
Livy,4  leave  not  a  doubt  of  its  true  site. 

The  history  of  Fidenre  is  a  series  of  struggles  with  Rome,  of 
captures  and  rebellions,  if  the  efforts  of  a  people  to  free  them- 
selves from  a  foreign  and  unwelcome  yoke  may  be  thus  designated. 
We  have  no  less  than  eight  distinct  captures  of  it  recorded.5  Livy 
sneeringly  remarks,  "it  was  almost  more  often  captured  than 
attacked."0  It  was  first  taken  by  Romulus,  and  by  him  made  a 
Roman  colony;  and  such  it  continued,  save  at  intervals  when  it 
threw  off  the  yoke,  till  its  final  capture  and  destruction  in  the 
year  of  Rome  328.7  Its  destruction  was  an  act  of  policy  on  the 
part  of  Rome.  She  had  experienced  so  much  annoyance  from  the 
towns  in  her  immediate  neighbourhood,  especially  from  Fidense, 
which  she  had  subdued  again  and  again,  and  re-colonised  Avith 
Romans,  but  which,  from  the  hostility  of  the  Etruscan  inhabi- 
tants, was  ever  a  thorn  in  her  side,  that  to  rid  herself  of  these 
foes  at  her  very  gates,  she  destroyed  or  suffered  to  fall  into  decay 
Fidense,  Antemna?,  Veii,  and  other  towns  of  the  Campagna. 
The  destruction  of  Fidenae  was  complete,  and  in  after  ages  its 
desolation  became  a  bye-word. 

Gabiis  desertior  atque 
Fidenis  vicus.s 

Yet  its  site  seems  to  have  been  inhabited  in  the  time  of  Cicero,0 
and  still  later  it  was  a  village,  or  more  probably  only  the  site  of 
some  private  villa.1  Under  the  Empire  it  seems  to  have  risen  in 

3  Dion.  Hal.  II.,  p.   11C;  III.,  p.   167  ;  neighbouring  people,  suddenly  rising,  and 
and  X. ,  p.  648.      Strabo  V.,  p.  230.  striking  such  terror  into  the  Romans,  that 

4  Liv.  I.   14,  27;  IV.,   17,  21,   31,   32,  they  commemorated  the  event  ever  after  by 
33,   34;  see  also  Dionysius  III.  pp.   165,  a  public  festival  on  the  Nones  of  July,  called 
181,191,193.  "Poimlifugia"  or    "  Poplifugia."      Varro 

5  See  the  Appendix  to  this  Chapter.  de  L.  L.  VI.  18.    Macrob.  Saturn.  III.  2. 

6  Liv.    IV.     32, — prope    saepius   captas  Dionysius,   however  (II.,  p.  118),  gives  a 
quam  oppugnatas.  different   version    of    the    origin    of    this 

7  Florus  (I.  12)  speaks  of  it  as  having  festival. 

been  burnt    by  its   inhabitants.     Yet  not  .    8  Hor.  I.  Epist.  XI.  7. 

many  years  after,  shortly  after  the  Gauls  9  Cic.  tie  Leg.  Agrar.  II.  35. 

had  evacuated  Home,  we  hear  of  the  Fide-  1  Strabo  V.,  pp.  226,  230. 
nates,    in  conjunction    with    some   of   the 


52  FIDENwE.  [CHAP.  in. 

importance,  for  an  amphitheatre  of  wood  was  erected  there,  in  the 
reign  of  Tiberius,  which  gave  way  during  the  performance,  and 
twenty,  or  as  some  accounts  say,  fifty  thousand  persons  were 
mutilated  or  crushed  to  death  by  its  ruins.  It  must  not,  how- 
ever, be  supposed  that  such  was  the  population  of  Fidenre  in 
those  times,  for  Tacitus  states  that  a  great  concourse  had  flocked 
thither  from  Rome,  the  more  abundant  from  the  propinquity  of 
the  place.3 

Though  there  are  few  local  antiquities — little  more  than  asso- 
ciations of  the  olden  time — remaining  at  Fideme,  the  scenery 
should  alone  be  sufficient  to  attract  the  visitor  to  the  spot.  From 
these  heights  }rou  look  down  on  "  the  yellow  Tiber "  winding 
through  the  green  valley — rafts  floating  down  its  stream,  and 
buffaloes  on  its  sandy  banks,  slaking  their  thirst,  or  revelling  in 
its  waters.  That  opening  in  the  cliffs  on  its  opposite  bank  is  the 
glen  of  the  Cremera,  whose  waters,  oft  dyeing  the  Tiber  with 
crimson,  told  the  Fidenates  of  the  struggles  between  their  kins- 
men of  Veii  and  the  common  foe.  Those  ruins  on  the  cliff  above 
the  glen  are  supposed  to  mark  the  site  of  the  Castle  of  the  Fabii, 
that  band  of  heroes,  who,  like  Leonidas  and  his  Spartans,  devoted 
themselves  to  their  country,  and  fell  in  her  cause.  Further,  in 
the  same  direction,  yon  distant  tree-capt  mound  points  out  the 
site  of  Veii ;  it  is  the  tumulus  of  Vaccareccia.  On  the  high 
ground  to  the  left  may  be  recognised  the  palace  at  Isola  Farnese, 
and  the  inn  of  La  Storta ;  and  the  solitary  towers  at  intervals 
between  this  and  Rome,  mark  the  line  of  the  Via  Cassia.  There 
you  see  the  undulating  heights  around  the  lake  of  Bracciano  ;  and 
the  grey  head  of  the  Ciminian  be}rond  ;  the  tufted  cone  of  Monte 
Musino ;  and  that  p}*ramid  of  Nature's  raising,  Soracte,  rarely 
now  snow-capt  as  in  days  of  yore,  but  towering  in  dark  and  lonely 
grandeur  from  the  plain.  Do  you  seek  for  snow  ? — turn  to  the 
range  of  Apennines,  whose  frozen  masses  are  glittering  like  ice- 
bergs in  the  sun,  piled  above  nearer  and  darker  heights,  among 
Avhich  Monte  Gennaro,  the  "Lucretilis  amoenus"  of  Horace,  stands 
prominent ;  and  at  its  feet  Tivoli,  ever  dear  to  the  poet — 

"  Sit  mea3  sedes  utinam  sencctae  !  " — 

sparkles  out  from  the  dense  olive-groves.  There,  where  the 
purple  range  sinks  to  the  plain,  "  cool  Pneneste "  climbs  the 
steep  with  her  Cyclopean  walls.  Here,  as  your  eye  sweeps  over 

=  Tacit.  Ann.  iv.  62,  63  ;  cf.  Sueton,  Tiber.  40. 


CHAP,  in.]  PANOBAMA    OF    THE    CAMPAGXA.  53 

the  bare  Campagna,  it  passes  the  site  of  many  a  city,  renowned 
in  the  early  history  of  Italy,  but  now,  like  Fidense  and  Antemnse, 
in  utter  desolation,  and  lost  to  the  common  eye.3  And  there,  on 
the  slope  of  the  Alban,  that  most  graceful  of  mountains,  with  its 
soft  flowing  outlines  and  long  drawn  swells,  still  brightened  by 
towns — once  stood  Alba,  the  fostermother,  and  rival  of  Eome  ; 
Tusculum  with  its  noble  villas  and  its  Academy,  where  the 
greatest  of  Romans  lived,  wrote,  debated,  taught,  and  where 

"  Still  the  eloquent  air  breathes,  burns,  with  Cicero  ;  " — 

and  from  its  highest  peak  shone  the  Temple  of  Jove,  the  common 
shrine  of  the  Latin  cities,  a  worthy  altar  to  the  King  of  Heaven. 
Then,  after  again  sweeping  the  surface  of  the  wide  Campagna, 
strewn  in  this  quarter  with  league-long  lines  of  ruined  aqueducts, 
with  crumbling  tombs,  and  many  a  monument  of  Roman  gran- 
deur, your  eye  reaches  at  length  the  Imperial  City  herself.  She 
is  in  great  part  concealed  by  the  intervening  Pincian,  but  you 
catch  sight  of  her  most  prominent  buildings  —  the  pinnacled 
statues  of  St.  John  Lateran,  the  tower  and  cupolas  of  Sta.  Maria 
Maggiore,  and  the  vast  dome  of  St.  Peter's ;  and  you  look  in 
imagination  on  the  rest  from  the  brow  of  Monte  Mario,  which  rises 
on  the  right,  crested  with  dark  cypresses  and  snow-white  villas. 


APPENDIX    TO    CHAPTER   III. 

XOTE. 

FIDENJE  was  taken,  1st,  by  Eomulus,  who  pursued  the  routed  citi/ens 
within  the  gates.  Liv.  I.,  14  ;  Dion.  Hal.  II.,  p.  11G  ;  Pint.  Uomul. 

The  2nd  time  by  Tullus  Hostilius,  who  reduced  it  by  famine.  Dion. 
Hal.  III.,  p.  172. 

The  3rd  by  Ancus  Martius,  by  means  of  a  cuniculus.  Dion.  Hal.  III.,  p.  180. 

The  4th  by  Tarquinius  Priscus,  by  storm.      Dion.  Hal.  III.,  p.  194. 

The  5th  in  the  year  of  Eome  250,  by  the  Consuls  Valerius  Poplicola,  and 
Lucretius  Tricipitinus,  also  by  storm,  Dion.  Hal.  V.  p.  310. 

The  Gth  in  the  year  256,  by  the  Consul  Largius  Flavus,  by  famine.  Dion. 
Hal.  V.,  p.  325. 

The  7th  in  the  year  319,  by  the  Dictator  A.  Servilius  Priscus,  by  means  of 
a  cuniculus.  Liv.  IV.,  22. 

The  8th,  and  last  time,  in  the  year  328,  by  the  Dictator  Mam.  ^milius 
Mamercinus,  in  the  same  manner  as  it  was  first  taken  by  Komulus  (Liv.  IV., 
34),  though  Florus  (I.,  12)  says  it  was  set  on  fire  by  its  own  citizens. 

8  Pliny  (III.    9)   enumerates  fifty-three       maining — interiere  sine    vestiyiis ;  among 
towns  of  ancient  Latium,  which  in  his  day       them  were  Antemnae  and  Fidenae. 
had  utterly  perished,  without  a  trace  re- 


CHAPTER    IV. 

MONTE  MUSING  AND  LAGO  DI  BEACCIANO. 

Nor  rough  nor  barren  are  the  winding  ways 

Of  hoar  antiquity,  but  strewed  with  flowers. — T.  WARTO.N. 

On  Lough  Neagh's  banks  as  the  fisherman  strays, 

When  the  clear  cold  eve's  declining, 
He  sees  the  round  towers  of  other  days 

In  the  wave  beneath  him  shining. — MOORE. 

THE  next  Etruscan  town  of  any  note  in  history  northward  from 
Veil  was  Sutrium,  but  there  is  an  intervening  district,  containing 
several  sites  of  that  antiquity,  which  merit  the  traveller's  atten- 
tion. Moreover,  this  district  possesses  much  geological  interest, 
for  it  contains  no  less  than  four  extinct  craters,  three  of  them 
now  lakes,  and  one,  the  Lago  Bracciano,  the  largest  sheet  of 
water  in  Etruria  after  the  Thrasymene  and  the  "  great  Volsinian 
mere." 

The  high-road  northwards  from  Storta  pursues  the  line  of  the 
ancient  Via  Cassia,  of  which  I  was  unpleasantly  reminded  by  the 
large  blocks  of  basalt  which  had  formed  the  ancient  pavement, 
and  were  now  laid  at  intervals  by  the  side  of  the  road — proli 
pudor ! — to  be  Macadamised  for  the  convenience  of  modern 
travellers.  This  is,  alas,  too  often  the  case  in  Italy,  where  the 
spirit  of  utilitarianism  is  fully  rife.  If  a  relic  of  antiquity  be 
convertible  into  cash,  whether  by  sale  or  by  exhibition,  it  meets 
with  due  attention  ;  but  when  this  is  not  the  case,  nobody  cares 
to  preserve  it — the  very  terms  in  which  it  is  mentioned  are  those 
of  contempt — it  is  il  pontaccio — or,  le  muraccia — and  "  worth 
nothing ;  "  or,  if  it  can  be  turned  to  any  account,  however  base, 
the  most  hoary  antiquity  will  avail  it  nought.  Stones  are  torn 
from  the  spots  they  have  occupied  twenty,  or  five-and -twenty 
centuries,  where  they  served  as  corroborations  of  history,  as 
elucidations  of  national  customs,  as  evidences  of  long  extinct 
civilisation,  and  as  landmarks  to  the  antiquary — they  are  torn 


<:HAP.  iv.]  GALEBA— BACCANO.  55 

thence  to  be  turned  to  some  vile  purpose  of  domestic  or  general 
convenience.  This  is  not  an  evil  of  to-day.  It  existed  under 
the  old  governments  of  the  Peninsula  as  fully  as  under  that  of 
Victor  Emmanuel.  Let  us  hope  that  a  government  which  pro- 
fesses to  reverence  and  prize  memorials  of  the  past,  will  put  a 
stop  to  such  barbarous  spoliations  and  perversions;  or  the 
ancient  monuments  of  Italian  greatness  will  ere  long  exist  in 
history  alone. 

Just  after  leaving  La  Storta,  a  road  branches  to  the  left  towards 
Bracciano  and  its  Lake.  It  follows  nearly  the  line  of  the  ancient 
Via  Clodia,  which  ran  through  Sabate,  Blera,  and  Tuscania,  to 
Cosa.  The  first  station  on  that  Way  beyond  Veii  was  Careiae, 
fifteen  miles  from  Eome,  represented  by  the  ruined  and  utterly 
deserted,  but  highly  picturesque,  village  of  Galera,  which  stands 
on  a  cliff-bound  rock,  washed  by  the  Arrone,  about  a  mile  off 
the  modern  road.  The  only  mention  of  Careiffi  is  made  by 
Frontinus  and  the  Itineraries,  and  there  is  no  record  of  an 
Etruscan  population  here,  yet  there  are  said  to  be  remains  of 
ancient  walls  on  the  west  of  the  town,  and  Etruscan  tombs  in  the 
cliffs  around.1  The  modern  town  dates  from  the  eleventh 
century,  and  was  a  possession  of  the  Orsini  family,  whose 
abandoned  castle  with  the  tall  campanile  form  the  most  pro- 
minent features  in  this  scene  of  picturesque  desolation. 

Two  miles  beyond  La  Storta  bring  you  to  the  Osteria  del 
Fosso,  a  lonely  way-side  inn.  The  stream  here  crossed  is  that 
of  I  due  Fossi,  which  washes  the  western  walls  of  Veii.  In  the 
wood-hung  cliffs  around  are  traces  of  Etruscan  tombs,  part  of  the 
necropolis  of  that  city. 

Seven  miles  more  over  the  bare  undulating  Campagna  to 
Baccano,  the  ancient  Ad  Baccanas,  a  place  like  many  others  in 
Italy,  known  to  us  only  through  the  Itineraries,  once  a  Roman 
Mutatio,  and  now  a  modern  post-house,  situated  in  a  deep  hollow, 
originally  the  crater  of  a  volcano,  and  afterwards  a  lake,  but 
drained  in  ancient  times,  by  emissaries  cut  through  the  encircling 
hills.  At  the  eighteenth  milestone  is  one,  cut  through  the  rocky 
soil  to  the  depth  of  about  twenty  feet,  which  Gell  seems  to  think 
may  have  been  formed  in  ancient  times,  but  I  believe  it  to  be 
modern,  and  the  work  of  the  Chigi  family,  the  territorial  lords  of 
Baccano.2 

1  Front,  de  Aquaed.  II.,  p.  48.     Gell,       found   that    after   receiving    one   or  two 
II.  v.  Galeria.     Nibby  II.,  p.  92.  streamlets,  it  loses  altogether  its  artificial 

2  I  followed  it  for  some  distance,   and       character,  and   so   continues  till  it  find? 


56  MONTE  MUSING  AND  LAGO  DI  BRACCIANO.     [CHAP.  iv. 

Nothing  like  the  Alban  Emissary  now  exists  in  the  hollow. 
On  the  height  however  towards  Home  there  are  several  cuniculi, 
which  drain  the  water  from  an  upper  basin  of  the  crater.  They 
are  carried  through  Monte  Lupolo,  a  lofty  part  of  the  crater  rim. 
Here  are  also  a  number  of  holes  in  the  upper  part  of  the  hill, 
said  to  be  of  great  depth,  and  called  by  the  peasants  "  pozzi," 
or  wells ;  probably  nothing  more  than  shafts  to  the  emissaries. 
It  was  these  passages  that  were  mistaken  by  Zanchi  for  the 
cuniculus  of  Camillus,  and  which  led  him  to  regard  this  as  the 
site  of  ancient  Veii. 

The  lake  is  now  represented  by  a  stagnant  pond  in  the  marshy 
bottom  of  the  crater,  which  makes  Baccanb  one  of  the  most  fertile 
spots  in  all  Italy — in  malaria.  Fortunately  for  the  landlord  of 
La  Posta,  summer  is  not  the  travelling  season,  or  his  inn  would 
boast  its  fair  reputation  in  vain.  This  neighbourhood  in  the 
olden  time  was  notorious  for  robbers,  so  that  the  "  Diversorium 
Bacchance  "  passed  into  a  proverb.3  Let  the  traveller  still  be 
wary;  though  he  be  in  no  peril  of  assault,  he  may  yet  fall  a  victim 
to  some  perfidua  caupo,  who  thirsting  for  foreign  spoil  "  expects 
his  evening  prey."  In  the  ridge  of  the  surrounding  hills  are 
several  gaps,  marking  the  spots  by  which  ancient  roads  entered 
the  crater.  On  Monte  Razzano,  the  hill  above  Baccano,  are 
some  ruins  called,  on  dubious  authority,  Fanum  Bacchi — though 
it  is  probable  that  the  Roman  mutatio  derived  its  name  from  some 
such  shrine.  There  is  a  large  cave  on  the  said  Mount,  which  is 
vulgarly  believed  to  contain  hidden  treasures.  From  the  hills  of 
Baccano,  travellers  coming  from  Florence  are  supposed  to  get 
their  first  view  of  Rome.  But  the  dome  of  St.  Peter's  may  be 
distinctly  seen  in  the  Gampagna  horizon,  from  the  Monte  Cimino, 
a  distance  of  forty  miles,  or  twice  as  far  as  Baccano. 

Two  miles  to  the  north  of  Baccano,  and  to  the  right  of  the 
road  to  Florence,  lies  Campagnano  ;  the  first  view  of  which,  with 
Soracte  in  the  back-ground,  is  highly  picturesque.  It  is  a  place 
of  some  size  and  importance,  compared  to  other  villages  of  the 
Campagna,  and  its  position,  and  some  caves  in  the  neighbour- 
hood, seem  to  mark  it  as  of  Etruscan  origin.  A  few  Roman 
remains  are  to  be  seen  in  the  streets. 

a  natural  vent  from  the  crater  at  Madonna  but,    as   they  all   sink  towards  the  lake, 

del  Sorbo,  three  miles  to  the  south-east  of  they  cannot  be  emissaries  :  they  are  either 

Baccano,  where  it  forms  one  of  the  sources  natural  clefts,  or  they  have  been  sunk  for 

of  the  Cremera.      I  observed  other  deep  roads. 

clefts    opening    upon    it,    and     running  3  Dempster,  de  Etrur.  Reg.  II.,  p.  161. 

towards  the  mountains  in  the  same  quarter ; 


CHAP,  iv.]  MONTE    MUSING.  57 

From  Campagnano  a  path  runs  eastward,  first  through  vine- 
yards, and  then  across  a  wide  valley  of  corn,  to  Scrofano,  five 
miles  distant.  This  is  a  small  secluded  village,  also  of 
Etruscan  origin,  for  the  cliffs  around  it,  especially  to  the  west, 
are  full  of  tombs  ;  among  them  are  several  columbaria.  It  lies  at 
the  foot  of  Monte  Musino,  that  curious  tufted  hill  which  is  seen 
from  every  part  of  the  Campagna,  and  is  thought  to  have  been 
the  site  of  ancient  religious  rites.  The  name  Musino  is  generally 
supposed  to  be  a  corruption  of  the  Ara  Mutice,  which  was  in  the 
territory  of  Veii,4  though  some  place  the  Ara  at  Belmonte,  nearer 
the  Flaminian  Way.5  The  hill  is  conical,  of  volcanic  formation, 
the  lower  slopes  being  composed  of  ashes  and  scoria?,  strewed  with 
blocks  of  lava.  It  is  ascended  by  broad  terraces  leading  spirally 
to  the  summit,  on  which  are  the  remains  of  a  large  circular 
structure,  which,  Gell  suggests,  may  have  been  the  Altar.  There 
is  also  a  large  cavern  near  the  summit,  reported,  like  that  of  Monte 
Razzano,  to  contain  great  treasures ;  access  to  which  is  said  to  be 
debarred  by  an  iron  grating — so  far  within  the  mountain,  however, 
that  no  one  can  pretend  to  have  seen  it.  The  clump  of  oaks  and 
chestnuts  which  tufts  the  hill-top,  is  sacred  from  the  axe,  though 
the  wood  on  the  slopes  is  cut  from  time  to  time ;  and  the  only 
explanation  of  this  which  I  could  obtain,  was,  that  the  said  clump 
preserves  Scrofano  from  the  sea- wind,  which  is  deemed  unhealthy, 
and  that,  were  it  cut,  the  wind,  instead  of  pursuing  its  course 
at  a  great  elevation,  would  descend  upon  the  devoted  village.6 
This  seems  so  unsatisfactory,  that  I  cannot  but  regard  it  as  a 
modern  explanation  of  an  ancient  custom,  the  meaning  of  which 
lias  been  lost  in  the  lapse  of  ages  and  the  change  of  religious 
faith.  The  immunity  of  the  clump  is  in  all  probability  a  relic  of 
the  ancient  reverence  for  a  sacred  grove.  Gell  justly  remarks  of 
the  artificial  terraces  round  this  hill  and  the  building  on  the  sum- 
mit, that  this  extraordinary  labour  can  only  be  accounted  for  by 
concluding  the  place  was  sacred.  The  analogy,  indeed,  of  the 
winding  road  still  extant,  which  led  to  the  temple  of  Jupiter 


4  Plin.  II.  98.     Dempster  (Etr.  Reg.  II.  to  the  same  writer  (II.  98)  the  soil  at  the 

p.  140)  thinks  it  should  have  been  spelt  Araj   Mutise    was  so  peculiarly  tenacious, 

"  Murcise,"    Murcia     or     Murtia     being  that  whatever  was  thrust  in  could  not  be 

another   name   for    the    Etruscan    Venus.  extracted.     Nardini  (Veio  Antico,   p.   260) 

Tertullian,   de  Spect.    cap.   VIII.        Pliny  asserts  that  the  same  phenomenon  is  to  be 

(XV.  36)  derives  the  name  of  Murcia  from  observed  on  the  slopes  of  Monte  Musino. 

the  myrtle,    which   was    sacred    to   that  5  Westphal,  Rom.  Kamp.,  p.  135. 

Goddess — ara  vetus  fuit    Veneri  Myrtese,  6  Gell  (I.,  p.  166)  gives  another  version 

quam  mine  Murckou    vocant.     According  of  this  belief. 


38  MONTE  MUSING  AND  LAGO  DI  BEACCIANO.     [CHAP.  iv. 

Latialis  on  the  summit  of  the  Alban  Mount,  is  sufficient  authority 
for  such  a  conclusion.  The  terraces  here,  however,  are  too  broad 
for  simple  roads ;  the  lower  being  sixt}r,  the  upper  forty  feet  in 
breadth.  Gell  imagines  them  to  have  been  formed  for  the  Salii, 
•or  for  the  augurs  of  Veii — the  rites  of  the  former  consisting  in 
dancing  or  running  round  the  altar.  The  local  tradition  is,  that 
the  Monte  was  the  citadel  of  Veii,7  though  that  city  is  confessed 
to  be  at  least  six  miles  distant,  and  it  has  hence  received  its  vulgar 
appellation  of  La  Fortezza ;  and  the  cave  is  believed  to  be  the 
mouth  of  Camillus'  cuniculus.  The  said  cuniculus  is  also  to  be 
seen — so  say  the  village  oracles — at  a  spot  two  miles  distant,  on 
the  way  to  Isola  Farnese,  called  Monte  Sorriglio  (or  Soviglio),  in 
a  subterranean  passage,  wide  enough  for  two  waggons  to  pass, 
which  runs  eight  miles  under  ground  to  Prima  Porta,  on  the 
Flaminian  Way,  where  Camillus  is  pronounced  to  have  com- 
menced his  mine.  These  things  are  only  worthy  of  mention  as 
indicative  of  the  state  of  local  antiquarian  knowledge,  which  the 
traveller  should  ever  mistrust. 

In  summer  it  is  no  easy  matter  to  reach  the  summit  of  Monte 
Musino,  on  account  of  the  dense  thickets  which  cover  its  slopes. 
The  view  it  commands,  however,  will  repay  any  trouble  in  the 
ascent,  which  is  easiest  from  Scrofano,  whence  the  summit  may 
be  a  mile  distant.  The  most  direct  road  to  Scrofano  from  Rome 
is  by  the  Via  Flaminia,  which  must  be  left  to  the  right  about  a 
mile  or  more  beyond  Borghettaccio,  where  a  path  pursues  the 
banks  of  a  stream  up  to  the  village.  It  may  also  be  reached 
through  Fonnello,  either  directly  from  the  site  of  Veii,  whence  it 
is  six  miles  distant,  or  by  a  path  which  leaves  the  modern  Via 
Cassia  at  the  Osteria  di  Merluzzo,  near  the  sixteenth  milestone. 
From  this  spot  it  is  about  six  miles  to  Scrofano. 

The  ancient  name  of  Scrofano  is  quite  unknown.  Its  present 
appellation  has  no  more  dignified  an  origin  than  a  sow  (scrofa — 
possibly  from  an  ancient  family  of  that  name),8  an  appears  from 
the  arms  of  the  town  over  one  of  the  gateways,  which  display 
that  unclean  animal  under  a  figure  of  San  Biagio,  the  "Protector" 

. '  This  tradition  is  probably  owing  to  the  their  dictum  is  naturally  accepted  by  their 

recorded  opinion  of  Cluverius  (Ital.  Ant.,  flocks.     Who,  indeed,  should  gainsay  it  ? 

II.,  p.  530),  that  Scrofano  was  the  site  of  "  In  a  nation  of  blind  men,  the  one-eyed 

ancient   Veii.      Such  traditions  generally  man  is  king,"  says  the  Spanish  proverb, 
originate  with  the  priests,  who  often  dabble  s  Nibby  (III.  p.  77)  records  a  derivation, 

in  antiquarian  matters,   though  rarely  to  which,  as  he  says,  "is  not  to  be  despised;" 

the    advancement    of    science,    being   tc.o  — certainly    not,   if    Monte   Musino   were 

much   swayed   by    local    prejudices, — and  hallowed  ground — Scrofano,  a  gacrofano. 


CHAP,  iv.]  SCKOFANO— SABATE.  59 

of  the  place.  Almost  the  only  relic  of  early  times  is  a  Roman 
cippus  of  marble  under  the  Palazzo  Serraggi. 

From  Baccano,  two  tracks,  cut  in  ancient  times  in  the  lip  of 
the  crater-lake,  and  retaining  vestiges  of  Roman  pavement,  run 
westward  to  the  lonesome  little  lakes  of  Stracciacappa,  and  Mar- 
tignano  (Lacus  Alsietinus),  and  thence  continue  to  the  spacious 
one  of  Bracciano  (Lacus  Sabatinus);  branching  to  the  right  to 
Trevignano  and  Oriolo,  and  to  the  left  to  Anguillara  and  Brac- 
ciano.9 

The  lake  of  Bracciano  (Lacus  Sabatinus),  like  every  other  in 
this  district  of  Italy,  is  the  crater  of  an  extinct  volcano.  It  is 
nearly  twenty  miles  in  circuit,  and  though  without  islands,  or 
other  very  striking  features,  is  not  deficient  in  beauty. 

Sabate,  which  gives  its  name  to  the  lake,  is  not  mentioned  as 
mi  Etruscan  town,  though  it  was  probably  of  that  antiquity.1 
It  must  have  stood  on  or  near  the  lake,  though  its  precise  site 
has  been  matter  of  dispute.  By  some  it  has  been  thought  to 
have  occupied  the  site  of  Bracciano,  but  at  that  town  there  are 
no  vestiges  or  even  traditions  of  antiquity,  the  earliest  mention 
of  it  in  history  being  of  the  fourteenth  century.  Some  have 
supposed  it  to  have  stood  on  the  eastern  shore,  while  others  take 
it  to  be  the  city  mentioned  by  Sotion  as  engulfed  of  old  beneath 
the  waters  of  the  lake.2  It  has  been  reserved  for  M.  Ernest 
Desjardins,  a  learned  and  enterprising  Frenchman,  who  has 
taken  great  pains  to  trace  out  the  stations  on  the  Vise  Clodia 
and  Cassia,  to  determine  its  true  site.  This  is  at  Trevignano, 
a  little  village  on  the  northern  shore  of  the  lake,  lying  at  the 
foot  of  a  rock  of  basalt,  now  crested  by  a  medieval  tower.3 

M.  Desjardins  has  arrived  at  this  conclusion,  both  b}7  carefully 
working  out  the  position  of  Sabate  from  the  Itineraries,  and  by 
finding  early  Etruscan  remains  on  the  spot.  He  noticed,  on  issu- 

9  Thel<Sabatia  stagna"of  Silius  Italicus  Holstenius  (ad  Cluver.  p.   44)  and  West- 

(VIII.,  492)  probably  included  the  neigh-  phal  (p.    156)  point  out  some  ruins  at  a 

bouring  lakelets  of  Martignano  and  Strac-  spot  more  than  a  mile  beyond  Bracciano, 

ciacappa.  near  S.  Marciano  or  S.  Liberate,  as  those 

1  The  earliest  mention  of  it  is  in  the  year  of  Sabate,  but  Nibby  declares  them  to  be 
367,  after  the  fall  of  Veii  and  Falerii,  when  the  remains  of  a  Roman  villa  of  the  early 
the  conquered  territory  was  given  to  the  Empire. 

Etruscans  who  had  favoured  Rome  in  the  Sotion  (de  Mir.  Font.)  says  a  town  was 

contest,  and  four  new  tribes,   one   called  swallowed  up  by  this  lake,  and  that  many 

Sabatina,   were  formed.     Liv.    YI.    4,   5.  foundations  and  temples  and  statues  might 

Fest.  v.  Sabatina.     The  town,  in  fact,  is  be  seen  in  its  clear  depths, 

not  named  except  in  the  Peutingerian  Table  ;  3  The  discovery  is  recorded  in  the  Ann. 

but  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  its  existence.  Inst.  1859,  pp.  34 — 60. 

2  Cluver  II.  p.   524.     Nibby  I.  p.  325. 


60  MONTE  MUSING  AND  LAGO  DI  BEACCIANO.     [CHAP.  iv. 

ing  from  the  gate  of  the  village  facing  the  west,  the  only  gate  now 
remaining,  a  large  fragment  of  walling  of  squared  blocks  of  rather 
regular  masonry,  which  he  declares  to  be  in  perfect  conformity 
with  the  Etruscan  fortifications  of  Cortona  and  Perugia.*  This 
masonry,  which  is  probably  of  basalt  or  other  hard  volcanic 
stone,  proves  the  existence  of  an  Etruscan  town  on  this  spot, 
and  as  there  are  no  other  such  remains  on  the  shores  of  the 
lake,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  here  stood  Sabate. 

At  the  Bagni  di  Vicarello,  three  miles  beyond,  there  are 
abundant  remains  of  Imperial  times,  villas  and  baths,  which 
mark  the  site  of  the  Aquse  Apollinares.5  Here  in  1852,  in 
clearing  out  the  reservoir  of  the  ancient  baths,  a  most  interest- 
ing discovery  was  made  of  a  large  collection  of  copper  coins  from 
the  earliest  tcs  rude  and  (es  signatum  of  Etruria  down  to  the 
money  of  the  Empire  ;  as  well  as  of  sundry  silver  vases — all 
votive  offerings,  now  preserved  in  the  Kirclierian  Museum  at 
Rome. 

The  Forum  Clodii  is  generally  supposed  to  have  stood  at  Oriuolo, 
but  M.  Desjardiiis  places  it  on  the  hill  above  S.  Liberate,  on  the 
west  of  the  lake,  where  are  some  extensive  Roman  remains.  On 
the  ancient  road,  between  this  and  Bieda  stands  the  ruined  town 
or  castle  of  Ischia,  supposed,  but  on  no  authority,  to  be  one  of 
the  Novem  Pagi  of  antiquity.6 

I  retain  pleasurable  reminiscences  of  a  midsummer  ramble  on 
the  shores  of  this  lake.  My  path  ran  first  over  flats  of  corn, 
then  falling  beneath  the  sickle — next  it  led  through  avenues  of 
mulberries,  whitening  the  ground  with  their  showered  fruit,  while 

4  Nibby  (III.    p.    287)  had   previously    '   cement,  like  those  in  the  walls  of  Volterra, 

suspected  this  to  be  an  Etruscan  site  from  Populonia,  Cosa,  or  Rusellse.     I  measured 

this  fragment  of  ancient  masonry,  which  some  of  these  blocks,  which  are  as  much 

he  described  as  composed  "  of  irregularly  as  3  metres  in  length."     Noel  des  Vergers, 

squared  blocks,  joined  together  as  in  the  Etrurie,  I.,  p.  18:2. 

walls  of  Collatia,  Ardea,  and  other  very  5  Desjardins,  Ann.  Inst.  1859,  pp.  34 — 

ancient  cities."    M.  Desjardins  (op.  cit.  p.  60.    The  fact  is  determined  beyond  a  doubt 

48)  finds  fault  with  this  description,  and  by  a  number  of  dedicatory  inscriptions  in 

declares  there  is  not  the  least  resemblance  honour  of  Apollo  found  on  the  spot, 
between  this  fragment  and  the  walls    of  6  Westphal  (p.  157)  thinks  the  Novem 

the  Latin  towns  on  the  south  of  the  Tiber.  Pagi  are  represented  by  the  neighbouring 

I  cannot  add  my  testimony  in  this  instance,  sites  of  Viano,  Ischia,  Agliola,  Barberano, 

the  walling  having  escaped  my  observation  &c.     But   this   is   mere   conjecture.     The 

when  I  passed  that  way  ;  but  I  can  recon-  only  mention  of  them  is  by  Pliny  (N.  H. 

cile  these   conflicting  descriptions   by  the  III.    8),   who  places   them  in   his  list  of 

authority   of    another    French   antiquary,  Etruscan  towns   between  Nepet  and  Prse- 

who  describes  the  walls  of  Ardea  as  com-  fectura  Claudia  Foroclodii,  but  as  his  list 

posed  ' '  of  enormous  blocks  cut  in  regular  is  alphabetical,  it  gives  us  no  clue  to  their 

parallelograms,  and  put  together  without  position. 


CHAP,  iv.]  LAKE    OF    BEACCIANO.  61 

the  whole  strip  of  shore  was  covered  with  the  richest  tessellation 
of  wheat,  hemp,  maize,  flax,  melons,  artichokes,  overshadowed 
by  vines,  olives,  figs,  and  other  fruit  trees,  intermingling  with 
that " gracious  prodigality  of  Nature,"  which  almost  dispenses 
with  labour  in  these  sunny  climes — and  then  it  passed  the  hamlet 
of  Trevignano  and  the  wrecks  of  Roman  luxury  at  Bagni  di 
Vicarello,  and  climbed  the  heights  above,  where  cultivation  ceases, 
and  those  forest  aristocrats,  the  oak,  the  beech,  and  the  chestnut, 
hold  undisputed  sway.  From  this  height  the  eye  revels  over  the 
broad  blue  lake,  the  mirror  of  Italian  heavens, — 

"  It  was  the  azure  time  of  June, 
When  the  skies  are  deep  in  the  stainless  noon — " 

reflecting,  on  one  shore,  the  cliff-perched  towns  of  Anguillara 
and  Bracciano — the  latter  dominated  by  the  turretted  mass  of  its 
feudal  castle — and  on  the  other,  the  crumbling  tower  of  .Trevig- 
nano, backed  by  the  green  mountain-pyramid  of  Rocca  Romana. 
But  the  glassy  surface  of  the  lake  does  not  merely  mirror  remains 
of  the  olden  time,  for  in  its  clear  depths,  it  is  said,  may  still  be 
seen  the  ruins  of  former  days,  on  certain  parts  of  its  shores. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  the  waters  are  now  higher  than  in  ancient 
times — proof  of  which  may  be  seen  in  a  mass  of  Roman  reticu- 
lated work  off  the  shore  near  Vicarello  ;  and  in  the  fact  recorded 
byNibby  and  Desjardins,  that  the  ancient  road  between  that  place 
and  Trevignano  is  now  submerged  for  a  considerable  distance. 


APPENDIX    TO    CHAPTER    IV. 

NOTE. 

The  stations  and  distances  on   the  Via    Clodia  are  thus    given    by    the 
Itineraries. 


Roma 
Careias 
Aquas  Apol 
Tarquinios 
Cosam 


INTOMNK    ITINERARY.                                                          PEUTINGERIAN    TAB 

Roma 
.     M.P.     XV.        Ad  Sextum  „ 

LE. 

M. 

p.  vr. 
vim. 
vim. 

XVI. 
VI  II  I. 

xi  r. 

XVIII. 
VIII. 

inaris          .         .         .  XVIIF.        Careias 
XVII.       Ad  Nonas 
XT.        Sabate 
Foro  Clodo 
Blera  . 
Tuscana  . 
Materno 
Saturn  ia 
Succosa 
Cosa     . 

THE    AMPHITHEATRE    UF    SUTRI,     FKOM    THE    ENTRANCE. 


CHAPTER  V. 

SUTBL— ,S  UTBIUM. 

Gramineum  carnpum,  quern  collibus  undique  curvis 
Cingebant  silvic  ;  mediuque  in  valle  theatri 
Circus  erat.  VIRG. 


Imaginare  amphitheatrum  . . 


.  quale  sola  renim  natura  possit  effingere. 

PUN.   Epist. 


IT  was  a  bright  but  cool  morning  in  October,  when  I  left  the 
comfortless  inn  of  Baccano,  and  set  out  for  Sutri.  The  wind 
blew  keenly  in  my  teeth ;  and  the  rich  tints  of  the  trees  wherever 
they  appeared  on  the  undulating  plain,  and  the  snow  on  the 
loftiest  peaks  of  the  Apennines,  proved  that  autumn  was  fast 
giving  place  to  winter. 

About  four  miles  from  Baccano  on  the  Via  Cassia  is  Le  Sette 
Vene,  a  lonely  inn  in  the  midst  of  an  open  country.  It  is  one  of 
the  largest  and  most  comfortable  hotels  between  Florence  and 
Home,  on  the  Siena  road.  Close  to  it  is  an  ancient  Roman 
bridge  of  a  single  arch,  in  excellent  preservation. 

The  next  place  on  the  Via  Cassia  three  miles  beyond  Sette 
Vene,  is  Monterosi,  which  does  not  appear  to  have  been  an  Etrus- 
can site.  It  is  commanded  by  a  conical  height,  called  Monte  di 


CHAP,  v.]  MOXTEROSI— KONCIGLIOXE.  63- 

Lucchetti,  crested  with  some  ruins  of  the  middle  ages.  The 
view  from  it  well  repays  the  small  difficulty  of  the  ascent ;  for  it 
commands  the  wide  sea-like  Campagna — Soracte,  a  rocky  islet  in 
the  midst,  lorded  over  by  the  snow-capt  Apennines — the  sharp 
wooded  peak  of  Ilocca  Romana  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  long 
sweeping  mass  of  the  Ciminian  on  the  other. 

Monterosi  has  two  inns,  both  wretched.  L'Angelo  is  said  to 
be  the  better.  Of  La  Posta  I  have  had  unpleasant  experience, — 
animus  meminissc  liorrel!  Hence  there  is  a  carriageable  road  fol- 
lowing the  line  of  the  old  Via  Cassia  to  Sutri,  the  ancient  Sutrium, 
seven  or  eight  miles  distant;1  but  as  very  inferior  accommodation 
is  to  be  had  there,  the  traveller  who  would  take  more  than  a 
passing  glance  at  that  site  had  better  drive  on  to  Ronciglione, 
and  visit  it  thence. 

Soon  after  descending  from  Monterosi,  and  after  passing  a. 
small  dreary  lake  and  crossing  a  stream  of  lava,  the  road  divides  ; 
the  right  branch  leading  northward  to  Nepi,  Narni  and  Perugia  ; 
the  other,  which  is  the  Siena  road,  running  in  a  direct  line  to 
Ronciglione,  which,  as  it  lies  on  the  lower  slope  of  the  Ciminian, 
is  visible  at  a  considerable  distance.  In  truth,  it  bears  quite  an 
imposing  appearance,  with  its  buildings  stretching  up  the  slope, 
and  its  white  domes  gleaming  out  from  the  wooded  hill.  The 
celebrated  castle-palace  of  Capraruola,  the  chef-d'oeuvre  of  Vignola, 
also  adorns  the  slope  of  the  Ciminian  a  few  miles  to  the  right. 

But  the  beauties  of  Ronciglione  are  not  to  be  seen  from  a 
distance.  The  town  is  romantically  situated  on  the  brink  of  a 
deep  ravine,  with  precipitous  cliffs,  in  which  many  caverns, 
originally  sepulchres,  mark  the  site  of  an  Etruscan  town.2  Its 
memory  and  name,  however,  have  utterly  perished.  Ronciglione 
has  very  tolerable  accommodation  ;  even  a  choice  of  hotels — the 
Aquila  Nera  and  the  Posta — and  the  traveller  will  do  well  to- 


1  The  distance  of  Sutrium  from   Rome  Its  present  distance  is  thirty-two  miles,, 

was  thirty-three  miles.  but  the  measurement  is   taken  from    the 

modern  gate,  a  mile  from  the  Forum ,  whence 
the  distances  were  anciently  calculated. 

ITINERARY  OF                FECTINGERIAN  2  <>  Not    far    from    Capraruola,"    says 

ANTONINUS.                         TABLE.  Bonarroti  (Michael  Angelo's  nephew),    "  I 

Rama                               Roma  saw    an    Etruscan    inscription    in    letters 

BaecanasM.P.  XXI.     Ad  SextumM.P.  VI.  almost  three  feet  high,  carved  in  the  rock, 

Sutrio                 XII.     Veios                     VI.  through   which  the    road    to    Sutri    (as   I 

Forum  Cassi        XI.     Vacanas           VIIII.  understood)  is  cut,  but  on  account  of  the 

Sutrio                 XII.  loftin-ss  of  the  site  distrusting  my  copy, 

Vico  Matrini  (TV/.)  I   do  not  venture  to  give  it,"  p.    98,  ap- 

Foro  Cassii        IIII.  Dempst.  II. 


64  SUTRI.  [CHAP.  v. 

make  it  his  head-qjuarters  for  excursions  to  Sutri,  which  lies 
about  three  miles  to  the  south.  It  must  be  confessed,  how- 
ever, that  the  road  to  it  is  wretched  enough,  and  if  it  resemble 
the  ancient  approaches  to  the  town,  it  would  incline  us  to 
believe  that  the  proverb  ire  Sutrium  (to  be  prompt)  was  applied 
ironically. 

Like  most  of  the  ancient  towns  in  Southern  Etruria,  Sutrium 
stood  on  a  plateau  of  rock,  at  the  point  of  junction  of  two  of  the 
•deep  ravines  which  furrow  the  plain  in  all  directions,3  being 
united  to  the  main-land  of  the  plain  only  by  a  narrow  neck. 
The  extent  of  the  town,  therefore,  was  circumscribed  ;  the  low 
but  steep  cliffs  which  formed  its  natural  fortifications  forbade 
its  extension  into  the  ravines.  Veil,  whose  citadel  occupied  a 
similar  position,  crossed  the  isthmus,  and  swelled  out  over  the 
adjoining  table-land,  just  as  Home  soon  ceased  to  be  confined 
to  the  narrow  plateau  of  the  Palatine.  But  the  same  principle  of 
growth  seems  not  to  have  existed  in  Sutrium,  and  the  town 
appears  never  to  have  extended  beyond  the  limits  prescribed  \yy 
nature.  It  was  thus  precluded  from  attaining  the  dignit}'  of  a 
first-rate  cit}r,  \et  on  account  of  its  situation  and  strong  natural 
position  it  was  a  place  of  much  importance,  especially  after  the 
fall  of  Veii,  when  it  was  celebrated  as  one  of  "  the  keys  and 
gates  of  Etruria;"  (claustra  portseque  Etrurire) ;  Nepete,  a  town 
similarly  situated,  being  the  other.4  As  a  fortress,  indeed, 
Sutrium  seems  to  have  been  maintained  to  a  late  period,  long 
after  the  neighbouring  Etruscan  cities  had  been  destroyed. 

The  modern  town  occupies  the  site  of  the  ancient,  and  is  pro- 
bably composed  of  the  same  materials.  Not  that  any  of  the  ancient 
Sutria  tecta  are  extant,  but  the  blocks  of  tufo  of  which  the  houses 
are  constructed,  may  well  have  been  hewn  Toy  Etruscan  hands. 
Every  one  who  knows  the  Italians,  is  aware  that  they  never  cut 
fresh  materials,  when  they  have  a  quarry  of  ready-hewn  stones  to 
their  hands.  The  columns  and  fragments  of  sculpture  here  and 
there  imbedded  in  the  walls  of  houses,  prove  that  the  remains  of 
Roman  Sutrium  at  least  were  thus  applied.  There  are  some  fine 
fragments  of  the  ancient  walls  on  the  south  side  of  the  town,  and 
not  a  few  sewers  opening  in  the  cliffs  beneath  them. 


3  The  ground  in  the  neighbourhood  of  however,    classes   it   among  the   cities   of 
Sutri   is   much    broken,    and   some   parts  Etruria  with  Arretium,  Perusia,  and  Volsinii, 
answer  to  the    description  given   by   Livy  and  Plutarch  (Camil.)  calls  it  "a  flourish- 
(IX.  35)— aspreta  strata  saxis.  ing  and  wealthy  town,"  fuSalfiova.  «al  irAou- 

4  Liv.   VI.  9 ;  IX.  32.     Strabo  (V.  9),  viav  Tr6\iv.  • 


CHAP.  V.] 


THE    WALLS    OF    SUTBIUM. 


65 


As  the  walls  of  Sutri  are  similar  to  those  of  most  of  the 
Etruscan  cities  in  the  southern  or  volcanic  district  of  the  land, 
I  shall  describe  the  peculiarity  of  their  masonry.  The  blocks 
are  arranged  so  as  to  present  their  ends  and  sides  to  view  in 
alternate  courses,  in  the  st}Tle  which  is  called  by  builders  "  old 


ROUGH    PLAN    OF    SUTRI. 


A.  Porta  Menona. 

B.  , ,      Romana. 

C.  ,,      di  Mezza. 
I).     ,,      Vecchia. 

E.  ,,      Furia. 

F.  Cathedral. 

G.  H.  Piazze. 


a.  Etruscan  wall,  nine  courses. 

b.  ,,  ,,     seven     ,, 

c.  ,,  ,,     four       ,, 

d.  ,,  ,,     seven     ,, 

e.  ,,        Sewers,  cut  in  rock. 
/.  Mediaeval  bastion. 

rj.  Columbarium. 

h.  Madonna  del  Parto. 


English  bond,"  or  more  vulgar ly,  "headers  and  stretchers;"  but 
as  this  masonry  is  of  classic  origin,  I  will  designate  it  by  the 
more  appropriate  term  of  emplccton,  which  was  applied  by  the 
Greeks  to  a  similar  sort  of  masonry  in  use  among  them5 — a  term 
significant  of  the  interweaving  process  by  which  the  blocks  were 
wrought  into  a  solid  wall.  The  dimensions  of  the  blocks  being 
the  same,  or  very  nearly  so,  in  almost  every  specimen  of  this 
masonry  extant  in  Etruria,6  I  will  give  them  as  a  guide  in  future 


5  Vitruv.  II.,  vin.  7.  For  further 
remarks  on  emplecton  masonry,  see 
Appendix. 

VOL.    I. 


6  The  only  exceptions  I  remember  are  at 
Cervetri,  where  the  dimensions  are  smaller. 


66  SUTEI.  [CHAP.  v. 

descriptions,  in  order  that  when  the  term  cmplccton  is  used,  it 
may  not  be  necessary  to  re-specify  the  dimensions.  This 
masonry  is  isodomon,  i.  e.  the  courses  are  of  equal  height — about 
one  foot  eleven  inches.  The  blocks  which  present  their  ends  to 
the  eye  are  generally  square,  though  sometimes  a  little  more  or 
a  little  less  in  width  ;  and  the  others  vary  slightly  in  length,  but 
in  general  this  is  double  the  height,  or  three  feet  ten  inches.  It 
is  singular  that  these  measurements  accord  with  the  length  of  the 
modern  Tuscan  braccio  of  twenty-three  inches.  The  same  de- 
scription of  masonry  was  used  extensively  by  the  Romans,  under 
the  kings  and  during  the  Republic,  in  Rome  itself,  as  well  as 
in  Latium  and  Sabina,  and  was  brought  to  perfection  in  the 
magnificent  Avail  of  the  Forum  of  Augustus  ;  but  that  it  was  also 
used  by  the  Etruscans  in  very  early  times  is  attested  by  their 
walls  and  tombs  ;  so  that  while  it  is  often  impossible  to  pro- 
nounce any  particular  portion  to  be  of  Etruscan  or  Roman  origin, 
it  may  safely  be  asserted  that  the  style  was  Etruscan,  imitated 
and  adopted  by  the  Romans.7 

Sutri  has  four  gates ;  one  at  the  end  of  the  town  towards 
Ronciglione,  another  at  the  opposite  extremity,  and  two  011  the 
southern  side.  A  fifth  in  the  northern  wall  is  now  blocked  up; 
and  it  is  said  that  this  and  the  two  on  the  opposite  side  are  the 
original  entrances,  and  that  the  two  at  the  extremities  have  been 
formed  within  the  last  century.  If  so,  Sutrium  had  the  precise 

7  The  earliest  walls  of  Rome— those  of  cites,  were  built  by  a  Roman  colony  in  this 
the  Roma  Qnadrata,  on  the  Palatine — are  style(see  the  woodcuts  at  pages  97  andlOl); 
of  this  masonry,  and  of  the  precise  di-  but  what  can  be  said  to  the  masonry  of 
mensions  mentioned  above.  So  are  also  precisely  the  same  character  and  dimen- 
those  of  the  second  period,  on  the  Aven-  sions,  which  may  be  traced  in  fragments 
tine.  Roman  masonry,  however,  of  this  around  the  heights  of  Civita  Castellana, 
description,  especially  on  the  south  side  marking  out  the  periphery  of  a  city  which 
of  the  Tiber,  is  often  of  inferior  dimen-  is  now  universally  admitted  to  be  no 
sions,  as  in  the  Porta  Romana  of  Segni,  other  than  the  Etruscan  Falerii,  —  de- 
where  the  courses  are  only  eighteen  inches  stroyed,  be  it  remembered,  on  its  con- 
deep,  and  the  Porta  Cassamaro  of  Ferentino,  quest  ?  How  is  it  that  in  no  case  in 
where  they  are  still  less — from  fourteen  to  Etruria  is  this  masonry  found  based  on  a 
seventeen  inches.  The  specimens  in  Etru-  different  description,  as  though  it  were 
ria  are  much  more  uniform.  Mr.  Bunbury,  Roman  repairs  of  earlier  fortifications,  but 
in  his  new  edition  of  Sir  William  Gell's  is  always  found  at  the  very  foundations, 
Rome  (p.  328),  questions  whether  these  and  often  in  positions  where  the  walls 
walls  of  Sutri,  or  in  fact  any  masonry  of  must  have  been  completely  secure  from 
this  description  found  on  Etruscan  sites,  be  the  contingencies  of  warfare  ?  And  what 
of  Etruscan  construction,  and  asserts  that  can  be  said  to  the  numerous  instances  of 
"it  is  certain  that  it  is  not  found  in  any  its  existence  in  connection  with  undoubted 
Etruscan  cities  of  undoubted  antiquity  ; "  Etruscan  tombs  at  Cervetri  and  Corneto, 
referring  it  always  to  the  Romans.  True  if  it  were  not  employed  by  the  Etruscans 
it  is  tliat  the  walls  of  Fallen,  which  he  as  well  as  by  the  Romans  ? 


CHAP,  v.]  HISTOEY    OF    SUTEIUM.  67 

number  of  gates  prescribed  by  the  Etruscan  ritual.8  Over  that  at 
the  western  end  the  claims  of  the  town  to  distinction  are  thus  set 

forth — "SUTRIUM  ETRURLE  CLAUSTRA,  URBS  SOCIA  ROMANIS  COLONIA 

CONJUNCTA  JULIA  ;"  and  over  the  Porta  Komana,  the  other  modern 
gate,  are  painted  the  arms  of  the  town — a  man  on  horseback, 
holding  three  ears  of  corn — with  the  inscription  "A  PELASGIIS 
SUTRIUM  COXDITUR."  Now,  though  the  village  fathers  should 
maintain  that  the  latter  epigraph  is  a  quotation  from  Livy, 
believe  them  not,  traveller,  but  rather  credit  my  assertion  that 
there  is  no  historic  evidence  of  such  an  origin  for  Sutri — for  on 
no  substantial  authority  doth  this  derivation  rest.9 

Though  Sutrium  was  undoubtedly  an  ancient  Etruscan  city,1 
we  know  nothing  of  its  history  during  its  independence.  The 
first  mention  made  of  it  is  its  capture  by  the  Romans.  It  is 
singular  that,  in  all  the  notices  we  have  of  it,  we  find  it  en- 
gaged in  Avar,  not  like  Veii  and  Fidense  with  the  Romans,  but 
with  the  Etruscans.  It  was  taken  from  the  latter  at  an  early 
period,  probably  in  the  year  u.c.  360  ;2  and  in  371,  or  seven  years 
after  the  Gallic  conquest  of  the  City,  it  was  made  a  Roman 
colony.3  From  the  date  of  its  capture,  so  soon  after  the  fall  of 
Veii,  it  seems  probable  it  was  one  of  the  towns  dependent  on 
that  city,  like  Fidenae  ;  yet  it  is  nowhere  mentioned  in  such  a 
connection.4  It  was  celebrated  for  the  fidelity  to  its  victors 
displayed  in  several  sieges  it  sustained  from  the  confederate 
Etruscans.  The  first  and  most  remarkable  was  in  the  }rear  365, 
when  it  was  besieged,  as  Livy  tells  us,  \)y  almost  the  whole  force 
of  Etruria,  and  compelled  to  surrender ;  and  the  miserable  in- 
habitants were  driven  out,  Avith  nothing  but  the  clothes  on  their 
backs.  As  the  sad  train  was  pursuing  its  melancholy  way  on 

8  Servius  (ad  /En.  I.  426)  says  no  Etrus-       town,  though  evidently  proper  names, 
can  city  was  deemed  perfect  that  had  less  l  Steph.  Byzant.  voce  ~2.ovrpwv. 

than  three  gates.  "  l)iodorus   (XIV.  p.    311,   ed.    Khod.) 

9  The  only  shadow  of  authority  for  such       states  that  the  Romans  attacked  it  in  this 
an  origin    is   derived  from   the   "  Catonis       year. 

Origines  "    of     Annio    of    Viterbo,    that  3  Veil.    Paterc.    I.    14.     It  must   have 

"most    impudent    trifler    and    nefarious  been  one  of   the    colonies   of    the   Trium- 

impostor,"  as   Cluverius  styles  him,    but  virate,  for  it  is  called  in  an  inscription  in 

whose  forgeries   long   passed   as   genuine.  the      church      Colonia      Julia     Sutrina 

Here  we  find,  "  Sutrium  a  Pelasgis  condi-  (Griiter,   302,   1).      Festus  (voce  Munici- 

tum,  ab  insigni  grano  dictum."    Sutrium  pium)    speaks   of    it    as    a    municipium. 

is    probably   the   Latinized    form    of    the  Frontin.  de  Col. 

Etruscan  appellation.    We  find  "  Sutrinas "  4  Miiller's    Etrusker,    II.     2,    1.       The 

and  "  Suthrina  "  in  Etruscan  inscriptions,  passage  in  Livy  (XXVI.   34),  "in  Veiente, 

which   Vermiglioli    (Iscriz.   Perug.   I.    pp.  aut  Sutrino,    Nepesinove  agro,"  can  only 

174,   256)  thinks  have  reference  to   this  refer  to  the  contiguity  of  the  lands. 

F  2 


68  SUTBI.  [CHAP.  v. 

foot  towards  Rome,  it  chanced  to  fall  in  with  the  army  of  Camil- 
las, then  on  his  road  to  relieve  their  city,  which  he  imagined 
still  held  out.  The  dictator,  moved  by  the  prayers  of  the  princes 
of  Sutrium,  by  the  lamentations  of  the  women  and  children,  bade 
them  diy  their  tears,  for  he  would  soon  transfer  their  weepings 
and  wailings  to  their  foes  ;  and  well  did  he  keep  his  word.  That 
self-same  day  he  reached  the  town,  which  he  found  an  easy  pre}', 
for  the  gates  were  unguarded,  the  walls  unmanned,  and  the  vic- 
torious Etruscans  intent  only  on  gathering  the  spoil.  In  a  very 
short  time  he  was  master  of  the  place  ;  the  Etruscans  submitted 
almost  without  resistance,  and  ere  night  he  restored  the  inhabit- 
ants to  their  homes,  and  reinstated  them  in  their  possessions. 
Thus  Sutrium  was  taken  twice  in  one  day.5  From  the  rapidity 
of  this  exploit  the  proverb  "  ire  Sutrium  "  took  its  rise.6  The 
gateway,  now  blocked  up,  on  the  northern  side  of  the  town,  is 
pointed  out  as  that  by  which  Camillus  entered,  and  hence  it  has 
received  the  name  of  Porta  Furia,  from  the  gentile  name  of  the 
dictator.  But  such  an  antiquity  is  apocryphal ;  for  the  gate  as  it 
now  exists  is  of  the  middle  ages,  and  has  an  arch  slightly,  yet 
decidedly,  pointed.7  It  is  now  blocked  up,  and  does  not  seem  to 
have  been  used  for  centuries. 

In  u.c.  368,  Sutrium  was  again  taken  by  the  Etruscans,  and 
rescued  by  Camillus ; 8  and  in  443,  it  was  long  besieged  by  the 
same  foes,  but  saved  by  Fabius  and  Homan  valour.9  Near  Su- 
trium, too,  after  Fabius  had  returned  from  his  expedition  across 
the  Ciminian  Mount,  he  signally  surprised  the  Etruscans,  and 
slew  or  captured  sixty  thousand.1  Sutrium  is  subsequently  men- 
tioned by  several  ancient  writers,2  and  the  last  intimation  of  its 
existence  in  classic  times  is  given  \>y  an  inscription  of  the  time 
of  Adrian.3  It  seems  never  to  have  shared  the  fate  of  Veil  and 
Fidense — to  have  lain  uninhabited  and  desolate  for  centuries  ; 
for  its  existence  can  be  traced  through  the  middle  ages  down  to 
our  own  times. 

5  Liv.  VI.   3  ;   Hut.  Camil.;  Died.  Sic.  1  Liv.  IX.  37. 

XIV.  p.  325.  2  Strabo,    V.    p.     226 ;    Liv.     X.     14  ; 

6  riautus,  Cas.   Act.   III.,    sc.   I.     10.       XXVI.  34;  XXVII.  9;  XXIX.  15.      Sil. 
Festus  roce  Sutrium.  Ital.  VIII.  493.      Appian.    B.C.,  V.   31. 

"  Yet    Canina    (Etruria    Marittima    I.  Festus  voce   Municipium.      Flin.    III.    8. 

pp.  72,  76)  maintains  it^to  be  an  ancient  Ptol.   Geog.   p.    72,   ed.  Bert.     Front.    <le 

Etruscan  gate,  and  refers  it  to  the  time  of  Colon.      Tertullian  (Apolog.  24)  mentions 

Tarquinius  Priscus.  a  goddess  Hostia,  or,  as  some  editions  have 

8  Liv.  VI.  9.  it,  Nortia,  worshipped  at  Sutrium.   Miiller 

9  Liv.    IX.   32,    33,   35.     Diodor.    XX.  (Etrusk.  III.  3,  7)  would  read  it,  Horta. 
pp.  772 — 3.  3  Nibby  roce  Sutrium. 


CHAP,  v.]  A   BOCK-HEWN    CnURCH.  69 

On  descending  from  the  Porta  Romana,  I  entered  a  glen, 
bounded  by  steep  cliffs  of  red  and  grey  tufo,  hollowed  into  caves. 
To  the  right  rose  a  most  picturesque  height,  crowned  with  a 
thick  grove  of  ilex.  Over  a  doorway  in  the  cliff  was  this  inscrip- 
tion : — "Here  stay  thy  step  ;  the  place  is  sacred  to  God,  to  the 
Virgin,  to  the  repose  of  the  departed.  Pray  or  pass  on."  I  did 
neither,  but  entered,  and  found  myself,  first  in  an  Etruscan 
sepulchre,  and  then  in  a  Christian  church — a  little  church  in  the 
heart  of  the  rock,  with  three  aisles,  separated  by  square  pillars 
left  in  the  tufo  in  which  the  temple  is  excavated,  and  lighted  by 
windows,  also  cut  in  the  rock  which  forms  one  of  the  walls.  It 
is  believed  by  the  Sutrini  to  have  been  formed  by  the  early 
Christians,  at  a  time  when  their  worship  was  proscribed  within 
the  town.  That  it  is  of  early  date  cannot  be  doubted ;  the  walls 
of  the  vestibule  and  the  ceiling  of  the  church  retain  traces  of 
frescoes  of  the  thirteenth  or  fourteenth  century.  The  altar-piece 
was  an  old  fresco  of  the  Madonna  and  Child,  which  was  under 
repair  by  a  young  artist  of  Sutri.  This  gentleman  took  me  into 
an  adjoining  cave,  which  served  as  a  sacristy,  and  showed  me  a 
door,  which,  he  said,  led  to  catacombs,  supposed  to  communicate 
with  those  of  Rome,  Nepi,  and  Ostia.  There  are  many  wild 
legends  connected  with  these  mysterious  subterranean  passages  ; 
the  truth  is  that,  though  their  extent  has  been  greatly  exag- 
gerated, they  are  very  intricate,  and  it  is  not  difficult  to  lose  one- 
self therein.  On  this  account  the  Sutrini  have  blocked  up  the 
door  leading  to  their  subterranean  wonders.  Finding  I  had  not 
yet  seen  the  lions  of  Sutri,  the  young  artist  threw  down  his  brush 
and  palette,  and  insisted  politely  on  doing  the  honours  of  his 
native  town.  He  pointed  out  a  cavern  adjoining  the  vestibule  of 
the  church,  now  a  charnel-house,  full  of  human  bones.  The 
vestibule  itself  had  originally  been  an  Etruscan  tomb,  and  the 
church,  in  all  probability,  another,  enlarged  to  its  present  dimen- 
sions. It  is  called  La  Madonna  del  Parto. 

On  the  top  of  the  cliff,  in  which  the  church  is  excavated,  stands 
the  villa  of  the  Marchese  Savorelli,  in  a  beautiful  grove  of  ilex  and 
cypress,  which  had  attracted  my  eye  on  leaving  the  gate  of  Sutri. 
I  walked  through  the  grove  to  the  further  edge  of  the  cliff,  and 
lo  !  the  amphitheatre  of  Sutri  lay  beneath  me — a  structure  which, 
from  its  unique  character,  and  picturesque  beauty,  merits  a  de- 
tailed description. 


70  SUTRI.  [CHAP.  v. 


THE  AMPHITHEATRE. 

Imagine  a  miniature  of  the  Colosseum,  or  of  any  other  amphi- 
theatre you  please,  with  corridors,  seats,  and  vomitories ;  the  seats 
in  many  pails  perfect,  and  the  flights  of  steps  particularly  sharp 
and  fresh.  Imagine  such  an  amphitheatre,  smaller  than  such 
structures  in  general,  not  built  up  with  masonry,  but  in  its  every 
part  hewn  from  the  solid  rock,  and  most  richly  coloured — green 
and  grey  weather-tints  harmonising  with  the  natural  warm  red 
hue  of  the  tufo  ;  the  upper  edge  of  the  whole  not  merely  fringed 
with  shrubs,  but  bristling  all  round  with  forest  trees,  which  on 
one  side  overshadow  it  in  a  dense  wood,  the  classical  ilex  ming- 
ling with  the  solemn  cypress ; — and  you  have  the  amphitheatre 
of  Sutri.  The  imagination  of  a  Claude  or  a  Poussin  could  not 
have  conceived  a  sylvan  theatre  of  more  picturesque  character. 

Apart  from  its  natural  charms,  this  amphitheatre  has  peculiar 
interest,  as  being  probably  the  type  of  all  those  celebrated 
structures  raised  \)y  Imperial  Rome,  even  of  the  Colosseum 
itself.  We  have  historical  evidence  that  Rome  derived  her 
theatrical  exhibitions  from  Etruria.  Livy  tells  us  that  the  liidi 
sccnici,  "  a  new  thing  for  a  warlike  people,  who  had  hitherto 
known  only  the  games  of  the  circus,"  were  introduced  into  Rome 
in  the  year  390,  in  order  to  appease  the  wrath  of  the  gods  for  a 
pestilence  then  desolating  the  city — the  same,  by  the  way,  which 
carried  off  Furius  Camillus ;  and  that  ludioncs  were  sent  for  from 
Etruria  who  acted  to  the  sound  of  the  pipe,  in  the  Tuscan  fashion. 
He  adds,  that  they  were  also  called  "  histriones"- — hi8ter,w,  the 
Etruscan  tongue,  being  equivalent  to  Indio  in  the  Latin.4  All 
this  is  corroborated  by  Valerius  Maximus ;  and  Tertullian  and 
Appian  make  it  appear  that  the  very  name  of  these  sports  was 
indicative  of  their  Etruscan  origin,5  ludio  a  Lydid — the  traditional 
mother-country  of  the  Etruscans.  The  Roman  theatres  of  that 
day  must  have  been  temporary  structures  of  wood,  the  first  per- 
manent theatre  being  that  erected  by  Pompey  A.  u.  c.  699,  which 
still  exists  in  Rome.  We  also  learn  from  Livy  that  the  Circus 
Maximus  was  built  by  Tarquinius  Priscus,  the  first  of  the  Etruscan 
dynasty  of  Rome,  who  sent  for  race-horses  and  pugilists  to 
Etruria,6  where  such  and  kindred  games  must  have  been 

4  Liv.  VII.  2.  LXVI. 

6  Val.    Max.    II.     4.     3  ;    Tertul.     cle  p  Liv.   I.   35  ;  cf.  Dionys.  Hal.  III.  p. 

Spectac.     V.  ;    Appian    <le    Beb.     Punic.        200.     Herodotus   (I.    167)    mentions  the 


CHAP.   V.J 


THE    AMPHITHEATEE. 


71 


common,  as  they  are  represented  on  the  walls  of  many  painted 
tombs,  and  on  sarcophagi,  cinerary  urns,  and  cippi.  We  have 
historical  evidence  also,  that  the  gladiatorial  combats  of  the 
Romans  had  an  Etruscan  origin.7  Therefore,  though  we  find  no 
express  mention  of  circi,  theatres  and  amphitheatres  in  use 
among  the  Etruscans,  we  may  fairly  infer  their  existence.  There 
is  strong  ground  for  the  presumption  that  the  edifices  they  used 
were  copied  by  the  Romans,  as  well  as  the  performances ; s  and  if 
a  building  of  this  description  be  discovered  in  Etruria,  it  may 
well,  primd  facie,  urge  a  claim  to  be  considered  as  of  Etruscan 
construction.9  It  is  true  that  some  authorities  of  weight  regard 
this  amphitheatre  of  Sutri  as  Roman  and  of  Imperial  times, 
founding  their  opinion  on  its  architectural  details,1  although  an 
argument  drawn  from  that  source  is  far  from  conclusive,  as  we 
shall  afterwards  have  occasion  to  show  ;  but  on  the  other  hand 


institution  of  such  games  at  Agylla.  Vale- 
rius Maxiinus  (loc.  cit.),  on  the  other  hand, 
states  that  the  Circensian  games  were  first 
celebrated  by  Romulus,  under  the  name  of 
Consualia.  Dionys.  II.  p.  100 ;  Virg. 
j£n.  VIII.  636.  It  seems  probable  that 
t\\Q  LudiCir  censes,  introduced  by  Tarquin, 
were  a  new  form  of  the  original  Consualia 
of  Romulus.  Boxing  to  the  sound  of  the 
flute  is  said  by  Eratosthenes  (ap.  Athen. 
IV.  c.  39)  to  have  been  an.  Etruscan 
custom. 

'  Nicolaus  Damascenus,  ap.  Athen.  loc. 
cit.  In  confirmation  of  which  statement, 
we  may  mention  that  the  name  Lanista, 
which  was  given  to  the  superintendent  or 
trainer  of  the  Roman  gladiators,  was  an 
Etruscan  word  (Isid.  Orig.  X.,  247). 
Miiller  (Etrusk.  IV.  1,  10)  is  of  opinion 
that  the  origin  of  the  custom  of  gladia- 
torial combats  at  funerals  should  be  re- 
ferred to  the  Etruscans  ;  "at  least  such 
a  sanguinary  mode  of  appeasing  the  dead 
must  have  appeared  a  very  suitable  oblation 
to  the  Manes  among  a  people  who  so  long 
retained  human  sacrifices." 

b  The  existence  of  theatres  is  strongly 
implied  by  the  passage  of  Nicolaus  Dama- 
scenus above  cited,  who  says,  ' '  The  Ro- 
mans held  their  gladiatorial  spectacles  not 
only  at  public  festivals  and  in  theatres, 
receiving  the  custom  from  the  Etruscans, 
but  also  at  their  banquets." 

9  As  we  know  there  was  no  amphi- 
theatre erected  in  Rome  before  the  time  of 


Csesar,  when  C.  Curio  constructed  one  of 
wood,  in  separate  halves,  which  could  be 
brought  together  into  an  amphitheatre,  or 
swung  round  at  pleasure  into  two  distinct 
theatres  (Plin.  Nat.  Hist.,  XXXVI.  24, 
8) ;  and  as  we  know  that  the  first  stone 
building  of  this  description  was  erected  by 
Statilius  Taurus  in  the  reign  of  Augustus 
(Dio  Cass.  LI.  23  ;  Sueton.  Aug.  29),  and 
that  the  Colosseum,  and  all  the  other  am- 
phitheatres extant,  were  constructed  during 
the  Empire ; — the  question  naturally  arises, 
How,  if  such  edifices  previously  existed  in 
Etruscan  cities,  there  were  none  erected  at 
Rome,  or  in  her  territories,  before  the 
time  of  Caesar  ?  for  we  know  that  until  the 
amphitheatre  was  introduced,  the  Romans 
were  content  to  hold  their  wild-beast  fights 
and  naymachice  in  the  Circus,  and  their 
gladiatorial  combats  in  the  forum,  at  the 
banquet,  or  at  the  funeral  pyre.  It  may 
be  that  in  the  construction  of  amphi- 
theatres, Etruria  did  not  long  precede 
Rome,  and  that  this  of  Sutri,  if  it  be 
really  of  Etruscan  origin,  is  not  to  be 
referred  to  the  remote  days  of  the  national 
independence,  but  rather  to  a  period  before 
all  native  peculiarities  in  art  and  customs 
had  been  completely  obliterated. 

1  Nibby  (voce  Sutrium)  considers  it  of 
the  time  of  Augustus  ;  Canina  (Etr.  Marit. 
I.  p.  56)  thinks  it  an  imitation  of  Roman 
structures  of  this  description,  while  Micali 
(Ant.  Pop.  It.  I.  p.  145)  regards  it  a 
Etruscan. 


72  SUTKI.  [CHAP.  v. 

the  structure  has  certain  characteristics  of  a  native  origin,  which 
may  be  observed  in  the  cornice  of  the  podium  which  surrounds 
the  arena — in  the  doors  in  the  same,  narrower  above  than  below, 
and  above  all  in  its  mode  of  construction  which  is  decidedly  un- 
Roman,  and  peculiarly  Etruscan ;  while  the  irregularity  of  the 
structure — the  seats  and  passages  being  accommodated  to  the 
natural  surface  of  the  rock — and  its  singular,  nay  rustic,  sim- 
plicity, distinguish  it  widely  from  the  known  amphitheatres  of 
the  Romans.3  In  one  sense  it  is  undoubtedly  Roman,  for  it  can- 
not claim  an  antiquity  prior  to  the  conquest  of  Sutri. 

This  curious  relic  of  antiquity  is  an  ellipse — the  arena  being, 
according  to  my  measurement,  one  hundred  and  sixty-four  feet  in 
length,  by  one  hundred  and  thirty-two  in  its  greatest  breadth. 
The  doors  in  the  podium  open  into  a  vaulted  corridor  which 
surrounds  the  arena.  This  corridor,  with  its  doors,  is  of  very 
rare  occurrence ;  found  elsewhere,  I  believe,  only  at  Capua  and 
Syracuse.3  Above  the  podium  rise  the  benches  ;  at  the  interval 
of  every  four  or  five  is  a  prcecinctio  or  encircling  passage,  for  the 
convenience  of  spectators  in  reaching  their  seats.  There  are 
several  of  these  preednctiones,  and  also  a  broad  corridor  above 
the  whole,  running  round  the  upper  edge  of  the  structure ;  but 
such  is  the  irregularity  and  want  of  uniformity  throughout,  that 
their  number  and  disposition  in  few  parts  correspond.  Above  the 
upper  corridor,  on  that  side  of  the  amphitheatre  which  is  over- 
hung by  the  garden  Savorelli,  rises  a  wall  of  rock,  with  slender 
half-columns  carved  in  relief  on  its  face,  and  a  cornice  above,  but 
both  so  ruined  or  concealed  by  the  bushes  which  clothe  the  rock, 
as  to  make  it  difficult  to  perceive  their  distinctive  character.  In 
the  same  wall  or  cliff'  are  several  niches  or  recesses,  some  upright, 
high  enough  for  a  man  to  stand  in ;  others  evidently  sepulchral, 
of  the  usual  form  and  size  of  those  in  which  bodies  were  interred. 
The  upright  ones,  being  elevated  above  the  level  of  the  pra- 
cinctio,  were  probably  intended  to  hold  the  statues  of  the  gods,  in 
whose  honour  the  games  were  held.4  Such  a  thing  was  unknown, 

2  The  only  ether  amphitheatres  I  know,       the  podium  I  Lave  observed  in  the  stadium 
which  are  in  parts  rock-hewn,  are  those  of       at  Ephesus. 

Syracuse,  Ptolemais  in  the  Cyrenaica,  and  4  Xibby  conjectures  these  to  have  been 

Dorchester.  for    the    designatores,    or    persons   whose 

3  The  podium,    or  parapet,    now  rises  office  it  was  to  assign  posts  to  the  specta- 
only  three  or  four  feet  above  the  ground,  tors  ;  in  other  words,  masters  of  the  cere- 
but  the  arena  has  not  been  cleared  out  to  mouics.     But  Plautus  (Psen.  prol.  19)  in- 
its  original  level.      The  corridor  that  sur-  timates,  as  indeed  it  is  more  natural  to 
rounds  it  is  between  five  and  six  feet  high,  suppose,    that    the    desiynatores    walked 
and  the  same  in  width.     Similar  doors  in  about,  and  handed  people  to  their  seats, 


CHAP,  v.]  TIIE    AMPHITHEATEE.  73 

I  believe,  in  Roman  amphitheatres  ;  but  I  remember  something 
like  it  in  Spanish  bull-rings — a  chapel  of  the  Virgin  in  a  similar 
position,  in  the  very  roof  of  the  gallery,  before  which  the  matador 
kneels  on  entering  the  arena,  to  beg  her  protection  in  his  en- 
counter with  the  bull.  The  horizontal  recesses,  on  the  other 
hand,  have  clearly  no  connexion  with  the  amphitheatre,  but  are 
of  subsequent  formation,  for  in  almost  every  instance  they  have 
broken  through  the  half-columns,  and  destroyed  the  decorations 
of  the  amphitheatre,  proving  this  to  have  fallen  into  decay  before 
these  sepulchral  niches  Avere  formed,  which  are  probably  the  work 
of  the  early  Christians. 

Another  peculiarity  in  this  amphitheatre  is  a  number  of  re- 
cesses, about  half-way  up  the  slope  of  seats.  There  are  twelve 
in  all,  at  regular  intervals,  but  three  are  vomitories,  and  the  rest 
are  alcoves  slightly  arched  over,  and  containing  each  a  seat  of 
rock,  wide  enough  for  two  or  three  persons.  They  seem  to  have 
some  reference  to  the  municipal  economy  of  Sutiium,  and  were 
probably  intended  for  the  magnates  of  the  town.5  At  the  southern 
end  is  a  vomitory  on  either  sid3  of  the  principal  entrance  ;  at 
the  northern,  on  one  side  only  of  the  gateway.  The  latter 
vomitory  is  now  a  great  gap  in  the  rock,  having  lost  the  flight 
of  steps  within  it,  which  must  have  been  supplied  with  wood  or 
masonry.  The  other  vomitories  are  perfect.6  They  have  grooves, 
or  channels  along  their  Avails  to  carry  off  the  Avater  that  might 
percolate  through  the  porous  tufo  ;  and  similar  channels  are  to 
be  seen  in  other  parts  of  the  amphitheatre,  and  furnish  an  argu- 

instead  of  shouting  to  them  from  a  fixed  the  suggestion  of  the  elder  Africanus,  and 

station  on  the  top  of  the  building.     If  it  set  aside  this  custom  by  appointing  separate 

•were  a  theatre  instead  of  an  amphitheatre,  places  to  the  senators  and  the  people,  which 

we  might  suspect  them  to  be  for  the  r;xe'a  estranged  the  minds  of  the  populace,  and 

or  brazen  pots  which  were  used  for  throwing  greatly   injured  Scipio    in   their   esteem" 

out  the  voice,  though  Yitruvius  tells  us  (Yal.  Max.  II.   4.    2  ;  Liv.    XXXIV.  54). 

(V.  5)  that  these  were  placed  among  the  Augustus  assigned  to  every  rank  and  each 

seats  of  the  theatre  ;  but  there  could  have  sex   a  distinct  place  at  the  public  shows, 

been  no  need  of  this  in  an  amphitheatre,  (Suet.  Aug.  44). 

where  all  appealed  to  the  eye,  nothing  to  6  They  are  seven  or  eight  feet  high  at 

the  ear.  the  mouth,  and  the  same  in  width,   with. 

5  The  number  twelve  may  not  be  with-  a  well-formed  arch  ;  but  within  the  passage 

out  a  meaning,  as  there  were  twelve  cities  the  arch  is  depressed,  almost  like  that  of 

in  each  of  the  three  divisions  of  Etruria.  the  later  Gothic.     They  contain  flights  of 

The  only  parallel  instance  is  in  the  theatre  steps    relieved    by    landing-places.      The 

of  Catania,  in  Sicily,  which  had  four  sirni-  entrance-passage  is  hewn  into  the  form  of 

lar  recesses.  (Serrad.Antich.  Sicil.v.  p.  13. )  a  regular  vault,  sixteen  or  seventeen  feet 

"Till  the  year  558  of  Home,  the  senators  high,  and  about  the  same  in  width.     Its 

had  always  mingled  indiscriminately  with  length  is  sixty-eight  feet,  which  is  here  the 

the  people  at  public  spectacles.    But  Atilius  thickness  of  the   rock   out  of  which   the 

Serranus  and  L.  Scribonius,  aediles,  followed  structure  is  hewn. 


74  STJTRI.  [CHAP.  v. 

ment  for  its  Etruscan  origin;  as  this  is  a  feature  very  frequently 
observed  in  the  rock-hewn  sepulchres  and  roads  of  Etruria. 
The  sharpness  of  the  steps  in  some  parts  is  surprising,  but  this  is 
explained  by  the  fact  that  this  amphitheatre,  only  within  the  last 
thirty-five  years,  has  been  cleared  of  the  rubbish  which  had 
choked  and  the  trees  which  had  covered  it  for  centuries,  so  that 
its  existence  was  unknown  to  Dempster,  Gori,  Buonarroti,  and 
the  early  writers  on  Etruscan  antiquities.7  We  are  indebted 
for  its  excavation  to  the  antiquarian  zeal  of  the  Marquis  Savorelli, 
its  present  proprietor.  Its  worst  foe  seems  to  have  been  Nature, 
the  tufo  being  in  parts  split  by  the  roots  of  trees,  remains  of  its 
forest  covering,  now  reduced  to  mere  stumps,  which  are  too  deeply 
imbedded  to  be  eradicated. 

The  exterior  of  this  structure  exhibits  no  "arches  upon  arches," 
no  corridors  upon  corridors — it  is  in  keeping  with  the  simplicity 
and  picturesque  character  of  the  interior.  Cliffs  of  red  tufo  in 
all  the  ruggedness  of  nature,  coloured  with  white  and  grey 
lichens,  hung  with  a  drapery  of  ivy  or  shrubs,  and  crowned  with 
a  circling  diadem  of  trees,  with  the  never-to-be-forgotten  group 
of  ilices  and  cypresses  on  the  table-land  above — Sutri  itself,  at  a 
little  distance  on  another  rocky  height,  the  road  running  up  to 
its  open  gate,  and  its  church-spire  shooting  high  above  the  mass 
•of  buildings — the  deep  dark  glens  around,  with  their  yawning 
sepulchral  caverns,  dashing  the  scene  with  a  shade  of  mystery 
and  gloom. 

A  little  down  the  road,  beyond  the  amphitheatre,  in  a  range  of 
tufo  cliffs,  are  mail}-  sepulchral  caverns;  some  remarkable  for 
their  sculptured  fronts.  Not  one  of  these  facades  remains  in  a 
perfect  state ;  but  there  are  traces  of  pediments,  pilasters,  and 
half-columns,  with  arches  in  relief,  and  fragments  of  mouldings 
•of  a  simple  character.  In  their  interiors,  some  are  small  and 
shallow,  others  deep  and  spacious;  some  have  flat  ceilings,  others 
are  vaulted  over,  now  with  a  perfect,  now  with  a  depressed  arch; 
and  some  have  simple  cornices  in  relief  surrounding  the  chamber. 
In  some  there  are  benches  of  rock  for  the  support  of  sarcophagi; 
in  others  these  benches  are  hollowed  out  to  receive  the  body — 
.and  in  many  are  semi-circular  cavities  recessed  in  the  walls  for  a 
similar  purpose.  All  these  features  are  Etruscan  characteristics, 
but  most  of  these  sepulchres  bear  traces  of  an  after  appropriation 
to  Roman  burial,  in  small  upright  niches,  similar  to  those  in 

'  It  is  simply  mentioned  by  Miiller  (Etrusk.  II.  p.  241,  n.  49). 


CHAP,  v.]  TOMBS    IN    THE    CLIFFS.  77 

Roman  columbaria,  which  have  the  same  variety  of  form  as  in 
those  in  the  rocks  at  Veii,  and  like  them,  contain  sunken  holes 
for  the  ollce,  of  which  there  are  from  two  to  six  in  each  niche. 
In  one  instance  the  niches  are  separated  hy  small  Doric-like 
pilasters,  hewn  out  of  the  tufo.  A  feature  that  distinguishes 
them  from  the  niches  of  a  genuine  Etruscan  character  is  that 
they  want  the  usual  groove  running  round  the  back  of  the  recess 
and  opening  in  two  holes  in  front,  to  carry  off  the  moisture  that 
might  percolate  the  rock.  The  facades  of  many  tombs  on  this 
site  have  similar  grooves,  which  sometimes  form  a  sort  of  graven 
pediment  over  the  doorway. 

Not  one  of  these  open  sepulchres  remains  in  a  perfect  state. 
The  Spaniards  have  a  proverb,  "An  open  door  tempts  the  devil 
to  enter."  Such  has  been  the  fate  of  these  sepulchres — in  all 
ages  they  have  been  misapplied.  The  Romans,  both  Pagan  and 
Christian,  introduced  their  own  dead.  In  the  dark  and  turbulent 
ages  succeeding  the  fall  of  the  Empire,  they  were  probably  in- 
habited by  a  semi-barbarous  peasantry,  or  served  as  the  lurking- 
places  of  banditti;  and  now  they  are  commonly  used  as  wine- 
cellars,  hog-sties,  or  cattle-stalls,  and  their  sarcophagi  converted 
into  bins,  mangers,  or  water-troughs. 

Beyond  the  sculptured  tombs,  in  a  field  by  the  road-side,  I 
found  a  sepulchre  differing  from  any  I  had  yet  entered.  It  was 
divided  into  several  chambers,  all  with  recesses  excavated  in  their 
walls  to  contain  bodies,  with  or  without  sarcophagi — in  tiers 
of  shelves  one  above  the  other,  like  berths  in  a  steamer's 
cabin.  Such  an  arrangement  is  often  observed  in  the  catacombs 
of  Italy  and  Sicil}%  and  would  lead  one  to  suspect  these 
tombs  to  have  had  a  Christian  origin,  were  it  not  also  found  in 
connection  with  Etruscan  inscriptions  at  Civita  Castellana,  and 
Cervetri. 

Some  distance  beyond  is  a  cave  called  the  Grotta  d'  ( )rlando, 
a  personage,  who,  like  his  Satanic  Majesty,  has  his  name  attached 
to  many  a  marvel  of  nature  and  of  art  in  the  southern  countries 
of  Europe.  He  it  was  who  cleft  the  Pyrenees  with  one  stroke 
of  his  sword,  Durandal,  with  the  same  ease  with  which  he  had 
been  wont  to  cleave  the  Saracens  from  crown  to  seat.  This 
Grotta  may  have  been  an  Etruscan  tomb,  of  two  chambers,  the 
outer  and  larger  supported  by  a  square  pillar.  But  what  has  it 
to  do  with  Orlando  '?  Tradition  represents  that  hero,  while  on 
his  way  to  Rome  in  the  army  of  Charlemagne,  as  having  lured 
away  some  maid  or  matron  of  Sutri,  and  concealed  her  in  this 


78  SUTKI.  [CHAP.  v. 

cave,  which  would  scarcely  tempt  an  ^neas  and  Dido  at  present.8 
On  the  same  cliff  with  the  Villa  Savorelli  is  a  ruin,  pointed  out 
as  the  house  in  which  Charlemagne  took  up  his  abode,  when  on 
his  way  to  Rome,  to  succour  Adrian  I.,  but  it  is  evidently  of 
much  later  date.  Nor  is  Orlando  the  only  hero  of  former  times 
of  whom  Sutri  has  to  boast.  She  lays  claim  to  the  nativity  of 
that  much  execrated  character,  Pontius  Pilate,  and  a  house  is 
still  shown  as  the  identical  one  in  which  he  was  born ;  though 
the  building  is  obviously  of  the  middle  ages. 

There  are  other  curious  traditions  hanging  about  this  old 
town  of  Sutri.  At  the  angle  of  a  house  in  the  main  street  is 
an  ass's  or  sheep's  head  of  stone,  minus  the  ears,  which,  like 
the  Moorish  statues  in  the  vaults  of  the  Alhauibra,  is  believed  to 
have  been  placed  there  as  the  guardian  of  hidden  treasure.  Not 
that  any  stores  of  wealth  have  yet  been  brought  to  light,  for  no 
one  has  been  able  to  determine  on  what  spot  the  eyes  of  this 
mysterious  ass  are  fixed ;  but  its  existence  is  not  the  less 
implicitly  believed,  and  not  by  the  vulgar  only.  The  artist  who 
accompanied  me  round  Sutri,  and  his  father,  who  is  one  of  the 
principal  inhabitants,  had  jointly  made  researches  for  the  said 
treasure.  Thinking  they  had  discovered  the  direction  of  the 
asinine  regards,  they  hired  an  opposite  house,  commenced  delving 
into  its  foundations,  and  doubted  not  to  have  found  the  object  of 
their  search,  had  they  not  been  stopped  by  the  authorities,  who, 
wishing  to  keep  the  spoils  to  themselves,  had  forbidden  all 
private  enterprise  in  this  line.  He  had  made  however  more 
profitable  excavations.  He  had  opened  tombs  in  the  ground 
above  the  sculptured  cliffs,  and  had  brought  to  light  vases, 
bronzes,  and  other  valuable  relics  of  Etruscan  date.  Sutri  has 
been  so  little  explored,  that  it  is  probable  many  treasures  of 
antiquity  are  yet  to  be  found  in  its  neighbourhood.  The  tombs 
hollowed  in  the  cliffs  have  been  rifled  ages  since,  but  those  below 
the  surface,  with  no  external  indications,  have  in  some  cases 
escaped  the  researches  of  former  plunderers.  It  is  among  these 
alone  that  art-treasures  are  to  be  expected. 

The  traveller  will  find  no  inn  at  Sutri ;  and  even  for  refresh- 
ment he  must  be  dependent  on  the  good-will  of  some  private 
townsman,  who  will  dress  him  a  meal  for  a  consideration. 

In  the  glen  to  the  west  of  the  town,  on  the  road  to  Capranica, 

8  It  is  not  improbable  that  this  legend       meeting  the  fair  Isabella  in  a  cave  : — 
originated  in  those  stanzas  of  Ariosto  (XI f.  t(  Era  bella  si,  che  facea  il  loco 

88-91),  in  which  he  represents  his  hero  as  Salvatico,  parere  un  paradiso." 


CHAP,  v.]  CAPEANICA— VICUS    MATRIX!.  79 

there  is  a  cavern  of  large  dimensions,  but  of  natural  formation, 
at  the  mouth  of  which  is  a  church  called,  La  Madonna  della 
Grotta.  The  cave  is  extremely  picturesque,  its  roof  stalactited 
with  pendent  ferns. 

The  Via  Cassia  runs  beyond  Sutri  through  this  wooded  ravine 
to  Capranica,  another  Etruscan  site  with  a  few  tombs  and  sewers, 
but  nothing  of  extraordinary  interest.  It  is  now  a  place  of 
more  importance  than  Sutri,  having  3000  inhabitants — excellent 
fruit  and  wine — mineral  waters  beneficial  in  disorders  of  the 
kidneys,  bladder,  and  spleen,  (ask  for  the  Fonte  Carbonari,  for  so 
the  spring  is  dubbed  by  the  peasantry,  instead  of  Carbonate)  — 
and,  Avhat  is  of  more  importance  to  the  traveller,  possessing  a 
hospitium  formerly  kept  by  a  butcher,  Pietro  Ferri,  where,  if  he 
will  not  find  comfort,  he  may  be  sure  of  its  best  substitute,  un- 
bounded civility  and  readiness  to  oblige.  The  women  here  wear 
the  skirt  of  their  gowns  over  their  heads  for  a  veil,  like  Teresa 
Panza  and  other  Manchegas,  and  being  very  brightly  arrayed, 
are  always  picturesque.  I  could  perceive  no  Roman  remains  at 
Capranica,  the  ancient  name  of  which  has  not  come  down  to  us. 
It  is  three  miles  distant  from  Sutri,  eight  or  more  from  Vetralla 
also  on  the  Via  Cassia,  three  from  Bassano,  four  from  Pconciglione, 
and  nine  from  Oriuolo.  On  this  latter  road  I  found  in  several 
spots  remains  of  Roman  pavement,  and  about  halfway  from 
Oriuolo,  or  near  Agliola,  I  observed  a  long  portion  of  the  road 
entire,  running  directly  between  the  two  towns,  and  probably  a 
cross  road  connecting  the  Claudian  and  Cassian  "Ways.  The 
church  of  San  Vincenzo,  on  a  height  above  Bassano,  is  a  con- 
spicuous object  in  this  district,  and  is  the  great  shrine  of  the 
neighbourhood,  where,  on  the  first  fortnight  in  November,  a 
general  "  penlono  "  is  dispensed,  and  the  countryfolks  flock  in 
thousands  to  obtain  remission. 

Beyond  Capranica,  some  three  or  four  miles,  and  a  little  off 
the  road  to  the  left,  are  the  ruins  of  Vicus  Matrini,  a  station  on 
the  Via  Cassia,  still  retaining  its  ancient  name,  but  having  little 
to  show  beyond  a  few  crumbling  towers  and  sepulchres,  all  of 
Roman  date  ;  and  a  mile  or  so  beyond  it,  is  a  way-side  osteria, 
called  Le  Capannaccie,  which  has  sundry  relics  from  the  said 
ancient  station  embedded  in  its  walls.  This  is  the  highest  point 
of  the  road,  which  here  crosses  the  shoulder  of  the  Ciminian, 
but  its  rise  is  so  gradual  as  to  be  scarcely  perceptible.  The 
first  part  of  the  road  from  Capranica  passes  through  shady 
lanes,  orchards,  and  vineyards  ;  then  it  traverses  wide  tracts  of 


80  SUTEI.  [CHAP.  v. 

corn-land — the  most  wearisome  scenery  to  the  summer  traveller, 
when  the  sun's  glare  is  reflected  with  sickening  intensity  from 
the  ever-restless,  ever-dazzling  surface.  He  who  has  crossed  the 
torrid  plains  of  the  Castilles,  La  Mancha,  or  Estremadura,  under 
a  dog-day  sun,  will  readily  acknowledge  that  scyctes  are  latte 
only  in  poetry  or  to  the  eye  of  the  proprietor.  A  gradual  descent 
of  four  miles,  mostly  through  orchards,  leads  to  Yetralla,  on  the 
verge  of  the  great  central  plain  of  Etruria,  which  here  hursts 
upon  the  view.  The  road  from  Rome  to  this  place,  a  distance 
of  forty-three  miles,  follows  as  near  as  may  be  the  line  of  the 
ancient  Via  Cassia.  It  is  still  carriageable  throughout;  indeed, 
a  "  diligence  "  runs  to  Vetralla  once  or  twice  a  week,  professedly 
in  nine  hours,  which  are  increased  indefinitely  at  the  convenience 
of  the  driver. 


APPENDIX    TO    CHAPTER    Y. 

XOTE. — EMPLECTON  MASONRY,  vide  p.  G5. 

I  AM  aware  that  this  interpretation  of  emplecton  differs  from  that  generally 
•adopted,  especially  by  Italian  writers  on  ancient  architecture,  who  take  it  to 
be  descriptive  of  masonry  formed  of  two  fronts  of  squared  blocks,  with  the 
intervening  space  filled  with  rubbish  and  mortar ;  thus  forming  "  three 
crusts,"  as  Yitruvius  says,  "  two  of  facings,  and  a  middle  one  of  stuffing." 
This,  however,  was  the  mode  employed  by  the  Ifomans,  as  an  expeditious 
substitute  for  the  more  solid  construction  of  the  Greeks,  as  Yitruvius  (II.,  8) 
expressly  asserts  ;  but  the  application  of  the  term  emplccton  to  it,  was 
evidently  an  abuse.  The  Italians  err  in  taking  the  word  to  be  significant  of 
filling  in,  stuffing,  as  though  it  were  derived  from  ffjinin\rjfjLi  or  e/x7rXj/$a>,  to 
Jill  up,  instead  of  £/i7rX/Ka>,  to  weave  in — a  word  expressive  of  the  peculiar 
arrangement  of  the  blocks.  Marini,  in  his  edition  of  Yitruvius  (Koine,  1830, 
I.,  p.  97)  commits  the  error  of  rendering  f'/xn-XeVcw  by  irnpleo.  Orsini,  in  his 
Dictionary  of  Yitruvius,  makes  emplecton  to  mean  "  something  full  or  to  be 
filled."  Baldus,  in  his  Lexicon,  makes  the  same  blunder,  which  De  Laetus, 
in  his,  quarrels  with,  but  does  not  correct,  though  he  quotes  Salmasius 
(Exercit.  Plin.,  p.  1231),  who  comes  nearer  the  mark,  and  acknowledges  its 
derivation  from  wXeKtu  ;  but  only  perceives  an  analogy  with  the  dressing  of 
women's  hair,  where  the  outside  is  made  smooth,  while  the  inside  remains 
rough,  as  this  masonry  is  described.  Canina  also  (Arch.  Ant.  V.,  p.  130) 
explains  emplecton  as  signifj'ing  the  stuffed  masonry  above  mentioned,  but 
thinks  it  applicable  to  constructions  of  small  stones  like  bricks  (VIII.,  p. 
104).  This  stuffed  masonry  was  used  extensively  by  the  Romans,  especially 
in  small  work,  and  it  was  even  employed  by  the  Greeks  on  a  larger  scale,  as 
the  remains  of  their  cities  testify.  It  may  be  seen  also  in  part  of  the 
Cyclopean  walls  of  Arpinum,  and  even  in  the  Etruscan  ones  of  Yolterra. 
Pliny  (Nat.  Hist.,  XXXYI.  51)  says  it  was  called  diamicton,  i.e.,  mixt-work. 


CHAP,  v.]  EMPLECTON   MASONRY.  81 

The  Greeks,  however,  sometimes,  as  at  Pfestum,  Syracuse,  and  elsewhere  in 
Sicily,  bound  the  facings  of  their  walls  together  by  solid  masonry.  So  Pliny 
remarks,  in  his  description  of  emplecton,  though  he  says,  where  it  was  not 
possible,  they  built  as  with  bricks,  which  evidently  means,  as  bricks  were 
used  in  facings  merely,  the  rest  being  filled  in  with  rubbish.  The  point 
aimed  at,  according  to  the  same  writer,  was  to  lay  the  blocks  so  that  their 
centres  should  fall  immediately  over  the  joinings  of  those  below  them. 

Vitruvius,  however, 'is  the  best  authority  for  the  application  of  emplecton 
to  solid  masonry,  for,  after  mentioning  it  as  descriptive  of  a  style  used  by 
the  Greeks,  and  after  distinguishing  the  Roman  variety,  he  says,  "  Graci 
vero  non  ita  ;  sed  plana  (coria)  collocantes  et  longitudines  chororum  alternis 
coagmentis  in  crassitudinem  instruentes,  non  media  farciunt,  sed  e  suis 
f  rontatis  perpetuum  et  in  unam  crassitudinem  parietem  consolidant.  Prscterea 
interpommt  singulos  pcrpetua,  crassitudine  utraque  parte  frontatos,  quos 
SiarowDs  appellant,  qui  maxirne  religando  confirmant  parietum  soliditatem." 
This  is  a  just  description  of  the  walls  of  Falleri,  which,  not  being  mere  em- 
bankments, display  the  blocks  in  some  parts  "  stretching  through  "  from  side 
to  side.  I  would  not  maintain  that  the  term  emplecton  should  be  confined  to 
this  sort  of  masonry.  It  is  also  applicable  to  that  where  the  diatoni  or  cross 
blocks,  instead  of  occurring  in  alternate  courses,  and  continuously,  are  found 
only  from  time  to  time  ;  it  is  applicable,  in  short,  to  any  masonry  where  the 
principle  of  interweaving  is  preserved.  I  use  it  throughout  this  work  to 
designate  that  species  of  opus  quadratum,  which  is  so  common  in  ancient 
structures  in  the  southern  district  of  Etruria,  as  well  as  in  Rome  and  its 
neighbourhood. 

There  are  difficulties,  I  own,  in  this  passage  of  Vitruvius,  describing 
Greek  masonry ;  in  fact,  the  text  is  generally  admitted  to  be  corrupt,  as 
the  variety  of  readings  prove  ;  but  it  is  still  clear  that  the  term  emplecton, 
however  misapplied  by  the  Romans,  or  their  descendants,  was  properly  con- 
fined by  the  Greeks  to  masonry,  of  which  an  interweaving  of  the  blocks  was 
the  principle.  The  analogy  to  brick-work,  indicated  by  Vitruvius  (cf.  II.  3), 
is  confirmatory  of  this.  Abeken  (Mittelitalien,  p.  151)  is  the  only  writer 
besides  myself,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  who  takes  this  view  of  emplecton. 

An  excellent  example  of  Greek  emplecton  masonry  is  presented  by  the 
Castle  of  Euryalus  in  Epipohe  at  Syracuse,  where  the  four  towers  above  the 
fosse,  and  the  piers  for  the  drawbridge  within  the  fosse,  are  of  this  masonry 
rusticated,  but  it  is  on  a  rather  smaller  scale  than  is  usual  in  Etruria. 


VOL.    I. 


CHAPTER    VI. 

NEPI.— NEPETE. 

"Where  Time  hath  leant 

His  hand,  but  broke  his  scythe,  there  is  a  power 
And  magic  in  the  mined  battlement, 
For  which  the  palace  of  the  present  hour 
Must  yield  its  pomp,  and  wait  till  ages  are  its  dower. — BYRON. 

IF  on  reaching  the  Guglia,  or  sign-post,  beyond  Monterosi, 
instead  of  taking  the  road  to  Ronciglione  and  "  Firenze,"  the 
traveller  follow  the  more  holy  track  of  "  Loreto,"  three  short 
miles  will  carry  him  to  Nepi.  Let  him  remark  the  scenery 
on  the  road.  He  has  left  the  open  wastes  of  the  Campagna 
and  entered  a  wooded  district.  It  is  one  of  the  few  portions 
of  central  Italy  that  will  remind  him,  if  an  Englishman,  of 
home.  Those  sweeps  of  bright  green  sward — those  stately  wide- 
armed  oaks  scattered  over  it,  singly,  or  in  clumps — those  neat 
hedge-rows,  made  up  of  maples,  hawthorns,  and  brambles,  with 
fern  below,  and  clematis,  dog-roses,  and  honeysuckles  above  ; 
they  are  the  very  brothers  of  those  in  Merry  England.  The 
whole  forms  a  lively  imitation  of — what  is  most  rare  on  the 
Continent — English  park-scenery;  and  it  requires  no  stretch  of 
fancy  to  conceive  oneself  journeying  through  Surrey  or  Devon- 
shire. 

The  first  view  of  Nepi  dispels  the  illusion.  It  is  a  quaint- 
looking  town.  A  line  of  crumbling  Avail,  laden  with  machi- 
colated  battlements,  and  a  massive  castle  within  rising  high 
above  it,  would  give  it  the  appearance  of  a  fortress,  were  it  not 
for  the  square  red  tower  of  the  cathedral  with  its  white  pyramid 
of  a  spire,  shooting  high  and  bright  into  the  deep  blue  sky. 
Behind  it  soars  Soracte,  its  serrated  mass  blued  by  distance  ; 
and  far  away  in  the  horizon  is  the  range  of  snow-capt  Apennines. 
On  entering  the  gate  the  eye  is  caught  by  a  fine  piece  of 
ancient  walling,  in  nineteen  courses,  or  about  thirty-six  feet  and 
a  half  in  height,  and  of  considerable  length.  Its  crumbling 


CHAP,  vi.]  THE    ETRUSCAN   WALLS.  83 

weather-worn  condition  proclaims  its  antiquity,  and  the  size  and 
arrangement  of  the  blocks  mark  its  Etruscan  character.  Just 
within  the  inner  gate  is  another  fragment  of  less  extent,  only  ten 
courses  high,  and  still  more  decayed.  These  are  probably  the 
very  walls  which  Camillus  and  his  soldiers  scaled  when  they 
stormed  the  town,  386  j^ears  before  Christ.1 

But  instead  of  entering  the  town,  cross  the  court-yard  to  the 
right,  and  pass  through  another  gate  in  the  fortifications.2  Here 
you  are  on  the  brink  of  the  ravine  which  bounds  Nepi  on  the 
south.  The  view  of  the  cliff-bound  city — of  the  profound,  lonely 
ravine — of  the  lofty  venerable  walls  of  the  keep,  with  their 
machicolated  battlements  towering  above  you — of  the  lowly  mill 
•at  their  feet,  vying  with  them  in  picturesque  effect,  as  it  shoots 
out  a  jet  of  foam  which  sinks  in  a  cascade  into  the  glen — would 
alone  claim  admiration.  But  there  is  yet  more  for  the  attention 
of  the  antiquary.  At  the  verge  of  the  cliff,  to  which,  indeed,  it 
forms  a  facing  or  embankment,  and  only  a  few  steps  from  the 
gate  of  the  town,  is  another  bit  of  the  ancient  walling  of  Nepete, 
and  the  most  perfect  specimen  remaining.  It  is  of  four  courses 
only,  in  an  excellent  state  of  preservation.  Like  the  two  other 
portions  mentioned,  it  is  of  emplecton,  precisely  similar  to  the 
walls  of  Sutri. 

The  wall,  of  which  this  is  a  fragment,  seems  to  have  extended 
along  the  face  of  the  precipice.  Much  seems  to  remain  imbedded 
in  a  mass  of  Roman  opus  incertum,  which  apparent!}7  once  faced 
the  whole  structure,  showing  the  priority  of  the  emplecton?  If 
this  formed  part  of  the  walls  of  Nepete,  the  ancient  must  have 
been  somewhat  larger  than  the  modern  town. 

This  is  all  I  could  perceive  of  the  ancient  walls  of  Nepete. 
These  portions,  be  it  observed,  are  on  the  weakest  side  of  the 
town,  where  it  receives  no  protection  from  nature.  On  every  other 


1  Liv.  VI.  10.  But   it   is    also   precisely    similar  to   the 

2  The  road  from  this  gate  is  a  by-path  masonry  of   the   ancient   walls    at   Civita 
to  Sette  Vene,  shorter  by  several  miles,  but  Castellana,  which  they  admit  to  be  Etrus- 
said  to  be  a  wretched  track,   utterly  im-  can.     There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that 
practicable  for  vehicles.  these  walls  at  Nepi  are  of  less  ancient  con- 

3  Nibby  (II.  p.   400)  thinks  these  relics  struction.     The  discovery  since  their  day 
of  the  ancient  walls  of  Nepi  are  of  Roman  of  the  walls   of    Roma   Quadrata    proves 
construction,  and  of  the  time  of  the  colony  that  this   style  of   masonry  was   used    in 
formed  here  A.   U.  C.   381,  because  their  the  earliest  days  of  Rome,  and  as  we  find  it 
masonry  is  analogous  with  that  of  the  walls  also  in  very  primitive  cities  and  tombs  in 
of  the  new  Falerium  (Falleri)  raised   not  Etruria,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  was 
long    after   that   date.      Canina   (Etruria  originally  employed  by  the  Etruscans,  and 
Marittima  I.,  p.  72)  takes  the  same  view.  imitated  by  the  Romans. 

a  2 


84  NEPI.  [CHAP.  vi. 

side,  as  it  is  situated  on  a  long  cliff-bound  tongue  of  land  between 
two  ravines  that  meet  at  its  tip,  there  was  little  need  of  walls. 
But  at  the  root  of  the  tongue,  where  the  ground  on  which  the 
city  stands  meets  the  unbroken  level  of  the  Campagna,  it  was 
most  strongly  fortified  in  ancient  times ;  and  this  necessity  con- 
tinuing throughout  the  troubled  period  of  the  middle  ages,  the 
walls  were  preserved  as  much  as  might  be,  or  replaced,  where 
dilapidated,  by  the  strong  line  of  fortifications  and  flanking 
bastions,  which  still  unite  the  ravines.  From  the  analogy  of 
other  Etruscan  cities,  it  is  probable  that  the  inhabitants  were 
not  satisfied  with  the  natural  protection  of  their  precipices,  but 
surrounded  the  city  with  walls,  which,  in  after  times,  were 
demolished,  probably  for  the  sake  of  materials  to  build  or  repair 
the  edifices  of  the  town. 

My  aim  being  simply  to  point  out  objects  of  antiquarian 
interest,  I  shall  say  little  of  the  modern  representative  of  Nepete.. 
It  is  a  small  town,  not  larger  than  Sutri;  and  its  position  is. 
very  similar,  though  the  plateau  it  occupies  rises  much  higher 
from  the  ravines,  and  the  cliffs  are  in  most  parts  more  pre- 
cipitous. As  regards  its  natural  strength  it  has  certainly  no  less, 
claim  than  Sutri  to  the  title  of  "  key  and  portal  of  Etruria."4 

In  strolling  around  the  place,  I  was  surprised  at  the  small 
number  of  tombs.  The  opposite  cliff'  of  the  ravine  to  the  south,, 
has  not  a  single  cave ;  and  on  the  other  side  of  the  town  there 
are  far  fewer  than  usual  in  the  immediate  vicinity  of  Etruscan 
sites,  which  present  facilities  for  excavation.  The  Nepesini  seem 
to  have  preferred  burying  their  dead  beneath  the  surface  of  the 
ground,  to  hollowing  out  tombs  or  niches  in  the  cliffs ;  and  the- 
table-lands  around  the  town  are  probably  burrowed  thickly  with 
sepulchres.  In  the  rock  on  which  the  modem  walls  are  based, 
close  to  the  gate  that  opens  to  Civita  Castellana,  are  traces  of' 
sepulchral  niches  ;  and  here  also  a  sewer,  like  those  at  Sutri, 
opens  in  the  cliff.  The  ravine  is  spanned  by  a  bridge,5  and 
also  by  an  aqueduct  with  a  double  tier  of  arches,  the  work  of  the 
sixteenth  century. 

No  one  should  cross  this  bridge  without  a  pause.  The  dark 
ravine,  deepening  as  it  recedes,  leading  the  eye  to  the  many- 
peaked  mass  of  Soracte  in  the  distance,  by  the  towers  and  battle- 

*  Liv.  VI.  9.  vated  appellation  than  ' '  La  Buttata  della 

6  The  stream  below  is  said  by  Nibby  to  Mola,"  or  the  Mill-force.  The  stream  in  the^ 

retain  the  classic  name  of  Falisco,  though  opposite  ravine  is  called  "  Cava-terra  *'- 

all  my  inquiries  called  forth  no  more  ele-  i.  e.,  Earth -digger. 


CHAP,  vi.]  HISTOEY    OF    NEPETE.  So 

ments  of  the  town  on  one  hand,  and  by  a  stately  stone-pine 
raising  its  spreading  crest  into  the  blue  sky  on  the  other,  is  set 
off  like  a  picture  in  its  frame.  It  is  one  of  those  scenes  in 
which  you  could  scarcely  suggest  an  improvement — in  which 
Nature  rivals  the  perfection  of  Art. 

There  is  little  to  detain  the  antiquarian  traveller  in  Nepi. 
In  the  Piazza,  beside  a  fine  fountain  of  large  size,  are  several 
Roman  altars  and  statues  found  in  the  neighbourhood,  one  of 
them  having  reference  to  the  goddess  Feronia ;  and  a  mutilated 
bas-relief  of  a  winged  lion. 

Of  the  old  inn,   "La  Fontana/'  no  one  speaks  well;    and  I 
retain  a  most  uncomfortable  remembrance  of  it.     A  new  locanda, 
"Hotel  de  la  Paix,"  has  since  been  opened,  in  which  the  tra- 
veller will  fore  well  enough — but  let  him  look  to  his  bill — suspice 
Jinem  ! 

Nepete  never  took  a  prominent  part  in  history  ;  at  least,  we 
find  little  more  than  incidental  mention  of  this  town.  It  early 
fell  under  Roman  dominion,  for  in  the  year  368,  a  few  years  after 
the  capture  of  the  City  by  the  Gauls,  we  find  it  mentioned  with 
Sutrium,  as  an  ally  of  Rome  ;  both  towns  seeking  assistance 
against  the  Etruscans,  by  whom  they  were  attacked.  Nepete 
surrendered  to  the  Etruscans,  because  a  portion  of  the  inhabi- 
tants were  better  affected  towards  their  countrymen  than  towards 
their  recent  allies  ;  but  it  was  retaken  at  the  first  assault  by 
Camillus ;  and  the  rebellious  citizens  met  their  punishment  from 
the  axes  of  the  lictors.6  It  was  made  a  Roman  colony  ten  years 
later  than  Sutrium,  or  seventeen  years  after  the  Gallic  capture  of 
the  City.7  Both  these  towns  enjoyed  municipal  honours  of  the 
highest  class,  that  is,  while  retaining  their  own  internal  adminis- 
tration, thej'  were  admitted  to  the  full  rights  and  privileges  of 
Roman  citizenship.8 

There  seems  to  have  been  some  particular  bond  of  union 
between  Nepete  and  Sutrium ;  for  they  are  frequently  coupled 
together  by  ancient  writers.9  Similar  bonds  seem  to  have  existed 
among  other  Etruscan  cities,  even  those  of  the  Confederation ;  for 
instance,  Arretium,  Cortona,  and  Perugia  appear  to  have  had  a 
minor  league  among  themselves1 — a  vinculum  in  vinculo — a  bond 
arising,  as  in  this  case,  from  proximity  and  community  of  interest. 

6  Liv.  VI.  9,  10.  8  Festus,  voce  Municipium. 

7  Yell.  Pat.  I.   14.  Livy  (VI.  21)  makes  9  Liv.  VI.  9  ;  X.  14  ;  XXVI.  34 ;  XXVII. 
it  to  be  the  same  year  as  Sutrium,  or  A.  U.       9;  XXIX.  15.     Festus  (loc.  cit.). 

-371.  »  Liv.  IX.  37 ;  Diod.  XX.  p.  773. 


86  NEPI.  [CHAP.  vi. 

Nepete,  like  Sutrium,  nas  retained  its  name,3  and  maintained 
an  existence  from  ancient  times.  Under  the  Empire,  it  seems  to 
have  been  of  inferior  consequence ; 3  but  in  the  middle  ages  it 
rose  greatly  in  importance,  and  at  one  period  exercised  no  little 
influence  over  Home  herself.4  It  is  now  an  insignificant  town, 
with  about  1500  inhabitants. 

Nepi  is  five  miles  distant  from  Monterosi,  eight  from  Civita 
Castellana,  five  from  Falleri  by  a  path  through  the  woods,  the 
line  of  the  ancient  Via  Amerina ;  seven  from  Sutri  by  a  short  cut, 
and  nine  by  the  carriage-road. 

2  It  is  called  Nepete   l>y  Livy,  and  by  tioned  among  the  smaller  towns  (iroAi'xva*). 
inscriptions,  but  Nepita  by  Strabo  (V.  p.  4  This  was  in  the  eighth  century,  when 
226),  Nepe  by  Paterculus    and  the  Peu-  Totone,  Duke  of  Nepi,  created  his  brother 
tingerian  table,  Nepet  by  Pliny  (III.    8),  Pope,  under  the  title  of  Constantino  II., 
Nepeta  by  Ptolemy  (Geog.  p.  72),  Nepisby  and  maintained  him  in   the   seat   of  St. 
Frontinus  (do  Col.),  Nepetus  by  Dionysius  Peter  for  thirteen  months.      "Nepi  seems 
(XIII.  ap.  Steph.  J3yz.).  at  that  epoch  to  have  risen  like  a  meteor, 

3  Strabo  (V.  p.  226)  classes  Sutrium  with  and  rapidly  to  have  sunk  to  her  former 
Arretium,  Perusia,  and  Volsinii,  as  cities  condition." — Nibby,  voce  Nepi. 

v6\fis)  of  Etruria  ;  while  Nepete  is  men- 


PLAN    OF    FALERII. 


From  Canind. 


CHAPTER    VII. 

CIVITA    CASTELLANA.— FALERII  (VETERES}. 

Faliscis, 
Mcenia  contigimus  victa,  Camille,  tibi. — OVID.  Amor. 

Poi  giunsi  in  una  valle  incolta  e  fiera, 

Di  ripe  cinta  e  spaventose  tane  ; 

Che  nel  mezzo  su  un  sasso  havea  uu  castello, 

Forte,  e  ben  posto,  e  a  inaraviglia  bello. — AKIOSTO. 

FROM  Nepi,  which  is  thirty  miles  from  Rome,  the  high  road 
runs  direct  to  Civita  Castellana,  a  distance  of  nearly  eight  miles  ; 
but  to  the  traveller  on  horse  or  foot  I  would  recommend  a  route, 
by  which  he  will  save  two  miles.  On  passing  the  bridge  of  Nepi, 
let  him  turn  immediately  to  the  right ;  a  mile  of  lane-scenery 
with  fine  views  of  Nepi  will  carry  him  to  Castel  di  Santa  Elia,  a 
small  village,  which  looks  much  like  an  Etruscan  site,  and  was 
perhaps  a  castellum  dependent  on  Nepete.  The  road  to  it  and 
beyond  it  seems  in  parts  to  have  been  ancient,  cut  through  the 
tufo  ;  there  are  few  tombs  by  its  side,  but  here  and  there  portions 
of  masonry,  serving  as  fences  to  the  road,  may  be  observed, 
which  are  of  ancient  blocks,  often  found  in  such  situations.  He 
then  enters  on  a  bare  green  down,  rich  in  the  peculiar  beauties 
of  the  Campagna.  A  ravine  yawns  on  either  hand.  That  on  the 
right,  dark  with  wood,  is  more  than  usually  deep,  gloonry,  and 
grand.  Be}rond  the  other  runs  the  high  road  to  Civita  ;  and  in 


88  CIVITA    CASTELLAXA.  [CHAP.  vii. 

that  direction  the  plain — in  winter  an  uniform  sheet  of  dark  rich 
brown  from  the  oak-woods  which  cover  it,  studded  here  and 
there  with  some  tower  or  spire  shooting  up  from  the  foliage — 
stretches  to  the  foot  of  the  Ciminian  Mount,  Ronciglione  and 
Capraruola  gleam  in  sunshine  on  its  slopes,  each  beneath  one  of 
its  dark  wooded  peaks.  The  towers  of  Civita  Castellana  rise 
before  him.  Towns  shine  out  from  the  distant  mountains  of 
Umbria  and  Sabina.  The  plain  on  the  right  is  variegated  in 
hue,  and  broken  in  surface.  Soracte  towers  in  lonely  majesty 
in  the  midst ;  and  the  chain  of  Apennines  in  grey  or  snow-capped 
masses  billows  along  the  horizon.  A  goatherd,  shaggy  with 
skins,  stands  leaning  on  his  staff,  watching  the  passing  traveller ; 
and  with  his  flock  and  huge  baying  dogs,  occupies  the  foreground 
of  the  picture.  Just  so  has  Dante  beautifully  drawn  it — 

"  Le  capre 

Tacite  all'  ombra  inentre  che  '1  sol  ferve, 
Guardate  dal  pastor  che  'n  su  la  verga 
Poggiato  s'  e,  e  lor  poggiato  serve." — Purg.  xxvu.  70. 

All  in  the  shade 

The  goats  lie  silent,  'neath  the  fervid  noon. 
Watched  by  the  goatherd,  who  upon  his  staff 
Stands  leaning  ;  and  thus  resting,  tendeth  them. 

A  stone-piled  cross  by  the  wa3r-side,  recording  that  here 

"  Some  shrieking  victim  hath 
Poured  forth  his  blood  beneath  the  assassin's  knife," 

seenis  strangely  at  variance  with  the  beauty  and  calm  of  the 
scenery. 

To  reach  Civita  Castellana  by  this  road,  you  must  cross  the 
wide  and  deep  ravine  which  forms  its  southern  boundary.  The 
high-road,  however,  continues  along  the  ridge,  approaching  the 
town  by  level  ground,  and  enters  it  beneath  the  walls  of  the 
octagonal  fortress — the  masterpiece  of  Sangallo,  and  the  political 
Bastille  of  Rome,  when  the  Pope  retained  his  temporal  sove- 
reignty. 

What  traveller  who  has  visited  Rome,  before  the  days  of  rail- 
roads, has  not  passed  through  Civita  Castellana?  There  is 
scarcely  any  object  in  Italy  better  known  than  its  bridge — none 
assuredly  is  more  certain  to  find  a  place  in  every  tourist's  sketch- 
book ;  and  well  does  it  merit  it.  Though  little  more  than  a 
century  old,  this  bridge  or  viaduct  is  worthy  of  the  magnificence 


CHAP,  vii.]       FKAGMENTS    OF    THE    ETRUSCAX    WALLS.  89 

of  Imperial  Rome  ;  and  combines  with  the  ravine,  the  town  on  its 
verge,  the  distant  Cauipagna,  Soracte,  and  the  Apennines,  to 
form  one  of  the  choicest  unions  of  nature  and  art  to  be  found 
in  that  land  where,  above  all  others,  their  beauties  seem  most 
closely  wedded.  Yet  beyond  this,  little  or  nothing  is  known  of 
Civita  Castellana.  Not  one  in  five  hundred  who  passes  through 
it,  and  halts  awhile  to  admire  the  superb  view  from  the  bridge,  or 
even  descends  from  his  carriage  to  transfer  it  to  his  sketch-book, 
ever  visits  the  tombs  by  the  Ponte  Terrano.  Still  fewer  descend 
to  the  Ponte  di  Treia  ;  and  not  one  in  a  thousand  makes  the  tour 
of  the  ravines,  or  thinks  of  this  as  a  site  abounding  in  Etruscan 
antiquities.  My  aim  is  to  direct  attention  to  the  objects  of 
antiquarian  interest  with  which  Civita  Castellana  is  surrounded. 

Very  near  the  bridge,  and  on  the  verge  of  the  cliff  on  which 
the  town  is  built,  is  a  portion  of  the  ancient  walls,  of  tufo,  in 
emplccton,  seventeen  courses  in  height,  and  precisely  similar  in 
the  size  and  arrangement  of  its  blocks,  to  the  walls  of  Sutri  and 
Nepi,  already  described.  It  forms  an  angle  at  the  verge  of  the 
precipice,  and  is  nothing  more  than  a  revctemcnt  to  the  ground 
within.1 

If  you  here  enter  the  town,  and  continue  down  the  long  street 
on  the  left,  you  will  arrive  at  the  nunnery  of  St.  Agata,  at  the 
north-east  angle  of  the  plateau,  on  which  Civita  is  built.  By  its 
side  is  a  road  cut  in  the  rock,  which  a  very  little  experience  will 
tell  you  is  Etruscan.  It  has  on  one  side  a  water-course  or  gutter 
sunk  in  the  tufo,  which,  after  running  high  above  the  road  for 
some  distance,  discharges  its  waters  over  the  precipice.  There 
are  tombs  also — genuine  Etruscan  tombs — on  either  hand,  though 
the  forms  of  some  are  almost  obliterated,  and  others  are  sadly 
injured  by  the  purposes  they  are  now  made  to  serve — shepherds' 
huts,  cattle-stalls,  and  hog-sties.  They  are  mostly  in  the  cliff, 
which,  as  the  road  descends  rapidl}7  to  the  valley,  rises  high 
above  your  head.  Here,  too,  opening  in  the  cliff,  are  the  mouths 
of  several  sewers,  similar  to  tbose  at  Sutri  and  the  Etruscan  sites 
described.2 


1  Canina    gives    illustrations    of    three  blocks  in  alternate  courses, 
pieces  of  the  walls  on  this  north  side  of  -  These  sewers  are  about  6  ft.  in  height, 

the  ancient  city,  and  represents  them  all  2  ft.  6  in.  wide  at  the  bottom,  tapering  to 

as  showing  the  ends  only  of  the  blocks.  1  ft.  6  in.  at  the  top.     One  runs  into  the 

Etruria  Marit.  tav.  6.     All  the  fragments  rocks  some  little  distance,  and  then  rises 

which  I  saw  were  certainly  of  that  masonry  in  an  upright  square  chimney,  into  which 

•which  I  have  designated  as  emplccton,  and  another  passage  opens  horizontally  above, 
which  shows  the   ends  and  sides  of  the 


90  CIVITA    CASTELLANA.  [CHAP.  vii. 

It  was  probably  these  subterranean  passages  being  ignorantly 
mistaken  for  the  ciiiiiciilns  of  Camillas  that  gave  rise  to  the  notion 
of  this  being  the  site  of  Veii ;  but  such  sewers  are  to  be  found 
beneath  the  walls  of  every  Etruscan  city  in  the  tufo  district  of 
the  land,  where  the  rock  would  admit  of  easy  excavation,  and  are 
found  also  on  all  the  ancient  sites  of  the  Campagna,  even  in  the 
Capitoline,  Palatine,  and  Aventine  hills  of  Home.  Here  you  are 
at  the  extreme  angle  of  the  plateau  of  Civita  Castellana ;  the 
ravine  spanned  by  the  celebrated  bridge  opens  on  one  hand,  uhile 
another  and  wider  glen  lies  011  the  other,  bounding  the  plateau  to 
the  east.15  The  road  passes  two  ruined  gateways  of  the  middle 
ages,  and  winds  down  into  this  valley,  through  which  flows  the 
Treia,  spanned  by  a  neat  bridge  of  three  arches.  Here  stands  a 
large  building  in  ruins  ;  the  table-land  of  Civita  rises  above  your 
head  in  a  range  of  steep,  lofty  cliffs  of  red  tufo,  based  on  a 
stratum  of  white  sandy  breccia.  At  the  brow  of  the  cliff,  just 
above  the  bridge,  is  a  long  line  of  wall  of  the  middle  ages,  in  one 
place  based  on  more  ancient  masonry  of  larger  blocks,  evidently 
part  of  the  Etruscan  walls,  the  very  "moenia  alta "  sung  by 
Ovid.4  A  sewer  in  the  cliff'  beneath  them  rivals  them  in  anti- 
quity. 

This  line  of  cliff  runs  due  north  and  south  for  some  distance — 
it  then  suddenly  turns  at  right  angles,  where  a  glen  opens  to  the 
west,  and  the  streamlet  of  the  Saleto,  or,  as  it  is  also  called,  the 
Ricano,  issues  from  it  to  unite  its  waters  with  those  of  the  Treia. 
It  is  a  lonely  and  wild,  but  attractive  spot.  No  sign  of  man  save 
in  the  stepping-stones  over  the  stream,  or  in  the  narrow  track 
through  the  meadows  or  brushwood.  Not  a  sound  to  remind  you. 
of  the  neighbourhood  of  the  town  over  your  head.  The  lofty 
cliffs  on  either  hand  bare  their  broad  faces  with  a  contrasted 
expression — smiling  or  scowling  as  they  catch  or  lose  the  sun. 

Here  it  is  advisable  to  cross  the  stream  to  get  a  better  view  of 
the  cliffs  of  the  city.  Soon  after  entering  this  glen  you  may  per- 
ceive a  portion  of  ancient  wall  sunk  in  a  hollow  of  the  cliff,  and 


3  Gell  points  out  this  angle  of  the  cliff  distant,  proving  that  it  was  not  confined 

pierced  by  tombs  and  sewers  as  the  site  of  to  a  mere  corner  of  the  plateau,  but  ex- 

the  ancient  city  (which  he  supposes  to  have  tended  over  the  whole  area,  whose  limits, 

been  Fescennium),  intimating  his  opinion  are  defined  by  natural  boundaries,  and  was 

that  the  city  occupied  this  corner  of  the  thus  one  of  the  largest  cities  in  the  south 

pljiteau  only  (I.   p.   292).      Had  he  made  of    Etruria.       This    peninsular   platform, 

the  tour  of  the  height  of  Civita  Castellana,  which  he  mistook  for  the  site  of  the  entire 

he  would  have  observed  unequivocal  traces  city,  was  probably  that  of  the  Arx. 
of  the  ancient  city  in  several  places  widely  4  Ovid.  Amor.  III.,  Eleg.  xui.  34. 


CHAP,  vii.]      FRAGMENTS  OF  THE  ETRUSCAN  WALLS.  91 

filling  a  natural  gap.  You  may  count  as  many  as  twelve  courses. 
A  little  beyond  you  meet  with  another  piece  in  a  similar  situa- 
tion, and  of  five  or  six  courses.  You  cannot  inspect  the  masonry 
as  you  could  wish,  on  account  of  the  height  of  the  cliff,  which 
rises  more  than  two  hundred  feet  above  your  head,  and,  as  the 
wall  is  at  the  very  brink  of  the  precipice,  it  is  obviously  not  to  be 
viewed  from  above.  A  practised  e3re,  however,  has  no  difficulty 
in  determining  its  character — the  difference  between  it  and  the 
mediaeval  masonry,  a  long  line  of  which  presently  follows,  is  most 
decided.  Below  this  wall,  and  half-way  up  the  cliff,  are  many 
tombs,  Avith  traces  also  of  sewers. 

At  the  Ponte  Saleto,  where  you  meet  the  short  cut  from  Civita 
to  Nepi,  you  cross  the  stream,  and  take  the  road  to  the  city, 
passing  many  tombs  hollowed  in  the  rock,  resembling  those  near 
the  Ponte  Terrano,  which  will  presently  be  described.  The  cliff 
here  turns  to  the  north-west,  and  a  path  runs  along  its  brow,  out- 
ride the  modern  walls.  On  this  side  there  is  rather  a  natural 
fosse  than  a  ravine,  for  the  cliff  rises  nearly  one  hundred  feet 
above  the  lower  part  of  the  isthmus  which  unites  the  plateau  of 
Civita  with  the  plain  of  the  Campagna.  It  is  probable  that 
wherever  the  cliffs  were  not  sufficiently  steep  they  were  scarped 
by  art,  to  increase  the  natural  strength  of  the  position — no  diffi- 
cult task,  as  tufo  has  a  tendency  to  split  vertically.  Remains  of 
the  ancient  walls  may  be  observed  in  the  foundations  of  the 
modern,  from  which  they  are  easily  distinguished  by  the  superior 
massiveness  of  the  blocks,  by  their  different  arrangement,  and  by 
the  absence  of  cement.  It  will  be  remarked  that  all  these  frag- 
ments of  ancient  walling  either  exist  in  situations  at  the  verge  of 
the  precipice,  most  difficult  of  access,  or  serve  as  foundations  to 
more  modern  walls ;  whence  it  may  be  inferred  that  the  rest  of 
the  ancient  fortifications  have  been  applied  to  other  purposes ; 
and  a  glance  at  the  houses  in  the  town  suffices  to  show  that,  like 
Sutri,  Civita  is  in  great  measure  built  of  ancient  materials. 

Passing  round  the  castle  of  Sangallo,  you  re-enter  the  town  by 
an  adjoining  gate,  where  are  traces  of  an  ancient  road  cut  in  the 
rock  at  the  verge  of  the  precipice,  which  bounds  the  city  on  the 
north  ;  its  character  marked  by  the  tombs  at  its  side.  The  Avail 
of  the  city  must  here  have  been  on  the  top  of  the  rock  in  which 
the  tombs  are  hollowed  and  the  road  sunk ;  and  it  seems  most 
probable  that  here  was  the  site  of  a  gate,  and  that  the  modern- 
fortress  stands  without  the  walls  of  the  ancient  cit}'.  It  is  curious, 
to  observe  how  close  to  their  cities  the  Etruscans  buried  their 


92  CIVITA    CASTELLANA.  [CHAP.  vn. 

dead — even  up  to  the  very  gates ;  though  very  rarely  within  the 
walls,  as  was  the  custom  in  some  of  the  cities  of  Greece,  and 
occasionally  permitted  at  Home.5  These  tombs  are  large  conical 
niches  or  pits,  eight  or  nine  feet  high,  by  six  in  diameter.  They 
are  very  common  in  the  tufo  district  of  Etruria,  and  are  also  met 
with  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  ancient  cities  of  Latium,  in  the 
Campagna  south  of  the  Tiber,  and  at  Syracuse  and  other  ancient 
sites  in  Sicily.  Some  have  supposed  them  depositories  for 
grain,6  and  were  they  found  only  as  close  to  ancient  cities  as  in 
this  case,  this  would  be  probable  enough  ;  but  around  Civita 
there  are  others  in  very  different  situations ;  and  having  seen 
them  on  other  Etruscan  sites,  far  outside  the  ancient  walls,  and 
in  the  midst  of  undoubted  tombs,  I  have  not  the  smallest  doubt 
of  their  sepulchral  character.  Besides,  they  have,  almost  invari- 
abl}r,  above  the  cone  a  small  niche  of  the  usual  sepulchral  form, 
as  if  for  a  cippns,  or  for  a  votive  offering.  I  think  it  not  unlikely 
that  they  contained  figures  of  stone  or  terra-cotta,  probably  the 
effigies  of  the  deceased,  which  were  at  the  same  time  cinerary 
urns,  holding  their  ashes, — such  figures  as  have  been  found  in 
several  cemeteries  of  Etruria. 

Instead  of  entering  the  town,  follow  the  brink  of  the  precipice 
to  the  Ponte  Terrano — a  bridge  which  spans  the  ravine,  where  it 
contracts  and  becomes  a  mere  bed  to  the  Rio  Maggiore.  It  has 
a  single  arch  in  span,  but  a  double  one  in  height,  the  one  which 
carries  the  road  across  being  raised  above  another  of  more 
ancient  date.  Over  all  runs  an  aqueduct  of  modern  construction, 
which  spares  the  Civitonici  the  trouble  of  fetching  water  from  the 
bottom  of  the  ravines. 

The  cliffs  above  and  below  the  bridge  are  perforated  in  every 
direction  with  holes — doorways  innumerable,  leading  into  spacious 
tombs — sepulchral  niches  of  various  forms  and  sizes — here,  rows 
of  squares,  side  by  side,  like  the  port-holes  of  a  ship  of  war — 
there,  long  and  shallow  recesses,  one  over  the  other,  like  an  open 
cupboard,  or  a  book-case,  where  the  dead  were  literally  laid  upon 


5  For  this  custom  in  Greece,  see  Becker,  by  the  Greeks  of  Cappadocia  and  Thrace. 
Charicles.   Excurs.    sc.  IX.      At  Rome  it  Varro,  de  Re  Rust.  I.  cap.  57.     But  these 
was  forbidden  by  the  Twelve  Tables  to  bury  Pollux    (Onomast.     IX.    cap.     5.    s.    49) 
or  burn  the  dead  within  the  walls,  but  the  mentions  among  the  parts  of  a  city,  with 
privilege  was  occasionally  granted  to  a  few,  cellars,     wells,     bridges,     gates,     vaults  ; 
illustrious  for  their  deeds  or  virtues.     Cic.  whence  we  may  conclude  they  were  within 
<le  Leg.  II.  23.     Pint.  Publicola.  the  walls.     Such  pits  are  still  known  in 

6  The  corn-pits  for  which  these  tombs  Sicily  by  the  name  of  Sill. 
Lave  been  taken  were  called  arttpol  or  aipoi 


CHAP,  vii.]  THE    ETEUSCAN    CEMETERY.  93 

the  shelf, — now  again,  upright  like  pigeon-holes, — or  still  taller 
and  narrower,  like  loop-holes  in  a  fortification.  This  seems  to 
have  been  the  principal  necropolis  of  the  Etruscan  city.  If  you 
enter  any  of  the  tombs  in  the  faces  of  the  low  cliffs  into  which 
the  ground  breaks,  you  will  find  one  general  plan  prevailing, 
characteristic  of  the  site.  Unlike  those  of  Sutri,  where  the  door 
opens  at  once  into  the  tomb,  it  here  leads  into  a  small  ante- 
chamber, seldom  as  much  as  five  feet  square,  which  has  an 
oblong  hole  in  the  ceiling,  running  up  like  a  chimney  to  the  level 
of  the  ground  above.  The  tomb  itself  is  generally  spacious — 
from  twelve  to  twenty  feet  square,  or  of  an  oblong  form — never 
circular — mostl}r  with  a  massive  square  pillar  in  the  centre,  hewn 
out  of  the  rock,  or,  in  many  cases,  with  a  thick  partition-wall  of 
rock  instead,  dividing  the  tomb  into  two  equal  parts.  The  front 
face  of  this,  whether  it  be  pillar  or  projecting  wall,  is  generally 
hollowed  out,  sometimes  in  recesses,  long  and  shallow,  and  one 
over  the  other,  to  contain  bodies,  sometimes  in  upright  niches, 
for  cinerary  urns  or  votive  offerings.  Around  the  walls  are  long 
recesses  for  bodies,  in  double  or  triple  tiers,  just  as  in  the 
catacombs  and  tombs  of  the  early  Christians.  The  door-posts 
are  frequently  grooved  to  hold  the  stone  slabs  with  which  the 
tombs  were  closed.  The  chimney  in  the  ceiling  of  the  ante- 
chamber probably  served  several  purposes — as  a  spiramen,  or 
vent-hole,  to  let  off  the  effluvium  of  the  decaying  bodies  or  burnt 
ashes — as  a  means  of  pouring  in  libations  to  the  Manes  of  the 
dead — and  as  a  mode  of  entrance  on  emergency  after  the  doors 
were  closed.  That  they  were  used  for  the  latter  purpose  is 
evident,  for  in  the  sides  of  these  chimneys  may  be  seen  small 
niches,  about  a  foot  or  eighteen  inches  one  above  the  other, 
manifestly  cut  for  the  hands  and  feet.  These  chimne3Ts  were 
probably  left  open  for  some  time,  till  the  effluvium  had  passed 
off,  and  then  were  covered  in,  generally  with  large  hewn  blocks. 
Similar  trap-doorways  to  tombs  are  found  occasionally  at  Corneto, 
Ferento,  Cervetri,  and  elsewhere  in  Etruria,  but  nowhere  in 
such  numbers  as  at  Civita  Castellana  and  Falleri,  where  they 
form  a  leading  characteristic  of  the  sepulchres.7 

A  few  of  these  tombs  have  a  vestibule  or  open  chamber  in 
front,  sometimes  with  a  cornice  in  relief,  benches  of  rock  against 

7  I  have  opened  tombs  with  such  entrances  had  similar  trap-doors,   b       they  had   no 

atTeuchirain  the  Cyrenaica ;  and  the  tombs  other  mode  of  entrance,  the  facade  having 

of  Phrygia,  described  by  Steuart  (Ancient  merely  a  false  doorway,  as  in  the  tombs  of 

Monuments  of  Lydia  and  Phrygia,  pi.  vii. ),  Castel  d'Asso  and  Norchia. 


94  CIYITA    CASTELLANA.  [CHAP.  vn. 

the  walls  for  the  support  of  sarcophagi,  and  niches  recessed 
ahove,  probably  for  votive  offerings.  In  one  instance  there  is  a 
row  of  these  niches,  five  on  each  side  the  doorway,  high  and 
narrow,  like  loopholes  for  musketry,  save  that  they  do  not 
perforate  the  rock.  Sometimes  a  large  sarcophagus  is  hollowed 
out  of  a  mass  of  rock.  It  is  not  uncommon  to  find  graves  of  the 
same  form  sunk  in  the  rock  in  front  of  the  tomb,  probably  for  the 
bodies  of  the  slaves  of  the  family,  who,  in  death  as  in  life,  seem 
to  have  lain  at  their  masters'  doors. 

In  the  front  wall  of  the  tomb  next  to  that  with  the  row  of 
niches,  is  an  inscription  in  Etruscan  letters, — "  Tucthnu  "- 
which  I  do  not  recognise  as  an  Etruscan  name.  It  is  probable 
that  this  is  but  part  of  the  original  inscription,  the  rest  being 
obliterated.  The  letters  retain  traces  of  the  red  paint  with 
which,  as  on  the  sarcophagi  and  urns  generally,  they  were  filled, 
to  render  them  more  legible.  No  other  tomb  could  I  find  on  this 
site  with  an  Etruscan  inscription  on  its  exterior;  it  does  not  seem 
to  have  been  the  custom  in  this  part  of  Etruria,  as  in  some 
necropoles  north  of  the  Ciminian,  to  engrave  epitaphs  on  the 
rock-hewn  facades  of  the  sepulchres. 

On  the  inner  wall  of  a  large  tomb,  close  to  the  Ponte  Terrano, 
is  an  Etruscan  inscription  of  two  lines  rudely  graven  on  the  rock, 
and  in  unusually  large  letters,  about  a  foot  in  height.8  It  is  over 
one  of  the  long  body-niches,  which  are  hollowed  in  the  walls  of 
this  tomb  in  three  tiers,  and  is  of  importance  as  it  proves  these 
niches  to  be  of  Etruscan  formation,  and  not  always  early 
Christian,  as  many  have  imagined.  Further  proof  of  this  is  given 
by  the  tombs  of  Cervetri — that  of  the  Tarquins,  for  example.9 

From  the  tombs  on  this  site  we  learn  that  it  was  the  custom 
here  to  bury  rather  than  to  burn  the  dead — the  latter  rite  seems 
to  have  been  more  prevalent  at  Sutrium.  These  differences  are 
worthy  of  notice,  as  every  Etruscan  city  had  its  peculiar  mode  of 
sepulture ;  though  there  is  in  general  much  affinity  among  those 
in  the  same  district,  and  in  similar  situations. 

The  Ponte  Terrano  is  a  modern  structure  on  an  ancient 
basement.  The  northern  pier,  to  the  height  of  ten  courses  and 
to  the  width  of  twenty-three  feet,  is  of  emplecton  masonry — 


8  It  is  given  by  Buonarroti  (ap.  Dempst.  9  Padre  Garrucci  (Ann.  Inst.   1860,  p. 

II.,  tav.  82,  p.  26),  who  visited  it  in  1691,  269,  tav.  G.)  gives  several  other  inscriptions 

and  by  Gori  and  Lanzi.     Mr.  Ainsley  gives  from  tombs  on  this  spot,  which  he  pro- 

a  different  reading.     Bull.   Inst.  1845,  p.  nounces   to    be   in   the    ancient   Faliscan 

139.  character  and  language. 


CHAP,  vn.]  BEIDGE3    AND    RAVINES.  95 

Etruscan  in  style  and  in  the  size  and  arrangement  of  the  blocks. 
Above  it  is  small  irregular  masonry  of  modern  times.  The 
opposite  pier  is  of  rock,  overhung  with  ivy  and  ilex.  The  lower 
arch  is  of  the  middle  ages,  so  that  the  bridge  unites  in  itself  the 
work  of  three  distinct  epochs.  Its  antiquity  has  scarcely  been 
noticed  by  former  writers.1 

Whoever  would  see  the  chief  beauties  of  Civita  Castellana, 
should  descend  into  the  deep  ravine  on  this  side  of  the  town. 
The  most  convenient  path  is  near  the  great  bridge  or  viaduct. 
It  is  a  zigzag  track,  cut  through  the  tufo,  and  of  ancient  forma- 
tion, as  is  proved  by  the  water-troughs  at  its  side,  and  by  the 
tombs  in  the  rocks. 

From  the  bottom  of  the  descent  the  bridge  is  seen  to  great 
advantage,  spanning  the  ravine  with  its  stupendous  double  tier  of 
arches,  with  a  grandeur  that  few  viaducts,  save  the  Pont  du 
Gard,  can  surpass.  A  mimic  cataract  rushes  down  the  cliff  to 
join  the  stream — a  rustic  mill  or  two  nestling  beneath  the  bridge, 
are  the  only  other  buildings  visible,  and  contrast  their  humilit}' 
with  its  majesty,  as  if  to  show  at  one  glance  the  loftiest  and 
meanest  efforts  of  man's  constructive  power.  Whoever  has  seen 
the  magnificent  Tajo  of  Honda,  in  the  south  of  Spain,  will 
recognise  immediately  some  resemblance  here  ;  but  this  ravine  is 
by  no  means  so  profound — the  bridge  is  of  a  different  character, 
wider,  lighter,  less  solid,  and  massive — and  here  are  no  cascades, 
and  lines  of  ivy-grown  mills,  as  on  the  Rio  Verde.  Nevertheless, 
there  is  much  in  the  general  features  of  the  ravine  to  recall  to 
the  memory  the  glorious  Tajo  de  Ronda. 

The  cliff's,  both  above  and  below  the  bridge,  are  excavated  into 
tombs  and  niches  of  various  forms,  but  few  have  retained  their 
original  shape.  It  must  be  confessed  that  the  Etruscans  often 
displayed  great  taste  in  selecting  the  sites  of  their  sepulchres. 
Where  could  be  found  a  more  impressive,  a  more  appropriate 
cemetery,  than  a  ravine  like  this — a  vast  grave  in  itself,  sunk  two 
hundred  and  fifty  feet  below  the  surface — full  of  grandeur  and 
gloom  ? 

The  ravine,  moreover,  is  fertile  in  the  picturesque.  Ascend 
the  course  of  the  stream,  and  just  above  a  rustic  bridge  you 
obtain  a  fine  view  of  the  Ponte  Terrano  spanning  the  glen  in  the 
distance,  the  Castle  cresting  the  precipice  on  the  left,  and  a  ruined 
tower  frowning  down  upon  you  from  the  opposite  height.  The 

1  Cell  and  even  Nibby  seem  to  have  overlooked  it.  Westphal  alone  (Romiscae  Kam- 
pagne,  p.  139)  mentions  it  as  ancient. 


96  CIVITA   OASTELLANA.  [CHAP.  vn. 

cliffs  rise  on  either  hand,  of  yellow  and  red  tufo,  dashed  with 
grey,  white,  or  brown,  with  occasional  ledges  of  green  ;  the 
whole  crested  with  ilex,  and  draped  here  and  there  with  ivy, 
clematis,  and  wild  vine.  Below  the  great  bridge  you  have  still 
more  of  the  picturesque.  The  walls  of  warm  yellow  cliff,  varie- 
gated with  foliage,  here  approach  so  close  as  to  make  this  a  mere 
chasm — the  fragment  of  Etruscan  walling  crowns  the  precipice 
on  the  right — huge  masses  of  cliff  fallen  from  above,  lie  about 
in  wild  confusion,  almost  choking  the  hollow — tall  trees  shoot  up 
from  among  them,  by  the  banks  of  the  stream,  but  are  dwarfed 
into  shrubs  by  the  vast  height  of  the  all-shadowing  cliffs. 

There  is  no  lack  of  accommodation  at  Civita  Castellana.  The 
principal  inn,  La  Posta,  has  received  a  bad  name  on  account  of 
the  alleged  extortion  and  insolence  of  the  landlord.  At  La  Croce 
Bianca,  however,  the  traveller  will  find  comfortable  accommoda- 
tion, civility  and  attention.  Sausages  are  not  now  famous  here, 
as  in  ancient  times.2  Civita  Castellana  contains  scarcely  more 
than  two  thousand  souls,  and  extends  over  but  a  small  part  of 
the  area  occupied  by  the  Etruscan  city ;  which  is  now  for  the 
most  part  covered  with  gardens  and  vineyards.  This  city,  from 
its  size,  must  have  been  of  considerable  importance  among  those 
of  Southern  Etruria.  It  was  formerly  supposed  to  be  Veii,  and 
there  is  an  inscription  in  the  cathedral,  calling  the  church 
"  Veiorum  Basilica;"  but  this  opinion  has  not  the  slightest 
foundation — its  distance  from  Rome  being  three  times  greater 
than  that  of  Veii,  as  mentioned  by  Dionysius.3  Gell  supposes  it 
to  have  been  Fescennium,  but  gives  no  reason  for  his  opinion,  in 
which  he  follows  Miiller  and  Nardini.4  There  is  much  more 
probability  that  it  is  the  ancient  Falerium,  or  Falerii,  so  pro- 
minent in  the  early  history  of  the  Roman  Republic.  My  reasons, 
for  holding  this  opinion  will  be  given  in  the  next  chapter,  when  I 
treat  of  the  ruined  town,  a  few  miles  distant,  now  called  Fallen. 

2  Varro  (L.  L.   V.  Ill)  says  they  were       35. 

called  Falisci  venires.      So  also   Martial.  3  Dion.  Hal.  II.  p.  116,  ed.  Sylb. 

IV.  epig.,  46.   8.  ;   cf.  Stat.   Silv.  IV.  9.  4  Gell,  I.  p.  290. 


PORTA    DI     GIOVE,    FALLERI. 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

FALLEKL— FALERII  (NOVI]. 

Ebbi  improvviso  un  gran  sepolcro  scorto,  .  .  . 

E  in  brevi  note  altrui  vi  si  sponea 

II  nome  e  la  virtii  del  guerrier  morto. 

lo  non  sapea  da  tal  vista  levarmi, 

Miraudo  ora  le  lettre,  ed  ora  i  marmi. — TASSO. 

Gaudent  Italise  sublimibus  oppida  muris. — CLAUDIAN. 

THE  road  from  Ponte  Terrano  leads  to  Santa  Maria  di  Falleri, 
or  Falari,  a  ruined  convent  on  another  ancient  site,  about  four 
miles  from  Civita  Castellana.  After  two  or  three  miles  over  the 
heath,  you  reach  the  Fosso  de'  Tre  Camini,  and  where  you  cross 
the  stream  are  traces  of  an  ancient  bridge.  Just  before  coming 
in  sight  of  Falleri,  you  reach  a  tomb,  which,  as  you  come  suddenly 
upon  it,  cannot  fail  to  strike  you  with  admiration.  A  wide  recess 
in  the  cliif  is  occupied  by  a  spacious  portico  of  three  large  arches, 
hewn  out  of  the  rock,  and  with  a  bold  cornice  of  masonry  above, 

VOL.    I.  H 


98 


FALLEBI. 


[CHAP,  viu. 


of  massive  tufo  blocks,  now  somewhat  dislocated,  and  concealed 
by  the  overhanging  foliage.  A  door  in  the  inner  wall  of  the 
portico,  of  the  usual  Etruscan  form,  slightly  narrowing  upwards, 
opens  into  the  sepulchre.  Sepulchre  !  to  an  unpractised  eye  the 
structure  looks  far  more  like  a  habitation ;  and  in  truth  it  is  an 
imitation  of  an  ancient  abode.  The  portico  is  surrounded  bj" 


PORTICOE1>    TOMB    WITH    CORNICE    OF    MASONRY,    FALLERI. 

an  elegant  cornice,  carved  in  the  rock ;  the  door,  to  which  you 
ascend  by  steps,  is  ornamented  with  mouldings  in  relief.  Within 
it,  is  a  small  antechamber,  with  the  usual  chimney  or  funnel  in 
its  ceiling;  and  then  you  enter  a  spacious,  gloomy  sepulchre.  Its 
flat  ceiling  is  supported  in  the  midst  by  a  massive  square  pillar, 
in  the  face  of  which  are  three  long,  shallow  niches,  one  over  the 
other ;  and  in  the  walls  of  the  tomb  are  smaller  niches  for  urns 
or  votive  offerings.  Under  the  portico  the  rock  is  cut  into 
benches  for  sarcophagi,  and  long  holes  are  sunk  in  the  ground 
for  the  reception  of  bodies,  which,  with  the  exception  of  being 
covered  over  with  tiles,  must  have  been  exposed  to  the  passers- 
by,  as  the  arches  of  the  portico  could  hardly  have  been  closed. 


.CHAP,  viii.]       ETEUSCAN    TOMB    WITH   A   PORTICO.  99 

The  cornice  around  the  portico  and  the  mouldings  of  the  door 
are  almost  Roman  in  character ;  }ret  in  form  and  arrangement 
the  tomb  is  too  nearly  allied  to  the  Etruscan  tombs  of  this 
district  to  be  of  Roman  construction.  It  is  probable  that  the 
Romans  appropriated  it  to  their  own  dead ;  and  possible  that 
they  added  these  decorations ;  but,  though  an  architectural 
adornment  be  proved  to  have  been  used  by  that  people,  it  by  no 
means  follows  that  they  originated  it.  Had  not  history  in- 
formed us  that  the  Corinthian  capital  was  of  Greek  origin,  the 
frequency  of  it  in  the  ancient  buildings  of  Rome  and  Italy,  and  its 
rarity  in  Greece,  might  have  led  us  to  a  different  conclusion. 
Now,  we  know  almost  nothing  of  Etruscan  architecture  from 
written  records ;  and  therefore  when  we  find,  in  a  position  which 
favours  an  Etruscan  origin,  architectural  decorations  analogous 
to  those  used  by  the  Romans,  it  were  illogical  to  pronounce  them 
necessarily  to  be  the  work  of  the  latter.  On  the  contrary,  it  were 
quite  as  reasonable  to  regard  them  as  Etruscan,  knowing  that, 
before  the  time  of  the  Empire  at  least,  the  Romans  were  mere 
imitators  of  the  Etruscans  and  Greeks  in  the  arts,  servile  enough 
in  that  respect — imitatores,  servum  pecus  ! — however  they  ma}' 
have  taken  the  lead  of  the  world  in  arms.  Nevertheless,  whether 
Etruscan  or  Roman,  the  tomb  is  probably  of  a  late  period. 

This  is  the  only  instance  known  of  an  Etruscan  tomb  with  a 
cornice  of  masonry,  and  it  was  thought  to  be  unique  also  as 
regards  its  portico  ;  but  I  was  fortunate  enough  to  discover  a 
group  of  tombs  of  similar  charcter,  very  near  this,  which  were 
before  unknown.1 

Among  them  is  one  which  seems  also  to  have  had  a  portico, 
but  the  cliff  out  of  which  it  was  hewn  is  broken  away.  What 
now  forms  its  front,  has  been  the  inner  wall,  if  not  of  a  portico, 
of  an  antechamber  or  outer  tomb,  and  on  it,  to  my  astonishment, 
I  found  a  Latin  inscription,  in  very  neatty  formed  letters,  about 
four  or  five  inches  high,  graven  deep  in  the  tufo. 

L.   VECILIO.    VI.  F.   E 
PO  .  .  AE.   ABELES. 

LECTV.   I.   DATV 
.  .  VECILIO.  L.   F.   ET.   PLENESTE 

.  ECTV.   I.   AMPLIVS.   NIHIL 

INVITEIS.  L.  C.   LEVIEIS.   L.  F. 

ET.  QVEI.  EOS.   PARENTARET 

NE.  ANTEPONAT 

1  One  has  two  arches  in  its  portico ;  seems  to  have  had  two  more  ;  and  a  thirtl 
another  has  only  one  standing,  though  it  is  a  mere  portico  of  two  arches,  without 

H  2 


100  FALLEEI.  [CHAP.  vin. 

The  last  line  was  buried  in  the  earth,  and  having  no  instru- 
ment at  hand,  I  could  not  uncover  it ;  but  I  communicated  the 
discovery  to  the  Archaeological  Institute3  of  Home ;  and  my 
friend,  Dr.  Henzen,  one  of  the  secretaries,  proceeded  imme- 
diately to  Falleri  to  inspect  the  inscription.  To  him  is  due  the 
discovery  of  the  last  line,  which  explains  the  whole.  To  him 
also  am  I  indebted  for  the  correction  and  explanation  of  the 
inscription. 

"  To  Lucius  Vecilius,  son  of  Vibius  and  of  Polla  (or  Pollia) 
Abeles,  one  bed  (sepulchral  couch)  is  given — to  ...  Vecilius, 
son  of  Lucius  and  of  Plenesta,  one  bed. — Let  no  one  place 
anything  before  (i.e.,  another  bod}r  in)  these  beds,  save  with  the 
permission  of  Lucius  and  Caius  Levius,  sons  of  Lucius,  and  (with 
the  permission)  of  whoever  may  perform  their  obsequies  (i.e. 
their  heirs)." 

The  beds  are  the  long  niches  in  the  walls  of  the  tomb,  of 
which  there  are  eleven.  The  inscription  is  curious  for  its  ancient 
Latinity  alone ;  but  most  interesting  as  an  evidence  of  the  fact 
that  the  Romans  made  use  of  the  tombs  of  the  Etruscans,  or  else 
constructed  sepulchres  precisely  similar.  No  one  can  doubt  the 
Etruscan  character  of  this  particular  tomb,  and  yet  it  belonged  to 
the  Roman  family  of  the  Levii,  who  gave  it  or  let  it  out  to  the 
Vecilii,  as  we  know  to  have  been  frequently  the  case  with  the  ollce 
of  Roman  columbaria.  The  mention  of  the  mother's  name  after 
the  father's  is  a  genuine  Etruscanism.3  It  is  general  in  Etruscan 
epitaphs,  and  was  retained  even  under  Roman  domination,  for 
some  sarcophagi  bear  similar  epitaphs  in  Latin,  with  "  natus  " 
affixed  to  the  mother's  name  in  the  genitive  or  ablative.  But 
those  sarcophagi  were  found  in  Etruscan  tombs,  in  the  midst  of 
others  with  Etruscan  inscriptions,  and  are  only  the  coffins  of  the 
latest  members  of  the  same  families,  belonging  to  a  period  when 
the  native  language  was  being  superseded  by  that  of  the  con- 
querors. This  ma}'  be  the  case  here  also — the  Levii  may  have 
been  an  Etruscan  family ;  as  indeed  seems  highly  probable.  If 
not,  we  have  here  a  Roman  usurpation  of  an  Etruscan  sepulchre, 
or  it  may  be  an  imitation  of  the  Etruscan  mode  of  burial,  and 

an  inner  chamber,  the  portico  itself  being  the  Lycians  always  traced  their  descent 

the  tomb,  as  is  shown  by  the  rock-benches  through  the  maternal  line,  to  the  exclu- 

within  it.  sion  of  the  paternal — a  fact  recorded  by 

2  See  Bull.  lustit.  1844,  p.  92.  Herodotus    (f.     173),    and     verified     by 

3  This     custom     the    Etruscans    must  modern   researches.      Fellows'    Lycia,    p. 
have  derived  from  the  East,  as  it  was  not  276.      The    Etruscans   being  less   purely 
practised  by  the  Greeks  or  Romans  ;  but  Oriental,  made  use  of  both  methods. 


CHAP.  VIII.] 


THE    CITY- WALLS. 


101 


also  an  instance  of  the  adoption  of  the  customs  of  that  people  by 
the  Romans.4 

Just  beyond  these  tombs  the  city  of  Failed  comes  into  view. 
And  an  imposing  sight  it  is — not  from  its  position,  for  it  is  on 
the  very  level  of  the  plain  by  which  you  approach  it — but  from 


THE    WALLS    OF    FALLERI,    FROM    THE    EAST. 

its  lofty  walls  and  numerous  towers,  stretching  away  on  either 
hand  to  a  great  distance  in  an  almost  unbroken  line,  and  only  just 
dilapidated  enough  to  acquire  a  picturesque  effect,  which  is 
heightened  by  overhanging  foliage.  You  approach  it  from  the 
east,  at  an  angle  of  the  Avail  where  there  is  an  arched  gateway  on 
•either  hand — one  still  open5,  the  other  almost  buried  in  the  earth. 


4  Dr.  Henzen,  who  is  facile  princeps  in 
•the  archaeology  of  inscriptions,  refers  this 
to  a  remote  period,  undoubtedly  to  the 
time  of  the  Republic,  and  before  the 
establishment  of  the  Colonia  Junonia  by 
the  Triumvirate,  and  considers  the  tomb 
as  one  of  the  most  ancient  on  this  site. 
Bull.  Inst.  1844,  pp.  129,  161-8.  In  the 
neighbourhood  of  this  tomb  Signer  Guidi, 
in  1851,  opened  five  others  which  contained 
a  number  of  inscriptions  in  a  character 
and  language  neither  Etruscan  nor  Latin, 
and  therefore  pronounced  to  be  Faliscan. 
They  were  painted  on  sepulchral  tiles. 
Eight  were  written  like  the  Etruscan, 
from  right  to  left,  and  two  in  Roman 
letters,  from  left  to  right.  The  characters 


of  the  ten  differed  from  the  Etruscan  in 
the  forms  of  the  A.  E.  P.  R.,  and  in  the 
use  of  the  0,  assimilating  more  to  the 
Greek.  But  the  language  was  much  more 
akin  to  the  Latin.  Copies  of  these  inscrip- 
tions are  given  in  Ann.  Inst.  1860,  tav. 
d'Agg.  G.  H.,  and  they  are  explained  by 
Padre  Garrucci  (op.  cit.,  pp.  272-9),  who 
refers  them  to  the  sixth  century  of  Rome. 

5  This  gate,  as  will  be  seen  in  the 
woodcut,  has  a  tower  immediately  to  the 
left  of  him  who  approaches  it,  which  is 
contrary  to  the  precepts  of  Vitruvius 
(I.  5),  who  recommends  that  the  ap- 
proach to  a  city-gate  be  such,  that  the 
right  side  of  the  foe,  which  is  unpro- 
tected by  his  shield,  may  be  open  to  attack 


102  FALLEKI.  [CHAP.  vm. 

The  walls  here  are  about  seven  feet  thick,  and  in  thirteen 
courses,  or  about  twenty-five  feet  high  ;  they  are  of  red  tufa 
blocks,  of  the  size  usual  in  the  emplecton  masonry  of  Etruria, 
fitted  together  without  cement  and  with  great  nicety.  In  parts  the 
tufo  has  lost  its  surface,  but  in  others  the  masonry  looks  as  sharp 
and  fresh  as  though  it  had  been  just  constructed,  without  a  sign 
of  age  beyond  its  weather-stained  coating  of  grey.  Both  walls  and 
towers  are  perpendicular  or  nearly  so ;  the  latter,  which  are  at 
unequal  distances,  but  generally  about  one  hundred  feet  apart. 
are  square — about  seventeen  feet  wide,  and  projecting  ten  feet. 
They  are  external  onl}r ;  the  inner  surface  of  the  wall,  which  rises 
high  above  the  level  of  the  ground  within,  is  unbroken  by  pro- 
jections ;  it  is  similar  in  appearance  to  the  outer  surface,  though 
not  so  neatly  smoothed  and  finished. 

Following  the  northern  wall  of  the  city,  after  passing  ten 
towers,  you  reach  a  small  arched  gate  or  postern.  Outside  it  are 
remains  of  Roman  tombs  of  opus  incertum,  on  mounds  by  the- 
side  of  the  road  which  issued  from  this  gate ;  blocks  of  basalt,, 
now  upturned  by  the  plough,  indicate  its  course.  It  was  the 
Via  Amerina,  wrhich  ran  northward  to  Horta  and  Amelia. 
Passing  a  breach  which  Gell  takes  for  a  gateway,  you  next  cross, 
a  long  wall  or  embankment  stretching  away  at  right  angles  from 
the  city ;  it  is  of  ancient  blocks,  probably  taken  from  the  city 
walls.  A  little  beyond  is  Avhat  seems  a  window,  high  in  the  wall 
and  partly  blocked  up,  but  it  is  a  mere  hole  cut  in  later  times. 

On  turning  the  corner  of  the  wall  you  reach  the  Porta  di 
Giove,  a  fine  gate  in  excellent  preservation,  flanked  by  towers. 
The  arch-stones  and  encircling  moulding  are  of  peperino  ;  and  in 
the  centre  over  the  key-stone,  is  a  head  in  bold  relief.  "Why 
called  Giove  I  do  not  understand ;  it  has  none  of  the  attributes  of 
Jupiter,  but  in  its  beardless  youth  and  gentleness  of  expression,, 
seems  rather  to  represent  Bacchus  or  Apollo.6  See  the  woodcut 

from  the  ramparts.     The  angular  form  of  posts  is  more  than   seven   feet,  which   is 

this  city,  and  of  the  towers  in  its  walls,  also  the  thickness  of  the  city  wall.     The 

is   also   at  variance   with    the   rules  laid  imposts  are  also  of  peperino — above  them 

down  by  the  same  author,  who  denounces  the  arch  is  blocked  up  with  brickwork, 
angles,  as  protecting  the  foe  rather  than  Canina  is  inclined  to   regard  this   gate 

the  citizen.  as  Etruscan.     He  says  (Archit.  Ant.  VI. 

6  Canina  takes  the  head  to  be  that  of  p.  54),  from  a  comparison  of  it  with  thos^ 

Juno,  rather  than  of  Jupiter,  as  she  was  of  Paestum  and  Volterra,  that  it  cannot  be 

the  great  goddess  of  the  Falisci.    Etruria  otherwise   than   of    early    date,    and    not 

Marit.    I.    p.    70.     The    gate    is    nearly  wholly  Roman,  as   some   have   supposed  ; 

eighteen  feet  in  height,  and  ten  feet  eight  and  again  (Ann.   lust.    1835,  p.   192)  he 

inches  in  span.     The  depth   of   its  door-  cites  the  head  on  the  keystone  as  a  proof 


CHAP,  viii.]      THE    CITY- WALLS.— POETA   DI    GIOVE. 


103 


at  the  head  of  this  chapter.  Within  the  gate  is  a  double  line  of 
ancient  wall,  flanking  a  hollow  way  or  road,  which  now  leads  to  the 
ruined  convent  of  Santa  Maria  di  Falleri,  the  only  building  stand- 
ing within  the  walls.7 

The  wall  soon  turns  again  and  follows  the  course  of  the  valley 
through  which  flows  the  Miccino.  Here  it  is  based  on  low  tufo 
cliff's,  in  Avhich  are  the  mouths  of  several  sewers.  On  this  side  it  is 
for  the  most  part  greatly  dilapidated :  sometimes  you  lose  sight  of  it 
altogether  for  a  considerable  distance,  then  again  trace  it  by 


TOMBi    IN    THE    CLIFFS    AT    1'ALLKIU. 


detached  portions  or  by  towers  only,  which  jet  boldly  into  the 
valley  on  projecting  masses  of  cliff.  The  rock  beneath  the  wralls 
is  in  mamr  places  hollowed  into  niches  or  caves,  once  evidently 
tombs;  and  on  the  other  side  of  the  stream  are  tall  cliffs,  full 
of  long  sepulchral  niches  one  above  the  other,  where  the  Falerians 
of  old  stored  up  their  dead — shown  in  the  above  woodcut  On 


of  this  sort  of  decoration  being  Etruscan. 
It  was  also  extensively  used  by  both  Greeks 
and  Komans. 

'  Just  within  the  gate,  to  the  right  as 
you  enter,  is  a  sewer-like  hole,  now  blocked 


up,  which  seems  to  have  been  a  window. 
It  is  not  visible  from  without,  because  the 
ancient  wall  just  in  that  part  is  faced 
with  mediaeval  masonry ;  but  its  form  is 
distinguishable. 


104  FALLEBI.  [CHAP,  vin 

that  side  also  are  the  remains  of  several  Roman  tombs — massive 
piles  of  opus  incertum,  towering  high  above  the  light  wood  that 
covers  that  bank  of  the  stream.  This  necropolis  has  been  little 
explored,  and  I  regret  that  I  have  not  been  able  to  give  it  due 
examination.  Dr.  Henzen  found  one  tomb  here  with  a  Christian 
inscription.8 

One  of  the  city-towers  stands  on  a  projection  of  the  cliff  where 
the  wall  makes  a  semicircular  bend  inwards.  Beneath  this  tower 
is  a  tomb  of  unusual  size,  square  and  lofty.  It  would  seem  at 
first  sight  to  have  been  formed  as  a  cellar  to  the  tower,  but  further 
observation  shows  that  it  was  of  prior  formation,  for  its  original 
doorway  is  blocked  up  by  the  masonry  of  the  tower  itself. 
Whence  it  may  be  inferred  that  the  city  was  of  subsequent  con- 
struction, and  that  the  tomb  had  been  profaned  b}'  the  founders. 
Near  this  is  another  instance  of  the  city-wall  blocking  up  an 
ancient  tomb.  Facts  of  importance,  as  bearing  on  the  question  by 
whom  and  in  what  age  the  city  was  built. 

A  little  beyond  this  you  reach  another  deep  recess  in  the  line 
of  cliff,  with  a  magnificent  mass  of  walling  rising  to  the  height  of 
twenty- eight  courses,  or  fifty-four  feet,  and  stretching  completely 
across  the  hollow.  In  the  centre  is  a  gate,  the  Porta  del  Bove, 
fine  in  itself,  but  appearing  quite  insignificant — a  mere  drain-hole 
in  the  vast  expanse  of  wall.9  Towers,  bannered  with  oak-saplings, 
and  battlemented  with  ivy,  crest  boldly  the  projecting  cliffs  at 
the  angles  of  the  recess.  "Desert  caves,  with  wild  thyme  and 
the  gadding  vine  o'ergrown,"  yawn  around.  Soracte  soars  bluel}* 
in  the  distance  above  the  wooded  glen.  The  whole  scene  is  one 
of  picturesque  grandeur,  rendered  more  impressive  by  the  silence, 
loneliness,  and  desolation.1 

8  Bull.  Inst.  1844,  p.  168.  higher  ground  of  the  city.     It  must  have 

9  This    is  perhaps  the  loftiest  relic  of  been  a  very  steep  ascent,  as  the  gate  opens 
ancient  city-walls  extant  in  Italy,  save  the  at  the  bottom  of  a  deep  gulley,  and  the 
Bastion   in  the  polygonal  walls  of  Norba  ground  within  is  almost  on  a  level   with 
in  Latium,  which  is  about  the  same  height.  the  top  of  the  wall.     A  large  tree,  now 
The  wall   of  the  Fornm  of  Augustus  at  reduced  to  charcoal,  lies  prostrate  on  the 
Rome,  in  the  same  style  of  masonry,  is,  ramparts,  which,  when  it  flourished  high 
however,  considerably  higher.  above   the   wall,    must    have    greatly  in- 

1  The  gate  derives  its  present  appella-  creased  the  picturesque  effect  from  below, 

tion  from  something  carved   in  relief  on  The  gate  is  8  feet  in  span,  and  the  depth 

its  key-stone,  which  may  once  have  been  of  the  arch,  or  the  thickness  of  the  wall 

a  bull's   skull,    a   favourite   ornament   of  in   this   part,   is   9   feet.      There   are   13 

gateways    among  the   Romans.      Another  voussoirs  in  the  arch,  3  feet  9  inches  deep, 

appellation,    Porta    della  Puttana,    is   yet  fitted   together  with    great    neatness— all 

more  difficult  of  explanation.      Within  are  are   of  tufo,   and    are   rusticated    in   the 

traces  of  a  vaulted  passage,  much  wider  return  facing  of  the  arch, 
than  the  gate   itself,    leading  up   to   the 


CHAP,  viii.]     THE    CITY- WALLS— PORTA   DEL    BOVE. 


105 


Opposite  the  Porta  del  Bove  are  the  remains  of  a  bridge  over 
the  Miccino,  the  piers  on  both  banks  being  still  extant. 

The  southern  wall  of  the  city  extends  but  a  short  way  beyond 
the  Porta  del  Bove.  It  then  turns  to  the  north  ;  and  after  pass- 
ing nine  towers  in  excellent  preservation,  you  come  to  the  site 
of  another  gate,  now  destroyed.  Outside  it,  a  Roman  tomb 
rises  to  a  considerable  height.  From  this  spot,  a  short  distance 


PLAN    OF    I'ALLEKI. 


A  to  II.  Gates  in  the  city-walls.  L, 

C.  Porta  del  Bove.  M. 

E.  Gate  represented  in  woodcut,  p.  a. 

101.  b. 

II.  Porta  di  Giove.  See  woodcut,  p.  97.  c. 

I.  Theatre.  d  d. 

K.  Ruins.  e  c,. 


Supposed  site  of  Forum. 
Church  of  Sta.  Maria  di  Falleri. 
Window  in  the  wall. 
Small  gate,  almost  buried. 
Pyramid,  and  other  Roman  tombs. 
Loftiest  portions  of  the  walls. 
Sewers  cut  in  the  rock. 


carries  you  to  the  gate  at  the  north-eastern  angle,  where  you 
complete  the  tour  of  the  city.  According  to  Gell,  the  circuit  of 
the  walls  is  2305  yards,  or  more  than  one  English  mile  and  a 
third.2  The  form  of  the  city  is  a  right-angled  triangle,  with  the 
angles  truncated.  About  fifty  towers  are  standing,  and  eight  or 
nine  gates  may  be  traced.  "Perhaps,"  as  Gell  remarks,  ''no 
place  presents  a  more  perfect  specimen  of  ancient  military 
architecture." 

2  Gell,  I.  p.  421. 


106  FALLERL  [CHAP,  vin. 

Within  the  walls  there  are  but  few  remains.  On  the  spot 
where  the  theatre  was  found  nothing .  can  now  be  traced  of  the 
seats  or  arches.  A  high  bank,  encircling  a  hollow,  marks  the 
outline.  Here,  as  on  the  other  spots  where  excavations  have  been 
made,  are  fragments  of  cornices  and  columns  of  travertine  and 
marble,  and  other  traces  of  the  llomans.  Several  fine  statues, 
have  been  found  on  this  spot.3 

The  only  building  now  standing  within  the  walls  is  the  convent 
of  Sta.  Maria  di  Falleri,  but  even  this  shares  in  the  ruin  of  the 
spot,  and,  instead  of  chaunt  and  orison,  resounds  with  the  bleat- 
ing of  sheep  and  lowing  of  oxen.  It  is  of  the  Lombard  style,  so 
common  in  the  ecclesiastical  architecture  of  Italy,  but  of  a 
more  simple  character  than  usual.  It  is  constructed  of  the  ma- 
terials of  the  ancient  city,  and  apparently  is  of  the  twelfth  century. 

We  have  now  to  consider  the  origin  and  ancient  name  of  this 
cit}\  That  an  Etruscan  population  occupied  this  or  a  neigh- 
bouring site  is  evident  from  the  multitude  of  tombs  and  niches, 
excavated  in  the  cliffs,  undoubtedly  of  that  character,  and  too 
remote  to  belong  to  the  city  which  occupied  the  site  of  Civita 
Castellana.  The  Avails  are  certainly  in  the  Etruscan  style  as 
regards  the  masonry ;  but  this  is  not  decisive  of  their  origin,  for 
precisely  the  same  sort  of  masomy  was  employed  in  the  earliest 
walls  01  Home,  and  is  to  be  seen  in  other  places  south  and  east 
of  the  Tiber;  in  almost  every  case,  however,  prior  to  the  Empire. 
Nibby4  is  of  opinion  from  the  method  of  fortification,  from  the 
urching  of  the  gateways,  and  from  the  sculpture  and  mouldings, 
as  well  as  from  the  fact  that  the  theatre  and  other  ancient  relics 
within  the  walls  are  unequivocally  Roman,  that  the  remains  now 
extant  belong  to  a  Roman  city.  Canina,  on  the  other  hand,  a 
superior  authority  on  architectural  matters,  sees  much  Etruscan 
character  in  the  gateways.5  As  before  her  intercourse  with 
Greece,  Rome  was  indebted  to  Etruria  for  all  her  arts,  as  well  as 
for  most  of  her  institutions,  religious,  political,  and  social;  it  may 
well  be  that  this  city  was  built  under  the  Roman  domination,  but 
that  Etruscan  artists  and  artisans  were  employed  in  its  construc- 
tion. The  name  of  the  original  town,  moreover,  seems  preserved 
in  its  modern  appellation,  which  it  possessed  through  the  middle 

3  The  theatre  is  said  to  have  been  cut  lated  statues  of  C.  and  L.  Csesar,   which 

in  the  rock,  like  the  amphitheatre  of  Sutri  were   found   among    its    niins.       A    fine 

(Hull.  Inst.  1829,  p.  57).      It  was  exca-  statue  of  Juno   has   also  been   excavated 

vated  in  1829  and   1830.      It   seems   to  within  the  walls  of  Falleri. 
have  been  of  the  time  of  Augustus,  from  a  4  II.  p.  27. 

statue  of  Livia  as  Concord,  and  some  muti-  5  See  note  6,  p.  102. 


CHAP,  vin.]      THE    THREE    CITIES    OF    THE   FALISCL  107 

ages,  and  which  indicates  it  as  the  Falerii  of  the  Etruscans.  Let 
us  consider  what  is  said  of  that  town  by  ancient  Avriters. 

At  an  early  period,  says  tradition,  shortly  after  the  Trojan  war, 
a  body  of  Greeks  from  Argos,  led  by  Halesus,  or  Haliscus,  son 
of  Agamemnon,  settled  in  this  part  of  Italy,6  drove  out  the  Siculi, 
who  then  possessed  it,  and  occupied  their  towns  of  Falerium  and 
Fescennium.7  Whether  they  were  subsequently  conquered  by 
the  Tyrrheni  or  Etruscans,  or  entered  into  alliance  with  them, 
does  not  appear,  but  it  is  certain  that  they  were  incorporated 
with  that  people,  and  under  the  name  of  Falisci8  continued  to 
possess  this  part  of  Etruria  till  its  conquest  by  Eome.  Yet  they 
were  always  in  some  respects  a  distinct  people ;  their  language 
was  said  to  differ  from  the  Etruscan  ;B  and  even  as  late  as  the 
time  of  Augustus,  they  retained  traces  of  their  Argive  origin,  in 
their  armour  and  weapons,  and  in  various  customs,  especially  in 
what  regarded  their  temples  and  religious  rites.  The  temple  of 
Juno  at  Falerii  is  said  to  have  been  the  counterpart  of  that 
dedicated  to  the  same  goddess  at  Argos,  i.e.  the  Heneum,  and 
her  worship  to  have  been  similar.1  There  seems  to  have  been 
a  third  city,  Faliscum,  similar  in  origin  to  the  other  two,  and 
deriving  its  name  from  the  chief  of  the  original  colonists.2 

We  see  then  that  there  were  three  cities,  probably  not  far 
removed  from  each  other,  inhabited  by  a  race,  which,  though 

6  Dion.  Hal.    I.    p.    17.      Ovid.    Fast.  y  Strabo,  V.  p.  226. 

IV.    73,  and   Amor.    III.    Eleg.    13,   31.  l  Dion.  Hal.  loc.  cit.     Ovid.  Amor.  III. 

Cato  ap.  Plin.  III.  8.      Serv.  ad  .En.  VII.  Eleg.  13,  27,  et  seq.  :  see  also  Fasti,  VI. 

(595.  Steph.  Byzant.   v.  *aA.i'<r/cor.   Solinus  49.     This  Juno  had  the  epithet  of  Curitis 

II.   p.  13.      All  agree   as  to  the   Argive  or  Quiritis,  as  we  learn  from   Tertullian 

origin  of  the  Falisci,  save  Justin  (XX.    1),  (Apolog.  24)  —and  from  inscriptions  found 

who  derives  them  from   the   Chalcidenses  on   the  spot    (Holsten.    ad    Cluv.    p.    57. 

— an  origin  which  Niebuhr  (III.    p.   179)  Gruter,  p.  308,  1).     In  the  Sabine  tongue 

rejects.  Quiris  signifies  "lance,"  she  was  therefore 

7  Dionys.   Hal.   I.   pp.   16,   17.    Neither  the     "lance-Juno,"    and    is    represented 
Dionysius,    Cato,     nor    Stephanus    makes  holding  that  weapon.     Plut.   Eomul.      Mi- 
mention     of     Halesus     as     the    founder.  nerva  also  was  worshipped  at  Falerii.  Ovid. 
Servius  (ad  JEn.  VII.  695)  points  out  the  Fast.  III.  843.     Mars  seems  to  have  been 
change    of   the   initial    H.     into    F. ,    the  another  god  of  the  Falisci,  as  they  called  the 
adoption    by   the   Romans    of    the    ^Eolic  fifth  month  in  their  calendar  after  his  name, 
digamma  to   express  the  Greek  aspirate,  Ovid.  Fast.  III.  89.     A  four-faced  Janus 
— sicut   Pol-mis',    qute   Horrnia   fuerunt —  was   also  worshipped    here,    whose  statue 
curb  TTJS  6p/j.ris.  was  carried  to  Rome,  where  the  temple  of 

8  Dionysius  (loc.  cit.)   calls  this  Argive  Janus  Quadrifrons  was  erected  to  receive  it. 
colony  Pelasgi,  and  the  similarity,  almost  Serv.  ad  2En.  VII.  607.     Festus  (v.  Strop- 
amounting    to    identity,    of  this  word    to  pus)  speaks  of  a  festival  kept  by  the  Falisci 
Falisci  is  remarkable  ;    in   fact   it  is   not  under   the    name    of    Strupearia,    but   in 
improbable   that    the    appellation    Falisci  honour  of  what  deity  he  does  not  mention, 
was  one  simply  indicative  of  their  Argive  2  See  Note  I.  in  the  Appendix  to  this 

i.  e.  Pelasgic)  descent.  Chapter. 


108  FALLEBI.  [CHAP.  VHI. 

of  Greek  origin,  was,  at  the  period  it  is  mentioned  in  Roman 
history,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  Etruscan ;  amalgamated, 
like  the  inhabitants  of  Agylla,  Cortona,  and  other  Pelasgic  cities 
of  Etruria,  with  the  mixed  race  of  the  Tyrrhenes,  and  bearing, 
from  the  general  testimony  of  ancient  writers,  the  generic  name 
of  Falisci. 

Of  these  three  cities,  Falerii,  or  Falerium,  as  it  is  indifferently 
called,  was  evidently  the  most  important.  There  is  every  reason 
to  believe  it  one  of  the  Twelve  cities  of  the  Confederation.8 
Plutarch  says  it  was  so  strong  by  nature  and  so  admirably 
prepared  to  sustain  an  attack,  that  the  citizens  made  light  of 
being  besieged  by  the  Romans,4  even  though  led  by  Camillus ; 
and  according  to  Livy  the  siege  bid  fair  to  be  as  tedious  as  that 
of  Veii ; 5  which  could  not  have  been  the  case  had  not  the  city 
occupied  a  site  strong  by  nature  as  well  as  by  art.  Ovid  speaks 
of  the  steepness  of  the  ascent  to  the  celebrated  temple  of  Juno 
within  the  city.6  Zonaras  also  mentions  the  natural  strength 
of  its  position  on  a  lofty  height/  All  descriptive  of  a  site 
widely  different  from  that  of  Falleri,  and  perfectly  agreeing 
with  that  of  Civita  Castellana,  which,  in  accordance  with  Cluve- 
rius,  Holstenius,  Cramer,  and  Nibby,  I  am  fully  persuaded  is 
the  representative  of  the  Etruscan  Falerium. 

There  it  is  we  must  place  the  scene  of  the  well-known  story  of 
the  treacherous  schoolmaster. 

The  Falerians,  trusting  in  the  strength  of  their  town,  regarded 
with  indifference  the  Roman  army  encamped  about  it,  and  pur- 
sued their  ordinary  avocations.  It  was  the  custom  of  the  Falisci, 
derived  probably  from  their  Greek  ancestors,  to  have  a  public 
school  for  the  tuition  of  the  male  children  of  the  citizens.  The 
schoolmaster  during  the  siege  took  his  boys  out  of  the  city  for 
exercise,  as  usual  in  time  of  peace,  and  led  them  daily  further 
from  the  walls,  till  at  length  he  carried  them  to  the  Roman 
camp,  and  delivered  them  up  to  their  foes.  As  among  them 
were  the  children  of  the  principal  citizens,  he  thought  by  this 
act  to  transfer  to  the  Romans  the  destinies  of  the  city  itself,  and 
thus  purchase  for  himself  the  favour  of  Camillus.  But  the 
Roman  general,  with  that  noble  generosity  and  inflexible  virtue 
which  characterised  many  of  his  countrymen  of  early  times, 

3  See  Note  II.   in  the  Appendix  to  this  s  Liv.  V.  26. 
Chapter.  6  Amor.  III.,  Eleg.  13,  6. 

4  Plut.  Camil.  :  see  also  Val.  Max.  VI.  '  Zonar.  Ann.  VII.  22  ;  and  VIII.  18. 
5.  1. — nuenia  expugnari  non  poterant. 


CHAP,  vin.]  CIVITA  AN  ETRUSCAN,  FALLERI  A  ROMAN  SITE.    109 

scorned  to  profit  by  such  baseness,  and  sternly  replied, — "Not 
to  such  wretches  as  thyself  art  thou  come  with  thy  base  offers. 
With  the  Falisci  we  have  no  common  bond  of  human  making ; 
but  such  as  nature  hath  formed,  that  will  we  ever  respect.  War 
hath  its  laws  as  well  as  peace ;  and  its  duties  we  have  learnt 
to  execute,  whether  they  demand  our  justice  or  our  valour.  We 
are  arrayed,  not  against  that  tender  age  which  is  sacred  even  in 
the  moment  of  successful  assault,  but  against  those  who,  though 
neither  injured  nor  annoyed  by  us,  took  up  arms  and  attacked 
our  camp  at  Veii.  Them  hast  thou  surpassed  in  iniquity ;  and 
them  will  I  overcome,  as  I  have  the  Veientes,  by  Roman  skill, 
determination,  and  valour."  Then  commanding  the  wretch  to 
be  stript,  and  his  hands  to  be  bound  behind  his  back,  he 
delivered  him  to  the  boys,  who  with  rods  and  scourges  drove 
him  back  to  the  city.  The  anxiety  and  terror  of  the  inhabitants 
at  the  loss  of  their  children  was  turned  to  joy  on  their  return, 
and  they  conceived  such  admiration  of  the  Roman  general  that 
they  forthwith  surrendered  the  city  into  his  hands.8 

This  was  in  the  year  of  Rome  360 ;  but  the  Falisci,  as  a 
people,  are  mentioned  in  Roman  history  as  early  as  the  year 
317  ;9  from  which  time,  to  the  capture  of  the  city,  they  several 
times  warred  against  Rome,  in  alliance  with  either  the  Veientes, 
Fidenates,  or  Capenates.  The  Falisci  remained  subject  to 
Rome  till  the  year  397,  when  they  revolted,  and  joined  the 
Tarquinienses,  but  were  subdued  by  the  dictator,  Marcius. 
Rutilus.1  In  461  they  joined  the  other  Etruscan  cities  in  the 
final  struggle  for  independence.2  In  513,  after  the  first  Punic 
war,  they  again  revolted;  but  were  soon  reduced.3  Zonaras,. 
who  has  given  us  an  account  of  this  final  capture,  says  that 
"  the  ancient  city  situated  on  a  steep  and  lofty  height  was. 
destro}red,  and  another  built  in  a  place  of  easy  access."  *  The 
description  of  the  latter,  which  will  not  apply  at  all  to  the  site 
of  Civita  Castellana,  agrees  precisely  with  that  of  Falleri,  which,, 
as  already  shown,  stands  on  two  sides  on  the  actual  level  of  the 
plain,  and  on  the  third,  on  cliffs  but  slightly  raised  from  the 
valley — such  a  situation,  as,  by  analogy,  we  know  would  never 
have  been  chosen  by  the  Etruscans,  but  is  not  at  all  inconsistent 

8  Livy,     V.    27.      Pint.    Camil.    Dion.        432. 

Hal.  Excerp.  Mai,  XII.  c.  16.     Val.  Max.  2  Liv.  X.  45,  46. 

VI.  5,  1.     Flonis.  I.  12.     Frontin.  Strat.  a  Polyb.    I.     65.      Val.    Max.    VI.    5. 

IV.  4.     Zonaras,  VII.  22.  Eutrop.  II.  28.     Zonaras,  Ann.  VIII.  18. 

9  Liv.  IV.  17.  Orosius,  IV.  11. 

1  Liv.  VII.  16,  17.     Diocl.  Sic.  XVI.  p.  4  Zonar.  loc.  cit. 


110  FALLERI.  [CHAP.  VIH. 

with  a  Roman  origin.5  Regarding  Fallen,  then,  to  be  the  city 
rebuilt  at  this  period,  all  difficulty  with  regard  to  its  name  is 
removed.  It  is  not  necessary  to  suppose  it  the  Etruscan  Falerii; 
for  the  name  of  the  original  city  was  transferred  with  the  inhabit- 
ants to  this  site,  which  has  retained  it,  while  the  ancient  site 
lay  desolate,  it  is  probable,  for  many  ages,6  till  long  after  the  fall 
of  the  Empire,  in  the  eighth  or  ninth  century  of  our  era,  the 
strength  of  its  position  attracted  a  fresh  settlement,  and  it  was 
fortified  under  the  name  of  Civitas  Castellana. 

That  Civita  was  the  site  of  the  original,  and  Falleri  of  the 
second  city  of  Falerii,  is  corroborated  by  the  much  superior  si/e 
of  the  former,  and  by  the  fact  that  no  Roman  remains  have  been 
discovered  there,  while  they  abound  at  the  latter  place.7 

This  is  the  opinion  regarding  Falerii  held  by  most  antiquaries 
of  note,  and  it  seems  clear  and  consistent.8  Some  few,  as 
Nardini,  Miiller,  Gell,  and  Mannert,  led  astray  by  the  resem- 
blance of  the  name,  view  Falleri  as  the  original  Falerii,  and 
without  just  grounds  regard  Civita  Castellana  as  the  site  of 
Fescennium. 

Regarding,  then,  the  remains  of  Falleri  as  belonging  to  Roman 
times,  the  resemblance  of  its  walls  and  gates  to  Etruscan 
masonry  and  architecture  is  explained  by  the  date  of  their  con- 
struction, as  they  belong  to  a  period  when  the  Romans  were 
imitators  of  the  Etruscans  in  all  their  arts  ;  besides,  the  inhabit- 
ants were  still  of  the  latter  nation,  though  they  had  received  a 
Roman  colony.  This  may  also,  to  some  extent,  explain  its  tombs, 
which,  with  a  few  exceptions,  are  purely  Etruscan.  Neverthe- 
less, as  already  shown,  there  is  ground  for  believing  that  such 
tombs  existed  here  long  prior  to  the  erection  of  the  walls  of 
Falleri,  and  therefore  that  a  genuine  Etruscan  town  occupied 
a  neighbouring  site — but  where  that  town  ma}7  have  stood,  or 

5  See  Note  III.  in  the  Appendix  to  this  rounded  every  temple.     It  is  probable,  how- 
Chapter,  ever,  that  there  was  still  some  small  popu- 

6  The    "apple-bearing    Falisci  "    men-  Lation  on  this  spot,  as  usual  in  the  imme- 
tioned  by  Ovid  (Amor.   III.,  Eleg.  13),  as  diate  neighbourhood  of  celebrated  shrines, 
the  birthplace  of  his  wife  may  have  been  and  to  that  Ovid  may  have  referred  under 
Falleri  ;  but  the  temple  of  Juno  continued  the  name  of  Falisci.     The  Colonia  Junonia, 
in  his  day  to  occupy  the  original  site,  as  is  referred  to  by  Frontinus  (de  colon.) — qua; 
proved  by  his  mention  of  the  walls  con-  appellatur   Faliscos,   quae   a   III   viris  cst 
quered  by  Camillus,  and  the  steep  ascent  assignata — and  in  an  inscription  found  at 
to   the   town, — diflicilis  clivis   via— there  Falleri,  must  apply  to  the  second  city. 
b_jing  nothing  like  a  steep  to  Falleri.     The  7  Nibby,  II.  v.  Falerii. 

dense  and  venerable  grove,  too,  around  the  8  See  Note  IV.  in  the  Appendix  to  this 

temple,  may  perhaps  mark  the  desolation       Chapter. 
•of  the  site,  though  a  grove  generally  sur- 


CHAP,  vni.]  THE    HYKSOS    OF    ETRUEIA.  Ill 

what  its  name  ma}r  have  been,  I  pretend  not  to  determine.  It 
was  probably  some  small  town  dependent  on  Falerii,  the  name 
•of  which  has  not  come  down  to  us. 

Fallen  was  on  the  Via  Amerina  which  branched  from  the  Via 
.Cassia  at  Le  Sette  Vene,  and  ran  northward  through  Nepi  to 
Todi  and  Perugia.  It  is  five  miles  from  Nepi,  as  set  down  in 
the  Table,  and  three  from  Corchiano  on  the  same  line  of  ancient 
road.  In  this  direction,  or  northwards  from  Falleri,  the  road 
may  be  traced  by  fragments  more  or  less  perfect  almost  as  far  as 
Orte,  on  the  Tiber'.9 

For  my  guide  to  Falleri  I  took  a  man  from  Civita  Castellana, 
named  Domenico  Mancini,  a  most  civil  fellow,  simple  but 
intelligent,  and,  what  is  more  than  can  be  said  for  Italian  guides 
in  general,  satisfied  with  a  just  remuneration.  Having  tended 
cattle  or  sheep  all  his  life-time  in  the  neighbourhood, -he  knows 
the  site  of  every  grotta  or  tomb,  and  in  fact,  pointed  out  to  me 
those  with  the  porticoes  and  Latin  inscription,  which  were  pre- 
viously unknown  to  the  world.  The  antiquity-hunter  in  Italy 
can  have  no  better  guide  than  an  intelligent  shepherd ;  for  these 
men,  passing  their  da}'s  in  the  open  air,  and  following  their 
flocks  over  the  wilds  far  from  beaten  tracks,  become  familiar 
with  every  cave,  eveiy  fragment  of  ruined  wall,  and  block  of 
hewn  stone  ;  and,  though  the}T  do  not  comprehend  the  antiquity 
of  such  relics,  yet,  if  the  traveller  makes  them  aware  of  what  he 
is  seeking,  the}-  will  rarely  fail  to  lead  him  to  the  sites  of  such 
remains.  The  visitor  to  Falleri  who  would  engage  the  services 
of  the  said  Domenico,  must  ask  for  "  Domenico,  detto  Figlio  del 
He,"  or  the  King's  Son ;  which  is  no  reflection  on  any  crowned 
head  in  Europe,  but  is  a  sobriquet  belonging  to  him  in  right  of 
his  father,  who  was  generally  called  "  The  King,"  whether  from 
his  dignified  bearing,  or  from  out-topping  his  fellows,  like  Saul, 
I  know  not.  These  cocinomina  are  general  among  the  lower 
orders  in  Italy — a  relic,  doubtless,  of  ancient  times — and  no  one 
seems  ashamed  of  them  ;  nay,  a  man  is  best  known  \>y  his  nick- 
name. At  Sutri  I  was  guided  by  a  Sorcio, — or  "  Mouse  " — 
(remember  the  three  great  Republican  heroes  of  the  same  name, 

9  The  distances  on  the  Via  Amerina  are  Faleros  V. 

thus  marked  in  the  Peutingerian  Table  :  Ca&tello  Amerino  XII. 

Roma  Ameria  VI  III. 

Ad  Sextum  M.P,    VI.  Tuder 

Veios  VI.  VI. 

Vacanas  VIIII.  Vetona  XX. 

Nepa  VIIII.  Pirusio  XIIII. 


112  FALLERL  [CHAP.  vm. 

P.  Decins  Mus!);  at  Narni,  I  was  diiven  by  Mosto,  or  "New 
Wine;"  at  Chianciano  by  the  "Holy  Father"  himself;  and  at 
Pitigliano  I  lodged  in  the  house  of  II  Bimbo,  or  "  the  Baby." 
I  should  mention  that  this  son  of  the  shepherd-king  of  Civita 
Castellana,  will  provide  the  traveller  with  horses  at  three  francs 
each  per  diem. 


APPENDIX    TO    CHAPTER    VIII. 

NOTE  I. — THE  THREE  TOWNS  OF  THE  FALISCI. — See  page  107. 

NIBIIY  doubts  the  existence  of  a  third  town,  and  thinks  that  Faliscum 
is  merely  another  name  for  Falerium,  seeing  that  Falisci  was  the  name 
of  the  people,  and  Falerii  of  their  city  ;  just  as  the  inhabitants  of  Koine 
were  called  Quirites,  and  of  Ardea,  liutuli.  Cluver  (II.,  p.  544)  is  much  of 
the  same  opinion.  Now,  though  "  Falisci "  was  undoubtedly  the  name  of 
the  race,  as  shown  by  most  writers,  particularly  by  Livy,  and  though  some- 
times employed,  in  this  sense,  indifferently  with  Falerii,  and  though  Faliscum, 
Falisca,  or  Falisci,  is  often  confounded  with  Falerii  the  town,  as  by  Ovid, 
Pliny,  Diodorus,  (XIV.,  p.  810),  and  perhaps  by  Servius  ;  yet  Faliscum  is 
mentioned  by  Strabo  (V.,  p.  226),  by  Stephanus  (v.  <I>nAio-Kos),  and  Solinus 
(II.,  p.  13),  in  addition  to  Falerium.  The  last-named  author  speaks  of  the 
three  cities  in  the  same  passage, — ab  Haleso  Argivo  Phaliscam  ;  a  Phalerio 
Argivo  Phalerios  ;  Fescennium  quoque  ab  Argivis.  See  Miiller's  opinion  on 
this  passage  (Etrusk.  IV.,  4,  3,  n.  31).  Strabo  also  mentions  "  Falerium  and 
Faliscum "  in  the  same  breath  ;  and  as  by  the  former  he  must  mean  the 
second,  or  Roman  Falerii,  seeing  that  the  original  Etruscan  city  had  ceased 
to  exist  long  before  his  time,  it  is  clear  that  the  latter  must  refer  to  some 
other  place — probably  the  ^quum  Faliscum  which  he  indicates  as  lying  on 
the  Flaminian  Way  between  Ocriculum  and  Home.  See  Note  III. 

NOTE  II. — FALERII  ONE  OF  THE  TWELVE. — See  page  108. 

That  Falerii  was  one  of  the  Twelve  Cities  of  the  Etruscan  Confederation, 
there  is  every  reason  to  believe.  Its  position,  in  a  portion  of  Etruria  which 
could  scarcely  belong  to  Veii,  or  to  Volsinii,  the  nearest  cities  of  the  League 
— its  size,  much  superior  to  any  of  the  known  dependent  towns,  and  second 
only  to  Caere  and  Veii,  among  the  cities  south  of  the  Ciminian — and  the 
importance  ascribed  to  it  by  ancient  writers — make  it  highly  probable  that 
it  was  one  of  the  principal  cities  of  Etruria.  Cluver  (II.,  p.  545)  thinks  the 
fact  may  be  deduced  from  the  passage  of  Livy  (IV.  23)  already  commented 
on,  in  connection  with  Veii  (ut  supra,  p.  28).  Miiller  thinks  Falerii  has 
equal  claims  to  this  honour  with  Veii  and  Ca>re  ;  and  that  it  was  much  too 
powerful,  and  acted  too  independently,  to  be  the  colony  of  another  city. 
Etrusk.  II.  1,  2.  Eutropius  (1. 18)  says  it  was  not  inferior  to  Veii.  Dempster 
(de  Etruria  Regali,  II.  p.  52)  places  Falerii  among  the  Twelve.  Niebuhr  is 
not  of  this  opinion  ;  perhaps  because  he  regarded  the  Falisci  as  ^Equi,  rather 
than  as  Etruscans.  Hist.  Rom.  I.  pp.  72,  119,  Eng.  trans. 


CHAP,  viii.]  2EQTJUM    FALISCUM.  m 

NOTE  III. — ^QUUM  FALISCUM. — See  page  110. 

Niebuhr  (Hist.  Horn.  I.  p.  72,  Eng.  trans.)  is  of  opinion  that  the  epithet 
of  JEqui,  attached  by  Virgil  (yEn.  VII.  G95)  and  Silius  Italicus  (VIII.  491, 
cf.  V.  17G)  to  the  Falisci,  was  applied  to  them  because  they  were  JEqui  or 
Volsci,  and  remarks  that  the  names  Falisci  and  Volsci  are  clearly  identical. 
Miiller  (einl.  II.  14),  however,  shows  that  the  Etruscan  element  was  pre- 
dominant at  Falerii  ;  that  the  city  was  never  found  in  political  connection 
with  the  Sabines,  Umbrians,  or  JSquians,  but  solely  with  the  Etruscans,  and 
thinks  that  the  epithet  refers  to  the  position  of  the  second  city  of  Falerium 
in  the  plain,  as  stated  by  Zonaras.  Servius,  however,  in  his  comment  on 
this  passage  of  Virgil,  interprets  ^Equi  as,  "Just,  because  the  Roman  people, 
having  got  rid  of  the  Decemvirs,  received  from  the  Falisci  the  Fecial  laws, 
and  some  supplements  of  the  XII.  Tables  which  they  had  had  from  the 
Athenians."  Cluver  (Ital.  Ant.  II.  p.  538)  and  Miiller  (Etrusk.  II.  3,  6) 
refute  this  statement  ;  and  the  latter  will  not  allow  that  the}-  were  called 
JEqui  Falisci,  either  from  their  uprightness,  or  their  origin  from  the  race  of 
the  .^Equi,  as  Niebuhr  supposes  ;  but  solely  from  the  situation  of  their  second 
city.  I  pretend  not  to  reconcile  the  variances  of  such  authorities  ;  but 
merely  point  out  the  glaring  anachronism  of  which  the  Mantuan  bard  is 
guilty,  provided  the  opinion  of  Miiller  be  correct.  The  same  epithet,  how- 
ever, in  another  case — .ZEquimselium — we  are  expressly  told,  was  significant 
of  the  level  nature  of  the  ground  (Dion.  Hal.  Excerp.  Mai,  XII.  1).  It 
seems  to  me  more  probable,  from  a  comparison  with  Strabo  (V.  p.  226),  that 
yEquum  Faliscum  was  a  synonym  not  of  Roman  Falerii,  but  of  Faliscum, 
the  third  city  of  the  Falisci.  See  Note  I.  and  note  4,  on  page  123. 

NOTE  IV. — FALLERI  NOT  THE  ETRUSCAN  FALEUII. — See  page  110. 

The  name  of  most  weight  in  the  opposite  scale  is  that  of  Miiller  ;  but 
though  his  opinion  was  "  the  result  of  careful  consideration,"  it  is,  in  this 
case,  of  no  weight,  seeing  that  it  is  founded  on  a  mistaken  view  of  the  local 
characteristics  of  Fallen,  which,  it  is  evident,  he  had  never  visited.  He  has 
been  misled  by  false  statements,  and  his  arguments,  on  such  premises,  are  of 
course  powerless.  He  says  (Etrusker,  einl.  II.,  14),  "  the  walls  of  the  ancient 
city  of  Falerii,  built  of  polygonal  blocks  of  white  stone,  uncemented,  are 
situated  on  the  heights  about  three  miles  to  the  west  of  Civita  Castellana  ; 
and  the  site  is  still  called  Falari."  He  takes  his  information,  as  to  the 
position  of  the  ruins,  from  Nardini  (Veio  Antico,  p.  153),  and  from  Sickler's 
Plan  of  the  Campagna,  a  map  full  of  inaccuracies,  both  in  names  and  sites  : 
though  he  owns  that  Cluver,  Holstenius,  and  Mazzocchi  state  that  Falleri  is 
in  the  plain.  But  it  is  on  this  false  notion  that  he  founds  his  main  argu- 
ment, which  is  the  correspondence  of  the  position  of  Falari  with  that 
ascribed  to  Falerii,  by  ancient  writers.  Again,  he  says,  "  it  is  quite 
incredible  that  such  massive  walls  as  these  are  the  work  of  the  conquered 
Falisci,  or  of  a  Roman  colony.  Falari  must  therefore  be  regarded  as  the 
ancient  Falerii."  Now,  there  are  no  polygonal  walls  in  existence  in  Southern 
Etruria,  save  at  Pyrgi  on  the  coast  ;  and  the  blocks  of  which  those  of  Falerii 
are  composed  are  of  the  comparatively  small  size,  usually  employed  in 
Etruscan  cities  in  this  part  of  the  land,  and  precisely  accord  in  dimensions 
and  arrangement  with  those  of  Roma  Quadrata,  of  the  Tabularium,  and 
many  other  remains  in  and  around  Rome.  The  second  town  of  Falerii — 

VOL.    I.  I 


114  FALLEEI.  [CHAP.  VIH. 

jEquum  Faliscum,  as  he  calls  it — he  places,  with  Nardini,  on  some  unde- 
termined site  in  the  Plain  of  Borghetto,  near  the  Tiber,  because  Strabo  says 
it  was  near  the  Via  Flaminia.  Civita  Castellana,  he  follows  Nardini  and  the 
early  Italian  antiquaries,  in  supposing  to  be  the  ancient  Fescennium,  and 
contents  himself  with  saying  that  it  cannot  be  Falerii. 

It  should  be  stated  that  Festus  offers  a  singular  derivation  for  the  name  of 
this  city — Faleri  oppidum  a  sale  dictum — which  Cluver  (II.  p.  542)  explains 
as  the  consequence  of  a  blunder  in  transcribing  from  the  Greek  authors — 
airo  TOV  SXos  instead  of  dno  TOV  'AXrjcrov.  Its  obscurity  is  in  some  measure 
relieved  by  Servius  (ad  ./En.  VIII.  285),  who  calls  Alesus  the  son  of 
Neptune,  and  by  Silius  Italicus  (VIII.  47G),  where  he  refers  to  Halesus  ac 
the  founder  of  Alsium,  on  the  sea-coast.  Some  readings,  however,  of  Festus. 
give  "  Faleri  a,  fale" — -/a/a  meaning  something  lofty,  being  derived,  say 
Festus,  from  the  Etruscan  word  falando,  which  signifies  heaven. 


CuRCHIAXO.    AN    ETKUSCAN    SITE. 


CHAPTER    IX. 

FESCENNIUM. 

Festa  dicax  funclat  convicia  Fescenninus. — SENECA. 

Hem  !  nos  homunculi  iudignamur,  si  quis  nostrum  interiit  ant  occisus  est  quorum  vita 
bre/ior  esse  debet,  cuin  uno  loco  tot  oppidum  cadavera  projecta  jaceant? 

SERV.  SULPIT.,  Epist.  ad  M.  Tull.  Cicer. 

THE  second  town  of  the  Falisci,  Fescennium,  or  Fescennia,  or 
Fascenium,  as  Dioirysius  calls  it,  was  founded,  like  Falerii,  by 
the  Siculi,  who  were  driven  out  by  the  Pelasgi ;  traces  of  which 
latter  race  were  still  extant  in  Dionysius'  day,  in  the  warlike 
tactics,  the  Argolic  shields  and  spears,  the  religious  rites  and 
ceremonies,  and  in  the  construction  and  furniture  of  the  temples 
of  the  Falisci.1  This  Argive  or  Pelasgic  origin  of  Fescennium, 
as  well  as  of  Falerii,  is  confirmed  hy  Solinus.2 


Virgil  mentions 


1  Dion.  Hal.  I.  pp.  1C,  17. 

2  Solin.   II.  p.  13.      Servius,  however, 
ascribes  to  Fescennium  an  Athenian  origin, 


and  calls  it  a  to-wn  of  Campania  (ad  JEn. 
VII.  695). 

I  2 


116  FESCENNIUAI.  [CHAP.  ix. 

Fescennium  as  sending  her  hosts  to  the  assistance  of  Turnus  ; 3 
but  no  notice  of  it,  which  can  be  regarded  as  historical,  has  come 
down  to  us ;  and  it  is  probable  that,  as  a  Faliscan  town,  it 
followed  the  fortunes  and  fate  of  Falerii.  It  was  a  Homan 
colony  in  the  time  of  Pliny.4  We  know  only  this  in  addition, 
that  here  are  said  to  have  originated  the  songs,  which  from  an 
early  period  were  in  use  among  the  Romans  at  their  nuptials  ; 5 
and  which  were  sung  also  by  the  peasantry  in  alternate  extempore 
verses,  full  of  banter  and  raillery.6 

To  the  precise  site  of  Fescennium  we  have  no  clue,  though, 
from  its  connection  with  Falerii,  and  the  mention  made  of 
it  by  Virgil,  we  may  safely  conclude  it  was  in  the  district 
between  Soracte  and  the  Ciminian  mount,  i.  e.  in  the  ager 
Faliscus.  Miiller's  opinion,  that  it  occupied  the  site  of  Civita 
Castellana,  has  been  shown  to  be  incorrect.  The  assumption 
of  Cluver,  that  it  is  represented  by  Gallese,  a  village  about 
nine  miles  to  the  north  of  Civita  Castellana,  seems  wholly 
gratuitous ;  he  is  followed,  however,  in  this  by  subsequent 
writers — magni  nominis  umbra.7  The  truth  is,  that  there  are 
numerous  Etruscan  sites  in  this  district,  none  of  which, 
save  Gallese,  have  been  recognised  as  such,  so  that,  in  the 
absence  of  definite  description  by  the  ancients,  and  of  all 
monumentary  evidence  on  the  several  localities,  it  is  iin- 

3  Virg.  JEn.  loc.  cit.  of  Cortona,  Cfere,  Alsium,  Pyrgi,  all  which 

4  Plin.  III.  8.  cities  had  a  Pelasgic  origin. 

5  Serving,  loc.  cit.  Festus  roce  Fescennini          6  Livy   (VII.    2)   calls    them — versuin 
versus.     Plin.  XV.  24.     Catul.  LXI.  126.  incompositum  temere  ac  rudem.     Catullus 
Seneca,    Medea,    113.      Glaudian   gives  a  (loc.  cit.) — procax  Fescennina  locutio.     So 
specimen  of  Fescennina,  on  the  nuptials  of  also  Seneca  (loc.  cit.).     Fescennine  seems 
Honorius  and  Maria.     Festus  offers  a  deri-  to  have   been  a    proverbial   synonym   for 
vation — quia  fascinum  putabantur  arcere  "playing  the  fool."     Macrob.   Saturn.  II. 
— which  Miiller  (Etrusk.   IV.  5.  2.  n.  8.)  10.      In    their    original    character    these 
thinks  is  not  satisfactory.     Dr.   Schmitz,  Fescennines,  though  coarse  and  bold,  were 
in  Smith's  Dictionary  of  Antiquities,  objects  not  malicious  ;  but  in  time,  says  Horace, 
to  the  Fescennian  origin  of  these  songs,  on  the   freedom   of  amiable    sport    grew    to 
the  ground  that  "  this  kind  of  amusement  malignant  rage,   and  gave  rise  to   dissen- 
has  at  all  times  been,  and  is  still,  so  popular  sions  and  feuds  ;  whereon  the  law  stept  in, 
in  Italy,  that  it  can  scarcely  be  considered  and  put  an  end  to  them  altogether.     Epist. 
as  peculiar  to  any  particular  place."     He  II.  I.   145.     Augustus  himself  wrote  Fes- 
funher  maintains  that  these  songs  cannot  cennines  on  Pollio,  who  would  not  respond, 
be  of  Etruscan  origin,  because  Fescennium  save  with  a  witty  excuse — non  est  facile  in 
was  not  an  Etruscan,  but  a  Faliscan  town.  eum    scribere,    qui  potest    proscribere. — 
But  whatever  may  have  been  the  origin  of  Macrob.  Satur.  II.  4. 

the  Falisci,  ages  before  we  find  mention  of          7  Cluv.  Ital.  Antiq.  II.  p.  551.     Nibby, 

the  Fescennine  verses,  they  had  been  incor-  II.  p.  28.     Cramer,  I.  p.  226.     Abeken's 

porated  with  the  Etruscan  Confederation,  Mittelital.  p.   36.     Westphal,  Map  of  the 

and  were  as  much  Etruscans  as  the  citizens  Campagna. 


CHAP,  ix.]          BEAUTY    OF    THE    AGEE   FALISCUS.  117 

possible  to  pronounce  with  certainty  which  is  the  site  of 
Fescennium. 

This  district  tying  between  the  Ciminian  on  the  west,  Soracte 
on  the  east,  the  Tiber  on  the  north,  and  the  modern  Via  Cassia 
on  the  south,  with  the  exception  of  the  road  which  passes 
through  Nepi  and  Civita  Castellana  to  Ponte  Felice,  is  to 
travellers  in  general,  and  to  antiquaries  in  particular,  a  terra 
Incognita.  This  tract  of  country,  though  level,  is  of  exceeding 
beauty — not  the  stern,  barren  grandeur  of  the  Campagna  around 
Rome — but  beauty,  soft,  rich,  and  luxuriant.  Plains  covered 
with  oaks  and  chestnuts — grand  gnarled  giants,  who  have  lorded 
it  here  for  centuries  over  the  lowly  hawthorn,  nut,  or  fern — such 
sunny  glades,  carpeted  with  green  sward  ! — such  bright  stretches 
of  corn,  waving  away  even  under  the  trees! — such  "quaint 
mazes  in  the  wanton  groves  !  " — and  such  delicious  shady  dells, 
and  avenues,  and  knolls,  where  Nature,  in  her  springtide  frolics, 
mocks  Art  or  Titania,  arid  girds  every  tree,  every  bush,  with  a 
fairy  belt  of  crocuses,  anemones,  purple  and  white  cistuses, 
delicate  cyclamens,  convolvuluses  of  different  hues,  and  more 
varieties  of  laughing  flowers  than  I  would  care  to  enumerate. 
A  merrier  greenwood  you  cannot  see  in  all  merry  England ;  it 
may  want  the  buck  to  make  it  perfect  to  the  stalker's  taste  ; 
but  its  beauty,  its  joyousness,  must  fill  every  other  eye  with 
delight — 

"  It  is,  I  ween,  a  lovely  spot  of  ground, 
And  in  a  season  atween  June  and  May 
Half  prankt  with  spring,  with  summer  half  embrowned  .  . 
Is  nought  around  but  images  of  rest. 
Sleep-soothing  groves,  and  quiet  lawns  between, 
And  flowery  beds  that  slumb'rous  influence  kest 
From  poppies  breathed,  and  beds  of  pleasant  green." 

Ever  and  anon  the  vine  and  the  olive  come  in  to  enrich,  and  a 
flock  of  goats  or  of  long-horned  cattle8  to  animate  the  landscape, 
which  is  hedged  in  by  the  dark,  forest-clad  Ciminian,  the  naked, 
craggy,  sparkling  Soracte,  and  the  ever-fresh  and  glorious  range 
of  Apennines,  gemmed  with  many  a  town,  and  chequered  with 
shifting  shadows. 

All  this  is  seen  on  the  plain ;  but  go  northwards  towards  the 

8  The  waters   or  the   pastures   of  this  but  the  local  breed  is  now  of  the  grey  hue 

district,    the   "ager  Faliscus,"  were  sup-  common  in  the  Campagna.     This  district 

posed  by  the  ancients  to  have  the  property  was  anciently  fertile  in  flax  (Sil.  Ital.  IV. 

of  turning  cattle  white  (Plin.  Nat.  His.  II.  223).     There  is   little   enough,   either   of 

106.     Ovid.  Amor.  III.  Eleg.  13,  v.  13),  produce  or  manufacture,  at  present. 


118  FESCEXNIUM.  [CHAP.  ix. 

Tiber,  and  you  find  that  you  are  far  from  being  on  low  ground  ; 
the  river  flows  five  hundred  feet  beneath  you,  through  a  valley 
which  in  fertile  beauty  has  few  rivals,  even  in  Italy.  Or 
attempt  to  approach  some  one  of  the  towns  whose  spires  you 
see  peering  above  the  woods  of  the  plain ;  and  many  a  ravine, 
darkly  profound,  unseen,  unthought  of  till  you  stand  on  its 
brink,  yawns  at  your  feet,  and  must  be  traversed  to  its  uttermost 
recesses  ere  you  attain  your  object.  In  these  lower  regions  }TOU 
are  amid  scenes  widely  different  from  those  on  the  upper  level. 
Your  horizon  is  bounded  b}r  walls  of  rock,  but  what  it  wants  in 
distance  it  gains  in  intrinsic  beauty.  The  cliffs,  broken  into 
fantastic  forms,  and  hollowed  into  caves  of  mysterious  interest, 
display  the  richest  hues  of  brown,  red,  orange,  and  grey ;  wood 
hangs  from  their  every  ledge,  and  even  crests  their  brows — a 
wood  as  varied  in  mass  as  in  tint — ilex,  ash,  alder,  oak,  chestnut 
— matted  together  with  ivy,  vines,  clematis,  and  honeysuckle  ;  a 
stream  winds  brawling  through  the  hollow,  here  spanned  by  a 
rustic  bridge,  there  sinking  in  a  mimic  cascade ;  now  struggling 
among  the  fallen,  moss-grown  crags,  now  running  riot  through 
some  lowly  mill,  half  hid  by  foliage.  A  white  shrine  or  hermit- 
age looks  down  from  the  verge  of  the  cliff,  or  a  bolder- featured 
town,  picturesque  with  the  ruin  of  ages,  towers  above  you  on  an 
insulated  mass  at  the  forking  of  the  glen ;  so  lofty,  so  inaccessible 
is  the  site,  you  cannot  believe  it  the  very  same  town  you  had 
seen  for  miles  before  you,  lying  in  the  bosom  of  the  plain.  Such 
are  the  general  outlines  of  the  scenery ;  but  every  site  has  its 
peculiar  features,  which  I  shall  only  notice  in  so  far  as  the}r 
have  antiquarian  interest. 

About  six  miles  northwards  from  Civita  Castellana  lies 
Corchiano,  now  a  wretched  village  of  five  or  six  hundred  souls, 
ruined  by  the  French  at  the  beginning  of  the  century,  and  never 
rebuilt.  There  is  nothing  of  antiquity  within  the  walls,  but  the 
site  is  clearly  Etruscan.  No  walls  of  that  origin  are  extant,  but 
the  ravines  around  contain  numerous  sepulchres,  now  defaced  by 
appropriation  to  other  purposes.  Traces  of  Etruscan  roads,  too, 
are  abundant.  On  the  way  to  Gallese,  to  Ponte  Felice,  and  to 
Civita  Castellana,  you  pass  through  deep  clefts,  sunk  in  the  rock 
in  ancient  times  ;  and  in  the  more  immediate  neighbourhood  of 
the  village  are  roads  cut  in  the  rock,  and  flanked  by  sepulchres, 
or  built  up  on  either  hand  with  large  blocks  of  tufo,  which  have 
every  appearance  of  remote  antiquity.  The  tombs  have  no 
remarkable  features — being  mostly  square  chambers,  with  benches 


CHAP,  ix.]  COECHIANO,    AN    ETEUSCAN    SITE.  119 

of  rock  around,  and  sometimes  with  a  pillar  or  partition-wall  in 
the  centre.  There  are  some  columbaria  as  at  Falleri,  and  not  a 
few  of  those  singular  conical  tombs,  sunk  in  the  ground,  and 
having  an  opening  above,  which  abound  at  Civita  Castellana. 
But  the  most  remarkable  monument  on  this  site  is  about  half  a 
mile  from  Corchiano,  on  the  road  to  Falleri.  After  crossing  the 
river  —  the  Rio  Fratte  —  you  ascend  to  the  level  of  the  plain  by  a 
road  sunk  in  the  tufo,  on  the  wall  of  which  is  carved  an  Etruscan 
inscription,  in  letters  fifteen  inches  in  height,  with  an  intaglio  of 
at  least  three  inches  — 


or  LARTH.  VEL.  ARNIES.  On  the  rock  just  beyond  there  has  been 
another  inscription,  but  one  letter  only  is  now  traceable.  There 
is  no  appearance  of  a  tomb,  and  the  rock  does  not  seem  to  have 
been  hewn  into  a  monumental  form,  yet  the  inscription  of  a 
proper  name,  in  such  a  situation  (and  complete  in  itself,  as  the 
smooth  surface  testifies),  can  hardly  have  been  other  than  sepul- 
chral. Here,  at  least,  is  proof  positive  of  the  Etruscan  antiquity 
of  the  road,  and  a  valuable  guide  by  which  to  judge  of  other  roads. 
There  has  been  a  water-course  down  one  side,  and,  a  little  above 
the  inscription,  a  sewer,  just  like  those  beneath  the  walls  of 
Etruscan  cities,  opens  on  the  road,  bringing  the  water  from  the 
ground  above  into  the  course  ;  and  again,  some  distance  below  the 
inscribed  rock,  another  similar  sewer  opens  in  the  tufo,  and 
carries  the  water  through  the  cliff,  clear  of  the  road,  down  to  the 
river.  Both  sewers  have  evidently  been  formed  for  no  other 
purpose  ;  and  have  every  appearance  of  being  coeval  with  the 
road.  This,  which  ran  here  in  Etruscan  times,  must  be  the  same 
as  that  afterwards  called  by  the  Romans  Via  Amerina;  it  led 
northward  from  Nepi,  through  Falleri,  to  the  Tiber  near  Orte. 
Corchiano,  the  ancient  name  of  which  is  utterly  lost,9  was  also  on 
the  road,  perhaps  a  mutatio. 

9  Among  the  sepulchral  incriptions  of  tion  said  by  Buonarroti  to  be  cut  on  some 

Chiusi,     we    find    the     proper    name   of  rocks  in  the  mountains  near  Florence  (p. 

"Carcu"      "Carca"      "Carcna,"      and  95,  ap.  Dempst.  II.).     The  name  Carconia 

"Carcuni,"    which    in    Latin    would    be  in  Faliscan  letters  occurs   in  one  of   the 

Carconia.        Mus.     Chius.     II.    p.     218.  sepulchral  inscriptions  found  in  1851  near 

Lanzi,  II.  pp.  348,  409,  432,  455.     The  Sta.  Maria  di  Falleri.  Ann.   Inst.  1860, 

name  of  "Curcli,"  which  bears  a  strong  tav.  G. 
affinity  to  Corchiano,  occurs  in  an  inscrip- 


120  FESCENNIUM.  [CHAP.  ix. 

There  is  considerable  interest  around  Corchiano,  and  the  anti- 
quary or  artist,  who  would  explore  the  neighbourhood,  would  do 
well  to  make  it  his  head-quarters,  as  it  is  centrally  convenient, 
and  accommodation  might  formerly  be  had  in  the  house  of  the 
butcher  of  the  place,  Giuseppe  Lionidi.  The  persons  who 
entertain  strangers  at  these  out-of-the-way  places  are  often 
butchers,  and  generally  well  to  do  in  the  world,  that  is,  as  well-doing 
is  esteemed  in  Italy.  At  such  places  the  traveller  cannot  look 
for  comfort,  but  he  will  generally  meet  with  great  attention  from 
the  whole  household. 

About  two  miles  from  Corchiauo  on  the  road  to  Bassanello,  at 
a  spot  called  Puntone  del  Ponte,  is  a  singular  tomb,  with  a  sort 
of  court  in  front  sunk  in  the  rock,1  and  with  the  remains  of  a 
portico,  of  which  but  one  square  pillar  is  now  standing.  On  the 
inner  wall  of  the  portico,  high  under  the  cornice,  is  an  Etruscan 
inscription,  which  is  imperfect,  but  seems  to  state  the  age  of  the 
defunct.  In  its  general  style  this  sepulchre  resembles  the  triple- 
arched  tomb  at  Falleri.  It  now  serves  as  a  pig-sty;  therefore 
beware  of  fleas — swarming  as  in  Egyptian  plagues — beclouding 
light  nether  garments ! 

Seven  miles  north  of  Corchiano,  on  the  road  to  Orte,  is 
Bassanello,  perhaps  an  Etruscan  site.  There  is  nothing  of 
interest  here ;  but  half-way  between  it  and  Corchiano,  is  a 
deserted  town  called  Aleano  or  Liano,  alias  Sta.  Bruna,  from  a 
ruined  church  on  the  site.  The  walls  and  other  ruins,  so  far  as 
I  could  see,  are  mediaeval,  and  highly  picturesque ;  but  there  are 
tombs  of  more  ancient  date  in  the  cliffs  beneath  the  walls,  and  in 
the  neighbourhood.  In  many  parts  of  this  road  you  trace  the 
Via  Amerina,  by  the  line  of  basaltic  blocks,  running  almost  due 
N.  and  S.,  and  in  one  part,  near  the  Puntone  del  Ponte,  you 
tread  the  ancient  pavement  for  some  distance. 

Three  miles  from  Corchiano  and  nine  from  Civita  Castellana, 
lies  Gallese,  the  town  which  has  been  supposed  to  occupy  the  site 
of  Fescennium.  It  stands,  as  usual,  on  a  mass  of  rock  at  the 
junction  of  two  ravines.  It  has  evidently  been  an  Etruscan  site, 
and  though  no  walls  of  that  construction  are  extant,  there  are 
several  sewers  in  the  cliffs  beneath  the  town,  and  plenty  of  tombs 
in  the  rocks  around.  Within  the  town  are  a  few  lloman  remains, 
fragments  of  columns,  inscriptions,  and  bas-reliefs,  but  nothing 

1  This  court  in  front  of  the  portico  Macrob.  Sat.  VI.  8)  as  a  vacant  space 
must  represent  the  vestibule  described  by  before  the  door  of  the  house,  through 
Ciecilius  Gallus  (ap.  A.  Gell.  XVI.  5  ;  which  lay  the  approach  to  it. 


CHAP,  ix.]  GALLESE— VIGNANELLO— SORIANO.  121 

which  throws  light  on  the  ancient  name  of  the  place.  This, 
however,  has  been  determined  by  a  worthy  canonico  of  Gallese, 
now  deceased,  to  be  the  ^Equuni  Faliscum,  mentioned  by  Strabo, 
Virgil,  and  Italicus,  and  he  wrote  a  work  thereon,  still  in  manu- 
script, entitled,  "  La  Antica  Falisca,  o  sia  notizie  istoriche  della 
citta  di  Gallese,  dal  Canonico  Teologo  Amanzio  Nardoni."  His 
is  not  a  new  idea,  for  on  the  front  of  the  Palazzo  Comunale  or 
Town-hall  is  inscribed — 

S^CULA  BUM  VIVENT   DUKABIT  VITA  PHALTSCIS. 

The  derivation  of  Gallese  from  Halesus,  or  Haliscus,  the  son 
of  Agamemnon,  and  reputed  founder  of  the  Faliscan  race,  is 
plausible  enough ;  but  another  less  venerable  origin  has  been 
sought  for  the  name  by  the  townspeople,  who  have  assumed  for 
the  arms  of  the  town  a  cock — Gallese  a  gallo.  ^Equum  Faliscum 
seems,  from  Strabo,  to  have  been  on  the  Flaminian  Way,  but 
Gallese  lies  about  midway  between  that  and  the  Via  Amerina,  two 
or  three  miles  from  each.  The  town  is  circumscribed  by  nature, 
and  can  never  have  been  of  importance — scarcely  large  enough  to 
•  be  the  ancient  Fescennium.  Gallese  is  very  accessible  by  railway 
from  Rome,  from  which  it  is  74  chilometres  distant,  and  three 
miles  from  the  station  bearing  its  own  name. 

Six  miles  north-west  of  Corchiano  lies  Vignanello,  also  an 
Etruscan  site,  but  with  no  remains  of  interest.  It  is  a  mean  and 
dirty  town  with  a  villanous  osteria,  yet  of  such  importance  that  a 
vehicle,  miscalled  diligence,  runs  thither  from  Rome  twice  a  week. 
Four  miles  beyond  is  Soriano,  another  ancient  site,  possibly  the 
Surrina  Vetus  whose  existence  may  be  inferred  from  the  "  Sur- 
rina  Nova  "  which  occupied  the  site  of  Viterbo.  It  is  boldly 
situated  on  the  lower  slope  of  the  dark  Ciminian,  lorded  over  by 
its  venerable  castle  ;  and  retains  many  a  picturesque  trace  of  the 
earthquake  which  shattered  it  in  the  last  century. 

I  had  the  fortune  to  discover  the  site  of  an  ancient  city  in  this 
district,  which  seems  to  me  to  be  more  probably  that  of  Fescen- 
nium than  any  one  of  those  yet  mentioned.  It  lies  about  a  mile 
and  a  half  west  of  Ponte  Felice,  on  the  way  thence  to  Corchiano, 
and  the  site  is  indicated  by  a  long  line  of  walling,  an  embankment 
to  the  cliffs  on  one  side  of  a  ravine.  From  the  character  of  the 
ground  the  city  must  have  been  of  great  size,  for  it  is  not  the 
usual  narrow  ridge  between  two  ravines,  but  a  wide  area,  some 
miles  in  circuit,  surrounded  by  ravines  of  great  depth ;  more  like 
the  site  of  the  ancient  Falerii,  on  the  heights  of  Civita  Castel- 


122  FESCENNIUM.  [CHAP.  ix. 

lana,  than  of  any  other  town  in  this  neighbourhood.  The  area 
of  the  city  is  covered  with  dense  wood,  which  greatly  impedes 
research ;  on  it  stands  the  ruined  church  of  San  Silvestro,  which 
gives  its  name  to  the  spot.  The  wall  is  the  facing  to  a  sort  of 
natural  bastion  in  the  cliff,  considerably  below  the  level  of  the 
city.  It  is  so  conspicuous  that  I  am  surprised  to  find  no  men- 
tion of  it  in  any  work  on  the  Cainpagna,  not  even  in  "VVestphal  or 
Nibby. 

Forcing  a  way  through  pathless  thickets,  I  climbed  to  the  wall 
and  found  it  to  extend  in  an  unbroken  mass  for  150  or  200  feet.2 
In  the  size  and  arrangement  of  its  blocks  it  is  more  like  the  frag- 
ments at  Tarquinii  and  Caere,  than  any  other  remains  I  can  recollect 
in  Etruria.  The  whole  is  much  ruined  in  surface,  and  bears  the 
appearance  of  very  high  antiquity.  It  has  evidently  been  the 
wall  of  a  cit}r,  for  no  mere  castle  would  have  had  a  bastion  such 
as  this,  nor  would  it  have  occupied  such  a  site,  on  a  ledge  of  the 
cliff,  completely  commanded  by  higher  ground ;  and  though  in 
the  style  of  its  masonry  it  differs  somewhat  from  the  general 
type,  yet  in  its  position,  as  a  revetement  to  the  cliff,  it  exactly 
corresponds  with  the  usual  walling  of  Etruscan  cities.  That 
such  is  its  character  is  corroborated  by  the  existence  of  numerous 
tombs,  not  in  the  cliffs  of  the  ravines,  but,  as  at  Nepi,  on  the 
level  of  the  high  ground  opposite,  together  with  fragments  of 
walling,  and  sewers  which  were  probably  intended  to  drain  this 
level  and  keep  the  tombs  dry. 

The  size  of  this  city,  so  much  superior  to  that  of  the  neigh- 
bouring Etruscan  towns,  and  its  vicinity  to  the  Via  Flaminia 
which  ran  just  below  it  to  the  East  on  its  way  to  the  Tiber  and 
Otricoli,  greatly  favour  the  view  that  here  stood  Fescennium. 
Not  that  that  city  is  known  to  have  been  on  the  Flaminian,  but 
the  ancients  generally  made  their  roads  to  accommodate  any 
place  of  importance  that  lay  in  the  same  direction ;  3  and  that 

2  About     eight     or    ten     courses    are  Borghetto,  crossing  the  Tiber  by  the  bridge 
standing,  formed  of  tufo  blocks,  from  18  now  in  ruins,  called  Le  Pile  d'  Augusto; 
to  22  inches   in   height,  and   square,    or  but  its  precise  course  through  this  district 
nearly    so     (not    alternating     with    long  has  not  been  determined.     Westphal,  Un- 
blocks as  in    the   usual   emplectori),    and  mis.  Kamp.  p.  136.     It  did  not  run  to  the 
laid  often  one  directly  over  the  other,  as  original  Falerii,  because  that  city  had  been 
in  the  Tullianum  prison,  and  other  very  destroyed   before   its   formation,    and  the 
early  structures.  second  Falerii  was  accommodated  by  the 

3  The  ancient  road  departed  from  the  Via  Amerina.     But  Fescennium  continued 
line   of  the   modern  Via   Flaminia  about  to  exist  under  the  Empire,  and  therefore 
Aqua  Viva,  leaving  Civita  Castellana  two  was  most  probably  connected  with  the  City 
or  three  miles  to  the  left,  and  continued  to  by  a  road. 


CHAP,  ix.]  PEOBABLE    SITE    OF   FESCEXNIUAT.  123 

Fescennium  was  of  more  importance  than  the  many  nameless 
Etruscan  towns  in  this  district,  it  is  fair  to  conclude  from  the 
mention  of  it  by  Dionysius  and  Virgil,  and  from  its  being  coupled 
with  Falerii,  one  of  the  cities  of  the  Confederation.  If  it  were 
certain  that  ./Equum  Faliscum  was  not  merely  another  name  for 
Falerii,  it  might  well  have  occupied  this  site,  for  Strabo  seems  to 
indicate  it  as  being  on  the  Flaminian  Way,  between  Otricoli  and 
Rome,  which  must  mean  somewhat  on  the  Roman  side  of  the 
former  place.4  In  one  of  the  three  Itineraries,  indeed,  which 
give  the  stations  on  the  Flaminian,  a  town  of  that  name  is  placed 
in  this  neighbourhood;  but  on  the  wrong  bank  of  the  Tiber. 
Neither  Fescennium  nor  J^quum  Faliscum  is  mentioned  by 
Ptolemy.  If  this  be  the  site  of  Fescennium,  as  the  latest  men- 
tion of  that  town  is  made  by  Pliny,  it  is  probable  that  at  an  early 
period  of  the  Empire  it  fell  into  decay,  and  was  deserted,  like  so 
many  other  Etruscan  towns,  and  "  the  rejoicing  city  became  a 
desolation,  a  place  for  beasts  to  lie  down  in."  Its  only  inhabit- 
.•its  are  now  the  feathered  tribes,  and  the  only  nuptial  songs 
which  meet  the  ear  are  those  of  countless  nightingales,  which  in 
spring-time  not  only  "  smooth  the  rugged  brow  of  Night,"  but 
even  at  noonday  fill  the  groves  and  ravines  with  tuneful  echoes, 

"  Stirring  the  air  with  such  a  harmony  " 

as  to  infuse  a  spirit  of  joy  and  gladness  into  this  lonely  and 
desolate  spot. 

4  Strabo,  it  must  be  observed,  does  not  of  the  evidently  corrupt  text  also  approved 

speak  from  his  own  knowledge,  but  records  of  by  Miiller  (Etrusk.  einl.  II.  14,  n.  101). 

it  as  a  report — oi5e  A.lKov/j.<t>a.\iffKov  \tyov-  Both  these  authorities,  however,  take  this 

atVf  &c.   (V.  p.   226).      This  is  according  for  a  synonym  of  the  second  Falerii,  which 

to  the  version  of  Cluver  (II.  p.  538),  who  was  built  in  the  plain,  not  of  the  third  city 

reads  it  ^Equum  Faliscum,  an  emendation  (Faliscum)  of  the  Falisci. 


CAVENA,    WITH    SOKACTE    IN    THK    DISTANCE. 


CHAPTER    X. 

FEKONIA   AND    CAPENA. 
Hsec  duo  praeterea  disjectis  oppida  muris. — VIRO. 

Itur  in  agros 

Dives  ubi  ante  omnes  colitur  Feronia  luco 
Et  sacer  huinectat  fluvialia  rura  Capeiias. — SIL.  ITAL. 

ANOTHER  Etruscan  city  which  played  a  prominent  part  in  the 
early  history  of  Home,  was  Capena.1  It  is  first  mentioned  by 
Livy  in  his  account  of  the  last  Veientine  war,  when  it  united 
with  Falerii  in  assisting  Veii,  then  beleaguered  by  the  Romans. 
The  latter  city,  from  her  power  and  proximity  to  Rome,  was  the 
bulwark  of  Etruria;  and  it  was  foreseen  by  the  neighbouring 
people,  that  should  she  fall,  the  whole  land  would  be  open  to 
invasion.2  Falerii  and  Capena,  fearing  they  would  be  next 
attacked,  made  strenuous  attempts  to  raise  the  siege,  but  finding 
their  efforts  vain,  they  besought  the  aid  of  the  great  Confedera- 
tion of  Etruria.3  Now,  it  had  so  happened  that  the  Veientes  had 
greatly  offended  the  Confederation,  first,  by  acting  contrary  to 


1  Capena  is  evidently  a  name  of  Etruscan 
origin.  A  tomb  of  the  family  of  "  Capeni," 
or  "Capenia,"  was  discovered  at  Perugia 
in  1843  (Yermigl.  Scavi  Perugini,  p.  9). 
Among  Etruscan  family  names,  we  meet 
with  "Capnas"  (Verm.  Isc.  Perug.  I.  p. 
226)  and  "Capevani,"  (Lanzi  II.  p.  371) 
probably  a  derivation  from  Capena  with 
the  insertion  of  the  digamma.  In  the  tomb 
of  the  Cilnii,  the  name  "Caupna"  occurs. 


Signer  Giulietti  of  Chiusi  has  an  urn  in- 
scribed ' '  Thania  Capnei. "  Stephanus  calls 
this  town  Capinna. 

-  Liv.  V.  8. 

3  Liv.  V.  17.  Cato  (ap.  Serv.  ad  .En. 
VII.  697)  states  that  Capena  was  a  colony  of 
Veii,  which  would  be  an  additional  reason 
for  her  eagerness  to  assist  the  latter  in  her 
extremity. 


CHAP,  x.]  HISTOEY    AND    SITE    OF    CAPENA.  125 

the  established  custom  of  the  land,  in  taking  to  themselves  a 
king ;  and  in  the  next  place,  their  king  had  made  himself 
personally  obnoxious  by  interrupting  the  solemn  games — an  act 
amounting  to  sacrilege.  So  the  Confederation  had  decreed  that 
no  succour  should  be  afforded  to  Veii  so  long  as  she  retained  her 
king.4  To  the  representations  of  the  Falisci  and  Capenates,  the 
magnates  of  Etruria  in  conclave  assembled,  replied,  that  hitherto 
they  had  refused  Veii  assistance  on  the  ground  that  as  she  had 
not  sought  counsel  of  them,  neither  must  she  seek  succour,  and 
that  they  must  still  withhold  it,  being  themselves  in  peril  from 
the  sudden  invasion  of  the  Gauls.5  The  two  allies  nevertheless 
persisted  in  their  efforts  to  raise  the  siege,  but  in  vain  :  their 
lands  were  several  times  ravaged,  and  their  armies  overthrown  ;6 
and  on  the  fall  of  Veii,  the  fate  they  had  anticipated  befell  them. 
Their  territories  were  again  invaded,  and  though  the  natural 
strength  of  their  cities  preserved  them  from  assault,  their  lands 
were  laid  waste,  and  the  produce  of  their  fields  and  orchards 
utterly  destroyed.7  The  territory  of  Capena  was  particularly 
fertile,8  and  such  a  blow  as  this  was  more  efficacious  than  the 
sword,  for  it  compelled  the  citizens  to  sue  for  peace,  though  at 
the  expense  of  their  independence.  A  few  years  later  (A.U.  365) 
the  Roman  citizenship  was  granted  to  such  of  the  inhabitants  of 
Veii,  Falerii,  and  Capena,  as  had  sided  with  Rome  in  the  recent 
struggle  ;  and  the  conquered  territory  was  divided  among  them.9 
Such  means  did  Rome  employ  to  facilitate  her  conquests,  and 
secure  them  more  firmly  to  herself. 

That  Capena  continued  to  exist  as  late  as  the  time  of 
Aurelian,  is  proved  by  scattered  notices  in  ancient  writers  and 
by  inscriptions.  From  that  time  we  lose  sight  of  her.  Her 
site  probably  became  desolate  ;  and  her  name  was  consequently 
forgotten.  When  interest  was  again  awakened  in  the  antiquities 
of  Italy,  she  was  sought  for,  but  long  in  vain.  Cluver1  placed 
Capena  at  Civitella  San  Paolo,  not  far  from  the  Tiber ; 
Holstenius,2  at  Morlupo ;  while  Galetti,  from  the  evidence  of 
inscriptions  discovered  on  the  spot,3  has  determined  it  to 

4  Liv.  Y.  1.  *  Cluv.  II.  p.  549. 

5  Liv.  Y.  17.  :  Adnot.  ad  CluT.  p.  62. 

6  Liv.  Y.  12—14.  19.                                          3  Galetti,  Sopra  il   Sito  di  Capena,  p. 
'  Liv.  Y.  24.  4 — 23.     One  of  these  inscriptions  is  now 

8  Cicero  pro  Flac.  XXIX.  at  Morlupo,  another  in  the  church  of  S. 

9  Liv.  YI.  4.     Those   of    Capena   were  Oreste,  and  a  third  in  that  of  S.  Silvestro, 
formed  into  a  new  tribe,  called  Stdlatina.  on  the  summit  of  Soracte.     cf.  Gruter,  p. 
Festus,  s.  voce.  cf.  Liv.  YI.  5.  189.  5.  and  466.  6.     Fabretti,  p.  109. 


126  FERONIA    AXD    CAPEXA.  [CHAP.  x. 

have  been  at  Civitucola,  an  uninhabited  hill,  half-way  between 
the  two.4 

This  hill  lies  far  from  any  high  road  or  frequented  path,  and 
still  further  from  any  town  where  the  traveller  may  find  accom- 
modation— in  a  part  of  the  Campagna  which  is  never  visited  by 
strangers,  save  by  some  adventurous  antiquary,  or  some  sports- 
man, led  by  his  eagerness  far  away  from  his  accustomed  haunts. 
It  was  more  accessible  when  the  Via  Flaminia  was  in  use  as  the 
high-way  from  Rome  to  Civita  Castellana,  for  it  lies  only  five  or 
six  miles  off  that  road.  The  nearest  point  on  the  railroad  from 
which  it  may  be  visited  is  Monte  Rotondo,  from  which  station  it 
is  about  five  miles  distant ;  but  when  I  visited  it,  the  nearest 
point  was  Civita  Castellana,  sixteen  or  eighteen  miles  distant,  and 
it  was  a  long  day's  journey  there  and  back,  on  account  of  the 
nature  of  the  country  to  be  traversed,  which  is  practicable  only 
on  foot  or  on  horseback.  In  truth  it  was  necessary  to  leave 
Civita  at  break  of  day,  to  avoid  the  risk  of  being  benighted — no 
agreeable  accident  in  a  country  so  lonely,  and  whose  inhabitants 
are  not  well  reputed  for  honesty. 

Domenico,  my  guide  to  Falleri,  could  not  attend  me  to  Capena, 
and  sent  his  brother  in  his  stead — Antonio,  commonly  called  "  II 
Re  " — the  King — a  nom  de  guerre  which,  as  the  eldest  son,  he 
had  inherited  from  his  father.  Doinenico,  I  learned,  was  having 
his  pigs  blessed.  A  mad  dog  had  attacked  them,  and  the  hogs 
had  defended  themselves  stoutly,  rushing  upon  and  goring  him 
with  their  tusks  till  they  trampled  his  dead  body  under  their  feet. 
They  paid  dearly  for  it,  however  ;  ten  of  them  were  bitten  in  the 
conflict,  and  to  save  them  from  hydrophobia  Domenico  had  sent 
to  the  sacerdote  to  bless  them  and  put  the  iron  of  San  Domenico 
on  their  foreheads. 

I  requested  an  explanation. 

Saint  Domenick,  it  seems,  was  once  on  a  time  on  his  travels, 
when  his  horse  dropped  a  shoe.  He  stopped  at  the  first  farrier's 
he  came  to,  and  had  it  replaced.  The  farrier  asked  for  payment. 


4  Cramer,  I.  p.  231;  Nibby,  roceCapena;  the  opposite   direction,   but  from  Capua, 

Gell,  I.  p.  263.    Dempster  (Et.  Reg.  II.  p.  and  that  the  termination  is  but  the  early 

179)   made  the  blunder  of  placing  it  in  Latin  adjectival  form,  as  we  know  it  to 

Latium,  on  the  Appian  Way,  because  the  have  been  the  Etruscan.    Frontinus  indeed 

Porta  Capena  of  Rome  opened  on  that  road,  (de  AquaxL,  p.  27)  says  the  Via  Appia  led 

as  Servius  (ad  JEn.  VII.  697)  had  said: —  — a  portd  Capenft  usque  ad  Capuam;  and 

Porta  Capena  juxta  Capenos  est.     There  Dionysius   (VIII.    p.    483)  calls   the  gate 

can  be  little  doubt  that  the  Gate  derived  irv\ri  Kairvtvi). 
its  name,  not  from  Capena,  which  lay  in 


CHAP,  x.]  SOEACTE.  127 

The  saint-errant  was  as  astonished  as  the  knight  of  La  Mancha 
could  have  heen  at  such  a  demand ;  but  with  less  courtesy  he 
said  to  his  horse,  "  Give  him  back  the  shoe."  Whereupon  the 
obedient  animal  flung  out  his  heels,  and  with  a  blow  on  the  fore- 
head laid  the  farrier  dead.  Domenico  in  his  simplicity  could 
not  perceive  that  the  farrier  was  at  least  as  worthy  of  his  hire 
as  the  priest,  to  whom  he  had  paid  three  pauls  for  saying  a 
benediction  over  his  hogs,  and  branding  their  foreheads  with  the 
mark  of  a  horse-shoe. 

For  the  first  five  miles  the  road  was  the  modern  Via  Flaminia, 
which  after  crossing  the  Treia,  ascends  to  the  level  of  the 
Campagna,  and  continues  through  a  country  partially  wooded 
nnd  cultivated,  yet  not  without  beauty,  to  the  foot  of  Soracte. 
The  mountain  itself  is  sufficient  to  obviate  all  tedium  on  the 
ride.  At  first  it  presents  the  form  of  a  dark  wedge  or  cone,  the 
end  towards  you  being  densely  clothed  with  wood ;  but  as  you 
approach  it  lengthens  out  gradually,  peak  after  peak  disclosing 
itself,  till  it  presents  a  totally  different  aspect — a  long  serrated 
ridge,  rising  at  first  in  bright  green  slopes  from  the  plain,  then 
darkening  above  with  a  belt  of  olive-groves,  and  terminating  in  a 
bald  crest  of  grey  rock,  jagged  and  craggjr,  its  peaks  capt  witli 
white  convents,  which  sparkle  in  the  sun  like  jewels  on  a  diadem. 
The  whole  mass  reminds  one  of  Gibraltar ;  it  is  about  the  same 
length — more  than  three  miles  —  it  rises  to  about  the  same 
height  above  the  plain 5 — it  has  the  same  p}Tramidal  form  when 
foreshortened,  a  similar  line  of  jagged  peaks.  But  there  is  less 
abruptness,  and  more  fertility.  There  is  not  the  stern  savage 
grandeur  of  the  Spanish  Rock ;  but  the  true  Italian  grace  and 
ease  of  outline — still  the  beautiful  though  verging  on  the  wild. 

At  the  Romitorio,  a  hamlet  of  a  few  ruined  houses,  I  left  the 
Via  Flaminia,  and  striking  across  some  fields  and  through  a 
wood,  ascended,  by  wretched  tracks  saturated  with  rain,  to  the 
olive-groves  which  belt  the  mountain.  The  view  on  the  ascent 
is  magnificent — the  vast  expanse  of  the  wild,  almost  uninhabited, 
Campagna  at  my  feet — here  dark  with  wood,  from  which  the 
towers  of  a  few  towns  arose  at  wide  intervals — there  sweeping 
away  in  league  after  league  of  bare  down  or  heath — the  double- 
headed  mass  of  the  Ciminian  on  the  right — the  more  distant 

5  Gibraltar  is  about  1500  feet  above  the  But  the  plain  from  which  Soracte  is  viewed, 

sea.     Soracte,  according  to  Nibby,  is  2150  being  considerably  elevated  above  the  sea, 

French  feet ;  according  to  Gell,  2270  French  the  heights  of  the  two  mountains  appear 

feet  in  height.   Westphal  calls  it  2200  feet.  nearly  equal. 


128  FEKOXIA   AND    CAPENA.  [CHAP.  x. 

Alban  on  the  other  hand — the  sharp  wooded  peak  of  Rocca 
Romana  between  them — the  varied  effects  of  light  and  shade,  of 
cloud  and  sunshine,  as  storms  arose  from  time  to  time  and 
crossed  the  scene,  darkening  and  shrouding  a  portion  of  the 
landscape,  which  presently  came  forth  laughing  in  brilliant  sun- 
shine ;  while  the  lowering  cloud  moved  on,  blotting  out  one 
object  after  another  on  which  the  eye  but  a  moment  before  had 
been  resting  with  delight. 

On  emerging  from  the  wood,  Sant  Oreste  was  seen  before  us, 
situated  on  a  bare  elevated  shoulder  of  the  mountain.  From  the 
rocky  ridge  leading  to  the  village  a  new  scene  comes  into  view. 
A  richly  wooded  valley  lies  beneath,  with  the  Tiber  winding 
through  it ;  and  the  Apennines  rise  beyond,  peak  above  peak 
in  steps  of  sublimit}',  and  stretch  away  far  to  the  south  till  they 
sink  all  faint  and  grey  into  the  Latin  valley,  at  the  steep  of 
Palestrina. 

The  rock  of  which  the  mountain  is  composed  here  starts  up  in 
Ijold  crags  on  every  side ;  it  is  a  sort  of  limestone,  called  from 
its  colour  "  paloiribino ;  "  it  is  not  however  of  dove-colour  alone, 
Lut  it  is  to  be  found  of  various  shades  of  grey,  and  sometimes 
almost  white.  Among  these  crags  a  path  winds  up  to  the 
summit  of  the  mountain.  Here  the  traveller  will  find  a  colony  of 
recluses,  and  the  several  churches  of  Sta.  Lucia,  La  Madonna 
delle  Grazie,  Sant  Antonio,  and  San  Silvestro.  The  latter 
stands  on  the  central  and  highest  peak  of  the  mountain,  and  is 
generally  supposed  to  occupy  the  site  of  the  ancient  temple  of 
Apollo,  to  which  deit}r  Soracte  was  sacred.6  It  can  boast  of  no 
small  antiquity  itself,  having  been  founded  in  A.D.  746,  by  Carlo- 
man,  son  of  Charles  Martel,  and  uncle  of  the  celebrated  Charle- 
magne, in  honour  of  the  saint  whose  name  it  bears. 

Sant  Oreste  is  a  wretched  village,  with  steep,  foul  streets,  and 
mean  houses — without  any  accommodation  for  the  stranger.  I 
was  at  once  impressed  with  the  conviction  that  it  must  have 
been  an  Etruscan  site.  Its  situation  is  too  strong  by 'nature  to 
have  been  neglected,  and  is  just  such  as  would  have  been  chosen 
for  a  city  in  the  northern  part  of  Etruria ;  the  plateau  rising  just 
as  high  above  the  plain  as  those  of  Cosa,  Rusellae,  and  Saturnia. 
At  the  foot  of  the  steep  and  rocky  hill  on  which  the  village 
stands  I  found  confirmation  of  my  opinion  in  a  number  of  tombs 

6  Yirg.  JEn.  XI.  785.    Sil.  Ital.  V.  170.       the  name  of  the  Mount  was  Pelasgic,  and 
—VII.  662.— VIII.  494  ;  Plin.  VII.  2;  So-       suggested  2up6s—  OKT^  as  its  derivation, 
linus,  Polyhist.  II.  p.  15.     Nibby  fancied 


CHAP,  x.]  SANT  OEESTE  THE  PEOBABLE  SITE  OF  FEEONIA.    129 

in  the  tufo  cliffs.  I  did  not  observe  any  remains  of  ancient  walls 
on  the  height,  but  if  they  were  of  tufo — as  is  most  probable,  since 
that  sort  of  rock  is  hewn  with  so  much  facility,  that  notwith- 
standing the  transport  of  the  blocks  up  the  hill,  there  would  have 
been  less  labour  than  in  preparing  the  hard  limestone  close  at 
hand7 — they  may  have  been  destroyed  for  the  sake  of  materials 
to  construct  the  houses  of  the  village.  What  may  have  been  the 
name  of  the  Etruscan  town  which  occupied  this  site  is  not  easy  to 
determine  ;  but  I  am  inclined  to  agree  with  Nibby  in  regarding 
it  as  Feronia,  which  Strabo  says  was  situated  under  Soracte,  and 
its  name  seems  to  be  preserved  in  that  of  Felonica,  a  fountain  at 
the  foot  of  this  hill,  on  the  road  to  Civitella  di  San  Paolo.8 

At  or  near  Feronia  was  a  celebrated  temple  to  the  goddess  of 
that  name,  which,  like  many  ancient  shrines,  stood  in  a  thick 
grove— Lucus  Feronise.9  She  seems  to  have  been  identical  with 
Proserpine,1  and  was  worshipped  by  the  Sabines,  and  Latins,  as 
well  as  by  the  Etruscans.3  Hither,  on  yearly  festivals,  pilgrims 
resorted  in  great  numbers  from  the  surrounding  country,  many 
to  perform  vows  and  offer  sacrifice — and  those  who  were  pos- 
sessed with  the  spirit  of  the  goddess,  walked  with  naked  feet  over 
heaps  of  burning  coal  and  ashes,  without  receiving  injury3 — and 

"  This  was  done  at  Tivoli,  whose  walls  cit.)   calls   Feronia  a  city,   and   says  the 

are  volcanic  (Gell,  II.  p.  272),  though  the  Grove  was  on  the  same  spot.     This  must 

rocks  are  travertine  and  limestone ;  so  also  not  be  confounded  with  the  other  Lucus 

at  Palestrina,  and  again  at  Segni,  where  a  Feroniae  in  the  north  of  Etruria  near  Luca, 

gate  and  a  portion  of  the  walls  are  of  tufo,  which  Ptolemy  (Geog.    p.  72,   ed.    Bert.) 

though  the  rest  are  formed  of  the  natural  places  among  the  "inland  colonies"  of  that 

limestone  of  the  hill  on   which    the  city  land, — still  less  with  the  Temple  of  Feronia 

stands.      The  i>alvmbino   of   Soracte  was  mentioned   by  Virgil  (^En.    VII.    800)   as 

quarried  by  the  Romans,  and  is  classed  by  situated  in  a  green  grove  — viridi  gaudens 

Vitruvius  (II.  7)  with  travertine,  as  a  stone  Feronia   luco — which  was    near  Terracina 

of  moderate  hardness,  a  mean  between  tufo  and  theCircsean  promontory.     It  is  to  this 

and  tnlex  or  lava.  latter  shrine  and  the  fountain  attached  to 

8  Nibby,  II.  p.  108 ;  Strab.  V.  p.  226.  it  that  Horace  refers  on   his   journey  to 
Gell  thinks,    quite  unnecessarily  it  seems  Brundusium  (Sat.  I.  5,  24). 

to  me,  that  this  Felonica  is  "the  site  of  *  Dion.  Hal.  III.  p.  173.  According  to 
the  temple,  grove,  and  fountain  of  Fero-  Servius(ad  JEn.  VII.  799)  Juno,  as  a  virgin, 
nia. "  Holstenius  (Adnot.  ad  Cluver.  p.  was  also  called  Feronia.  Servius  elsewhere 
60)  also  placed  Feronia  in  the  plain  about  (VIII.  564)  calls  Feronia  the  goddess  of  freed 
a  mile  from  S.  Oreste,  where  he  said  there  men,  who,  in  her  temple  at  Terracina, 
were  extensive  remains  of  a  town.  The  placed  a  pileus,  or  felt  scull-cap,  on  their 
site  he  referred  to  is  probably  that  indi-  shaven  crowns.  Here  also  was  a  stone 
cated  by  Westphal  (Ro'mis.  Kamp.  p.  136),  bench,  inscribed  with  these  words  :  "Be- 
as  occupied  by  an  unimportant  ruin,  and  nemeriti  servi  sedeant,  surgent  liberi." 
vulgarly  called  Feronia.  It  lies  between  2  Dion.  Hal.  loc.  cit.;  Liv.  XXVI.  11  ; 
the  Flaminian  Way  and  the  mountain.  Yarro,  de  Ling.  Lat.  V.  7-1. 

9  Liv.  I.  30,  XXVI.  11,  XXVII.  4;  Sil.  3  Strab.  V.  p.  226.    The  same  is  related 
Ital.  XIII.  83 ;  Plin.  III.  8.      Strabo  (loc.  of  the  shrine  of  Apollo  on  this  mountain. 

VOL.     I.  K 


130  FEBONIA   AND    CAPENA.  [CHAP,  x 

many  merchants,  artisans,  and  husbandmen,  taking  advantage 
of  the  concourse,  brought  their  goods  hither  for  sale,  so  that 
the  market  or  fail'  held  here  was  more  splendid  than  any  other  in 
Itaty.*  From  the  numerous  first-fruits  and  other  gifts  offered  to 
the  goddess,  her  shrine  became  renowned  for  its  riches,  and  was 
decorated  with  an  abundance  of  gold  and  silver.  But  it  was 
despoiled  by  Hannibal  on  his  march  through  Itaty.5  It  was 
however  maintained  till  the  fall  of  paganism  in  the  fourth 
century.  That  the  temple  itself  stood  on  a  height  seems  pro- 
bable from  the  fact,  mentioned  by  Livy,  of  its  being  struck  by 
lightning.6 

In  a  geological  point  of  view,  Soracte  is  interesting.  It  is  a 
mass  of  limestone  rising  out  of  the  volcanic  plain,  not  resting,  as 
Gell  supposed,  on  a  basis  of  tufo.  One  of  those  convulsions  of 
the  earth,  which  ejected  from  the  neighbouring  craters  the  matter 
which  constitutes  the  surface  of  the  Campagna,  upheaved  this 
huge  mass  of  limestone,  and  either  drove  it  through  the  super- 
incumbent beds  of  tufo  ;  or,  what  is  more  probable,  upraised  it 
previous  to  the  volcanic  disturbances  of  this  district,  when  the 
Campagna  lay  beneath  the  waters  of  the  ocean. 

Sant  Oreste  is  about  eight  miles  from  Civita  Castellana,  or 
about  half  way  from  that  town  to  the  site  of  Capena.  On 
journeying  this  latter  half  of  the  road,  I  learned  two  things,  by 
which  future  travellers  would  do  well  to  profit — first,  not  to 
attempt  to  cross  an  uncultivated  country  without  a  competent 
guide,  especially  on  fete-days,  when  there  are  no  labourers  or 
shepherds  in  the  fields  ;  secondly,  to  look  well  to  the  horses  one 
hires  and  to  ascertain  before  starting  that  the}'  have  been  fed,  and,  if 
need  be,  to  carry  provender  for  them.  The  animals  hired  in  these 
country-towns  are  mere  beasts  of  burden,  overworked  and  under- 
fed, accustomed  to  carry  wood,  charcoal,  or  flour,  and  with 

Plin.   N.   H.  VII.  2;  Rolinus,   II.   p.   15;  road  from  Reate  to  Rome,  "  turning  out  of 

Virgil,  Jin.  XI.  785,  et  seq. ;  Sil.  Ital.  V.  his  way  from  Eretum,"  which  he  mustcer- 

177,  et  seq.  tainly  have  done,  if  Monte  Rotondo  be  the 

4  Dion.  Hal.  III.  p.  173;  cf.  Liv.  I.  30.  siteof Eretum,asCluver(II.p.667)supposes. 

8  Liv.  XXVI.  11;  Sil.  Ital.  XIII.  84,  et  The  battle  of  Eretum,  in  which  the  Sabines 

Beq.      Cramer  (I.  p.  232,  309)  opines  that  were  defeated  by  Tullus  Hostilius,  was  the 

the  temple  Hannibal  rifled  was  one  to  the  consequence   of    that  people   having  laid 

»ame  goddess  at  Eretum  in  Sabina,  and  violent  hands  on  some  Romans  at  the  fair 

quotes  Fabretti  (Insc.  Ant.  p.  452),  who  of  Fanum   Feronize.     Dion.   Hal.  loc.  cit. 

states  that  inscriptions  have  been   found  cf.  Liv.  I.  30. 

near  Eretum  which  mention  a  temple  to  6  Liv.  XXXIII.  2.6.  It  has  been  suggested 

Feronia  at  that  place.     Livy,  however,  re-  that  the  Temple  of  Feronia  stood  on  the 

cords  a  tradition  that  Hannibal  spoiled  this  site  of  the  Church  of   S.  Abondio,   near 

said  shrine  in  the  ayer  Capenatis,  on  his  Rignano.     Ann.  Inst.,  1864,  p.  130. 


CHAP,  x.]  THE    SITE    OF    CAPENA.  131 

difficulty  to  be  urged  out  of  their  usual  deliberate  pace.  Their 
mouths  are  as  tough  and  insensible  as  their  hides ;  the  whip  is 
of  little  avail,  arid  spurs  are  indispensable.  As  these  are  not 
always  to  be  had,  it  is  advisable  for  whoever  would  explore  the 
b}r-roads  of  Italy,  to  add  a  pair  to  his  luggage. 

Antonio,  my  guide,  had  never  been  beyond  Sant  Oreste,  but 
the  road  I  wished  to  take  was  pointed  out  to  us  so  clearly  by  some 
people  of  that  town,  that  it  seemed  impossible  to  miss  it.  But 
among  the  lanes  and  hollows  at  the  foot  of  Soracte  we  were  soon 
at  fault — took  a  wrong  path — wandered  about  for  an  hour  over 
newly-ploughed  land,  swampy  from  recent  rains — at  length  found 
the  right  path — lost  it  again  immediate^  on  a  trackless  down — 
and  then,  like  Dante,  found  ourselves  at  the  middle  of  our 
journey  in  a  dark  and  savage  wood.  No  poet, — "  od  onibra  od 
nomo  certo  " — nor  any  other  being,  came  to  our  assistance,  for 
not  a  sign  of  humanity  was  in  sight ;  and,  to  crown  our  difficul- 
ties, one  of  the  horses  sunk  from  exhaustion,  owing  to  want  of 
food.  Remembering  the  proverb,  "  sacco  vuoto  non  regge  in 
plede"—  "an  empty  sack  will  not  stand  upright," — we  trans- 
ferred what  refreshments  we  had  brought  for  our  own  use  to  our 
horses'  stomachs,  and  quietly  awaited  their  time.  Patience — no 
easy  virtue  when  the  rain  was  coining  down  in  deluging  showers 
— at  length  overcame  all  difficulties,  and  we  found  ourselves  in  the 
right  track,  on  the  banks  of  the  Grammiccia,  which  led  us  to  the 
site  of  Capena.7 

The  city  crowned  a  hill  of  some  elevation,  rising  steeply  from 
the  valley,  and  whose  highest  point  is  now  crested  with  some 
ruins,  called  the  church  of  San  Martino ;  by  which  name  the 
spot  is  known  among  the  peasantry,  and  not  by  that  of  Civitu- 
cola,  as  I  had  been  led  by  former  writers  to  suppose  ;  the  latter 
appellation  being  assigned  to  the  spot  by  some  documents  of 
the  middle  ages.  The  whole  declivity  was  frosted  over  with  the 
^blossom  of  the  wild  pear-trees  which  cover  its  face.  Through 
these  I  had  to  climb  by  sheep-tracks,  slippery  with  the  rain. 
The  ruins  just  mentioned  are  the  only  remains  on  the  height 
on  which  the  city  stood.  They  are  of  opus  incertnm,  and 
probably  formed  part  of  a  villa  of  Imperial  times,  which  may 
subsequently  have  been  converted  into  a  Christian  chapel.  That 
a  city  originally  stood  here,  however,  there  are  unequivocal  proofs 
in  the  broken  pottery  which  thickly  strews  the  hill.  It  occupied 

'  The  stream  itself  seems  to  have  heen  85.  It  is  now  sometimes  called  Fosso  di 
anciently  called  Capenas.  Sil.  Ital.  XIII.  San  Martino. 

K  2 


132  FERONIA    AND    CAPENA.  [CHAP.  x. 

an  elevated  ridge  on  one  side  of  a  deep  hollow,  which  Gell 
supposes  to  be  an  extinct  crater,  and  which  is  now  called  II 
Lago. 

No  remains  of  walls  could  I  find,  save  at  the  western  angle, 
overhanging  the  Lago,  where  a  few  blocks  mark  the  foundations  ;• 
but  on  the  slopes  beneath,  to  the  south  and  east,  many  blocks, 
lie  scattered  about.8  The  form  of  the  city,  however,  is  easily 
traced  by  the  pottery,  and  character  of  the  ground :  it  was  long 
and  narrow,  especially  narrow  in  the  centre  of  its  length,  near  the 
ruins  of  San  Martino.  Its  circumference  can  hardly  have  been 
a  mile  and  a  half,  and  this  marks  it  as  a  town  of  inferior 
importance.  The  highest  part  was  to  the  west,  and  there,  in 
all  probability,  was  the  Arx.  I  observed  the  sites  of  three  gates,. 
— one  at  the  eastern,  one  at  the  western  extremity,  and  one  to- 
the  south,  where  the  land  narrows  opposite  the  ruin.  By  this 
gate  alone  vehicles  could  have  reached  the  city,  so  steep  are  the 
cliffs  and  slopes  around  it.  After  making  the  tour  of  Capena,. 
it  is  easy  to  comprehend  how  the  Roman  armies  several  times 
entered  the  territory,  and  laid  it  waste,  but  never  attacked  the 
town.  It  was  as  elevated  as  Falerii,  and  could  on  no  side  be 
approached  on  level  ground. 

I  could  perceive  no  tombs  in  the  cliffs  around  or  beneath  the 
city,  and  one  only  in  the  low  ground,  to  the  north.9 

The  view  from  the  height  of  Capena  is  wildly  beautiful.     The 

8  Gell  states  that  the  walls  may  be  traced  archaic  art.     In  some  of  the  later  tombs 
by  their  foundations  round  the  summit  of  pots  were  found  bearing  inscriptions,  either 
the  hill ;  but  either  he  was  deceived  by  the  in  early  Latin,  or  in  a  character  neither 
natural  breaks  of  the  tufo  rock,  which  at  a  Etruscan  nor  Faliscan,  and  which  therefore 
little  distance  may  be  easily  mistaken  for  suggested  the  existence  of  a  dialect  peculiar 
masonry,  or  the  blocks  since  his  time  have  to  Capena.     Dr.  Henzen  refers  these  in- 
been  carried  off  by  the  peasantry.  scriptions  to  the   sixth  century  of  Rome. 

9  That  this  is  the  true  site  of  Capena  has  Bull.  Inst.,  1864,  pp.  143-150. 

been  called  in  question.     Excavations  made  With  the  meagre  notices  we  possess  of 

here  of  late  years  tend  to  prove  that  the  these  excavations,  it  would  be  premature 

cemetery,  rather  than  the  city,  of  Capena  to   pronounce  that  this  hill  was  not  the 

occupied  this  hill  of  S.  Martino.     For  these  site  of  Capena.     The  slopes  beneath  many 

researches    have    brought   to   light   many  Etruscan  cities  are  full  of  tombs,  and  the. 

sepulchres,  some  described  as  of  peculiar  discovery  of  Roman  sepulchres,   even  on 

form,  being  sunk  like  shallow  wells  beneath  the  plateau  above,  would  not  be  opposed 

the  surface,  with  niches  hollowed  in  the  to  the  existence   of  habitation  in  earlier 

aides,  one  to  contain  the  corpse,  and  the  times.     Until  we  can  ascertain  the  exact 

others  the  objects  of  art  buried  with   it.  position  of  the  tombs  which  have  yielded 

These  articles  were,  as  usual,  of  terra  cotta,  the  archaic  articles,  or  until  further  exca- 

bronze,  and  glass,  but  of  different  periods.  rations  decide  the  question,  we  may  keep 

Some  of  the  vases  were  of  very  primitive  our  judgment  in  abeyance  as  to  the  site  of 

forms,  with  figures  of  animals  painted  or  Capena. 
scratched  on  them  in  bands,   and  of  very 


CHAP,  x.]  LOCAL    EEMAINS    AT    CAPENA.  133 

deep  hollow  on  the  south,  with  its  green  carpet :  the  steep  hills 
overhanging  it,  dark  with  wood — the  groves  of  Capena,  be  it 
remembered,  Avere  sung  by  Virgil1 — the  bare  swelling  ground  to 
the  north,  with  Soracte  towering  above :  the  snow-capt  Apennines 
in  the  eastern  horizon :  the  deep  silence,  the  seclusion :  the 
absence  of  human  habitations  (not  even  a  shepherd's  hut)  within 
the  sphere  of  vision,  save  the  distant  town  of  Sant  Oreste, 
scarcely  distinguishable  from  the  grey  rock  on  which  it  stands  ; — 
compose  a  scene  of  more  singular  desolation  than  belongs  to  the 
site  of  any  other  Etruscan  city  in  this  district  of  the  land. 

A  visit  to  this  site  will  scarcely  repay  the  antiquary  for  the 
difficulty  of  reaching  it.  But  the  scenery  on  the  way  is  delight- 
ful, especially  between  San  Martino  and  Hignano,  about  seven 
miles  distant,  which  road  I  took  on  my  return.  It  is  a  mere 
mule-track,  and  passes  over  very  rough  ground.  Now  it  descends 
into  ravines  picturesque  with  cliff  and  wood,  and  with  an  overshot 
mill,  it  may  be,  in  the  hollow — now  pursues  the  level  of  the 
plain,  commanding  glorious  views  of  Soracte,  with  a  changing, 
but  ever  beautiful  foreground  of  glen,  heath,  wood,  or  corn-land. 
On  the  approach  to  Rignano,  the  view  is  particularly  fine ;  for 
beneath  the  town  opens  a  wide  ravine  which  seems  to  stretch  up 
to  the  very  base  of  Soracte,  its  cliffs  overhung  with  wood,  and  a 
pretty  convent  nestling  in  its  bosom.  Around  Rignano  the  land 
presents  a  singular  stratification  of  white  and  grey  rock — the 
white,  called  "  cappettaccw"  is  a  sort  of  friable  tufo ;  the  grey, 
with  which  it  alternates,  is  a  sandstone,  in  very  thin  la}Ters. 

Eignano  is  a  miserable  town ;  tolerably  flourishing,  it  is  said, 
when  the  Via  Flaminia,  on  which  it  stands,  was  the  high  road  to 
Borne,  but  now  falling  into  decay.  It  is  evidently  a  Roman  site, 
for  altars,  cippi,  fragments  of  statues  and  cornices,  and  other 
traces  of  that  people,  abound  in  the  streets.  There  is  also  a 
curious  relic  of  the  middle  ages,  a  primitive  cannon,  made  like 
a  barrel,  with  staves  of  iron  hooped  at  intervals,  and  with  rings 
attached  to  serve  as  handles.  It  is  the  counterpart  of  one  I  have 
seen,  I  think,  in  the  armoury  of  Madrid.  Rignano  lays  claim  to 
be  the  birthplace  of  the  infamous  Csesar  Borgia. 

Around  the  church  of  S.  Abondio,  which  stands  on  a  wooded 
height  near  Rignano,  are  many  ancient  remains,  which,  from  the 

1  Lucosque    Capenos.—  Mn.    VII.    <397.  tis.  Liv.  XXVI. '11,  XXVII.  4,  XXXIII. 

But  the  groves  here  referred  to  may  with  26.  Cato  also  mentions — lucus  Capenatis 

•equal  probability  be  those  around  the  shrine  (ap.  Priscian.  IV.  p.  36,  ed.  Aid.), 
of  Feronia,  which  was  in  tb.3  Ager  Capena- 


134  FEKONIA    AND    CAPENA.  [CHAP.  x. 

description  given,  appear  to  be  all  of  Roman  times.  From  the 
marble  columns  and  capitals,  the  numerous  fragments  of  architec- 
ture, and  the  sarcophagi  and  inscribed  cippi  which  encumber  the 
spot,  it  is  concluded  that  a  temple,  of  such  magnificence  as  not 
to  belie  the  description  we  have  of  the  Fanum  Feronia?,  formerly- 
stood  here  ;  and  it  is  inferred  that  this  must  be  the  site  of  that 
celebrated  shrine.  As  we  are  not  told,  however,  of  the  existence 
of  Etruscan  antiquities  on  the  spot,  we  may  hesitate  to  accept 
the  inference,  until  we  have  more  precise  information  as  to  the 
locality.2 

No  one  who  values  comfort  will  care  to  enter  the  osteria  of 
Rignano.  Woe  betide  the  man  who  is  compelled  to  pass  a  night 
within  its  walls.  To  avoid  the  companionship  of  squalid  monks 
and  disgusting  cripples,  I  resolved  to  push  on  for  Civita,  though 
it  was  almost  dark,  and  there  were  still  nine  miles  before  our 
jaded  beasts.  By  the  time  we  reached  the  Romitorio,  Soracte 
loomed  an  indistinct  mass  against  the  sky.  Near  this  my  guide 
pointed  out  a  tree  by  the  road-side,  in  which  when  a  boy  he  had 
taken  refuge  from  the  wolves.  He  was  returning  from  Rignano- 
one  winter's  night,  when  the  ground  was  covered  with  snow.  On 
reaching  this  spot  he  heard  their  howlings  in  the  wood  by  the 
road-side.  They  seemed  to  scent  him,  for  he  had  barely  time  to- 
climb  the  tree  when  it  was  surrounded  by  a  dozen  yelling 
demons,  whose  eyes,  he  said,  shone  with  "  the  fire  of  hell." 
The  tree  was  then  but  a  sapling,  and  bent  fearfully  Avith  his- 
weight ;  so  that  he  was  in  dread  lest  it  should  break  and  pre- 
cipitate him  among  them.  After  a  time  of  terrible  suspense  he 
was  left  alone,  and  at  break  of  day  ventured  to  descend,  and  with 
the  protection  of  the  Virgin  reached  Civita  in  safety.  At  that 
time  the  wood  was  very  thick  on  Soracte,  and  afforded  shelter 
to  multitudes  of  wolves  and  bears  which  were  wont  to  ravage 
the  Campagna'  for  miles  round.  Some  years  later  the  wood  wasv 
cut,  and  the  wild  beasts  disappeared  with  it,  and  retired  to  the 
Apennines. 

The  wolves  of  Soracte  were  celebrated  in  ancient  times. 
Servius  relates  that  sacrifices  were  once  being  offered  on  this 
mount  to  Pluto,  when  some  wolves  rushed  in,  seized  the  smoking 


2  Signer  Fabio   Gori  points   out  these  of  inscriptions  referring  to  that  town.     An 

rulas   in  Ann.   Inst.    1864,   p.    130.     He  ancient  road  branched  from  the  Via  Fla- 

states  that  the  site  lies  immediately  under  minia,  and    ran  directly  up  to  the  hill  of 

Soracte,  and  in  the  ayer  Capenatis,  as  may  S.  Abondio. 
be  learned  from  the  discovery  on  the  spot 


CHAP,  x.]  WOLVES  OF  SOEACTE,  ANCIENT  AND  MODERN.     135 

entrails  from  the  altar,  and  bore  them  away  to  a  cave,  which 
emitted  pestiferous  vapours.3  The  shepherds  pursued  them, 
thither,  but  were  arrested  by  these  fumes.  A  pestilence  was 
the  consequence.  They  consulted  the  oracle,  and  received  for 
answer  that  the  plague  would  be  staid  when  they  imitated  wolves, 
i.e.,  led  a  life  of  rapine.  So  they  became  robbers  by  divine 
authority.  Hence  they  were  called  Hirpini  Sorani,  or  Pluto's 
Wolves,  from  hirpus,  which  signified  a  wolf  in  the  Sabine  tongue, 
and  Soranus,  another  name  for  Dis  Pater.*  It  was  the  descend- 
ants of  these  Hirpini,  or  Hirpi,  who  made  the  annual  sacrifice 
to  the  god  of  the  mountain,  and  performed  the  marvellous  feat 
of  walking  bare-footed  over  live  coals.5  This  exploit  seems  to 
have  continued  in  fashion  to  a  late  period ;  at  least  to  the 
third  century  of  our  era,  for  Solinus  speaks  of  it  as  existing  in 
his  day.  Varro  suspected  jugglery,  and  would  allow  nothing 
supernatural  in  it,  for  he  says  they  rubbed  their  soles  with  a 
certain  medicament. 

Wolves  are  not  the  only  beasts  for  which  Soracte  was  re- 
nowned. There  was  a  race  of  wild  goats — caprce  ferae — perhaps 
roebucks,  on  the  mountain,  which  could  leap  more  than  sixty 
feet  at  a  bound  !  Well  done,  old  Cato  ! 6 

At  Sommavilla,  a  village  on  the  Sabine  side  of  the  Tiber, 
opposite  Soracte,  tombs  have  been  found  containing  vases  and 
other  furniture,  extremely  like  those  of  Etruria.7 

3  On  the  eastern  side  of  the  mountain,  and  were  so  called  from  Irpus,  their  leader, 
near  the  church  of  Santa  Romana,  is  a  cave,  which  word  signified  a  wolf  in  the  Samnite 
with  deep  fissures  near  it,  called  Le  Vora-  tongue.     The  Samnites,  be  it  remembered, 
gini,  which  emit  foul  vapours.      Hence  the  were  of  the  Sabine  race.     Yarro  de  L.  L. 
fable  related  by  Servius  must  have  taken  VII.  29.     Servius  says  the  mountain  was 
its  rise.     Pliny  (II.  95)  seems  to  refer  to  sacred  to  the  Manes,    but   other  ancient 
these  fissures,  yet  says  the  vapours  were  writers  concur  in  stating  that  it  was  sacred 
fatal  to  birds  alone.    But  elsewhere  (XXXI.  to  Apollo. 

19)   he   cites  Varro   as  saying  that   fatal  5  Pliii.    Nat.    Hist.   VII.    2 ;  Yarro  ap. 

effects  were  produced  by  a  fountain  on  all  Serv.  ad  Mn.  XI.  787.    Solinus,  Polyh.  II. 

birds  which  tasted  it.     To  this  spring  Yi-  p.  15.     See  p.  129,  note  3. 
truvius  (VIII.  3,  17)  seems  also  to  allude;  6  Cato  ap.  Yarron.  Re  Rust.  II.  cap.  3. 

though  he  places  it — agro  Falisco  via  Cam-  7  For  an  account  of  these  discoveries,  see 

pana  in  campo   Corneto.     This   fountain,  Bull.  Inst.  1836,  p.  172,  Braun  ;  1837,  p. 

Nibby  (III.  p.  112)  thinks  is  represented  95 ;    p.     70—73,    Braun;    p.    209—213, 

by  the  Acqua  Forte,  in  the  plain  between  Fossati;  Bull.  1838,  p.  71.    At  Sestino,  in 

Soracte  and  the  Tiber,  about  two  miles  from  the  Umbrian  Apennines,   a  bronze  mirror, 

Ponzano.  with  dancing  figures  and  Etruscan  inscrip 

4  Serv.  ad  2En.  XI.  785  ;  cf.  VII.  696.  tions  incised,  has  recently  been  discovered 
Festus  (voce  Irpini)  and  Strabo  (V.  p.  250)  Bull.  Inst.  1875,  p.  88. 

say  the  Irpini  were  a  colony  of  Samnites, 


OKIE,  FROM  THE  ROAD  TO  THE  VADIMOXIAN  LAKE. 


CHAPTER  XL 

O'&TE.—HOItTA. 

Et  terrain  Hesperiam  venies,  ubi  Lydius,  arva 

Inter  opiina  virum,  leni  fluit  agmine  Thybris. — VIRGIL. 

By  the  rushy-f ringed  bank, 
Where  grows  the  willow  and  the  osier  dank, 
My  chariot  stays. — MILTON. 

ONE  of  the  most  delightful  excursions  I  ever  made  in  Italy 
was  up  the  Tiber,  from  Home  to  Orte.  It  was  as  far  back  as  1846, 
long  before  the  railway  whistle  had  been  heard  in  the  Papal 
States,  and  when  the  great  "  Etruscan  river  "  was  almost  a  sealed 
book  to  travellers ;  for  in  those  days  the  roads  through  the  valley 
of  the  Tiber  were  mere  country  tracks,  in  few  pails  carriageable. 
Inns  there  were  none  fit  for  any  one  above  the  condition  of  a 
day-labourer.  I  therefore  considered  myself  highly  fortunate  in 
having  an  opportunity  of  doing  the  river  in  a  steamboat !  This 
wras  a  small  tug  of  some  fifteen  or  twenty  tons,  which  had  recently 
come  from  England  to  fetch  charcoal  from  Porte  Felice,  when 
the  state  of  the  river  would  permit  it.  The  craft  had  no  accom- 
modation whatever.  My  artist  friend  and  I  were  happy  to  find 
space  enough  on  the  grimy  deck  to  stretch  our  limbs  at  night, 
instead  of  seeking  shelter  in  some  filthy  and  well  populated 
locanda  on  shore,  knowing  from  experience  that  a  by-road  bed 
in  Italy  is  not  likely  to  prove 

"  a  perfect  Halcyon  nest. 
All  calm,  and  balm,  and  quiet  and  rest.'' 


CHAP,  xi.]  VOYAGE    UP    THE    TIBER.  137 

It  was  a  voyage  of  two  or  three  da}Ts,  for  the  current  was 
strong  against  us,  and  the  boat  came  to  an  anchor  at  dusk,  when 
the  "  mail  culices  ranseque  palustres "  feelingly  reminded  us  of 
Horace's  discomforts  on  his  road  to  Brundusium.  Like  him 
again  in  the  morning,  we  lost  much  time  in  starting,  for  the  sun 
was  well  up  before  we  got  under  weigh.  But  these  were 
annoyances  of  little  moment.  To  balance  them  we  had  a  plethoric 
basket  of  provisions,  some  flasks  of  excellent  wine  to  cheer  us, 
with  "allaying  Tyber  "  ad  libitum;  we  had  }Touth,  health,  good 
appetites,  enthusiasm,  and  no  end  of  enjoyment,  for  the  scenery 
was  not  only  beautiful  but  novel,  and  every  turn  in  the  river 
brought  new  and  picturesque  objects  into  view,  or  produced  fresh 
combinations  of  those  already  familiar. 

Times  are  indeed  changed,  when  you  can  now  run  to  Orte  by 
rail  in  a  couple  of  hours — too  scanty  a  time  to  enjoy  the  all- 
glorious  landscapes  on  the  road ;  but  as  the  line  keeps  the 
Sabine  bank  for  the  greater  part  of  the  way,  you  have  more  com- 
prehensive views  of  Soracte  and  the  Etruscan  shore,  than  you 
can  obtain  from  the  river  itself.  You  pass  the  caverned  heights 
of  Antemnse,  you  shoot  like  an  arrow  through  the  heart  of 
Fidenee,  and  as  you  rush  on,  you  catch  exciting  glimpses  of  the 
Alban  Mount,  of  the  Latin  valle}',  with  Palestrina  at  its  mouth, 
of  Tivoli  011  the  slope  of  Monte  Gennaro,  of  the  nearer  triple- 
papped  Monticelli,  and  of  the  snow-capped,  "  olive-sandalled 
Apennines"  in  the  horizon.  .Your  first  halt  is  beneath  Monte 
Rotondo,  near  which  Garibaldi  was  discomfited  in  1867 ;  the 
little  brook  you  here  cross  is  110  other  than  the  Allia — 
"infaustum  nomeii !  " — the  scene  of  the  disastrous  defeat  of  the 
Romans  by  the  Gauls  in  the  year  390  (364  B.C.)  which  was 
followed  by  the  capture  and  destruction  of  the  City  by  Brennus. 
This  is  the  nearest  station  to  the  site  of  Capena,  which  lies  011 
the  right  bank,  about  half-way  between  this  and  the  next  station 
of  Passo  di  Correse ;  but  if  you  are  bound  thither,  get  out  at 
Monte  Rotondo,  where  you  can  obtain  beasts  and  a  guide.1  In 
the  plain,  opposite  the  Passo,  lie  the  "  Flavinia  arva"  of  Virgil, 
if  the  village  of  Fiano  represent,  as  is  generally  supposed,  the 
Etruscan  town  of  Flavina.3  Beyond  Fiano  on  the  same  side,  on 
the  crest  of  the  wooded  hills  which  here  embank  the  river,  stands 
Nazzano,  which  has  been  proved  by  recent  excavations  to  be  an 
Etruscan  site.  Its  necropolis  occupies  the  plateau  of  Caraffa, 
about  half  a  mile  to  the  north  of  the  town,  and  it  has  yielded 

1  See  the  last  chapter,  p.  126.  2  Virg.  JEn.  VII.  696  ;  Sil.  Ital.  VIII.  492. 


138  ORTK  [CHAP.  xr. 

vases  with  both  black  and  red  figures,  besides  various  articles  in 
bronze.8  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  others  of  the  many 
towns  within  view,  if  subjected  to  similar  research,  would  be 
found  to  occupy  Etruscan  sites ;  not  excluding  those  on  the 
Sabine  bank,  for  the  territory  of  Etriirnl,.*  which  at  one  time 
extended  from  the  Alps  as  far  south  as  Ptestum,  could  not  have 
been  rigidly  bounded  by  this  narrow  stream,  and  must  at  that 
period  have  embraced  all  the  region  between  the  Tiber  and  the 
Apennines ;  and  the  Umbrians  and  cognate  Sabines  must  have 
continued  to  feel  the  civilizing  influences  of  Etruria,  even  when 
no  longer  under  her  dominion.4 

At  Montorso,  the  next  station,  the  valley  narrows  almost  to  a 
gorge,  and  becomes  more  than  ever  picturesque,  for  the  river 
here  forms  sharp  bends,  which  give  great  variety  to  the  land- 
scape. The  yellow  banks  are  overhung  with  trees,  festooned 
with  honeysuckle  and  wild  vine,  or  sink  into  stretches  of  pebbly 
beach,  the  haunt  of  thirsty  wallowing  buffaloes ;  above  them  on 
either  hand,  rise  wooded  heights,  studded  with  towers  and  towns, 
castles  and  convents,  the  whole  dominated  by  the  rocky  crests  of 
Soracte,  sparkling  with  many  shrines.  It  is  an  exquisite  bit  of 
what  is  most  rare  in  Italy — river-scenery.  After  all,  the  most 
striking  and  interesting  feature  of  the  Tiber  valley  is  Soracte, 
which  you  seem  in  your  progress  upward  completely  to  circum- 
ambulate. On  the  way  to  Monte  Eotondo  its  southern  slopes, 
familiar  to  Romans,  meet  the  eye.  From  Passo  di  Correse  the 
mountain  looks  like  a  sharp  cone  or  wedge  of  rock,  soaring  above 
the  wooded  hills  at  its  base.  As  you  advance  it  gradually  opens 
out  again,  till  from  Stimigliano  it  presents  its  northern  flank  fully 
to  the  eye,  the  intervening  hills  which  have  hitherto  concealed 
all  but  its  crest,  here  sinking  to  the  plain,  and  displaying  the 
mountain  mass  from  base  to  summit.  Another  valley  presently 
opens  to  the  left,  through  which  winds  the  Treja,  which  after 
washing  the  castled  crags  of  Civita  Castellana,  here  falls  into 
the  Tiber.  On  a  low  red  cliff  at  the  point  of  junction,  a  tall 
ruined  tower,  through  whose  walls  the  blue  light  of  heaven  is 
visible,  forms  a  picturesque  object  in  the  scene.  It  is  known  as. 
the  Torre  Giuliana,  and  is  of  mediaeval  times,  though  tombs  arid 
sewers  in  the  cliffs  mark  the  site  as  originally  Etruscan.  The 
tower  is  shown  in  the  woodcut  on  the  next  page. 

Here  you  cross  the  Tiber  into  Etruria,  and  continue  in  that 

3  Bull.  Inst.  1873,  pp.  113-123,  Helbig.       in  Sabina,  seep.  135,  note  7;  also  Ann.  Inst. 

4  For  the  discovery  of  Etruscan  objects       1858,  p.  240;  Bull.  Inst.  1866,  p.  213. 


CHAP.   XI.] 


BEAUTY    OF    THE    TIBER    SCENERY. 


139 


land  as  far  as  Orte,  passing  beneath  the  mediaeval  ruins  of 
Borghetto,  another  picturesque  village  on  an  Etruscan  site, 
below  which  is  the  Ponte  Felice,  by  which  the  old  post-road 
from  Rome  crossed  the  Tiber  on  its  way  to  Narni,  Terni,  and 
Foligno. 

The  station  of  Gallese  is  three  miles  from  the  town  of  that 
name,  which,  as  already  stated,  occupies  an  Etruscan  site,  b}' 


TOKRE    GICLIANA,    PASSO    DI    CIVITA,   ON    THE    TIBKU. 

some  supposed  to  be  that  of  Fescennium.5  From  this  point 
Soracte  is  again  seen  foreshortened,  reassuming  the  form  of  a 
wedge  or  cone. 

ORTE  is  83  kilometres,  or  52  miles  from  Rome  \)y  railroad. 
Here  the  two  lines  from  Florence  to  Rome,  one  by  Chiusi,  the 
other  by  Perugia,  form  a  junction. 

Orte  lies  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Tiber,  about  twelve  miles 
above  Ponte  Felice,  and  crowns  the  summit  of  a  long  narrow 
isolated  ridge  of  tufo  rock.  Beneath  the  walls  of  the  town  this 
ridge  breaks  into  naked  cliffs,  and  then  sinks  gradually  in  slopes 
clad  with  olives  and  vines  to  meet  the  Tiber  and  the  plain. 
Viewed  from  the  north  or  south  its  situation  appears  very  similar 
to  that  of  Orvieto,  though  far  from  being  so  elevated  and  im- 
posing, but  from  the  east  or  west  it  has  a  less  commanding 
though  more  picturesque  appearance.  At  its  western  end  the 
ridge  is  particularly  narrow,  terminating  in  a  mere  wall  of  cliff, 
called  La  Rocca,  which  communicates  with  the  town  by  a  viaduct. 

5  See  Chapter  IX.  p.  120. 


140  ORTE.^  [CHAP.  xi. 

Thus  the  plan  of  the  whole  takes  the  form  of  a  battledore,  of 
which  the  handle  is  the  Rocca  and  the  body  the  town.  Orte  is 
still  a  place  of  some  importance ;  and  though  its  air  in  summer- 
time be  in  no  good  repute,  it  retains  its  population  throughout 
the  year.  The  only  place  of  entertainment  for  the  traveller  is 
the  "  Antica  Trattoria  e  Locanda  "  of  the  Bell,  but  "it  is  not 
enough  to  have  a  clean  tablecloth, "  as  the  proverb  says;  for  if 
you  make  a  tolerable  meal  by  day,  you  furnish  forth  a  dainty 
feast  by  night  to  thousands  of  hungry  banqueters,  whose  nimble- 
ness  gets  them  off  scot-free,  though  credit  is  not  the  order  of  the 
house,  as  is  pompously  set  forth  in  the  cuclna — 

"  Credenza  e  morta — 
11  creditor  F  ha  ucciga — 
Arnica,  abbi  jiazicnza, 
Piaccr  tifarb,  ma  mm  crcdenza." 

Of  the  ancient  history  of  Horta,  we  have  no  record,  unless  the 
notice  by  Virgil,  the  application  of  which  to  this  town  has  been 
doubted,  be  received  as  historical.1  We  know,  however,  from 
better  authority  than  that  of  the  Mantuan  bard,  namely,  from  its 
extant  monuments,  that  Horta  was  an  Etruscan  city,  and  the 
archaic  character  of  those  remains  even  leads  us  to  regard  it  as 
among  the  most  ancient  in  the  land.  The  only  other  mention  of 
it  is  by  Pliny,  who  cites  it  among  the  "inland  colonies"  of 
Etruria;2  but  we  learn  from  inscriptions  that  it  was  one  of  the 
military  colonies  of  Augustus. 

Orte  preserves  no  vestiges  of  its  ancient  walls,  nor  is  there  a 
sign  of  high  antiquity  in  either  of  its  three  gates.  Nothing  of 
classic  times,  in  fact,  is  to  be  seed  within  the  town  save  a  few 
Roman  relics.  The  Ortani  show  a  house  on  the  walls  as  Etrus- 
can, but — credat  Jadceiis  !  Let  no  one,  however,  express  such  a 
doubt  within  the  walls  of  Orte,  for  he  will  have  to  combat  not 
merely  the  prejudices  of  her  3000  inhabitants,  but  a  formidable 
array  of  piety  and  learning  in  her  clergy. 

1     Qui  Tiberim  Fabarimquc  bibunt,  quos  and  distinct  from  Nortia  or  Fortuna,  the 

frigida  misit  #reat    deity    of    Volsinii.      This    goddess 

Nursia,  et  Hortinae  classes,  populique  Horta  is  mentioned  by  Plutarch  (Quaest. 

Latini. — JJx.  VII.  715.  Horn.   XLVI),   who  says   her  temple  was 

-  Plin.     III.     8.       Padre    Seech i,    the  always  kept  open.     A  distinction  between 

learned   Jesuit   of  Rome,    follows   Mliller  her  and  the  Etruscan  Fortuna  is  indicated 

fEtrusk.  III.  3,  7,)  in  thinking  the  place  by   Tacitus   (Ann.    XV.    53).      Secchi,    11 

derives  its  name  from  Horta,  an  Etruscan  Musaico  Antoniniano,  p.  47.  n.  5. 
goddess  equivalent  to  the  Roman  "Sains," 


CHAP,  xi.]       THE    SITE    AND    CEMETERY    OF    IIORTA.  141 

"  Odi,  vede,  e  tace, 
Se  vuoi  viver  in  pace/' 

These  gentlemen,  whose  want  of  experience  in  such  matters 
may  well  excuse  this  blunder,  deserve  all  credit  for  the  interest 
they  take  in  the  antiquities  of  their  town.  To  the  learned  canon 
Don  Giovanni  Yitali  I  am  especially  indebted  for  his  courtesy  in 
furnishing  me  with  information  about  the  excavations  which  have 
been  made  at  Orte,  and  in  giving  me  copies  of  inscriptions  there 
brought  to  light  which  his  antiquarian  zeal  has  preserved  from 
oblivion.  What  little  I  have  to  say  of  the  Etruscan  antiquities 
of  Orte,  as  scarcely  anything  is  now  to  be  seen,  I  derive  from  his 
lips,  and  from  those  of  Signer  Brugiotti,  a  gentleman  who  took 
part  in  these  excavations. 

To  the  south  of  the  town,  at  the  distance  of  a  mile  or  more, 
rise  lofty,  cliff-bound  heights,  apparently  ranges  of  hills,  but  in 
fact  the  termination  of  the  high  table-land  of  the  Campagna. 
Here,  near  the  Convent  of  Bemardines,  a  few  tombs  are  seen  in 
the  cliffs,  and  in  the  rocks  on  the  plain  above  are  others,  said  to 
resemble  those  of  Castel  d'Asso,  hereafter  to  be  described,  having 
a  false  moulded  doorway  in  the  facade,  an  open  chamber  beneath 
it,  and  the  sepulchre  itself  belo\v  all,  underground.  Excavations 
were  made  in  this  plain  in  1837,  with  no  great  profit.  They  were 
carried  forward,  however,  more  successfully  by  an  association  of 
the  townsmen,  under  the  direction  of  Signer  Arduini,  on  a  still 
loftier  height  to  the  south-west*  of  Orte,  near  the  Capuchin  Con- 
vent, where  the  tombs  had  no  external  indications,  but  lay  beneath 
the  surface  of  the  ground.  The  articles  found  were  similar  in 
character  to  those  from  the  neighbouring  site  of  Bomarzo — no 
figured  pottery,  but  common  and  rude  ware  of  various  forms, 
articles  of  glass,  and  bronzes  in  abundance.  Among  the 
latter  were  candelabra  of  great  elegance  and  beauty,  now  in  the 
Gregorian  Museum  at  Rome,  tripods,  mirrors,  vases  with  figured 
handles,  and  small  statues  of  deities.  A  winged  Minerva,  with 
an  owl  on  her  hand,  is,  perhaps,  unique  in  metal,  though  the 
goddess  is  so  represented  on  painted  vases.  A  leaden  spade, 
which  must  have  been  a  votive  offering,  is  curious  as  the  type  of 
those  still  in  use  in  this  part  of  the  country.  Alabasti  of  glass, 
figured  blue  and  white.  Egg-shells  in  an  entire  state,  often 
found  in  Etruscan  tombs.  A  singular  jar  of  earthenware,, 
hermetically  sealed,  and  half-f^ill  of  liquid,  which  was  heard 
when  the  jar  was  shaken,  and  when  it  was  inverted  would  exude 
from  a  porous  part  in  drops  of  limpid  water.  If  testimony 


142  ORTE.  [CHAP.  xi. 

be  here  trustworthy,  this  must  be  the  most  ancient  bottled  liquid 
extant. 

Numerous  cinerary  urns  of  terra  cotta  or  nenfro  were  brought 
to  light,  generally  quite  plain,  with  inscriptions  ;  sometimes  with 
a  head  projecting  from  the  lid,  as  at  Veii ;  as  many  as  sixty  have 
been  found  in  one  tomb.  Only  one  large  sarcophagus,  with  a 
reclining  figure  on  its  lid,  was  discovered ;  whence  it  is  evident 
that  the  Hortani  burnt  rather  than  buried  their  dead.  Coins  and 
other  relics  of  Roman  times  were  occasionally  found  in  the  sepul- 
chres along  with  articles  of  undoubted  Etruscan  antiquity.  One 
instance  was  found  of  a  painted  tomb,  in  which  a  bear  was  repre- 
sented chained  to  a  column  ;  but  I  could  not  ascertain  if  this 
were  of  Etruscan  or  Roman  art.  It  was  almost  immediately 
destroyed  by  the  peasantry.3 

In  the  cliffs  beneath  the  town  are  a  few  tombs,  now  greatly 
.defaced,  some  of  them  columbaria  ;  and  near  the  gate  of  S.  Agos- 
tino  is  a  sewer  of  the  usual  size  and  form.  On  the  banks  of  the 
Tiber,  below  the  town,  are  the  remains  of  a  Roman  bridge  which 
carried  the  Via  Amerina  across  the  river  on  its  way  to  Tuder  and 
Perusia.  The  bridge  was  repaired  during  the  middle  ages,  and 
the  masonry  of  its  piers,  now  standing  on  the  banks,  and  of  the 
masses  prostrate  in  the  water,  is  of  that  period.  Castellum  Ame- 
rinum,  the  last  stage  on  the  Via  Amerina  within  the  Etruscan 
territory,  which  was  distant  twelve  miles  from  Falerii  and  nine 
from  Ameria,  must  have  been  in  the  near  neighbourhood  of  Orte, 
probably  on  the  heights  to  the  south  of  the  town,  near  the  spot 
where  the  modern  road  from  Corchiano  begins  to  descend  into 
the  valley  of  the  Tiber. 

If  you  follow  the  Tiber  for  about  four  miles  above  Orte,  }rou  will 
reach,  on  the  right  bank,  the  "Laghetto"  or  "  Lagherello,"  or 
"Lago  di  Bassano,"  so  called  from  a  village  in  the  neighbourhood. 
In  it  3rou  behold  the  Vadirnonian  Lake  of  antiquity,  renowned  for 
the  defeat  of  the  Etruscans  on  two  several  occasions — first,  by 
the  Dictator,  Papirius  Cursor,  in  the  }year  445,  when  after  a 
hard-contested  battle  the  might  of  Etruria  was  irrecoverably 
broken  ;4  and  again,  in  the  year  471,  when  Cornelius  Dolabella 
utterly  routed  the  allied  forces  of  the  Etruscans  and  Gauls  on 
its  shores.5  In  after  times  it  was  renowned  for  its  floating 

3  For  other  notices  of  the  results  of  these       II.   10.     Floms  relates  this  as  occurring 
excavations,  see  Bull.  Inst.  1837,  p.  129.          before  Fabi us  crossed  the  Ciminian,  while 

4  Liv.  IX.  39.  in  fact  it  was  nearly  30  years  after  ;  unless 
4  Flor.   I.  13.     Polyb.  II.  20.     Eutrop.       indeed  he  is  here  anticipating  the  event, 


CHAP,  xi.]  THE    VADIMONIAX    LAKE.  143 

islands,6  a  minute  description  of  which  is  given  by  the  younger 
Pliny  :— 

"  They  pointed  out  to  me  a  lake  lying  below  the  hill,  the 
Vadimon  by  name,  and  told  me  certain  marvellous  stories  con- 
cerning it.  I  went  thither.  The  lake  is  in  the  form  of  a  wheel 
lying  on  its  side,  even  all  round,  without  sinuosity  or  irregularity, 
but  perfectly  uniform  in  shape,  as  though  it  had  been  hollowed 
out  and  cut  round  by  the  hand  of  man.  The  water  is  whitish 
rather  than  blue,  inclined  to  green,  and  turbid,  of  sulphureous 
smell,  medicinal  taste,  and  glutinous  quality.  The  lake  is  but 
moderate  in  size,  yet  it  is  affected  by  the  winds  and  swells  into 
waves.  No  vessel  is  on  its  waters,  for  it  is  a  sacred  lake,  but 
grassy  islets,  covered  with  reeds  and  rushes,  float  on  its  bosom, 
and  on  its  margin  flourish  the  plants  of  the  rankest  marshes. 
Each  of  these  islets  has  a  distinct  form  and  size,  and  all  have 
their  edges  smoothed  off,  from  constantly  rubbing  against  the 
shore  and  against  one  another.  All  are  equal  in  height  and  in 
buoyancy,  for  they  sink  into  a  sort  of  boat  with  a  deep  keel,  which 
is  seen  from  every  side ;  and  there  is  just  as  much  of  the  island 
above  as  below  water.  At  one  time  these  islands  are  all  joined 
close  together,  like  a  part  of  the  mainland ;  at  another  they  are 
driven  asunder  and  scattered  by  the  winds ;  sometimes  thus 
detached,  the  wind  falling  dead,  they  float  apart,  motionless  on 
the  water.  It  often  happens  that  the  smaller  ones  stick  to  the 
greater,  like  skiffs  to  ships  of  burden  ;  and  often  both  large  and 
small  seem  to  strive  together  in  a  race.  Again,  all  driven 
together  into  one  spot,  add  to  the  land  on  that  side,  and  now 
here,  now  there,  increase  or  diminish  the  surface  of  the  lake ; 
and  only  cease  to  contract  it,  when  they  float  in  the  middle.  It 
is  a  well-known  fact  that  cattle  attracted  by  the  herbage,  are  wont 
to  walk  on  the  islets,  mistaking  them  for  the  shore  of  the  lake ; 
nor  do  they  become  aware  that  they  are  not  on  firm  ground,  till 
borne  away  from  the  shore,  they  behold  with  terror  the  waters 
stretching  around  them.  Presently,  when  the  wind  has  carried 
them  again  to  the  bank,  they  go  forth,  no  more  aware  of  disem- 
barking than  they  were  of  their  embarkation.  The  water  of  this 
said  lake  flows  out  in  a  stream  which,  after  showing  itself  for  a 
little  space,  is  lost  in  a  cave,  and  runs  deep  underground ;  and  if 
anything  be  thrown  into  it  before  it  thus  dives,  it  is  brought  to 

and    mentions  it  out  of  its  chronological       monian.     No  author  mentions  both, 
order.      But  there  is  probably  some  con-  6  Plin.  Nat.  Hist.   II.  96.     Senec.  Nat. 

fusion  between  the  two  routs  at  the  Vadi-       Quaest.  III.  25.     Sotion,  de  Mir.  Font. 


144  OETE.  [CHAP.  xi. 

light  again  where  it  emerges.  I  have  written  of  these  things  to 
thee,  thinking  they  would  be  as  novel  and  pleasing  to  tliee  as  to 
myself,  for  we  both  delight  in  noticing  so  much  as  the  works  of 
Nature."  7 

The  lake  lies  beneath  the  heights,  in  the  plain  by  the  banks  of 
the  Tiber ;  but  he  who  would  expect  Pliny's  description  to  be 
verified,  might  search  for  ever  in  vain.  It  is,  indeed,  no  easy 
matter  to  find  the  lake  ;  for  it  has  so  shrunk  in  dimensions,  that 
what  must  have  been  a  spacious  tract  of  water  in  the  olden  time, 
is  now  but  a  small  stagnant  pond,  almost  lost  in  the  tall  reeds 
and  bulrushes  that  wave  over  it.  These  we  may  conclude  repre- 
sent the  islets,  which  either  never  had  an  existence,  or  have  now 
clubbed  together  to  stop  up  the  lake.8  The  water  has  still  a 
sulphureous  appearance,  though  not  too  highly  flavoured  for  the 
frogs,  whose  croakings  mingling  with  the  shrill  chirrup  of  the 
cicala,  rise  eternally  from  the  pool.  I  fancied  I  saw  the  stream 
of  which  Pliny  speaks,  in  a  small  ditch  which  carries  the  super- 
fluous water  towards  the  Tiber  ;  but  I  did  not  perceive  it  to  take 
a  subterranean  course. 

Whoever  visits  the  Vadimon,  will  comprehend  how  it  was  that 
decisive  battles  were  fought  upon  its  shores.  The  valley  here 
forms  the  natural  pass  into  the  inner  or  central  plain  of  Etruria. 
It  is  a  spot,  indeed,  very  like  the  field  of  Thrasymene — a  low, 
level  tract,  about  a  mile  wide,  hemmed  in  between  the  heights 
and  the  Tiber,  which  here  takes  the  place  of  that  lake ;  but  the 
heights  rise  more  steeply  and  loftily  than  those  by  the  Thrasymene, 
and  are  even  now  densely  covered  with  wood,  as  no  doubt  they 
were  in  ancient  times,  the  celebrated  Ciminian  forest  extending 
thus  far.  Though  the  Consul  Fabius  had  once  passed  that  fearful 
wood,  it  was  against  the  express  command  of  the  Senate ;  so 
when  the  Etruscans  were  next  to  be  attacked,  the  Roman  general, 

"  Plin.  Epist.  VIII.  20.  rock  being  suspended  over  the  lake,  like 

8  This  process  is  still  going  forward  in  broken  ice  over  a  deep  abyss."   The  waters 

certain  lakes  in  Italy — in  the  Lago  d'  Isole  are  sulphureous,  yet  there  are  fish  in  the 

Natanti,  or  Lake  of  Floating  Islands,  near  lake.    "  The  phenomenon  of  floating  islands 

the  road  from  Rome  to  Tivoli,  and  well  may  still  be  observed  ;    they  are  nothing 

known  from  the  description  of  Sir  Hum-  more  than  reeds  or  long  coarse  grass,  the 

phry  Davy  in  his  "Last  Days  of  a  Philo-  roots  of  which  bound  together  by  the  petri- 

sopher "    (see    also  Westphal's    Romische  fying  nature  of  the  water,  are  sometimes 

Kampagne,  p.  108),  and  also  in  the  Lacus  detached  from  the  shore."     Gell's  Rome, 

Cutilise    in     Sabina,    renowned     by    the  II.  p.  370.     Floating  islands  are  common 

ancients  for  its  floating  islands,  and  now  enough  in  the  great  rivers  of  South  America, 

called  the  Pozzo  Ratignano.     "Its  banks  I  have  seen  them  even  far  at  sea,  carried 
appear  to  be  approaching  each  other  by  in-     •  out  by  the  tide, 
crustation  ;  there  is  no  shelving  shore,  the 


CHAP,  xi.]  VALE    OF    THE    TIBER— BASSANO.  145 

instead  of  again  crossing  the  mountain,  turned  its  extremity,  and 
there  encountered  the  Etruscan  army  drawn  up  in  this  natural 
pass  into  their  land,  leagued  together  by  a  solemn  bond  to  defend 
their  country  to  the  utmost— a  determination  which  caused  them 
to  offer  so  desperate  and  extraordinary  a  resistance.9 

The  vale  of  the  Tiber  is  here  rich  and  beautiful — the  low 
ground  highly  cultivated  with  corn,  wine,  and  oil ;  the  slopes  on 
the  Etruscan  side  clothed  with  dense  oak-woods,  on  the  Umbriaii 
with  olive-groves  and  vine3Tards ;  the  towns  of  Giove  and  Penna 
crown  the  latter  heights ;  Bassano  overhangs  the  lake  from  the 
former.  Looking  up  the  stream,  Mugnano  is  seen  on  its  hill, 
backed  by  the  loftier  ground  of  Bomarzo ;  looking  down,  the 
horizon  is  bounded  by  the  distant  range  of  the  Apennines,  with 
their  "  silent  pinnacles  of  aged  snow." 

Bassano  has  been  supposed  by  Cluver,1  Cramer,2  and  others, 
to  be  the  Castellum  Amerinum  on  the  Via  Amerina,  mentioned 
by  the  Peutingerian  Table,  because  it  overhangs  the  Vadimon, 
as  Pliny  describes  the  Amerine  estate — Amerina  pr&dia — of  his 
wife's  grandfather  to  have  done.3  But  the  Castellum  must  have 
been  near  Orte,  as  already  stated,  because  the  road  took  a  direct 
course  from  Nepi  to  Amelia,  and  the  distance,  twenty-six  miles, 
between  these  places  is  correctly  stated  by  the  Table,  but  would 
have  been  considerably  increased  had  the  road  made  a  detour  to 
Bassano.  Besides,  I  have  myself  traced  the  road  by  its  fragments 
from  Nepi  to  within  a  mile  or  two  of  Orte,  and  its  course  is  due 
north  and  south,  without  deviation ;  and  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  it  crossed  the  Tiber  by  the  bridge  at  Orte,  now  in  ruins.  The 
ground  about  Bassano  may  nevertheless  have  been  called  Amerine, 
though  the  Castellum  itself  was  three  or  four  miles  distant. 

Bassano  is  a  miserable  place,  without  accommodation  for  the 
traveller  ;  and  with  no  signs  of  antiquity,  or  anything  to  interest, 
beyond  its  picturesque  sceneiy.  It  lies  on  the  railway  from  Eome 
to  Florence,  ninety- one  kilometres,  or  fifty-seven  miles  from  the 
former  city.  It  is  nearly  two  miles  from  the  Vadimonian  Lake, 
five  from  Orte,  by  the  direct  road,  four  or  five  from  Bomarzo, 
seven  or  eight  from  Soriano,  and  the  same  from  Yignanello. 

9  Livy  says, — non  cum  Etruscis  toties  of  the  ground,  with  which  those  writers 

victis,  sed  cum  aliqua  nova  gente,  videretur  seem  to  have  been  unacquainted,  sufficiently 

dimicalio  esse, — (IX.  39).     Miiller  (II.  1.  accounts  for  the  fact. 
4)  and  Mannert  (p.  422)  seem  to  me  to  be  1  Ital.  Ant.  II.  p.  551. 

in  error  in  supposing  that  the  Etruscans  •  Ancient  Italy,  I.  p.  224. 

made  their  stand  on  this  spot  on  account  3  Plin.  Epist.  loc.  cit. 

of  the  sacredness  of  the  lake.     The  nature 

VOL.    I.  I. 


CHAPTER    XII. 

MONTE    CIMINO.— MONS    CIMINUS. 
Cimini  cum  inonte  lacum. — VIRGIL. 

How  soon  the  tale  of  ages  may  be  told  ! 
A  page,  a  verse,  records  the  fall  of  fame. 
The  wreck  of  centuries — we  gaze  on  you 
0  cities,  once  the  glorious  and  the  free  ! — 
The  lofty  tales  that  charmed  our  youth  renew, 
And  wondering  ask  if  these  their  scenes  can  be. 

HKMANS. 

WHO  that  has  seen  has  not  hailed  with  delight  the  exquisite 
little  lake  of  Vico,  which  lies  in  the  lap  of  the  Ciminian  Mount, 
just  above  Ronciglione  ?  I  saw  it  for  the  first  time  one  evening 
when  I  strolled  up  from  that  town,  and  came  upon  it  unex^ 
pectedly,  not  aware  of  its  close  proximity.  The  sun  was  sinking 
behind  the  hills,  which  reared  their  broad,  purple  masses  into 
the  clear  sky,  and  shaded  half  the  bosom  of  the  calm  lake  with 
their  hues — while  the  other  half  reflected  the  orange  and  golden 
glories  of  an  Italian  sunset.  Not  a  sound  broke  the  stillness, 
save  the  chirping  of  the  cicala  from  the  trees,  whose  song  served 
but  to  make  the  silence  heard — and  not  a  sign  of  human  life  was 
there  beyond  a  column  of  smoke  wreathing  up  whitely  in  front  of 
the  dark  mountains.  When  I  next  visited  the  lake,  it  was  under 
the  glare  of  a  noonday  sun — its  calm  surface,  deepening  the 
azure  of  the  sky  into  a  vivid  sapphire,  was  dashed  at  the  edge 
with  reflections  of  the  overhanging  woods,  in  the  richest  hues  of 
autumn ;  and  with  Siren  smiles  it  treacherously  masked  the 
destruction  it  had  wrought.1 

1  The  waters  of  this  lake,  the  ancient  evidently  the  crater  of  an  extinct  volcano. 

Lacus  Ciminus,  are  said  to  cover  a  town  Fable,    however,  gives  it   another  origin, 

called  Succinium,  or  Saccumum,  engulfed  When  Hercules  was  on  this  mount,  he  was 

by  an  earthquake  (Ammian.  Marcell.  XVII.  begged  by  the   inhabitants  to  give  them 

7.  13;  Sotion.  de  Mir.  Font.).     The  latter  some   proof  of   his   marvellous    strength; 

writer  states  the  same  of  the  Lacus  Saba-  whereon  he  drove  an  iron  bar  deep  into  the 

tinus,    or  Lago   Bracciano.      The   lake   is  earth.     When  they  had  tried  in  vain  to  stir 


CHAP,  xii.]  VIEW    FEOM   THE    PASS.  H7 

Who  has  not  hailed  with  }ret  higher  delight  the  view  from  the 
summit  of  the  long  steep  ascent  which  rises  from  the  shores  of 
the  lake  to  the  shoulder  of  the  mountain — more  especially  if  he 
be  for  the  first  time  approaching  the  Eternal  City  ? — for  from 
this  height,  if  the  da}^  be  clear,  he  will  obtain  his  first  view  of 
Home.  There  lies  the  vast,  variegated  expanse  of  the  Campagna 
at  his  feet,  with  its  framework  of  sea  and  mountain.  There 
stands  Soracte  in  the  midst,  which 

"  from  out  the  plain 

Heaves  like  a  long-swept  wave  about  to  break, 
And  on  the  curl  hangs  pausing." 

The  white  convent  of  San  Silvestro  gleams  on  its  dark  craggy 
crest,  as  though  it  were  an  altar  to  the  god  of  poetry  and  light  on 
this  his  favourite  mountain.  There  sweeps  the  long  range  of 
Apennines,  in  grey  or  purple  masses,  or  rearing  some  giant, 
hoary  peak,  into  the  blue  heaven.  There  flows  the  Tiber  at 
their  feet,  from  time  to  time  sparkling  in  the  sun  as  it  winds 
through  the  undulating  plain.  Far  in  the  southern  horizon 
swells  the  Alban  Mount  with  its  soft  flowing  outlines ;  and 
apparently  at  its  foot,  lies  Rome  herself,  distinguishable  more  by 
the  cupola  of  St.  Peter's  than  by  the  white  line  of  her  buildings. 
Well,  traveller,  mayest  thou  gaze,  for  even  in  her  present  fallen 
state 

Possis  nihil  urbe  Roma 
Visere  majus.2 

Nor  must  the  dense  and  manj'-tinted  woods,  which  clothe  the 
slopes  of  the  mountain  around  and  beneath,  be  passed  without 
notice.  It  is  the  Ciminian  forest,  in  olden  times  the  terror  of 
the  Roman,3  and  still  with  its  majestic  oaks  and  chestnuts 
vindicating  its  ancient  reputation — silv(B  sunt  consule  dignce  ! 

On  descending  from  the  crest  of  the  pass  on  the  road  to 
Viterbo,  a  new  scene  broke  on  my  view.  The  slopes  around  and 

it,  they  besought  the  hero  to  draw  it  forth,  2  Horat.  Carm.  Ssec.  11. 
which  life  did ;  but  an   immense  flood  of  3  It   was   so    dreaded    by  the    ancient 
water  welled  up  from  the  hole,  and  formed  Romans,  that  the  Senate,  even  after  the 
the  Ciminian  Lake.    Serv.  ad  JEn.  VII.  697.  great  rout  of  the  Etruscans  at  Sutrium,  in 
The  height  on  the  northern  shore  is  called  the  year  444,  dispatched  legates  to  the  con- 
Monte  Venere— a  name  it  is  said  to  owe  to  sul  Fabius,  charging  him  not  to  enter  the 
a  temple  of  Venus,  that  once  occupied  the  wood  (Liv.  IX.  36;  Florus,   I.   17);  and 
summit.     But  so  far  as  I  can  learn,  the  when  it  was  known  that  he  had  done  so,  all 
exibtence  of  a  temple  here  rests  on  tradition  Rome  was  terror-struck  (Liv.  IX.  38). 
alone. 

L  2 


148  MONTE    CIMINO.  [CHAP.  xn. 

beneath  were  still  densely  clothed  with  wood — a  wide  plain  again 
lay  at  my  feet — mountains  also  rose  beyond — the  sea  glittered  in 
a  golden  line  on  the  horizon — a  lake  shone  out  from  the  plain — 
even  Soracte  had  its  counterpart:  the  general  features  of  the 
scene  were  the  same  as  on  the  other  side  of  the  mountain,  but 
there  was  more  tameness,  more  monotony  in  their  character,  and 
the  same  stirring  interest  did  not  attach  to  every  spot  as  the  site 
of  some  historic  event  or  romantic  legend ;  nor  was  there  one 
grand  focus  of  attraction  to  which  every  other  object  was  sub- 
ordinate. Yet  was  it  a  scene  of  high  interest.  It  was  the  great 
Etruscan  plain,  the  fruitful  mother  of  cities  renowned  before 
Rome  was — where  arose,  flourished,  and  fell  that  nation  which 
from  this  plain  as  from  a  centre  extended  its  dominion  over  the 
greater  part  of  Ital}r,  giving  laws,  arts,  and  institutions  to  the 
surrounding  tribes,  and  to  Rome  itself — the  twin-sister  of  Greece 
in  the  work  of  civilising  Europe.  I  could  not,  as  the  consul 
Fabius  once  did  from  this  same  height,  admire  "  the  rich  fields 
of  Etruria,"4  for  the  plain  is  in  most  parts  uncultivated,  with 
here  and  there  a  few  patches  of  wood  to  relieve  its  monotonous 
bareness. 

"With  what  pride  must  an  Etruscan  have  regarded  this  scene 
twenty-five  centuries  since.  The  numerous  cities  in  the  plain 
were  so  many  trophies  of  the  power  and  civilisation  of  his  nation. 
There  stood  Volsinii,  renowned  for  her  wealth  and  arts,  on  the 
shores  of  her  crater-lake — Tuscania  reared  her  towers  in  the 
west — Vulci  shone  out  from  the  plain,  and  Cosa  from  the 
mountain — and  Tarquinii,  chief  of  all,  asserted  her  metropolitan 

4  Liv.  IX.   36— opulenta  Etruriae  arva.  Besides,   as  Arnold   (Hist.    Rome,    II.    p. 

If  it  were  not  expressly  stated  by  Livy  that  249)  observes,   the  range  could  not  have 

— juga  Ciminii  mentis  tenebat,   it  would  formed    "an   impassable    barrier."      The 

be  more  reasonable  to  suppose  that  Fabius  highest  peak  rises  3000  feet  above  the  sea, 

crossed  from  Sutrium  by  the  line  of  the  but  there  are  very  deep  depressions  between 

subsequent  Via  Cassia,  than  that  he  should  its  crests  ;  and  the  shoulder  to  the  south, 

have  scaled  this  much  loftier,  more  diffi-  crossed  by  the  Via  Cassia,  is  of  so  slight  an 

cult,    and   dangerous   pass.      Possibly   he  elevation,  that  the  rise  is  scarcely  percepti- 

chose  it  as  being  wholly  undefended.     He  ble.     The  difficulty  must  have  lain  rather 

was  the  first  Roman,  it  is  said,  who  dared  in  the  density  of  the  forest  than  in  the 

to  penetrate   the   dread   Ciruinian   forest,  height  of  the  mountain.     Niebuhr  (III.  p. 

which  before  his  time  had  never  been  trod  279)  also  disputes  Livy's  statement,  but 

even  by  the  peaceful  traveller.     It  is  im-  suggests  that  the  mountain  may  have  been 

possible  to  believe  this  statement,  and  that  left  in  a  savage  state  by  mutual  agreement 

the  forest  was  utterly  pathless  (Liv.  loc.  cit.  to   serve   as  a    natural   frontier    between 

Flor.  loc.  cit.),  for  as  the  Mount  originally  Latium  and  Etruria.     He  was  evidently, 

stood  in  the  heart  of  Etruria,  there  must  however,  quite  ignorant  of  the  pass  by  the 

have  been  sundry  passes  across  it  for  com-  Vadimonian  Lake,  between  the  foot  of  the 

munication    between    the    several  states.  Mount  and  the  Tiber. 


CHAP,  xii.]  ETRUKIA    AS    IT    WAS,    AND    IS.  149 

supremacy  from  her  far-off  cliff-bound  heights.  Nearer  still,  his 
eye  must  have  rested  on  cit}r  after  city,  some  in  the  plain,  and 
others  on  the  slope  beneath  him ;  while  the  mountains  in  the 
horizon  would  have  carried  his  thoughts  to  the  glories  of 
Clusium,  Perusia,  Cortona,  Yetulonia,  Volaterra?,  and  other 
cities  of  the  great  Etruscan  Confederation.  How  changed  is 
now  the  scene  !  Save  Tuscania,  which  is  still  inhabited,  all 
within  view  are  now  desolate.  Tarquinii  has  left  scarce  a  vestige 
of  her  greatness  on  the  grass-grown  heights  she  once  occupied ; 
the  very  site  of  Volsinii  is  disputed  ;  silence  has  long  reigned  in 
the  crumbling  theatre  of  Ferentum ;  the  plough  yearly  furrows 
the  bosom  of  Yulci ;  the  fox,  the  owl,  and  the  bat,  are  the  sole 
tenants  of  the  vaults  within  the  ruined  walls  of  Cosa  :  and  of  the 
rest,  the  greater  part  have  neither  building,  habitant,  nor  name 
— nothing  but  the  sepulchres  around  them  to  prove  they  ever  had 
an  existence. 

Did  he  turn  to  the  southern  side  of  the  mountain  ? — his  eye 
wandered  from  city  to  city  of  no  less  renown,  studding  the  plain 
beneath  him — Veii,  Fidenre,  Falerii,  Fescennium,  Capena,  Nepete, 
Sutrium — all  then  powerful,  wealthy,  and  independent.  Little 
did  he  foresee  that  yon  small  town  on  the  banks  of  the  Tiber, 
would  prove  the  destruction  of  them  all,  and  even  of  his  nation 
and  language,  of  his  religion  and  civilisation. 


CHAPTER    XIII. 

VITERBO.— 8  URRINA. 

Cernimus  exemplis  oppiila  posse  mori. — RUTILIUS. 

Multa  retro  rerum  jacet,  atque  ambagibus  sevi 
Obtegitur  densa  caligine  mersa  vetustas. — SIL.  ITALICUS. 

ALMOST  every  town  in  Italy  and  Spain  has  its  chronicle,  written 
generally  by  some  priest  or  monk,  who  has  made  it  a  labour  of 
love  to  record  the  history,  real  or  imaginary,  of  his  native  place 
from  the  creation  down  to  his  own  time.  In  these  monographs,  as 
they  maybe  termed,  the  great  object  appears  to  have  been  to  exalt 
the  antiquity  and  magnify  the  pristine  importance  of  each  respec- 
tive town,  often  at  the  expense  of  every  other.  It  is  this  feeling 
which  has  ascribed  to  many  of  the  cities  of  Spain  a  foundation  by 
Japhet  or  Tubal-Cain ;  and  to  this  foolish  partiality  we  owe 
many  a  bulky  volume  replete  with  dogmatical  assertions,  distor- 
tions of  history,  unwarranted  readings  or  interpretations  of 
ancient  writers  ;  and  even,  it  may  be,  blackened  with  forgery. 

Among  those  who  have  been  guilty  of  this  foulest  of  literary 
crimes,  stands  foremost  in  impudence,  unrivalled  in  voluminous 
perseverance,  Fra  Giovanni  Nanni,  commonly  called  Annio  di 
Viterbo,  a  Dominican  monk  of  this  town,  who  lived  in  the 
fifteenth  century.  He  was  a  wholesale  and  crafty  forger ;  he  did 
not  write  the  history  of  his  native  place,  but  pretended  to  have 
discovered  fragments  of  various  ancient  writers,  most  of  which 
are  made,  more  or  less  directly,  to  bear  testimony  to  its  antiquity 
and  pristine  importance.  Besides  these  fragments  of  Berosus, 
Manetho,  Archilochus,  Xenophon,  Fabius  Pictor,  Cato,  Anto- 
ninus, and  others,  he  forged,  with  the  same  object,  a  marble 
tablet,  with  an  edict  purporting  to  be  of  King  Desiderio,  the  last 
of  the  Lombard  dynasty,  in  which  it  is  decreed  that  "  within  one 
wall  shall  be  included  the  three  towns,  Longula,  Vetulonia,  and 
Tirrena,  called  Volturna,  and  the  whole  city  thus  formed  shall  be 
called  Etruria  or  Viterbum,"  which  city  Annio  further  attempted 


•CHAP,  xni.]  ANNIO,    AND    HIS    FORGERIES.  151 

to  prove  one  of  the  Twelve,  and  the  metropolis  of  ancient 
Etruria.  His  forgeries  for  some  time  imposed  011  the  world  ;  but 
they  have  been  long  exposed,  and  he  is  now  universally  branded 
as  an  impostor.1 

One  of  his  statements,  however,  that  Viterbo  was  the  site  of 
the  Fanum  VoltumnaB,  the  shrine  at  which  the  princes  of  Etruria 
were  wont  to  assemble  in  solemn  conclave  to  deliberate  on  the 
affairs  of  the  Confederation — has  been  assented  to  by  many  who 
denounce  him,  and  is  an  opinion  that  has  found  supporters  among 
antiquaries  of  note.3  That  the  Fanum  was  somewhere  in  this 
district  is  probable  enough;  but  as  Livy,  who  alone  mentions 
it,  has  given  no  clue  to  its  locality,3  and  as  110  inscriptions  have 
thrown  light  on  the  subject,  it  can  be  but  pure  conjecture  to 
assign  it  to  this  or  that  particular  site.  Viterbo,  inasmuch  as  it 
contains  a  church  named  Santa  Maria  in  Voltuma,  may  be 
allowed  to  put  in  some  claim  to  that  honour,  certainly  stronger 
than  can  be  urged  for  Castel  d'  Asso.  Yet  such  is  far  from 
amounting  to  positive  evidence,  for,  to  say  nothing  of  the  corrup- 
tion of  words  in  the  course  of  two  thousand  years,  Voltumna  or 
Volturna  was  a  deity  of  the  Etruscans,  and  probably  had  temples 
in  various  parts  of  the  land. 

That  the  long  lost  Vetulonia  occupied  this  or  a  neighbouring 
site,  is  an  opinion  held  not  only  by  Annio,  and  the  early 
antiquaries  of  Italy,  but  even  in  our  own  times  has  found  its 
advocates,  who  cite  in  support  of  their  views  the  oriental  magnifi- 
cence of  the  sepulchres  of  Norchia  and  Castel  d'  Asso.4  A  much 
more  probable  site  will  be  indicated  for  Vetulonia  in  a  subsequent 
chapter. 

Though  Viterbo  has  been  a  bone  of  contention  to  archa3ologists, 
ever  since  the  days  of  Annio,  its  name  contains  a  clear  indication 
of  its  antiquity,  being  evidently  compounded  of  Veins  urbs.5 
There  are,  moreover,  indisputable  proofs  of  the  existence  of  an 
Etruscan  town  on  this  spot,  in  the  numerous  sepulchral  caves  in 

1  The    authenticity    of    the     Desiderio       Ambrosch,   in  his  reply  to  the  letters  of 
decree   has   been   much   disputed.       Even       Inghirami  on  the  subject. 

Holstenius  (Adnot.  ad  Cluver.  p.   68)  con-  5  Yet  old  Fazio  degli  Uberti  could  find 

tended  for  its  authenticity  ;  and  as  late  as  another  derivation — 

1777  Faure  maintained  it  to  be  genuine.  "  Che  nel  principio  Veghienza  fu  decta, 

2  Cluverius,    II.    p.    565.       Cellaring,  Sino  al  tempo  che  a  Roma  fu  nemica, 
<^eog.  Ant.  I.  p.   581.     Ambrosch,  Mem.  Ma  vinta  poi  agli  Roman  dilecta, 

Inst.  IV.  p.  149.  Tanto  per  le  buone  acque  e  dolcie  sito 

3  Liv.  IV.  23,  25,  61  ;  V.  17  ;  VI.  2.  Che'n  vita  Erbo  del  suo  nome  tragecta." 

4  Inghir.  Mem.  Inst.  IV.  p.  98  et  seq.  DITTAMUKDI,  III.  cap.  1C. 
This   has   been   ably  controverted  by  I)r. 


152  VITEBBO.  [CHAP.  xin. 

the  cliffs  around,  and  in  the  tomhs  which  from  time  to  time  have 
heen  excavated,  yielding  genuine  Etruscan  objects.  No  remains 
of  the  ancient  town  itself  are  extant,  beyond  the  foundations  of  a 
bridge  near  the  cathedral,  composed  of  large  rectangular  blocks 
of  emplecton  masonry,  rusticated  and  uncemented,  and  sundry 
sewers  cut  in  the  neighbouring  cliffs.  The  blocks  are  of  the 
same  hard  peperino  that  forms  the  pavement  of  the  town.  In 
dimensions  and  arrangement  they  are  like  Etruscan  ;  but  the 
general  style  of  the  masomy,  and  the  peculiarity  of  the  material, 
so  different  from  the  red  tufo  rock  on  which  these  piers  rest, 
induce  me  to  pronounce  them  of  lloman  construction  ;  if  they 
be  not,  as  Canina  suggests,  a  re-construction,  in  still  later  times, 
of  the  ancient  materials.0  The  name  of  the  ancient  town  seems 
from  Latin  inscriptions  to  have  been  Surrina  or  Sorrina,7  and  it 
appears  to  have  occupied  the  cliff- bound  plateau  on  which  the 
Cathedral  stands. 

In  the  Palazzo  Comunale,  in  an  upper  room,  is  shown  the 
marble  tablet  with  the  decree  of  the  king  Desiderio,  already 
mentioned,  the  authenticity  of  which  has  given  rise  to  so  much 
discussion,8 — and  the  Tabula  Cibellaria,  another  of  Annio's 
forgeries,  by  which  he  sought  to  make  it  appear  that  his  town 
was  as  ancient  as  Corythus,  or  prior  to  the  foundation  of  Troy. 
When  I  first  knew  Viterbo,  there  was  a  respectable  collection  of 
Etruscan  relics  up-stairs,  comprising  sepulchral  urns,  conical 
cippi  with  inscriptions,  small  idols  of  bronze,  and  other  objects  of 
the  same  metal,  pottery  of  biicchero,  black  or  uncoloured,  show- 
ing antiquity,  not  richness  or  elegance — with  few  of  the  beautiful 
figured  vases,  so  abundant  on  the  more  luxurious  sites  of  Vulci, 

6  Canina  (Etruria  Marit.  Vol.  II.  p.  70,  town.     Marini  (Frat.  Arval.   II.  p.  424), 
tav.  100)  gives  an  illustration  of  this  piece  referred  Surrina  Nova  to  Soriano  on  the 
of  walling.  eastern  slope  of  the  Ciminian ;  but  Orioli 

7  The  existence  of  a   "Surrina  or  Sor-  would  rather  consider  that  town  to  be  the 
rina  Nova "  is  made  known  by  sundry  in-  Surrina   Vetus,   from  which   this,    distin- 
scriptions,  most  of  which  have  been  found  guished  as  Nova,  may  have  been  originally 
in  the  neighbourhood.     Muratori,  201,  6,  peopled.     To  me,  however,  it  appears  more 
and  1083,  8 ;  Mariani,  de  Etrur.  Metrop.  probable,  that  the  old  town  of  this  name 
p.  125.     The  names  of  Surina,  and  Civitas  was  that  on  the  very  site  of  Yiterbo,  on 
Surinae,  were  attached  to  the  place  in  the  the  heights  of  the  Cathedral,  as  already 
middle  ages ;  Surianum,  also,  is  said  often  stated,  and  that  when  the  Koman  settle- 
to  occur  in  old  documents.    Orioli  (Nouvel.  ment  was  made  on  the  lower  ground,  indi- 
Ann.  Inst.  1836,  p.  41)  says,  the  town  of  cated  by  Orioli,  it  received  the  epithet  of 
Surrina  Nova  stood  half  a  mile  from  Viter-  "Nova,"  while  that  on  the  original  site 
bo,  just  where  Annio  placed  it,  between  was  distinguished  only  as  "the  old  town, 
the  Grotta  di  Riello,  the  stream  of  the  Ar-  — vet  us  urbs — of  which  Viterbo  is  obviously 
cione,  and  the  modern  baths,    where  are  a  derivative. 

numerous  ruins  and  manifest  traces  of  a  8  It  may  be  found  in  Gruter,  p.  220. 


CHAP,  xni.]          ETRUSCAN    EELICS    AT    YITEEBO.  153 

Tarquinii,  or  Clusium.  But  all  these  objects  have  been  carried 
away  by  the  Jesuits,  and  nothing  is  now  left  but  a  few  monu- 
ments from  Musarna,  stored  in  a  room  on  the  ground  floor. 
Here  are  sixteen  sarcophagi  of  nenfro,  some  with  bas-reliefs  on 
the  sides,  and  all  with  the  effigy  of  the  deceased  of  life-size  reclin- 
ing on  the  lid.  They  are  all  from  the  newly  discovered  Etruscan 
town  of  Musarna,  and  from  one  tomb,  which  we  learn  from  the 
inscriptions  to  have  been  that  of  the  family  "  Alethnas,"  a  name 
suggestive  of  a  Greek  origin.  A  singular  feature  in  these  in- 
scriptions is  that  they  are  not  confined  to  the  sarcophagi  and  lids 
as  usual ;  but  some  are  carved  on  the  recumbent  effigies  them- 
selves, in  one  case  on  the  bosom,  in  three  on  the  thigh — as  if  the 
figures  were  of  bronze  instead  of  stone.  Another  peculiarity  is 
that  the  flesh  of  some  of  the  males  is  coloured  3rellow  instead  of 
red.  In  the  relief,  on  one  sarcophagus,  a  soul  is  represented  in 
a  bic/a,  led  by  a  demon,  and  followed  by  Charun.  The  art  dis- 
pla}-ed  in  these  monuments  is  very  rude,  but  it  is  the  rudeness  of 
the  Decadence,  not  of  primitive  art. 

The  only  other  collection  of  Etruscan  antiquities  at  Viterbo  is 
in  the  possession  of  Signor  Giosafat  Bazzichelli,  the  proprietor 
of  Castel  d'Asso,  the  discoverer  of  Musarna,  and  the  explorer  of 
many  other  cemeteries  in  the  great  Etruscan  plain,  and  is  the 
accumulated  fruit  of  his  researches.  He  is  also  the  Government 
Inspector  of  excavations  for  this  district.  Of  his  courtes}r  and 
readiness  to  impart  the  results  of  his  experience,  I  retain  a  grate- 
ful recollection.  He  possesses  some  beautiful  Greek  vases  in 
the  Second  style,  from  Corneto,  of  which  the  following  are  the 
most  noteworthy : — 

Amphora. — Four  naked,  phallic  Fauns  in  procession,  each 
carrying  a  draped  Msenad  on  his  shoulder,  one  of  whom  is 
plajdng  the  lyre,  and  two  the  double-pipes. 

Amphora. — A  quadriga  drawn  by  horses  of  surprising  life  and 
spirit. 

Amphora. — Hercules  overcoming  Nereus. 

Amphora. — Hercules  contending  with  the  Amazons. 

Some  other  vases  of  the  same  form  and  style,  with  a  brilliant 
lustre,  and  in  wonderful  preservation — all  from  Corneto. 

You  see  here — what  is  not  seen  elsewhere — the  produce  of 
excavations  at  Castel  d'Asso.  The  vases,  which  are  numerous, 
are  in  a  very  early  style,  but  for  the  most  part  pseudo-archaic, 
mere  Etruscan  imitations  of  the  so-called  Phoenician  style.  When 
confronted  with  genuine  vases  of  that  style,  the  imitation  is 


154  V1TERBO.  [CHAP.  xm. 

palpable.  Yet  they  are  not  of  late  date,  but  contemporaneous, 
for  they  are  always  found  in  the  same  tombs  with  vases  of 
bucchero,  the  earliest  native  pottery  of  Etruria.  There  are  other 
painted  vases  in  the  late  style  of  Magna  Grtecia,  and  these  also 
are  local  imitations.  So  that  Castel  d'Asso  produces  pottery  of 
a  very  early  and  a  very  late  period — of  600  B.C.  and  of  250  K.C. — 
while  the  art  of  the  intervening  centuries  is  not  represented. 
The  tombs  with  architectural  facades  probably  belonged  to  this 
interval ;  for,  though  ransacked  long  ages  since,  the  fragments  of 
pottery  found  in  them  are  not  of  the  archaic  bucchero,  but  of 
ordinary  plain  ware  of  a  later  date.  Signer  Bazzichelli  possesses 
a  beautiful  bronze  speccliio,  from  this  site,  representing  Venus 
(TURAN)  and  Adonis  (Axuxs)  embracing;  another,  of  Hercules 
overcoming  Hippolyta,  Queen  of  the  Amazons ;  with  other 
mirrors  of  inferior  art,  and  numerous  strigils,  among  them  one 
of  iron,  retaining  fragments  of  the  cloth  in  which  it  was  wrapt.9 

In  the  wall  of  the  church  in  front  of  this  palace,  is  a  Roman 
sarcophagus  of  marble,  bearing  a  bas-relief  of  a  lion  contending 
•with  a  boar.  An  inscription  shows  it  to  have  been  raised  in 
honour  of  a  Viterbian  damsel  of  the  twelfth  century,  who  had  such 
extraordinary  beauty,  that,  like  Helen,  she  became  the  cause  of  a 
war — "causa  teterrima  belli."  On  her  account  the  city  was 
besieged  by  the  Romans;  and  after  unsuccessful  assaults  they 
agreed  to  raise  the  siege,  on  condition  that  the  fair  Galiana 
displayed  her  charms  from  the  ramparts — an  instance  of  "the 
might,  the  majesty  of  loveliness "  never  surpassed  in  any 
age. 

It  may  partly  be  owing  to  this  Italian  Helen  that  the  daughters 
of  Viterbo  still  enjoy  a  proverbial  reputation  for  beauty.  But 
these  are  delicate  matters,  not  to  be  handled  by  an  antiquary. 
What  more  shall  I  say  of  Viterbo  ?  It  was  the  second  city  in  the 
Papal  State  within  the  limits  of  ancient  Etruria,  and  can  still 
boast  of  thirteen  or  fourteen  thousand  inhabitants,  and  in  former 
times  was  often  the  residence  of  the  Popes.  I  will  say  nothing  of 
the  remains  of  Santa  Rosa,  the  holy  patroness  of  the  city — of  the 
pulpit  of  San  Bernardino  of  Siena — of  the  celebrated  "Deposition  " 
of  Sebastian  del  Piombo,  from  the  design  of  Michael  Angelo — of  the 
palace  where  Olimpia  Pamfili  held  her  revels — of  the  Gothic 
Cathedral,  stained  with  the  royal  blood  of  England1 — of  the 
quaint  Episcopal  palace  adjoining,  whose  vast  hall  has  witnessed 

9  Iiull.  Inst.  1874,  p.  257.  ami  occupies  the  site  of  a  temple  to  Hercules, 

1  The  cathedral  is  dedicated  to  S.  Lorenzo,       mentioned  in  early  Christian  documents. 


«HAP.  xiii.]  THE    BAZZICHELLI    COLLECTION.  155 

the  election  of  some  half-dozen  popes — are  they  not  all  recorded 
by  Murray  ?  Yet  I  must  testify  to  the  neatness  and  cleanliness 
of  Viterbo — to  the  Tuscan  character  of  its  architecture' — to  its 
well-paved,  ever  dry  streets — to  its  noble  fountains,  proverbial  for 
their  beauty — and  I  must  not  omit  the  abundant  civility  experi- 
enced in  the  hotel  of  the  "  Angelo,"  which  the  traveller  should 
make  his  head-quarters  while  exploring  the  antiquities  of  the 
neighbourhood. 


THE  THEATRE  OF  KEKENTO  —  THE  CENTRAL  GATE. 


CHAPTER    XIV. 

PEEENTO.  —FERENTINUM. 

Si  te  grata  quies,  et  primam  soinnus  in  horam 

Delectat  ;  si  te  pulvis  strepitusque  rotarnm, 

Si  liedit  caupona  ;  Ferentinum  ire  julebo. — HORAT. 

THE  neighbourhood  of  Yiterho  is  rich  in  antiquities.  It 
was  not  usual  with  the  southern  Etruscans  to  build  on  the 
summits  of  lofty  mountains,  or  even  on  the  higher  slopes — 
therefore  no  remains  are  found  on  the  Ciminian  itself — but  all 
along  its  base  stood  city  after  city,  now  for  the  most  part  in 
utter  desolation,  yet  whose  pristine  magnificence  can  be  traced 
in  the  sepulchres  around  them.  The  vast  plain,  also,  north  of 
the  Ciminian,  now  in  great  part  uncultivated,  and  throughout 
most  thinly  inhabited,  teems  with  vestiges  of  long  extinct 
civilisation. 

Five  miles  north  of  Yiterbo,  on  the  left  of  the  road  to  Monte 
Fiascone,  and  near  the  Ponte  Fontanile,  is  a  remarkable  assem- 
blage of  ruins,  called  Le  Casacce  del  Bacucco.  One  is  an  edifice 
of  two  stories,  by  some  thought  a  temple  of  Serapis,  most  pro- 
bably because  they  fancied  they  could  trace  a  corruption  of  this 


CHAP.   XIV.] 


ANCIENT    TIIERM.E. 


157 


word  in  its  name,  Bagni  delle  Serpi.1  It  is  more  vulgarly  called 
La  Lettighetta,  or  the  Warming-pan.  Then  there  are  several 
quadrilateral  buildings,  evidently  baths ;  one  retaining  traces  of 
some  magnificence,  being  surmounted  by  an  octagon  which 
originally  supported  a  cupola.  From  the  character  of  these 
ruins,  and  the  abundance  of  thermal  springs  in  this  district,  it 
has  been  with  great  probability  supposed  that  this  is  the  site  of 
the  Aqua3  Passeris  of  antiquity.2  All  these  ruins  are  clearly  of 
Boman  times ;  but  there  is  one  monument  on  this  site  apparently 
of  Etruscan  construction.  It  is  a  mound  of  tufo  shaped  like  a 
cone,  hollowed  into  a  tomb,  and  girt  with  rectangular  travertine 
masonry,  like  the  tumuli  of  Tarquinii.  Its  interior  is  very 
plain.3 

Considerably  to  the  east  of  Bacucco,  and  about  five  miles  north 
of  Viterbo  stand  the  ruins  of  an  Etruscan  cit}r,  now  called  Ferento 
or  Ferenti.  It  is  the  ancient  Ferentinum  of  Etruria,4  the  birth- 
place of  the  emperor  Otho ;  and  must  not  be  confounded  with  the 
town  of  the  same  name  in  the  land  of  the  Hernici.  That,  the 
"  Ferentinum  of  the  rock,"  stands  on  the  summit  of  a  lofty  hill, 


1  Excavations  were  made  here  in  1830, 
and  statues  and   mosaic   pavements   were 
brought  to  light.     Bull.  Inst.  1831,  p.  84  ; 
Ann.  Inst.  1835,  1—7.  Camilli. 

2  Cluver  (ii.  p.  561).     The  Feutingerian 
Table  places  Aquae  Passeris  between  Forum 
Cassii  and  Volsinii,  eleven  miles  from  the 
former,  and  nine  from  the  latter.      If  Ve- 
tralla  be    the   site    of  Forum  Cassii,   the 
distance  to  Bacucco  is  about  correct,  but 
tliencs  to  Yolsinii  is  fourteen  miles  ;  and 
this  distance  Cluverius  thinks  was  originally 
stated  by  the  Table,  but  that  XIIII.   was 
corrupted  by  the  transcriber  into  VIIII. 
which  might  very  easily  occur. 

Professor  Orioli  also,  who  has  published 
a  long  Latin  inscription,  found  near  Viterbo, 
referring  to  the  springs  and  course  of  these 
"  Aquas  Passerianae,"  is  of  opinion  that  the 
baths  occupied  the  site  of  Bacucco.  (Ann. 
Instit.  1829,  p.  174—179.)  But  Canina 
takes  the  Bullicaine  to  be  the  Aquae  Passeris, 
because  there  are  no  other  hot  springs  in  the 
neighbourhood  to  which  Martial's  descrip- 
tion can  apply — fervidi  fluctus  Passeris  (VI. 
Epig.  42).  The  name  of  Le  Serpi,  vulgarly 
given  to  the  building  at  Bacucco,  may  be  a 
corruption  of  "  Scirpianum,"  an  estate 
mentioned  by  the  said  inscription  as  tra- 
versed by  the  Via  Ferentiensis.  Etr. 


Marit.  II.,   p.  133. 

3  Bull.  List.  1831,  p.  85.     Tt  is  consi- 
dered by  Lenoir  (Annali  dell'  Inst.    1832, 
p.  277),  from  the  character  of  its  mouldings, 
to  be  of  It oman  construction,  in  imitation 
of  tombs  genuinely  Etruscan  ;  but  I  have 
already  shown,  in  treating  of  the  tombs  of 
Falleri,  that  a  resemblance  to  Roman  archi- 
tecture is  not  necessarily  an  evidence  against 
an  Etruscan  origin  ;  and  it  is  clear  that  the 
Romans  could  as  well  imitate  the  Etruscans 
in  the  mouldings  as  in  the  general  character 
of  the  tomb.  For  an  illustration  of  this  tomb, 
see  Mon.  Ined.  Inst.  I.  tav.  XLI.  16. 

4  By  Strabo  (V.  p.   226),  Tacitus  (Hist. 
II.  50),  Pliny  (III.  8),  and  Suetonius  (Otho 
I.),   it  is  called  Ferentinum  ;  by  Ptolemy 
(Geog.   p.    72,    ed.   Bertii)  Pherentia  ;    by 
Vitruvius  (II.  7)  Ferentum.     It  may  also 
be  referred  to  as  Ferentum  by  Suetonius 
(Vespas.  3).     It  seems  to  have  given  name 
to  an   Etruscan  family,    mentioned   on   a 
sepulchral  urn  of  Perugia — "ArnthPhrenti- 
nate  Pisice. "  It  is  strange  that  Vermiglioli, 
who  gives  this  inscription   (Iscriz.  Perug. 
I.  319),  should  have  thought  of  an  analogy 
with  the  Frentani  of  Samnium,  or  with  the 
Ferentinates  of  Latium,  rather  than  with 
this  town  of  Etruria. 


158  FEBENTO.  [CHAP.  xiv. 

and  to  the  traveller  from  Rome  to  Naples  by  the  upper  road,  is 
an  object  of  interest  on  account  of  its  massive  Cyclopean  walls ; 
this  is  on  the  level  of  the  great  Etruscan  plain,  girt  about,  how- 
ever, by  profound  ravines.  Nor  must  it  be  confounded  with 
Ferentum  in  Apulia,  a  town  also  situated  in  a  plain, 


Pingue  tenent  humilis  Ferenti.5 

We  have  no  record  of  this  town  in  Etruscan  times,  though  the 
sepulchres  around  it  give  sure  evidence  of  such  an  antiquity.  It 
must  have  been  a  dependency  of  Volsinii.  The  earliest  mention 
of  it  is  in  the  time  of  Augustus,  when  it  was  a  Roman  colony  of 
small  importance,6  and,  if  the  passage  of  Horace  which  heads 
this  chapter  refer  to  this  town,7  it  was  then  a  quiet,  secluded, 
country  village.  Then  we  hear  of  it  as  the  birthplace  of  the 
Emperor  Otho ;  8  and  as  the  site  of  a  temple  of  Fortune,9  pro- 
bably the  Etruscan  goddess,  Nurtia,  who  had  a  celebrated  shrine 
at  Volsinii,  not  many  miles  distant.  It  continued  in  existence 
after  the  fall  of  the  Empire,  and  rose  into  the  importance  of  an 
episcopal  see,1  but  was  utterly  destroyed  in  the  eleventh  century, 
by  the  Viterbesi,  in  their  zeal  to  exterminate  a  heresy  with  which 
its  inhabitants  were  tainted,  that  heresy  being  that  they  repre- 
sented Christ  on  the  cross  with  his  eyes  open,  instead  of  being 
orthodoxly  closed  ! 

The  area  of  the  town  is  covered  with  ruins  of  the  three  epochs, 
into  which  its  history  may  be  divided.  The  greater  part  are 
foundations  of  houses  and  other  structures  of  the  middle  ages. 
There  are  considerable  remains  of  Roman  pavement  of  polygonal 
blocks  of  basalt ;  and  several  Roman  structures  in  ruin,  among 
which  a  tower  with  a  vaulted  roof  is  prominent.  Some  of  the 
ruins  of  later  date  are  raised  on  foundations  of  Roman  antiquity. 
The  walls  of  the  town  are  in  great  part  overthrown,  but  fragments 
of  them  remain,  and  many  of  the  rectangular  blocks  which  corn- 


5  Hor.  III.  Od.  4,  15.  of  that  great  thoroughfare,  the  Latin  Way. 

6  Strabo,    V.    p.     226  ;    Frontinus    (de  Cramer  (I.  p.  225)  follows  his  opinion. 
Colon. )  also  calls  it  a  colony ;  Yitruvius  (loc.  8  Sueton.  Otho  I.  ;  Tacit.  Hist.  II.  50;. 
cit.)  and  Tacitus  (Hist.  II.  50)  a  munici-  Aur.  Viet.  Imp.  Otho. 

pium.  9  Tacit.  Annal.  XV.  53. 

7  Cluver  (II.  p.  563)  is  decidedly  of  this  J  Cluver.  II.  p.   562.     Camilli,  Mon.  di 
opinion  ;  and  shows  that  it  could  not  have  Viterbo,  pp.   62,   84.     An  inscription  re- 
applied  to  the  other  Ferentinum,   which  corded  by  Orelli  calls  it  "  splendidissima 
was  precisely  amid  the  dust  and  the  noise  civitas." 


CHAP.  xiv.J    REMAINS    OF    FERENTINUM— THE    THEATEE.       159- 

posed  them,  lie  scattered  on  the  slopes  around.3     The  sites  of 
several  gates  are  distinctl}*  traceable. 

But  the  grand  monument  at  Ferento  is  the  theatre.  In  its 
perfect  state  it  must  have  been  a  truly  imposing  edifice ;  even 
now,  though  all  the  winds  of  heaven  play  through  its  open  arches, 
it  is  a  most  majestic  ruin,  with  every  advantage  of  situation  to- 
increase  its  effect  on  the  senses.  For  it  stands  on  the  brink  of  a 
precipice,  overhanging  a  wooded  and  picturesque  ravine,  amid 
solitude,  ruin,  and  desolation,  where  for  centuries  man  has  left 
his  dwelling  to  the  falcon,  the  owl,  the  bat,  the  viper,  and  the- 
lizard,  and  where  his  foot  or  voice  now  rarely  calls  forth  echoes — 
with  the  wide  plain  on  every  hand,  the  dark  gloomy  mass  of  the 
Ciminian  in  front,  the  swelling  Mount  of  Fiascone  behind,  and 
the  snowy  ranges  of  the  Umbrian  Apennines  in  the  horizon. 

The  stage-front  of  the  theatre  is  one  hundred  and  thirt}--six 
feet  in  length,  of  massive  masonry,  composed  of  large  rectangular- 
volcanic  blocks  uncemented ;  not,  as  in  the  Etruscan  walls, 
already  described,  laid  lengthways  and  endways  in  alternate 
courses,  but  like  those  in  the  northern  division  of  the  land, 
arranged  rather  with  regard  to  the  size  and  form  of  the  blocks- 
themselves  than  to  any  predetermined  order  or  style  of  masonry. 
From  its  peculiar  character,  and  its  evidently  superior  antiquity 
to  the  rest  of  the  structure,  I  am  inclined  to  regard  this  facade  as- 
Etruscan.  The  construction  of  its  gates  might  be  cited  as  an 
objection.  There  are  seven  of  these,  the  largest  in  the  centre, — 
all  with  flat  architraves  composed  of  cuneiform  blocks  holding 
together  on  the  principle  of  the  arch,  though  without  cement ;  as 
is  proved  in  one  gateway,  where,  the  masonry  being  dislocated, 
the  keystone  has  slipt  down  several  inches,  yet  is  still  supported 
by  the  contiguous  blocks.3  This  mode  of  construction,  like  the- 
arch  itself,  has  generally  been  supposed  a  Roman  invention ;  but 


2  The  extant  portions  of  the  \valls  are  uslrina,  than  any  other  ancient  walling  in 

generally  of  small  masonry,  either  Roman  Etruria  ;  though  there  is  also  some  resem- 

or  of  "  the  low  times  ;"  but  there  are  frag-  blance  to  the  pier  of  a  ruined  bridge  at 

nients  on  the  northern  side,  of  more  ancient  Veii,  mentioned  at  page  10  of  this  work, 
date  and  more  massive  character.     They  3  This  has  fallen   since  the  above  was- 

are  indeed  very  peculiar,  the  blocks  being  written,   and  the  architrave  is  destroyed, 

nearly  square,    without  any  regularity  in  Its  place  is  seen  to  the  left  in  the  woodcut 

size  or  arrangement,    and  being  often  let  at  page  156. 

into  one  another,  — more  like  the  masonry  The  central  gate,  which  is  represented  in- 

of  that  singular   quadrangle    on   the    Via  the  woodcut,  is  more  than  12  ft.  in  height, 

Appia,    which  Gell   called  the    "  Campus  and  is  10ft.  2  in.  wide;  the  next  on  either 

Sacer  Horatiorum,"  but  which  Canina,  with  hand,  8  ft.  1  in. ;  the  next  two,  7  ft.  6  in.  ^ 

much    more    probability,    regards    as    an  and  the  outer' gates,  7  ft.  3  in.  in  width. 


160  FERENTO.  [CHAP.  xiv. 

there  is  now  little  doubt  that  the  arch  in  Italy  had  an  Etruscan 
origin ;  therefore,  seeing  the  perfection  to  which  the  arched  vault 
had  been  brought  at  a  very  early  age  in  the  Cloaca  Maxima,  there 
is  nothing  in  the  peculiar  style  or  construction  of  this  flat  arch 
which  militates  against  its  being  of  Etruscan  formation  ;  for  the 
principle  of  cuneiform  sustentation  once  discovered,  the  progress 
from  one  application  of  it  to  another  must  have  been  short  and 
easy. 

This  massive  masonry  rises  to  the  height  of  ten  courses.  On 
it  rests  a  mass  of  Roman  brickwork,  of  Imperial  times,  with 
several  arched  openings,  intended  to  admit  light  into  the  passage 
within.  This  passage,  or  postsccnium,  which  runs  the  whole 
length  of  the  facade,  is  about  four  feet  wide,  and  its  inner  wall, 
or  the  scena,  is  also  of  red  Homan  brick.  One  vast  mass  of  this 
wall  has  been  loosened  from  its  foundation,  probably  by  the  same 
convulsion  of  nature  which  dislocated  the  gateway,  and  reclines 
against  the  outer  wall,  adding  much  to  the  picturesque  effect  of 
the  ruins.  The  passage  must  have  been  a  means  of  communica- 
tion for  the  actors  behind  the  scenes,  and  in  two  parts  it  widens 
into  a  chamber — the  parascenion  of  the  Greek  theatre — for  their 
convenience  in  changing  costumes.  Within  the  theatre  all  is 
ruin— a  chaos  of  fallen  masonry,  shapeless  masses  of  rock  and 
red  brick-work,  overgrown  with  weeds  and  moss — the  orchestra 
filled  up  to  the  level  of  the  stage — not  a  seat  of  the  cavca  re- 
maining, that  part  of  the  theatre  being  only  distinguishable  by 
the  semicircle  of  arches  which  inclosed  it.  These  are  of  regular 
and  massive  masonry,  of  a  hard  grey  tufo  whitened  by  lichen — a 
whiteness  quite  dazzling  in  the  sunshine.  The  semicircle  which 
they  originally  formed  is  not  complete.  Commencing  with  the 
first  arch  at  the  south-western  angle  of  the  arc,  there  are  eleven 
in  an  unbroken  series  ;  then  occurs  a  gap,  where  one  has  been 
destroyed  ;  then  follow  nine  more  in  succession  ;  and  six  or  seven 
are  wanting  to  complete  the  semicircle.  Attached  to  the  first  is 
another,  at  an  angle  with  it,  indicating  the  line  of  the  chord  of 
the  arc,  the  division  between  the  cavca  and  the  proscenium  ;  and 
its  distance  from  the  walls  of  the  sccna  shows  the  depth  of  the 
stage.  These  arches  are  beautifully  formed,  the  blocks  shaped 
with  uniformity,  and  fitted  with  great  nicety,  though  without 
cement.4  Canina,  the  Roman  architect,  regards  them  as  an  in- 

4  These  arches  vary  from  7i  ft.  to  9  ft.  supporting  a  simple  lip-impost,  also  a  single 
in  span.  They  are  based  on  pillars  about  block  ;  as  is  likewise  the  mass  raised  on  it, 
3  ft.  square,  each  a  single  block  of  stone,  from  which  springs  the  arch  on  either  side. 


CHAP,  xiv.]    THE    THEATRE— ARCHITECTURAL    RENOWN.          161 

terior  structure  only,  and  thinks  there  was  an  outer  range  of  arches 
for  the  external  adornment  of  the  theatre,  as  in  those  of  Pompeii, 
and  of  Marcellus  at  Rome.  He  says  that,  from  its  excellent  state 
of  preservation,  the  sccna  in  this  ruin  gives  us  a  more  complete 
idea  of  that  part  in  ancient  theatres  than  can  be  derived  from  any 
other  remain  of  the  same  description  extant,  particularly  in  the 
distinction  between  the  "  roy&l  gate "  in  the  centre,  and  the 
"  stranger- gates  "  on  either  hand.5  Canina  pronounced  this 
theatre  a  Roman  structure,  as  late  as  the  time  of  Otho  ;G  yet  the 
lower  part  of  the  facade  has  an  air  of  much  superior  antiquity, 
and  from  its  resemblance  to  the  masonry  of  other  Etruscan  sites, 
has  strong  claims  to  be  considered  Etruscan.7 

Eerentum,  though  small,  and  probably  at  no  time  of  political 
importance,  was  celebrated  for  the  beauty  of  its  public  monu- 
ments. Vitruvius  cites  them  as  exhibiting  "  the  infinite  virtues  " 
of  a  stone  hewn  from  certain  quarries,  called  "  Anitianre,"  in  the 
territory  of  Tarquinii,  and  especially  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the 
Yolsinian  Lake.  This  stone,  says  he,  was  similar  to  that  of  the 
Alban  Mount  in  colour,  i.e.,  it  was  grey  like  pcpcrino ;  it  was 
proof  alike  against  frost  and  fire,  and  of  extreme  hardness  and 
durability,  as  might  be  seen  from  the  monuments  of  Ferentum, 
which  were  made  of  it.  "  For  there  are  noble  statues  of  wondrous 
workmanship,  and  likewise  figures  of  smaller  size,  together  with 
foliage  and  acanthi,  delicately  carved,  which  albeit  they  be  ancient, 
appear  as  fresh  as  if  they  were  but  just  now  finished."  The 
brass-founders,  he  adds,  find  this  stone  most  useful  for 
moulds.  "  Were  these  quarries  near  the  City,  it  would  be  well  to 

The  length  of  the  chord  of  the  arc,  or  the  6  Etr.  Marit.  II.,   pp.   132,   141.     The 

greatest  width  of  the  theatre,  according  to  plan    of    this   theatre,    and    its   measure- 

my  measurement,  is  exactly   200   English  ments  in  Tuscan  Iraccia,  are  given  in  the 

feet.     The  depth  of  the  stage  is  33  feet.  Annals  of  the  Institute  1839.    Tav.  d'  Agg. 

fc  Yitruv.  V.  6.     The  seven  gates  in  the  F. 

outer  wall  are  a  very  unusual  number  ;  but  '   The  semicircle    of   arches,    though  of 

in  the  scena  there  is  only  the  legitimate  the  same  material  as  this  facade,  and  very 

number  of  three  ;  the  rest  opening  into  the  massive,  seems,  from  the  regularity  of  its 

postscenium  alone.     There  are  no  traces  of  masonry,  to  be  of  later  date.     I  regard  it 

a  portico  at  the  back  of  the  theatre,  as  was  as  Roman.     That  the  brickwork  is  but  a 

common  in  Greek  edifices  of  this  descrip-  repair  of  a  more  ancient  structure  is  most 

tion.     Yitniv.  V.  9.  clear,   from  the  irregularity  of  the  upper 

This  is  certainly  the  best  preserved  scena  line  of  the  masonry  below  it,  and  from  the 

in  Italy  ;  but  that  of  Taormina  in  Sicily  is  brickwork  filling  up  its  deficiencies.     See 

more  perfect,  having  a  second  story ;  and  the  woodcut  at  page  156.     It  appears  to 

that  of  Aspendus  in  Pamphylia  is  entire,  me  probable   that   the    original   Etruscan 

with  three  stories  inside,  and  four  outside,  theatre  having  fallen  into  decay,  Otho,  or 

as  I  learn  from  the  drawings  of  my  friend,  one  of   the   early   Emperors,   put  it  into 

Mr.  Edward  Falkener.  repair. 

VOL.    I.  Jt 


1G2  FERENTO.  [CHAP.  xiv. 

construct  everything  of  this  stone."8  Pliny  speaks  of  this  stone 
in  the  same  laudatory  terms,  but  calls  it  a  white  silex.g  Canina 
takes  this  stone  to  be  nenfro  ;l  but  nenfro  was  found  at  Gabii, 
and  was  well  known  and  much  used  at  Rome.  Moreover,  nenfro 
has  not  the  properties  assigned  to  this  stone  \>y  Vitruvius. 
When  last  at  Ferento,  I  sought  particularly  to  obtain  light  on 
this  subject.  Among  the  numerous  blocks  with  which  the  site  is 
strewed,  I  remarked  very  few  fragments  of  architectural  decora- 
tion ;  nothing  that  would  at  all  bear  out  the  praises  of  Vitruvius.3 
The  cliffs  beneath  the  town  are  a  sort  of  travertine ;  yet  the 
masonry  of  the  theatre  is  of  a  yellowish  tufo,  not  unlike  nenfro ; 
and  the  town  walls  are  composed  of  the  same  or  of  limestone. 
This  latter,  which  is  also  found  in  abundance  among  the  scat- 
tered masses,  seems  too  hard  for  the  chisel.  I  could  perceive 
nothing  which  answered  to  the  description  of  Vitruvius. 

In  the  neighbourhood  of  Ferento  are  sepulchres,  some  of 
Roman,  but  most  of  Etruscan  construction.  A  few  of  these  are 
tumuli,  not  of  the  large  size  seen  at  Veii,  rather  like  those  so 
abundant  at  Tarquinii;  but  the  majority  are  caves  hollowed  in  the 
rocks.  Orioli  mentions  some  remarkable  tombs  in  a  plain  near 
the  town,  called  Piano  de'  Pozzi,  because  these  tombs  are  entered 
by  oblong  wells  or  shafts  sunk  to  a  great  depth  in  the  earth,  with 
niches  cut  in  the  sides  for  the  feet  and  hands,  as  in  the  tombs  of 
Civita  Castellana  and  Falleri.  One  of  the  shafts  into  which  he 
descended  was  eighty  feet  deep,  another,  one  hundred  and 
twenty ;  and  at  the  bottom  were  horizontal  passages,  opening  at 
intervals  into  sepulchral  chambers.3 

The  visitor  may  vary  his  route  on  his  return  to  Viterbo,  by 
way  of  Vitorchiano,  a  small  town  three  or  four  miles  from  Ferento. 
A  competent  guide,  however,  is  requisite,  for  there  is  merely  a 
foot-path.  Vitorchiano  seems  to  have  been  an  Etruscan  site,  from 


8  Vitruv.  II.  7.  2  There  is  a  stone,  quarried  at  Manziana, 

9  Plin.  Nat.  Hist.  XXXVI.  49.  near  the   Lake   of  Bracciano,   which   has 
1  Canina,    Arch.    Ant.     VIII.    p.     86.  some  of  the  properties  ascribed  to  that  men- 

But  he  subsequently  altered  his  opinion,  tioned    by   Yitruvius   and    Pliny,    and   is 

and  in  his  last  woi'k  (Etruria  Marit.  II.,  much  used  in  Rome,  at  the  present  day,  for 

p.  40)  he  asserts  that  the  quarries  in  ques-  moulds  for  metal-casting, 

tion  have  been  recently  found  near  Bag-  3  Orioli  ap.  Inghir.  Monument!  Etraschi 

narea,  and  that  the  stone  is  now  used  at  IV.  p.  189.     In  Magna  Graecia  also  such 

Rome  for  pavements.     He. maintains  that  tombs  have  been  found,  the  shafts  to  which 

the  lower  part  of  the  sccna  and  the  arches  are  sunk  sometimes  perpendicularly,   like 

of  the  cavea  of  the  theatre  at  Ferento  are  wells,    sometimes    obliquely,    as    in    the 

all  constructed  of  the   stone  from   these  Egyptian    pyramids.  —  De     Jorio.     Sepol. 

quarries  (II.  p.  142).  Ant.  p.  10. 


CHAP,  xiv.]     CURIOUS    SEPULCHRES— VITORCHIANO.  163 

the  slight  excavations  which  have  been  made  in  its  neighbour- 
hood. Its  ancient  name  is  unknown,  but  in  1435  it  was  colonised 
by  the  inhabitants  of  Norchia,  who  deserted  their  native  town  on 
account  of  its  insalubrity,  and  migrated  hither.  Hence  its  modern 
name  Vitorchiano  (Vicus  Orclanus).4  It  possesses  the  exclusive 
right  of  providing  servants  for  the  Senator  of  Rome — that  solitary 
representative  of  the  mighty  body  which  once  ruled  the  world. 
This  privilege  is  derived,  tradition  asserts,  from  classic  times,  and 
was  accorded  in  perpetuity  to  Vitorchiano  by  a  certain  emperor, 
because  one  of  its  townsmen  extracted  a  thorn  from  his  foot.  In 
virtue  thereof,  every  forty  years,  the  principal  families  in  the  place 
assemble  and  draw  lots  for  their  order  of  annual  service  ;  each 
family  sending  one  of  its  members  to  Rome  in  its  turn,  or  selling 
the  privilege,  which  custom  has  fixed  at  a  certain  price.  The 
truth  of  this  may  be  tested  by  any  one  \vho  chooses  to  inquire  on 
the  Capitol  of  the  Senator's  servants,  distinguished  by  their  red 
and  yellow,  beef-eating  costume.  The  validity  of  the  privilege 
was  contested,  some  years  since,  and  the  Vitorchianesi  came  off 
with  flying  colours. 

4  Ann.  Inst.  1833,  p.  21. 


M  2 


CHAPTER    XV. 

BOMABZO. 

Mirenmr  periisse  homines  ? — monumenta  fatiscunt, 

Mors  etiam  saxis  nominibusque  venit. — AUSONIUS. 

Ecce  libet  pisces  Tyrrhenaque  monstra 
Dicere.  OVID. 

ABOUT  twelve  miles  east  of  Viterbo,  on  the  same  slope  of  the 
Oiminian,  is  the  village  of  Bomarzo,  in  the  immediate  neighbour- 
hood of  an  Etruscan  town  where  extensive  excavations  have  been 
made.  The  direct  road  to  it  runs  along  the  base  of  the  mountain, 
but  the  excursion  may  be  made  more  interesting  by  a  detour  to 
Fe'rento,  which  must  be  done  in  the  saddle,  the  road  being  quite 
impracticable  for  vehicles. 

From  Ferento  the  path  leads  across  a  deep  ravine,  past  the 
village  of  Le  Grotte  di  Santo  Stefano,  whose  name  marks  the 
existence  of  caves  in  its  neighbourhood,1  and  over  the  open  heath 
towards  Bomarzo.  But  before  reaching  that  place,  a  wooded 
ravine,  Fosso  della  Vezza,  which  forms  a  natural  fosse  to  the 
Ciminian,  has  to  be  crossed,  and  here  the  proverb — Chi  va  piano 
va  sano — must  be  borne  in  mind.  A  more  steep,  slippery,  and 
dangerous  tract  I  do  not  remember  to  have  traversed  in  Italy. 
Stiff  miry  clay,  in  which  the  steeds  will  anchor  fast ;  rocks 
shelving  and  smooth-faced,  like  inclined  planes  of  ice,  are  the 
alternatives.  Let  the  traveller  take  warning,  and  not  pursue  this 
track  after  heavy  rains.  It  wrould  be  advisable,  especially  if  ladies 
are  of  the  party,  to  return  from  Ferento  to  Viterbo,  and  to  take 
the  direct  road  thence  to  Bomarzo.  A  diligence  runs  daily 
between  Viterbo  and  the  railway  station  at  Orte,  passing  not  far 
from  Bomarzo. 

1  I  coukl  not  learn  that  excavations  had  with  no  great  success.     He  found,  however, 

been  made  here,  though  at  Monte  Calvello,  another   well-tomb,    similar    to    those    of 

about  14  mile  beyond,  Kuggieri  of  Viterbo  Ferento,  the  shaft  to  which  was  127  palms 

excavated  iu  1845  for  Prince  Doria,  but  deep. 


CHAP,  xv.]  THE    BY-ROADS    OF    ITALY.  1G5 

This  is  a  village  of  considerable  size  situated  on  a  wooded  cliff- 
bound  platform,  Avith  an  old  castle  of  tlie  Borghese  family  at  the 
verge  of  the  precipice.  It  commands  a  glorious  view  of  the  vale 
of  the  Tiber,  and  the  long  chain  of  Umbrian  and  Sabine  Apen- 
nines to  the  east ;  of  the  vast  Etruscan  plain  to  the  north,  with 
Monte  Fiascone  like  a  watch-tower  in  the  midst,  and  the  giant 
masses  of  Monte  Cetona  and  Monte  Amiata  in  the  far  horizon. 
Like  most  villages  in  the  old  Papal  State,  Bomarzo  is  squalid  in 
the  extreme  ;  so  that  as  we  rode  down  its  main  street,  not  a  house 
could  we  see  whose  exterior  promised  decent  accommodation. 
We  pulled  up  at  one  of  the  best,  the  Casa  Fosci,  to  which  we 
had  been  directed  as  a  place  where  travellers  were  entertained. 

One  great  point  of  contrast  between  France  and  Italy — I  may 
saj",  between  northern  and  southern  Europe — is  that  in  every 
French  village  or  hamlet,  be  it  ever  so  small,  there  is  some  one 
house,  often  several,  Avhere  Pierre  or  Jean  so-and-so  "  donne  a, 
boire  et  a  manger,"  or  "loge  a  pied  et  a  cheval;  "  but  in  Central 
and  Southern  Italy  such  signs  are  as  rare  as  notices  of  spiritual 
refreshment  and  halting-places  for  the  devotee  are  abundant. 
Here  and  there  a  withered  bush  at  a  doorway  shows  that  wine 
may  be  had  within ;  but  as  to  an  inn,  except  on  the  great  high- 
ways— you  might  as  well  look  for  a  club-house.  Some  one  or 
more  of  the  most  respectable  inhabitants  of  these  country-towns 
and  villages  is  always,  however — thank  Mercury  ! — ready  to 
entertain  the  traveller,  for  a  consideration — for  what  will  not  an 
Italian  do  for  gain  ? — especially  the  Eomans,  who,  however 
unlike  in  some  points,  resemble  their  ancestors  in  thirst  for 
foreign  spoil.  "  Omnia  Romas  cum  pretio  "  —  holds  good  now  as 
in  Juvenal's  day.  This  occasional  Boniface  is  generally  a  man 
of  decayed  fortunes,  and,  as  in  this  instance,  shows  his  gentle 
blood  by  his  courtesy  and  attention,  and  by  doing  everything 
that  the  slender  resources  of  a  country  village  will  allow,  to  con- 
tribute to  the  traveller's  comfort.  The  ruder  sex  may  be  content 
with  their  modicum  of  this,  and  thank  God  it  is  not  less,  but 
should  ladies  desire  to  explore  the  antiquities  of  Bomarzo  I  can 
scarcely  recommend  them  to  make  more  than  a  filing  visit. 

The  site  of  the  Etruscan  town,  which  Bomarzo  represents,  lies 
on  a  platform  nearly  two  miles  to  the  north  of  the  village, 
separated  from  it  by  the  deep  ravine  of  La  Vezza.  From  the 
brow  of  the  further  height  the  valley  of  the  Tiber  opened  beneath 
us,  the  royal  river  winding  through  it,  washing  the  base  of  many 
a  town-capt  height,  of  which  that  of  Mugnano  was  the  nearest 


166  BOMARZO.  [CHAP.  xv. 

and  most  prominent,  and  that  of  Orte  the  most  distant,  while 
midway  lay  the  Vadimonion  lake,  on  whose  shores  the  Roman 
eagle  twice  soared  in  triumph,  and  the  fate  of  Etruria  was  doubly 
sealed  as  a  dependent  nation.2 

The  first  ruin  which  met  our  eye  was  some  Roman  baths,  in 
three  parallel  vaults  of  OJJMS  incertum,  very  massive  in  character. 
They  are  clearly  of  Roman  construction  ;  for  cement,  though  not 
unknown  to  the  Etruscans,  was  rareh',  if  ever,  vised  in  their 
architecture — never  to  such  an  extent  as  to  form  the  principal 
portion  of  the  masonry.  This  ruin  is  without  the  ancient  town, 
and  the  platform  on  which  it  stands,  called  Pi  an  della  Colonna, 
is  united  to  that  of  the  town  by  a  narrow  neck  of  land.  Here 
Ruggieri  of  Viterbo  made  excavations  for  Prince  Borghese,  and 
found  no  less  than  twenty  spccchj  in  one  tomb.3 

On  passing  this  strait,  fragments  of  pottery,  bricks,  and  wrought 
stone  strewn  over  the  ground,  showed  us  we  were  on  the  site  of 
former  habitation ;  but  110  more  definite  remains  could  I  perceive 
than  some  fragments  of  red  tessellated  pavement — probably 
marking  the  site  of  an  impluvium,  or  tank  in  the  court  of  a 
private  house.  The  town  must  have  been  of  very  small  import- 
ance, for  its  size  is  limited  by  the  natural  boundaries  of  cliffs, 
save  at  the  narrow  neck  already  mentioned ;  and  the  space  thus 
circumscribed  forms  a  single  field  of  no  great  dimensions.  Of 
the  ancient  walls  not  one  stone  remains  on  another ;  but  beneath 
the  brow  of  the  hill  on  the  east  lie  a  few  of  the  blocks,  of  red 
tufo,  and  of  the  dimensions  usual  in  Etruscan  walls  in  the 
volcanic  district.  In  the  cliff,  on  the  same  side,  are  two  sewers 
opening  in  the  rock,  similar  to  those  on  other  Etruscan  sites. 

The  name  of  this  town  in  Etruscan  times  we  have  no  means  of 
determining.  It  has  been  supposed  to  be  Meeonia,  or  Pneonia, 
but  there  is  no  authority  for  this  in  ancient  writers.  By  others 
it  has  been  thought  to  be  Polimartium ;  but  as  this  is  a  name 
mentioned  only  in  works  of  the  middle  ages,4  it  may  have  had  no 
connection  with  the  Etruscan  town,  but  may  have  been  simply 
the  original  of  the  village  of  Bomarzo. 

The  existence  of  an  Etruscan  town  on  this  site  had  for  ages 
been  forgotten,  when  some  years  since  it  was  proved  by  the  dis- 

2  See  Chapter  XI.     Mugnano  claims  to  fables  and  the  plague.     May  not  his  own 

be  the   birthplace  of  Biagio   Sinibaldi,  a  existence  be  called  into  question  ? — may  he 

famous  traveller  of  the  olden  time,  who  not  be   an   European   embodiment  of  the 

visited  Ceylon,  Japan,  the  Eastern  Archi-  oriental  myth  of  Sinbad  the  Sailor  ? 
pelago,  China,  and  Tartary,  at  a  date  when  3  Bull.  Inst.  1845,  p.  21. 

Europe  imported  little  from  the  East  but  *  Dempster  de  Etrur.  Keg.  II.  p.  110. 


CHAP.  xv.J        THE    ETEUSCAN  .  TOWN— PILLARED    TOMB.          1G7 

coveiy  of  tombs  containing  articles  of  value  and  interest.  Exca- 
vations were  commenced  in  1830,  and  have  since  been  carried  on 
with  various  success. 

The  platforms  to  the  south  and  west  of  the  town  seem  to  have 
been  the  chief  depositories  of  its  dead.  A  few  tombs  are  seen  in  the 
cliffs  beneath  the  walls,  but  the  greater  part  are  sunk  deep  below 
the  surface  of  the  ground  as  at  Tarquinii  and  Vulci,  and  were 
entered  by  long  narrow  passages,  descending  obliquely.  Though 
very  many  have  been  excavated,  few  now  remain  open ;  the  greater 
part,  as  at  Veil  and  Vulci,  have  been  reclosed,  in  order  to  save 
for  tillage  the  few  yards  of  earth  occupied  by  the  entrance- 
passages.  Many  tombs  do  not  merit  preservation,  but  on  the 
other  hand  it  is  well  known  that  some  of  the  most  interesting 
opened  in  former  years  in  this  and  other  cemeteries  are  not  now 
to  be  entered,  and  their  very  sites  are  forgotten. 

The  principal  group  of  tombs  that  still  remain  open,  is  on  the 
edge  of  the  hill  facing  Bomarzo.  Two  of  them  merit  a  few  words 
of  description.  One  is  called 

GROTTA  DELLA  COLONXA 

from  a  massive  pillar  of  Doric-like  simplicity,  which  supports 
the  ceiling.  The  chamber  is  about  thirteen  feet  square,  and 
seven  in  height,  with  a  roof  slightly  vaulted,  in  the  form  of  a 
camber-arch.  The  door  is  of  the  usual  Etruscan  form,  smaller 
above  than  below,  like  Egyptian  and  Doric  doorways  ;  and  the 
wall  on  each  side  of  it,  within  the  tomb,  is  lined  with  masonry — 
a  rare  feature  in  Etruscan  tombs,  especially  in  those  of  subter- 
raneous excavation.  The  blocks  are  very  massive  and  neatly 
rusticated,  a  clear  proof  that  this  style  of  masonry  was  used  by 
the  Etruscans  ;  a  fact  also  attested  by  other  remains  on  Etruscan 
sites.  It  is  worthy  of  remark  that  this  style,  which  probably 
originated  in  Etruria,  is  still  prevalent  in  this  part  of  Italy  ;  and 
the  grand  palaces  of  Florence  and  Siena,  so  far  as  masonry  is 
concerned,  may  be  purely  traditional  imitations  of  those  of 
Etruscan  Lucumones,  raised  five-and-twenty  centuries  ago. 

The  character  of  this  tomb  is  most  solemn  and  imposing.  The 
rock-hewn  pillar  in  the  midst,  more  simple  and  severe  than  any 
Doric  column5 — the  bare,  damp  walls  of  rock — the  massive 

5  Canina  cites  this  as  the  most  striking  hewn  columns  in  the  tombs  of  Beni-Hassan. 

example  of  a  Doric-like  column  among  the  Etruria  Marit.   II.,  p.   166.     This  column 

•very  few  to  be  found  in  Etruscan  tombs,  is  singularly  formed,   the  side  facing   the 

and  points  out  its  similarity  to  the  rock-  door  being  rounded,  the  back  squared.   The 


168  UOMARZO.  [CHAP.  xv. 

blocks  of  masonry — the  yawning  sarcophagus  with  its  lid  over- 
thrown, and  the  dust  of  the  long-forgotten  dead  exposed  to  view 
— the  deep  gloom  never  hroken  hut  by  the  torch  of  the  curious 
traveller — all  strike  the  soul  with  a  chill  feeling  of  awe. 

GROTTA  DIPINTA. 

Let  us  leave  this  tomb  and  enter  another  hard  b}'.  We  are  in 
a  chamber  whose  walls,  gaily  painted,  are  alive  with  sea-horses 
snorting  and  plunging — water-snakes  uprearing  their  crests  and 
gliding  along  in  slimy  folds — dolphins  sporting  as  in  their  native 
element — and, — can  we  believe  our  e}res  ? — grim  and  hideous 
caricatures  of  the  human  face  divine.  One  is  the  head  of  an  old 
man,  with  eye  starting  from  its  socket,  and  mouth  wide  open  as 
though  smitten  with  terror.  Another  is  a  face  elongated  into  a 
coffin  form,  or  like  the  head  of  an  ox,  with  one  eye  blotted  from 
his  visage,  and  the  other  regarding  you  with  a  fixed  stare,  no 
nostrils  visible,  the  mouth  gaping  above  a  shapeless  chin,  and 
the  hair  standing  out  stiffly  from  the  head,  as  though  electrified. 

1  could  not  readily  bring  myself  to  believe  that  this  caricature 
was  of  ancient  execution  ;   but,  after  minute  examination,  I  was 
convinced  that  it  was  of  the  same  date,  and  by  the  same  hand,  as 
the  other  paintings  in  this  tomb,  which  are  indubitably  Etruscan. 
All  are  drawn  in  the  same  broad  and  sketchy  stj^le,  with  red  and 
black  crayons — "  rubrica  picta  aut  carbone." 

In  the  centre  of  one  wall  is  a  third  head,  no  caricature,  and 
probably  the  portrait  of  the  Etruscan  for  whom  the  tomb  was 
constructed,  and  whose  ashes  were  found  in  his  sarcophagus. 
The  other  two  heads  may  represent  respectively  Charun  and 
Typhon,  i.e.  the  angel  or  minister  of  Death,  and  the  principle  of 
Destruction,  both  of  whom  are  usually  depicted  as  hideous  as  the 
imagination  of  the  artist  could  conceive.6 

Hippocampi  and  water-snakes  are  symbols  frequently  found  in 
Etruscan  tombs,  either  depicted  on  the  walls,  or  sculptured  on 
sarcophagi  and  urns.  They  are  generally  regarded  as  emblematic 
of  the  passage  of  the  soul  from  one  state  of  existence  to  another, 
an  opinion  confirmed  by  the  frequent  representation  of  boys 

shaft  is  5  ft.  high,  and  18  inches  in  dia-  fi  Typhon  is  here,  as  elsewhere  in  this 

meter,  with  a  plain  base.     The  capital  is  work,  used  conventionally,  to  express  a  di- 

2  ft.  square,  with  its  lower  edge  bevelled  vinity  of  Etruscan  mythology,  whose  name 
down  to  the  shaft.     The  whole  is  crowned  has  not  yet  been  ascertained,  but  who  bears 
by  an  abacus,  4  ft.  square,  and,  like  the  some  analogy  to  the  Typhon  of  Egyptian  and 
capital,  about  1  ft.  deep.  Greek  mythology.     See  Chapter  XXV. 


CHAP,  xv.]  PAINTED    TOMB— CAEICATUEES.  169 

riding  on  their  backs.  This  view  is,  moreover,  borne  out  by 
their  amphibious  character — horse  and  fish,  snake  and  fish — 
evidently  referring  to  a  two-fold  state  of  existence.  The  dolphins, 
which  form  a  border  round  the  apartment,  painted  alternately 
black  and  red,  are  a  common  sepulchral  ornament,  and  are 
supposed  to  have  a  similar  symbolical  reference  ;7  though  they 
have  also  been  considered  as  emblematic  of  the  maritime  power 
of  the  Etruscans,  the  "  sea-kings  "  of  antiquit}-.8  The  rolling 
border  beneath  them  represents  the  waves,  in  which  the}'  are 
supposed  to  be  sporting — 

circum  clari  delphines  in  orbern 
jEquora  verrebant  caudis,  ajstumque  secabant. 

Next  to  the  Typhon-head  is  a  large  jar,  sketched  on  the  wall, 
out  of  which  two  serpents  with  forked  tongues  are  rising.  The 
demons  or  genii  of  Etruscan  mytholog}'  are  commonly  represented 
brandishing  these  reptiles  in  their  hands,  or  with  them  bound 
round  their  brows  or  waists,  and  sometimes,  as  in  this  case, 
having  them  by  their  side.  That  snakes  were  also  made  use  of 
by  the  Etruscan  priests  and  soothsayers,  as  by  the  Egyptian,  to 
establish  their  credit  for  superior  powers  in  the  minds  of  the 
people,  as  evincing  control  over  the  most  deadly  and  untractable 
creatures  i-n  existence,  may  be  learned  both  from  history  and 
from  sepulchral  monuments,9  and  it  is  possible  that  those  used  in 
the  service  of  the  temples  were  kept  in  such  jars  as  this.1 

"  Gori  Mus.  Etr.  II.  p.  236.    Inghirami  called  from  this  fable — Tyrrhenus  piscis — 

Mon.  Etrus.  I.  p.  160.    Some  have  imagined  Seneca,   Agam.   451.     cf.    Stat.    Achil.  I. 

that  the  dolphins  so  frequently  introduced  56.     The  dolphin    is   also  an   emblem   of 

on  Etruscan    sepulchral    monuments  have  Apollo,   who  once  assumed  its  form,   and 

reference  to  the  story  of  Dionysos,  told  in  drove  a  ship  from  Crete  to  Crissa.     Horn, 

the    Homeric    Hymn   to    that   god,    who,  Ilyrn.  Apol.  401,  et  seq. 
when  seized  by  some  Tyrrhene  pirates,  as-  s  Tup/5rji/ol  6a\\a.TroKpaTowrfs.      Diod. 

sumed  the  form  of  a  lion  (v.  44),  or,  as  Sic.  V.  p.  295,  316.     Strabo  V.  p.  222. 
Apollodorus   has  it,   turned  the  mast  and  9  Livy  (VII.  17)  records  that  the  Etrus- 

oars  into  serpents,  and  filled  the  ship  with  can  priests  made  iise  of  these  animals  to 

ivy  and  the  music  of  pipes,  which  so  ter-  strike  terror  into  their  foes.      See  also  Flo- 

rified  the  crew  that  they  leaped  into  the  rus.  I.  12,  and  Front.  Strat.  II.  4,  17. 
sea,    and   were    transformed    to    dolphins.  1  The  serpent  was  an  object  of  divination 

Apollod.   III.  5,    3.     cf.    Ovid.  Met.  III.  among  the   Latins  (.Elian.    Nat.  AD.  XI. 

575,ctscq.    Serv.  ad  2£n.  1. 67.     Hyginus,  cap.    16),    and   probably   also   among   the 

134.     Nonnus,  Dionys.  XLY.  p.  1164,  ed.  Etruscans,  as  it  continues  to  be  among  cer- 

Hanov.  160").     Eurip.  Cycl.   112.     But  it  tain  people  of  Asia  and  Africa.     Serpents, 

is  clear  that  these  pirates  were  Tyrrhene  were   worshipped    by   the   Egyptians,   and 

Pelasgi,  of  the  Lydian  coast,  not  .Etruscans.  cherished  in  their  temples  (^Elian.  X.  cap. 

See  Niebuhr,    I.    p.    42.     Miiller,    Etrus.  31,  XI.  17,  XVII.  5),  and  the  Greeks  kept 

einl.  2,  4,  and  I.  4,  4.     The  dolphin  was  representations  of  them  in  the  temples  of 


170 


BOMARZO. 


[CHAP.  xv. 


In  this  tomb  was  found  the  curious  sarcophagus,  now  in  the 
British  Museum,  of  temple -shape,  with  a  pair  of  serpents,  in 
knotted  coils  on  the  roof;  and  it  appears  highly  probable,  from 
this  and  the  other  adornments  of  the  sarcophagus,  as  well  as 
from  the  serpent-jar  painted  on  the  wall,  that  this  was  the 
sepulchre  of  some  augur  or  aruspcx,  skilled  in  the  mysteries  of 
"  the  Etruscan  Discipline,"  and  in  interpreting  the  will  of 
Heaven.  His  name,  we  learn  from  his  sarcophagus,  was  "  Vel 
Urinates,"  a  family  name  met  with  in  other  parts  of  Etruria;2 
and  his  portrait  is  probably  seen  on  the  right-hand  wall.3 

From  the  freedom  of  the  sketches  on  the  walls,  from  the 
Greek  character  of  the  ornaments,  and  the  peculiar  style  of  the 


Bacchus  ^Schol.  ad  Aristopli.  Pint.  III.  sc. 
2,  690),  probably  because  this  reptile  was 
a  symbol  of  regeneration  and  renovation. 
The  serpent  is  also  a  well-known  emblem 
of  Apollo,  of  his  son  .ZEsculapius,  and  of 
Minerva  in  her  character  of  Hygieia. 

The  Romans  also  connected  the  serpent 
•with  the  worship  of  the  Lares;  this  reptile 
being  always  found  on  the  Lararia  of  the 
houses  at  Pompeii.  The  serpent  indeed 
seems  to  have  been  used  by  the  Romans  as 
a  mark  of  sacredness.  They  were  wont  to 
paint  it  on  walls  for  the  same  purpose  that 
the  modern  Italians  paint  crosses  or  souls 
in  purgatory. 

Pinge  duos  angucs :  pueri,  locus 

est  sacer:  extra,  &c., 
says  Persius  (Sat.  I.  113).  Whether  it  be 
•&  traditional  custom,  or  a  mere  coincidence, 
I  know  not,  but  the  modern  Italians,  espe- 
cially the  Romans,  are  very  fond  of  chalk- 
ing huge  serpents  on  walls,  generally  chained 
to  a  post. 

Serpents  were  regarded  by  the  ancients 
as  genii  of  the  place  where  they  were  found; 
or  as  ministers  to  the  dead;  as  when  .Ineas 
sees  one  issue  from  the  tomb  of  his  father 
lie  was 

Incertus    geniumne   loci,    famulumne 
parentis 

Esse  putet. — .En.  V.  95. 

So  also  Yal.  Place.  Argon.  III.  458. — Um- 
braruni  famuli.  So  says  Isidore  (Orig. 
XII.  4)  — Angues  apud  gentiles,  pro  geniis 
locorum  erant  habiti  semper.  Seneca  (de 
Ira  II.  31)  speaks  of  them  at  banquets, 
gliding  among  the  goblets  on  the  table ;  so 
also  Virgil  describes  the  serpent  mentioned 
above,  taking  part  in  the  funeral  feast 


(£n.  V.  90). 

— agmine  longo 
Tandem   inter  patents   et   levia  pocula 

serpens, 
Libavitque  dapes 

cf .  Yal.  Flacc.  loc.  cit.  It  is  probable  that 
the  serpent  was  delineated  on  the  walls  of 
tombs,  not  so  much  to  mark  the  sacredness 
of  the  spot,  as  to  keep  it  inviolate  by  ex- 
citing the  superstitious  terror  of  intruders. 

2  The  name  Urinates  is  inscribed  on  a 
rock-tomb   at   Castel   d'  Asso.     It   occurs 
also  among  the  Etruscan  family  names  of 
Perugia,  Yolterra,  and  Chiusi. 

3  This  sarcophagus  is  unique.     It  seems 
from  the  sloping  roof,  joint-tiles,  and  ante- 
fix»,  to  have  represented  a  house  or  temple, 
yet  nothing  like  a  door  is  visible.     The  lid 
has  a  winged  sphinx  at  each  end  of  the 
ridge,  and  in  the  middle  are  a  pair  of  ser- 
pents curiously  knotted  together  like  ropes. 
The  antefixse  are  female  heads,  probably 
Larvae,  as  on  the  black  pottery  of  Chiusi 
and  Sarteano.     At  each  end  of  the  monu- 
ment are  griffons,  or  beasts  of  prey,  de- 
vouring antelopes,  and  on  the  sides  at  each 
angle  is  a  figure,  also  in  relief,  one  repre- 
senting Charun  with  his  hammer  and  a 
crested   snake    in   his   hand ;    another,    a 
•winged  female  genius,  with  a  drawn  sword; 
a  third,    a  similar  figure,    with   an   open 
scroll ;  and   the   fourth,    a   warrior,    with 
sword  and  shield.     The  whole  was  origin- 
ally covered  with  stucco  and  coloured,  and 
traces  of  red,  black,  and  blue,  may  still  be 
detected.      The    name — Yel   Urinates — is 
inscribed  on  one  side  just  beneath  the  lid. 

A  plate  of  it  is  given,  Mon.  Ined.  Instit. 
I.  tav.  XLIL,  and  Etruria  Warit.  tav.  CXX. 


CHAP,  xv.]      SERPENTS    ON    ANCIENT    MONUMENTS.  171 

sarcophagus,  this  tomb  cannot  be  of  early  date.  It  must  be 
some  centuries  later  than  the  Grotta  Campagna  at  Veii,  coeval 
with  the  latest  painted  tombs  of  Corneto,  probably  subsequent  to 
the  conquest  of  Etruria,  though  betraying  no  foreign  influence, 
save  in  its  style  of  art,  and  the  character  of  its  adornments.4 

This  is  the  only  painted  tomb  yet  found  in  this  necropolis. 
The  generality  of  sepulchres  on  this  site  are  quadrilateral,  of 
moderate  size,  with  a  broad  ledge  or  bench  of  rock  round  three 
sides,  on  which  lay  the  bodies,  sometimes  in  sarcophagi,  some- 
times uncoffmed,  with  a  lamp  of  terra-cotta  or  bronze  at  the  head 
of  each;  and  weapons,  vases,  and  other  sepulchral  furniture 
around.  These  benches  were  occasionally  hollowed  into  sarco- 
phagi, which  were  covered  by  large  sun-burnt  tiles,  three  feet  or 
more  in  length.  Body -niches,  so  common  at  Sutri,  Civita 
Castellana,  and  Falleri,  are  seldom  found  on  this  site ;  and  even 
small  niches  for  lamps  or  vases  are  rare.  I  observed  one  tomb 
under  the  town-walls,  which  seems  to  have  been  circular,  with  a 
pillar  in  the  centre — the  usual  form  of  the  sepulchres  of  Volterra. 
In  some  instances,  sarcophagi  have  been  found  not  in  tombs,  but 
sunk  like  our  modern  coffins,  a  few  feet  below  the  surface  of  the 
ground,  covered  with  large  tiles,  or  stone  slabs.  These  were  for 
the  bodies  of  the  poor.  At  this  site  they  did  not  always  bury 
their  dead  ;  for  vases  are  often  found  containing  calcined  remains. 

As  every  necropolis  in  Etruria  has  its  peculiar  style  of  tomb, 
so  there  is  a  peculiarity  also  in  the  character  of  the  sepulchral 
furniture.  On  this  site  the  beautiful  painted  vases  of  Vulci  and 
Tarquinii  are  not  common ;  those,  however,  with  yellow  figures, 
are  not  so  rare  as  the  more  archaic,  with  black  on  a  yellow 
ground  ;  but  they  are  seldom  in  a  good  st3*le  of  art.  Articles  of 
bronze,  often  of  great  richness  and  beauty,  are  abundant;  consist- 
ing of  helmets,  often  gilt,  shields,  greaves,  and  other  portions  of 
armour;  vases  of  different  forms;  spccclij,  or  mirrors,  figured  with 
mythological  scenes;  tripods  and  candelabra;  and  long  thin  plates 
of  this  metal  gilt,  covered  with  designs  in  relief.  Besides  these 
have  been  found  swords  and  bows  of  steel.  But  perhaps  the 
most  remarkable  article  in  bronze  here  found  is  an  aspis,  or 
circular  shield,  about  three  feet  in  diameter,  with  a  lance-thrust 


4  The  tomb  is  18  ft.  long  by  15  wide,  wards  on  either  side.  The  floor  is  said  to 
and  nearly  7  high  in  the  middle  ;  the  ceil-  have  been  covered  with  cement.  The  walls 
ing  is  cut  as  usual  into  the  form  of  the  are  coated  with  a  fine  white  stucco  to  re- 
roof  of  a  house,  with  a  beam  along  the  ceive  the  colour,  not  here,  as  at  Veil  and 
•centre,  and  rafters  sloping  from  it  down-  Chiusi,  laid  on  the  rock  itself. 


172 


BOMAEZO. 


[CHAP.  xv. 


in  it,  and  its  lining  of  wood,  and  braces  of  leather  still  remaining, 
after  the  lapse  of  more  than  2000  years.  Go  to  the  Gregorian 
Museum,  and  behold  it  suspended  on  the  walls  ;  for  the  Pope 
purchased  it  of  Signer  Ruggieri,  the  fortunate  excavator,  for  the 
sum  of  GOO  scitdi.  It  was  found  suspended  from  the  wall,  near 
the  sarcophagus  of  its  owner,  and  the  rest  of  his  armour  hung 
there  with  it  —  his  embossed  helmet,  his  greaves  of  bronze,  and 
his  wooden-hilted  sword  of  steel.  In  one  tomb  on  this  site  a 
skeleton  was  discovered  still  retaining  fragments  of  its  shroud  ; 
and  in  another  a  purple  mantle  was  found  covering  two  vases  and 
a  garland  of  box  !  5  In  a  third  was  a  little  cup  of  ordinary  ware, 
but  bearing  on  its  foot  an  inscription,  which  proved  to  be  no 
other  than  the  Etruscan  alphabet.  What  was  the  meaning  of  it 
in  such  a  situation  is  hard  to  say  —  to  us  it  is  suggestive  only  of  a 
present  to  a  child.  Though  originally  of  little  worth,  it  is  now  a 
rare  treasure,  being,  until  very  recently,  the  sole  instance  known 
of  an  alphabet  in  the  Etruscan  character.6  Here  is  a  fac-simile 
of  it— 


All  these  articles  are  now  in  the  possession  of  the  Prince 
Borghese.  The  fullest  description  of  the  excavations  at  Bomarzo 
will  be  found  in  the  work  of  Don  Luigi  Yittori,  arch-priest  of  the 
villae.7 


5  Yittori,  Mem.  Polim.  p.  33. 

c  A  little  pot  was  discovered  at  Cervctri 
some  few  years  since,  inscribed  with  an 
alphabet  and  primer  ;  and  a  tomb  at  Colle, 
near  Yolterra,  opened  two  or  three  centuries 
ago,  had  a  somewhat  similar  epigraph  on  its 
walls.  But  in  both  those  cases  the  letters 
•were  Pelasgic,  not  Etruscan.  Here,  how- 
ever,  is  an  alphabet  which  is  admitted  to  be 
in  the  latter  character.  The  order  adopted 
is  singular.  In  Roman  letters  it  runs  thus  : 
—A,  C,  E,  V,  Z,  H,  TH,  I,  L,  M,  N,  P,  S, 
R,  S,  T,  U,  TH,  CH,  PH.  The  fifth,  or 
the  zeta,  is  of  a  very  rare  form.  The  usual 
form  of  the  Etruscan  zeta  is  J.  It  will  be 
observed  that  there  .are  two  tftetas  ;  the 
ante-penultimate  letter  in  the  alphabet  may 
also  be  a  phi.  The  difference  between  the 
two  slyinas  is  supposed  by  Lepsins  to  con- 
sist  in  the  first  being  accented,  and  the 
other  not  ;  but  they  are  often  used  indif- 
ferently  in  the  same  word. 


Another  Etruscan  alphabet  has  lately 
been  found  scratched  on  a  black  bowl,  now 
in  the  Museum  at  Grosseto,  but  the  place 
of  its  discovery  I  could  not  ascertain.  It 
closely  resembles  this  of  Bomarzo  in  the 
order,  and  generally  in  the  form  of  the 
letters,  but  contains  twenty-two  instead  of 
twenty.  See  Chapter  XLVII.  In  tho 
Museum  at  Chiusi  are  three  Etruscan 
alphabets,  all  fragmentary,  carved  on  slabs 
of  tufo.  They  are  of  earlier  date  than,  the 
two  mentioned,  and  the  letters,  which  do 
not  observe  the  same  arrangement,  run 
from  left  to  right.  See  Chapter  LIII. 

7  For  other  particulars  regarding  the 
excavations  on  this  site,  see  Annali  dell' 
Inst.  1831,  p.  116  (Gerhard);  1832, 
p.  284;  1832,  p.  269  (Lenoir);  Bui- 
lettini  dell'  Inst.  1830,  p.  233;  1831, 


p.  6  ;  p. 
p.  50. 


85  ;  p.  90;  1832,  p.  195;  1334, 


CHAP,  xv.]    AN    ALPHABET    POTTED    FOE    POSTERITY.  173 

We  returned  to  Viterbo  by  the  direct  road  along  the  foot  of  the 
Ciminian  Mount.  It  presents  many  picturesque  combinations  of 
rock  and  wood,  with  striking  views  of  the  Etruscan  plain,  and  the 
distant  snow-capt  mountains  of  Cetona  and  Amiata.  This  dis- 
trict is  said  to  be  rich  in  remains  of  Etruscan  roads,  sepulchres, 
and  buildings.8  I  observed  in  one  spot  a  singular  line  of  rocks, 
which,  at  a  short  distance,  seemed  to  be  Cyclopean  walls,  but 
proved  to  be  a  natural  arrangement ;  and  I  remarked  some  traces 
of  an  ancient  road  ;  but  beyond  this,  I  saw  nothing — no  tombs  or 
other  remains  of  Etruscan  antiquity.9  About  two  miles  from 
Viterbo  is  the  village  of  Bagnaja,  with  the  celebrated  Villa  Lante 
of  Vignola,  and  thence  the  curious  in  natural  phenomena  may 
ascend  to  the  Menicatore,  or  rocking-stone,  near  the  summit  of 
the  mountain — an  enormous  block  of  peperino,  about  twenty-two 
feet  long,  twenty  wide,  and  nine  high,  calculated  to  weigh  more 
than  two  hundred  and  twenty  tons,  and  yet  easily  moved  with  a 
slight  lever. 

8  Ann.  Instit.  1832,  p.  282  (Knapp).  On  the  corridor  open  four  chambers.    Orioli, 

9  At  Corviano,  about  three  miles  from  who    describes    it,    could    not    pronounce 
Bomarzo,  on  this  road,  there  is  said  to  be  a  whether  it  was  Etruscan,  Roman,  or  of  the 
singular  tomb,   composed   of   a  very  long  Low  Empire,      (ap.  Ingh.  IV.  p.  189,  tav. 
corridor  lined  with  masonry,  ending  in  a  XXXXI.   2.)     The  passage  and  shaft  are 
narrow  passage  which  terminates  in  a  well.  quite  Etruscan  features. 


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CHAPTER    XVI. 

CASTEL    VASSO.—CASTELLUM    AXIA, 

Sow'  a'  sepolti  le  tombe  terragne 
.  Portan  segnato  quel  ck'  elli  eran  pria. — DANTE. 

Here  man's  departed  steps  are  traced 

But  by  his  dust  amid  the  solitude.—  HEMANS. 

THE  best  guide  to  the  Etruscan  antiquities  of  Viterbo  and  its 
neighbourhood  used  to  be  Euggieri,  a  caffettiere  of  that  city  who, 
though  a  master-excavator  himself,  would  condescend,  for  a  con- 
sideration, to  act  the  cicerone.  His  mantle  has  now  fallen  on  a 
certain  Fanali,  who  also  acts  as  guide  to  Castel  d'  Asso,  an 
Etruscan  necropolis,  which  was  first  made  known  to  the  English 
public  by  the  lively  description  of  Mrs.  Hamilton  Gray.  It  lies 
about  five  miles  to  the  west  of  Viterbo,  and  can  be  reached  by  the 
light  vehicles  of  the  country,  though  more  easily  on  horse-back.1 

From  the  gate  of  Viterbo,  the  road  descends  between  low  cliffs, 
here  and  there  hollowed  into  sepulchres.  At  the  extremity  of 
this  cleft  is  a  large  cave,  called  Grotta  di  Riello,  once  a  sepulchre, 
and  a  spot  long  approached  with  superstitious  awe,  as  the  deposi- 
tory of  hidden  treasure  guarded  \>y  demons.  But  a  small  Virgin 
having  been  erected  at  the  corner  of  the  road  hard  by,  the  worthy 
Viterbesi  can  now  pass  on  their  daily  or  nightly  avocations  with- 
out let  or  hindrance  from  spiritual  foe.  The  same  evil  report  is 
given  of  another  sepulchral  cavern,  not  far  off,  called  Grotta  del 
Cataletto. 

1  It  is  first  found  under  this  name  in  the  Castellaccio,  tuis  site  is  always  mentioned 

works  of  Annio  of  Viterbo.     Orioli  (Ann.  by  the  shepherds  and  peasantry  as  Castel 

dell'  Inst.  1833,  p.  23)  asserts  that  its  true  d'  Asso.     Bullett.  dell'  Inst.  1833,  p.  97. 

name  is  Castellaccio,  as  it  has  always  been,  My  own  experience  agrees  with  that   of 

and  is  still,  called  by  the  lower  orders  of  Orioli,  and  I  have  found  peasants  who  did 

Viterbo ;   but  the  Baron  Bunsen,   on  the  not  understand  the  name  of  Castel  d'  Asso, 

other  hand,  maintains  that,  though  there  but   instantly  comprehended  what  site  I 

is  a  ruined  tower  some  miles  distant  called  meant  by  Castellaccio. 


176  CASTEL    D'ASSO.  [CHAP.  xvi. 

About  a  mile  and  a  half  from  Yiterbo  we  entered  on  the  open 
heath,  and  here  columns  of  steam,  issuing  from  the  ground  by 
the  roadside,  marked  the  Bulicame,  a  hot  sulphureous  spring, 
which  has  the  honour  of  having  been  sung  by  Dante.2  It  is 
apparently  in  a  boiling  state,  but  is  not  of  intolerable  heat.3  It 
Is  inclosed  by  a  circular  wall,  and  being  carried  off  in  small 
channels,  flows  steaming  across  the  plain.  This  is  almost  the 
only  active  intimation  of  those  latent  fires  which,  in  past  ages, 
have  deposited  the  strata  of  this  district.  It  lies  midway  between 
the  Lake  of  Bolsena  and  that  of  Yico,  both  craters  of  extinct 
volcanoes.  The  high  temperature  and  medicinal  qualities  of 
these  waters  have  given  rise  to  baths  in  their  neighbourhood,  and 
from  the  many  ruins  around,  there  seem  to  have  been  similar 
edifices  in  former  ages,  at  least  as  far  back  as  lioman  times.4 

We  were  now  on  the  great  Etruscan  plain,  which  was  here 
and  there  darkened  by  wrood,  but  unenlivened  by  towns  or 
villages  ;  no  habitations  visible  on  its  vast  expanse  save  the 
distant  towers  of  Toscanella,  and  a  lonely  farm-house  or  crumb- 
ling ruin  studding  its  surface  at  wide  intervals.  Our  guide, 
being  then  new  in  his  trade,  mistook  one  of  these  ruins  for 
another,  and,  after  wandering  a  long  time  over  the  moor,  fairly 
confessed  he  was  at  fault.  So  we  took  the  road  into  our  own 
hands,  and  with  much  difficulty,  in  consequence  of  the  numerous 
ravines  with  which  the  plain  is  intersected,  reached  the  brink  of 
the  wide  glen  of  Castel  d'Asso.  Just  opposite  the  ruined  castle 
which  gives  its  name  to  the  site,  we  found  a  smaller  glen,  open- 
ing at  an  angle  into  the  large  one,  and  here  we  descended,  and 
presently  came  upon  the  object  of  our  search.  Tomb  after  tomb, 
hewn  out  of  the  cliffs,  on  either  hand — a  street  of  sepulchres;  all 
with  a  house-like  character !  They  were  unlike  any  Etruscan 
tombs  I  had  yet  seen;  not  simply  opening  in  the  cliffs  as  at 
Sutri  and  Civita  Castellana,  nor  fronted  with  arched  porticoes  as 
at  Falleri,  but  hewn  into  square  architectural  facades,  with  bold 
cornices  and  mouldings  in  high  relief,  and  many  Avith  inscriptions 
graven  on  their  fronts,  in  the  striking  characters  and  mysterious 
language  of  Etruria. 

Such  a  scene  is  well  calculated  to  produce  an  impression  on  a 

2  Inferno,  XII.  117,  and  XIV.  79.  The  heat  is  said  to  be  not  greater  than 

3  Fazio  degli  Uberti,  in  his  Dittamundi,       50°  Reaumur.  Ann.  Inst.  1835,  p.  5. 

lib.  III.  cap.  10,  says  it  is  so  hot  that  in  4  Canina  takes  the  Bulicarae  to  be  the 

less  time  than  a  man  can  walk  a  quarter  of  Aquae  Passeris  of  Martial,  VI.  Epig.  42, 

a  mile  you  may  boil  all  the  flesh  off  a  sheep,  ut  supra,  p.  157,  note  2. 
so  as  to  leave  it  a  mere  skeleton. 


CHAP,  xvi.]  A    STEEET    OF    TOMBS.  179 

sensitive  mind,  especially  on  one  to  whom  an  Etruscan  necropolis 
is  a  novel  spectacle.  The  solemnity  of  the  site — the  burial- 
place  of  long-past  generations,  of  a  people  of  mysterious  origin 
and  undetermined  antiquity — their  empty  sepulchres  yawning  at 
our  feet,  yet  their  monuments  still  standing,  in  eternal  memorial 
of  their  extinct  civilization,  and  their  epitaphs  mocking  their  dust 
that  has  long  ago  been  trampled  under  foot  or  scattered  to  the 
winds — all  this  cannot  fail  to  excite  reflection.  Then  the  lone- 
liness, seclusion,  and  utter  stillness  of  the  scene — the  absence  of 
all  habitation — nothing  but  the  ruined  and  picturesque  castle  on 
the  opposite  precipice,  and  the  grand  dark  mass  of  the  Ciminian, 
looking  down  on  the  glen — tend  to  make  this  more  imposing 
than  other  Etruscan  cemeteries  which  are  in  the  immediate 
neighbourhood  of  modern  habitations. 

As  I  advanced  down  the  glen  I  found  that  the  tombs  continued 
round  the  face  of  the  cliffs,  on  either  hand,  into  the  great  valley, 
in  a  line  opposite  the  ruined  castle.  There  might  be  thirty  or 
forty  of  them — not  all,  however,  preserving  their  monumental 
fa£ades —  occupying  an  extent  of  cliff  about  half  a  mile  in 
length.5 

The  fa9ades  are  formed  by  the  face  of  the  cliffs  being  hewn  to 
a  smooth  surface,  save  where  the  decorations  are  left  in  relief;  the 
height  of  the  cliff  being  that  of  the  monuments,  which  vary,  in  this 
respect,  from  twelve  to  thirty  feet.  The  imposing  effect  of  these 
tombs  is  perhaps  increased  by  their  form,  which  is  like  that  of 
Eg}'ptian  edifices  and  Doric  doorways,  narrower  above  than 
below,  the  front  also  retreating  from  the  perpendicular — a  form 
ordinarily  associated  in  our  minds  with  the  remotest  antiquity. 
Still  more  of  Egyptian  character  is  seen  in  the  massive  hori- 
zontal cornices,  which,  however,  depart  from  that  type  in  reced- 
ing, instead  of  projecting  from  the  plane  of  the  facade.6  These 
cornices,  in  many  instances,  are  carried  round  the  sides  of  the 
monument,  and  even  where  this  is  not  the  case,  each  tomb  is 
quite  isolated  from  its  neighbours  ;  a  broad  upright  groove,  or  a 
flight  of  steps  cut  in  the  rock,  and  leading  to  the  plain  above, 
marking  the  separation.  In  the  centre  of  each  fa9ade  is  a  rod- 
moulding,  describing  the  outline  of  a  door;  in  some  instances 


5  Orioli  (ap.  Inghir.  Mon.  Etrus.  IV.  p.       torus,  the  fascia,  the  ogee,  and  the  becco  di 
175)  makes  it  to  be  a  mile  and  a  half  in       civetta,  or  lip-moulding,  generally  arranged 
length,  but  the  learned  Professor  has  here       in  the  same  relative  order,  but  varying  con- 
decidedly  stretched  a  point.  siderably  in  proportions  and  boldness.    See 

6  The  mouldings  of  the  cornice  are  the       the  Appendix,  Note  L 

X  2 


180 


CASTEL    P'ASSO. 


[CHAP.  xvi. 


having  panels  recessed  one  within  the  other,  as  in  the  annexed 
woodcut.  This  is  not  the  entrance,  but  merely  the  frontispiece 
to  the  tomb,  and  the  title  is  generally  engraved 
on  the  lowest  and  most  prominent  fascia,  or, 
in  some  cases,  on  the  flat  surface  of  the  fagade 
just  over  the  moulded  door.7  The  letters  are 
seldom  six  inches  in  height,  though,  from  the 
depth  of  their  intaglio,  they  can  be  read  in  the 
sunshine  from  a  considerable  distance.  Not 
half  the  tombs  have  inscriptions,  and  not  ah1  of 
these  are  legible ;  yet,  in  proportion  to  the  number  of  monu- 
ments, there  are  more  inscribed  facades  at  Castel  d'Asso  than  in 
any  other  Etruscan  necropolis,  save  that  of  Sovana.  Most  of 
these  inscriptions  seem  to  indicate  the  name  of  the  individual  or 
family  buried  below,  but  there  are  others,  the  precise  meaning  of 
which  can  be  only  conjectured.8 

So  much  for  the  title-page  of  these  sepulchres.  The  preface 
comes  next,  in  the  form  of  a  chamber  hollowed  in  the  rock, 
receding,  in  most  instances,  a  little  from  the  face  of  the  monu- 
ment above  it,  and  vaulted  half  over,  by  the  rock  being  left  to- 
project  at  the  base  of  the  fagade.  The  front  seems  to  have  been 
al\va}*s  open.9  On  the  inner  wall,  and  directly  beneath  the 
moulded  door  of  the  fagade,  is  a  similar  false  door,  sometimes 
with  a  niche  in  its  centre.1  Here  the  funeral  feast  may  have 
been  held;  or  the  corpse  may  have  been  laid  out  in  this  chamber, 
before  its  transfer  to  its  last  resting-place  in  the  sepulchre 
beneath ;  or  here  the  surviving  relatives  may  have  assembled  to 
perform  their  annual  festivities  in  honour  of  the  dead ;  and  the 
niche  may  have  held  a  lamp,  a  cippus,  or  a  vase  of  perfume  to- 
destroy  the  effluvium,  or  in  it  may  have  been  left  an  offering  to 
the  infernal  deities,  or  to  the  manes  of  the  deceased. 

Directly   beneath    this    second    moulded    door,    is    the    real 


"  Tliis  system  of  false  doors  in  the  fagades 
of  tombs,  obtains  in  the  ancient  rock-hewn 
sepulchres  of  Phrygia,  which,  indeed,  have 
many  other  points  of  analogy  with  these  of 
Etruria  (see  Steuart's  Ancient  Monuments 
of  Lydiaand  Phrygia,  Loncl  1842),  and  also 
in  those  of  Lycia,  which  have  often  recessed 
panellings.  See  Sir  C.  Fellows'  works,  and 
the  monuments  from  Xanthus  now  in  the 
British  Museum.  Moulded  doorways  often 
occur  also  in  Egyptian  monuments,  anil 
sometimes  with  recessed  panellings,  as  in 


the  above  woodcut ;  as  on  a  granite  sarco- 
phagus in  the  Museum  of  Leyden. 

8  All  the  inscriptions  that  remain  legible 
are  given  in  the  Appendix,  Note  II. 

9  Some  of  the  smaller  tombs  are  without 
this  open  chamber,  and  have  the  entrance- 
passage  immediately  below  the  facade.   This, 
intermediate  chamber  is  a  feature  almost 
peculiar  to  the  tombs  of  Castel  d'  Asso,  and 
A"  orchia. 

1  As   in   the  woodcut    iu   Chap.    X!X.. 
page  216. 


CHAP,  xvi.]          INTERIOR    OP    THE    SEPULCHRES.  181 

entrance  to  the  sepulchre,  generally  twenty,  sometimes  thirty  or 
forty  feet  below  the  uppermost  moulding.  It  is  approached  by 
a  narrow  and  shelving  passage,  cut  through  the  rock  in  front  of 
the  monument,  running  down  at  an  angle  of  about  forty  degrees, 
and  originally  cut  into  steps.  The  door,  like  the  false  ones 
above  it,  tapers  upwards,  but  is  often  arched.  Forcing  my  way 
down  these  passages,  mostly  choked  with  rocks  and  bushes,  and 
squeezing  nry  body  through  the  doorways,  now  often  nearly 
reclosed  with  earth,  by  the  aid  of  a  taper,  without  which  nothing 
would  have  been  visible,  I  explored  most  of  the  sepulchres. 
They  are  now  half  filled  with  earth,  and  I  had  to  crawl  on  all- 
fours,  over  upturned  sarcophagi,  fragments  of  pottery,  and  the 
bones  and  dust  of  the  ancient  dead. 

The  tombs  are  of  various  sizes,  some  very  spacious,  others 
extremely  small — all  rudely  hollowed  in  the  rock,  and  most  of  a 
quadrilateral  form.  The  ceilings  are  generally  flat,  though 
sometimes  slightly  vaulted ;  and  I  do  not  recollect  an  instance 
of  beams  and  rafters  in  relief,  so  common  in  other  cemeteries. 
The  resemblance  to  houses  is  here  external  only.  Some  have 
the  usual  benches  of  rock  against  the  walls  for  the  support  of 
sarcophagi :  in  others  are  double  rows  of  coffins,  sunk  in  the 
rock,  side  by  side,  like  beds  in  a  hospital  or  workhouse,  and  with 
a  narrow  passage  down  the  middle.  In  one  tomb  these  sunken 
sarcophagi  radiate  from  the  centre.  The  bodies,  when  laid  in 
these  hollows  were  probably  covered  with  tiles. 

I  was  greatly  surprised  at  the  studied  economy  of  space  dis- 
played in  these  sepulchres — a  fact  which  entirely  sets  aside  the 
notion  that  none  but  the  most  illustrious  of  the  nation  were  here 
interred.  The  truth  is,  that  the  tombs  with  the  largest  and 
grandest  fagades  have  generally  the  meanest  interiors.  The  last 
tomb  in  the  great  glen,  in  the  direction  of  Viterbo,  is  externally 
the  largest  of  all,  and  a  truly  magnificent  monument,  its  facade 
rising  nearly  thirt}r  feet  above  the  upper  chamber ;  2  and  it  is 
natural  to  conclude  that  it  was  appropriated  to  some  great 
chieftain,  hero,  or  priest ;  yet,  like  all  its  neighbours,  it  was  not 
a  mausoleum  for  a  single  individual,  but  a  family-vault,  for  it 
contains  eight  or  ten  sarcophagi  of  nenfro.  Unlike  the  figure- 
lidded  sarcophagi  and  urns,  so  common  in  many  Etruscan 
cemeteries,  these  correspond  with  the  tombs  themselves  in  their 
simple,  massive,  and  archaic  character,  having  no  bas-reliefs 

2  It  is  seen  in  the  woodcut  at  p.  177,  which  shows  the  range  of  cliff-hewn  tombs  in 
the  glen  opposite  the  Castle. 


182  CASTEL    D'ASSO.  [CHAP.  xvi. 

or  other  sculptured  ornaments,  and,  in  their  general  form,  re- 
sembling the  sarcophagi  of  Lydia  and  Phrygia.  I  did  not 
observe  a  single  instance  of  a  niche  within  the  tomb  itself,  but 
in  the  wall  of  the  passage,  just  outside  the  door,  there  is  often 
one,  which  was  probably  for  the  cippus,  inscribed  with  the  name 
of  the  family  to  whom  the  sepulchre  belonged. 

From  their  exposed  position,  there  is  every  reason  to  conclude 
that  these  tombs,  like  those  of  Sutri,  Civita  Castellana,  and 
Fallen,  were  rifled  at  an  early  period.  As  soon  as  the  sacred- 
ness  attaching  to  them  as  the  resting-place  of  the  dead  had  worn 
off,  they  must  have  fallen  a  prey  to  plunderers.  Their  site  being 
always  indicated  by  their  superincumbent  monuments,  whatever 
of  their  contents  the  earlier  spoilers  might  have  spared  must 
inevitabty  have  been  carried  off  or  destroyed  in  subsequent  ages. 
It  is  absurd  to  expect  that  anything  of  value  should  be  found  in 
our  own  days  in  these  open  tombs.  But  in  others  excavated  of 
late  years  in  the  plain  above,  have  been  found  various  articles  of 
bronze,  specchj  with  figures  and  inscriptions,  tripods,  vases,  large 
studs  representing  lions'  heads,  besides  articles  of  gold  and 
jewellery,  scarabei,  £c.,  with  painted  vases,  some  of  great  beauty 
and  archaic  design,  though  in  general  mere  native  imitations  of 
the  Greek.3  A  collection  of  antiquities  from  this  site  may  be 
seen  at  Yiterbo,  in  the  possession  of  Signor  Bazzichelli,  the 
present  proprietor  of  Castel  d'Asso.4 

Only  one  tomb  did  I  perceive  which,  in  any  striking  particular, 
differed  from  those  already  described.  It  is  in  the  narrow  glen. 
On  each  side  of  the  false  door  of  the  facade  is  a  squared  buttress 
projecting  at  right  angles,  and  cut  out  of  the  rock  which  formed 
the  roof  of  the  upper  and  open  chamber.  These  buttresses  are 
surmounted  by  cornices,  and  have  a  small  door-moulding  on  their 
inner  sides,  like  that  on  the  facade.  The  sepulchre  itself,  in  this 
instance,  is  of  an  unusual  form — elliptical.  Orioli  has  described 
a  singular  sepulchre  at  Castel  d'Asso,  which  differs  wholly  from 
those  already  mentioned,  being  a  cavity  for  a  body,  sunk  in  the 
surface  of  the  plain  and  surrounded  by  an  ornamental  pattern, 
cut  in  the  tufo.5  I  looked  in  vain  for  this ;  but  nearly  opposite 

3  Orioli,  Ann.  Inst.  1833,  p.  33,  and  ap.        1874,  p.  257. 

Inghir.  Mon.  Etrus.  IV.  p.  188.     Urlichs,  i>  Orioli,  ap.   Inghir.   Mon.  Etr.  IV.  p. 

Bull.  Inst.  1839,  p.  75.     Abeken  (Mittel-  189,   tav.  XXXIX.    3.     The  same  writer 

italien,  p.  256)  is  mistaken  in  supposing  (p.  209)  speaks  of  a  tomb  on  this  site  with 

these  articles  were  found  in  the  fa9aded  two  phalli  scratched  on  its  walls.     I  did 

tombs.  not  perceive  such  symbols  in  any  of  these 

4  Ut  supra,  p.  153.     See  also  Bull.  Inst.  tombs 


CHAP,  xvi.]     THE    TOMBS   AND    THEIR   FURNITURE.  183 

the  castle,  I  remarked  a  deep  well  or  shaft  sunk  in  the  plain, 
which  doubtless  was  the  entrance  to  a  tomb,  such  as  exist  at 
Ferento.  There  can  be  no  doubt,  from  the  analogy  of  other 
sites,  and  from  the  excavations  already  made,  that  sepulchres 
abound  beneath  the  surface  of  the  plain. 

In  a  country  like  our  own,  where  intelligence  is  so  widely 
diffused,  and  news  travels  with  telegraphic  rapidity,  it  were 
scarcely  possible  that  monuments  of  former  ages,  of  the  most 
striking  character,  should  exist  in  the  open  air,  be  seen  daily  by 
the  peasantry,  and  remain  unknown  to  the  rest  of  the  world  for 
many  ages.  Yet  so  it  is  in  Italy.  Here  is  a  site  abounding  in 
most  imposing  remains  of  the  olden  time,  bearing  at  every  step 
indisputable  traces  of  by-gone  civilisation,  scarcely  six  miles  from 
the  great  thoroughfare  of  Italy,  and  from  Viterbo,  the  largest  cit}r 
in  all  this  district ;  and  yet  it  remained  unknown  to  the  world  at 
large  till  the  year  1808,  when  Professor  Orioli,  of  Bologna,  and 
the  Padre  Pio  Semeria,  of  Viterbo,  had  their  attention  directed  to 
the  wonders  of  this  glen.6  I  am  persuaded  that  Italy  is  not  yet 
half  explored — that  veiy  much  remains  to  be  brought  to  light ;  a 
persuasion  founded  on  such  discoveries  as  this,  which  are  still, 
from  time  to  time,  being  made,  of  which  I  may  cite  the  Etruscan 
necropolis  of  Sovana,  discovered  by  niy  fellow-traveller,  Mr. 
Ainsley — even  more  remarkable  than  this  of  Castel  d'Asso — and 
sundry  monuments  of  the  same  antiquity,  which  it  has  been  my 
lot  to  make  known  to  the  world.  In  fact,  ruins  and  remains  of 
ancient  art  are  of  such  common  occurrence  in  Italy  as  to  excite 
no  particular  attention.  To  whatever  age  they  may  belong — 
mediaeval,  Imperial,  Republican,  or  pre-historical — the  peasant 
knows  them  only  as  "  muraccia,"  and  he  shelters  his  flock  amid 
their  walls,  ploughs  the  land  around  them,  daily  slumbers 
beneath  their  shade,  or  even  dwells  within  their  precincts  from 
year  to  year ;  and  the  world  at  large  knows  no  more  of  their 
existence  than  if  they  were  situated  in  the  heart  of  the  Great 
Desert. 

The  general  style  of  these  monuments — their  simplicity  and 

6  The  gentleman  who  has  the  honour  of  by  Annio  of  Yiterbo,  in  the  fifteenth  cen- 

having  indicated  the  site  to  Orioli,  is  Signer  tury  ;  indeed,  the  name  is  painted  on  the 

Luigi  Anselmi,  of  Yiterbo,  who  is  well  stored  ceiling  of  the  principal  hall  of  the  Palazzo 

with  local  antiquarian  knowledge.     He  has  Comunale,  at  Viterbo,  which  must  be  more 

also  made  excavations  in  the  necropolis  of  than  200  years  old  (Orioli,  Ann.  Inst.  1833, 

Castel  d'Asso.      The  place  had  been  long  p.   24),  but  it  was  not  recognised  as  an 

known  as  the  site  of  a  ruined  castle,  and  Etruscan  site  till  the  year  1808. 
was  even  mentioned  under  its  present  name 


184  C'ASTEL    D'ASHO.  [CHAP.  xvi. 

massive  grandeur,  and  strong  Egyptian  features — testify  to  their 
high  antiquity  ;  and  this  is  confirmed  by  the  remarkable  plainness 
of  the  sarcophagi,  and  by  the  archaic  character  of  the  rest  of 
their  furniture,  so  far  as  it  is  possible  to  judge  of  it.  They  may 
safely  be  referred  to  the  days  of  Etruscan  independence. 

This  ancient  cemetery  clearly  implies  the  existence  of  an 
Etruscan  town  in  its  neighbourhood ;  and  the  eye  of  the  anti- 
quary needs  not  the  extant  remains  to  point  out  the  site  on  the 
opposite  cliff,  just  at  that  spot  where  a  tongue  of  land  is  formed 
in  the  plateau,  by  the  intersection  of  a  deep  glen  opening 
obliquely  into  the  great  valley.  Here,  accordingly,  besides 
numerous  remains  of  the  middle  ages,  to  which  the  castle  wholly 
belongs,  may  be  traced  the  outline  of  a  town,  almost  utterly 
destroyed,  indeed,  but,  on  one  side,  towards  the  east,  retaining 
a  fragment  of  its  walls  in  several  courses  of  rectangular  tufo 
blocks,  uncemented,  which  have  every  appearance  of  an  Etruscan 
origin.  The  site  is  worthy  of  a  visit  for  the  fine  view  it  com- 
mands of  the  tomb-hewn  cliffs  opposite.  The  extent  of  the 
town,  which  is  clearly  marked  by  the  nature  of  the  ground,  was 
very  small,  about  half  a  mile  in  circuit.  AVhat  may  have  been 
its  ancient  name  is  a  question  to  determine.  By  Mrs.  Hamilton 
Gray  it  has  been  conjectured  to  be  the  Eanum  Yoltumme,  the 
shrine  of  the  great  goddess  of  the  Etruscans,  where  the  princes 
of  Etruria  were  wont  to  meet  in  a  grand  national  council ;  but 
for  this  there  is  no  authority  ;  Yiterbo,  as  already  shown,  has 
stronger  claims  to  that,  honour,  and  still  stronger  will  hereafter 
be  urged  for  another  site.  It  has  been  suggested,  and  with  high 
probability,  that  it  may  be  the  site  of  the  Castellurn  Axia,  men- 
tioned by  Cicero  as  near  the  farm  of  Csesennia,  the  wife  of  A. 
Cfficina,  his  client.7  Its  very  small  size  shows  it  could  never 

"  Cicero  pro  Ca?cina ;  cf.  cap.   VI.  and  and  by  Vitruvius  (II.  7)  is  said  to  be — in 

VII.     Cluver  (II.  p.  521)  could  not  deter-  finibus  Tarquiniensium.     If  the  strong  re- 

raine    the    site   of   Castellum   Axia  ;    but  semblance  of  the  name,  the  agreement  in 

Mariani  (de  Etrur.  Metrop.  p.  45)  as  early  the  distance  from  Rome,  said  by  Cicero  (loc. 

as  1728,  declared  it  to  be  Castel  d'Asso.  cit.  cap.  X.)  to  be  less  than  53  miles  (i.e. 

The  objection  urged  by  Orioli  (Ann.  Instit.  by  the  Via  Cassia),  as  well  as  in  the  position 

1833,    p.    24)    that  Castel   d'Asso   is  too  on  a  height  (cap.  VII.),  be  taken  into  ac- 

distant  from  Tarquinii  to  be  included  within  count,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  this  is 

its  territory,  as  the  Castellum  Axia  seems  really    the    site   of  the   Castellum   Axia. 

to  have  been,  is  not  valid,  for  Tarquinii,  as  Cacina,    however,    objects    to    place    the 

the  metropolis  of  the  land,  most  probably  Fundus  Ctesennise  here,  because  it  is  only 

had  a  more  extended  aycr  than  usual ;  be-  fifty  miles  from  Rome,  and  would  rather 

sides,  the  lake  of  Kolsena,  which  is  more  place  it  at  Castel  Cardinale,   three  miles 

remote  from  that  city,  is  called  by  Pliny  further  to  the   north.     Etr.    Marit.    II., 

(Nat.  His.  II.  95), — lacus  Tarquiniensis —  p.  51. 


CHAP,  xvi.]    SITE  AND  NAME  OF  THE  ETRUSCAN  TOWN.       185 

have  been  more  than  a  mere  fortress.  This  could  have  been 
only  its  lloman  name ;  as  to  its  Etruscan  appellation,  we  are 
still  at  a  loss.  It  is  not  improbable,  however,  that  it  bore  a 
somewhat  similar  name  in  Etruscan  times.  Acsi,  we  know,  from 
u  tomb  at  Perugia,  to  have  been  a  family  name  among  that 
people ;  and  it  was  not  uncommon  for  them,  as  well  as  for  the 
llomans  and  other  nations,  to  derive  their  family  names  from 
those  of  countries,  cities,  towns,  or  rivers. 


ROCK-HEWN  TOMB,  NEAR  CASTKL  I/ASSO. 

At  the  mouth  of  the  wide  glen  of  Castel  d'Asso  is  a  mass  of 
rock,  hewn  into  a  sort  of  cone,  and  hollowed  into  a  tomb,  with  a 
night  of  steps  cut  out  of  the  rock  at  the  side,  leading  to  the  flat 
summit  of  the  cone,  which,  it  is  conjectured,  wras  surmounted  by 
a  statue.8  About  a  mile  from  Castel  d'Asso  is  a  very  spacious 
tomb,  with  decorated  front,  called  Grotta  Colonna,9  which  is  near 
enough  to  have  formed  part  of  this  same  necropolis. 


8  Lenoir,  Annali  dell'  Inst.  1832,  p.  276. 

y  The  Grotta  Colonna  is  nearly  70  feet 

long  by  16  wide.     It  contains  a  double  row 


of  coffins  sunk  in  the  rock,  with  a  passage 
down  the  middle.  Orioli,  ap.  Ingh.  Mon. 
Etr.  IV.  p.  197,  218.  See  also  tav.  38.  3. 


186 


CASTEL   D'ASSO. 


[CHAP.  xvi. 


APPENDIX    TO    CHAPTER    XVI. 

NOTE  I. — MOULDINGS  OF  TOMBS  AT  CASTEL  D'Asso.    See  p.  179. 

FIG.  1  shows  the  moulding  of  the 
fa9ade  of  the  great  tomb,  mentioned  at 
page  181.  This  arrangement  is  that 
generally  followed  at  Castel  d'Asso,  but 
with  varieties  in  the  proportions  of  the 
parts,  and  in  the  boldness  of  the  general 
character — as  seen  in  fig.  2.  A  few  of 
the  monuments  are  moulded  as  in  fig.  3  ; 
but  this  arrangement  is  more  common  at 
Norchia,  where,  however,  the  former 
system  also  obtains.  These  three  mould- 
ings are  not  on  an  uniform  scale.  All 
the  fa9ades  on  this  site  fall  slightly  back, 
as  in  the  annexed  cuts. 

The  specimens  of  mouldings  from 
this  necropolis,  published  by  Gell,  and 
copied  by  Mrs.  Hamilton  Gray,  are  very 
incorrect  ;  though  Sir  William  flattered 
himself  that  they  were  "  the  only  speci- 
mens of  real  Etruscan  mouldings  that 
have  ever  been  seen  in  our  country." 
Canina  (Etruria  Marit.  tav.  97)  gives 
illustrations  of  some  of  these  mouldings, 
which  ought  to  be  accurate.  In  his 
restorations,  he  represents  the  tombs  as 
being  each  surmounted  by  a  pyramid  of 
masonry,  but  I  could  perceive  no  traces 
of  such  superstructures. 


NOTE  II. — INSCRIPTIONS.     See  p.  180. 

The  inscriptions  at  Castel  d'Asso  are  the  following,  which  I  give  in  Roman 
letters  : — On  a  tornb  on  the  left  of  the  small  glen,  "  ARNTHAL  CEISES." 

On  one  at  the  mouth  of  this  glen  on  the  same  side  is  "  ECASUTH  ..." 
which  is  but  the  commencement  of  the  inscription. 

On  a  tomb  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  glen,  " RINATE  .  .  .  LVIES  "  . 

Orioli  (Ann.  Inst.  1833,  pp.  31-2)  reads  it  "  URINATES  .  .  .  LVIES  "  .  .  The 
initial  of  the  first  word  was  very  probably  U,  as  the  name  Urinate  occurs  in 
other  inscriptions — the  sarcophagus  from  Bomarzo,  for  instance,  now  in  the 
British  Museum  (see  page  170),  and  on  cinerary  urns  from  Perugia,  Volterra 
and  Chiusi.  On  the  last  named  site  a  sepulchre  of  this  family  was  dis- 
covered in  1859.  Conestabile,  Bull.  Soc.  Colomb.  iii.,  pp.  7-12. 

Near  this  is  a  tomb,  part  of  whose  cornice  has  fallen.     On  the  fragment 


CHAP,  xvi.]    ETEUSCAN   MOULDINGS,  AND  INSCRIPTIONS.      187 

yet  standing,  you  read  "  ECASU  ;  "  and  on  the  prostrate  mass  is  the  rest  of  the 
inscription,  "  INESL.  TITNIE,"  so  that  the  inscription,  when  entire,  read  thus  : 


On  a  tomb  in  the  great  valley  is  "  INESL,"  which  is  but  a  fragment. 

On  a  fallen  mass  Orioli  read  "  .  .  .  .  UTHIN  .  SL  .  .  .  " 

Orioli  (ap.  Ingh.  iv.  p.  218  ;  Ann.  Instit.  1833,  pp.  34,  52)  read  on  two 
tombs  these  numerals,  IIAXX  and  IIIIIIIAXX,  which  doubtless  recorded 
the  ages  of  the  dead  therein  interred. 

The  recurrence  of  ECASUTHINESL  shows  it  to  be  a  formula.  It  is  found 
also  on  other  sites,  and  has  given  rise  to  much  conjecture.  SUTHINA  is 
frequently  found  on  bronze  figures,  which  appear  to  have  been  votive 
offerings.  Lanzi  (II.  pp.  481,  494)  derived  SUTHI  from  o-omyp/a,  in  which  he 
is  followed  by  Vermiglioli  (Iscriz.  Perug.  I.  p.  133)  and  Campanari  (Urna 
d'  Arunte),  who  deduced  the  formula  from  TJKO  and  o-wrijp.  One  antiquaiy 
(Bibliot.  Ital.  Magg.  1817)  sought  its  interpretation  in  the  Latin  —  hie  sultus 
inest.  Professor  Migliarini  of  Florence,  also  sought  a  Latin  analogy  —  eccc 
situs,  or  hie  situs  est  (Bull.  Inst.  1847,  p.  86).  The  "  Ulster  king-at-arms," 
(Etruria  Celtica,  I.  p.  38)  finds  it  to  be  choice  Erse,  and  to  signify  "  eternal 
houses  of  death  !  "  Whatever  it  mean,  it  can  hardly  be  a  proper  name. 
Beyond  this,  we  must  own  with  Orioli  (loc.  cit.),  that  "  we  know  nothing 
about  it,  and  our  Avisest  plan  is  to  confess  our  ignorance." 


CHAPTER    XVII. 

MUSAENA. 

Though  nought  at  all  but  mines  now  I  bee, 

And  lye  in  mine  own  ashes,  as  you  see  ; 

Vevlame  I  was  ;  what  bootes  it  that  I  was, 

Sith  now  I  am  but  weedes  and  wastefull  grass  ? — SPENSER. 

MOST  of  the  ancient  cities  of  Etruria  which  have  been  dis- 
covered of  late  years,  have  been  found  fortuitously  by  travellers, 
native  or  foreign,  who,  with  more  or  less  knowledge  of  the 
subject,  chancing  to  traverse  ground  far  from  the  beaten  tracks, 
have  been  attracted  by  the  local  monuments  yet  extant,  and 
have  recognised  them  as  of  Etruscan  antiquity.  But  in  1850 
the  existence  of  an  Etruscan  town  was  made  known  to  the  world 
in  a  novel  manner — as  "  the  fruit  of  diligent  and  persistent  re- 
searches," made  by  Signer  Giosafat  Bazzichelli  of  Yiterbo,  acting 
on  information  furnished  by  Professor  Orioli.  In  searching  the 
archives  of  that  city,  the  learned  Professor  found  mention,  in  a 
chronicle  of  the  thirteenth  century,  of  two  old  towns,  one  called 
"  Sorena,"  near  the  Bulicame,  the  other  named  "  Civita  Muserna," 
(in  other  documents  Musana,  or  Musarna,)  which  towns,  like  the 
Theban  brothers  of  old,  were  recorded  to  have  fought  so  long, 
and  so  fiercely,  that  at  length  they  utterly  destroyed  each  other. 

The  site  of  Sorena  or  Surrina,  the  Etruscan  representative  of 
Yiterbo,  had  long  been  known  ;  it  remained  only  to  discover  that 
of  Musarna,  whose  existence  was  confirmed  l>y  other  mediaeval 
documents.  As  Orioli  was  personally  unable  to  undertake  the 
task  of  exploring  the  wide  and  desolate  Etruscan  plain,  he 
delegated  it  to  Signer  Bazzichelli,  who  under  his  auspices  suc- 
ceeded eventually  in  rescuing  from  obscurity  the  long-forgotten 
town,  and  in  proving  it  to  be  of  Etruscan  antiquity. 

On  visiting  the  Macchia  del  Conte,  a  vast  estate  belonging 
to  the  Counts  of  Gentili,  about  7  miles  west  of  Yiterbo,  on  the 


CHAP,  xvn.]      DISCOVEEY    OF    AN    ETRUSCAX    TOWX.  189 

road  to  Toscanella,  Signer  Bazzichelli  was  fortunate  enough  to 
discover  the  site  in  question.  Leaving  the  high  road  at  the 
bridge  of  the  Leja,  turning  to  the  left,  and  following  the  course 
of  that  stream  for  about  a  mile,  he  reached  a  ruined  castle  on 
a  lofty  cliff,  bearing  the  name  of  Cordigliano.  Leaving  this 
old  fortress  by  its  eastern  gate,  and  skirting  the  line  of  precipices 
which  turn  to  the  soiith,  at  the  distance  of  little  more  than  a 
mile  he  came  to  another  height,  overhanging  the  vale  of  the 
Leja,  and  called  Civita.  It  was  crested  with  the  remains  of  an 
ancient  town,  which  he  recognised  at  once  as  Etruscan.  The 
platform  011  which  it  stood  is  elliptical,  the  longer  axis  running 
from  north-east  to  south-west.  On  the  north  it  sinks  in  a  fearful 
precipice  to  the  valley  of  the  Leja;  on  the  west  it  is  bounded  by 
the  same  deep  ravine  ;  and  on  the  south  it  is  separated  from  the 
adjacent  plain  by  an  enormous  fosse,  of  the  length  of  the  town, 
sunk  with  immense  labour  in  the  rock,  and  bounded  at  each 
extremity  b}'  the  ruins  of  a  tower.  On  the  east  of  the  town  is  a 
hollow,  partly  natural,  partly  artificial,  which  sinks  to  the  vale 
of  the  Leja.  The  area  of  the  town  is  very  limited,  so  that  it  is 
difficult  to  regard  it  as  more  than  a  castle,  or  at  most  a  fortified 
village.1  All  round  the  height  stretch  the  Etruscan  walls,  in 
parts  rising  some  height  above  the  surface  and  in  admirable 
preservation,  in  others,  level  with  the  plain,  though  the  founda- 
tions may  be  distinctly  traced  throughout.  The  walls  are  of 
regular  masonry,  composed  of  large  blocks  of  tufo,  joined  with 
wonderful  nicety,  though  without  cement,  and  arranged  in  alter- 
nate courses  of  long  and  short  blocks,  in  the  style  usual  in  the 
southern  cities  of  Etruria,  and  which  in  this  work  is  described 
as  cmplccton.  Beneath  the  walls,  the  cliffs  on  every  side  of  the 
town  are  perforated  with  sewers.3 

The  town  had  four  gates,  two  on  the  south  side,  one  in  the 
west,  and  one  in  the  north  wall.  The  principal  entrance  was 
from  the  south-east  by  a  bridge  hewn  from  the  rock,  spanning 
the  fosse,  of  which  mention  has  been  made,  and  thus  uniting  the 
platform  of  the  city  with  the  adjacent  plain.  There  is  a  similar 

1  Canina  (Etr.  Marit.    II.   p.  135)  takes  ponds   with  that  of  the  farm   of  Cicero's 

both  Musarna  and  Cordigliano,  from  their  client. 

very  small  size,  to  have  been  mere  estates,  "  The  fragments  of  these  walls  delineated 

the  habitations  of  the  proprietor  and  his  by  Canina  (Etr.  Marit.  tav.  11 9)  show  that 

retainers,  inclosed  by  walls.      He  regards  early  description  of  masonry,  in  which  the 

Castel  Cardinale  to  be  the  Fundus  Caesen-  blocks  present  their  ends  only  to  the  eye, 

niae  of  Cicero  (pro  CsecimA  as  its  distance,  as  in  the  walls  of  Tarquinii  and  Caere, 
fifty-three  miles,  from  Rome  exactly  corres- 


190  MUSAENA.  [CHAP.  xvn. 

bridge  at  the  other  extremity  of  the  fosse,  each  being  protected 
by  a  large  tower,  as  already  stated,  whose  foundations  alone  are 
extant.  Within  the  walls  are  many  remains  of  ancient  buildings, 
with  a  few  traces  also  of  still  later  occupation. 

The  town  lies  between  two  castles,  which  form,  as  it  were,  its 
suburbs.  The  nearest  is  Castel  Cardinale,  hardly  a  gunshot 
distant,  on  the  further  side  of  the  valley  of  the  Leja.  It  retains 
many  remains  of  mediaeval  times.  The  other,  or  that  already 
mentioned  as  Cordigliano,  is  at  a  somewhat  greater  distance, 
situated  on  a  platform  very  similar  as  regards  position,  but  much 
more  circumscribed  than  that  occupied  by  the  town.  The  isthmus 
of  rock  which  united  it  to  the  plain  was  in  this  instance  also 
crossed  by  a  deep  fosse,  which  barred  the  approach  to  the  castle. 
The  height  was  anciently  enclosed  by  Avails  of  massive,  un- 
cemented  masonry,  fragments  of  whose  foundations  are  extant, 
and  have  been  recognised  as  Etruscan.  Numerous  similar  blocks 
strew  the  steep  slopes  beneath,  overturned  probably  by  some 
convulsion  of  nature,  unless  we  are  rather  to  believe  the  tradition 
which  attributes  it  to  the  hostility  of  the  Sorenesi.  Beneath 
this  castle,  in  the  valley  of  the  Leja,  is  the  pier  of  an  ancient 
bridge  which  once  spanned  the  stream.  The  existence  of  these 
castles  in  close  vicinity  to  the  town,  suggests  a  considerable 
population  in  ancient  times,  but  this  part  of  the  plain  is  now 
utterly  desolate  and  uncultivated. 

This  ancient  town  of  course  had  its  necropolis,  and,  as  usual 
in  southern  Etruria,  there  were  visible  traces  of  it  in  tombs  hewn 
in  the  neighbouring  cliffs,  some  with  facades  like  those  at  Castel 
d'Asso  and  Norchia,  though  in  a  simpler  and  severer  style.3 
Other  sepulchres  were  covered  by  tumuli,  which  rose  above  the 
plain ;  but  most  were  sunk  deep  below  the  surface,  and  were 
reached  by  long  passages  with  flights  of  steps  hewn  from  the 
living  rock.4 

Soon  after  the  discovery  of  this  town,  a  party  of  gentlemen, 
with  Bazzichelli  at  their  head,  repaired  to  the  site  to  explore  the 
necropolis.  They  opened  the  tumuli,  dug  into  the  hill  slopes,  and 
dived  beneath  the  plain,  but  they  found  that  almost  all  the 
sepulchres  had  been  rifled  in  former  times.  In  a  hill  to  the 
west  of  the  town  they  opened  tombs  in  great  numbers,  both  in  the 
upper  stratum  of  calcareous  rock,  and  in  the  red  tufo  beneath  it ; 

3  One  of  these  tombs  is  of  remarkable  4  Illustrations  of  some  of  the  sepulchres 

•character,   having  square  holes,  like  win-       at  Castel  Cardinale  will  be  found  in  Canina's 
<lows,  in  its  fa9ade.  Etruria  Marittima,  tav.  99. 


CHAP,  xvii.]        THE    TOWN    AND    ITS    CEMETEEY.  191 

and  they  found  the  tombs  to  extend  for  a  long  distance  in  this 
hill,  lying  in  tier  above  tier  from  the  foot  of  the  slope  to  the  very 
summit.  They  were  of  small  size,  rudely  hewn  from  the  rock, 
generally  square  in  plan,  and  sometimes  divided  into  two  by  a 
wall  left  in  the  rock,  and  fronting  the  entrance.  In  some  the 
ceilings  were  carved  in  imitation  of  beams  and  rafters;  others 
were  surrounded  by  benches  of  rock,  on  which  were  still  stretched 
skeletons.  The  sepulchres  sunk  beneath  the  plain,  were  some- 
times mere  pits  rudely  lined  with  tiles  ;  these  were  the  resting- 
places  of  the  poorer  inhabitants.  Here  were  also  found  spacious 
chambers,  in  one  instance  supported  by  massive  piers  of  rock. 
In  this  tomb  they  found  more  than  forty  large  sarcophagi  of 
nenfro,  lying  in  tiers  around  the  Avails,  nearly  all  with  lids 
bearing  the  effigies  of  the  deceased  as  large  as  life,  and  with 
Etruscan  inscriptions  on  the  lids  or  coffins,  though  sometimes 
incised  on  the  figures  themselves,  either  on  their  bodies  or  on 
their  legs — a  feature  quite  peculiar  to  this  site.  The  inscriptions 
proved  the  tomb  to  belong  to  the  family  "  Alethnas."  Eude  and 
coarse  as  was  the  art  displayed  in  these  figures,  there  was  much 
character  and  life-like  expression  in  the  countenances,  which 
were  evidently  portraits.  The  men  reclined  with  a  drinking-bowl 
in  their  right  hand,  their  flesh  coloured  red  as  usual.  The 
women  were  represented  with  rich  dresses  and  ornaments,  and 
holding  fans.  The  eyes  of  many  were  coloured  blue.  Sixteen 
of  the  sarcophagi  from  this  tomb  are  now  to  be  seen  in  the 
Museum  of  Viterbo. 

In  other  tombs  the  sarcophagi  were  simple  chests  of  stone 
without  ornament  of  any  kind.  One  was  of  archaic  character, 
like  the  early  monuments  of  Chiusi,  with  flat  reliefs  representing 
a  funeral  procession.  Of  similar  style  was  a  square  cippus,  dis- 
playing a  winged  Charun,  armed  with  a  mallet.  Many  articles 
of  bronze  were  brought  to  light,  generally  of  an  early  style  of  art 
— mirrors,  with  figures  incised ;  strigils,  one  with  an  inscription; 
coins,  sometimes  in  the  mouths  of  the  skeletons ;  spear-heads, 
one  retaining  in  its  socket  fragments  of  its  wooden  shaft;  a 
Satyr's  head  in  relief,  of  exquisite  workmanship  ;  a  candelabrum 
011  a  tripod  of  human  legs.  Little  or  no  figured  pottery  was 
disinterred  011  this  site,  but  there  were  three  beautiful  masks 
of  terra-cotta,  painted  red  and  blue,  with  strange  head-dresses  of 
ribbons.  In  one  tomb  were  found  a  pair  of  skulls,  male  and 
female,  the  former  with  the  indentation  of  the  leaden  acorn  from 
his  foeman's  sling,  which  had  struck  him  in  the  forehead ;  and 


192  MUSARXA.  [CHAP.  xvn. 

with  a  fracture  of  the  parietal  bone  from  some  other  weapon, 
which  was  probably  his  coup  de  (/nice.  Orioli  says  the  profiles 
of  these  skulls  were  of  the  true  Italian  cast,  the  face  elongated, 
the  chin  sharp  and  prominent,  "  almost  of  the  type  of  our 
Dante."  5 

It  does  not  appear  to  me  that  Orioli  has  established  the 
identity  of  this  Etruscan  town  with  the  Muserna  or  Musana  of 
the  chronicles  he  cites.  He  takes  it  for  granted  rather  than 
proves  it.  The  only  clue  to  its  position  given  by  the  chronicles 
is,  that  it  lies  "  towards  the  Veia."  The  only  mention  indeed  of 
Civita  Musarna  is  found  in  the  apocryphal  records  of  Annio  of 
Yiterbo,  who  represents  it  as  a  ruined  town,  built  b}7  Hercules, 
near  "  Coriti  Lyanum,"  and  places  it  five  miles  from  Viterbo, 
not  far  from  the  Yadimonian  lake,  a  position  which  would  tally 
better  with  that  of  Bomarzo,  than  of  the  town  in  question.  But 
Orioli  assumes  the  "Yeia"  to  be  identical  with  the  Leja,  and  the 
"  Coriti  Lyanum  "  of  Annio  to  be  Cordigliano,  and  prefers  the 
name  Musarna  to  Muserna  or  Musana,  because  Mastarna  and  a 
few  other  words  in  Etruscan  have  the  same  termination. 

Whether  Musarna  be  the  correct  appellation  of  this  ancient  town 
or  not  is  of  little  moment.  Until  a  more  likely  one  is  found 
for  it,  we  may  be  content  to  accept  this  nomenclature  for  want 
of  a  better. 

0  For  further  particulars  regarding  this       Inst.  1850,  pp.  22 — 30;  pp.  35 — 44;  pp. 
Etruscan  town,  and  especially  for  the  in-       89 — 96. 
scriptions  in  the  Alethnas  tomb,  see  Bull. 


THE    TKMPLE-TOMBS,    NOHCHI.V. 


CHAPTER    XVIII. 

NORCHIA.— ORCLE  ? 

Quid  sibi  saxa  cavata — 

Quid  pulchra  volunt  monumenta  ?—  PRUDE  XTIU.S. 

There  is  a  temple  in  ruin  stands, 
Fashioned  by  long- forgotten  hands.— BYKOX. 

AT  the  same  time,  and  by  the  same  parties  that  Castel  d'Asso 
was  made  known,  there  Avas  brought  to  light  another  Etruscan 
necropolis,  of  even  greater  extent  and  higher  interest.  It  lies 
more  to  the  west,  about  fourteen  miles  from  Viterbo,  among  the 
wooded  glens  which  here  intersect  the  great  Etruscan  plain,  and 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  a  ruined  and  desolate  town,  known  by  its 
mediaeval  name  of  Norchia.  Besides  numerous  rock-sepulchres, 
similar  to  those  of  Castel  d'Asso,  this  necropolis  contains  two  of 
a  more  remarkable  character — imitations  of  temples,  with  porti- 
coed  facades  and  sculptured  pediments,  thought  to  be  unique  in 
Etruria,  until  the  discoveries  of  Mr.  Ainsle}',  at  Sovana.  It  is  a 
spot  which  should  not  fail  to  be  visited  by  every  one  who  feels 
interest  in  the  antiquities  of  early  Italy. 

Norchia  is  reached  with  most  ease  from  Vetralla,  from  which  it 
is  six  or  seven  miles  distant.  The  road  from  Viterbo  to  Vetralla 
skirts  the  base  of  the  Ciminian,  but  has  little  of  the  picturesque 
beauty  of  that  from  Viterbo  to  Bomarzo.  The  village  of  San 


194  NOECHIA.  [CHAP.  xvm. 

Martino  is  passed  on  the  left,  high  on  the  slope  of  the  mountain. 
At  S.  Ippolito,  half-way  between  Viterbo  and  Vetralla,  a  line  of 
low  aqueduct  and  other  remains  of  Roman  buildings  are  passed, 
which  mark  the  site  of  ancient  baths,  and  probably  also  of  a 
station  on  the  Via  Cassia,  which,  after  crossing  the  shoulder  of 
the  Ciminian,  in  its  way  from  Sutrium,  and  passing  through 
Forum  Cassii,  hard  by  Vetralla,  turned  northward  across  the 
great  plain  to  Volsinii.  The  road,  for  the  rest  of  the  wa}*  to 
Vetralla,  follows  the  line  of  the  ancient  Cassian,  fragments  of 
whose  pavement  were  visible  when  first  I  travelled  this  road. 

Vetralla  stands  at  the  western  base  of  the  Ciminian,  and  its 
position  on  a  cliff-bound  ridge  between  two  ravines,  the  ancient 
rock-cut  road  by  which  you  approach  it,  and  numerous  grottoes 
in  the  cliffs  around,  are  so  many  proofs  that  it  occupies  the  site 
of  an  Etruscan  town.  The  antiquity  of  the  place  seems  implied 
in  its  name,  which  has  been  supposed  to  be  a  corruption  of  Vetus 
A  via; — the  derivation  of  the  former  part  of  the  word  at  least  can 
hardly  be  gainsaid.  Forum  Cassii,  as  already  stated,  was  a 
station  on  the  Cassian  Way,  eleven  miles  from  Sutri,  and  twelve 
from  Aquae  Passeris,  lying  about  a  mile  to  the  E.N.E.  of  Vetralla, 
and  its  position  is  marked  by  the  church  of  Santa  Maria  in 
Forcassi,  corrupted  by  the  peasantry  into  "  Filicassi."  There  is 
nothing  to  be  seen  on  this  spot  beyond  two  Roman  vaults,  and  a 
mass  of  opus  incertum.1 

Vetralla  is  a  place  of  some  importance,  having  6000  inhabitants. 
Viterbo  is  celebrated  for  its  beautiful  women,  but  verity  good 
looks  are  more  abundant  at  Vetralla — 

"  tTno  ha  la  voce. 
L'altro  mangia  la  noce." 

This  town  is  forty-three  miles  from  Rome,  eleven  or  twelve  from 
Sutri,  nine  from  Viterbo,  twelve  from  Monte  Romano,  twenty- 
one  from  Corneto,  thirty  from  Civita  Vecchia,  and  eighteen  from 
Toscanella.  All  these  roads,  save  the  last,  are  carriageable. 

The  sole  interest  of  Vetralla,  to  the  antiquary,  consists  in  its 
being  the  best  point  whence  to  lionise  the  two  Etruscan  sites  of 
Norchia  and  Bieda,  which  are  each  about  six  miles  distant.  Not 
that  the  osteria,  for  it  is  nothing  more,  of  Vetralla,  has  very 
inviting  quarters  ;  it  lacks  many  things — comfort  more  than  all ; 

1  Canina  places  Forum  Cassii  at  Vetralla,  though  recognizing  this  as  an  Etruscan 
site.  Etruria  Marit.  II.,  p.  54. 


CHAP,  xvni.]        VETRALLA,    AN    ETRUSCAN    SITE.  195 

but  it  is  the  best  accommodation  the  neighbourhood  for  miles 
round  can  afford.  Yet  I  may  not  do  the  place  justice,  for  on 
three  several  occasions  I  have  spent  some  days  there  in  the 
month  of  November,  when  the  weather  was  either  extremely  wet 
or  lowering ;  and  after  a  long  day's  work,  often  in  rain,  always  in 
mud,  cold,  and  gloom,  the  want  of  comfort  at  night  ma}r  have 
been  more  severely  felt.  I  have  visited  it  also  in  the  height  of 
summer,  but  being  caught  in  a  thunder-storm,  my  reminiscences 
of  the  Vetralla  hostelry  were  not  brightened.  A  guide  to  Norchia 
or  Bieda  may  be  obtained  at  the  ostcria  of  Vetralla. 

Norchia  lies  W.N.W.  from  Vetralla.  For  the  first  three  miles 
you  follow  the  high  road  to  Corneto.  Here,  in  a  glen  to  the 
right  of  the  road,  may  be  observed  many  traces  of  sepulture, 
indicating  the  existence  of  some  Etruscan  town,  whose  name 
and  memory  have  perished,  unless  these  tombs  belong  to  the 
necropolis  of  Norchia,  three  miles  distant,  to  which  the  path  here 
turns  to  the  right.  It  is  more  likely,  however,  that  they  mark 
the  necropolis  of  some  town  near  at  hand.  Canina  takes  that 
town  to  be  Cortuosa,  which,  with  Contenebra,  was  captured  by 
the  Romans  in  the  year  367  (B.C.  387),  ten  years  after  the  fall  of 
Veii.  Contenebra  he  supposes  to  be  no  other  than  Norchia.2 
For  the  latter  half  of  the  way,  the  road  dwindles  to  a  mere 
path,  or  vanishes  altogether  as  you  cross  the  wide  desert  heath, 
or  dive  into  the  deep  glens  with  which  it  is  in  every  direction 
intersected.  Nothing  can  be  more  dreary  than  this  scenery,  on  a 
dull  November  day.  The  bare,  treeless,  trackless  moor  has 
scarcely  a  habitation  on  its  broad  melancholy  expanse,  which 
seems  unbroken  till  one  of  its  numerous  ravines  opens  suddenly 

2  Etruria  Marittima,   II.,   p.    50.      He  reach   this   spot   the   Romans   must   have 

founds  this   opinion    on  the  statement    of  already    passed    Vetralla,     an    undoubted 

Livy  (VI.   4)  from  which  he   infers   that  Etruscan  site,  which,  as  nearer  Rome,  has 

these  were  the  first  towns  that  were  at-  a  better  claim  to  be  regarded  as  Cortuosa. 

tacked    by   the    Romans    on    entering   the  Livy,  moreover,  ascribes  the  easy  conquest 

territory  of  Tarquinii.      Cortuosa,    as  the  of  that  town  to  its  being  attacked  by  sur- 

nearest,  was  the  first  assailed,  and  offered  prise  ;    and    he   represents  Contenebra   as 

no  resistance,  which  he  attributes  to  the  being  compelled  to  surrender  on  account  of 

inferior  strength  of  its  position,  the  cliffs  the  paucity  of  its  inhabitants,  they  being 

in    this    neighbourhood    having   no   great  unable  to  resist  the  continuous  attacks  of 

elevation.     Contenebra  made  more  resist-  the    Romans,    who,    dividing   their   forces 

ance,    and    kept   the    Romans  at    bay  for  into  six  bodies,  kept  up  the  assault  with 

several  days,  being  protected,  he  asserts,  fresh    troops,    night    and   day,    till    they 

by  strong  fortifications,   and  was  of  more  wearied  the  citizens  into  a  surrender.     Of 

importance,  being  mentioned  by  Livy  as  a  the  fortifications   on  which    Canina  bases 

"city,"  while  Cortuosa  was  a  mere  "town."  his  opinion  that  Norchia  was  the  site  of 

This  opinion  of  Canina,  however,  will  not  Contenebra,  I  shall  have  occasion  to  speak 

bear    examination.      He    forgets   that   to  presently. 

o  2 


196  NORCHIA.  [CHAP.  xvm. 

at  your  feet.  The  mountains  around,  which,  in  brighter  weather, 
give  beauty  and  grandeur  to  the  scene,  are  lost  in  cloud  and  mist ; 
even  Monte  Fiascone  has  shrouded  his  unaspiring  crest.  In  the 
ravines  is  always  more  or  less  of  the  picturesque ;  yet  their  silence 
and  lonesomeness,  their  woods  almost  stript  of  foliage,  and  drip- 
ping with  moisture,  have  a  chilling  effect  on  the  traveller's 
spirits,  little  to  be  cheered  by  the  sight  of  a  flock  of  sheep  pent 
in  a  muddy  fold,  or  of  the  smoke  of  the  shepherd's  fire  issuing 
from  a  neighbouring  cave,  suggestive  of  savage  comfort. 

Little  heeded  we,  however,  the  dulness  of  the  weather.  Hastily 
we  threaded  these  glens,  eager  to  reach  the  famed  necropolis. 
The  few  tombs  we  did  see  here  and  there  in  the  cliffs,  served  but 
to  whet  our  appetite.  At  length  we  tunied  a  corner  in  the  glen, 
and  lo  !  a  grand  range  of  monuments  burst  upon  us.  There  they 
were — a  line  of  sepulchres,  high  in  the  face  of  the  cliff  which 
forms  the  right-hand  barrier  of  the  glen,  some  two  hundred  feet 
above  the  stream — an  amphitheatre  of  tombs  !  for  the  glen  here 
swells  into  something  not  unlike  that  form.  This  singular  glen 
is  perhaps  the  most  imposing  spot  in  the  whole  compass  of 
Etruscan  cemeteries.3 

The  eye,  as  it  ranges  along  the  line  of  corniced  sepulchres, 
singles  out  one  of  the  most  remote — one,  whose  prominent  and 
decorated  pediment  gives  it,  even  at  a  distance,  an  unique 
character.  In  our  way  towards  it,  we  passed  huge  masses  of 
rock-cornice,  split  from  the  cliffs  above,  and  lying  low  in  the 
valley.  We  found  that  what  looked  like  one  tomb  at  a  distance, 
was  in  fact  a  double  tomb,  or  rather  a  tomb  and  a  half,  seeing 
that  the  half  of  one  of  the  pediments  has  fallen.  Its  peculiarity 
consists  in  this — that  while  all  the  sepulchres  around  are  of  the 
severely  simple  style  of  Castel  d'Asso,  approximating  to  the 
Egyptian,  these  two  are  highly  ornate,  and  Avith  much  of  the 
Greek  character.  Instead  of  the  bold  horizontal  cornices  which 
surmount  the  other  tombs,  here  are  pediments  and  Doric  friezes, 
supported  on  columns ;  and,  what  is  to  be  seen  on  the  exterior 
of  very  few  other  Etruscan  monuments,  the  tympana  are  occupied 
with  figures  in  high  relief.  The  inner  wall  of  the  portico  is  also 
adorned  with  reliefs,  at  least  under  the  remaining  half  of  the 
mutilated  facade. 

3  It  is  said  by  Lenoir  ( Annali  dell'  Instit.  and  a  half  high.     I  could  perceive  no  traces 

1S82,  p.  291)  that  the  slope  from  the  base  of  them  ;  but  if  they  existed  they  must 

of  the  tombs  down  to  the  banks  of  the  have  greatly  increased  the  resemblance  of 

.stream  was  cut  into  steps,  about  two  feet  the  glen  to  an  amphitheatre. 


ROUGH  PLAN 


NECROPOLIS. 


A.  Castle  of  the  middle  ages,  in  ruins. 

B.  Church  of  the  same  period,     do. 


a.  Gateway  with  tombs. 
.  Gateway,  with  ancient  road  cut  in 
the  rock. 

c.  Tomb  perforating  the  rock,  and  re- 

sembling a  natural  bridge. 

d.  Tomb  in  the  cliff,  with  a  portico. 
c.   The  Temple-tombs. 

/.   Sewer  in  the  cliffs. 

<j.   Fallen  mass  of  cornice. 

h.  Fragment  of  Etruscan  wall  below 

the  cliff. 
Tombs  with  rook-hewn  fagade.s. 


198  NORCHIA.  [CHAP.  xvin. 

Our  first  impression  was  the  modern  date  of  this  double  tomb, 
compared  with  those  of  archaic  character  around ;  and  then  we 
were  naturally  led  to  speculate  on  its  origin.  Who  had  made 
this  his  last  resting-place  ?  Was  it  some  merchant-prince  of 
Etruria,  who  had  grown  wealthy  by  commerce — or,  it  might  be, 
by  piracy — and  who,  not  content  with  the  simple  sepulchres  of 
his  forefathers,  obtruded  among  them  one  on  the  model  of  some 
temple  he  had  seen  and  admired  in  his  wanderings  through 
Greece  or  Asia  Minor  ?  Was  it  a  hero,  renowned  in  Etruscan 
annals — some  conqueror  of  Umbrians  and  Pelasgians — some  suc- 
cessful opposer  of  that  restless,  quarrelsome  city,  that  upstart 
bully  of  the  Seven  Hills  ?  There,  in  each  pediment,  were 
figures  engaged  in  combat — some  overthrown  and  prostrate — 
others  sinking  to  their  knees,  and  covering  their  heads  with  their 
shields — one  rushing  forward  to  the  assault,  sword  in  hand — 
another  raising  a  wounded  warrior.  All  this,  however,  may  have 
been  the  ornament  of  the  temple  from  which  this  double-tomb 
was  copied ;  or  it  ma}r  have  had  a  symbolical  meaning.  Yet  that 
he  had  been  a  warrior  seemed  certain,  for  in  the  relief  within  the 
portico  were  shield,  mace,  and  sword  suspended  against  the  wall, 
as  if  to  intimate  that  he  had  fought  his  last  fight ;  '*  and  beneath 
was  a  long  funeral  procession.  Could  he  have  been  a  Greek, 
who,  flying  from  his  native  land,  like  Demaratus  of  Corinth, 
became  great  and  powerful  in  this  the  home  of  his  adoption,  yet 
with  fond  yearnings  after  his  native  soil,  raised  himself  a  sepulchre 
after  the  fashion  of  his  kindred,  that,  though  separated  from  them 
in  life,  he  might  in  some  sort  be  united  with  them  in  death  ? 
No — he  must  have  been  an  Etruscan  in  blood  and  creed;  for 
this  same  procession  shows  certain  peculiarities  of  the  Etruscan 
mythology — the  winged  genius  of  Death,  with  three  other  figures 
in  long  robes,  bearing  twisted  rods — those  mysterious  symbols  of 


4  It  was  the  custom  of  the  Greeks  and  but  curious  instance  of  this  is  seen  in  the 
Romans,  on  retiring  from  active  life,  to  baker's  tomb  at  the  Porta  Maggiore  of 
dedicate  to  the  gods  the  instruments  of  Rome,  and  another  in  the  cutler's  monu- 
their  craft  or  profession.  Thus  Horace  ment  in  the  Galleria  Lapidaria  of  the 
(Od.  III.  26)  proposed  to  suspend  his  arms  Vatican.  Another,  more  analogous  to  this 
and  lyre  on  the  wall  of  the  temple  of  Venus.  Norchian  sepulchre,  is  seen  on  a  vase,  de- 
The  temple-form  of  this  tomb  is  suggestive  scribed  by  Millingen  (Peintures  de  Vases 
of  such  an  explanation  ;  though,  on  the  Grecs,  pi.  XIX.),  where  within  an  mlicuta 
other  hand,  it  was  not  uncommon  to  indi-  or  shrine  stands  the  figure  of  the  deceased, 
cate  on  the  sepulchre  itself  the  profession  with  his  shield  and  greaves  suspended  above 
of  the  deceased  by  the  representation  of  his  head.  The  custom  is  still  retained  in 
his  implements  or  tools,  or  by  scenes  de-  the  East.  I  have  observed  frequent  in- 
scriptive of  his  mode  of  life.  A  well-known  stances  of  it  in  Armenian  burial-grounds. 


CHAP,  xvm.]  THE    TEMPLE-TOMBS.  199 

the  Etruscan  Hades — conducting  the  souls  of  two  warriors  with 
funeral  pomp,  just  as  in  the  Typhon-tomb  at  Corneto. 

I  have  spoken  of  columns.  None  are  now  standing,5  but  it  is 
evident  that  the  heavy  projecting  entablatures  have  been  so  sup- 
ported— that  of  the  entire  tomb  by  four,  traces  of  whose  capitals 
and  bases  are  very  distinct — that  of  the  broken  one,  whether  by 
four  or  six  it  is  difficult  to  say ;  more  probably  by  the  latter.  In 
neither  case  do  they  seem  to  have  been  more  than  plain  square 
antfs,  the  inner  ones  similar  to  those  at  the  angles  of  the  portico. 
They  were  all  left  in  the  rock  out  of  which  the  fa£ades  are  hewn, 
and  the  softness  and  friability  of  the  tufo  accounts  for  their 
destruction. 

The  entablatures  at  a  distance  seem  Doric,  but  a  nearer  ap- 
proach discloses  peculiar  features.  The  pediments  terminate  on 
each  side  in  a  volute,6  within  which  is  a  grim,  grinning  face  with 
prominent  teeth,  a  Gorgon's  head,  a  common  sepulchral  decora- 
tion among  the  Etruscans.  Over  two  of  the  three  remaining 
volutes  is  something,  which  from  below  seems  a  shapeless  mass 
of  rock,  but  on  closer  examination  proves  to  be  a  lioness  or 
leopard, —  specimens  of  the  ocrotcria,  with  which  the  ancients 
were  wont  to  decorate  their  temples."  Other  peculiarities  may 
be  observed  in  the  guttce,  the  triglyphs,  the  dentilled  cornice 
above  them,  and  the  ornamented  fascia  of  the  pediment — all  so 
many  Etruscan  corruptions  of  the  pure  Greek.8 

The  tomb  whose  facade  is  entire,  is  more  ancient  than  its 
fellow,  as  is  proved  by  the  bas-relief  in  the  portico  of  the  latter 
encroaching  considerably  on  the  wall  of  the  former.  Yet  with 
some  trifling  exceptions  they  correspond.9  Indeed  the  sculptures 

5  The  pillar  at  the  right-hand  angle  of  entrances  of  tombs,  or  painted  within  them 
the  entire  tomb  was  standing  when  Orioli  over  the  doorway— and  are  sometimes  found 
first  visited  these  monuments.     Ann.  List.  in  a  similar  position  as  acrotcria  to  porticoes, 
1833,  p.  36.  as  in  a  temple-like  sarcophagus  at  Chiusi, 

6  The  pediments  to  these  tombs  prove  which  bears  a  relief  of  a  death-bed  scene, 
them  to  be  imitations  of  temples,  or  of  very  Micali.  Mon.   Ined.   tav.  XXII.     They  are 
distinguished    houses — if    we    may   judge  also    often  found   carved    on   the    lids   of 
from  the  analogy  of  the   Romans,    among  sarcophagi,    one   at   each   angle,    as   if   to 
whom  pediments  were  such  marks  of  dignity,  guard  the  effigy  of  the  deceased.     Panthers 
that  Cicero  says  (de  Orat.   III.  46)  if  you  or  leopards  are   also  sepulchral  emblems, 
could  build  in  heaven,  where  you  have  no  and  are  frequently  represented  in  the  pedi- 
showers  to  fear,  yet  you  would  never  seem  ments  of  painted  tombs. 

to  have  attained  dignity  without  a  pediment.  8  The   yutt<z   arc   inverted,    having   the 

Julius  Csesar,  as  a  great  mark  of  distinc-  points  downwards,  and  they  are  only  three 

tion,  was  allowed  a  pediment  to  his  house.  in  number.     The  triglyphs  are  without  the 

Flor.  IV.  2.  cf.  Cic.  Phil.  II.  43.  half-channels  on  their  outer  edges,  and  are 

7  Lions  were  symbolic  guardians  of  sepul-  therefore  more  properly  diglyphs. 

chres ;  and  as  such  were  often  placed  at  the  9  The  pediment  is  rather  higher  in  the 


200  NORCIIIA.  [CHAP.  xvin. 

in  the  two  pediments  are  by  some  considered  as  relating  to  the 
same  subject ;  though  what  that  may  be,  it  is  not  easy  from  the 
dilapidated  state  of  the  figures  to  decide.  One  has  conjectured  it 
to  represent  the  contest  for  the  body  of  Patroclus ;  another  the 
destruction  of  Niobe's  children ;  one  has  seen  in  it  an  interment, 
or  games  of  chance,  and  the  gladiatorial  combats  which  the  Etrus- 
cans held  at  their  funerals ;  while  a  fourth  regards  it  as  the 
representation  of  some  dispute  about  peace  or  war  at  the  Fanum 
Voltumnee.  The  attitudes  of  the  figures  alone — and  in  some 
cases  not  even  these — are  distinguishable.  All  the  details  which 
would  give  character  and  meaning  are  effaced.  The  broken  half 
of  the  pediment  does  not  serve  to  clear  up  the  mystery,  though 
it  was  discovered,  half  buried  in  the  earth,  with  the  figures  in  ex- 
cellent preservation,  and  was  removed  to  Viterbo,  where  it  is  still 
to  be  seen  in  the  possession  of  Signer  Giosafat  Bazzichelli.1 
Whatever  be  the  subject  of  these  sculptures,  they  have  not  the 
archaic  Etruscan  character  displayed  in  the  bas-relief  beneath 
the  portico. 

The  surface  of  this  rocky  wall  is  so  much  injured,  that  doubt 
must  ever  hang  over  certain  parts  of  this  relief.  Thus  much  is 
clear  and  unequivocal — that  there  is  first  a  large,  circular,  convex 
shield,2  like  the  aspis  of  the  Greeks,  and  then  a  mace,  both  sus- 
pended against  the  wall.  Next  is  a  figure,  now  almost  effaced, 
which  from  its  large  open  wings  must  be  that  of  a  genius.3  Over 
this  is  a  plumed  helmet,  either  worn  by  a  figure  behind  the 
genius,  not  now  distinguishable,  or  more  probably  suspended. 

older  tomb.     This  has  no  guttce  like  the  phylia,  as  well  as  on  city-walls.   See  Fellows' 

other.     The  portico  is  loftier  in  the  imper-  Asia  Minor,   pp.   175,    192,   where   Ezek. 

feet  monument.  xxvii.  11,   is  cited  in  illustration.      They 

1  A  plate  of  it,  with  the  rest  of  the  relief,  were  also  suspended  by  the  Greeks  in  their 
is  given  in  the  Mon.  Ined.  Inst.  I.   tav.  sepulchres  ;    as  in  the   pyramid    between 
XLVIII.  Argos  and  Epidaurus,  described  by  Pausanias 

2  Orioli  (Ann.  Inst.  1833,  p.   38)  thinks        (II.  25,  7).     From  the  frequency  of  them 
here  was  originally  a  boss  of  metal  in  the       painted    or   sculptured    in    the   tombs   of 

centre  of  the  shield,  but  there  are  now  no  Cervetri  and  Corneto,  they  seem  to  have 

traces  of  such  an  ornament.     In  the  rock-  had  a  votive  meaning  among  the  Etruscans, 

hewn  temple-tombs  of  Phrygia,  the  shields  as  well  as  among  the  Greeks  and  Komans. 

found  on  the  architraves  or  pediments  are  The  latter  people  used  to  emblazon  them 

bossed.      Those   represented    in    Etruscan  with  the  portraits  of  their  ancestors  or  with 

monuments  have  very  seldom  a  boss,  and  their  heroic  deeds.     Pliny  (XXXV.  3). 
are  always  circular,  like  the  Argolic  shields  :>  One  wing  is  most  distinct.      There  is  a 

and  the  a<rm'5es  tvnvK\oi  of  the  Homeric  corresponding  arched  ridge  where  the  other 

heroes;  Diodoms    (Eclog.   lib.   XXIII.    3)  ought  to  be.  Orioli  (Ann.  dell' Inst.  1833, 

says  the  Romans   at  first  used   a  square  p.  53)  thinks  this  figure  represents  Venus 

shield,  but  afterwards  exchanged  it  for  the  Libitina,    the  goddess  who  presided    over 

aspis  of  the   Etruscans.     Similar  shields  funerals.     It  is  certainly  a  female,  for  the 

are   found   sculptured  on  tombs  in   Pam-  prominence  of  the  bosom  is  manifest 


CHAP,  xviii.]    BELIEFS  IN  THE  PEDIMENTS  AND  PORTICO.       201 

Another  figure  seems  to  have  followed,  and  above  it  hangs  by  a 
cord  a  short  curved  sword4;  a  second  helmet  succeeds,  which 
seems  to  be  worn  by  a  figure  ;  then  a  straight  sword  suspended  ; 
and  three  draped  figures,  about  the  size  of  life,  probably  repre- 
senting souls,  each  bearing  one  of  the  mysterious  twisted  rods, 
close  the  procession.5  This  may  have  been  continued  in  the  former 
half  of  the  relief,  now  utterly  destroyed.  It  is  clear  that  the 
ground  of  the  whole  has  been  originally  painted  red,  and  traces 
of  the  same  colour,  and  of  yellow,  may  be  observed  here  and  there 
about  the  figures ;  and  from  the  same  on  the  fallen  half  of  the 
pediment,  it  is  certain  that  the  reliefs  of  both  tympana  and  of  the 
portico — and  probable  that  the  architectural  portions  of  the  tombs 
also — were  thus  decorated.  This  is  one  among  numerous  proofs 
in  tombs,  sarcophagi,  and  urns,  that  the  Etruscans,  like  the 
Egyptians,  Greeks,  and  Romans,  had  a  polychrome  system  of 
decorating  their  architecture  and  sculpture. 

Various  are  the  opinions  of  archaeologists  as  to  the  date  of  these 
monuments.  All  are  agreed  on  one  point,  that  both  the  architec- 
ture and  sculpture  are  decided  imitations  of  the  Greek.  They 
have  been  considered  as  early  as  Demaratus,  the  father  of  Tar- 
quinius  Priscus,  to  whose  time  belongs  the  first  historical  mention 
of  the  influence  of  Greek  over  Etruscan  art;  but  the  spirit 
and  freedom  of  the  sculptures  in  the  pediments,  do  not  indicate 
so  early  an  age ;  while  the  somewhat  archaic  stiffness  and  quaint- 
ness  of  the  three  figures  which  close  the  procession  in  the  portico, 
seem  to  show,  that  art  had  not  entirely  thrown  aside  the  con- 
ventional trammels  of  its  infancy.  I  think  then  we  shall  not  be 
far  from  the  truth  in  referring  them  to  the  close  of  the  fourth 
century  of  Rome.6 

4  Similar  curved  swords  are  represented  loco),  or  that  they  may  have  an  affinity  to 
on  several  Etruscan  monuments.     A  curved  the  sacred  and  golden  bough — fatalit  virga 
.steel  sword,  with  the  sharp  edge  on  the  — torn    from    the    grove    of    Proserpine, 
inner   side,   as  in  a  scythe,   found  in   an  and  borne  by  2Eneas  into  hell  as  a  gift  to 
Etruscan  tomb,   was  formerly  in  the  Cam-  that  goddess.     Virg.   J5n.   VI.    136,   406, 
pana  collection  at  Rome.  <>36.      Ovid.     Met.    XIV.    114.       Urlichs 

5  Such  rods  as  these   have  been  found  (Bull.    Inst.    1839,    p.   45)    suggests   that 
represented   on    only  two   other   Etruscan  they  may  be  magisterial  rods.     It  is  possi- 
monuments,  the  Typhon-tomb  of  Tarquinii,  ble  they  are  emblems  of  supplication  ;  as 
where  they  are  borne  in  a  procession  very  Orestes   sat  at   the  altar   with  a   topmost 
similar   to    this,    and    the    Tomb    of    the  branch  of  olive  wound  round  with  much 
Reliefs  at  Cervetri.     Their  precise  meaning  wool.     JEschyl.  Eumen.  43. 

is  unknown.      Orioli  (Ann.   Inst.    1834,  p.  6  Gerhard  sees  no  rigidity  in  the  reliefs 

161)    suggests   that   they   may    be    either  of  the  pediments  such  as  might  be  expected 

funalia,    links  used  at  funerals,    made  of  in  monuments  in  the  midst  of  others  of  so 

papyrus  or  rope  twisted  and  covered  with  very  ancient  a  character  ;  and  thinks  the 

wax  or  pitch  (Virg.  2En.  I.  731.     Serv.  ii  design   shows  rather  the   decadence  than 


202  NORCHIA.  [CHAP.  xvni. 

There  are  no  moulded  doors  in  the  facades  of  these  tombs,  as 
in  those  adjoining,  and  at  Castel  d'Asso ;  but  the  resemblance  to 
temples  is  sufficiently  obvious.  The  analogy  is  strengthened  by 
a  depression  in  the  stylobate  of  the  unbroken  tomb,  which  seems 
to  indicate  the  steps  leading  up  to  the  portico.  In  the  porticoes 
being  arseostyle,  or  having  very  wide  intercolumniations,  and  in 
some  minor  particulars,  these  monuments  may  illustrate  the 
temple  of  the  Tuscan  order,  described  by  Vitruvius  ;7  but  in  most 
points  the  fayades  have  more  of  a  Greek  character.8  Of  the 
proportions  and  adornments  of  the  columns  nothing  can  now  be 
said. 

The  external  magnificence  of  these  temple-tombs  raises  anti- 
cipations of  a  corresponding  degree  of  adornment  within.  But 
these  are  soon  destroyed.  The  tombs,  which  are  entered  as 
usual  by  narrow,  steeply-descending  passages,  are  like  the  plainest 
at  Castel  d'Asso — large  chambers  rudely  hollowed  in  the  rock, 
utterly  devoid  of  ornament,  and  containing  a  double  row  of  sar- 
cophagi sunk  in  the  tufo,  with  an  economisation  of  space  which 
quite  dispels  the  notion  of  their  being  the  burial-places,  each  of 
an  illustrious  hero  or  Lucumo.  They  are,  in  fact,  like  most  of 
those  around  them,  family  sepulchres. 

Let  not  the  traveller  suppose  that  in  these  tombs  he  has  seen 
all  the  wonders  of  Norchia.  The  glen  which  contains  the  temple- 
tombs  opens  to  the  west  on  a  wide  area  where  four  glens  meet. 
Immediately  opposite,  as  you  emerge  on  this  space,  are  a  few  fine 
detached  tombs,  almost  at  the  foot  of  the  cliffs.  To  the  left,  on  a 
tongue  of  land  which  projects  into  the  hollow  between  two  other 
ravines,  stands  the  ruined  and  picturesque  church  of  Norchia, 

infancy  of  art;  yet  considers  them  prior  they  so  constructed  to  free  themselves  from 
to  the  Roman  conquest  of  Etruria  (Bull.  the  confusion  and  annoyance  of  crowds  of 
dell'  Inst.  1831,  pp.  84,  89).  Urlichs  attendants.  Diod.  Sic.  V.  p.  316. 
views  them  as  of  a  subsequent  period  8  The  Cavaliere  del  Rosso  is  said  to  have 
(Bull,  dell'  Inst.  1839,  p.  45).  Their  proved  that  the  dimensions  of  these  tombs 
similarity  to  the  reliefs  of  the  sarcophagi  are  on  the  scale  of  the  Greek  cubit.  Ann. 
and  urns  is  noticed  by  several  writers.  Inst.  1833,  p.  56.  Their  general  dimen- 
7  Vitruv.  IV.  cap.  7,  cf.  III.  3.  Lenoir  sions  may  be  learned  from  the  woodcut  at 
(Ann.  Inst.  1832,  p.  290)  points  out  the  p.  193,  by  the  figures  under  the  portico, 
correspondence  of  these  facades  with  the  which  are  nearly  the  size  of  life ;  but  to 
araeostyle  temples  of  the  Etruscans —  be  more  explicit,  the  length  of  the  broken 
liaryrcv,  barycephalcc,  humiles,  latce.  When  fafade  is  15  ft.  6  in. ;  of  the  entire  one, 
I  speak,  in  the  text,  of  the  resemblance  to  25  ft.  6  in.  The  portico  is  about  9  ft. 
temples,  I  refer  to  the  apparent  character  high,  and  projects  4  ft.  The  height  of  the 
of  these  tombs,  for  it  is  possible  that  they  entablature  is  8  ft.  6  in.,  and  of  ihe  entire 
are  imitations,  not  of  temples,  but  of  mere  fa9ade,  17  ft.  6  in.,  exclusive  of  the  stylo- 
houses;  seeing  that  the  Etruscans  are  known  bate,  which  averages  about  5  ft.  in  height, 
to  have  had  porticoes  to  their  abodes,  which 


CHAP.   XVIII.] 


THE   ETRUSCAN    NECROPOLIS. 


203 


marking  the  site  of  the  Etruscan  town.  The  glen  to  the  west  of 
this  contains  very  few  tombs,  but  that  on  the  opposite  side 
abounds  in  them,  especially  in  the  cliffs  facing  the  town,  where 
they  rise  in  terraces  or  stand  in 
picturesque  groups,  half  hidden 
by  wild  luxuriant  foliage.  A  few 
may  also  be  seen  on  the  opposite 
side  of  the  stream  in  the  cliffs 
which  are  terminated  by  the 
ancient  town.  Altogether  the 
monuments  in  this  glen  are  very 
numerous — twice  as  many  as  are 
to  be  found  at  Castel  d'Asso, 
and  more  interesting  from  their 
variety;  for  though  in  general 
character  they  resemble  the  tombs 
of  that  necropolis,  in  their  details 
they  are  often  dissimilar,  and 
differ  also  more  widely  from  each 
other.  It  may  suffice  to  state 
that  the  variations  are  observable 
rather  in  the  fa9ades  and  mould- 
ings than  in  the  open  chambers 
or  the  tombs  beneath.  No  other  example  is  there  of  a  temple- 
tomb  at  Norchia ;  yet  high  above  the  detached  monuments  in  the 
open  area  just  mentioned,  is  a  portico  recessed  in  the  cliff.  It  is 
scarcely  intelligible  from  below,  and  is  rather  difficult  of  access. 
It  is  composed  of  three  recesses,  separated  by  prominent  pilasters 
rounded  in  front  like  half-columns,  and  having  curious  fluted 
capitals.  Each  recess  is  stuccoed,  and  seems  to  have  been 
coloured.  It  is  obvious  that  this  elevated  portico  was  not  a  mere 
tomb-stone,  like  the  monuments  around,  but  a  sepulchre  itself, 
each  recess  serving  as  a  niche  for  the  deposit  of  a  sarcophagus. 
It  bears  a  strong  analogy  to  some  Greek  tombs  in  the  island  of 
Thera,  recessed  in  the  cliffs  in  a  similar  manner.1 

The  tombs  at  Norchia  are  more  numerous  than  at  Castel 
d'Asso.  There  must  be  at  least  fifty  or  sixty  with  distinct 
sculptured  fa9ades,  besides  many  others  in  ruin.  I  sought  in  vain 


Fiy.  3. 


MOULDINGS    OF    TOMBS    AT    KOUCHIA.9 


9  The  mouldings  of  Fig.  1  are  most  com- 
mon at  this  site.  Those  of  Figs.  2  and  3 
are  varieties.  Those  also  most  common  at 
Castel  d'Asso  see  Figs.  1  and  2  in  the 


woodcut  at  page  186)  are  to  be  found  at 
Norchia,  but  less  frequently. 

1  Mon.  Ined.  Inst.  III.  tav.  25,  3.    Ann. 
Inst.  1841,  p.  17. 


•204  NORCHIA.  [CHAP.  XVHI. 

for  one  described  by  Orioli2  as  having  a  trapezium  cut  in  the  xock 
above  its  facade,  in  all  probability  to  represent  the  roof  to  that 
sort  of  cavadium  which  Vitruvius  terms  displuviatum.  Nor  could 
I  find  another,  said  by  the  same  antiquary  to  have  a  sphinx  in 
prominent  relief  on  each  of  the  side- walls  of  the  fasade.3  It 
is  singular  that  not  a  single  Etruscan  inscription  has  been  found 
in  this  necropolis.  Excavations  have  been  made  on  this  site  by 
Signer  Desiderio  of  Rome,  but  nothing  of  value  was  brought  to 
light. 

The  Etruscan  town  of  which  these  tombs  formed  the  necropolis, 
occupied  the  site  of  the  ruined  church  of  Norchia.  Its  position 
on  a  sharp  point  of  land  at  the  junction  of  two  glens,  and  in  rela- 
tion to  the  tombs  around,  would  alone  tend  to  indicate  this  as  the 
site  of  ancient  habitation.  But  there  are  also  remains  of  ancient 
gateways  cut  through  the  cliffs  ;  though  no  vestiges  of  Etruscan 
walls  are  visible — all  the  ruins  on  the  height  belonging  to  the 
middle  ages.  The  size  of  the  ancient  town  was  very  small, 
scarcely  larger  than  that  at  Castel  d'Asso,  though  the  number 
and  magnificence  of  its  sepulchres  indicate  a  place  of  some 
importance.  Its  name  is  involved  in  obscurity.  We  know  that 
in  the  ninth  century  it  was  called  Orcle  ;4  but  that  such  was  its 
original  appellation  it  is  impossible  to  determine,  as  no  mention 
is  made  of  it  by  ancient  writers.5  Canina  takes  it  to  be  Con- 
teiiebra,  and  so  marks  it  on  his  map,  but  has  no  authority  for  this 

"  Ap.  Ingbir.   Mou.  Etrus.  IV.  p.   199,  Orcus,  as  Mantua  was  so  called  from  Man- 

tav.  XLII.  2.     Ann.  Inst.  1833,  p.  30.  tus.     But  seeing  that  it  was  called  Orcle  as 

3  Annali  dell'  Inst.  1833,  p.  29.     So  also  early  as  the  ninth  century,  it  is  quite  as 
Lenoir  (Ann.    Inst.    1832,    p.    295),    who  probable   that   it   derives   its   name   from 
speaks  of  but  one,  a  colossal  sphinx,  cut  in  Hercules,    who    was    worshipped    by  the 
the  rock  among  the  tombs.  Etruscans  as  Ercle — just  as  Minerva  gave 

4  In  an  epistle   of   Leo.    IV.,    "to  the  her  name  to  Athens,  and  Neptune  his  to 
good  man  the  Bishop  of  Toscanella,"  given  Posidonia  or  Psestum. 

by   Orioli    (Annali   dell'  Instit.    1833,  p.  Orcle  was  partly  deserted  in  early  times 

20),   which,   singularly  enough,  mentions  on  account  of  the  unhealthiness  of  the  site, 

the  " petra  fata"  without  the  city — most  and  the  emigrants  removed  to  Vitorchiano 

probably  referring  to  the  temple-tombs.    In  (Vicus  Orclanus),  whither  in  1435,  under 

the  same  letter  are  also  mentioned  "cacti  the  pontificate  of  Eugene  IV.,  the  rest  of 

-icamerata  "  and  "  cara  caprilis" — i.e.  a  the  inhabitants  removed,  and  the  town  was 

cave  with  chambers,  and  one  where  goats  destroyed.  Orioli,  Ann.  Instit.  1833,  p.  21. 

were  kept.  Though  Orioli  lays  claim  to  the  discovery 

5  Orioli  (op.  cit.  p.  22)  suggests  that  it  of  this  site,  it  was  indicated  as  Etruscan  a 
may  be  identical  with  Nyrtia,  mentioned  by  century  before    his  time    by  Mariani   (Dc 
the  ancient  scholiast  on  Juvenal  (X.  74)  as  Etrur.   Metrop.   p.    46,  compare  his  map), 
a  town,  the  birthplace  of  Sejanus,  giving  who  speaks  of  "  Horchia.    Sic  appellabatur 
its  name  to  or  deriving  it  from  the  goddess  dea  Etruscorum  ibi  culta,     Norchiam  mine 
Nurtia  or  Fortuna,  spoken  of  by  the  Satirist  dicunt,  ut  Nannium  pro  Annio,  Nannam  pro 
in  the  text,  or  that  it  derives  its  name  from  Anna." 


CHAP,  xviii.]  THE    ETRUSCAN    TOWN.  205- 

nomenclature,  which  is  mere  conjecture.6  In  its  present  state  of 
utter  desolation,  it  has  charms  as  much  for  the  artist  as  for  the 
antiquary.  Who  that  has  visited  this  spot  can  forget  the  ruined 
church  of  Lombard  architecture,  wasting  its  simple  beauty  on  the 
stupid  gaze  of  the  shepherd,  the  only  frequenter  of  these  wilds  ? 
AVho  that  has  an  e}re  for  the  picturesque,  can  forget  the  tall  cliffs 
on  which  it  stands — here,  perforated  so  as  to  form  a  bridge,7  there, 
dislocated,  and  cleft  to  their  base, — the  rich  red  and  grey  tufo  half- 
mantled  with  the  evergreen  foliage  of  cork,  ilex,  and  ivy  ?  "Who 
can  forget  the  deep  glens  around,  ever  wrapt  in  gloom,  where  the 
stillness  is  broken  only  by  the  murmurs  of  the  stream,  or  by  the 
shriek  of  the  falcon — solitudes  teeming  with  solemn  memorials 
of  a  past,  mysterious  race — with  pompous  monuments  mocking 
their  very  purpose  ;  for,  raised  to  perpetuate  the  memory  of  the 
dead,  they  still  stand,  while  their  inmates  have  for  long  ages  been 
forgotten  ?  He  who  has  visited  it  must  admit,  that  though  name- 
less and  unchronicled,  there  are  few  sites  in  Etruria  more  in- 
teresting than  this — none  which  more  imperatively  demand  the 
attention  of  the  antiquary. 

6  In  his  map  he  places  the  ancient  town  and  if  it  protected  anything,  it  was  the- 
on  the  broad  platform  between  the  Fosso  tombs  in  the  cliffs  above  it.  (See  Canina's 
delle  Pile  and  the  Fosso  dell' Acqua  Alta,  illustration,  tav.  XCII.)  It  can  have 
and  thiis  represents  it  as  a  place  of  first-  formed  no  part  of  the  city- walls.  I  see  no- 
rate  size,  which  we  know  Contenebra  was  reason  to  alter  my  opinion  that  the  Etrus- 
not,  for  it  had  but  a  scanty  population  can  town  stood  on  the  height,  now  occupied 
(Liv.  VI.  4).  Canina  founds  his  opinion  by  the  Lombard  church, 
on  a  piece  of  ancient  walling  on  the  spot  "  Orioli  (Ann.  Inst.  1833,  p.  20)  says 
marked  7t  in  my  plan,  which  he  takes  to  there  is  an  ancient  Roman  bridge  of  regular 
be  a  portion  of  the  walls  of  the  Etruscan  masonry  over  the  Biedano,  below  the  town  ; 
town,  and  he  thereon  pronounces  it  to  have  but  I  did  not  perceive  it.  He  also  mentions 
been  "strongly  fortified  in  roost  ancient  a  road  cut  in  the  rock,  and  called  the  "Cava 
times,"  so  as  to  have  been  able  to  resist  Buja,"  on  whose  wall  is  carved  a  Latin  in- 
the  Romans  for  several  days  (Etr.  Marit.  scription.  The  only  instance  of  a  rock- 
II.,  p.  fil).  But  this  bit  of  wall  is  not  on  hewn  road  that  I  could  perceive  is  near  the 
the  brow  of  the  cliff  as  the  fortifications  natural  bridge,  and  it  is  now  choked  with 
would  be,  but  in  the  valley  at  their  feet ;  fallen  masses  of  rock. 


C        o  w 

Illlllf 

<<  &  a  O  OH  PH  '— 


CHAPTER    XIX. 

BIEDA.— BLERA. 

Data  sunt  ipsis  quoque  fata  sepulcris. — JUVENAL. 

Some  things  in  it  you  may  meet  with,  which  are  out  of  the  common  road ;  a  Duke  there 
is,  and  the  scene  lies  in  Italy. — BEAUMONT  AND  FLETCHEK. 

ANOTHER  Etruscan  site  of  great  interest,  but  very  little  known, 
is  Bieda,  a  village  five  or  six  miles  south-west  of  Vetralla.  It  is 
the  representative  of  tht,  ancient  town  of  Blera,  of  which  its 
name  is  a  corruption.1  Blera  could  not  have  been  a  place  of 
importance,  under  either  Etruscans  or  Romans.  Not  once  is  it 
mentioned  by  ancient  historians,  and  its  name  onlj7  occurs  in  the 
catalogues  of  geographers.2  We  know  that  it  was  a  small  town 
at  the  commencement  of  the  Empire  ; s  that  it  was  on  the  Via 
Clodia,  between  the  Forum  Clodii  and  Tuscania ;  and  there  ends 
our  knowledge  of  it  from  ancient  sources.  That  it  had  an  exist- 
ence in  Etruscan  times,  we  learn,  not  from  the  pages  of  history, 
but  from  the  surer  records  of  its  extant  monuments. 

Bieda  is  best  visited  from  Vetralla.  The  road  for  the  first  two 
miles  is  the  highway  to  Corneto  and  Civita  Vecchia.  We  then 
turned  off  to  the  left,  crossed  some  downs  by  a  mere  bridle-path, 
forded  a  stream  in  a  wild,  deep  hollow,  and  reached  the  brow 
of  a  hill,  whence  the  village  of  Bieda  came  into  view,  crowning 
an  opposite  height.  The  sceneiy  here  was  very  romantic.  The 
height  of  Bieda  was  lofty  and  precipitous,  and  as  usual  was  a 
tongue  of  rock  at  the  junction  of  two  glens,  which  separated  it 
from  corresponding  heights  of  equal  abruptness.  These  glens, 

1  "When  I  in  Latin  words  follows  a  com-  language.      "Phleres"    is    a   word    which 

sonant,  the  Italians  are  wont  to  change  it  often    occurs    in  Etruscan   votive   inscrip- 

into  i;  as  from  clarus,  planus,  flamma,  tions. 

they  make  chiaro,  piano,  Jiamma  ;  and  r  2  Strabo  V.  p.  22G.    Ptolem.  Geog.  p.  72, 

is  sometimes  changed  into  d,  as  rarus  into  ed.  Bertii.     Pliu.  Nat.  His.  III.  8. 

rado,  porphyrites  into  porjido.    Blera  must  3  Strabo  classes  it  among  the  iroA/xi'ai 

have  been  called  Phlera,  or  Phlere,  liy  the  ffvxfai  of  Etruria. 
Etruscans,   since  they  had  no  b  in  their 


208  BIEDA.  [CHAP.  xix. 

or  ravines,  were  well  clothed  with  wood,  now  rich  with  the  tints 
of  autumn.  Wood  also  climbed  the  steep  cliffs,  struggled  for  a 
footing  among  the  wild  masses  of  ttifo  split  from  their  brow,  and 
crowned  in  triumph  the  surface  of  the  platforms  above. 

On  descending  the  rocky  slope,  we  found  ourselves  in  the 
Etruscan  necropolis.  The  slope  was  broken  into  many  ledges, 
and  the  cliffs  thus  formed  were  full  of  caverns — sepulchre  after 
sepulchre  above,  beneath,  around  us — some  simply  hollowed  in 
the  rock  and  entered  by  Egyptian  doorways,  some  mere  niches, 
and  others  adorned  with  architectural  facades  ;  from  the  banks  of 
the  stream  to  the  brow  of  the  height  the  whole  face  of  the  hill 
was  thus  burrowed. 

I  had  been  struck  at  Castel  d'Asso  with  the  street-like  arrange- 
ment of  the  tombs,  and  at  Norchia  with  their  house-like  character ; 
but  I  had  been  unwilling  to  consider  those  features  as  other  than 
accidental,  and  had  ascribed  them  to  the  natural  peculiarities  of 
the  ground.  But  here,  I  felt  convinced  that  they  were  inten- 
tional, and  that  this  assemblage  of  sepulchres  was  literally  a 
necropolis — a  city  of  the  dead. 

I  fere  were  rows  of  tombs,  side  by  side,  hollowed  in  the  cliff, 
each  with  its  gaping  doorway ;  here  they  were  in  terraces,  one 
above  the  other,  united  by  flights  of  steps  carved  out  of  the  rock; 
here  were  masses  split  from  the  precipice  above,  and  hewn  into 
tombs,  standing  out  like  isolated  abodes — shaped,  too,  into  the 
very  forms  of  houses,  with  sloping  roofs  culminating  to  an  apex, 
overhanging  eaves  at  the  gable,  and  a  massive  central  beam  to 
support  the  rafters.  The  angle  of  the  roof,  I  observed,  was  that 
still  usual  in  Italian  buildings — that  angle,  which  being  just 
sufficient  to  carry  off  the  rain,  is  naturally  suggested  in  a  climate 
where  snow  rarely  lies  a  day.  I  have  spoken  only  of  the  exterior 
of  the  tombs.  On  entering  any  one  of  them,  the  resemblance 
was  no  less  striking.  The  broad  beam  carved  in  relief  along  the 
ceiling — the  rafters,  also  in  relief,  resting  on  it  and  sinking 
gently  on  either  side — the  inner  chamber  in  many,  lighted  by  a 
window  on  each  side  of  the  door  in  the  partition-wall,  all  three 
of  the  same  Egyptian  form — the  triclinial  arrangement  of  the 
rock-hewn  benches,  as  though  the  dead,  as  represented  on  their 
sarcophagi,  were  wont  to  recline  at  a  banquet — these  things  were 
enough  to  convince  me  that  in  their  sepulchres  the  Etruscans,  in 
many  respects,  imitated  their  habitations,  and  sought  to  make 
their  cemeteries  as  far  as  possible  the  counterparts  of  their  cities. 

The  cliff-bound  height  of  Bieda  at  its  termination  is  sharp  as 


CHAP,  xix.j  A    TRUE    CITY    OF    THE    DEAD.  209 

a  wedge.  On  it  stood  the  ancient  town  as  well  as  the  modern 
village,  but  they  did  not  occupy  precisely  the  same  site  ;  the 
former  from  the  fragments  of  ancient  wall  at  the  verge  of  the 
precipice  on  both  sides  the  height,  seems  to  have  extended  to  tho 
very  tip  of  the  tongue  of  land  ;  while  the  latter  is  removed  almost, 
a  mile  further  back. 

At  the  point  of  junction  of  the  two  ravines,  where  the  streams 
from  each  also  meet,  is  an  ancient  bridge,  of  one  wide  arch,  based 
on  the  rocky  banks  of  the  stream,  and  approached  by  a  gradually 
ascending  causeway  of  masonry,  which,  as  well  as  the  bridge,  is 
of  tufo  cut  from  the  cliffs  around.4  The  parapets  have  been 
overturned,  probably  by  the  large  shrubs  which  flank  it,  in- 
sinuating their  roots  among  the  uncemented  masonry,  and 
threatening  ultimately  to  destroy  the  whole  structure.  The  only 
means  of  approach  to  Bieda  from  this  side  is  by  this  ancient 
bridge,  which  was  probably  on  the  Via  Clodia. 

From  this  point  there  seem  to  have  been  anciently  two  roads 
to  the  town — one  leading  directly  up  to  the  summit  of  the  wedge- 
shaped  table-land,  the  other  still  in  use,  running  beneath  the 
precipice  to  the  right,  and  sunk  deep  in  the  tufo  rock.  The  cliffs 
between  which  it  passes  are  hollowed  out  for  the  reception  of  the 
dead,  not,  as  at  Veii,  in  square  or  upright  niches,  which  could 
hold  only  an  urn  or  vase,  but  in  low-arched  recesses,  as  at 
Falleri,  of  sufficient  length  to  contain  a  body,  with  a  deep  hollow 
for  it  to  He  in,  and  a  groove  around  it  for  a  lid  of  stone  or  terra- 
cotta, apparently  serving  also  to  cany  off  the  water  which  might 
trickle  from  the  ground  above.  Nor  are  there  wanting  sepulchral 
chambers  hollowed  in  these  cliffs,  nor  the  water-channel  formed 
in  the  rock  on  one  side  of  the  road  to  keep  it  dry  and  clean,  and 
free  from  deposits  from  above. 

The  road  to  Bieda  creeps  beneath  the  cliffs  of  the  ancient  town, 
which  are  honey-combed  with  sepulchral  caverns,  broken  and 
blackened  with  smoke.  Here  and  there  among  them  tall  upright 
openings  in  the  cliff  show  the  mouths  of  ancient  sewers,  and  at 
intervals  are  fragments  of  the  Etruscan  wall  along  the  verge  of 
the  cliff;  in  one  spot  filling  a  natural  gap,  as  at  Civita  Castellana. 
The  masonry  is  of  rectangular  blocks  of  tufo,  of  the  size  and 


4  In  order  to  accommodate  the  masonry  of  several  Etruscan  and  Umbrian  cities — 

to  the  ascent  of  the  road,  a  course  of  wedge-  Populonia,  Fiesole,  Perugia,  Todi — and  this 

like  form  was  introduced,    which  gives  a  feature  is  also  to  be  seen  in  the  substruc- 

slight  rising  towards  the   arch.      Similar  tions  of  the  Appian  Way,  near  Aricia. 
wedge  courses  I  have  observed  in  the  walls 

VOL.  I.  p 


210  BIEDA.  [CHAP.  xix. 

arrangement  which  I  have  described  under  the  name  of  emplecton. 
The  ancient  town  certainly  occupied  part,  perhaps  the  whole,  of 
the  modern  village.  It  must  have  heen  very  long  and  narrow, 
since  the  height  on  which  it  stood  forms  but  a  ridge — a  mere 
spine-hone — between  the  parallel  glens. 

Bieda,  like  every  town  and  village  off  the  main  roads  through- 
out the  Roman  State,  is  a  wretched  place,  "  in  linked  squalor 
long  drawn  out,"  with  no  osteria  where  the  traveller,  who  values 
comfort,  could  venture  to  pass  the  night.  There  is  but  one 
respectable  house,  and  here  we  were  stopped  by  the  Count  of 
S.  Giorgio,  .who  stood  at  the  door  waiting  to  receive  us.  He 
apologised  for  delaying  us;  but  said  that  the  presence  of  strangers 
was  of  such  rare  occurrence  in  this  secluded  village,  that  he  could 
not  allow  us  to  pass  without  inquiring  if  he  could  be  of  service  to 
us.  AVe  learned  that  he  was  from  Turin,  but  having  bought 
some  estates  in  this  part  of  Italy,  he  had  acquired  therewith  the 
title  of  Duke  of  Bieda,  the  honour  of  magistracy,  and  almost 
feudal  dominion  over  the  inhabitants  of  this  village  and  its 
territoiy.  The  purchase  could  only  be  effected  on  these  terms, 
and  on  the  condition  of  his  residing  six  months  in  the  year  on 
this  spot,  which  he  regarded  as  a  veritable  exile  from  civilisation. 
He  pointed  out  a  ruin  opposite,  as  once  the  palace  of  the  Counts  of 
Anguillara,  the  old  feudal  lords  of  Bieda,  who,  among  other 
barbarous  privileges,  claimed  that  of  forestalling  every  bride- 
groom in  their  domain — by  insisting  on  which  the  last  of  these 
fine  old  Roman  gentlemen,  three  centuries  since,  fell  a  victim  to 
popular  fury,  and  his  mansion  was  destro}"ed.  Yet  much  of  the 
power  of  its  feudal  chiefs  has  descended  to  the  present  lord  of 
Bieda,  who  told  us  he  was  almost  absolute  ;  that  his  will  was 
law;  that  he  had  power  over  the  lives  and  properties  of  his. 
tenants,  being  supreme  judge  of  both  civil  and  criminal  causes — 
in  a  country,  be  it  remembered,  where  trial  by  jury  was  then 
unknown.  His  rule,  however,  seemed  based  on  love,  rather  than 
on  fear — more  akin  to  that  of  the  chief  of  a  clan  than  to  feudal 
seigniory,  on  the  one  hand,  or  to  the  authority  of  an  English 
landowner  over  his  tenantry,  on  the  other. 

The  Count  courteously  proposed  to  act  as  our  cicerone  to  the 
antiquities  of  the  neighbourhood,  and  mounted  his  steed  to 
accompany  us. 

Our  first  object  was  an  ancient  bridge  of  three  arches,  which 
lay  in  the  ravine  to  the  south-east  of  the  town.  The  Count  led 
the  way  down  the  descent,  through  a  narrow  c^eft,  sunk  some 


P  2 


CHAP,  xix.]      ANCIENT    BRIDGE    OF    THREE    AECHES.  213 

twenty  feet  in  the  tufo,  with  a  channel  or  furrow  in  the  middle, 
so  deep  and  narrow  that  the  horses  could  scarcely  put  one  foot 
before  the  other,  and  we  were  obliged  to  adhere  to  the  Horatian 
maxim,  in  mcdio  tiitissimus,  lest  our  legs  should  be  crushed 
against  the  walls  of  rock. 

On  emerging  from  this  cleft,  the  triple-arched  bridge  stood 
before  us.  The  central  arch  was  a  true  semicircle,  thirty  feet  in 
span ;  the  side  arches  were  only  ten  feet  wide,  and  stilted.  All 
were  formed  of  rusticated  blocks,  with  edges  so  sharp  and  fresh 
that  it  was  difficult  to  believe  it  the  work  of  two  hundred  years 
since,  much  less  of  two  thousand ;  but  the  first  step  I  set  on  the 
bridge  convinced  me  of  its  high  antiquity.  The  central  arch  has 
been  split  throughout  its  entire  length,  probably  by  an  earth- 
quake ;  the  blocks,  being  uncemented,  have  been  much  dis- 
located, but  few  have  fallen.  It  is  clear  that  this  split  occurred 
at  an  early  period ;  for  in  crossing  the  bridge,  passengers  have 
been  obliged  to  step  clear  of  the  gaps,  which  in  some  parts  yawn 
from  one  to  two  feet  wide,  and,  by  treading  in  each  other's  foot- 
steps, have  worn  holes  far  deeper  than  pious  knees  have  done  in 
the  steps  at  A'Becket's  shrine,  or  in  the  Santa  Scala  at  Rome. 
They  have  worn  a  hollow  pathwa}'  almost  through  the  thick 
masses  of  rock  ;  in  some  spots  entirely  through — a  perpendicular 
depth  of  more  than  three  feet.5 

From  the  superior  neatness  of  its  masonry,  I  have  no  hesita- 
tion in  assigning  to  this  bridge  a  later  date  than  to  that  on  the 
other  side  of  Bieda.  That  being  of  similar  masonry  to  the  town- 
walls,  may  well  be  of  Etruscan  construction.  This  may  be  as 
late  as  the  Roman  domination  in  Etruria,  3ret  is  in  the  Etruscan 
style,  and  the  work  probably  of  Etruscan  architects,  like  other 
public  works  in  Rome  and  her  territories,  raised  in  the  earlier 
ages  of  the  City,  in  consequence  of  the  system  she  adopted  of 
supplying  her  own  deficiencies  in  the  useful  and  ornamental  arts 
by  the  superior  skill  of  her  neighbours.  It  must  be  remembered 
that  this  part  of  Etruria  was  not  conquered  before  the  fourth 


5  The  bridge   is   of  tufo,    usually  soft,  during  the  middle  ages,  as  the  masonry  at- 

flaky  or  friable,  but  here  of  a  peculiarly  tests,  all  further  necessity  of  following  the 

close,  hard  character,   as  is  shown  by  the  foot- worn  track  was  obviated,  yet  the  bridge 

remarkable  sharpness  of  the  rustications.  was  still  scarcely  practicable  for  beasts.    It 

And  it  must  be  observed  that  for  ages  the  is  evident  that  the  hollow  pathway  has  been 

bridge  must  have  been  impassable  to  beasts,  worn  wholly  by  human  feet,  and  prior  to 

for  the  same  earthquake  that  split  the  arch  the  repairs  of  the   bridge  in  the  middle 

caused  the  outer  part  of  it  on  one  side  to  ages, 
fall ;  this,  however,   having  been  repaired 


214  BIEDA.  [CHAP.  xix. 

century  of  Rome  ;  yet  the  Etruscans  must  previously  have  had 
bridges  over  these  streams ;  and  that  they  could  raise  perfect 
arches  in  much  earlier  times  the  Cloaca  Maxima  remains  to 
attest.  These  bridges  have  an  air  of  greater  antiquity  than  the 
two  at  Veii,  which  have  been  accounted  Etruscan.  It  is  probable 
that  they  were  both  on  the  line  of  the  Via  Clodia,  which  passed 
through  Blera  on  its  way  to  Tuscania. 

The  Count  declared  that  the  bridge  was  an  enigma,  as  none 
could  perceive  by  what  road  it  had  anciently  communicated  with 
the  town — the  cleft  by  which  we  had  descended  not  being  deemed 
of  sufficient  antiquity.  But  to  me  it  WAS  plain  as  the  cliffs  that 
rose  around  me,  that  this  very  cleft  had  formed  the  ancient 
approach  to  Bieda  from  this  side ;  for  I  had  observed,  almost 
throughout  its  length,  traces  of  the  water-channels  recessed  at, 
the  foot  of  its  rocky  walls,  just  above  the  original  level  of  the  road ; 
and  it  was  no  less  clear  that  the  deep  and  narrow  furrow  along 
which  we  had  steered  with  so  much  difficult}',  had  been  worn  by 
the  feet  of  beasts  through  many  ages,  as  from  the  narrowness  of 
the  road  they  had  been  constrained  always  to  keep  in  the  middle. 

The  scenery  in  the  hollow  is  very  fine.  Just  beyond  the  bridge 
the  glen  again  forks  and  the  cliffs  rise  to  a  vast  height.  I  do  not 
recollect  a  site  in  the  volcanic  district  of  Etruria,  save  Sorano  in 
Tuscany,  where  the  chasms  are  more  profound,  and  the  scenery 
more  picturesque,  than  around  Bieda. 

Close  to  the  bridge  is  a  large  cave,  the  cliff  above  which  was 
pitted  with  bullet  marks,  which  were  thus  explained  by  the 
Count : — "  Every  tenant  of  mine  on  returning  home  from  the 
wild-boar  chase,  if  successful,  discharges  his  piece  against  this 
rock,  and  I,  or  my  steward,  answer  the  summons  by  appearing  on 
the  top  of  the  cliff  and  claiming  the  boar's  thigh  as  my  right." 

Between  these  ancient  bridges,  and  just  below  the  town,  is  a 
modern  bridge,  overhung  by  a  ruined  tower  of  the  middle  ages, 
and  in  the  opposite  steep  is  another  artificial  cleft  in  the  rock — 
another  Etruscan  roadway.  From  this  height  the  whole  face  of 
the  slope  below  Bieda  is  seen  honeycombed  with  caves,  originally 
sepulchres,  extending  in  terraces  and  scattered  groups  down  to 
the  banks  of  the  stream.  It  is  a  very  warren  of  tombs,  used  by 
the  Biedani  as  hog-sties,  cattle-stalls,  or  wine-cellars.  The 
application  to  the  former  purposes  is  a  profanation,  but  of  the 
latter  change  who  shall  complain  ? — 

"  Better  to  hold  the  sparkling  grape 
Than  nurse  the  earthworm's  slimy  brood." 


CHAP,  xix.]  VARIETY    OF    SEPULCHRES.  215 

At  the  top  of  the  ascent  we  were  in  an  undulating  plain,  appa- 
rently an  unbroken  level,  with  the  village  of  Bieda  in  the  inidst. 
The  Count  pointed  out  the  extent  of  his  domain,  which  was  far 
too  large  for  the  limited  number  of  his  tenantry.  At  the  close  of 
•every  year  he  assembles  his  vassals,  as  they  may  be  called,  and 
having  determined  what  part  of  his  estate  is  to  be  cultivated, 
.and  having  partitioned  it  into  lots,  he  makes  them  draw  for 
the  several  portions.  He  takes  a  share  of  the  produce  in  lieu  of 
rent. 

On  our  return  to  the  village  we  visited  the  church,  in  front  of 
which  stood  a  Roman  sarcophagus  with  a  good  bas-relief,  found 
in  the  neighbourhood.  We  were  not  a  little  surprised  to  see  in 
this  secluded  place  a  genuine  altar-piece  of  Annibale  Caracci — 
the  Scourging  of  Christ.  At  the  Count's  mansion  we  found  a 
sumptuous  repast  spread  for  us,  and  refusing  his  pressing  invita- 
tion to  stay  the  night,  we  groped  our  way  in  the  dark  to  Vetralla 
— thus  closing  our  first  day  at  Bieda,  and  one  of  the  most  agree- 
able of  our  Etruscan  travel. 

Bieda  is  a  site  which  deserves  much  more  attention  than  it  has 
jet  received  from  antiquaries.  In  no  Etruscan  necropolis  are 
the  tombs  hollowed  in  the  face  of  cliffs  more  numerous.  The 
glens  011  every  side  of  the  town  abound  in  them,  and  they  face 
every  point  of  the  compass,  though  here,  as  elsewhere,  few  have  a 
northern  or  eastern  aspect.  On  this  account,  the  cliffs  on  the 
western  side  of  the  town,  even  under  the  very  walls,  are  honey- 
combed with  tombs,  while  scarcely  one  is  to  be  seen  on  the 
opposite  side  of  the  glen,  or  in  the  cliifs  beneath  the  town  on  the 
east.  For  variety  of  character  the  tombs  of  Bieda  are  parti- 
cularly interesting.  At  Castel  d'Asso  there  is  much  monotony ; 
even  at  Norchia,  with  a  few  striking  exceptions,  one  prevailing 
fashion  is  maintained  throughout.  But  Bieda,  without  any 
marked  peculiarities  of  its  own,  seems  to  unite  those  of  many 
other  necropoles.  Here  we  find  tombs  with  architectural  facades, 
like  those  of  Castel  d'Asso  and  Norchia,  but  in  general  differently 
moulded,  and  in  a  simpler  and  severer  style.  Here  are  many, 
as  at  Civita  Castellaiia  and  Sutri,  having  a  mere  doorway,  without 
any  inscription  or  external  decoration.  Here  are  the  body- 
niches  of  the  same  two  cemeteries — the  columbarium-tombs  of 
Toscanella  and  Bolsena,  and  even  something  like  the  curious 
cliff-columbarium  of  Veii — the  house-like  tombs  of  Sovana  ;  and 
certain  rock-hewn  isolated  monuments,  square  or  conical,  of  a 
character  rarely  seen  elsewhere.  In  one  instance  is  a  bench  cut 


216 


BIEDA. 


[CHAP.  xix. 


out  of  the  rock  in  front  of  a  tomb — n  practical  "  Siste  Viator!" 
which  I  have  observed  also  on  other  sites. 

In   cornices  there   is  a  great  variety  at  Bieda.     One  struck 

ine  as  very  peculiar;  it  had  no 
rounded  mouldings,  but  three 
distinct  fascice,  retreating  one 
above  the  other,  and  though  not 
ornamental,  its  simplicity  and 
massiveness  made  it  very  impos- 
ing. See  the  woodcut,  fig.  3. 
The  moulded  door,  which  fre- 
quently occurs  on  the  fagades,  is 
in  no  instance  like  those  of  Castel 
d'Asso  and  Norchia,  but  inva- 
riably as  in  the  woodcut  below. 
In  most  instances  this  is  a 
mere  moulding,  or  pseudo-door  ; 
in  others,  a  real  one ;  in  others 
again  it  forms  a  framework  to  a 
small  niche,  which  must  have 
contained  an  um  or  vase,  pro- 
bably with  the  ashes  of  the 
deceased. 

These  door-mouldings  are  very  common  in  Etruria.  On  some 
sites,  Cervetri,  Toscanella,  Vulci,  and  Chiusi,  for  instance,  they 
are  found,  not  on  the  face  of  cliffs  as  here,  but 
at  the  entrances  to  sepulchres,  many  feet  below 
the  surface ;  and  sometimes  within  the  tombs 
themselves.  They  are  also  often  found  on 
cinerary  urns,  of  house  or  temple  shape.  The 
form  is  truly  Doric,  particularly  as  it  is  seen  at 
Bieda  ;  it  is  found  also  in  archaic  monuments 
of  the  Doric  colonies  in  Italy  and  Sicily .G 
Whether  it  be  the  representation  of  the  ordinary  door,  or  a  mere 
sepulchral  ornament,  with  or  without  a  symbolical  meaning,  has 


Fiy.  3. 


MOULBIXGS    OF    TOMBS    AT    BIEDA. 


r 


MOULDED    DOOR   AT 
BIEDA. 


6  At  Cefalft,  the  ancient  Cephalcedium, 
in  Sicily,  where  it  is  found  in  connection 
with  Cyclopean  masonry, — and  at  Canosa, 
the  ancient  Canusium,  in  Apulia,  in  a 
tomb  of  four  chambers  in  every  respect 
extremely  like  the  Etruscan,  discovered  in 
1828.  The  architrave,  however,  is  by  no 
means  so  heavy  in  this  as  in  the  Etruscan 


tombs,  but  more  like  the  Doric.  This  tomb 
is  remarkable  for  having  two  false  windows, 
painted  on  one  wall — one  on  each  side  a 
doorway.  Ann.  Inst.  1832,  pp.  285—9, 
and  Mon.  Ined.  Inst.  I.  tav.  XLIII.  Real 
windows  so  situated  are  not  uncommon  in 
Etruscan  tombs,  and  occur  most  frequently 
at  Cervetri,  Bieda,  and  Chiusi. 


CHAP,  xix.]  SINGULAR   CONICAL   TOMB.  217 

been  questioned.  I  have  no  doubt  of  the  former,  not  only 
because  it  is  found  on  urns  and  tombs  which  are  evident  repre- 
sentations of  houses,  but  on  account  of  the  high  probability  that 
these  rows  and  streets  of  sepulchres  were  designed  to  imitate 
the  buildings  in  the  city  opposite. 


CONICAL    TOMB,    HEWN    IN    THE    ROCK. 

Among  the  sepulchral  varieties  of  Bieda,  two  claim  particular 
notice.  One  of  these,  which  lies  in  the  glen  to  the  east  of  the 
town,  is  a  cone  of  rock,  hewn  into  steps,  or  a  series  of  circular 
bases,  tapering  upwards.  Of  these,  four  only  now  remain,  and 
the  cone  is  truncated,  but  whether  this  were  its  original  form,  it 
is  not  easy  to  say.  Like  the  conical  tombs  of  Vulci  and 
Tarquinii,  it  was  probably  surmounted  by  a  sphinx,  lion,  pine- 
cone,  or  some  other  funereal  emblem,  or  by  a  cippus,  or  statue. 
The  rock  around  it  is  cut  into  a  trench  and  rampart.  Within  the 
cone  is  the  sepulchre,  which  is  double-chambered,  entered  by  a 
level  passage — not  lying  beneath  the  surface  as  in  the  conical 
tombs  of  Tarquinii.  There  is  a  monument  at  Vulci  very  similar 
to  this  rock-hewn  tumulus  of  Bieda. 

The  other  tomb  to  which  I  have  referred  retains  some  traces 
of  colour  on  its  walls — the  only  instance  of  this  among  the  multi- 
tudinous sepulchres  of  Bieda  now  open.  It  is  also  remarkable  for 
being  supported  in  its  centre  by  a  column,  with  base,  capital,  and 
abacus,  of  simple  character.  Whatever  figures  may  have  been 
painted  on  its  walls,  are  now  obliterated ;  but  ribbons  of  various 
hues,  and  the  Greek  wave-ornament,  can  be  distinguished 


218  BIEBA.  [CHAP.  xix. 

through  the  soot  from  the  shepherd's  fires,  which  thickly  coats 
the  walls. 

The  tomhs  of  Bieda  present  no  great  variety  in  their  interiors. 
'They  are  usually  surrounded  by  benches  of  rock,  about  two  feet 
and  a  half  from  the  ground  ;  sometimes  merely  for  the  support  of 
sarcophagi,  but  more  frequently  hollowed  out  for  the  reception  of 
bodies.  The  fronts  of  these  benches  are  adorned  with  pilasters, 
often  in  imitation  of  the  legs  of  a  banqueting-couch,  which  the 
bench  itself  is  designed  to  resemble.  The  niches  hollowed  in  the 
cliffs  are  usually  for  entire  bodies,  whence  it  may  be  inferred  that 
the  custom  of  burning  the  dead  was  not  prevalent  on  this  site. 
Double-chambered  tombs  are  b}r  no  means  rare,  though  I  saw  no 
instance  of  one  with  more  than  two  chambers. 

In  one  of  our  excursions  to  Bieda,  we  varied  the  route  by  pass- 
ing through  San  Giovanni  di  Bieda,  a  wretched  village  two  or 
three  miles  from  the  former  place,  in  the  midst  of  park-like 
scenery,  but  with  no  antiquities  in  its  neighbourhood.7 

Bieda,  it  has  been  said,  was  on  the  Via  Clodia,  or  Claudia. 
'This  Way  parted  from  the  Cassian  a  few  miles  from  Rome,  ran 
by  Ad  Careias,  or  Galera,  to  Sabate  on  the  Lacus  Sabatinus,  and 
through  Forum  Clodii,  Blera,  and  Tuscania  to  Cosa,  where  it  fell 
into  the  Aurelian.8 

"  Gell  has  stated  that  there  are  tombs  at  Vetralla  and  Viterbo,"  whereas  it  is  three 

this  spot  with  genuine  Etruscan  mouldings,  miles  on  the  other  side  of  Vetralla. 
but  it  is  evident  that  lie  had  never  visited  8  Sec  p.    01. 

it,  since  he  places  it  "on  the  road  between 


CHAPTER    XX. 

PALO.—AL8IUM. 

Kecnon  Argolico  dilectum  littus  Haleso 
Alsium.  SIL.  ITALICCS. 

The  place  of  tombs, 

Where  lay  the  mighty  bones  of  ancient  men, 
Old  knights,  and  over  them  the  sea-wind  sang, 
Shrill,  chill,  with  flakes  of  foam. — TENNYSON. 

FEW  roads  in  Italy  are  now  more  frequented  than  the  coast- 
line of  railway  between  Borne  and  Pisa,  and  none  in  point  of 
scenery  are  more  uninteresting.  Yet  along  this  coast  lie  some  of 
the  principal  cities  of  Etruria — cities  of  the  most  hoary  antiquity, 
foremost  of  old  in  power  and  in  wealth,  in  arts  and  in  arms, 
as  well  as  in  the  intimate  association  of  their  history  with  that 
of  Rome,  and  still  prominent  in  interest  for  the  wonders  they 
have  yet  to  displa}r  in  their  local  monuments.  So  far  as  intrinsic 
beauty  is  concerned,  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  in  Italy  a  tract 
less  inviting,  more  bleak,  dreary,  and  desolate,  than  that  which 
lies  between  Civita  Vecchia  and  Home,  and  to  the  traveller  on 
first  making  an  acquaintance  with  that  land  of  famed  fertility 
and  beauty,  as  many  used  to  do,  and  some  still  do,  at  that  port, 
nothing  can  be  more  disappointing.  He  who  approaches  the 
Eternal  City  for  the  first  time  from  this  side  has  his  whole  soul 
absorbed  in  recollections  of  her  ancient  glories,  or  in  conceptions 
of  her  modern  magnificence.  He  heeds  not  the  objects  on  the 
road,  as  he  skirts  the  desert  shore,  or  the  more  desolate  undula- 
tions of  the  Campagna,  save  when  here  and  there  a  ruined  bridge 
or  crumbling  tower  serves  to  rivet  his  attention  more  fixedly  on 
the  past.  A  thousand  togaed  phantoms  rise  before  his  eyes ; 
or  the  dome  of  St.  Peter's  swells  in  his  perspective,  and  the 
treasured  glories  of  the  Vatican  and  the  Capitol  are  revealed  to 
his  imagination.  Yet  when  he  has  attained  the  desire  of  his 
e}res,  and  can  look  from  the  Imperial  City  to  objects  around  her, 


220  PALO.  [CHAP.  xx. 

he  will  find  along  this  desert,  arid  shore,  or  among  the  wooded 
hills  inland,  sites  where  he  may  linger  many  a  delightful  hour 
in  contemplation  of  "  the  wrecks  of  days  departed." 

Most  of  these  sites  are  now  easily  reached  by  the  train  which 
leaves  Rome  three  times  a  day.  It  was  not  so  when  I  first  knew 
this  coast  some  thirty  and  odd  years  ago,  when,  if  the  diligence 
chanced  to  be  full,  it  was  often  impossible  to  find  any  conveyance, 
not  even  a  donkey  as  a  montnrey  between  one  point  and  another. 
To  such  straits  have  I  been  put,  that  I  have  a  lively  recollection 
of  entering  Rome  one  fine  morning  on  a  fish- cart,  after  a  night's 
journey  from  Palo,  spread-eagled  some  fifteen  feet  above  the 
road,  on  a  pile  of  fish-baskets. 

An  hour's  run  from  Rome  by  the  railway  brings  you  to  Mac- 
carese  (twenty-one  miles),  on  the  river  Arrone.  At  the  mouth 
of  the  same  river  stands  the  Torre  di  Maccarese,  supposed  to 
mark  the  site  of  the  Etruscan  town  of  Fregena3  or  Fregella?,1- 
and  its  position  on  a  low  swampy  shore,  and  in  the  vicinity  of  a 
noxious  marsh  or  fen,  called  Stagno  di  Maccarese,  answers  to 
the  picture  of  Silius  Italicus — obscsscc  campo  squalente  Free/elite.* 
In  very  early  times  it  ma}'  have  been  of  importance  ;  for  Tar- 
quinius  Priscus  invited  Turianus,  an  artist  of  this  place,  to 
Rome;  to  make  the  terra-cotta  statue  of  Jupiter,  for  his  new 
temple  on  the  Capitol.3  We  hear  no  more  of  it,  however,  till  it 
was  colonized  by  the  Romans  in  509  (B.C.  245)  ;4  and  in  563 
(B.C.  191),  with  the  other  maritime  colonies  of  this  coast,  it 
was  compelled  to  assist  in  fitting  out  a  fleet  against  Antiochus 
the  Great.5  It  was  in  existence  at  the  commencement  of  the 
Empire,6  but  after  that  we  lose  sight  of  it  ;  and  now,  so  far  as  I 

1  Cluver,  II.  p.   499.     Nibby,  Dint,  di  the  Yolsci,  on  the  ground  that  the  fictile 
lloma,  II.  p.  281.    The  Maritime  Itinerary  art  was  early  practiced  in  that  land,  as  is 
places    it    between    Portus    Augusti    and  proved  by  the  celebrated  bas-reliefs  found 
Alsium,  nine  miles  from  each.  at  Yelletri ;  but,  to  reconcile  this  view  with 

2  Sil.  Ital.  VIII.  477.  the  rest  of  Pliny's  statement,  he  supposes 

3  Pliny,  who  records  this  fact  (XXXV.  this  Volscian  to  have  studied  art  in  the 
45),  calls  the  place  Fregellce  ;  but  that  he  Etruscan   school.     All  this   seems   to   me 
refers  to  the  town  of  Etruria,  and  not  to  unnecessary,    and  the  simplest  and   mos-.t 
Fregellrti  of  the  Yolsci,  is  manifest  from  the  rational  interpretation  is  to  suppose  that 
context,  as  well  as  from  a  comparison  with  Pliny  referred  to  the  Fregense  of  Etruria. 
Liv.   I.   56  ;  and  is  confirmed  by  the  ex-  4  Yell.   Paterc.   I.    14  j   cf.   Epitome  of 
tended  renown  of  the  Etruscans  in  the  fictile  Livy,  XIX. 

art.     Moreover,    Silius    Italicus    calls   the  6  Liv.  XXXVI.  3. 

Etruscan  town  Fregellae,  and  Pliny  (III.  9)  c  Pliny    (III.    8)    classes    it   among   the 

the  Latin  town,  Freginae,  so  that  the  names  maritime  colonies  of  Etruria.     Strabo  (V. 

seem  to  have  been  used  indifferently.     Yet  p.    225)  also  cites    it  as  a  small  town  on 

Miiller  (Etrusk.    IV.   3,  2)  takes  the  town  this  coast,  and  calls  it  Fregenia. 

whence  Turianus  came  for  the  Fregellse  of 


CHAP,  xx.]  FREGEXJi:— ALSIUM.  221 

can  learn,  there  are  no  local  remains  visible  to  mark  the  Etruscan 
character  of  the  8ite. 

The  next  station  is  Palidoro,  twenty- six  miles  and  a  half  from 
Rome,  marked  by  a  church  and  two  large  farm-houses.  At  a 
spot  not  far  from  this,  called  Selva  la  Rocca,  the  Duchess  of 
Sermoneta,  in  1839  and  1840,  excavated  some  tumuli,  and  found 
vases  of  the  most  beautiful  Greek  style,  some  resembling  those 
of  Sicily  and  Athens  ;  besides  pottery  of  more  ancient  character  ; 
together  with  articles  in  gold,  bronze,  amber,  smalt,  glass,  and 
alabaster.7 

A  mile  or  two  beyond,  at  a  spot  called  Statua,  are  some  ruins, 
supposed  to  mark  the  site  of  Ad  Turres,  a  station  on  the  Via 
Aurelia.8 

Palo  station  is  forty-nine  kilometres,  or  thirty  miles  from 
Home  by  railway,  though  some  miles  less  by  the  old  high  road. 

Palo  is  well  known  to  travellers  as  the  half-way  house  between 
Rome  and  Civita  Vecchia ;  but  few  bear  in  mind  that  the  post- 
house,  the  ruined  fortress,  and  the  few  fishers'  huts  on  the  beach, 
represent  the  Alsium  of  antiquit}T — one  of  the  most  venerable 
towns  of  Italy,  founded  or  occupied  by  the  Pelasgi,  ages  before 
the  arrival  of  the  Etruscans  on  these  shores.9 

It  is  strange  that  no  record  is  preserved  of  Alsium  during  the 
Etruscan  period  ;  but  this  may  be  owing  to  its  dependence  on 
Crere,  with  whose  history  and  fortunes  its  own  were  probably 
identical.  That  it  was  occupied  by  the  Etruscans  we  learn  from 
history,  confirmed  by  recent  researches.  The  earliest  notice  of 
it  by  Roman  writers  is  its  receiving  a  colony  in  the  year  507. x 
At  no  time  does  it  seem  to  have  been  of  much  importance  ;  the 
highest  condition  it  attained,  so  far  as  we  can  learn,  being  that  of 

'  Abeken,  Bull.  Inst.  1839,  p.  84  ;  1840,  coast.     For  both   he  and  Welcker  are  of 

p.    133  ;    Mittelitalien,    p.    267  ;    Micali,  opinion  that  the   Pelasgic  tongue,  though 

Monum.  Ined.  p.  374.  differing  from    the   Greek,    bore   sufficient 

8  Mentioned  in  the  Itinerary  of   Anto-  analogy  to  it,  to  enable  iis  to  trace  by  that 
ninus,  as  22  miles  from  Rome.     Here   it  means  the  origin  of  the  names  of  certain 
is  that  Cramer  (Ancient  Italy,   I.  p.   208)  ancient  localities. 

places  Alsium.  1  Veil.   Paterc.   I.   14.     As  a  maritime 

9  Dion.    Hal.   I.   p.    16.     Silius  Italicus  colony  it  was  compelled  to  furnish  its  quota 
(VIII.  476)  refers  its  origin  to  the  Argive  of    troops    in  the    year  547    (B.C.    207), 
Halesus,  son  of  Agamemnon,  from  whom  when  in  the  Second  Punic  War  Italy  was 
he  supposes  it  to  have  derived  its  name.  threatened  with  a  second  invasion  of  Car- 
Its  Pelasgic  origin  being  admitted,  it  seems  thaginians  under  Hasdrubal.     Liv.  XXVII. 
just  as  likely  to  have  derived  its  name  from  38.      Pliny   (III.    8)  and  Ptolemy  (Geog. 
a\s—  the  sea  ;  or  from  &\ffos — a  grove,  as  p.  68,  ed.  Bert.)  certify  to  its  existence  as 
Gerhard  opines  (Ann.  Inst.  1831,  p.  205),  a  colony  in  their  days. 

in  reference   to  the  dense  woods   on  the 


222  PALO.  [CHAP.  xx. 

a  small  town.3  This  may  have  been  owing  to  its  unhealthy 
position,  on  a  low  swampy  coast.  Yet  it  was  much  frequented 
by  the  wealthy  Romans;3  and  even  the  Emperor  Antoninus  chose 
it  as  his  retreat,  and  hud  an  Imperial  villa  on  this  shore.4 

Havcva  un  bel  giardin  sopra  una  riva, 
Che  colli  intorno  e  tutto  1  mare  scopriva. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  centuiy  Alsium,  like  the  neigh- 
bouring Pyrgi,  was  no  longer  a  town,  but  merely  the  site  of  a 
large  villa  ;5  we  have  no  subsequent  record  of  it,  and  it  was  pro- 
bably destroyed  by  the  Goths  or  Saracens,  who  devastated  this 
coast  in  the  middle  ages. 

Not  a  vestige  of  the  Pelasgic  or  I^truscan  town  is  now  visible  ; 
but  there  are  extensive  substructions  of  lloman.  times  along  the 
beach.  The  fort,  also,  which  was  built  in  the  fifteenth  centuiy, 
has  some  ancient  materials  in  its  walls.  About  a  mile  to  the 
east  are  some  very  extensive  ruins  on  the  shore,  apparently  of 
one  of  the  lloman  villas. 

Alsium,  though  its  site  had  been  pretty  clearly  indicated  by 
the  notices  of  the  ancients,6  had  been  well-nigh  forgotten,  when 
some  years  since  the  enterprise  of  a  lady  revived  interest  in  the 
spot. 

About  a  mile  and  a  half  inland  from  Palo,  close  to  the  deserted 
post-house  of  Monteroni,  are  four  or  five  large  tumuli,  standing 
in  the  open  plain.  They  bear  every  appearance  of  being  natural 

-  Until.  I.  224.     Strabo  (Y.  p.  225Ki!so  at  Ceri,  mentions  a  villa  at  Alsium.     Vis- 
speaks  of  it  as  a  mere  iro\ixviov.     Yet  the  conti,  Mon.  Ant.  di  Geri,  p.  12. 
fact  of  giving  its  name  to  a  lake — now  Lago  4  Fronto,  de  Feriis  Alsiensibus.    ftruter 
Martignano— full   20  miles  distant,  seems  (p.   271,   3)  gives  a  dedicatory  inscription 
to  imply  an  extensive  ayer,  and  no  small  to  Marcus  Aurelius,  by  the  Decuriones  of 
importance.     For  the  Lacus  Alsietinus,  see  the  Colony  of  Alsium,  which  was  found  at 
Frontinus,  de  Aquaeduct.  II.  p.  48.    Cluver  Palo.     Of.  Cluver.  II.  p.  497. 
(II.  p.  524)  errs  in  taking  the  Lago  Strac-  5  Kutil.  I.  224 — 

ciacappa  to  Le  the  Lacus  Alsietinus.  XT          -n  •  i 

...     ,  .,,.  JN  unc  villfe  grandes,  oppida  parva  pnus. 

•'  Pompey  had  a  villa  here.     Cicero,  pro 

Milone,    XX.      M.  .ZEmilius   Porcina  also  6  Strabo  (V.  pp.  225,  226)  places  it  on 

built  one  on  .so  magnificent  a  scale,  that  he  this  coast  between  Pyrgi  and  Fregenae.   And 

was  accused  of  it  as  a  crime,  and  heavily  so  also  the  Maritime  Itinerary  marks  it  as. 

fined   by  the  lloman  people.     Yal.   Max.  9  miles  from  the  latter,  and  12  from  the 

VIII.  1,  Damn.  7.    And  the  mother-in-law  former  town.     The  Peutingerian  Table  is 

of  the  younger  Pliny  had  also  a  villa  at  in  error  in  calling  it  10  miles  from  Pyrgi, 

Alsium,  which  had  previously  belonged  to  for  12  is  the  true  distance.     These  discre- 

Ruf  us  Yerginius,  who  took  such  delight  in  pancies  are  of  little  importance ;  the  general 

it,  that  he  called  it  "the  nestling-place  of  position  of   a  place  being  thus  indicated, 

his  old  age." — gencctutis  SUCK  nidulum —  the  precise  site  can  be  determined  by  extant. 

and  was  buried  on  the  spot.     Plin.  Epist.  remains. 
VI.  10  ;  cf.  IX.  19.     An  inscription,  found 


CHAP.  xx.J  TUMULI    OF    MONTEEOXI.  225 

hillocks— huge  masses  of  tufo  rising  above  the  surrounding  level. 
Hence  their  ordinary  appellation  of  "  Colli  Tufarini."  Yet  their 
isolation  and  similarity  to  the  sepulchral  mounds  of  Cervetri, 
induced  the  Duchess  of  Serinoneta,  in  whose  land  they  lay,  to 
probe  their  recesses.  This  was  in  1838.  One  of  the  most 
regular  in  form,  which  was  about  forty  feet  high,  was  found  to 
be  girt  by  a  low  basement  wall  of  tufo  masonry,  which  formed  a 
periphery  of  nearly  eight  hundred  feet.  This  Avail  had  two  but- 
tresses on  the  north,  sundry  drains  on  the  south,  and  on  the 
west  a  hole  containing  a  small  stone  cylinder.  Though  the 
sepulchral  character  of  the  tumulus  was  thus  clearly  indicated, 
the  entrance  to  the  tomb  was  long  sought  in  vain  ;  at  length, 
some  forty  or  fifty  feet  up  the  slope,  a  passage  Avas  found 
cut  in  the  rock,  and  leading  to  the  tomb  ;  and  it  was  remarked 
that  the  mouth  of  the  passage  was  pointed  at  by  the  cylinder  in 
the  basement-wall.  The  tomb  closely  resembled  the  Grotta 
Regulini-Galassi  of  Cervetri ;  for  it  was  a  long  passage,  walled 
with  regular  masonry,  the  courses  converging  till  they  formed  a 
rude  Gothic-like  arch,  which  terminated  in  a  similar  square 
channel  or  groove  ;  and  the  high  antiquity  indicated  by  its  con- 
struction was  likewise  confirmed  by  the  character  of  its  furniture. 
No  painted  vases  of  Greek  form  or  design;  nothing  that  betrayed 
the  influence  of  Hellenic  art ;  all  was  here  closely  allied  to  the 
Egyptian.7 

No  other  tomb  was  discovered  in  this  mound,  but  a  well  or 
shaft  in  the  floor,  twenty  feet  deep,  opened  into  a  horizontal 
passage,  about  a  hundred  feet  long ;  and  here  were  three  other 
shafts,  probably  sunk  to  other  sepulchral  chambers  on  a  still 
loAver  level.  This  system  of  shafts  and  galleries  reminds  us  of 
the  Pyramids,  and  is  in  harmony  Avith  the  Egyptian  character  of 
the  contents  of  this  tomb. 

At  the  foot  of  this  mound,  sunk  beneath  the  surface  of  the 
plain,  Avas  discoArered  a  double-chambered  sepulchre,  of  more 
ordinary  Etruscan  character,  and  its  contents  shoAved  onry  that 
general  resemblance  to  the  Egyptian  Avhich  bespeaks  a  high 
antiquity.8 

7  Rude  pottery  of  black  earth,  with  8  They  consisted  of  pottery,  and  terra- 
figures  scratched  thereon  ;  flat  vases  of  cotta  figures  in  the  Oriental  Etruscan  style, 
smalt,  ornamented  with  lotus-flowers,  some  with  four  wings,  forming  the  feet  of 
purely  Egyptian  in  character,  and  ostrich-  vases.  The  description  of  these  tombs  I 
eggs  painted,  as  in  the  Isis-tomb  of  Vulci,  have  taken  from  Abelien,  Bull.  Inst.  1839, 
Leads  of  smalt  and  arnber,  and  goldlamince  pp.  81 — 84  ;  1841,  p.  39  ;  and  also  from 
with  archaic  reliefs.  his  Mittelitalien,  pp.  242,  267,  272,  274. 


•224  PALO.  [CHAP.  xx. 

These  tombs,  from  their  position,  must  have  belonged  to  the 
'necropolis  of  Alsium ;  and  thus,  while  one  bears  out  Dionysius* 
statement  of  the  existence  of  an  Etruscan  population  on  this 
site,  the  other  confirms  his  testimony  as  to  its  prior  occupation 
"by  a  more  ancient  race. 

Were  excavations  continued  here,  other  tombs  would  doubtless 
"be  discovered.  But  since  the  Duchess's  death,  little  has  been 
•done  on  this  coast. 

It  is  scarcely  worth  while  to  visit  the  tumuli  of  Monteroni,  for 
the  chambers  are  now  re-closed  with  earth  ;  even  the  basement- 
wall  is  re-covered  or  destroyed,  and  not  a  trace  remains  to  attest 
their  sepulchral  character. 

In  spite  of  its  venerable  antiquity,  Palo  is  a  most  dreary  place. 
Without  extant  remains  of  interest,  or  charms  of  scenery,  it  can 
•offer  no  inducement  to  the  traveller  to  halt  one  hour,  save  that 
he  will  here  find  the  best  accommodation  in  the  neighbourhood 
of  Cervetri ;  and  should  he  propose  to  take  more  than  a  passing 
glance  at  that  site,  he  may  well  admit  the  claims  of  Palo  to  be 
his  head-quarters.  The  fare  is  not  such  as  the  place  once 
afforded — no  "  fatted  oysters,  savoury  apples,  pastry,  confec- 
tioner}r,  and  generous  wines,  in  transparent  faultless  goblets," 
dainties  fit  to  set  before  a  king — convivium  regium9 — but,  for  a 
wayside  hostelry,  the  post-house  is  not  to  be  despised.  Yet  the 
place  itself  is  desolate  enough.  Beyond  a  copse  on  either  side 

See  Canina's  Etruria  Marittima  L,  p.  126  and   numerous  Lronze   nails  in  the  wall, 

and  tav.  XL. ,  for  plans  and  sections  of  these  Here  were  found  some  articles  of  gold,  and 

tombs.    Micali,  who  takes  his  notices  from  jewellery,  fragments  of  Egyptian  vases,  and 

the  papers  of  the  late  Duchess,  gives  a  some-  odorous  paste,  and  a  stone  in  the  form  of 

what  different  description  of  these  tombs.  an   axe-head,    supposed    to   be   Egyptian. 

He  says,  above  the  basement-wall  of  the  There  were  no  Etniscan  inscriptions  in  any 

tumulus  the  tufo  was  cut  into  steps  to  the  of  these  tombs.    The  masonry  of  the  passage 

height  of  18  feet,  and  then  levelled  ;  and  he  represents  (Mon.   Ined.  tav.  LVII.)  as 

on  this  was  raised  a  mound  of  earth  to  the  opus  quadratum  of  tufo  blocks,  but  pseud- 

height  of  27  feet  more.     In  the  lower  or  isodomon,  or  in  courses  of  unequal  heights, 

natural  part  of  the  mound  was  discovered  a  These  tombs  were  drained  by  many  channels 

sepulchre  of  four  chambers,  one  of  them  cir-  cut  in  the  rock,  and  branching  in  all  direc- 

•cular,  all  with  rock-hewn  benches,  and  with  tions.    Mon.  Ined.  pp.  378 — 390.    It  must 

Ibronze  nails  in  the  walls.     These,  from  his  be  the  less  ancient  of  these  tombs  in  which 

•description  of  their  contents,  are  the  least  Mrs.    Hamilton   Gray,   who  visited  them 

ancient  of  the  tombs  mentioned  in  the  text.  shortly  after  they  were  opened,  saw  a  pair 

The  passage-tomb  he  represents  as  45  feet  of  panthers  painted  over  the  door  of  the 

long,  sunk  in  the  same  levelled  part  of  the  outer  chamber,  and  two  hippocampi,  with 

mound,  though  lined  with  masonry,  regu-  genii  on  their  backs,  on  the  walls  of  the 

larly  squared  and  smoothed.  Upon  it  opened,  inner.    Sepulchres  of  Etruria,  p.  123,  third 

by  a  door  of  the   usual   Etruscan  form,  edition. 

another  narrow  passage,  similarly  lined  but  9  Pronto,  de  Feriis  Alsiensibus,  epist.  III. 
.half  the  length,  with  a  rock-hewn  bench, 


CHAP,  xx.]  SEA-SHOEE    SCENES.  225 

of  the  village,  there  is  nothing  to  relieve  the  bare  monotony  of  the 
level  waste.  It  is  hard  to  believe  Alsiuni  could  ever  have  been 
"  the  voluptuous  sea-side  retreat "  it  is  described  in  the  time  of 
the  Antonines.1  Now  the  traveller  is  ready  to  exclaim — 

"  Oh,  the  dreary,  dreary  moorland  !  oh,  the  barren,  barren  shore  !  " 

Yet  the  lover  of  sea-side  nature  may  find  interest  here,  as  well 
as  in  the  sparkling  bay  of  Naples.  Though  to  me  this  is  no 
dilectum  Uttns,  as  it  was  to  Halesus,  yet  memory  recalls  not  with- 
out pleasure  the  days  I  have  spent  at  Palo.  The  calm  delight 
of  a  sunny  shore  finds  its  reflex  in  the  human  breast.  The  broad 
ocean  softty  heaving  beneath  my  window,  ever  murmured  its 
bright  joy;  mirroring  "the  vault  of  blue  Italian  day."  A  few 
feluccas,  their  weary  sails  flapping  in  the  breeze,  lay  off  shore, 
lazily  rocking  Avith  the  swell,  which  broke  languidly  on  the  red 
ruins  at  my  feet,  or  licked  with  foam  the  walls  of  the  crumbling 
fortress.  Away  to  the  right,  was  the  distant  point  of  Santa 
Marinella ;  and  to  the  left,  the  eye  wandered  along  the  level 
shore,  to  which  the  dunes  of  Holland  were  mountains,  uncertain 
whether  it  were  traversing  sea  or  land,  save  when  it  rested  here 
and  there  on  a  lonely  tower  on  the  coast ;  or  when  it  reached  a 
building  on  the  extreme  horizon,  so  faint  as  now  to  seem  but  a 
summer-cloud,  yet  gleaming  out  whitely  when  the  evening  sun 
fell  full  on  its  flank.  This  was  the  fort  of  Fiumicino,  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Tiber,  the  port  of  modern  Rome.  Such  were  the 
standing  features  of  my  prospect ;  which  was  varied  only  by 
•scenes  of  domestic  life,  at  the  doors  of  the  huts  opening  seaward, 
or  by  herds  of  long-horned  cattle,  which  came  down  to  pick  their 
•evening  meal  from  the  straw  scattered  over  the  beach.  When 
the  sun's  last  glories  had  faded  from  the  sky,  then  began  the  life 
and  stir  of  Palo.  The  craft,  which  had  lain  in  the  offing  all 
da}r,  stood  in  after  dark,  and  sent  the  produce  of  their  nets  to 
land.  Then  what  bustle,  what  shouting,  on  board  and  ashore  ! 
Red-capped,  bare-legged  fellows  with  baskets — my  chubb}'  host  of 
Palo  bargaining  for  the  haul — sky-blue  doyanicri,  and  cloaked 
quidnuncs,  looking  on — all  common-place  features  enough,  but 
assuming,  from  the  glare  of  torches,  a  rich  Rembrandtish  effect, 

?  Fronto,  loc.  cit.     "Were  it  not  that  the  Pollio    remembered    when    challenged   to 

-uuthor  was  writing  to  an  Emperor,  we  might  banter  by  Augustus.     Macrob.  Saturn.  II. 

;suspect  him  of  irony  ;  but  sovereigns,  es-  4.     Fronto,  however,  qualifies  his  praises 

pccially  despots,   are  edged  tools;  which  of  Alsium  by  mentioning  the  raucas  paltides. 

VOL.    I.  Q 


220 


PALO. 


[CHAP.  xx.. 


to  which  the  dark  masses  of  the  vessels,  magnified  by  the  gloom,, 
formed  an  appropriate  background. 


APPENDIX    TO    CHAPTER    XX. 

THK  ancient  sites   on  this  coast,  between  Koine  and  Centum  Cellse,  arc- 
thus  given,  with  their  distances,  by  the  Itineraries  : — 


ANTONINB  ITINERARY. 
( Via  Aurtlia.) 


Ronm 
Lorium 
Ad  Turres 
Pyrgos 

Castrum  Norum 
Centum  Cellas 


M.P. 


XII. 

X. 

XII. 

VIII. 

V. 


MARITIME  ITINERARY. 

Roma 

In  Portum  M.P.  XVIIII. 

Fregenas  VIIII. 

Alsium  VIIII. 

Pyrgos  XII. 

Cabtrum  Novuni  VIII. 

Centum  Cellas.  VIII. 


PEUTINGERIAN  TABLK. 
( Via  Aurelia. } 


Roma 
Lorio 
Bebiana 
Alsium 
Pyrgos 
Punicum 
Castro  Novo 
Centum  Cellis. 


M.P.  XII. 

VI. 
X. 

VIIII. 
IIII. 


ANOTHER  MARITIME  ITINKRAKY. 

Portus  August! 

Pyrgos  M.P.  XXXVIII. 

Panapionem  III. 

Castrum  Novum  VIF. 

Centum  Cellas  V. 


ETRUSCAN    SARCOPHAGUS    OF    TERRA-COTTA,  FROM    CK11VKTEI. 


CHAPTER    XXI. 

CERVETRI.-AGYLLA  on  CJERE. 

— saxo  fimdata  vetusto 
Urbis  Agyllinse  sedes  ;  ubi  Lydia  quondam 
Gens,  bello  prasclara,  jugis  iusedit  Etruscis. — VIRGIL. 

Buried  he  lay,  where  thousands  before 

For  thousands  of  years  were  inhumed  on  the  shore. 

What  of  them  is  left  to  tell 

Where  they  lie,  and  how  they  fell  ?— BYRON. 

FROM  the  railway-station  at  Palo  the  traveller  will  espy  before 
him  a  small  village  with  one  prominent  building  sparkling  in  the 
sun,  at  the  foot  of  the  hills  which  rise  to  the  north,  dark  with 
wood.  This  is  Cervetri,  the  modern  representative  of  the  ancient 
city  of  Ca3re.  Should  he  come  by  train  with  the  intention  of 
visiting  that  site,  he  will  probably  be  disappointed  in  finding  a 
conveyance.  A  corriere  conveys  to  Cervetri  the  mails  dropped 
by  the  morning  train  from  Borne,  but  the  baroccino  seats  only 
two,  and  a  place  is  not  always  to  be  had.  If  the  traveller  then 

Q  2 


228  CERVETEJ.  [CHAP.  xxr. 

do  not  care  to  have  a  walk  of  five  miles  over  the  downs,  he 
should  write  the  day  beforehand  to  Giovanni  Passeggieri  of 
Cervetri,  who  will  have  a  vettura  in  readiness  at  the  Palo  station. 
The  pedestrian  or  horseman  on  his  way  to  Cervetri,  will  leave 
the  high  road  for  a  shorter  path,  just  after  crossing  a  streamlet, 
known  by  the  ominous  name  of  La  Sanguinara.1  If  the  traveller 
be  in  a  vehicle,  he  must  keep  the  high  road  as  far  as  a  second 
rivulet,  the  Vaccina,  or  Cow-stream,  where  a  country-track  turns 
to  the  right  and  crosses  the  downs  to  Cervetri.  Insignificant  as 
this  turbid  brook  may  appear,  let  him  pause  a  moment  on  the 
bridge  and  bethink  him  that  it  has  had  the  honour  of  being  sung 
by  Virgil.  It  is  the  Cteritis  amnis  of  the  yEneid,2  on  whose 
banks  Tarcho  and  his  Etruscans  pitched  their  camps,  and  /Eneas 
received  from  his  divine  mother  his  god-wrought  arms  and  the 
prophetic  shield  eloquent  of  the  future  glories  of  Rome, — 

clypei  noil  enarrabile  textum. 
Illic  res  Italas,  Romanorumque  triumpho?, 
Fecerat  Ignipotens. 

The  eye  wanders  up  the  shrub-fringed  stream,  over  bare 
undulating  downs,  the  arva  lata  of  ancient  song,  to  the  hills 
swelling  into  peaks  and  girt  with  a  belt  of  olive  and  ilex.  There 
frowned  the  dark  grove  of  Silvanus,  of  dread  antiquity,  and  there,  on 
yonder  red  cliffs — the  "  ancient  heights  "  of  Virgil — sat  the  once 
opulent  and  powerful  city  of  Agylla,  the  Caere  of  the  Etruscans, 
now  represented,  in  name  and  site  alone,  by  the  miserable  village 
of  Cervetri.  All  this  is  hallowed  ground — religions  pat  rum  Idle 
STCcr — hallowed,  not  by  the  traditions  of  evanescent  creeds,  nor 
even  by  the  hoary  antiquity  of  the  site,  so  much  as  by  the 
homage  the  heart  ever  pays  to  the  undying  creations  of  the 
fathers  of  song.  The  hillocks  which  rise  here  and  there  on  the 
wide  downs,  are  so  many  sepulchres  of  princes  and  heroes  of  old, 
coeval,  it  may  be,  with  those  on  the  plains  of  Troy ;  and  if  not, 
like  them,  the  standing  records  of  traditional  events,  at  least  the 
mysterious  memorials  of  a  prior  age,  which  led  the  poet  to  select 
this  spot  as  a  fit  scene  for  his  verse.  The  large  natural  mound 
which  rises  close  to  the  bridge  may  be  the  celsus  collis  whence 

1  Livy  (XXII.    1,)  relates  that,  in  the  now  called  the  Bagni  del  Sasso,  four  miles 

year   537,    "the   waters   of   Caere   flowed  west  of  Cervetri.     May  not  the  above  tra- 

mingled  with  blood."     Cf.  Val.  Max.  I.  6,  dition  be  preserved   in  the   name  of  this 

5.     The  Aquae  Casretes,   here   mentioned,  stream  1 

are  generally  supposed  to  be  the  same  as  2  JEn.  VIII.  597.     Pliny  (N.   H.  III.  8) 

the  Qfpfjui  KcuptTavd  of  Strabo  (V.  p   220),  calls  it,  "Cseretanus  amnis." 


CHAP,  xxi.]          EOAD    TO    THE    MODERN    VILLAGE.  '229 

^Eneas  gazed  on  the  Etruscan  canip.3  No  warlike  sights  or 
sounds  now  disturb  the  rural  quiet  of  the  scene.  Sword  and 
spear  are  exchanged  for  crook  and  ploughshare;  and  the  only 
sound  likely  to  catch  the  ear  is  the  lowing  of  cattle,  the  baying  of 
sheep- clogs,  or  the  cry  of  the  pecorajo  as  he  inarches  at  the  head 
of  his  flock,  and  calls  them  to  follow  him  to  their  fold  or  to  fresh 
pastures.4  Silvanus,  "the  god  of  fields  and  cattle,"  has  still 
dominion  in  the  land.5 

After  two  miles  of  the  country-road  the  traveller  passes  the 
chapel  of  Sta  Maria  de'  Canneti,  and  presently  ascends  between 
the  walls  of  Cervetri  and  the  heights  of  the  ancient  city. 

Cervetri,  the  representative  of  Agylia,  is  a  miserable  village, 
with  800  or  400  inhabitants,  and  is  utterly  void  of  interest.  It 
is  surrounded  by  fortifications  of  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth 
centuries,  and  stands  just  without  the  line  of  the  ancient  walls, 
so  that  it  is  annexed  to,  rather  than  occupies,  the  site  of  the 
original  city.  The  village,  and  the  land  for  some  miles  round  it, 
are  the  property  of  Prince  Euspoli,  whose  palace  forms  a  con- 
spicuous object  in  the  scene.  This  noble  seldom  makes  excava- 
tions himself,  but  allows  them  to  be  carried  on  by  his  friends, 
who  are  of  a  more  speculative  or  philarchaic  turn  of  mind.  It  is 
to  the  enterprise  of  the  Marchese  Campana,  of  General  Galassi, 
of  the  arch-priest  Regulini,  and  subsequently  of  Sign  or  Capranesi, 
and  of  the  brothers  Boccanera,  that  we  owe  the  numerous  and 
remarkable  objects  of  Etruscan  antiquity  that  have  been  brought 
to  light  here  of  late  years. 

The  cicerone  of  whose  services  and  keys  the  visitor  who  would 
see  the  tombs  must  avail  himself,  is  Giovanni  Passegieri,  a 
tobacconist,  to  be  found  in  his  shop  in  the  little  piazza.  Most 
travellers  will  find  it  sufficient  to  lionize  the  site  in  a  day's 
excursion  from  Palo,  where  there  is  a  tolerable  inn ;  but  those 
who  would  devote  more  than  a  hurried  day  to  the  antiquities  of 
Caere,  and  to  avoid  the  transit  to  and  from  Palo,  are  willing  to 
put  up  with  village  accommodation,  will  find  a  clean  bed  and 


3  Jin.  VIII.  C04.  (XII.  pp.    654,    655,    eel.    Casaub.),  who 

4  This  scene,  of   sheep    following   their  records  this  fact,  remarks  that  while  the 
shepherd,    attracted   by    his   vuce,    often  swineherds  of  Greece  walked  behind,  those 
meets  the  eye  of  the  traveller  in  the  East  ;  of  Italy  invariably  preceded  their  herds, 
and  beautiful  allusion  is  made  to  it  in  Holy  5  This  region  was  famed  for  its  cattle  in 
Writ  (St.  John   X.,  3,  tt  seq.).     Oxen  and  the  olden  time.     Lycophror   <Cass.    124i, 
goats  also  in  Corsica,   and   even  swine  in  speaks  of  the  valleys  or  ghns  of  Agylia, 
Italy,   of  old,   used  to  follow  their  herds-  abounding  in  flocks. 

man  at  the  sound  of  his  trumpet.    Folvbius 


230 


CEIIVETRI. 


[CHAP.  xxi. 


refreshment  in  the  house  of  the  suicl  Giovanni,  although  they  must 
not  expect  the  delicacies  for  which  Cajre  was  renowned  of  old.0 

Remote  as  are  the  days  of  the  Etruscans,  this  city  boasts  a  far 
prior  antiquity.  It  was  originally  called  Agylla,  and  is  classed 
by  Dionysius  among  the  primitive  towns  of  Central  Italy,  which 
were  either  built  by  the  united  Pelasgi  and  Aborigines,  or  taken 
by  them  from  the  Siculi,  the  earliest  possessors  of  the  land,  ages 
before  the  foundation  of  the  Etruscan  state.7  That  it  was  at 
least  Pelasgic  and  of  very  remote  antiquity  there  can  be  no 
doubt ; 8  though  we  may  not  be  willing  to  admit  that  that  occupa- 
tion of  Italy  can  be  referred  with  certainty  to  the  third  genera- 
tion before  the  Trojan  war.0  Traditions  of  ages  so  long  prior  to 
the  historic  period  must  be  too  clouded  by  fable,  or  too  distorted 
by  tho  medium  of  their  transmission,  to  be  received  as  strictly 
authentic.  In  its  early  days  Agylla  seems  to  have  maintained 
intercourse  with  Greece,  which  corroborates,  if  need  be,  the 
uniform  tradition  of  its  Pelasgic  origin.1 

It  would  appear  that  at  its  conquest  by  the  Etruscans  its  name 


6  Martial  relished  the  pcrnce  of  Care 
(XIII.  54),  and  compared  her  wines  to 
those  of  Setia  (XIII.  124).  Columella  (de 
Re  llust.  III.  3)  testifies  to  the  abundance 
of  her  grapes. 

•  Dion.  Hal.  I.  p.  16  ;  cf.  III.  p. 
193. 

8  Dionysius  is  confirmed  l>y  Strabo  (V. 
pp.  220,  226),  Pliny  (III.  8),  Servius  (ad 
.En.  VIII.  479;  X.  183),  and  Solinus 
(Polyh.  cap.  VIII.),  who  all  record  the 
tradition  that  Agylla  was  founded  by  the 
Pelasgi.  Servius  states  that  they  were  led 
to  select  this  site  on  account  of  a  fountain  ; 
not  being  ab'e  to  find  water  elsewhere  in 
the  neigh bourhood.  Strabo  says  these 
Pelasgi  were  from  Thessaly  (cf.  Serv.  ad 
Jin.  VIII.  600).  Virgil  corroborates  the 
tradition  by  referring  the  grove  of  Silvanus 
on  this  site  to  the  Pelasgi  — 

Filvano  faina  cst  vctcres  sacrasse  Pelasgos. 

Lycophron  (Cass.  1355)  calls  Agylla, 
Ausonian.  It  is  justly  remarked  by 
Lepsius  (Ann.  Inst.,  1836,  p.  202)  that 
there  are  more  witnesses  to  the  Pelasgic 
origin  of  Ca;re,  than  of  any  other  city  of 
Etruiia.  Mommsen  (Hist.  Home,  I.  c.  10) 
asserts  that  Agylla  is  not  a  Pelasgic  name, 
as  generally  supposed,  but  a  word  of  purely 
Phoenician  origin,  signifying  "round  city," 


for  such  a  form  the  town  must  have  pre- 
sented when  viewed  from  the  coast. 

9  It  is  stated  by  Hellenicus  of  Lesbos, 
that  the  Siculi  were  expelled  from  Italy  at 
that  period  ;  Philistosof  Syracuse  gives  the 
date  as  80  years  before  the  Trojan  War  ; 
while  Thucydides  refers  the  expulsion  to  a 
period  much  subsequent  to  the  fall  of  Troy 
(up.  Dion.  Hal.  I.  p.  IS). 

1  That  Agylla  had  a  Greek  origin  can- 
not be  deduced  from  the  ciivr.mstance 
of  its  having  dedicated  treasure  to  the 
Delphian  Apollo  (Strabo,  V.  p.  220),  and 
of  its  consulting  that  oracle  (Herod.  I.  167), 
for  other  people  than  the  Greeks  are  re- 
corded to  have  made  similar  dedications 
and  consultations.  Croesus,  king  of 
Lydia,  consulted  the  oracle  of  Delphi  and 
other  Greek  oracles  (Herod.  I.  4f>  ;  Paus. 
III.  10,  8  ;  X.  8,  7),  and  Tarqninius  Su- 
perbus  sent  his  two  sons  with  gilts  to  con- 
sult the  Delphic  oracle.  Liv.  I.  56.  The 
language  of  the  city,  however,  in  very 
early  times,  if  Strabo  may  be  believed,  was 
Greek ;  or  if  we  refuse  credence  to  the 
tradition  he  records,  we  may,  at  least, 
receive  it  as  evidence  of  the  general  belief 
in  the  Greek  origin  of  the  city,  which  gave 
rise  to  the  legend.  Servius  (ad  Jin.  VIII. 
597)  derives  the  name  from  a  lieros  cpony- 
mos,  Agella, 


•CHAP,  xxi.]      ANTIQUITY   AND    OEIGIN    OF    AGYLLA.  231 

was  changed  into  Caere,  but  the  reason  of  this  alteration  we  know 
not,  unless  we  choose  to  attach  credit  to  the  old  legend,  which 
tells  us  that  when  the  Lydian  or  Etruscan  colonists  were  about 
to  attack  the  city,  they  hailed  it  and  inquired  its  name ;  whereon, 
a  soldier  from  the  ramparts,  not  understanding  their  motives 
or  language,  replied  with  a  salutation — xa^€ — "hail!"  which 
they  receiving  as  a  good  omen,  on  the  capture  of  the  city  applied 
to  it  as  its  name.2  But  this,  like  most  of  the  etymologies  of  the 
ancients,  savours  strongly  of,  what  Pliny  terms,  the  pcrversa, 
siibtilitas  of  the  grammarians. 

In  the  time  of  Jilneas,  the  city  is  represented  by  Virgil  as 
under  the  sway  of  Mezentius,  a  cruel  and  impious  tyrant,  who 
was  expelled  by  his  subjects  and  fled  to  Turnus,  king  of  the 
Rutuli ;  while  the  liberated  Agyllans  joined  the  ranks  of  the 
Trojan  prince.3 

In  very  early  times,  Caere  is  said  to  have  cultivated  the  arts ; 
for  Pliny  asserts,  that  in  his  day  paintings  were  here  extant, 
which  had  been  executed  before  the  foundation  of  Home  ;  and  he 
cites  them  as  examples  of  the  rapid  progress  this  art  had  made, 
seeing  that  it  appeared  not  to  have  been  practised  in  the  days  of 
Troy.4  Caere,  even  as  early  as  the  time  of  the  first  Tarquin,  is 
represented  as  among  the  most  flourishing  and  populous  cities  of 
Etruria ;  5  and  she  was  undoubtedly  one  of  the  Twelve  of  the 
Confederation.6  But  what,  above  ah1,  distinguished  Caere  was, 
that  she  alone,  of  all  the  cities  of  Etruria,  abstained  from 
piracy,  from  110  inferiority  of  power  or  natural  advantages,  but 
solely  from  her  sense  of  justice  ;  wherefore  the  Greeks  greatly 
honoured  her  for  her  moral  courage  in  resisting  this  temptation.7 

-  Strabo,    loc.    cit.     Steph.    Byzaut.    r.  years    after    the    fall    of    Troy  ; "    while 

Agylla.    Servius  (ad  JEn.  VIII.  597)  relates  Niebuhr,  on  the  other  hand  (I.  p.  1'27,  cf. 

the   same  story,    but  on  the  authority  of  p.  385),  will  not  allow  it  to  have  been  made 

Hyginus   (cle  Urbibus  Italicis)  refers  this  even  so  early  as  the  year  of  Rome  220  (B.C. 

blunder  to  the  Romans.     Muller  (Etrusk.  534). 

einl.  2,  7,  n.  40)  thinks  the  original  Etrus-  3  Virg.    JEn.    VII.    648;  VIII.    481,    ct 

can    name    was    "Cisra. "       Lepsius    (die  seq.  ;  cf.  Liv.  I.  2. 
Tyrrhen.    Pelasg.   p.   28)  regards  Caere  as  4  Plin.  N.  H.  XXXV.  6. 

the  original  name,   which  came   a  second  5  Dion.  Hal.  III.  p.  193. 

time  into  use  ;  and  thinks  it  was  Umbrian,  6  This  may  be  learned  from  the  passages 

not  Etruscan,  in  conformity  with  his  theery  of  Dionysius  and  Strabo  already  cited,  as 

of  the  Umbrian  race  and   language  being  well  as  from  the  prominent  part  the  city 

the  foundation  of  the  Etruscan.      Canina  took,  in  con  junction  with  Veil  and  Tarquinii, 

(Cere  Antica,  p.  25),  who  is  of  the  old  or  and  the  independent  coiirse  she  subsequently 

literal   school    of    historic   interpretation,  followed  with  regard  to  Rome.     Livy  (I. 

thinks  that  "the  change  of  name,  and  the  2)  also  represents  Caere  as  a  powerful  and 

mingling  of  the  Agyllans  with  the  Etruscan  wealthy  city  of  Etruria. 
invaders  can  be  established  in  the  first  ten  "'  Strabo,   V.    p.    220.     Mommsen    (loc. 


232  CERVETRI.  [CHAP.  xxi. 

The  first  mention  of  this  city  in  Roman  history  is,  that  it 
maintained  a  war  with  Tarquiiiius  Prisons.8  It  also  joined  Veil 
and  Tarquinii  in  the  twenty  j'ears'  war  with  his  successor,  Servius 
Tullius,  and  at  the  re-establishment  of  peace,  in  consequence  of 
the  prominent  part  it  had  taken,  it  was  punished  by  the  Roman 
monarch  with  the  forfeiture  of  a  portion  of  its  territory.9 

At  the  same  period,  or  about  the  year  of  Rome  220  (534  B.C.), 
the  Cserites  joined  their  fleet  with  that  of  Carthage  on  an  expedi- 
tion against  a  colony  of  Phocseans,  who  had  seized  on  Alalia  in 
Corsica,  and  after  a  severe  combat,  all  the  prisoners  taken  by  the 
allies  were  brought  to  Caere  and  there  stoned  to  death.  In  con- 
sequence of  this  cold-blooded  massacre,  the  city  was  punished 
with  a  plague  ;  men,  herds,  and  flocks — whatever  animal  passed 
near  the  spot  where  the  bodies  of  the  Phocreans  lay,  became 
afflicted  with  distortion,  mutilation,  or  paralysis ;  whereon  the 
Caerites  sent  to  Delphi  to  consult  the  oracle  how  they  might 
atone  for  their  crime,  and  were  ordered  to  perform  solemn 
expiatory  rites,  and  to  institute  games  of  gymnastic  exercises  and 
horse-racing  in  honour  of  the  slain  ;  which  they  continued  to 
observe  in  the  time  of  Herodotus.1 

On  the  expulsion  of  Tarquiiiius  Superbus  from  Rome,  he  and 
his  two  sons  took  refuge  in  Cffire,2  probably  on  account  of  his 
family  connections  there ;  but  it  is  not  recorded  that  this  city 
took  part  in  Porsenna's  expedition  to  re-instate  the  exiled  prince. 
Unlike  Veii,  Fidenae,  Falerii,  and  other  cities  in  this  part  of 
Etruria,  Caere,  though  but  twenty-seven  miles  from  Rome,  seems 
to  have  been  for  ages  on  friendly  terms  with  that  city.3  When, 
in  the  year  365,  Rome  was  attacked  by  the  Gauls,  Care  opened 
her  gates  and  gave  refuge  to  the  Flamen  Quirinalis,  and  Vestal 
Virgins,  and  eventually  restored  them  in  safety  to  their  home.4' 

cit.)  thinks  that  Strabo  in  this  passage  did  Gabii. 

not  refer  to  piracy,  but  meant  that  Caere  3  This  fraternity  and  intimate  connection 

"protected    and    encouraged    foreign   com-  were  probably  owing  to  the  Pelasgic  origin 

merce,  by  refraining  from  exactions,  and  of   Caere,  and  the  consequent  -want  of  a 

that  she  thus  became  a  sort  of  free-port,  complete    sympathy  with   the    Etruscans, 

both  for  the  Phoenicians  and  Greeks,   to  Niebuhr  (I.  p.   386)  was  even  inclined  to 

which  fact  she  owed  her  great  wealth  and  the  opinion  that  Rome  was  a  mere  colony 

importance  in  early  times.  of  Care — an  opinion  which  he  afterwards 

s  Dion.  Hal.  III.  p.  193.  modified.     Lepsius  (Ann.   Inst.    1836,    p. 

y  Dion.  Hal.  IV.  p.  231 ;  cf.  Liv.  I.  42.  203)  thinks  that  the  Pelasgic  population 

Herod.  I.  166,  167.  of  Caere  was  preserved  more  or  less  pure  to 

-  Liv.  I.   60.     Dionysius  (IV.  pp.  276,  a  late  period. 

279)  however,  asserts  that  it  was  to  Gabii  4  Liv.  V.  40.     Strabo,  V.  p.  220.     Val. 

he  fled,  where  his  son  Sextus  was  King.  Max.  I.  i.  10.     Cf.  Plut.  Camil.  ;  Flor.  I. 

Livy  says  it  was  Sextus  alone  who  went  to  13.     See  also  an  inscription  in  the  Vatican, 


CHAP.  xxi.J  IIISTOEY    OF    O&EE.  233 

Na}r,  we  are  told  that  the  Cserites  attacked  the  retreating  Gauls, 
laden  with  the  spoil  of  Home,  routed  them,  and  recovered  all  the 
booty  they  were  bearing  away.  For  these  services  the  senate 
decreed  that  the  Cffirites  should  receive  the  hospitium  fniblicuin, 
or  be  admitted  into  the  most  intimate  relations  with  the  Roman 
people5 — in  fact,  they  received  the  full  privileges  of  Roman 
citizens,  save  the  suffrage.6  The  origin  of  our  word  ceremony — 
cterlmonia — has  been  ascribed  to  this  event.7 

A  year  or  two  before  the  capture  of  Rome  by  the  Gauls,  Caere 
was  engaged  with  another  enemy,  Dionysius  of  Syracuse,  who,  in 
362,  attacked  PjTgi,  and  spoiled  its  celebrated  temple  of  Eileithyia. 
As  this  was  the  port  of  Ctere,  the  inhabitants  of  the  latter 
city  rushed  to  the  rescue,  but,  being  probably  unprepared  for 
war,  not  expecting  an  attack,  they  were  easily  routed  by  the 
Sicilians.8 

Ctere,  though  closely  allied  to  Rome,  continued  to  maintain 
her  independence  ;  but  it  is  probable  that  this  was  threatened, 
otherwise  "the  sympathy  of  blood"  alone  would  hardly  have 
induced  her,  in  the  year  401  (13. C.  353),  to  take  up  arms  to 
assist  Tarquinii  against  Rome,  when  she  had  for  ages  been 
intimately  associated  with  the  Republic.  She  must  have  re- 
ceived some  provocation  when  she  sent  an  army  into  the  Roman 
territory,  and  laid  it  waste  up  to  the  mouth  of  the  Tiber.  Ere 
long,  however,  conscious  of  her  unequal  strength,  she  repented  of 
this  step,  and  besought  pardon  and  peace,  reminding  the  Romans 
of  the  services  she  had  rendered  in  their  distress.  The  senate 
referred  her  ambassadors  to  the  people,  who,  moved  by  their 
touching  appeal  and  the  remembrance  of  past  services,  rather 
than  by  the  excuse  then  urged,  listened  to  their  prayer  and 

given  by  Gruter,  p.  492 — 7,  and  Muratori,  he  accounts  for  the   proverbial  reference 

p.  172,  4.  to  the  Creritan  franchise  as  a   disgraceful 

0  Liv.  V.  50.      Strabo,  loc.  cit.  condition. 

0  This  condition  became  proverbial,  and  '   Val.  Max.   loc.   cit.     Festus,    v.  Cseri- 

what  had  originally  been  conferred  as  an  monia.     The  etymologies  of   the   ancients 

honour  was  subsequently  made  significant  are  rarely  to  be  trusted  ;  but  Niebuhr  (I. 

of  disgrace  ;  for  tabulcc  Cantes  and  cera  p.  386)  thinks  this  derivation  very  plausible. 

Cteritis  came  to   imply   the    condition    of  The  first  syllable  of  the  word  may  not  have 

Roman  citizens,  who  had  been  deprived  of  been  originally  Cceri,  but  Coeri   (for  Curi) 

the  right  of  suffrage.      Hor.  I.  ep.  \I.  62.  monia — Coerare  being   an    early   form    of 

Aul.  Gell.  XVI.   13,  7.     Strabo,  loc.  cit.  Curare  (A.  Gell.  IV.   2)— which,  at  least, 

Niebuhr  (II.  pp.  60,  67)  is  of  opinion,  from  is  expressive  of  the  meaning  ;  the  two  diph- 

the  classification  of  Festus  (v.  Municipium),  thongs,  it  is  well  known,  were  sometimes 

that  Caere  was  really  degraded  from   the  interchangeable, 

highest  rank  of  citizenship,  in  consequence  8  Diod.  Sic.  XV.  p.  337.     Serv.  ad  j£n. 

of  her  conduct  in  the  year  401;  and  thus  X.  184. 


234  CERVETRI.  [CHAP.  xxi. 

granted  them  a  truce  for  a  hundred  years.9  It  is  highly  probable 
that  the  Ojerites  paid  the  penalty  of  their  error  by  the  loss  of 
their  independence,  for  we  have  no  record  of  any  further  conquest 
of  them  by  the  Romans  ;  indeed,  we  next  hear  of  Ccere  as  a 
Roman  dependency,  providing  corn  and  other  provisions  for  the 
fleet  of  Scipio,  in  the  year  549,1  and  otherwise  assisting  in  the 
Second  Punic  War.2 

At  the  commencement  of  the  Empire  this  "  splendid  and  illus- 
trious city"  had  sunk  into  utter  insignificance,  retaining  mere 
vestiges  of  its  past  greatness,  being  even  surpassed  in  population 
by  the  Thermae  Caeretanse — the  hot  baths  in  the  neighbour- 
hood, which  the  Romans  frequented  for  health's  sake.3  It 
revived,  however,  as  appears  from  monuments  and  inscriptions 
found  on  the  spot,  and  became  a  municipium.*  Nor  was  it  at 
any  period  wholly  blotted  from  the  map,  but  continued  to  exist, 
and  with  its  ancient  name,  till,  at  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  part  of  its  inhabitants  removed  to  a  site  .about  three 
miles  off',  on  which  they  bestowed  the  same  name,  and  the  old 
town  was  distinguished  by  the  title  of  Vetus,  or  Caere  Vetere, 
which  has  been  corrupted  into  its  present  appellation  of  Cervetri, 
the  new  town  still  retaining  the  name  of  Ceri.  This  has  misled 
antiquarians,  who  have  sought  the  Etruscan  city  on  the  site 
which  seemed  more  clearly  to  bear  its  name,5  but  inscriptions  and 

9  Liv.  VII.  19,  20.  215,  1  ;  485,  5  ;  cf.  235,  9.     Cluver,  II. 

1  Liv.  XXVIII.  45.  p.   493.     Bull.   lust.,   1840,  pp.  5—8.— 

2  Sil.  Ital.  VIII.  474.  Canina.     In  excavations  made  in  1840  on 

3  Strabo,   V.    p.    220.     Now  the   Bagni  the  site  of  the  city,  some  beautiful  marble 
•del  Sasso,  so  called  from  a  remarkable  bare  statues  of  Tiberius,  Drusus,    Germanicus, 
•crag  on  the  summit  of  the  neighbouring  and   Agrippina  were   discovered,  together 
mountain.      It  lies  about  five  miles  west  of  with  a  singular  bas-relief  bearing  the  names 
Cervetri,  and  is  visible  from  the  road  be-  and  emblems  of  three  Etruscan  cities,  Tar- 
tweeii    Palo   and    Sta    Severa.      Manuert  quinii,  Vetulonia,  and  Vulci,  which  monu- 
4Geog.  p.  379)  places  the  Aquas  Casretanse  tnents  are  now  among  the  chief  ornaments 
at  Ceri  ;  Canina  (Etr.  Marit.  I.  p.  163)  at  of  the  new  Museum  of  the  Lateran.     In 
Caldane,   five  or  six  miles   to   the   S.  E.  the  season  of  1845-6,  the  Augustine  monks 
of  Cervetri.     Cluver  (II.  p.  493)confounds  of  Cervetri  discovered  many  more  statues 
them  with  the  Aquae  Apollinares,  on  the  and  torsi,  with  altars,  bas-reliefs,  beauti- 
upper  road  from  Home  to  Tarquinii.    West-  ful  cornices,  and  other  architectural  frag- 
phal  (Rom.  Kamp.  p.  160)  makes  a  similar  ments   of  a   theatre,    coloured    tiles  and 
mistake.     But  Holstenius  (Annot.  ad  Cluv.  ante/Lew,  and  numerous  fragments  of  Latin 
p.  35)  distinguishes  between  the  two  Aquae,  inscriptions,  with  one  in  Etruscan,  "Cu- 
placing  one  at  Stigliano,  the  other  at  Bagni  SIACH,"   which   is   unique   in   having  the 
del    Sasso.     The   true   site    of   the    Aqua?  letters  cut  in  marble  and  inlaid  on  a  darker 
Apollinares  has  been  fixed  by  M.  Desjardins  stone. 

at  Vicarello,  on  the  Lago  Bracciano.     Ann.  &  A  bull  of  Gregory  IX.,  in  1236,  dis- 

Inst.  1S59,  pp.  34 — CO.  tinguishes  between  these  two  towns,  speci- 

4  Festus   v.   Municipium.     Gruter,    pp.       lying  "  plebes  et  ecclesias  in  Cere  Nova," 


PLAN   OF   CLERE   AND   ITS   NECROPOLIS. 


Adapted  from.  Cam'na. 


1.  Tomb  with  pilasters. 

2.  Grotta  della  Sedia. 

;).        ,,      delle  Cinque  Sedie. 
4.       „      dell'  Alcova. 


o.  Grotta  dei  Tarquinj. 
<\  ,,  dei  Sarcofagi. 
7.  ,,  del  Triclinio. 
S.  „  dei  Rilievi. 


9.  Grotta  degli  Scudi  e  Sedie. 

10.  ,,       Keguliai-Galassi. 

11.  ,,      Campana. 


236  CERVETBI.  [CHAP.  xxi. 

other  monuments  found  at  Cervetri  of  late  years,  have  established 
its  identity  with  Crere  beyond  a  doubt.0 

Of  the  ancient  city  but  few  vestiges  are  extant ;  yet  the  out- 
line of  its  walls  is  clearly  denned,  not  so  much  by  fragments, 
for  there  are  few  remaining,  as  by  the  character  of  the  ground 
which  the  city  occupied.  This  is  a  height  or  table-land,  rising 
in  steep  cliff's  above  the  plain  of  the  coast,  except  on  the  northern 
side  where  it  is  united  by  a  neck  to  the  high  land  adjoining. 
Within  the  space  thus  marked  off  by  nature,  not  a  ruin  of  the 
ancient  city  now  rises  above  ground.  Temples,  towers,  halls, 
palaces,  theatres — have  all  gone  to  dust ;  the  very  ruins  of  Caere 
have  perished,  or  are  overheaped  with  soil;  and  the  peasant 
follows  his  plough,  the  husbandman  dresses  his  vines,  and  the 
shepherd  tends  his  flock,  unconscious  that  he  is  treading  over 
the  streets  and  buildings  of  a  city  among  the  most  renowned  of 
ancient  times,  and  thirty  times  more  extensive  than  the  miserable 
village  which  has  retained  its  name. 

Let  not  the  traveller  omit  to  visit  the  site  of  Caere  under  the 
impression  that  there  is  nothing  to  be  seen.  If  of  antiquarian 
tastes,  he  will  have  the  satisfaction  of  determining  the  extent, 
form,  and  position  of  the  city, — he  will  perceive  that  it  was  four 
or  five  miles  in  circuit,  and  therefore  fully  substantiated  its 
claim  to  be  ranked  among  the  first  of  Etruria, — that  it  was  of 
oblong  form, — that  it  had  eight  gates,  all  distinctly  traceable,  some 
approached  by  roads  sunk  in  the  rock  and  lined  with  tombs, 
others  retaining  their  flanking  walls  of  masonry, — he  will  see  in 
the  cliffs  around  the  city,  the  mouths  of  sewers  above,  and  more 
frequently  tombs  of  various  forms  below ;  and  he  will  learn  from 
the  few  fragments  that  remain,  that  the  walls  of  Caere  were 
composed  of  rectangular  blocks  of  tufo,  of  similar  size  and  arrange- 
ment to  those  in  the  walls  of  Veii  and  Tarquinii,  and  utterly 
different  from  those  of  Pyrgi,  which  are  supposed  to  have  had  a 
common  origin.7 

and  also,  "  in  Cere  Vetere  et  finibus  ejus."  north  of  the  city.  Foundations  may,  in 

Nibby,  Dintorni  di  lloma,  I.  p.  355.  several  parts,  be  traced  along  the  brow  of 

6  Bull.  Inst.  1840,  pp.  5 — -8;  1846,  the  cliffs,  and  on  the  side  opposite  the  lian- 
p.  129.  Canina  in  his  Cere  Antica,  pub-  ditaccia,  for  a  considerable  extent.  Many 
lished  in  1838,  claims  to  have  been  the  of  the  ancient  blocks  have  been  removed  of 
first  to  indicate  the  true  site  of  this  late  years  to  construct  walls  in  the  neigh- 
city.  But  Gruter  (pp.  214  ;  652,  8)  had  bourhood,  and  I  was  an  indignant  witness 
long  before  given  some  inscriptions  refer-  of  this  destruction,  on  one  of  my  visits  to 
ring  to  Caere,  which  were  found  at  Cervetri.  the  site.  Nibby  (I.  p.  358)  speaks  of  traces 

'  Canina  (Etruria  Warit.  tav.  45)  illus-  of  the  more  ancient  or  Pelasgic  walls  in 

tratcs  some  fragments  of  the  wall  on  the  large  irregularly  squared  blocks,  along  the 


CHAP.  xxi. J        VESTIGES    OP   THE    ANCIENT    CITY.  237 

If  he  be  an  artist,  or  lover  of  the  picturesque,  taking  no  interest 
in  the  antiquities  of  the  place,  he  will  still  find  abundance  of 
matter  to  delight  his  eye  or  employ  his  pencil ;  either  on  the  site 
of  the  city  itself,  with  its  wide-sweeping  prospect  of  plain  and  sea 
on  the  one  hand,  and  of  the  dark  many-peaked  hills  on  the  other, 
or  in  the  ravines  around,  where  he  will  meet  with  combinations  of 
rock  and  wood,  such  as  for  form  and  colour  are  rarely  surpassed. 
The  cliffs  of  the  cit}r,  here  rising  boldly  at  one  spring  from  the 
slope,  there  broken  away  into  many  angular  forms,  with  huge 
masses  of  rock  scattered  at  their  feet,  are  naturally  of  the  liveliest 
red  that  tufo  can  assume,  yet  are  brightened  still  further  by 
encrusting  lichens  into  the  warmest  orange  or  amber,  or  are  gilt 
with  the  most  brilliant  yellow — thrown  out  more  prominently  by 
an  occasional  sombering  of  grey — while  the  dark  ilex,  or  oak, 
feathers  and  crests  the  whole, 

"  And  overhead  the  wandering  ivy  and  vine 
This  way  and  that,  in  many  a  wild  festoon , 
Run  riot,  garlanding  the  gnarled  boughs 
With  bunch  and  berry  and  flower." 

The  chief  interest  of  Caere,  however,  lies  in  its  tombs.  These 
are  found  on  all  sides  of  the  city,  but  particularly  on  the  high 
ground  to  the  north,  now  called  La  Banditaccia.  Let  not  the 
traveller  conceive  vain  fears  from  a  name  of  so  ominous  a  sound, 
and  which  his  imagination  may  lead  him  to  suppose  was  derived 

cliffs  on  the  east  of  the  city,  and  still  more  sepulchres  of  Caere,  whose  contents  autho- 

distinct  on  the  western  side.     I  could  per-  rise  us  to  regard  them  as  Pelasgic.     The 

ceive  no  such  remains  ;  all  the  fragments  objection  to  assign  such  an  origin  to  the 

I  observed  being  of  an  uniform  character —  remains  of  the  city  walls,   lies  not  in  the 

rectangular  tufo  masonry,  of  smaller  blocks  rectangularity  of  the  blocks,  but  in  their 

than  usual,  and  very  similar  in  size  and  small  size  ;  seeing  that  all  the  ancient  for- 

arrangeTuent  to  the  fragments  of  walling  titications  we  are  best  wan-anted  in  ascrib- 

at   Veil  (p.   12),  and  Tarquinii   (p.   427),  ing  to  the  Pelasgi,  are  composed  of  enormous 

and  to  the   ancient  fortifications   on  the  masses.     Though  I  acknowledge  the  influ- 

height    of    S.    Silvestro   near   the    Tiber,  ence  of  the  local  materials  on  the  style  of 

which  I  take  to  mark  the  site  of  Fescen-  masonry,  I  do  not  think  it  amounts  to  a 

nium  (p.  122).     It  is  nevertheless  possible  constructive  necessity ;  and  though  I  believe 

that  these  walls  are  of  Pelasgic  construction ;  the  Pelasgi  may  have  employed  one  style  of 

for,  as  the  only  material  on  the  spot  is  soft  masonry  at  Cosa,  another  at  Cortona,  and 

tufo,  which  has  a  rectangular  cleavage,  the  a  third  at  Agylla,  I  cannot  admit  that  they 

Pelasgic  founders  of  the  city  could  not  avoid  exercised  no  preference,  or  that  any  other 

\ising  it  except  by  fetching  limestone,  at  a  people  with  the  same  materials  would  have 

great  expense  of  labour,  from  the  mountains  arrived  at  the  veiy  peculiar  style  which 

inland  ;  and,   using  the  tufo,  they  would  they  seem  always  to  have  followed,  where 

naturally  hew  it  into  forms  most  easily  practicable,  and  which  is  generally  called 

worked  and  arranged,  as  they  did  in  the  after  their  name.     For  further  remarks  on 

llegulini-Galassi    tomb,    and   other    early  this  subject,  see  chap.  L. 


238  CEBVETRL  [CHAP.  xxi. 

from  the  number  of  bandits  infesting  the  spot.8  The  name  is 
simply  indicative  of  the  proprietorship  of  the  land,  which  once 
belonging  to  the  comune,  or  corporation  of  Cervetri,  was  terra 
bandita — "set  apart;  "  or  "forbidden"  to  the  public,  and,  as  it 
was  uncultivated  and  broken  ground,  the  termination  descriptive  of 
its  ugliness  was  added—  banditaccia.  It  retains  the  name,  though 
it  has  passed  into  the  hands  of  Prince  Iluspoli.  To  reach  it  from 
Cervetri,  you  cross  the  narrow  glen  to  the  north.  Here  in 
the  cliffs  opposite  is  hollowed  a  range  of  sepulchres,  all  greatly 
injured  within  and  without.9 

This  Banditaccia  is  a  singular  place — a  Brobdignag  warren, 
studded  with  mole-hills.  It  confirmed  the  impression  I  had  re- 
ceived at  Bieda  and  other  sites,  that  the  cemeteries  of  the  Etrus- 
cans were  often  intentional  representations  of  their  cities.  Here 
were  ranges  of  tombs  hollowed  in  low  cliffs,  rarely  more  than 
fifteen  feet  high,  not  piled  one  on  another  as  at  Bieda,  but  on  the 
same  level,  facing  each  other  as  in  streets,  and  sometimes  branching 
off  laterally  into  smaller  lanes  or  alleys.  In  one  part  was  a 
spacious  square  or  piaz/a,  surrounded  by  tombs  instead  of  houses. 
None  of  these  sepulchres,  it  is  true,  had  architectural  fa9ades  re- 
maining, but  the  cliffs  were  hewn  into  smooth,  upright  faces,  and 
here  and  there  were  fragments  of  an  ornamental  cornice  cut  in  the 
rock.  Within  the  tombs  the  analogy  was  preserved.  Many  had 
a  large  central  chamber,  with  others  of  smaller  size  opening  upon 
it,  lighted  by  windows  in  the  wall  of  rock,  which  served  as  the 
partition.  This  central  chamber  represented  the  atrium  of 
Etruscan  houses,1  whe-nce  it  was  borrowed  by  the  Romans;  and 
the  chambers  around  it  the  triclinia,  for  each  had  a  bench  of  rock 
round  three  of  its  sides,  on  which  the  dead  had  been  deposited, 
reclining  as  at  a  banquet.  The  ceilings  of  all  the  chambers  had 
the  usual  beams  and  rafters  hewn  in  the  rock ;  and  in  one 


8  Mrs.  Gray  (Sep.  Etruria,   p.  367)  may  l  Described  by  Vitruvins  (VI.  3),  Varro 
be  excused  for  having  fallen  into  this  error,  (L.  L.  V.   161),  and  Festus  (v.  Atrium), 
when  the  same  had   been   stated  by  the  The  atrium   in  this  case  was  not  a  true 
highest  archaeological  authorities  in  Rome.  carccdium,  not  being  open  to  the  sky  ;  but 
Cere  Antica,  p.  51.  Bull.  Inst.  1838,  p.  171.  had  it  been,   the  purpose  of  concealment 
In  truth,  a  spot  so  swarming  with  caverns,  would  have  been  defeated.     Indeed  it  was- 
might  well  suggest  such  an  appellation.  sometimes  deemed  necessary  to  support  the 

9  One  of  them  has  a  small  pilaster  against  ceiling  by  a  massive  pillar  of  rock.     Yet 
its   inner  wall,    with  capital   and   abacus  that  the  analogy  was  intended,   and  was 
quite  Doric,  and  shaft  also  of  early  Doric  preserved  as  far  as  possible,  is  evident  from 
Droportions,   though   resting   on   a  square  the   windows   around,  which  suppose  the 
base.  light  to  have  been  received  from  the  central 

chamber. 


CHAP,  xxr.]     THE  BANDITAOCIA— GROTTA  BELLA  SEDIA.  239> 

instance  there  was  a  fan- like  ornament  in  relief,  and  walls  panelled, 
precisely  as  in  a  tomb  at  Vulci  ;2  whence  it  may  be  inferred  that 
such  decorations  were  at  one  period  fashionable  in  Etruscan 
houses. 

Many  of  the  tombs  of  the  Banditaccia  are  surmounted  by 
tumuli.  Tumuli,  indeed,  are  scarcely  less  numerous  here  than  at 
Tarquinii.  Some  of  them  are  still  unexcavated,  the  entrance 
being  below  the  surface ;  in  others  the  doorway  opens  in  the 
basement,  which  is  often  of  rock,  hewn  into  mouldings  and 
cornice,  and  more  rarely  of  masonry.  The  cone  of  earth  which 
originally  surmounted  these  tumuli  is  in  most  cases  broken  down, 
in  some  almost  to  the  level  of  the  soil.  As  at  Tarquinii,  there 
are  no  architectural  facades  in  this  necropolis ;  the  decoration  is 
chiefly  internal.  Nor  could  I  perceive  more  than  two  instances 
of  inscriptions  on  the  exterior  of  tombs  ;  and  those  were  no 
longer  legible. 

Tombs  of  great  interest  have  been  opened  on  this  spot  at 
various  periods,  and  not  a  few  still  remain  open.  The  first  you 
reach  is  a  large  tomb,  lying  deep  below  the  surface  of  the  hill, 
with  two  square  pillars  in  the  centre,  and  a  row  of  long  niches 
for  bodies  recessed  in  the  walls;  beside  which  the  chamber  is 
surrounded  by  a  deep  bench,  separated  into  compartments  for 
corpses,  which  were  arranged,  not  in  lines  parallel  with  the 
niches,  but  at  right  angles,  with  their  feet  pointing  to  the  centre 
of  the  tomb.  There  is  nothing  further  remarkable  in  this 
sepulchre  beyond  an  Etruscan  word — CVETHN — cut  in  the  rock 
over  one  of  the  recesses,  which,  from  its  position  in  the  corner, 
seems  to  be  the  commencement  of  an  inscription  never  completed. 
This  tomb,  in  size,  form,  and  arrangements,  is  very  like  that  of 
the  Tarquins,  represented  in  the  wood-cut  at  page  242.  It  was 
discovered  in  1845.  It  is  marked  1  in  the  Plan. 

GROTTA  DELLA  SEDIA. 

Hard  by,  on  the  slope  between  Cervetri  and  the  Banditaccia,  is 
a  sepulchre,  on  the  plan  of  those  of  Bieda,  with  two  small 
chambers,  separated  by  a  wall  of  rock,  in  which  are  cut  a  door 
and  two  little  windows,  all  surrounded  by  the  usual  rod-moulding. 
But  the  marvel  of  the  tomb  is  an  arm-chair,  cut  from  the  living  rock, 
standing  by  the  side  of  one  of  the  two  sepulchral  couches  in  the 
outer  chamber,  as  though  it  were  an  easy- chair  by  the  bed-side, 

2  See  Chapter  XXIX.,  p.  448. 


240  CERVETRI.  [CHAP.  xxi. 

or  a  seat  for  the  doctor  visiting  his  patient !  But  why  placed 
in  a  tomb  ?  Was  it  merely  to  carry  out  still  further  the  analogy 
to  a  house  ?  Was  it,  as  Visconti  suggests,  for  the  use  of  the 
relatives  who  came  yearly  to  hold  solemn  festivals  at  the  tomb  ?3 
Or  was  it  for  the  shade  of  the  deceased  himself,  as  though  he 
were  too  restless  to  be  satisfied  with  his  banqueting-couch,  but 
must  have  his  easy-chair  also  to  repose  him  after  his  wanderings? 
Or,  as  Micali  opines,  was  it  to  intimate  the  blissful  repose  of  the 
new  life  on  which  his  spirit  had  entered  ?  4  Was  it  not  rather  a 
curule  chair,  the  insigne  of  the  rank  or  condition  of  the  deceased, 
showing  him  to  have  been  a  ruler  or  magnate  in  the  land  ?5  It 
may  have  been  for  the  support  of  a  cinerary  urn  ;  for  in  the  tombs 
of  Chiusi,  canopi,  or  vases  in  the  form  of  human  busts,  which 
were  probably  the  effigies  of  the  deceased  whose  ashes  they 
contained,  have  often  been  found  placed  on  earthenware  seats  of 
this  form.  Such  canopi  have  also  been  discovered  at  Caere.  This 
tomb  was  opened  in  1845. 6 

Crossing  the  western  end  of  the  Banditaccia,  we  reach  a  tomb 
opening  in  its  northern  slope,  called  the 

GROTTA  DELLE  CINQUE  SEDIE. 

It  has  three  chambers,  one  in  the  centre,  which  has  its  roof 
carved  into  beam  and  rafters,  and  a  smaller  one  on  each  side, 
opening  on  the  passage  by  which  the  tomb  is  approached.  The 
rock-cut  doorway  to  each  chamber  is  arched — an  unusual  feature. 
In  the  little  chamber  to  the  left,  are  five  small  seats  in  a  row, 
hewn  from  the  rock,  but  without  decorations.  They  give  its 
name  to  the  sepulchre.  I  found  this  tomb  full  of  water  in  June, 
1876.  It  faces  W.N.W. 

GROTTA  DELL'  ALCOVA. 

A  little  beyond  that  just  described,  and  lying  beneath  a  tumulus, 
is  another  sepulchre  which  I  shall  call  the  "  Tomb  of  the  Alcove." 

3  Antichi  Monument!  cli  Ceri,  p.  31.  genuine  sdla  curulis.     It  will  be  borne  in 

4  Micali,  Mon.  Inecl.  p.  152.  mind  that  the  curule  chair  was  one  of  the 

5  The  form  of  this  and  similar  rock-hewn  Etruscan     insignia     of     authority  ;    and 
seats  in  other  tombs  of  Cervetri  is  very  like  adopted  by  the  Romans  from  the  Etruscans, 
that  of  the  beautiful  marble  chair,  with  6  Canina  gives  a  representation  of  tLi« 
lias-reliefs,  in  the  Palazzo  Corsini  at  Rome,  tomb.     Etruria  Marit.  I.  tav.  65. 

which  is   thought  to  be  Etruscan,  and  a 


CHAP,  xxi.]  TOMB    OF    THE    ALCOVE.  241 

from  a  large  recess  in  the  further  wall,  almost  like  a  chapel  in  a 
Cathedral.7  There  are  in  fact  three  of  these  recesses,  like  so 
many  apsides,  but  the  central  one  is  the  most  spacious,  and  is 
obviously  the  post  of  honour,  the  last  resting-place  of  the  most 
illustrious  dead  here  interred.  In  it  is  a  massive  sepulchral  couch, 
with  cushion  and  pillows  at  its  head,  ornamented  legs  in  relief, 
and  a  low  stool,  or  hypopodium  in  front — all  hewn  from  the  living 
rock.  It  may  represent  a  thalamus  or  nuptial-couch,  rather  than 
the  usual  festive  K^ivr]  or  lectus,  for  it  is  double,  and  must  have 
been  occupied  Toy  some  noble  Etruscan  and  his  wife,  whose  skulls 
still  serve  as  a  memento  mori  to  the  visitor,  though  a  confused 
heap  of  dust  on  the  couch  is  all  that  is  left  of  their  bodies  and 
integuments. 

The  tomb  bears  a  striking  resemblance  to  a  temple — in  its 
spaciousness — in  its  division  into  aisles  by  the  pillars  and  pilasters 
which  support  the  rafter-carved  roof — in  the  dark  shrine  at  the 
upper  end,  raised  on  a  flight  of  steps — and  in  the  altar-like  mass 
of  the  couch  within.  Nor  are  the  many  large  amphorce  which 
strew  the  floor,  unpriestly  furniture  ;  though  they  hint  at  copious 
libations  to  a  certain  jolly  god,  poured  forth  on  the  occasion  of 
the  annual  sepulchral  festivals. 

This  tomb  has  other  features  of  interest.  The  two  fluted 
pillars  which  support  the  roof,  and  the  pilasters  against  the  inner 
wall,  present  specimens  of  capitals  and  mouldings  of  a  peculiar 
character,  and  throw  light  on  that  little-understood  subject — the 
architecture  of  the  Etruscans.  Crere,  indeed,  is  particularly  rich 
in  this  respect — more  so  than  any  other  Etruscan  site.  Many 
of  the  tombs  still  open  have  singular  or  beautiful  architectural 
features  ;  and  others  of  the  same  character  are  now  lost  sight  of, 
or  reclosed  with  earth ;  one  in  particular,  from  its  spaciousness 
and  the  abundance  of  such  decoration,  had  acquired  the  name  of 
"  II  Palazzo."  Of  the  students  of  ancient  architecture  who  yearly 
flock  to  Rome,  none  should  omit  to  visit  the  tombs  of  Cervetri — 
.and  none  would  regret  it.  This  tomb  was  discovered  in  1845.8 


At  the  back  of  this  tomb  is  one  by  far  the  most  interesting 

7  Canina  calls  this  tomb  "  Sepolcro  clei  form;  in  this  instance  over  the  doorway 
Pilastri, "  and  gives  a  plan  and  sections  of  it   is  cmpleclon,  precisely  resembling   the 
it.     Etruria  Maritt.  I.  tav.  67,  p.  195.     It  walls  of   Sutri,    Fallen,  and  Nepi,  though 
faces  N.N.NY.  of  rather  smaller   dimensions.      In   every 

8  The  deep  pit  which  forms  the  entrance  instance  it  is  opus  quadratum,  or  regular 
to  most  of  these  tombs  is  generally  lined  masonry,  even  in  those  tombs  which  are 
with  tufo  masonry.     The  style  is  not  uni-  manifestly  of  the  most  ancient  construction. 

VOL.   I.  R 


2-12 


CEEVETRI. 


[CHAP.  xxr. 


that  has  been  found  in  this  necropolis,  since  the  discovery  of  the 
celebrated  Grotta  llegulini-Galassi.     It  must  be  called 


GROTTA  DE'  TARQUINJ, 

or,  the  "  Tomb  of  the  Tarquins !  "  Yes,  reader — here  for  the 
first  time  in  Etruria  has  a  sepulchre  of  that  celebrated  family 
been  discovered.  The  name  had  been  met  with,  a  few  times,  on 


TOMB    0V    THE    TARQUINS,    CERVETRI. 

urns,  and  funeral  furniture,9  but  never  in  any  abundance.  Nor 
are  we  yet  assured  that  it  was  a  common  name  in  Etruria. 
"NVe  only  know  that  there  must  have  been  a  numerous  family 
of  Tarquins  settled  at  Crere.  But  can  this  have  been  of  the 
same  race  as  the  celebrated  dynasty  of  Rome  ?  Nothing  more 


The  frequent  traces  of  the  passages  having 
been  vaulted  by  the  gradual  convergence 
of  the  horizontal  courses,  establish  their 
high  antiquity,  as  being  prior  to  the  inven- 
tion or  at  least  the  practice  of  the  arch. 

9  On  a  spherical  cippus,  found  at  Chiusi, 
was  inscribed  "TAUCNAL"  (Passed,  Acher- 
ont.  p.  66,  ap.  Gori,  III.) — "TARCHNAS" 
on  a  cornelian  scarab&us,  found  near 
Pi.scille  (Vermiglioli,  Iscriz.  Perug.  I.  p. 
81,  tav.  V.  2)  —  "TARCHI,"  on  a  column  in 
the  Museo  Oddi  at  Perugia  (id.  I.  p.  148) 
— "  TARCHIS,"  on  one  of  the  urns  in  the 
Grotta  de'  Volunni  at  Perugia. — "TAR- 


CHISA,"  on  an  urn  in  the  Museum  of  Flo- 
rence (Lanzi,  Saggio,  II.  p.  417). — "TAR- 
CHU,"  on  a  black  cinerary  pot  from  Chiusi, 
now  in  the  same  collection.  TARCH  was  no 
doubt  the  primitive  form,  with  the  inflexion 
of  Tarch-i-w,  or  un  ;  from  this  the  adjective 
was  formed  by  the  usual  addition  of  na  or 
nas — Tarchnas  (Tarquinius),  Tarchnai 
(Tarquinia).  The  termination  sa  or  isa  is 
indicative  of  connection  by  marriage,  or 
Tarchisa  may  be  equivalent  to  Tarquitia — 
an  Etruscan  family  renowned  for  its  skill 
in  divination.  See  p.  7. 


CHAP,  xxi.]  TOMB    OF    THE    TAEQUIXS.  213 

probable.  We  know  that  when  the  royal  family  was  expelled, 
the  king  and  two  of  his  sons,  Titus  and  Aruns,  took  refuge  at 
Cfere ;  Sextus,  the  elder — 

"  the  false  Tarquin 
"Who  wrought  the  deed  of  shame," — 

retiring  to  Gabii,  where  he  was  soon  after  slain.1  What  more 
likely  then  than  that  the  famil}'  here  interred  was  descended  in  a 
direct  line  from  the  last  of  the  Roman  kings  ?  Though  Aruns, 
one  of  the  princes,  was  slain  soon  after  in  single  combat  with  the 
consul  Brutus,  at  the  Arsian  Wood,3  he  may  have  left  his  family 
at  Caere,  and  his  father  and  brother  still  survived  to  perpetuate 
the  name  of  Tarquin.3  However  it  be,  let  the  visitor  to  this 
sepulchre  bear  in  mind  the  possibility,  to  say  the  least,  that  the 
skulls  he  handles,  and  the  dust  he  gazes  on,  may  be  those  of  that 
proud  race,  whose  tyranny  cost  them  a  crown — perhaps  the 
Empire  of  the  World. 

The  first  chamber  you  enter  is  surrounded  by  benches  of  rock, 
and  contains  nothing  of  interest ;  but  in  the  floor  opens  a  long 
flight  of  steps,  which  lead  down,  not  directly,  but  by  a  bend  at 
right  angles,  to  a  lower  chamber  of  much  larger  size.4  It  is  called 
by  the  peasantry  the  "  Tomb  of  the  Inscriptions,"  and  well  does 
it  merit  the  name  ;  for  it  has  not  merely  a  single  lengthy  legend, 
as  on  the  pillar  of  the  Pompey-Tonib  at  Corneto,  nor  a  name 
here  and  there,  as  in  the  Grotta  delle  Iscrizioni  at  the  same 
place  ;  but  the  tomb  is  vocal  with  epigraphs — every  niche,  every 
bench,  every  portion  of  the  walls  speaks  Etruscan,  and  echoes  the 
name  of  Tarquin. 

This  chamber  is  a  square,  or  nearly  so,  of  thirty-five  feet,  with 
two  massive  pillars  in  the  centre,  and  a  row  of  thirteen  recesses 

1  Liv.  I.   60.     Dionysius  says  the  king  to  their  relative  Mamilius  Octavius  (Liv. 
fled  to  Gabii,  where   Sextus  was  prince,  II.   15).     We   hear   no   more  of  them  at 
and  after  staying  there  some  time  in  the  Ctere,  yet  from  their  choosing  that  city  as 
vain  hope  of  inducing  the  Latins  to  take  up  their  first  place  of  refuge  in  their  exile,  it 
his  cause,  he  removed  to  the  city  of  Etruria,  is  highly  probable  that  they  had  relatives 
whence  his  mother's  family  had  come,  i.e.  residing  there,  as  well  as  at  Gabii,    Tar- 
Tarquinii  (V.  pp.  276,  279)  ;  but  no  men-  quinii,   and  Tusculum.     The  existence   of 
tion  is  made  of  Caere.  this  tomb  at  least  establishes  the  Etruscan 

2  Liv.  II.  6.  origin  of  the  Tarquins,  which  Niebuhr  has 

3  Livy  (II.  6,  9)  says  the  elder  Tarquin  called  in  question  (I.  pp.  376,  511). 

and  his  son  Titus  subsequently  went  to  Tar-  4  The  depth  of  the  floor  below  the  sur- 

quinii,  Yeii,  and  Clusium,  to  raise  the  cities  face  must  be  very  considerable — hardly  less 

of  Etruria  in  their  cause,  and  when  the  than  50  feet.     The  upper  chamber  faces 

campaign  of  Porsenna  had  failed  to  reinstate  S.S.E.  The  tomb  was  discovered  in  1845. 
them  at  Rome,  they  retired  to  Tusculum, 


244  CERVETRL-  [CHAP.  xxi. 

for  corpses,  in  the  walls  ;  while  below  is  a  double  tier  of  rock- 
hewn  benches,  which  also  served  as  biers  for  the  dead.  The 
walls,  niches,  benches,  and  pillars,  are  all  stuccoed,  and  the 
inscriptions  are  painted  in  red  or  black,  or  in  some  instances 
merely  marked  with  the  finger  on  the  damp  stucco.  Observe 
these  scratched  epigraphs.  The}'  are  remarkable  for  the  wonder- 
ful freshness  of  the  impression.  The  stucco  or  mortar  has 
hardened  in  prominent  ridges  precisely  as  it  was  displaced;  and 
you  might  suppose  the  inscription  had  been  written  but  one  day, 
instead  of  much  more  than  two  thousand  years.  No  finger,  not 
even  the  effacing  one  of  Time,  has  touched  it,  since  that  of  the 
Etruscan,  who  so  many  centuries  ago  recorded  the  name  of  his 
just  departed  friend. 

Were  I  to  insert  all  the  inscriptions  of  this  tomb,  I  should 
heartily  weary  the  reader.5  Let  one  suffice  to  show  the  Etruscan 
form  of  the  name  of  Tarquin. 


which  in  Roman  letters  would  be 

AVLE  •  TARCHXAS  •  LARTHAL  •  CLAN 

The  name,  either  in  Etruscan  or  Latin,6  occurs  no  fewer  than 
thirty-five  times!  How  much  oftener  it  was  repeated  in  parts 
where  the  paint  has  run  or  faded,  or  the  inscriptions  have  become 
otherwise  illegible,  I  cannot  say,  but  should  think  that  not  less 
than  fifty  epitaphs  with  this  name  must  have  been  originally 
inscribed  in  this  tomb.  One  fact  I  noticed,  which  seems  to 
strengthen  the  probability  that  this  family  was  of  the  royal  race 
—  namely*,  that  it  appears  to  have  kept  itself  in  great  measure 
distinct  by  intermarriages,  and  to  have  mingled  little  with  other 
Etruscan  families  —  at  least  when  compared  with  similar  tombs, 

*  I  have  given  all  the  inscriptions  that  not  necessarily  indicate  a  very  late  date  ;  if 

remain  legible,  whether  Etruscan  or  Latin,  the  family  were  of  the  royal  blood  of  Rome, 

in  Bull.Inst.  1847,  pp.  56  —  59.  Compare  the  occasional  use  of  the  Latin  character 

Dr.  Mommsen's  version  of  some  of  them  may  be  explained,  without  referring  these 

(p.  63)  which  differs  from  mine,  though  I  epigraphs  to  the  period  of  Roman  douiina- 

cannot  think  in  every  instance  so  correct.  tion.  Moreover,  even  though  in  Latin 

For  the  plan,  sections,  inscriptions,  &c.,  of  letters,  the  name  sometimes  retains  its 

this  tomb  see  Canina,  Etr.  Maritt.  I.  tav.  Etruscan  form  —  "TARCNA"  —  which  is 

62.  quite  novel,  and  a  presumptive  evidence  of 

6  The  Latin  inscriptions  in  this  tomb  do  antiquity. 


CHAP,  xxi.]  TOMB    OF    THE    SAKCOPHAGI.  245 

those  of  Perugia  for  instance,  this  sepulchre  will  be  found  to 
contain  very  few  other  family-names  introduced  in  the  epitaphs  as 
matronymics.7 

Most  of  the  niches  are  double,  or  for  two  bodies.  Some, 
beside  inscriptions,  have  painted  decorations — a  wreath,  for 
instance,  on  one  side,  and  some  crotala,  or  castanets,  on  the 
other,  or  a  wreath,  and  a  small  pot  or  alabastos,  represented  as 
if  suspended  above  the  corpse.  Between  the  niches  are  elegant 
pilasters,  and  in  front  are  the  legs  of  couches,  and  the  usual  long, 
paw-footed  stools,  all  painted  on  the  stucco,  to  make  each  mortu- 
ary bed  resemble  a  festive  couch.  On  one  of  the  square  pillars 
which  support  the  beamed  roof,  is  painted  a  large  round  shield. 
In  the  ceiling  between  the  pillars  is  a  shaft  cut  through  the  rock, 
from  the  plain  above,  still  covered  by  the  slabs  with  which  it  was 
closed  when  the  last  of  "  the  great  house  of  Tarquin  "  wras  laid  in 
this  tomb.8 

Like  most  of  the  tombs  of  the  Banditaccia,  which  are  below  the 
surface,  this  was  half  full  of  water,  as  it  generally  is  in  winter. 
At  the  expense  of  wet  feet,  I  contrived  to  examine  them  all ;  but 
after  heavy  rains,  a  visit  to  Caere  would,  to  many,  prove  fruitless. 
One  tomb  was  completely  reclosed  with  earth  washed  down  from 
above,  so  that  I  was  obliged  to  have  it  re- excavated  for  my 
especial  inspection. 

GROTTA  DE'  SARCOFAGI. 

Close  to  the  Tomb  of  the  Tarquins  is  another  sepulchre,  sunk 
deep  below  the  surface,  and  approached  by  a  similar  narrow 
passage  lined  with  masonry.  I  designate  it  the  "  Tomb  of  the 
Sarcophagi,"  from  its  containing  three  of  those  large  monuments, 
which  are  very  rarely  found  at  Caere,  the  dead  being  in  general 
laid  out  on  their  rock}r  biers,  without  other  covering  than  their 
robes  or  armour.  The  sarcophagi  here  are  of  marble.  Two 
have  the  draped  figure  of  a  man  on  the  lid,  in  an  archaic 
style  of  art.  The  first  reclines  on  his  back,  his  right  hand  rest- 

"  In  more  than  forty  inscriptions,  I  the  doorway  had  been  closed,  by  means  of 

could  find  only  eleven  names  of  other  niches  cut  for  the  feet  and  hands ;  or 

families  ;  and  of  these,  seven  only  were  in  may  have  served,  by  the  removal  of  the 

Etruscan  characters,  and  connected  with  covering  slabs,  to  ventilate  the  sepulchre, 

the  name  of  Tarchnas  :  the  other  four  were  in  preparation  for  the  annual  parentalia. 

in  Latin,  and  quite  distinct.  Such  shafts  are  most  common  in  the  tombs 

3  See  the  woodcut  at  page  242.  The  of  Falerii  ;  but  there  they  open  generally  in 

shaft  was  either  used  as  an  entrance  after  the  antechamber,  rarely  in  the  tomb  itself. 


240  CERVETRI.  [CHAP.  xxi. 

ing  on  his  belly,  and  his  left  holding  the  torque,  which  encircles 
his  neck.  He  has  remarkably  fine  features,  and  wears  mustachios 
and  beard,  and  a  chaplet  of  leaves  round  his  brow.  Four  small 
lions,  of  most  quaint  and  primitive  art,  surround  his  couch,  one 
at  each  angle.  The  other  figure  reclines  on  his  left  side,  wears  a 
chaplet,  and  holds  a  pltiala  in  his  right  hand,  while  his  left  rests 
on  his  bosom.  His  hair  is  arranged  in  the  stiff  crisp  curls  which 
are  seen  in  the  earliest  Etruscan  bronzes  ;  his  eyes  are  painted 
black,  his  lips  red  ;  the  rest  of  the  monument  is  uncoloured.  At 
each  shoulder  is  a  small  sphinx,  and  a  little  lion  at  each  foot. 
Another  sarcophagus  of  similar  character  was  found  in  this  tomb, 
even  more  interesting  than  those  described,  as  it  bore  a  number 
of  figures  in  relief  and  coloured,  but  it  has  been  transferred  to 
the  Gregorian  Museum. 

There  is  a  peculiarly  primitive  air  about  these  figures  ;  they  are 
unlike  those  generally  carved  on  the  lids  of  sarcophagi,  which,  in 
truth,  are  seldom  archaic  in  character.  They  bear  a  strong  re- 
semblance to  some  archaic  sarcophagi  very  recently  found  at 
Tarquinii,  and  now  in  the  Museum  of  Corneto. 

The  third  sarcophagus  is  of  temple-form,  with  a  tiled  roof,  but 
without  sculptured  decorations. 

The  marble  of  which  these  monuments  are  formed  is  pronounced 
by  Canina  to  come  from  the  Circaean  promontory,  where,  from  a 
town  near  the  quarry,  and  from  its  transparency,  it  is  known  as 
the  alabaster  of  S.  Felice.  The  same  marble  was  employed  in 
the  archaic  sarcophagi  of  Tarquinii  and  Vulci,  and  the  Etruscans 
made  use  of  it,  though  not  extensively,  until  they  became 
acquainted  with  the  marble  of  Luna. 

On  the  wall  of  this  tomb  is  scratched  an  Etruscan  inscription, 
which  in  Roman  letters  would  be  v :  APUCUS  :  AC.  and  on  a  slab 
which  served  as  a  cippus,  I  read  LARTHI  AP.  VCUIA,  in  Etruscan 
characters.  Hence  it  appears  probable  that  the  sepulchre  was 
that  of  a  family  named  Apucus  (Apicius  ?) 9 

The  front  of  the  couches  is  painted  with  sea-monsters,  dolphins, 
lions,  and  other  animals,  on  a  stuccoed  surface.  There  are  traces 
of  painting  also  on  the  walls  of  the  tomb,  but  nothing  is  now  in- 
telligible beyond  a  band  of  the  usual  wave-pattern  on  the  inner 
wall. 


Immediately  above  the  tomb  last  described,  is  one  opened  in 

9  For  illustrations  of  these  sarcophagi,  see  Canina,  Etr.  Maritt.  I.  tav.  60,  61,  p.  192. 


CHAP,  xxi.]       PAINTED    TOMB    OF    THE    TBICLIXIUM.  247 

the  spring  of  1846,   which  has   paintings   on  its  walls.     It  is 


designated  the 


GROTTA  DEL  TKICLIXIO. 


The  tumulus  under  which  it  lies  is  enclosed  hy  a  wall  of  loose 
stones,  and  the  door  of  the  tomb  is  surmounted  by  three  courses 
of  masonry.  This  tomb  has  but  a  single  chamber,  twenty-four  feet 
by  sixteen,  surrounded  by  deep  benches  of  rock,  on  which  the 
dead  were  laid,  and  at  the  head  of  each  compartment,  when  I 
first  saw  it,  lay  a  skull,  which  startled  the  eye  on  entering  the 
sepulchre.  Just  within  the  door  are  bas-reliefs — a  wild-boar  on 
one  side,  and  a  panther  tearing  its  prey  on  the  other.  But  the 
paintings  ? — It  requires  a  close  and  careful  examination  to  dis- 
tinguish them,  so  much  have  they  suffered  from  the  damp  ;  and 
if  unaware  of  their  existence,  you  might  visit  the  tomb  without 
perceiving  them.  The  white  stucco  on  which  the  scenes  are 
painted  has  been  changed  by  the  damp  to  a  hue  dark  as  the  native 
rock.  In  a  few  places  only  where  it  has  remained  dry  has  the 
painting  retained  its  distinctness.  On  the  left-hand  wall  you 
perceive  the  heads  of  a  man  and  woman,  who  are  reclining  to- 
gether at  a  banquet ;  and  beautiful  heads  they  are,  with  features 
of  Greek  symmetry,  and  more  mastery  and  delicacy  in  the  design 
than  are  commonly  found  in  the  sepulchral  paintings  of  Etruria. 
He  is  garlanded  with  laurel  and  wears  a  short  beard  ;  and  his 
flesh  is  of  the  usual  deep  red,  the  conventional  colour  of  gods 
and  heroes  ;  but  hers  is  of  the  white  hue  of  the  stucco,  though 
her  cheek  is  touched  with  red.  He  pledges  her  in  a  £>/«a/«,  or 
bowl  of  wine,  to  which  she  replies  ~by  an  approving  look,  turning 
her  head  towards  him.  Her  face  and  expression  are  extremely 
pretty,  and  a  variegated  skull-cap,  and  a  full  rich  tress  at  the  side 
of  her  face  add  to  her  charms.  She  wears  also  a  necklace  and 
torque  of  gold.  A  round  table,  resting  on  three  deer-legs,  stands 
by  them,  with  meat,  fruits,  eggs,  and  goblets ;  and  a  large  round 
shield  is  suspended  on  the  wall  behind.  You  might  fancy  it  a 
portrait  of  Pericles,  who  had  just  laid  his  armour  by,  and  was 
pledging  the  fair  Aspasia. 

A  maraviglia  egli  gagliardo,  ed  ella 
Quanto  si  possa  dir,  leggiadra  e  bella. 

From  these  heads  we  must  judge  of  the  rest  in  this  tomb  ;  for 
a  similar  scene  is  repeated  again  and  again  on  the  Avails — eight 


248  CERVETRL  [CHAP.  xxi. 

other  couples  recline  on  the  festive  couch,  each  with  a  tripod- 
table  by  their  side,  and  a  shield  suspended  above.1  But  the 
women  have  lost  the  fairness  of  their  sex,  and,  from  the  dis- 
coloration of  the  stucco,  have  become  as  dusky  as  negresses ; 
while  the  men,  from  their  brick-dust  complexions,  are  much  more 
distinct.  The  men  are  not  half-draped,  as  in  the  earlier  tombs  of 
Cometo,  but  are  all  dressed  in  white  tunics,  the  women  in  yellow. 
In  the  centre  of  the  inner  wall  stand  a  couple  of  slaves,  at  a 
large  table  or  sideboard,  which  has  sundry  vases  and  goblets  on 
and  beneath  it,  and  a  tall  candelabrum  at  its  side,  the  counterpart 
to  which  is  seen  also  on  the  side-wall. 2  On  a  mixing-vase 
which  stands  on  this  table  or  sideboard  is  inscribed  the  word 
"  ivxox  "  in  Roman  letters,  which  can  hardly  here  allude  to  the 
"  white-armed,"  "  ox-eyed  "  goddess,  but  must  rather  refer  to  the 
Juno,  or  presiding  spirit  of  some  fair  Etruscan,3  probably  of  the 
principal  lady  interred  in  this  tomb. 

The  face  of  the  sepulchral  couches  is  also  painted — above, 
with  the  usual  wave-pattern — below,  with  animals,  of  which  a 
pair  of  winged  hippocampi,  in  a  very  spirited  style,  and  a  dragon 
with  green  wings,  are  alone  discernible.4 

The  colours  in  this  tomb  have  been  laid  on  in  distemper,  not 
alfresco.  The  freedom  of  the  design,  so  far  as  it  is  discernible, 

1  A  singular  feature  is,  that  instead  of  a  a  number  of  little  vases  tied  to  the  stem 
separate  Icctus  for  each  pair,  the  revellers  in  clusters,  and  with  fruit  and  flowers  at 
here  are  depicted  reclining  on  a  continuous  the  top.     Candelabra,   with  vases  so  at- 
couch,  which,  as  it  occupies  three  walls  of  tached,  have  been  discovered  in  Etruscan 
the  tomb,  may  be  supposed  to  represent  a  tombs  at  Vulci.     Bull.  Inst.  1832,  p.  194. 
triclinium,  such  as  the  Romans  used.    The  From  this  we  learn  a  secondary  use  to  which 
figures   here   lie  under  a  red  and  white,  these   elegant  articles   of    furniture   were 
or  blue   and   white,    striped   coverlet,    or  applied. 

stragulum.     The  small  tables  by  the  side  3  See   the    Appendix  to  this   Chapter, 

of  the  triclinium  are  not  the  usual  rpditffat  Note  II. 

(i.e.  T6Tpdjre£ai),  or  with  four  legs,  as  in  4  In  the  floor  of  this  tomb  is  an  oblong 

most  of  the  paintings   of  Tarquinii,    but  pit,  just  such  as  opens  in  the  ceilings  of  so 

fpliroSfs,  or  with  only  three  feet.  many  sepulchres  at  Civita  Castellana,  and 

2  Banquets  by  lamp-light  are  rarely  re-  as  is  shown  in  the  roof  of  the  tomb  of  the 
presented  in  Etruscan  tombs  ;  the  revellers  Tarquins,    in  the  wood-cut,  at  page  242. 
are  generally  depicted  lying  under  the  shade  Whether  it  be  the  shaft  to  a  second  sepul- 
of  the  ivy  or  vine,  or  amid  groves  of  myrtle.  chral   chamber  beneath   this,    as   analogy 
Even  in  the  Grotta  Querciola,  at  Corneto,  suggests,  or  is  merely  intended  to  drain  the 
though  a  candelabrum  is  introduced,  the  tomb,  I  cannot  say,  for  I  found  it  full  of 
festive  couches  are   surrounded   by  trees.  water.     In  the  so-called  "  Tomb  of  Solon  " 
In  the  Tomba  Golini,  at  Orvieto,  however,  at  Grombet  Li,   in   Phrygia,   described  by 
candelabra  are  depicted  with  lights  burning,  Steuart  in  his  work  on  Lydia  and  Phrygia, 
but  the  paintings  there  evidently  represent  a  similar  well  or  shaft  is  sunk  in  the  middle 
scenes  in  the  Etruscan  Hades.     The  can-  of  a  sepulchral  chamber.     I  have  found  the 
delabra  in  this  tomb  of  Caere  are  worthy  of  same  also  in  Greek  tombs  in  Sicily. 
particular  notice,  as  they  are  depicted  with 


CHAP,  xxi.]  TOMB    OF    THE    RELIEFS.  249 

the  Greek  character  of  the  features,  and  the  full  faces  of  some 
of  the  males,  are  clear  proofs  of  a  late  date — a  date  certainly 
subsequent  to  the  Roman  conquest ;  and  this  is  confirmed  by  the 
presence  of  the  Latin  inscription.5  This  tomb  faces  the  S.E. 

A  painted  tomb  at  Cervetri  has  peculiar  interest,  for  this  is  the 
only  site  in  Etruria  where  we  have  historical  record  of  the  exist- 
ence of  ancient  paintings.  Pliny  speaks  of  some  extant  in  his 
day,  which  were  vulgarly  believed  to  have  been  executed  prior  to 
the  foundation  of  Rome.6  Those  in  this  tomb  can  scarcely  lay 
claim  to  a  purely  Etruscan  antiquity.  Another  sepulchre,  how- 
ever, was  discovered  some  forty  years  since,  which  contained 
figures  of  men  and  animals  in  a  very  archaic  style,  bearing  in 
their  singular  parti-coloured  character  much  resemblance  to  those 
in  the  Grotta  Canipana  at  Veii.  The  tomb  is  still  open,  and 
lies  on  the  slope  to  the  N.  of  Cervetri,  and  not  far  from  the 
"  Tomb  of  the  Seats  and  Shields,"  but  it  is  not  easy  to  find, 
and  is  full  of  water  in  the  winter. 7 


Traversing  the  long  street  of  tombs  and  tumuli,  at  the  N.E. 
extremity  of  the  Banditaccia,  next  to  a  large  tumulus  with  a 
circular,  rock-hewn  base,  we  reach  the 

GROTTA  DEI  RILIEVI, 

or  "  Tomb  of  the  Reliefs,"  so  called  from  its  peculiar  decora- 
tions. It  was  discovered  in  1850  by  the  late  Marchese  Campana, 
and  is  entered  by  a  long  flight  of  steps  sunk  deep  in  the  rock,  the 
passage  being  lined  with  emplccton  masonry.  The  entrance  to 

5  For  notices  of  this  tomb  see  Bull.  Inst. ,  close  vest,  shooting  an  arrow  at  a  stag— a 
1847,    pp.    61,   97,   and   Canina,    Etruria  lion  devouring  a  stag,  while  a  second  lion, 
Marit.  vol.  I.  p.  194,  tav.  63,  64.     Canina  squatting  by,  looked  on — a  ram  flying  from 
calls  it  the    "  Tomba  delle  Pitture,"  and  another    lion — and    fragments    of    other 
ascribes  it  to  the  end  of  the  Republic.  animals,  and  of  a  second  man  with  a  bow. 

6  Plin.  XXXV.  6.  There  was  much  truth  and  expression  in 

7  The  paintings  in  this  tomb  are  said  by  the   beasts,    in    spite   of  their  unnatural 
Mr.  Ainsley  to  be  more  archaic  than  any  at  parti-colouring.      The  only  hues  used   in 
Tarquinii.    A  description  of  them  has  been  this  tomb  are  black,  white,  and  red.     The 
given  by  Kramer  (Bull.  Inst.  1834,  pp.  97  face  and  legs  of  the  archer  were  painted 
— 101),   who   represents  them   as  of  the  white — a  singular  fact,  as  that   was  the 
rudest  character,  painted  on  the  bare  porous  conventional  hue  of  women.     The   door- 
tufo,  which  has  undergone  no  preparation,  moulding    was  striped    diagonally,    as   in 
not  being  even  smoothed,  to  receive  them.  Egyptian  architecture,  with  red,  white,  and 
The  tomb  was  nearly  elliptical,  and  had  an  black.     Many  of  the  above  figures   have 
upper  and  lower  band  of  figures ;  those  in  now  disappeared,  and  unless  some  means, 
the  lower  were  almost  effaced  ;  but  above,  are  taken  to  preserve  then;,  the  rest  will 
there  was  a  man  with  pointed  beard,  and  soon  perish.    Cf.  Ann.  Inst.  1835,  p.  183. 


•2,30  CEEVETEI.  [CHAP.  xxi. 

the  passage  is  guarded  by  two  lions  of  tufo,  of  life-size.  This 
tomb  resembles  that  of  the  Tarquins  in  its  plan,  being  surrounded 
fry  broad  benches  of  rock,  having  a  series  of  sepulchral  recesses 
hollowed  in  its  walls,  and  its  roof  supported  by  two  similar  pillars 
hewn  from  the  living  rock.  But  its  interest  is  of  a  very  different 
character.  That  of  the  former  tomb  lies  in  the  historical  associa- 
tions connected  with  the  family  there  interred,  and  in  its  numerous 
•epitaphs  recording  the  name  of  Tarquin.  The  interest  of  this 
sepulchre,  which  belonged  to  an  Etruscan  family  unknown  to 
fame,  lies  in  its  singular  and  abundant  decorations,  in  the 
numerous  representations  of  Aveapons  and  other  implements, 
generally  domestic,  sometimes  religious,  both  sculptured  and 
painted  on  its  walls,  pillars,  and  pilasters.  In  this  particular  it 
stands  alone  among  the  extant  sepulchres  of  Etruria. 

It  is  of  smaller  size  than  the  tomb  of  the  Tarquins,  being  only 
iibout  twenty-five  feet  in  length,  by  twenty-one  feet  in  width  ;  the 
height  above  the  benches  of  rock  on  which  the  pillars  rest  being 
about  seven  feet.  The  roof,  which  is  nearly  flat,  is  carved  into  a 
broad  beam  and  rafters.  The  benches  which  surround  the  cham- 
ber are  not  the  usual  narrow  ledges  projecting  from  the  walls, 
but  broad  terraces  of  tufo,  on  which  the  dead  were  laid  at  right 
angles  to  the  walls,  the  beds,  of  which  there  are  thirty-two,  being 
separated  by  narrow  ridges  left  in  the  rock.  Recessed  in  the 
wall  above  the  benches  are  a  number  of  horizontal  niches,  thir- 
teen in  all,  each  for  a  body,  and  each  with  a  rock-hewn  pillow, 
painted  deep  red.  These  niches  are  separated  by  fluted  pilasters, 
and  each  pilaster  bears  a  shield  carved  in  relief,  having  Ionic-like 
•capitals,  with  lotus  flowers  pendent  from  the  volutes.  Above  the 
niches  runs  a  frieze,  decorated  with  a  series  of  weapons,  offensive 
and  defensive,  all  carved  in  high  relief  and  coloured.  Here  are 
Basques,  greaves,  swords,  shields,  and  double  strings  of  large 
balls,  apparently  of  stone,  and  probably  the  missiles  used  in 
slings.8  Over  the  doorway,  however,  the  weapons  give  place  to 
two  bulls'  heads,  bound  with  fillets,  as  if  for  sacrifice,  and  to  a 
bronze  patera  suspended  between  them  for  the  libation.  To  the 
left  of  the  doorway  also  hangs  a  flat  quadrangular  dish  represent- 
ing metal,  probably  for  carrying  meat,  as  it  closely  resembles  the 

8  M.    Xotil    des  Verges  (Ktrurie  et  les  received  from  the  Etruscans.      He  draws 

Ktrusques,    III.    p.    2)  takes  them  to  be  them  in  his  plate  as  tassels,  but  to  my  eye 

the  phalerce — rnetal  plaques  used  to   de-  they  appeared  to  represent   a  number  of 

corate  the  breasts  of  victorious  heroes,  or  balls  of  large  size,  strung  on  a  pair  of  stont 

ornaments  used  for  the  heads  of  horses —  ropes,    the   lowest   ball    being   much   the 

•which  Floras  (I.    5)  tells  us  the  Romans  largest. 


CHAP,  xxi.]  TOMB    OF    THE    RELIEFS.  253 

butcher's  trays  used  now-a-days  in  Italy.  On  each  jamb  of  the 
doorway  hangs  a  large  two-handled  dish  (lepastc),  probably  of 
metal,  and  beneath  it  a  circular  trumpet  or  horn.9  Over  the 
central  niche  in  the  inner  wall,  on  the  frieze  are  two  shields 
flanking  a  helmet  of  peculiar  form,  and  a  sword  suspended  in  its 
sheath.  On  the  narrow  cornice  above  this  frieze  are  represented 
swords,  some  naked,  others  sheathed,  between  red  and  yellow 
skull-caps. 

In  many  of  the  sepulchral  niches  were  found  suits  of  bronze 
armour — cuirass,  helm,  and  greaves — though  the  heroes  who  had 
worn  them  had  long  crumbled  to  dust,  but  in  the  central  niche, 
which  was  evidently  the  post  of  honour,  the  skeleton  of  the 
warrior  who  occupied  it  still  lay,  when  the  tomb  was  opened, 
stretched  in  his  metal  shroud.  The  wall  beneath  him  is  carved 
with  legs  so  as  to  resemble  a  couch,  and  under  it  is  represented 
one  of  the  mysterious  divinities  of  the  Etruscan  Hades,  Typhoii 
or  Charun,  bearing  a  rudder  in  his  right  hand  and  a  snake  in  his 
left,  while  the  serpent-coils,  in  which  his  body  terminates,  seem 
to  float  just  above  the  liypopodium  or  low  stool,  the  usual  supple- 
ment to  the  banqueting-couch.  Behind  the  stool  stands  Cerberus, 
his  three  heads  painted  of  different  colours,  red,  white,  and  black, 
and  his  neck  bristling  with  a  collar  of  snakes.  To  the  left  of 
this  scene  stands  a  square  chest  or  closet,  painted  red  and  white, 
with  a  keyhole.  On  the  pilasters,  which  flank  the  central  niche, 
are  represented  two  heads  much  defaced  ; l  one  evidently  repre- 
senting a  bearded  man;  and  beneath  him  hang  a  black  kylix,  and 
a  red  olpe.  The  other  head  is  almost  obliterated  ;  the  face  is 
quite  gone,  but,  from  a  chaplet,  some  strings  of  red  beads,  and 
a  circular  fan  suspended  beneath  it,  we  may  infer  that  it  repre- 
sented a  woman.  A  walking-stick,  on  the  other  hand,  resting 
against  the  couch,  is  hardh-  in  character  with  this  inference. 
As  this  central  niche  contained  two  bodies,  the  busts  on  the 
pilasters  were  in  all  probability  the  portraits  of  the  warrior  and 
his  wife. 

On  all  the  side  pilasters  which  separate  the  niches  are  shields 
in  relief,  painted  yellow,  as  if  to  represent  brass  or  gold — of  that 
circular  Argolic  form,  which  alone  seems  to  have  been  used  by 

9  The  Kfpas  which  we  learn  from  self,  they  appeared  clearly  to  represent 

Athenseus  (IV.  82)  was  invented  by  the  heads  in  relief.  The  curly  beard  of  the 

Etruscans.  male  head  is  most  distinct.  The  other  has 

1  M.  Noel  des  Vergers  represents  these  something  tied  round  the  throat  in  a  knot, 

as  hand-bags  (Etrurie,  III.  pi.  2),  but  to  as  is  often  the  case  with  female  figures  in 

Sir  Gardner  Wilkinson,  as  well  as  to  my-  Etruscan  reliefs. 


254  CEUYErRI.  [CHAP.  xxi. 

the  Etruscans,  and  which  the  Romans  adopted,  in  preference  to 
the  square  shield  they  had  previously  used. 

The  two  pillars  in  the  centre  of  the  tomb  are  about  twenty  inches, 
square,  and  have  capitals  akin  to  the  Ionic,  but  with  an  anthcmion, 
or  honeysuckle  ornament,  dependent  from  each  volute,  which 
gives  them  a  singular  though  far  from  inelegant  appearance. 
Two  faces  of  each  pillar  are  represented  as  hung  with  a  variety 
of  instruments,  sacred  and  domestic,  which  demand  a  detailed 
description.  On  the  pillar  to  the  left,  and  on  the  side  facing  the 
door,  you  see  hanging  on  nails,  close  under  the  capital,  a  pair  of 
those  mysterious  twisted  rods,  which  are  represented  only  in  two 
other  monuments  of  Etruria — -the  procession  of  souls  and  demons 
on  the  walls  of  the  Typhon-tomb  at  Corneto,  and  that  beneath 
the  portico  of  the  Temple-tomb  at  Norchia.  Their  use  was 
evidently  religious,  and  their  presence  in  this  tomb  probably 
indicates  the  interment  of  some  augur  or  aruspex,  or  it  may  be  of 
some  Lucumo  of  high  rank  in  the  Etruscan  hierarchy.  These 
rods  are  coloured  white  and  yellow,  as  if  to  represent  wood.  By 
their  side  hangs  a  leathern  strap  in  several  coils,  probably  a  sling; 
and  such  may  also  be  the  coil  of  rope  suspended  below  it  near  the 
base  of  the  same  pillar.  On  the  other  side  of  the  rods  hang  a 
large  olpe,  or  pitcher,  and  a  stout  stick  or  club  suspended  by  a 
rope  ;  lower  down  an  axe,  and  a  long-bladed  knife  or  sword,  while 
at  the  foot  of  the  pillar  a  spotted  cat  is  sporting  with  a  mouse. 

On  the  same  pillar,  but  on  the  side  opposite  the  other  pillar, 
are  suspended  high  up  a  long  straight  lituus,  or  trumpet,  a  painted 
kylix  or  drinking  bowl,  and  a  bottle  hanging  by  a  string  round  its. 
neck.  Below  hang  a  dagger  in  its  sheath,  a  hand-bag  of  very 
modern  appearance,  with  a  small  bottle  and  a  plate  hanging  over 
it ;  and  a  nondescript  piece  of  furniture,  more  like  a  double  lamp- 
bracket  than  anything  else.  At  the  base  of  the  pillar  a  goose  is 
picking  up  corn. 

On  the  other  pillar  we  see  suspended  another  pair  of  the  twisted 
rods,  and  by  their  side  a  large  disk  or  drum,  hanging  by  a  leathern 
strap.  Below  hang  an  axe,  a  wooden  case  or  frame,  holding  a 
pair  of  knives,  a  bundle  of  seven  long  spits,  strung  and  bound 
together,  the  counterpart  of  which,  in  bronze,  may  be  seen  in  the 
Gregorian  Museum,  a  mace,  and  a  small  pot  like  an  inkstand  ; 
and  at  the  base  of  the  pillar  is  a  large  globe,  apparently  of  metal, 
resting  on  a  wooden  stand,  which,  from  the  short  heavy  mallet 
suspended  by  its  side,  we  take  to  represent  an  Etruscan  gong. 

On  the  inner  face  of  the  same  pillar  hangs  a  long  broad  tablet, 


CHAP.  xxi.J      TOMB    OF    TEE    SEATS    AND    SHIELDS,  25i> 

with  two  handles,  ruled  as  if  to  take  an  inscription.  It  is. 
flanked  by  a  litnus,  similar  to  that  on  the  opposite  pillar,  and  by 
what  seems  to  be  a  spoon  or  ladle.  On  it  hangs  a  small  red  bag, 
fastened  with  a  long  pin.  Beneath  it  are  suspended  a  pair  of 
pincers,  a  mace,  and  a  mallet,  and  between  them  is  represented 
a  duck.  At  the  foot  of  the  pillar  are  a  tortoise,  and  a  dog,  with  a 
bell  round  his  neck,  seizing  a  lizard. 

At  the  entrance  to  the  tomb  stand  two  marble  dp  pi,  shaped 
like  the  hat  of  a  Calabrese  peasant,  one  of  which  bears  the  Etrus- 
can inscription — 

"  MATUXAS  LARISAL 

Ax.  CNEVTHIKER  CIIUNTIIE." 

In  three  of  the  niches  also  the  name  "Matunas  "  occurs,  whence 
we  may  infer  that  the  sepulchre  belonged  to  a  family  of  that 
name.3  The  tomb  faces  S.S.W. 

A  little  to  the  west  of  the  Matunas  tomb  is  another  beneath  a 
tumulus,  which  has  a  chamber  on  each  side  of  the  doorway,  a 
spacious  atrium,  or  central  hall,  with  a  flat  roof  supported  by 
two  decagonal  pillars,  with  bastard  Ionic  capitals,  and  three 
inner  chambers,  with  Etruscan  doors,  and  small  windows  open- 
ing on  the  atrium.  The  roof  is  carved  into  beam  and  rafters, 
and  the  spaces  between  the  latter  are  filled  with  diagonal  patterns,, 
almost  like  chevrons. 


A  short  distance  to  the  S.  of  the  Tomb  of  the  Reliefs,  and' 
beneath  a  large  tumulus,  lies  a  sepulchre,  called,  from  its  peculiar 
furniture, 

GROTTA  DELLE  SEDIE  E  SCUDI, 

or  the  "Tomb  of  the  Seats  and  Shields."  This  tomb  was  dis- 
covered in  1834,  but  not  having  been  preserved  under  lock 
and  key,  like  most  of  those  just  described,  it  is  now  choked 
with  rubbish,  so  as  to  be  hardly  accessible.  Yet  it  is  one 
of  the  most  interesting  sepulchres  on  the  Banditaccia.  It  con- 
tains no  less  than  six  chambers,  and  from  their  arrangement 
and  furniture,  and  from  its  manifest  resemblance  to  an  ancient 
house,  we  may  regard  it  as  a  typical  monument.  The  large 

•  For    further   notices    of   this    curious       Gardner  Wilkinson,  on  "An  Etruscan  toml> 
tomb,  see  M.  Noel  des  Vergers,  Etrurie  et       at  Cervetri."     Ann.  Inst.  1854,  p.  58. 
les  Etrusques,  III.  p.  1 — 3,  pi.  I. — III.    Sir 


256 


CEEVETEI. 


[CHAP.  xxr. 


chamber  in  the  centre,  marked  c  in  the  annexed  plan,  represents 
the  atrium,  the  inner  ones,  marked/,/,/,  the  triclinia  OTCubiciila; 
those  outside  the  door  marked  c,  c,  the  TruAwpia,  or  celluhe  janitoris. 


PLAN    OF    THE    TOMB    OF    THE    SEATS 
AND   SHIELDS. 


The  following  is  the  explanation  of  the 
p'.an  : — 

a.  Rock-hewn  steps  leading  down  to 

the  tomb. 

b.  The  vestibule. 

c.  c.       Chambers    on   each    side   of    the 

entrance. 

d.  Doorway  to  the  tomb. 

e.  Principal  chamber,  or  atrium. 

f.  f,  f.  Inner  chambers,  or  triclinia. 

<j,  y,  g.  Entrances  to  the  inner  chambers. 
h,  h.      Windows  to  the  same,  cut  in  the 

rock. 
i,  i.       Arm-chairs  and  foot-stools,   hewn 

from  the  rock. 

I.  Niche  recessed  in  the  wall, 

/t,  k.      Windows  cut  in  the  rock. 

The  sepulchral  benches  which  surround 
each  chamber  are  here  indicated  ;  some- 
times with  a  raised,  ornamental  head-piece. 

The  shaded  part  of  the  plan  represents 
the  rock  in  which  the  tomb  is  hollowed. 


But  the  most  singular  feature  of  this  tomb  is  two  arm-chairs, 
with  footstools  attached,  hewn  from  the  living  rock,  and  a  shield 
carved  in  lew  relief,  suspended  against  the  wall  over  each.  On 


looking  round  the  principal  chamber,  you  perceive  no  fewer  than 
fourteen  similar  shields  represented  in  relief,  hanging  around  the 
walls.  They  are  circular,  like  Argolic  shields,  about  a  metre  in 
diameter,  and  quite  plain,  without  rim  or  boss.  The  above 
woodcut,  which  gives  a  section  of  the  tomb,  shows  the  chairs 


CHAP,  xxi.]         THE    BOCCANERA   PAINTED    TILES.  257 

standing  between  the   doors    of  the   inner   chambers,   with  the 
shields  hanging  above  them.3 

GROTTA  DELLE  LASTRE  DIPINTE. 

About  one  hundred  paces  from  the  "  Tomb  of  the  Beliefs," 
the  Signori  Boccanera  in  1874  discovered  a  tomb  of  very  small 
size,  with  a  doorway  only  just  large  enough  for  a  man  to  creep 
through,  which,  nevertheless,  contained  objects  of  rare  interest. 
Lying,  some  on  the  rock-hewn  benches,  which  flanked  the  tomb, 
some  on  the  floor,  were  found  five  large  tiles  of  terra-cotta,  about 
40  inches  long,  by  22  wide,  painted  with  figures  of  very  archaic 
character,  and  which  bore  traces  of  having  been  originally 
attached  to  the  walls  as  decorations,  just  as  the  chambers  in 
the  royal  palace  at  Nimroud  were  lined  with  marble  slabs  covered 
with  reliefs.  Two  bore  the  figure  of  a  sphinx,  and  appeared  to 
have  been  placed  one  on  each  side  the  doorway.  The  other  three 
formed  a  continuous  series,  and  seemed  to  have  occupied  the 
inner  wall. 

The  tomb  is  now  closed,  and  has  lost  its  interest.  But  the 
painted  slabs  are  preserved  in  the  Palazzo  Ruspoli  at  Cervetri, 
where  I  saw  them  in  June  1876,  in  the  possession  of  the  brothers 
Boccanera.  As  they  were  for  sale,  and  the  Italian  government 
was  then  in  treaty  for  the  purchase,  they  will  probably  not  long 
remain  on  the  site  of  their  discovery,  but  will  pass  into  some 
native  or  foreign  Museum. 

Though  these  paintings  are  of  high  antiquity,  the  colours  retain 
their  freshness  in  a  remarkable  degree.  They  are  limited  to  red, 
yellow,  black,  and  white.  The  sphinxes  alone  are  somewhat 
faded.  They  stand  facing  each  other,  each  with  one  fore  paw 
raised,  their  flesh  white,  eyes,  eyebrows,  and  hair,  black,  the 
latter  falling  loosely  on  their  shoulders  and  deep  bosoms.  Their 
open  wings  raised  behind  their  backs,  with  their  tips  curling  up 
like  elephants'  trunks,  have  the  feathers  coloured  alternately  red, 
white,  and  black. 

The  other  three  tiles  bear  three  figures  each,  not  more  than 
half  the  height  of  the  slab,  which  is  ornamented  above  with  a 
triple  guilloche  pattern  in  colours,  and  below  the  figures  with  a 

3  This    tomb   has    been    described    and  tav.    71)    makes  the   mistake    of   placing 

delineated  in  Bull.  Inst.  1834,  p.  99.   Ann.  this  tomb  on  the  Monte  d'Oro,  near  Ceri. 

Inst.  1835,  p.  184.     Mon.   Ined.  Inst.  II.  For  further  remarks    on   the  shields,  see 

tav.  XIX.     Canina    (Etr.   Mar.  I.   p.  197,  the  Appendix  to  this  Chapter. 

VOL.    I.  S 


2oS  CERVETBI.  [CHAP.  xxi. 

deep  band  composed  of  broad  vertical  stripes,  red  and  white.  Of 
the  nine  figures,  seven  are  females,  two  males,  distinguished,  as 
in  the  painted  tombs,  by  the  flesh,  which  in  the  men  is  a  deep 
red,  in  the  women,  white.  The  interpretation  of  the  scene  they 
represent  is  not  clear.  It  is  easier  to  say  that  it  is  not  a  banquet, 
nor  a  dance,  nor  public  game,  nor  any  such  scene  of  festivity  as 
was  usually  selected  by  the  Etruscans  to  decorate  their  sepulchres 
and  coffins  ;  nor  is  it  a  scene  of  mourning.  It  might  represent  a 
procession,  were  all  the  figures  walking  in  the  same  direction. 
The  nature  of  the  scene  not  being  intelligible,  I  can  only  describe 
the  figures  which  compose  it. 

The  women  are  draped  to  their  feet  in  red,  white,  or  yellow 
chiton cs,  and  where  the  material  represented  is  of  very  light 
texture,  this  character  is  expressed  by  black  wavy  lines,  as  in 
the  woodcut  at  p.  262.  Over  the  chiton  they  wear  a  mantle,  red 
or  black,  sometimes  covering  the  head,  in  which  case  the  lady  is 
depicted  lifting  it  with  one  hand  like  a  veil.  Sometimes  it  hangs 
on  her  shoulders,  and  her  long  black  hair  descends  in  a  mass 
below  her  waist.  Their  shoes  with  long  sharp  points,  turned 
back  at  the  toes,  as  in  the  earliest  painted  tombs  of  Corneto,  are- 
red  and  black,  in  alternate  figures ;  two  wear  buskins  like  the 
men;  and  one  is  bare-footed.  Three  of  them  carry  vases  of 
different  kinds  in  their  hands,  and  two  hold  branches  of  pome- 
granates. The  men,  who  stand  together,  conversing,  have  short 
hair  and  pointed  beards.  One  wears  a  black  cap  and  mantle, 
and  holds  a  red  bough.  The  other,  whose  head  is  covered  with 
a  sharp  pointed  petasus,  wears  a  black  pallium  over  a  white  tunic, 
and  carries  in  one  hand  a  chaplet,  and  in  the  other  a  long  wand 
tipped  by  the  figure  of  a  small  bull.  Both  have  buskins  reaching 
half  way  up  the  leg,  where  they  are  fastened  by  large  buttons  ; 
as  shown  in  the  woodcut  at  p.  261.  These  male  figures  are  thick- 
limbed  and  clumsy,  their  muscular  development  exaggerated  but 
not  detailed,  and  their  knee-caps  distinctly  though  conventionally 
expressed.4 

These  paintings  evidently  belong  to  the  infancy  of  Etruscan 
art.     The   clumsiness  and  extreme  rigidity  of  the  figures,   the 

4  An  elaborate  and  able  article  on  these  female  sex  seems  to  be  clearly  indicated  by 

tile-paintings  will   be  found   in  the  Bull,  their  white  flesh,   to  be  young  men,   and 

Inst.  1874,  pp.   128-136,  from  the  pen  of  infers,    from  their    carrying   branches  of 

Signer  E.  Hrizio.     He  puts  an  interpreta-  pornegr  mates,  that  they  are  making  love  to 

tion  on  the  scene,  which,  in  my  opinion,  it  one    of    the    women,    who    accepts    their 

will  hardly  bear.     He  views  in  it  a  love-  advances,  while  she  rejects  the  attentions  of 

scene  ;    taking  two  of  the  figures,   whose  the  two  bearded  men. 


CHAP,  xxr.]  THE    CAMPANA    PAINTED    TILES.  259 

very  archaic  though  careful  design,  the  utter  want  of  expression, 
the  limited  scale  of  colour,  the  incapacity  of  the  artist  to  delineate 
active  movements,  and  even  to  express  the  folds  of  drapery, 
though  conscientiously  indicating  those  details  which  were  within 
his  power,  all  mark  these  paintings  as  among  the  most  primitive 
works  of  Etruscan  pictorial  art  yet  brought  to  light. 

But  these  painted  slabs  are  not  unique.  In  1856,  the  Marchese 
Campana  disinterred  at  Cervetri,  six  tiles  of  very  similar  cha- 
racter, which,  on  the  breaking  up  of  his  collection  at  Rome,  were 
transferred  to  the  Louvre.  A  few  years  afterwards,  another 
series  of  painted  terra-cottas,  said  also  to  have  been  dug  up  at 
Cervetri,  appeared  in  the  market  at  Rome.  But  these  were 
eventually  pronounced  to  be  fabrications,  and  the  knowledge  of 
that  fact  naturally  threw  suspicion  on  those  of  the  Campana 
collection,  and  also  on  those  from  the  Boccanera  scavi,  when 
their  discovery  was  first  made  known.  But  these  latter,  while 
they  confirm  the  doubts  as  to  the  second  batch,  vindicate  the 
genuineness  of  the  first ;  for  the  similarity  between  the  two  series 
in  style,  design,  colouring,  ornamentation,  and  general  treatment, 
though  not  in  subject,  is  so  striking,  that  it  is  impossible  to 
doubt  their  equal  antiquity,  and  difficult  to  believe  they  are  not 
by  the  same  hand. 

Not  being  able  to  procure  copies  of  the  quaint  and  curious  tiles 
now  at  Cervetri,  I  offer  for  the  reader's  inspection,  faithful  tran- 
scripts of  those  in  the  Louvre.  These,  like  the  Boccanera 
series,  were  the  decorations  of  a  single  tomb. 

The  principal  scene  is  composed  of  three  tiles,  each  about  four 
feet  long  by  two  wide.  In  the  centre  is  a  lofty  altar,  built  up 
with  blocks  of  various  colours,  disposed  chequer-wise,  and  carved 
into  architectural  forms,  among  which  the  torus  and  owl's  beak 
moulding  repeatedly  occur.  Behind  the  altar  rises  a  slender 
column,  supporting  a  large  bowl,  or  it  may  be  a  capital  of  pecu- 
liar form,  and  doubtless  indicating  the  temple,  before  which  the 
altar  stands.  By  the  altar,  on  which  a  fire  is  burning,  stands 
a  man,  beardless,-  and  with  short  hair,  and  wearing  nothing 
but  a  close-fitting  yellow  vest,  and  black  boots.  He  rests  one 
hand  on  the  altar  and  raises  the  other  to  his  face,  as  if  he  were 
smelling  the  incense.  Behind  him,  and  on  the  next  tile, 
stand  three  figures,  two  of  men,  clad  in  like  fashion,  in  tight 
vests,  in  one  case,  red,  in  the  other,  white,  and  in  similar  boots  ; 
both  are  bearded,  have  a  chaplet  over  their  brows,  and  wear  their 
hair  long  and  loose  upon  their  shoulders.  Both  are  armed,  one 

s  2 


260  CERVETRI.  [CHAP.  xxi. 

.with  bow  and  arrows,  the  other  with  a  spear.  Between  them 
stands  a  woman,  distinguished  hy  her  white  flesh,  with  her  hair 
reaching  to  her  waist,  and  draped  to  her  heels  in  a  white  chiton, 
over  which  she  wears  a  yellow  tunic  reaching  to  her  knees,  and 
over  all  a  red  mantle  with  ornamented  border.  Her  shoes  are 
yellow.  She  carries,  what,  but  for  its  red  colour,  would  be  pro- 
nounced a  branch,  or  a  chaplet  of  leaves.  Each  of  these  figures 
lias  one  hand  raised,  as  if  in  adoration.  The  procession  was 
continued  on  another  tile,  but  as  it  is  imperfect,  I  omit  a  descrip- 
tion of  the  figures  upon  it.5 

The  tile  to  the  right  presents  a  singular  scene.  The  figures 
already  described  are  standing  still  or  moving  slowly  towards 
the  altar,  but  those  on  this  tile  are  rushing  at  full  speed  towards 
it.  The  foremost  is  clad  like  the  other  men,  and  carries  a  bow 
and  arrows.  He  who  follows  also  resembles  the  rest  in  his 
costume,  though  he  has  no  beard,  but  the  parti-coloured  wings 
at  his  shoulders  and  heels,  mark  him  as  no  creature  of  flesh 
and  blood,  but  as  a  genius  or  demon  of  the  Etruscan  mythology 
— one  of  those  spirits  so  frequently  introduced  011  sepulchral 
monuments  into  scenes  of  death  and  destruction.  As  he  rushes 
to  the  altar  he  bears  in  his  arms  the  body  of  a  woman,  who  from 
her  helpless  attitude,  and  her  arms  swaddled  beneath  her  mantle, 
either  represents  a  corpse,  or  is  intended  for  a  victim. 

The  sacrifice  of  Iphigenia,  a  favourite  subject  on  Etruscan 
urns  of  late  date,  is  naturally  suggested  by  this  scene.  But  to 
this  interpretation  it  may  be  objected  that  the  art  is  here  so 
purely  Etruscan,  so  entirely  free  from  all  Hellenic  influence, 
that  it  would  be  an  anomaly  to  regard  it  as  the  representation 
of  a  Greek  myth.  "  These  figures,"  says  Dr.  Brunn,6  "  are 
Etruscans  of  the  purest  blood,  not  ideal  but  real,  so  far  as  the 
style  of  that  remote  epoch  permitted  them  to  be  represented." 
The  man  at  the  altar,  again,  has  none  of  the  attributes  of  a 
priest,  not  even  a  beard,  and  is  the  least  imposing  figure  of  the 
group. 

On  a  fourth  tile,  belonging  to  the  same  series,  although  it  does 
not  fit  on  to  the  others,  two  grey-headed  men  are  sitting,  face  to 
face,  on  folding-stools,  each  dressed  in  a  long  white  tunic  of 
some  light  material,  covered  l>y  a  red  mantle.  One,  who  holds  a 

5  The  said  tile  in  all  probability  originally  opposite  sexes,  now  remain,  and  that  of  the 

contained   three   figures,    but  it   has  been  woman  is  mutilated, 

reduced  in  width,  apparently  to  fit  it  into  6  Ann.  Inst.  1859,  p.  334. 
a  narrow  space,  so  that  two  figures  only,  of 


262 


CEETETEI. 


[CHAP.  xxi. 


•wand,  appears  to  be  talking  on  some  serious  subject  to  the  other, 
whose  attitude,  as  he  rests  his  chin  on  his  right  hand,  is  expres- 
sive of  meditation,  or  of  profound  grief.  The  small  female 
winged  figure  in  the  air  behind  him,  with  one  hand  stretched 


TAINTED    TILE,  FROM    AN    ETRUSCAN    TOMB. 


out  towards  him,  evidently  represents  a  soul,  as  we  learn  from 
analogous  scenes  on  other  Etruscan  monuments,  and  may  justly 
be  taken  for  the  soul  of  the  woman  wrho  is  borne  away  by  the 
winged  demon,  and  who  was  probably  the  wife  or  daughter  of  the 
sorrowful  old  man,  and  we  may  infer  that  it  is  for  her  loss  that 
his  friend  is  endeavouring  to  console  him. 

The  fifth  tile  does  not  belong  to  the  same  series,  for  it  differs 
from  the  rest  in  dimensions  and  decorations  ;  yet  it  was  found  in 


CHAP.   XXI.] 


PAINTED    TILES. 


263 


the  same  tomb,  and  was  painted  apparently  by  the  same  hand. 
It  represents  a  man  in  a  white  shirt,  covered  by  a  brown  tunic, 
sitting,  wand  in  hand,  on  a  plicatilis,  or  folding-stool,  in  front  of 
an  altar  or  pedestal,  not  unlike  that  already  described,  on  which 


PAINTED    TILE,   FllOil   AN    ETRUSCAN    TOMB. 


stands,  with  open  arms,  the  image  of  a  goddess,  with  tittulus  and 
ampyx  on  her  head,  and  white  talaric  chiton,  with  a  brown  tunic 
over  it,  open  in  front,  and  girdled  round  her  waist.  At  the  foot  of 
the  altar  a  snake  is  seen  approaching  the  leg  of  the  sitting  figure, 
which  has  given  rise  to  the  suggestion  that  he  may  represent 
Philoctetes  in  the  island  of  Lenmos.7  This  view,  however,  is 


"  Ann.  Inst.  1857,  pp.  251,  359.     But 
pbiloctetes  would  be  represented  with  the 


bow  and  arrows  of  Hercules,  and  not  with 
a  wand  or  sceptre. 


264  CEBVETBI.  [CHAP.  xxi. 

difficult  of  acceptation,  for  the  reasons  already  assigned,  and  he 
more  probably  is  merely  the  priest  of  the  unknown  divinity,  and 
the  serpent,  like  the  wand,  is  one  of  his  attributes.8 

A  glance  is  enough  to  satisfy  one  as  to  the  high  antiquity  of 
these  paintings.  It  will  be  remarked  that  the  figures  show  none 
of  the  anatomical  development  so  ostentatiously  exhibited  in 
many  of  the  early  wall-paintings  of  Etruria.  The  artist  has 
contented  himself  with  marking  out,  which  he  has  done  with 
decision  and  purit}',  the  bald  outlines  of  his  figures,  merely  ex- 
pressing in  some  cases  the  rounding  of  the  hip,  and  in  a  conven- 
tional manner  the  prominence  of  the  knee-pan,  and  elbow,  and 
indicating  the  nails.  Nor  in  the  drapery  has  he  attempted  to 
represent  folds,  save  by  thin  wav}r  lines,  where  the  material  is- 
either  \vool,  or  of  a  very  thin  texture.  Yet  in  every  part  the 
desire  to  delineate  nature  with  fidelity,  so  far  as  lay  within  the 
limits  of  .his  ability,  is  most  apparent.  His  ability,  however,  did 
not  enable  him  to  design  with  correctness  the  human  figure  in 
motion.  Everything  indicates  a  very  imperfect  knowledge  of 
his  art.  In  point  of  antiquity,  indeed,  these  painted  tiles  of 
Cervetri  are  pronounced  by  the  most  competent  judges,  to  be 
second  only  to  the  very  archaic  wall-pictures  of  the  Grotta 
Campana  at  Veii,  and  anterior  to  all  the  other  tomb-paintings  of 
Etruria.9 

The  colours  are  indelible,  being  burnt  in  with  the  tiles.  The 
ground  is  wrhite,  and  the  flesh  of  the  women,  and  the  parts  of  the 
dresses  and  furniture  which  are  of  that  hue,  are  left  untouched. 
The  other  colours  used  are  black,  red,  brown  (a  mixture  of  the  two), 
and  yellow.  No  blue,  or  green,  is  introduced,  probably  from  the 
inability  at  that  early  age  to  produce  pigments  of  those  hues. 

GROTTA  REGULINI-GALASSI. 

The  sepulchre  at  Cervetri  which  has  most  renown,  and  possesses 
the  greatest  interest  from  its  high  antiquity,  its  peculiar  structure, 
and  the  extraordinary  nature  and  value  of  its  contents,  is  that 
which  has  received  the  name  of  its  discoverers, — the  archpriest 
Regulini,  and  General  Galassi.  This  is  one  of  the  very  few 

8  For  the  part  that  serpents  were  made  9  Helbig  thinks  they  are  separated  by 

to  play  by  the  priesthood  of  Etruria,    see  a   long  space  of  time  from  the  Yeientine 

p.  331.     An   interesting   analysis   of    the  paintings.   Ann.  Inst.  1863,  p.  341.  Brunu 

scenes  on  these  tiles  is  given  by  H.  Brunn,  admits  an  interval,  but  does  not  think  it 

Ann.  Jnst.  1859,  pp.  325—353.  a  wide  one.     Ann.  Inst.  1866,  p.  423. 


CHAP.    XXI.] 


THE    EEGULINI-GALASSI    TOMB. 


265 


virgin-tombs,  found  in  Etruscan  cemeteries.  It  was  opened  in 
April  1836.  It  lies  about  three  furlongs  from  Cervetri,  to  the 
south-west  of  the  ancient  city,  and  not  far  from  the  walls.  It  is 
said  to  have  been  inclosed  in  a  tumulus,  but  the  mound  was  so 
large,  and  its  top  has  been  so  broken  by  frequent  excavations, 
and  levellings  of  the  soil  for  agricultural  purposes,  that  its 
existence  is  now  mere  matter  of  history. 

The  sepulchre  opens  in  a  low  bank  in  the  middle  of  a  field. 
The  peculiarity  of  its  construction  is  evident  at  a  glance.  It  is  a 
rude  attempt  at  an 
arch,  formed  by  the 
convergence  of  hori- 
zontal strata,  hewn  to 
a  smooth  surface,  and 
slightly  curved,  so  as 
to  resemble  a  Gothic 
arch.  This  is  not, 
however,  carried  up 
to  a  point,  but  termi- 
nates in  a  square 
channel,  covered  by 
large  blocks  ofnenfro. 
The  doorway  is  the 
index  to  the  whole 
tomb,  which  is  a  mere  passage,  about  sixty  feet  long,  constructed 
on  the  same  principle,  and  lined  with  masonry.1  This  passage 
is  divided  into  two  parts  or  chambers,  communicating  by  a  door- 
way of  the  same  Gothic  form,  with  a  truncated  top.3 

The   similarity  of  the  structure  to  the  Cyclopean  gallery  at 
Tir}rns  is  striking ;  the  masonry,  it  is  true,  is  far  less  massive ,. 


310UTH    OF    THE    KEUULIJSI-GALASSI    1UMB. 


1  The  masonry  is  of  rectangular  blocks  of 
red  tufo,  containing  large  nodules  ;  in  the 
outer  chamber,  small  and   irregular,    the 
courses,   which  are  not  always  horizontal, 
being  from  12   to  15  inches  deep  ;  in  the 
inner  it  is  of  more  massive  dimensions. 

2  The   outer  chamber   is    33   feet,    the 
inner  24-J-  feet  long,  and  the  thickness  of 
the  partition-wall,  3  feet  ;  making  the  en- 
tire length  60£  feet.     The  inner  doorway 
is  6j  feet  high  and  44  wide  at  the  bottom, 
narrowing  upward   to  1  foot  at  the   top. 
Similar    passage-tombs   have   been   found 
elsewhere  in  this  necropolis,  especially  in 
that  part  called  Zambra  (Bull.  Inst.  1840, 


p.  133),  as  well  as  at  Palo  and  Selva  la 
Rocca.  Tombs  of  this  passage-form  are 
generally  of  high  antiquity.  These  bear 
an  evident  re'ation  to  the  Treasuries  of 
Mycenae  and  Or  homenos,  and  to  the= 
Nurhags  or  Nuraghe  of  Sardinia  and  the- 
Talajots  of  the  Balearics,  in  as  far  as  they 
are  roofed  in  on  the  same  principle.  And 
they  are  probably  of  not  inferior  antiquity. 
Like  the  Nuraghe  they  may  with  good 
reason  be  regarded  as  the  work  of  the 
Tyrrhene-Pelasgi.  The  Druidical  barrows. 
of  our  own  country  sometimes  contain 
passage-formed  sepulchres  like  these  of 
Cervetri. 


266 


CEEVETEI. 


[CHAP.  xxi. 


but  the  style  is  identical,  showing  a  rude  attempt  at  an  arch,  the 
true  principle  of  which  had  yet  to  be  discovered.  It  is  generally 
admitted,  not  only  that  such  a  mode  of  construction  must  be 
prior  to  the  discovery  of  the  perfect  arch,  but  that  every  extant 
specimen  of  it  must  have  preceded  the  knowledge  of  the  correct 
principle.  It  is  a  mode  not  peculiar  to  one  race,  or  to  one  age, 
or  the  result  of  a  particular  class  of  materials,  but  is  the  expe- 
dient naturally  adopted  in  the  formation  of  arches,  vaults,  and 
domes,  by  those  who  are  ignorant  of  the  cuneiform  principle  ; 
and  it  is  therefore  to  be  found  in  the  earliest  structures  of  Egypt, 
Greece,  Italy,  and  other  parts  of  the  Old  World,  as  well  as  in 
those  of  the  semi -civilised  races  of  the  New.3  The  Cloaca 
Maxima,  which  is  the  earliest  known  instance  of  the  perfect  arch 
in  Italy,  dates  from  the  days  of  the  Tarquins ;  this  tomb  then 
must  be  considered  as  of  a  remoter  period,  coeval  at  least  with 
the  earliest  days  of  Home — prior,  it  may  be,  to  the  foundation  of 
the  City.4 

The  great  antiquity  of  this  tomb  may  be  deduced  also  from  its 
contents,  which   were   of  the   most  archaic,  Egyptian-like    cha- 


3  Stephens'  Yucatan,  I.  p.  429,  et  seq. 
Tliis  traveller's  description  and  illustrations 
show  the  remarkable  analogy  between  these 
American  pseud o- vaults  and  those  of  an- 
cient Europe.     The  sides  of  the  arch  in 
certain    of   these    vaults   are    hewn    to    a 
smooth   curved  surface,   as  in   the  Regu- 
lini  tomb,  and  terminate  not  in  a  point, 
but   in  a  square  head,  formed  by  the  im- 
position   of    -flat    blocks ;    the    peculiarity 
consists  in  the  courses  being  often  almost 
at  right  angles  with  the  line  of  the  arch, 
.showing  a  near  approach  to  the  cuneiform 
principle. 

4  Canina  (Cere  Antica,  p.  80)  refers  it.s 
construction  to  the  Pelasgi,  or  earliest  in- 
habitants of  Agylla,  and  assigns  to  it  and 
its  contents  an  antiquity  of  not  less  than 
3000    years,    making   it   coeval   with    the 
Trojan  war.     lie  says  it  can  be  determined 
that  precisely  in  the  reign  of  Tarquinius 
Priscus,  the   change  in  the  mode  of  con- 
.structiug  the  arch  was  effected   in  Home, 
for  Tarquin  introduced  the  style  from  Tar- 
quinii.     Uut   though  we    were   absolutely 
certain    that    Tarquin    built    the    Cloaca 
Maxima,  we  have  no  authority  for  deter- 
mining   when    the    first    true    arch    was 
erected  in  Home.     The  principle  may,  for 
aught   we    know,    have    been    known    and 


practised  at  an  earlier  period.  At  any 
rate,  it  is  highly  probable  that  it  had 
been  known  in  Etruria  some  time  before 
the  construction  of  the  Cloaca  Maxima, 
and  if  at  Tarquinii  whence  Tarquiu  mi- 
grated, why  not  at  Ca^re,  a  neighbouring 
city  belonging  to  the  same  people  ?  As 
regards  this  tomb  all  are  agreed  on  its  very 
high  antiquity.  Even  Micali,  who  sees 
everything  in  a  more  modern  light  than 
most  archaeologists,  admits  that  the  style 
of  architecture  shows  it  to  be  prior  to  the 
foundation  of  Rome  (Mon.  Ined.  p.  359). 
Canina  is  of  opinion  that  the  tomb  in  its 
original  state  was  surmounted  by  a  small 
tumulus,  but  that  after  the  arrival  of  the 
Lydians,  another  tumulus  of  much  larger 
size  was  constructed  .about  it,  of  which  it 
formed  a  part ;  traces  of  such  a  second 
tumulus  having  been  found  in  an  encircling 
basement  of  masonry  and  several  chambers 
hollowed  in  the  rock  below  the  original 
tomb,  — and  that  the  piling  up  of  the  earth 
around  the  latter  was  the  means  of  pre- 
serving it  intact  from  those  who  in  ages 
past  rifled  the  rest  of  the  sepulchral 
mound.  This  has  been  pronounced  by  an 
able  critic,  to  be  "a  sagacious  analysis." 
Bull.  Inst.  1838,  p.  172. 


CHAP.   XXI.] 


VERY   ARCHAIC   FURNITURE. 


267 


racter.5  Scarcely  any  pottery,  and  none  painted,  was  found  here  ; 
but  numerous  articles  of  bronze,  silver,  and  gold,  so  abundant,  so 
quaint,  and  so  beautiful,  that  it  is  verily  no  easy  task  to  describe 
them.  I  shall  here  do  little  more  than  specify  the  position  which 
they  occupied  in  the  tomb. 

In  the  outer  chamber,  at  the  further  end,  lay  a  bier  of  bronze, 
formed  of  narrow  cross-bars,  Avith  an  elevated  place  for  the  head. 
The  corpse  which  had  lain  on  it,  had  long  since  fallen  to  dust.  By 


TEllEA-COlTA    LAKE?,    FKOM    THE    REGULIXI-GALASSI    TOMB,    CERVETRI. 

its  side  stood  a  small  four- wheeled  car,  or  tray,  of  bronze,  with  a 
basin-like  cavity  in  the  centre,  the  whole  bearing,  in  form  and 
size,  a  strong  resemblance  to  a  dripping-pan  ;  though  ornamented 
in  a  way  that  would  hardly  become  that  homely  instrument.  On 
the  other  side  of  the  bier  lay  some  forty  little  earthenware 
figures;  probably  the  Lares  of  the  deceased,  who  certainly  was 
no  worshipper  of  beauty.  At  the  head  and  foot  of  the  bier 
stood  a  small  iron  altar  on  a  tripod,  which  may  have  served  to  do 
homage  to  these  household  gods.  At  the  foot  of  the  bier  also  lay 
a  bundle  of  darts,  and  a  shield  ;  and  several  more  shields  rested 
against  the  opposite  wall.  All  were  of  bronze,  large  and  round 
like  the  Greek  aanris,  and  beautifully  embossed,  but  apparently 


0  Lepsius,  no  mean  authority  on  Egyp- 
tian matters,  remarks  the  evident  imitation 
of  Egyptian  forms  (Ann.  Inst.  1836,  p. 


187).  The  ordinary  observer  would  not 
hesitate  to  pronounce  the  figures  on  some 
of  the  vessels  to  be  purely  Egyptian. 


268  CEEVETBI.  [CHAP.  xxi. 

for  ornament  alone,  as  the  metal  was  too  thin  to  have  been  of 
service  in  the  field.  Nearer  the  door  stood  a  four-wheeled  car, 
which,  from  its  size  and  form,  seemed  to  have  borne  the  bier  to 
the  sepulchre.  And  just  within  the  entrance  stood,  on  iron 
tripods,  a  couple  of  caldrons,  with  a  number  of  curious  handles 
terminating  in  griffons'  heads,6  together  with  a  singular  vessel — a 
paii1  of  bell-shaped  vases,  united  by  a  couple  of  spheres.7  Besides 
these  articles  of  bronze,  there  was  a  series  of  vessels  suspended 
by  bronze  nails  from  each  side  of  the  recess  in  the  roof.8  The 
caldrons,  dripping-pan,  and  bell-vessel,  are  supposed  to  have 
contained  perfumes,  or  incense,  for  fumigating  the  sepulchre. 

This  tomb  had  evidently  contained  the  bod}^  of  a  warrior  ;  but 
to  whom  had  the  inner  chamber  belonged?  The  intervening 
doorway  was  closed  with  masonry  to  half  its  height,  and  in  it 
stood  two  more  pots  of  bronze,  and  against  each  door-post  hung 
a  vessel  of  pure  silver.  There  were  no  urns  in  this  chamber,  but 
the  vault  was  hung  with  bronze  vessels,  and  others  were  sus- 
pended on  each  side  the  entrance.  Further  in,  stood  two  bronze 
caldrons  for  perfumes,  as  in  the  outer  chamber :  and  then,  at  the 
end  of  the  tomb,  on  no  couch,  bier,  or  sarcophagus,  not  even  on 
a  rude  bench  of  rock,  but  on  the  bare  ground,9  lay — a  corpse  ? — 
no,  for  it  had  ages  since  returned  to  dust,  but  a  number  of  gold 
ornaments,  whose  position  showed  most  clearly  that,  when  placed 
in  the  tomb,  they  were  upon  a  human  bod}r.  The  richness, 
beauty,  and  abundance  of  these  articles,  all  of  pure  gold,  were 
amazing — such  a  collection,  it  has  been  said,  "would  not  be 
found  in  the  shop  of  a  well-furnished  goldsmith."1  There  wTere, 
a  head-dress  of  singular  character — a  large  breastplate,  beauti- 
fully embossed,  such  as  was  worn  by  Egyptian  priests — a  finely 

6  Similar  to  this  must  have  been   the  been    mistaken    for    them.     Bull.    Inst. 
brass  krater  dedicated  to  Juno  by  Cokeus,  1836,  p.  58 — Wolff.     But  admitting  that 
the  Samian,  out  of  the  profits  of  his  sue-  there  were  really  nails,  it  is  far  more  pro- 
cessful  voyage  to  Tartessus,  about  630  B.C.,  bable  that  they  served  to  support  pottery 
for  Herodotus  describes  it  as  having  griffons'  or  other  sepulchral  furniture,  than  a  lining 
heads  set  in  a  row  around  it ;  IV.  152.  of  metal,    seeing  it  is  now  generally,  be- 

7  Much  like  that  shown  at  page  275.  lieved  that  the  so-called  "Treasuries"  of 

8  The  nails  thus  supporting  crockery  or  Greece  were  no  other  than  tombs, 
bronzes  in  Etruscan  tombs,  throw  light  on  9  Canina  (Cere  Ant.  p.  75)  states  that 
the  use  of  them  in  the  so-called  Treasury  the  floor  under  the  corpse,  in  both  tombs, 
of  Atreus,  at  Mycense,  where   they  have  waspavedwithstonesembeddedincewen* — 
long  been  supposed  to  have  fastened  the  sdci  collegati  in  calcc — an  unique  feature, 
plates  of  bronze  with  which  it  was  ima-  and  worthy  of   particular  notice   in  con- 
gined  the  walls  were  lined.     It  has  been  nection  with  the  very  remote  antiquity  of 
suggested,    however,    that    no   nails   ever  the  tomb. 

existed  in  that  celebrated  Thesaurus,  but  *  Bull.  Inst.  1836,  p.  60. 

that  certain   nodules  in  the  blocks   have 


CHAP.   XXI.] 


WONDERFUL    GOLD    ORNAMENTS. 


269 


twisted  chain,  and  a  necklace  of  very  long  joints — earrings  of 
great  length — a  pair  of  massive  bracelets  of  exquisite  filagree- 
work, — no  less  than  eighteen  fibula  or  brooches,  one  of  remark- 
able size  and  beaut}- — sundry  rings,  and  fragments  of  gold  fringes 
and  lamina,  in  such  quantities,  that  there  seemed  to  have  been 
an  entire  garment  of  pure  gold.  It  is  said  that  the  fragments  of 
this  metal  crushed  and  bruised,  were  alone  sufficient  to  fill  more 
than  one  basket.2  Against  the  inner  wall  lay  two  vessels  of 
silver,  with  figures  in  relief.3 

This  abundance  of  ornament  has  led  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
occupant  of  this  inner  chamber  was  a  lady  of  rank — a  view  con- 
firmed by  the  inscriptions  found  in  the  tomb.4  But  may  it  not 
have  been  a  priest  with  equal  probability  ?  The  breastplate  is 
far  more  like  a  sacerdotal  than  a  feminine  decoration  ;  and  the 
other  ornaments,  if  worn  by  a  man,  would  simply  mark  an 
oriental  character,5  and  would  be  consistent  enough  with  the 
strong  Egyptian  style  observable  in  many  of  the  contents  of  this 
sepulchre.6 


2  Bull.  Inst.  loc.  cit.      Though  this   de- 
scription is  somewhat  vague,  it  conveys  the 
idea  of  the  great  abundance  of  this  metal, 
which  was  found  crushed  beneath  a  mass  of 
fallen  masonry. 

3  A   silver  vessel   of  precisely    similar 
character  has  since  been  found  at  Pales- 
trina.     Ann.  Inst.  1866,  p.  208. 

4  Canina,  Cere  Antica,  p.  76.    Cavedoni, 
Bull.  Inst.  1S43,  p.  46.     The  inscriptions 
were  on  several  of  the  silver  vessels,  and 
consisted    merely    of    the    female    name 
"LARTHIA,"  or  "Mi  LARTHIA,"  in  Etrus- 
can characters.     This  was  conjectured  to 
signify  the  proprietor  of  these  vessels,  who, 
it  was  concluded,  was  also  the  occupant  of 
the  tomb.     Larthia  is  the  feminine  of  Lar, 
Lars,  or  Larth,  as  it  is  variously  written. 

5  The  necklace  appears  too  massive  and 
clumsy  for  a  woman's  neck  ;  and  we  have 
abundant  proof  in  sarcophagi  and  painted 
tombs  that  such  ornaments  were  worn  also 
tiy  men ;  fibulce  would  be  applicable  to  either 
sex  ;    earrings  were  not  inappropriate   to 
Etruscan  dignitaries,  as  we  learn  from  the 
sarcophagus  of   the    "  Sacerdote  "  in  the 
Museum  of  Corneto  ;  and  bracelets  of  gold, 
we  are  taught  by  the  old  legend  of  Tarpeia, 
to   regard   as  the   common   ornaments  of 
Sabine  soldiers  in  very  early  times.     And 
though  Niebuhr  (I.  p.  226)  has  pronounced 


these  golden  decorations  of  the  Sabines  to 
have  had  no  existence,  save  in  the  imagina- 
tion of  the  poet  who  sang  the  lay,  the 
discoveries  made  since  his  day,  especially 
in  Etruscan  tombs,  prove  the  abundance  of 
gold  ornaments  in  very  early  times,  and 
also  their  warlike  application  ;  so  that 
whatever  improbability  there  be  in  the 
story,  arises  merely  from  its  inconsistency 
with  the  simple,  hardy  manners  of  the 
Sabines.  Yet  even  here,  the  analogy  of 
the  golden  torques  of  the  rude  and  warlike 
Gauls  might  be  cited  in  support  of  the 
legend. 

Micali  (Mon.  Ined.  p.  60)  thinks  the, 
breastplate  andfibulce,  from  their  fragility, 
were  evidently  mere  sepulchral  decorations ; 
and  the  bracelets  show  a  funereal  subject — 
a  woman  attacked  by  lions,  and  rescued  by 
two  winged  genii — which  he  interprets  as 
the  soul  freed  from  the  power  of  evil  spirits 
by  the  intervention  of  good.  It  may  be  re- 
marked that  the  form  of  this  tomb  is  that 
prescribed  by  Plato  (Leg.  XII.  p.  947,  ed. 
Steph.)  for  Greek  priests  —  "a  grave 
under  ground,  a  lengthened  vault  of  choice 
stones,  hard  and  imperishable,  and  having 
parallel  couches  of  rock."  The  benches 
alone  are  here  wanting. 

6  Micali  (Mon.  Ined.  p.  62)  is  of  opinion 
that  this,  and  the  Isis-tomb  of  Vulci,  con- 


270  CERVETEI.  [CHAP.  xxr. 

On  each  side  of  the  outer  passage  was  a  small  circular,  domed 
chamber,  hewn  in  the  rock,  one  containing  an  urn  with  burnt 
bones,  and  a  number  of  tcrra-cotta  idols  ;  the  other,  pottery,  and 
vessels  of  bronze.  These  chambers  seem  of  later  formation. 
Canina  indeed  is  of  opinion  that  the  inner  chamber  alone  was  the 
original  tomb ;  that  the  outer,  then  serving  as  a  mere  passage, 
was  subsequently  used  as  a  burial  place,  and  that,  at  a  still  later 
period,  the  side-chambers  were  constructed.7 

All  this  roba,  so  rich  and  rare,  has  been  religiously  preserved, 
but  he  who  would  see  it,  must  seek  it,  not  on  the  spot  where  it 
had  lain  for  so  many  centuries,  but  at  the  Gregorian  Museum  at 
Home,  of  which  it  forms  one  of  the  chief  glories.  That  revolving 
cabinet  of  jewellery,  whose  treasures  of  exquisite  workmanship 
excite  the  enthusiastic  admiration  of  all  fair  travellers,  is  occupied 
almost  wholl}'  with  the  produce  of  this  tomb.  The  depository 
which  has  yielded  this  wealth,  now  contains  nought  but  mud, 
slime,  and  serpents — the  genii  of  the  spot.  It  has  been  gutted  of 
its  long-hoarded  treasure,  and  may  now  take  its  fate.  Who  is 
there  to  give  it  a  thought  ?  None  save  the  peasant,  who  will  ere 
long  find  its  blocks  handy  for  the  construction  of  his  hovel,  or 
the  fence  of  his  vineyard,  as  he  has  already  found  a  quarry  of 
materials  in  neighbouring  tumuli ;  and  the  sepulchre,  which  may 
have  greeted  the  e}res  of  JEneas  himself,  will  leave  not  a  wreck 
behind.  Much  of  the  masonry  of  the  inner  chamber  has  been 
already  removed,  and  the  whole  threatens  a  speedy  fall.  Surely 
a  specimen  of  a  most  ancient  and  rare  st3"le  of  architecture  has 
public  claims  for  protection,  as  well  as  the  works  of  the  early 
painters,  or  the  figures  of  bronze,  clay,  or  stone,  which  are  pre- 
served in  museums  as  specimens  of  the  infancy  of  their  respective 
arts.  Were  its  position  such  as  to  render  it  difficult  to  preserve, 
there  would  be  some  excuse  for  neglect,  but  when  a  wooden  door 
with  lock  and  key  would  effect  its  salvation,  it  is  astonishing  that 
it  is  suffered  to  fall  into  ruin.8 

tain  the  earliest  monuments  of  Etruscan  these  silver  vases  as  importations  from  the 
primitive  art,  as  it  existed  before  it  had  East,  and  probably  from  Cyprus,  which 
been  subjected  to  Hellenic  influence.  He  would  explain  their  mixed  Asiatic  and 
considers  the  silver  vessels  to  show  perfect  Egyptian  character.  Ann.  Inst.  1866, 
imitations  of  the  Asiatic  or  Egyptian  style  p.  413. 
of  ornamentation  ;  yet  with  all  this,  to  '  Cere  Ant.  pp.  75,  78. 
have  the  stamp  of  nationality  so  strongly  8  The  above  was  written  in  1847.  I 
marked,  as  to  distinguish  them  altogether  was  grieved  on  a  recent  visit  (June,  1876} 
from  purely  Egyptian  works.  Dr.  Brunn,  to  find  that  nothing  has  yet  been  done  to 
on  the  other  hand,  from  the  analogy  of  a  save  this  curious  monument  from  de- 
similar  vase  in  the  Louvre,  regards  all  struction.  The  outer  chamber  is  choked 


CHAP,  xxi.]        PELASGIC   ALPHABET    AND    PRIMER. 


271 


Another  tomb,  of  precisely  similar  construction,  was  found 
near  the  one  just  described  ;  but,  having  been  rifled  in  past  ages, 
it  contained  nothing  but  an  inscription  rudely  scratched  on  the 
wall.9 

At  the  same  time  with  the  Begulini-Galassi  tomb,  several 
others  were  opened  in  the  neighbourhood ;  in  one  of  which  was. 


PELASGIC    ALPHABET    AND    PRI3IEK. 


found  a  relic  of  antiquity,  insignificant  enough  in  itself,  but  of 
high  interest  for  the  light  it  throws  on  the  early  languages  of 
Italy.  It  is  a  little  cruet-like  vase,  of  plain  black  ware,  a  few 
inches  high,  and  from  its  form  has  not  unaptly  been  compared  to- 
an  ink-bottle.  What  may  have  been  its  original  application  is 


with  debris,  and  in  the  inner  the  lower 
courses  have  been  carried  off,  and  the 
upper  overhang  in  such  a  manner,  that  the 
whole  structure  appears  on  the  point  of 
collapsing. 

For  the  foregoing  description  of  the 
contents  of  this  tomb  and  their  arrange- 
ment, I  am  indebted  to  Canina,  Cere 
Antica,  parte  terza ;  Braun,  Bull.  Inst. 
1836,  pp.  56—62  ;  1838,  p.  173.  Canina 
in  his  later  work,  Etruria  Marittima,  gives 


a  plan,  and  mimerous  illustrations  of  this, 
tomb  and  its  contents,  tav.  50  —  59.  Grifi, 
in  his  Monumenti  di  Cere  Antica,  endea- 
vours to  prove  from  the  contents  of  this 
tomb  the  oriental,  and  especially  Mithraic, 
character  of  the  Etruscan  worship. 

9  Bull.  Inst.  1836,  p.  62.  The  writer 
does  not  mention  in  what  characters  was 
this  inscription,  though  he  says  it  was 
not  worth  copying  !  I  could  not  learn  if 
the  tomb  is  still  open. 


272 


CERVETIU. 


[CHAP.  xxi. 


not  easy  to  say ;  probably  for  perfumes,  as  it  resembles  the 
alabastos  in  form  ;  or  it  may  have  served  as  an  ink-stand,  to 
hold  the  colouring-matter  for  inscriptions.  Whatever  its  pur- 
pose, it  has  no  obvious  relation  to  a  sepulchre,  for  round  its  base 
is  an  alphabet,  in  very  ancient  characters,  shown  in  the  bottom 
line  of  the  subjoined  fac -simile  ;  and  round  the  body  of  the  pot 
the  consonants  are  coupled  with  the  vowels  in  turn,  in  that 
manner  so  captivating  to  budding  intelligences.  Thus  we  read — 
"Bi,  Ba,  Bu,  Be— Gi,  Ga,  Gu,  Ge— Zi,  Za,  Zu,  Ze— Hi,  Ha, 
Hu,  He— Thi,  Tha,  Tim,  The— Mi,  Ma,  Mu,  Me— Ni,  Na,  Nu, 
Ne-Pi,  Pa,  Pu,  Pe— Ki,  Ka,  Ku,  Ke— Si,  Sa,  Su,  Se— Chi, 
Cha,  Chu,  Che— Phi,  Pha,  Phu,  Phe— Ti,  Ta,  Tu,  Te."  Now, 
it  must  be  observed,  that  this  inscription,  though  found  in  an 
Etruscan  tomb,  is  not  in  that  character,  but  in  Greek,  of  very 
-archaic  style  ; 1  and  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  it  a  relic  of 
the  earliest  possessors  of  Crere,  the  Pelasgi,  who  are  said  to  have 
introduced  letters  into  Latium.2  From  the  palaeograph}',  this  is 
indubitably  the  most  ancient  monument  extant  which  teaches  us 
the  early  Greek  alphabet,  and  its  authentic  arrangement.3  This 
singular  relic  has  now  past  from  the  hands  of  General  Galassi,  its 
original  possessor,  into  the  Gregorian  Museum  of  the  Vatican. 


1  The  difference  between  this  alphabet 
and  the  genuine  Etruscan  one,   found  on 
a  vase  at  Bomarzo,  is  very  apparent.     See 
the  fac-simile   at  p.  172.     That  has  but 
twenty  letters,  this  twenty-five,  and  both 
in  their  form  and  collocation  there  are  \vide 
differences.     That  has  the  Etruscan  pecu- 
liarity of  running  from  right  to  left.      In 
Greek  letters  this  alphabet  would  be  thus 
expressed :— A,    B,    T,    A,    E,    F    (the    di- 
gamma),  Z,  H  (the  ancient  aspirate),  0,  I, 
K,  A,  M  (this  is  the  letter  effaced),   N,  H, 
O,  O  (koppa>,  n,  P,  2,  T,  T,  X,  *,  ¥.     It 
will  be  remarked  that  the  same  force  has 
not   been   assigned,    to    certain    of    thesa 
letters  where  they  occur  in  the  primer,  and 
the  reader  will   be  ready  to   dispute  my 
accuracy.     Let  him   break   a   lance   then 
with    Professor   Lepsius,    who    is   my   au- 
thority,   and  who  gives  his  views  of  this 
inscription  in   the   Ann.    Inst.    1836,    pp. 
186—203. 

2  Solinus,  Polyhist.  cap.  VIII. 

3  The  letters  here  are  of  the  most  archaic 
forms  known,   some  of  them  strongly  re- 
sembling the  Phoenician  ;  and  the  presence 
of  the  rau  and  the  koppa,  and  the  want  of 


the  eta  and  omeya,  establish  the  high  an- 
tiquity of  the  pot.  There  are  some  singular 
features  to  be  remarked.  The  arrangement 
of  the  letters  in  the  alphabet  does  not  cor- 
respond with  that  in  the  primer,  and  in 
both  it  differs  from  that  generally  received. 
The  vowels  in  the  primer  are  placed  in  an 
order  entirely  novel,  and  which  is  at 
variance  with  that  of  the  alphabet.  There 
is  a  curious  instance  of  pcntimcnto  or  altera- 
tion in  the  fourth  line.  Some  of  the 
characters,  moreover,  have  new  and  strange 
forms,  and  their  force  appears  doubtful. 
I  have  given  that  assigned  to  them  by 
Le{  sius,  who  has  eruditely  discussed  the 
paleography  of  this  inscription.  Notwith- 
standing its  Greek  or  Pelasgic  character, 
there  are  circumstances  which  seem  to 
betray  that  it  was  scratched  by  an  Etruscan 
hand.  For  evidences  of  this,  I  refer  the 
curious  reader  to  the  said  article  by  Lepsius, 
merely  mentioning  that  this  inscription 
bears  a  strong  affinity  to  an  alphabet  and 
primer  inscribed  on  the  walls  of  an  Etruscan 
tomb  at  Colle,  near  Volterra.  (See  Chapter 
XLII.) 


CHAP,  xxi.]      EELICS    OF    THE    PELASGIO    TOXGUE.  273 

Another  small  black  pot,  found  by  Gen.  Galassi  in  the  same 
excavations,  has  an  inscription  similarly  scratched  around  it,  and 
then  filled  in  with  red  paint,  which  Professor  Lepsius  determines 
to  be  also  in  the  Pelasgic,  not  the  Etruscan,  character  and 
language.  The  letters  are  not  separated  into  words,  but  run  in 
a  continuous  line  round  the  pot.  Lepsius  thus  divides  them — 

Ml  NI  KETHU  MA  MI  MATHU  MARAM  LISIAI  THIPURENAI 
ETHE  ERAI  SIE  EPANA  MINETHU  NASTAV  HELEPHU, 

•and  remarks  that  "he  who  is  so  inclined  may  easily  read  them 
as  two  hexameter  lines,  after  the  manner  of  the  old  Greek 
dedicatory  inscriptions."  Though  he  pronounces  that  in  this 
inscription  we  possess  one  of  the  very  rare  relics  of  the  Pelasgic 
tongue,  he  regards  the  date  of  it  as  uncertain,  as  lie  conceives 
that  the  population  of  Caere  remained  Pelasgic  to  a  late  period.4 


The  high  ground  to  the  east  of  Caere,  on  the  opposite  side  of 
the  Yaccina,  is  called  Monte  Abatone.  This  Canina  5  regards  as 
the  site  of  the  sacred  grove  of  Silvanus,  described  by  Virgil,6 

Est  ingens  gelidum  lucus  prope  Caeritis  amnem, 
Religions  patrum  late  sacer  :  undique  colles 
Inclusere  cavi,  et  nigra  nemus  abiete  cingunt. 
Silvano  fama  est  veteres  sacrasse  Pelasgos  ; 

and  thinks  that  its  name  is  derived  from  the  fir-trees — abides 
— which  are  said  by  that  poet  to  have    surrounded  the  grove.7 

4  See  the  above-cited  article  by  Lepsius,  "  Cavaliere  P.  E.  Visconti  (Ant.  Monum. 
where  the  inscription  is  given  in  its  proper  Sepolc.  di  Ceri,  p.  17)  would  derive  it  from 
characters  ;   and  his  more  recent  remarks  aftaTov — a  spot  sacred,  not  to  be  trodden — 
in  his  pamphlet,    "  Ueber  die  Tyrrhenis-  on   the  ground    that  this   was   the   name 
•chen  Pelasger  in  Etrurien,"  pp.   39 — 42,  applied  by  the  Rhodians  to  the  edifice  they 
where  he  lucidly  points  out  the  peculiarities  raised  round   the    statue  of  Artemisia  to 
Itoth  in  the  language  and  characters  which  conceal  it  from  the  public  view.     Vitruv. 
•distinguish  this  inscription  from  the  Etrus-  II.    8,   15.     But  Cav.   Canina  rejects  this 
•can,   and  mark  it  as  Pelasgic.     lie  states  derivation,  on  account  of  the  necropolis  of 
that  Miiller  agreed  with  his  opinion  on  this  Caere  being  on  the   opposite  side,    in  the 
point,   though   it  was  disputed   by  Franz  Banditaccia.     When  two    Roman    knights 
<EIementa  Epigraphices  Grascas,  p.  24),  who  are  breaking  a  lance  together,  who  shall 
.admitted,  however,  that  the  language  was  venture  to  step  between  them  ?     Yet  the 
not  Etruscan.  probability  seems  in  favour  of  the  fir-trees ; 

5  Canina,   Cere   Ant.    p.    53.      So  also  unless  the  word  is  derived  from  some  Abbey 
Abeken,  Mittelitalien,  p.  37.    Sell  (Topog.  that  in  the  middle  ages  stood  on  the  spot. 
•of  Rome,  I.  p.  1)  places  the  grove  on  the  I  would  remark  that  the  cemeteries  of  the 
hills  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  Vaccina.  Etruscans  were   not  confined  to   any   one 

6  Yirg.  j£n.  VIII.  597.     Livy  (XXI.  62)  side  of  their  towns,  though  one  spot  might, 
mentions  an  oracle  at  Caere.  for  convenience   sake,   be  more  especially 

VOL.    I.  T 


274  CERVETRI.  [CHAP.  xxi. 

None,  however,  are  now  visible.     Ceres  has  usurped  the  greater 
part  of  the  hill,  and  has  driven  Pan  to  its  further  extremity. 

The  interest  of  Monte  Abatone  is  not  its  doubtful  claim  to  the 
site  of  a  s}-lvan  shrine,  but  its  positive  possession  of  tombs  of 
very  singular  character.  About  a  mile  to  the  east  of  the 
Regulini  sepulchre,  after  crossing  the  Vaccina,  you  find  a  path 
leading  up  to  the  southernmost  point  of  the  Monte.  Here,  at  the 
very  edge  of  the  cliff,  facing  the  city,  a  tomb  was  opened  in 
May,  1845,  which  might  formerly  be  seen  with  all  its  furniture,, 
just  as  it  was  found.  The  traveller  was  indebted  for  the  pre- 
servation of  this  monument  to  the  late  Marchese  Campana,  its 
discoverer,  a  gentleman  whose  zealous  exertions  in  the  field  of 
Etruscan  research  are  too  well  known  to  require  laudation  from 
me.  Since  his  death  the  tomb  has  been  neglected,  and  is  no- 
longer  under  lock  and  key.  The  traveller,  therefore,  will  hardly 
expect  to  find  its  actual  condition  answer  to  the  description 
•which  follows. 

GROTTA  CAMPANA. 

This  tomb  bears  considerable  similarity  to  that  of  the  same 
appellation  at  Veii — not  so  much  in  itself  as  in  its  contents.  It 
lies  beneath  a  crumbled  tumulus,  girt  with  masonry.8  There  is- 
but  a  single  sepulchral  chamber,  but  it  is  divided,  by  Doric-like 
pilasters,  into  three  compartments.  The  first  has  a  fan-like 
ornament  in  relief  on  its  ceiling,  just  as  exists  in  a  tomb  in  the 
Banditaccia,  and  in  another  at  Yulci,9  and  which  being  here 
found  in  connection  with  veiy  archaic  furniture,  raises  a  pre- 
sumption in  favour  of  its  being  a  most  ancient  style  of  decoration. 
Just  within  the  entrance,  on  one  hand,  is  a  large  jar,  resting  on 
a  stumpy  column  of  tufo,  which  is  curiously  adorned  with  stripes, 
and  stars  in  relief,  though  not  in  the  approved  Transatlantic 
arrangement.  In  the  opposite  corner  is  a  squared  mass  of  rock, 
panelled  like  a  piece  of  furniture,  and  supporting  small  black 
vessels.  The  second  compartment  of  the  tomb  is  occupied  by 

devoted  to  interment ;  in  the  case  of  Caere  Canina,  Etruria  Marit.  I.  tav.  68. 

the   city  was    completely   surrounded   by  9  In  one  of  the  two  side-chambers  which 

tombs.  open  on  the  entrance-passage  of  this  tomb, 

8  The  entrance,  as  usual  in  the  tombs  of  the  walls  also  are  panelled  in  relief  with 

Cervetri,    is    lined   with    masonry.       The  the  very  same  pattern  as  decorates  the  said 

doorway  is  cut  in  the  rock  in  an  arched  tomb  of  the  Sun  and  Moon  at  Yulci.     The 

form,  and  around  it  is  a  groove,  into  which  two-fold  coincidence  in  this   sepulchre   is 

fitted  the  ancient  door,  a  slab  of  stone.   For  remarkable.     See  p.  448. 
the  plan,  sections,  &c.,  of  this  tomb,  see 


CHAP.  XXL]         MONTE    ABATONE— GBOTTA    CAMPANA.  275 

two    sepulchral   couches,  hewn  from   the   rock,  and   containing 

nothing  of  their  occupants  beyond  some  dark  dust,  mixed  with 

fragments  of  metal,  surrounded  hy  sundry  articles  of  crockery, 

though  their  skulls  are  still  left  at  the  heads  of  their  respective 

biers.     Between    these    couches,     on    a    square    mass    of  rock, 

retaining  traces  of  colour,  rests  an  earthen  pan,  or  brazier,  for 

perfumes,  with  archaic  figures  in  relief  round  the  rim;  and  at 

the   foot   of  each  couch    stands  a   huge  jar, 

almost   large   enough  to   hold  a  man,  which 

probably  contained  the  ashes  of  the  slaves  or 

dependents    of  those  whose  bodies   occupied 

the    couches.      In    the    inner    compartment, 

against  the  wall,  are  two  benches  of  rock ;  on 

the    upper,   stand   several  similar  large  jars, 

together  with    smaller   vessels ;    and   on   the 

lower,  is  a  curious,   tall,  bell-shaped  pot,  of 

black  earthenware,  similar  in  form  to  one  of 

bronze  found  in  the  Grotta  Regulini-Galassi. 

It   was   probably  a   thymiatcrion,  or  incense-      ETRUSCAN  FUMIGATOR. 

burner.     It  is  shown  in  the  annexed  woodcut. 

About  a  mile  from  the  Grotta  Campana,  but  still  on  the 
Monte  Abatone,  are  two  remarkable  sepulchres,  well  worthy  of  a 
visit.  They  are  not  under  lock  and  key,  yet  can  scarcely  be 
found  without  a  guide.  The  spot  is  vulgarly  called  II  Monte 
d'Oro,  from  a  tradition  of  gold  having  been  found  there.  On  the 
way  to  it,  you  may  observe  traces  of  a  sepulchral  road,  flanked 
with  many  tumuli — some  with  architectural  decorations.  The 
tombs  lie  in  a  small  copse,  and  are  not  easily  accessible  to 
ladies.  To  explore  them,  indeed,  demands  much  of  the  sports- 
man's spirit  in  the  ruder  sex,  for  they  are  often  half-full  of 
water.  The  first  is  called  the  "  Tomb  of  the  Seat,"  and  is  dis- 
tinguished from  the  other  of  that  name,  already  described,  by  its 
position  on  Monte  Abatone. 

GEOTTA  BELLA  SEDIA. 

This  tomb  lies  under  a  large  tumulus,  with  a  square  base- 
ment of  masonry,  which  makes  it  highly  probable  that  the 
superincumbent  mound  was  in  this  case  of  pyramidal  form.1 

1  The  basement  is  63  feet  by  56.  Vis-  posed  to  the  entrance,  is  a  square  projec- 
conti  makes  it  larger — 108  by  91  Roman  tion  or  buttress  in  the  masonry.  The 
palms.  At  the  back,  or  on  the  side  op-  blocks  are  of  tufo,  and  the  courses  recede 

T  2 


276 


CERVETRI. 


[CHAP.  xxi. 


Half-way  down  the  passage  which  leads  to  the  sepulchre,  you 
pass  through  a  doorway  of  masonry,  which  marks  the  line  of 
the  tumulus-basement.  The  passage  is  lined  with  masonry, 
whose  converging  courses  indicate  the  existence  originally  of  a 
vault  overhead.  The  tomb  consists  of  two  chambers,  and  has 
nothing  extraordinary,  except  an  arm-chair,  with  a  footstool 
attached,  hewn  out  of  the  living  rock,  as  in  the  two  tombs  of  the 


0  Df 


ROCK-CUT    CHAIll    AND    FOOT-STOOL. 


Banditaccia,  already  described.  Here  it  is  not  by  the  side  of  a 
sepulchral  couch,  but  against  the  wall  of  rock  which  separates  the 
two  chambers.2 

This  tomb  had  been  rifled  in  ages  past,  but  carelessly,  for, 
when  reopened  in  1835,  some  gold  leaf,  and  several  fibuhc  of  the 
same  metal  were  discovered  in  one  of  the  chambers.  Other 
furniture  was  found,  indicative  of  a  high  antiquity.3  A  singular 
feature  was  the  skeleton  of  a  horse,  l}'ing  by  the  bier  of  his 


as  they  ascend,  as  in  the  walls  of  Servius 
Tullius  at  Rome.  Similar  square  basements 
of  masonry,  generally  emplecton,  and  pro- 
bably the  bases  of  pyramids,  are  not  un- 
common in  this  necropolis,  especially  in  the 
glen  of  the  Yaccina,  beneath  the  cliffs  of 
the  city. 

-  Micali,  in  his  last  work,  in  which  he 
seeks  to  establish  oriental  analogies  in 
Etruscan  monuments,  expresses  his  opinion 
that  these  seats  are  Mithraic  symbols— and 
so  he  also  regards  the  celebrated  marble 
chair  of  the  Corsini  Palace.  Mon.  Inecl. 
p.  152. 


a  Here  were  fragments  of  embroidery  in 
flowers  of  smalt  of  Egyptian  workmanship 
— a  piece  of  blue  pasta  inscribed  with 
hieroglyphics  —  alalasti  in  the  form  of 
Egyptian  females — and  bits  of  amber  and 
other  oriental  gums  placed  around  the 
corpse.  A  morsel  of  one  of  these  gums 
being  put  to  the  fire  emitted  so  powerful 
an  odour  as  to  be  insupportable,  says  Vis- 
conti,  even  in  the  spacious  hall  of  the 
Ducal  palace  at  Ceri.  Ant.  Mon.  di  Ceri, 
pp.  29 — 32.  The  vault  at  the  entrance 
proves  this  tomb  to  be  very  ancient. 


CHAP,  xxi.]    GBOTTA  BELLA  SEDIA— GROTTA  TOELONIA.         277 

master,  and  suggesting  that  he  had  been  slain   at  the  funeral 
obsequies.4 

GROTTA  TORLONIA. 

The  sepulchre  under  the  adjoining  tumulus  has  received  is 
name  from  the  proprietor  of  the  land,  Prince  Torlonia,  who 
opened  it  in  1835.  The  basement  is  here  of  the  usual  circular 
form.5  The  entrance  to  this  tomb  is  its  most  singular  feature. 
At  a  considerable  distance  a  level  passage  opens  in  the  hill-side, 
and  runs  partly  underground  towards  kthe  tumulus,  till  it  ter- 
minates in  a  vestibule,  now  open  to  the  sky,  and  communicating 
with  the  ground  above,  by  two  flights  of  steps.  The  inner  part 
of  this  vestibule  is  recessed  in  the  rock,  like  the  upper  chambers 
of  the  tombs  of  Castel  d'Asso  ;  for  there  is  a  similar  moulded 
door  in  the  centre,  and  on  either  hand  are  benches  of  rock 
which,  being  too  narrow  for  sarcophagi,  suggest  that  this  cham- 
ber was  formed  for  the  funeral  rites — probably  for  the  banquet, 
and  generally  for  the  convenience  of  the  relatives  of  the  deceased 
in  their  periodical  visits  to  the  tomb.  This  chamber  is  decorated 
with  rock-hewn  pilasters  of  Doric  proportions,  but  with  peculiar 
capitals,  and  bases  somewhat  allied  to  the  Tuscan. 

In  the  floor  of  this  vestibule  opens  another  flight  of  steps 
leading  down  to  the  sepulchre.6  There  is  an  antechamber  at 
the  entrance,  which  opens  into  a  spacious  hall,  having  three 
compartments,  like  chapels  or  stalls,  on  either  hand,  decorated 
with  Tuscan  pilasters,  and  a  chamber  also  at  the  upper  end, 
which,  being  the  post  of  honour,  was  elevated,  and  approached 
by  a  flight  of  steps.  Each  chamber  contained  several  sepulchral 
couches,  altogether  fifty-four  in  number.  At  the  moment  of 
opening  the  tomb,  these  were  all  laden  with  their  dead,  but  in  a 
little  while,  after  the  admission  of  the  atmosphere,  the  bodies 
crumbled  to  dust  and  vanished,  like  Avvolta's  Etruscan  warrior 


4  For  a  detailed  description  of  this  tomb  to  give  the  whole  a  resemblance  to  a  vast 
and  its  contents,  and  for  illustrative  plans  cog-wheel   lying   on  the  ground.      In  the 
and  sections,  see  the  work  of  Cav.  P.  E.  masonry,  just  above  the  entrance,  is  a  pit 
Visconti,  Antichi  Monument!  Sepolcrali  di  shaft,  as  in  the  tombs  of  Civita  Castellans. 
Ceri.     Caniua  (Etruria  Marit.  I.  p.  197,  6  Visconti  (Ant.   Mon.    di  Ceri,  p.  20) 
tav.  70)  dates  this  tomb  from  before  the  conjectures  that  this  flight  of   steps  was 
second  century  of  Borne.  originally  concealed,  so  that  a  person  enter- 

5  This   tumulus    is   about   75   feet    in  ing  the  passage  or  descending  the  steps  from 
diameter.     The  masonry  of  the  basement  above,  would  take  the  vestibule  with  its 
has  this  peculiarity,  that  at  the  distance  of  moulded  doorway  for  the  real  sepulchre, 
every  10  or  11  feet  a  pilaster  projects  so  as 


278 


CERVETBI. 


[CHAP.  xxi. 


at  Corneto,  leaving  scarcely  a  vestige  of  their  existence.7  The 
external  grandeur  of  this  tomb  augured  a  rich  harvest  to  the 
excavator,  but  it  had  been  already  stript  of  its  furniture — not  a 
piece  of  pottery  was  to  be  seen — so  completely  had  it  been  rifled 
by  plunderers  of  old.8 

In  that  pail  of  the  necropolis,  called  Zambra,  which  lies  on 
the  west  of  Cervetri,  towards  Pyrgi,  some  very  ancient  tombs 
were  opened  in  1842.  In  construction  they  were  like  the  Grotta 
Regulini-Galassi,  being  long  passages  similarly  walled  and  roofed 
in  with  masonry,  and  lying  beneath  large  tumuli  of  earth,  and 
their  furniture  betrayed  a  corresponding  antiquity.9 

It  is  worthy  of  remark  that  though  sepulchres  are  found  on 
every  side  of  Caere,  those  towards  the  sea  are  generally  the  most 
ancient.1  It  may  also  be  noticed  that  the  tombs  face  all  points 
of  the  compass. 

I  have  already  mentioned  that  in  very  early  times,  Caere  was 
renowned  for  her  cultivation  of  the  pictorial  art,  and  that  in  the 


7  Yisconti,  p.  21.     A  full  description  of 
this  tomb,  with  illustrations,  will  be  found 
in   the  said  work  of    Visconti.      Also  in 
Canina  (op.  cit.  I.,  p.  196,  tav.  69),  who 
refers  the  tomb   to   the   second  or   third 
century  of  Rome. 

8  An  external  analogy  to  houses  is  not 
very  obvious  in  these  tumular  sepulchres. 
They  have   been    supposed    to    have   the 
funeral  pyre  for  their  type  (Ann.  Inst.  1832, 
p.  275),  but  the  usual  analogy  may,  per- 
haps, be  traced  in  the  habitations  of  the 
ancient  Phrygians,  who,  dwelling  in  bare 
plains,  on  account  of  the  scarcity  of  wood, 
raised  lofty  mounds  of  earth,  weaving  stakes 
above  them  into  a  cone,  heaping  reeds  and 
stubble  around  them,  and  hollowing  them 
out  for  their  habitation.      Such  dwellings 
were  very  cool  in  summer,  and  extremely 
warm  in  winter.    Yitruv.  II.  1,  5.    Exter- 
nally they  must  have  resembled  the  shep- 
herds' capanne,  which  now  stud  the  Cam- 
pagna  of  Rome.     Indeed,  if  the  tumular 
form  of  sepulture  were  not  one  of  natural 
suggestion,  and  which  has  therefore  been 
employed  by  almost  every  nation  from  China 
to  Peru,   it  might  be  supposed  that  the 
Lydians,    who    used   it    extensively,    had 
copied  the  subterranean  huts  of  their  neigh- 
bours the  Phrygians,   and  introduced  the 
fashion  into  Etruria.    The  conical  pit-houses 
of  the  ancient  Armenians  might  in  the  same 
way  be  regarded  as  the  types  of  the  tombs 


of  that  form  which  abound  in  southern 
Etruria,  and  are  found  also  south  of  the 
Tiber,  as  well  as  in  Sicily  ;  for  the  descrip- 
tion given  of  them  (Xenophon,  Anab.  IV. 
5,  25  ;  cf.  Diodor.  XIV.  pp.  258-9)  closely 
corresponds.  The  interiors  of  these  sub- 
terranean huts  of  Armenia  presented  scenes 
very  like  those  in  an  Italian  capanna. 

9  The  word  Zambra  seems  of  Saracenic 
origin,  and  recalls  the  old  romances  of 
Granada  ;  but  it  was  used  in  Italy  in  the 
middle  ages  for  camera  ;  and  it  seems  pro- 
bable that  this  spot  derived  its  name  from 
the  sepulchral  chambers  here  discovered. 
The  word  is  also  met  with  in  several  parts 
of  Tuscany,  but  attached  to  streams  and 
torrents  (see  Repetti,  sub  voce)  ;  so  that  it 
is  difficult  to  trace  a  connection  with  the 
Moorish  dance.  For  an  account  of  the 
tombs,  see  Abeken,  Bull.  Inst.  1840,  p.  133 ; 
Mittelitalien,  pp.  236,  268,  272  ;  Micali, 
Mon.  Ined.  p.  375,  et  seq.  tav.  LVL  Canina 
gives  plans  of  four  of  these  tombs,  which 
he  thinks  belonged  to  the  necropolis  of 
Pyrgi  (op.  cit.  I.,  p.  198,  tav.  73). 

1  Abeken  (Mittelital.  p.  240)  fancied 
there  might  be  some  reason  for  this  west- 
ward position  of  the  oldest  tombs,  as  though ' 
it  were  chosen  for  its  approximation  to  the 
sea,  the  peculiar  element  of  the  Tyrrhene 
race.  He  notices  the  analogy  of  the  Nuraghe 
on  the  western  shore  of  Sardinia. 


CHAP,  xxi.]  TEEEA-COTTA  SAKCOPHAGUS  IN  THE  LOUVEE.     279 

first  century  of  our  era,  paintings  were  extant  on  this  site,  which 
were  believed  to  he  prior  to  the  foundation  of  Rome.2  There 
can  be  little  doubt  that,  although  not  expressly  named,  Ciere  was 
also  one  of  the  cities  of  Etruria,  which  at  a  very  remote  period 
•excelled  in  the  plastic  arts.3  Of  her  sculpture  in  marble  we 
have  instances  in  the  "  Grotta  dei  Sarcofagi,"  already  described. 
Some  choice  specimens  of  terra-cotta  statuary  have  fortunately 
•come  down  to  us  to  attest  her  skill  in  moulding  clay. 

What  visitor  to  the  Louvre  has  not  been  startled,  011  first 
entering  the  Musee  Napole'on,  at  the  sight  of  a  loving  pair, 
as  large  as  life,  reclining  on  a  couch  in  the  centre  of  the  room  ? 
The  life-like  character  of  these  figures,  who  appear  engaged  in 
animated  conversation,  their  strange  costumes,  and  still  stranger 
<3ast  of  features — differing  widely  both  from  the  Greek  and  from 
the  Egyptian,  yet  decidedly  oriental  and  akin  to  the  Calmuck ; 
the  varied  colouring  of  the  group,  which  faithfully  imitates  nature 
throughout ;  the  unusual  material  for  statuary,  which  is  soon 
recognized  as  burnt  clay — cannot  fail  to  call  forth  wonderment. 
What  do  the}r  mean  ?  Whence  do  they  come  ?  What  people  do 
they  represent  ?  To  what  age  do  they  belong  ?  are  the  questions 
to  which  they  naturally  give  rise.  This  group  is  an  early  work  of 
Etruscan  plastic  art  from  Cervetri,  discovered  l>y  the  Marchese 
Campana  in  1850.  The  monument  is  a  sarcophagus,  in  which 
were  deposited  the  bodies  of  the  pair  whose  effigies  recline  on 
the  lid,  or  rather  form  the  lid,  as  the  urn  is  moulded  into  the 
•couch  on  which  they  are  reposing.  The  lady  lies  in  front,  and  is 
draped  to  her  feet  in  a  yellow  chiton,  or  chemise,  with  short 
sleeves,  over  which  she  wears  a  red  mantle  with  a  broad  border 
of  white.  Her  neck  is  encircled  with  a  gorget  ;  her  ears  are 
pierced  for  rings,  which  have  been  removed ;  her  cap  is  the 
tutuliis,  the  national  head-dress  in  the  early  days  of  Etruria,  from 
beneath  which  her  hair  descends  in  long  tresses  on  her  bosom 
and  shoulders.  Her  husband,  who  lies  behind  her,  wears  merely 
a  short  tunic  or  shirt ;  his  beard  is  trimmed  to  a  point,  his  hair 
hangs  loosely  behind  his  head.  The  hands  and  feet  of  both  are 
modelled  to  the  life,  though  certain  other  parts  of  the  figures 
betray  a  careless  treatment.  A  strange  incongruity  in  the  group 
can  hardly  fail  to  strike  the  observer.  With  this  Asiatic  pomp  of 
colour,  with  these  features,  not  only  un-European,  but  absolutely 
Tartar-like,  and  barbaric,  the  ornaments  of  the  couch  are  purely 
Hellenic,  identical  with  those  which  are  found  decorating  Greek 

2  Plin.  N.  H.  XXXV.  6.  »  Ib.  XXXV.  46. 


280  CERVETEI.  [CHAP.  xxr. 

vases  of  the  best  style  and  period,  which  fact  limits  the  antiquity 
of  the  monument  to  the  fifth  century  B.C.  This  incongruit}"  is 
accounted  for  by  Dr.  Brunn,  by  supposing  that  in  very  early 
times  the  native  art  of  Etruria  was  subjected  in  a  powerful 
degree  to  Hellenic  influences,  which  more  or  less  overlaid  or 
obscured  the  indigenous  element,  yet  that  the  latter  was  never 
entirely  subdued,  but  exerted  a  reaction  from  time  to  time, 
developing  the  native  peculiarities  sometimes  to  such  an  extent, 
especially  when  the  monument  was  of  large  size,  that  it  produced 
the  feeling  of  strangeness  and  novelty,  which  we  lose  however  on 
further  investigation,  when  we  perceive  that  the  elements  are 
already  familiar, — only  developed  in  a  manner  novel  and  unex- 
pected.4 

Of  yet  more  primitive  character,  and  evincing  more  clearly  the 
peculiarities  of  Etruscan  indigenous  art,  with  even  less  alloy  of 
foreign  elements,  is  a  similar  sarcophagus  of  terra-cotta,  also 
found  at  Cervetri,  and  now  in  the  British  Museum.  The  wood- 
cut at  the  head  of  this  chapter  is  copied  from  a  photograph 
published  in  "the  Castellani  Collection,"  by  Mr.  C.  T.  Newton, 
whose  description  of  it  I  cannot  do  better  than  transcribe. 

"  This  Etruscan  sarcophagus  consists  of  a  coffin,  richly  deco- 
rated with  reliefs  all  round,  the  four  corners  of  which  rest  each 
on  a  pedestal  ornamented  with  the  bust  of  a  Siren  or  Harp}'. 
On  the  cover  of  the  coffin  are  a  male  and  female  figure  reclining 
on  a  mattress.  The  male  figure  is  naked,  and  his  meagre  and 
emaciated  condition  seems  caused  by  age  and  sickness,  though 
perhaps  much  of  the  peculiarity  of  the  type  may  be  due  to  the 
want  of  skill  in  the  artist  in  the  representation  of  nude  forms. 
The  female  figure  wears  a  close-fitting  chiton,  which  does  not 
reach  to  the  feet.  Her  hair  falls  in  long  tresses  over  her  bosom, 
and  is  gathered  into  a  thick  queue  behind.  Bound  her  neck  is 
a  necklace  with  pendants,  resembling  some  very  ancient  orna- 
ments in  silver  and  amber  found  at  Palestrina,  and  now  in  the 
Castellani  collection  of  jewels.  Her  right  hand  is  raised  as  if 
she  held  out  something  which  the  male  figure  advances  his  right 

4  Ann. In.st.  1861. pp.391-404.  Imention  a  smile  !     The  unmistakable  resemblance, 

Brumi's  view  of  this  singular  monument,  however,  these  figures  bear  to  the  Mongul 

but  cannot  admit  his  explanation  of  the  type,  cannot  fail  to  be  recognised  by  any 

peculiar  characteristics  it   displays  to   be  one  who  has  lived,  as  I  have  done  for  years, 

satisfactory.      He   rejects    all    affinity   to  among  Tartar  races.     For  an  illustration 

Pelasgic  or  Lydian  art,  and  ascribes  the  of  this  monument  see  Mon.  Inst.  vol.  VI. 

peculiarities  of  physiognomy  simply  to  the  tav.  59.     See  also  an  article  by  Dr.  Erail 

attempt  of  the  Etruscan  artist  to  represent  Eraun.     Ann.  Inst.  1850,  p.  105. 


CHAP,  xxi.]     SARCOPHAGUS    IN    THE    BEITISH    MUSEUM.        281 

hand  to  receive.  His  left  elbow  rests  on  two  flat  cushions,  on 
which  a  painted  Meander  is  still  visible.  The  style  of  these 
figures  is  archaic,  the  treatment  throughout  very  naturalistic,  in 
which  a  curious  striving  after  truth  in  anatomical  details  gives 
animation  to  the  group,  in  spite  of  extreme  ungainliness  of  form, 
and  ungraceful  composition.  The  groups  seem  to  have  been 
made  in  parts,  fitted  on  after  passing  through  the  furnace.  The 
relief  on  the  front  of  the  coffin  represents  a  battle  between  two 
warriors,  each  attended  by  one  male  and  two  female  figures.  At 
either  end  of  the  scene  is  a  winged  figure  ;  these  probably  repre- 
sent the  souls  of  the  two  warriors.  On  the  opposite  side  of  the 
coffin  is  represented  a  banquet,  at  which  a  male  and  female  figure 
recline.  At  one  end  are  two  warriors,  each  of  whom  appears  to 
be  taking  leave  of  two  female  relations.  At  the  other  end  are 
two  pairs  of  females,  seated  in  chairs,  in  a  mourning  attitude. 
It  is  to  be  presumed  that  the  four  scenes  thus  represented  on  the 
sides  of  the  coffin  have  relation  to  one  another,  and  that  the  four 
subjects  represented  are,  the  leave-taking  of  two  warriors  before 
going  to  single  combat ;  the  death  of  one  of  them  ;  the  mourning 
for  that  death  ;  and  the  funeral  feast,  or  possibly  the  reception  of 
the  slain  warrior  in  the  realms  of  bliss.  But  the  particular 
single  combat  represented  has  not  yet  been  identified.  It  should 
be  noticed  that  in  the  single  combat  a  lion  is  represented 
fastening  on  the  leg  of  the  falling  warrior. 

"Above  the  battle-scene  is  an  Etruscan  inscription  painted  in 
two  lines,  one  of  which  is  along  the  edge  of  the  rnattress,  the 
other  immediately  below.  The  letters  are  identical  with  the 
earliest  forms  of  the  Greek.  The  inscription  is  very  similar  to- 
that  on  a  gold  fibula  found  at  Chiusi,  but  its  interpretation  is  not 
yet  determined. 

"  In  the  Louvre  is  a  terra-cotta  sarcophagus  found  at  Cervetri, 
and  formerly  in  the  Campana  Collection,  on  which  are  two- 
reclining  figures,  ver}r  similar  in  type  and  composition  to  these, 
but  showing  more  sense  of  beauty,  and  more  artistic  skill  in  their 
design  and  execution. 

"  These  two  sarcophagi  may  be  reckoned  among  the  earliest 
known  specimens  of  the  fictile  art  of  Etruria.  There  is  no  positive 
evidence  as  to  their  age,  but  they  can  hardly  be  later  than 
B.C.  500." 

To  this  description  I  will  venture  to  add  that  the  Tartar 
physiognomy  is  even  more  pronounced  in  this  pair  than  in  that 
on  the  Louvre  sarcophagus  ;  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  this- 


282  CERVETBI.  [CHAP.  xxi. 

is  the  earlier  monument.  The  figures  in  relief  below  are  closely 
akin  in  style  to  those  on  the  most  archaic  cippi  of  Chiusi.  The 
inscription,  as  Mr.  Newton  observes,  is  in  very  early  Greek 
characters,  rather  than  Etruscan,  yet,  like  the  latter,  it  is  written 
from  right  to  left.  Italian  antiquaries  generally  doubt  its 
genuineness.  It  is  certainly  not  easy  to  decipher. 

The  ancient  pottery  of  Caere  is  in  keeping  with  the  archaic, 
oriental  character  of  the  rest  of  the  sepulchral  furniture.  The 
large,  fluted,  or  fantastically  moulded  cinerary  jars,  of  red  or 
black  ware,  with  figures  of  centaurs,  sphinxes,  and  chimeras  in 
flat  relief,  resemble  those  of  Veii ;  and  so  the  rest  of  her  early 
unpainted  pottery,  which  Lepsius  takes  to  be  Pelasgic  rather 
than  Etruscan.5  The  most  ancient  painted  vases  are  also  found 
on  this  site,  not  only  those  of  the  so-called  Phoenician  style,  but 
others  of  a  much  rarer  class  and  peculiarly  Doric  character, 
resembling  the  ancient  Corinthian  pottery,  as  we  know  it 
through  the  celebrated  Dodwell  vase,  and  others  from  Greece 
and  her  colonies.6  These  very  early  vases  are  of  course  found 
in  the  most  ancient  tombs,  but  in  those  of  later  date,  imitations 
of  this  early  pottery  not  unfrequently  occur.  It  is  not  difficult  to 
detect  these  pseudo-archaic  vases,  which  are  probably  the  work 
of  Etruscan  hands.  One  of  the  most  striking  examples  of  these 
imitation  vases  is  a  kydria,  with  black  figures  representing  the 
myth  of  Hercules  slaying  Busiris  and  his  attendant  priests.7 
Busiris  was  King  of  Egypt,  and  to  propitiate  the  gods  during  a 
protracted  famine,  was  advised  to  sacrifice  yearly  a  foreigner  to 

5  To  the  Pelasgi,  says  Lepsius,  must  un-  Ann.  Inst.   1836,  pp.  306 — 310,  Abeken. 
doubtedly  be  referred  the  vases  of  black  The   other  vase,    a  kydria,    represents  a 
earth  of  peculiar,  sometimes  bizarre,  but  boar-hunt,  as  on  the  Dodwell  vase.     Mus. 
often  elegant  forms,  adorned  with  fantastic  Gregor.    II.    tav.    17,    2.      Another   good 
handles,   figures,   nobs,   flutes,   and  zigzag  specimen  of  this  class  of  Cteritan  pottery 
patterns  —  as   well   as   the   fine   old   gold  is   at  Berlin,  and  represents  the  combat 
articles,  of  archaic  and  extremely  careful  between  Achilles  and  Memnon,  with  birds 
style,  very  thinly  wrought,  and  sown  with  Hying  over  the  horses'  heads— a  frequent 
minute  gold  grains,  and  studded  with  short  symbol  on  painted  vases,  which  has  been 
.stumpy  figures,  with  marked  outlines  and  interpreted  as  a  type  of  swiftness,  or  as  an 
Egyptian  characteristics.    Tyrrh.  Pel.  p.  44.  augury — and    also   with    peculiar    palteo- 

6  Of  this  rare  class  of  vases  from  Caere,  graphy.     Mon.    Ined.   Inst.    II.    tav.   38  ; 
there  are  two  in  the  Gregorian  Museum.  Ann.    Inst.    1836,    pp.    310 — 311.      The 
•One,   an  olpe,   represents   the  combat   of  figures  on  these  vases  are  black  and  violet, 
Ajax  (Aivas),  and  Hector,  who  is  assisted  on  a  pale  yellow  ground  ;  and  the  outlines 
by  JEneas.     The  palaeography  of  the  in-  are  scratched,   as  on   other  vases   of  the 
scriptions,   just  like  that  of  the  Dodwell  most  ancient  style. 

vase,   determines  this   also  to   be  Doric  ;  7  Ann.   Inst.  1863,  pp.  *10 — 232,  Hel- 

cspecially  the  use  of  the  O  instead  of  the  big  ;    1865,    pp.    296-306.      Bull.    Inst. 

K  ;  for  the  koppa  is  quite  foreign  to  Attic  1865,    p.    140.      Mon.    Inst.   VIII.,   tav. 

inscriptions.    Mon.  Ined.  Inst.  II.  tav.  38  ;  16,  17. 


284  CEEVETRI.  [CHAP.  xxi. 

Jupiter.  Hercules,  travelling  through  Egypt,  was  seized  when 
asleep  by  the  priests,  who  led  him  to  the  altar  as  a  victim  ;  but 
he  burst  his  bonds,  slew  the  king,  his  son,  and  the  priests,  as  he  is 
represented  doing  in  the  woodcut  on  the  last  page.  The  fair  people 
represent  the  Egyptians,  the  dark,  negroes.  As  usual  in  repre- 
sentations of  this  myth,  there  is  much  of  the  burlesque  in  the 
treatment ;  the  manner  in  which  the  demi-god  strangles  half  a 
dozen  of  his  foes  at  the  same  moment  is  highly  ludicrous. 

Though  the  potteiy  of  Caere  is  generally  of  a  more  archaic 
character  than  that  of  Vulci  or  Tarquinii,  yet  beautiful  vases  of 
the  later,  or  Greek,  styles  are  also  found  here. 

Between  Caere  and  Veii,  and  in  the  territory  of  the  former 
city,  lay  a  very  ancient  Etruscan  town,  called  Artena,  which  was 
destroyed  by  the  Roman  kings.  Speculations  have  been  raised 
as  to  its  site,  but  it  will  probably  always  remain  a  matter  of 
conjecture.8 


APPENDIX    TO    CHAPTER    XXL 

NOTE    I. — SHIELDS    AS    SEPULCHRAL    DECORATIONS.    See  p.  257. 

THE  shields  carved  or  painted  in  this  and  other  tombs  of  Caere,  probably 
mark  them  as  the  sepulchres  of  warriors,  and  are  only  a  more  permanent 
mode  of  indicating  what  is  expressed  by  the  suspension  of  the  actual 
bucklers.  This  was  a  Greek  as  well  as  Etruscan  custom.  The  ancient 
pyramid  between  Argos  and  Epidaurus,  mentioned  by  Pausanias  (II.  25.  7.) 
contained  the  shields  of  the  slain  there  interred.  The  analogous  use  of  them 
as  external  decorations  of  sepulchres  by  the  people  of  Asia  Minor  and  by 
the  Etruscans,  has  already  been  pointed  out.  Vide  p.  200.  The  shield  was  a 
favourite  anathema  with  the  ancients,  who  were  wont,  at  the  conclusion  of 
a  war,  to  suspend  their  own  bucklers,  or  those  of  their  vanquished  foes,  in 
the  temples  of  their  gods — a  very  early  and  oriental  custom,  for  David 
dedicated  to  God  the  gold  shields  he  had  captured  from  the  men  of  Zobah. 
2  Sam.  viii.  7,  11.  Croesus  the  Lydian  offered  a  gold  shield  to  Minerva 
Pronrca,  to  be  seen  at  Delphi  in  the  time  of  Herodotus  (I.  92  ;  cf.  Paus.  X. 

8  Livy   (IV.    61)   alone    mentions    this  at  Boccea,   or  Buccea,    near  the  Arrone, 

town,  and  he  does  so  to  distinguish  it  from  twelve   miles  from  Rome,   for    "there   is 

the  Artena  of  the  Yolsci,  which  is  thought  here  a  high  and  insulated  point,  which  has 

to  have  occupied  the  heights  above  Monte  all  the  appearance  of  a  citadel,  and  which 

Fortino.      He   says  the   Etruscan  Artena  seems  to  have  been  occupied  at  a  subse- 

belonged  to  Crcre,   and  not  to  Yeii  as  some  quent  period  by  a  patrician  villa."     (I.  p. 

supposed.     Nibby  placed  it  at  Castellaccio  195.)     Canina  places  it  at  a  spot  six  miles 

in  the  tenuta  of  Castel  Campanile,  where  to  the  east  of  Caere,  and  about  two  to  the 

he  found  traces  of  an  Etmscan  town  ;  but  north  of  Le  Caldane,  which  he  takes  to  be 

(iell  thought  it  more  likely  to  have  stood  the  Thermae  Creretanae.  Etr.  Mar.  I.  p.  164. 


CHAP,  xxi.]  SHIELDS    IX    SEPULCHRES.  285 

8,  7,),  and  sent  another  to  Amphiaraus,  which  was  preserved  in  the  temple 
of  Apollo  at  Thebes.  Herod.  I.  52,  92.  After  the  battle  of  Marathon,  the 
Athenians  dedicated  their  shields  to  the  Delphic  Apollo,  and  fixed  them  to 
the  entablature  of  his  temple.  Paus.  X.  19,  4.  And  traces  of  shields  in  the 
•same  position  may  still  be  observed  on  the  eastern  front  of  the  Parthenon — 
one  under  each  triglyph,  with  the  marks  also  of  the  bronze  letters  of  the 
inscriptions  which  alternated  with  them.  The  Itoman  conquerors  of  Corinth 
suspended  a  number  of  gilt  shields  on  the  entablature  of  the  temple  of 
Jupiter  Olympius  ;  and  in  the  pediment  of  the  same  building  was  a  golden 
shield,  also  a  dedicatory  gift  (Paus.  V.  10,  4,  5.)  ;  and  so  shields  have  been 
found  carved  in  the  pediments  of  the  rock-hewn,  temple-like  tombs  of 
Phiygia.  Shields  may  sometimes  have  been  symbols  of  protection  received 
from  the  gods,  and  thus  acknowledged  ;  but  were  often,  like  anathemata  in 
general,  mere  emblems  of  the  profession  of  those  who  dedicated  them  ;  as 
was  the  case  with  the  twenty-five  shields  of  the  armed  runners  in  the 
Olympic  stadium.  Paus.  V.  12.  8.  Sometimes  they  seemed  to  have  served 
merely  decorative  purposes,  as  when  Solomon  adorned  his  palace  with  five 
hundred  gold  targets  (1  Kings,  x.  16,  17)  ;  or  as  when,  in  Asia  Minor,  they 
were  carved  on  city  walls,  and  the  proscenia  of  theatres.  And  they  were  a 
conventional  decoration  also  with  the  Romans,  who  emblazoned  them  with 
the  portraits  of  their  ancestors,  and  suspended  them  in  temples  or  in  their 
own  houses.  Plin.  XXXV.  3,  4.  The  use  of  shields,  however,  as  fields  for 
personal  devices,  is  as  old  as  the  War  of  the  Seven  against  Thebes,  if  we 
may  believe  JEschylus  ;  and  for  family  emblems  is  also  very  ancient,  for 
Virgil  (TEn.  VII.  657)  introduces  one  of  his  early  Italian  heroes  with  a 
formidable  escutcheon — 

Fulcher  Aventinus,  clypeoque  insigne  patermim, 
Centum  angues,  cinctamque  gerit  serpentibus  Hydram. 

The  shields  borne  by  the  figures  of  Minerva  on  the  Panathenaic  vases  are 
supposed  by  Canina  to  contain  the  devices  of  the  Italian  cities.  Bull.  Inst. 
1843,  p.  75.  But  this  is  open  to  question.  We  must  look  beyond  the  days  of 
chivalry  for  the  origin  of  armorial  bearings,  and  for  their  emblazonment  on 
shields.  For  an  ingenious  theory  of  the  Egyptian  origin  of  heraldry,  see 
Mr.  Wathen's  interesting  work  on  "  Ancient  Egypt,"  pp.  20  et  seq. 

XOTE  II. — GENII  AND  JUXOXES.     See  p.  248. 

The  spirits  which  were  believed  by  the  Romans  to  attend  and  protect 
human  beings  through  life,  were  supposed  to  be  of  the  same  sex  as  their 
individual  charge  ;  the  males  being  called  Genii,  the  females  Junones. 
Tibul.  IV.  6,  1  ;  Seneca,  epist.  110.  Such  spirits  were  supposed  not  only  to 
have  presided  over,  but  to  have  been  the  cause  of  birth,  which  is  in  fact 
implied  in  the  name — Genius,  a  genenrlo  (Festus,  v.  Geniales  ;  Censorinus,  de 
Die  Natali,  III.)  ;  and  hence  the  nuptial  couch  was  called  lectus  genialis,  and 
was  sacred  to  the  Genius.  Fest.  s.  v.  ;  Serv.  ad  Virg.  JEn.  VI.  603.  Some 
maintained  that  every  man  at  his  birth,  or  rather  at  his  conception,  had  two 
Genii  allotted  to  him,  to  attend  him  through  life — one  inciting  him  to  good 
•deeds,  the  other  to  evil — and  whose  office  it  was  also  after  death  to  attend 
"lam  to  the  presence  of  the  infernal  judges,  to  confirm  or  refute  hia  pleadings, 
according  to  their  truth  or  falsehood  :  so  that  he  might  be  raised  to  a  better 


286  CERVETRL  [CHAP.  xxi. 

state  of  existence,  or  degraded  to  a  lower.  Sen',  ad  Virg.  JEn.  VI.  743  ;  cf. 
III.  63  ;  Euclid.  Socrat.  ap.  Censorin.  III.  A  similar  doctrine  of  protecting 
and  attendant  spirits  was  held  by  the  Greeks,  who  called  them  demons— 
daipovts — and  believed  them  to  be  allotted  to  men  at  their  birth,  as  guardians, 
always  present,  and  cognisant  not  only  of  deeds  but  of  thoughts,  and 
commissioned  also  to  accompany  them  to  the  other  world.  Also  to  act  as 
interpreters  and  messengers  between  the  inhabitants  of  earth  and  heaven. 
Plato,  Ph.vdo,  pp.  107,  108,  ed.  Steph.,  and  ap.  Apuleium,  de  Deo  Socrat. 
p.  80,  ed.  1493  ;  cf.  Hesiod.  Opera  et  Dies,  I.  121  et  seq.,  250  et  seq.  ;  Find. 
Olymp.  XIII. 

Genii  were  distinguished  from  the  Manes  and  Lares,  inasmuch  as  these 
were  the  deified  spirits  of  the  dead,  while  the  Genii  were  the  offspring  of  the 
great  gods  (Fest.  rv.  Genium,  Tages),  and  the  givers  of  life  itself,  where- 
fore they  were  called  Dii  Genitales.  This  distinction,  however,  was  not 
always  preserved,  for  the  Genii  were  sometimes  confounded  with  the  Manes 
and  Lares,  and  supposed,  after  the  death  of  their  charge,  to  dwell  in  his 
sepulchre.  Serv.  ad  JEn.  III.  G3  ;  Censorin.  loc.  cit. ;  cf.  Plin.  II.  5. 

A  man  was  believed  to  be  born  under  the  influence  of  a  favourable  or 
unlucky  Genius  (Pers.  IV.  27 — genio  sinistro)  ;  and  the  Genius  or  Juno,  as 
the  case  might  be,  was  also  supposed  to  be  pleased  or  offended  with  the 
actions  of  the  individual.  Thus  Quartilla,  in  Petronius  (cap.  25),  exclaims, 
"  Junonem  meam  iratam  habeam,  si  unquam,"  &c.  And  if  a  man  restrained 
his  passions  and  appetites,  he  was  thought  to  "  defraud  his  Genius,"  or  if  he 
gave  way  to  them,  to  "  indulge  his  Genius."  Persius,  V.  151  ;  Serv.  ad  Virg. 
Georg.  I.  302  ;  Terent.  ap.  eund. 

As  the  Genius  was  a  god  he  received  divine  honours,  especially  on  the 
birthday  of  the  individual,  when  he  was  propitiated  by  libations,  and  offer- 
ings of  flowers  (Horat.  Ep.  II.  1,  144  ;  Tibul.  I.  7,  50  ;  IV.  5,  9  ;  Pers.  II. 
3,)  ;  and  so  also  the  Juno  of  a  woman  (Tibul.  IV.  G)  ;  and  it  was  customary 
to  anoint  the  head  of  the  image,  to  adorn  it  with  chaplets,  and  to  burn 
incense  before  it.  Tibul.  I.  7,  51  ;  II.  2,  6  ;  Ovid.  Trist.  V.  5,  11.  Even 
after  death  offerings  were  made  to  the  Genius  of  the  deceased,  as  ^neas 
to  that  of  his  father  (Ovid.  Fast.  II.  545),  to  whom  he  offered  gifts — 

Ille  patris  Genio  sollemnia  dona  ferebat — 

a  custom  which  explains  the  inscription,  "  IVXON  "  (Junoni),  on  the  vase 
painted  on  the  wall  of  this  tomb  at  Cervetri. 

Women  were  in  the  habit  of  swearing  by  their  Juno  (Tibul.  III.  G,  48),  as 
men  by  their  Genius  ;  and  a  lover  would  even  swear  by  the  Juno  of  his 
mistress  (Tibul.  IV.  13,  15),  exalting  her  above  every  other  divinity.  Juvenal 
(II.  98),  denouncing  the  effeminacy  of  the  Romans,  sets  it  in  the  strongest 
light  by  saying  that  a  servant  swears  by  the  Juno  of  his  lord — 

Et  per  Junonem  domini  jurante  ministro. 

Not  only  men  and  women,  but  places  and  things,  had  their  Genii,  accord- 
ing to  the  Roman  creed  (Festus,  v.  Genium  ;  Serv.  ad  Georg.  I.  302  ;  JKn. 
V.  85,  95).  Cities,  as  well  as  their  component  parts — streets,  houses,  baths, 
fountains,  &c.  —  had  their  individual  Genii;  and  so  also  with  regions, 
provinces,  armies,  nations — every  portion,  as  well  as  the  whole  collectively, 


CHAP,  xxi.]  GENII   AND    JUNONES.  287 

had  its  presiding  spirit.  The  Genius  of  the  Roman  People  is  often  repre- 
sented on  coins,  though  Prudentius  might  well  question  his  individual 
character — 

Quanquam  cur  Genium  Romse  niihi  fingitis  unum, 
Cum  portis,  domibus,  thermis,  stabulis,  soleatis 
Assignare  suos  Genios  ?  perque  omnia  membra 
Urbis,  perque  locos,  Geniorum  millia  multa 
Fingere,  ne  propria  vacet  angulus  ullus  ab  umbra  ? 

These  genii  loci  were  supposed  to  take  the  visible  form  of  a  serpent  (Virg. 
JEn.  V.  95  ;  Serv.  ad  loc.)  ;  and  so  they  are  constantly  represented  on  the 
household  shrines  of  Pompeii,  eating  meat  or  fruits  from  an  altar. 

The  doctrine  of  Genii  and  Junones  as  held  by  the  Romans,  there  is  little 
doubt,  was  received  from  the  Etruscans  with  that  of  the  Lares.  We  know 
that  the  latter  people  worshipped  Genii.  A  Genius  Jovialis  was  one  of 
their  four  Penates  (Arnob.  adv.  Nat.  III.  40  ;  cf.  Serv.  ad  JEn.  II.  325)  ;  and 
Tages,  their  great  lawgiver,  was  himself  the  son  of  a  Genius  (Fest.  v. 
Tages).  And  that  the  Etruscans  held  the  doctrine  of  good  and  evil  spirits 
attending  the  soul  into  the  other  world,  is  demonstrated  by  their  monuments  ; 
by  none  more  clearly  than  by  the  paintings  in  the  Grotta  del  Cardinale  at 
Corneto.  This  dualistic  doctrine  is  thought  by  Gerhard  (Gottheiten  der 
Etrusker,  p.  57)  not  to  be  Hellenic  ;  Micali  refers  its  origin  to  the  East.  It 
is  not  so  clear  that  the  Etruscans  held  the  distinction  between  Genii  and 
Junones  ;  for  the  sex  of  the  ministering  spirit  is  often  not  accordant  with 
that  of  the  human  being,  who,  whether  man  or  woman,  is  generally  attended 
by  a  female  spirit.  Thus  the  majority  of  the  demons  represented  on 
Etruscan  urns,  sarcophagi,  and  mirrors,  are  females.  Therefore  it  is  not 
strictly  correct  to  term  such  she-demons,  Junones.  Passeri  (Paralipom.  in 
Dempst.,  p.  93)  employed  the  name  "  Genia?."  Nor  is  it  always  easy  to 
distinguish  between  the  attendant  spirits,  good  or  bad,  and  the  ministers  of 
Fate,  who  are  introduced  as  determining  or  directing  events,  or  the  Furies, 
who,  as  ministers  of  vengeance,  are  present  at  scenes  of  death,  or  assisting 
in  the  work  of  destruction.  All  have  the  same  general  characteristics. 
Wings  at  the  shoulders — high  buskins,  often  with  long  flaps,  which  are  apt 
to  be  mistaken  for  talaria — a  short,  high-girt  tunic — a  double  strap  crossing 
the  bosom,  the  upper  ends  passing  over  the  shoulders,  the  under,  behind  the 
back,  and  tim'ted  between  the  paps  in  a  circular  stud  or  rosette.  The 
distinction  must  be  drawn  from  the  nature  of  the  scene  into  which  these 
demons  are  introduced,  from  their  attitude  and  expression,  but  chiefly  from 
the  attribute  in  their  hands,  which,  in  the  case  of  a  Fury,  or  malignant  Fate, 
is  a  hammer,  sword,  snakes,  shears,  or  a  torch  ;  in  the  case  of  'a  decreeing 
Fate,  is  a  scroll,  or  a  bottle  or  ink-horn,  with  a  stylus,  or  in  a  few  instances, 
a  hammer  and  a  nail ;  and  in  the  case  of  a  Genius  or  Juno  may  be  a  simple 
wand,  or  nothing  at  all.  The  demons  of  vengeance,  who  are  often  attendants 
on  Charun,  from  their  resemblance  to  the  Furies  of  Greek  mythology,  are 
thought  by  Gerhard  to  have  a  Hellenic  origin.  Gottheiten  der  Etrusker, 
p.  17.  Their  Etruscan  appellation  is  not  yet  ascertained,  although  the  name 
"  NATHUM  "  is  attached  to  a  wingless  male-demon  with  brutes'  tusks,  who, 
armed  with  snakes,  presides  at  the  slaughter  of  Clytgemnestra,  on  a  mirror 
now  in  the  Berlin  Museum  (Gerhard,  op.  cit.  taf.  VI.)  ;  and  although  the 
demon  who  exults  over  Theseus  and  Pirithous  in  Hades,  as  depicted  in  a 
painted  tomb  at  Corneto  (see  p.  355),  is  designated  "  TUCHULCHA."  Against 


288  CEEVETBI.  [CHAP.  xxi. 

gome  of  the  she-demons  of  milder  character,  especially  those  which  have  the 
attributes  of  Fates,  the  name  "  LASA  "  has  been  found  attached  on  Etruscan 
mirrors  (Lan/.i,  Sagg.  II.  tav.  VI.  6.  ;  Gerhard,  Etrusk.  Spiegel,  taf.  XXXVII., 
CLXXXI.  Bull.  Inst.  184G,  p.  10G),  though  a  similar  goddess  is  sometimes 
designated  "  MEAN  "  (Etrusk.  Spiegel,  taf.  LXXXII.,  CXLI.,  CXLII.).  Lasa, 
from  its  connection  with  other  names  in  the  instances  cited,  seems  a  generic 
appellation.  It  must  be  equivalent  to  "  Lara,"  the  r  and  s  being  interchange- 
able letters  ;  wherefore  we  find  "  Lases  "  for  Lares  in  the  Carmen  Arvale. 
Lara  or  Larunda  is  considered  by  Miiller  (Etrusk.  III.,  4,  13)  to  be  identical 
with  Mania,  the  Mother  of  the  Manes  and  Lares.  The  origin  of  "  Lasa  "  has 
also  been  referred  to  the  Aura  of  the  Greeks  (Bull.  Inst.  loc.  cit.)  ;  but  the 
analogy  seems  to  be  one  of  office  rather  than  of  appellation,  for  the  deriva- 
tion from  the  Etruscan  "Lar"  is  perfectly  satisfactory.  Gerhard  (Gottheiten 
der  Etrusker,  p.  16)  on  this  ground  translates  Lasa  as  the  "  mistress,"  not 
only  of  the  Genii  of  men,  but  of  the  analogous  Junones  of  women,  yet 
thinks  a  Lasa  must  never  be  mistaken  for  a  Juno. 

Though  the  female  ministering  spirits  of  the  Etruscan  mythology  are  not 
in  every  respect  analogous  to  the  Eoman  Junones,  it  may  be  well,  in  default 
of  a  specific  name,  to  apply  to  them  the  same  appellation.  To  the  mild  or 
decreeing  Fates,  the  name  of  "  Lasa "  may  be  confidently  attached  ;  and 
the  malignant  Fates,  or  demons  of  vengeance,  whose  Etruscan  name  has 
not  yet  been  clearly  ascertained,  from  their  resemblance  to  the  Erinyes  or 
Eumenides  of  Grecian  fable,  may  well  be  designated  Furies.  In  many  in- 
stances they  seem  to  be  closely  allied  to  the  Kjjper  of  the  Greek  poets — the 
she-demons  of  doom  and  violent  death,  who  haunted  battle-fields  and  scenes 
of  mortal  strife  ;  but  I  do  not  remember  an  instance  on  an  Etruscan  monu- 
ment, of  a  female  demon  being  drawn  with  the  fangs  and  claws  of  a  wild 
beast,  as  the  "  Ker,"  presiding  at  the  mutual  slaughter  of  the  Theban  Brothers, 
was  represented  on  the  celebrated  Chest  of  Cypselus.  Pausan.  V.  19,  6. 
On  the  large  sarcophagus  of  the  Casuccini  collection,  now  at  Palermo,  on 
which  the  final  parting  of  husband  and  wife  is  represented  in  relief,  a  demon 
armed  with  shears  and  torch  is  seen  issuing  from  the  gate  of  Orcus,  and  over 
her  is  inscribed  the  word  "  KULMU  ;  "  but  whether  this  name  applies  to  her, 
or  to  the  gateway,  is  matter  of  dispute.  Another  demon  by  her  side  is 
named  "  VANTH,"  but  neither  her  attribute  nor  her  character  is  clearly  in- 
telligible. The  same  name  is  also  attached  to  a  she-demon  in  the  Fran£ois 
tomb  of  Vtilci,  in  the  scene  where  Achilles  is  sacrificing  Trojan  captives  to 
the  shade  of  Patroclus ;  but  here  again  it  is  doubtful  if  she  be  a  good  genius 
introduced  in  antagonism  to  Charun,  as  M.  Des  Vergers  opines  (III.  p.  20), 
or  an  evil  spirit  urging  the  son  of  Peleus  to  his  vengeance,  as  Dr.  Brunn 
•(Ann.  Inst.  18G1,  p.  358)  prefers  to  regard  her.  The  generic  appellation  of 
the  malignant  demons  of  the  Etruscan  mythology  has  yet  to  be  ascertained. 


E 


PLAN    OF    PYKGI. 


A.         The  keep. 

J3.         Round  tower. 

6',   (7.  Line  of  Pelasgic  walls. 

1),  D.  Outline  of  ancient  city  seaward,  accord- 
ing to  Canina's  supposition. 

E.  Ancient  Harbour,  according  to  Canina  ; 
but  no  traces  of  such  moles  and  break- 
water are  visible. 


a.  Site  of  an  ancient  gate. 

b.  Wall,  here  16  feet  thick. 

c.  Wall,  12  feet  thick. 

d.  Wall,  8i  feet  thick. 

e.  Roman  repairs  of  Pelasgic  wall. 

f.  Blocks  on  the  beach. 

g.  Roman  walls. 
h.  Fountain. 


CHAPTER    XXII. 

SANTA    SEVEEA— PYRGL 

Pyrgi  veteres. — VIRGIL. 
Grandia  consumpsit  mcenia  tempus  edax. —  RCTILIUS. 

NINE  miles  beyond  Palo  is  the  fortress  of  Santa  Severa,  standing 
on  the  shore,  about  a  furlong  from  the  high-road.  It  is  a  square 
castle,  with  a  square  keep  at  one  angle,  and  a  lofty  round  tower, 
with  machicolated  battlements,  rising  near  it.  To  the  casual 
observer,  it  has  nothing  to  distinguish  it  from  other  mediaeval 
forts;  but  if  examined  closely,  it  will  be  seen  that  its  walls  on  the 
side  of  Civita  Vecchia  are  based  on  foundations  of  far  earlier 
date,  formed  of  massive,  irregular,  polygonal  blocks,  neatly  fitted 
together  without  cement,1 — precisely  similar  to  the  walls  of  Cora, 


1  Under  the  walls  of  the  fortress,  how- 
ever, the  blocks  are  imbedded  in  mortar. 
VOL.    I. 


The  traveller  must  not  be  misled  by  this, 
which  is  a  modern  addition,  as  at  Orbetello. 

IT 


290  SANTA.    SEVER  A.  [CHAP.  XXH. 

Segni,  Palestrina,  Alatri,  and  other  ancient  towns  in  the  Latin 
and  Sabine  Mountains — in  short,  a  genuine  specimen  of  what  is 
called  Pelasgic  masonry.  This  wall  may  be  traced  by  its  founda- 
tions, often  almost  level  with  the  soil,  for  a  considerable  distance 
from  the  sea,  till  it  turns  at  right  angles,  running  parallel  with 
the  shore,  and,  after  a  while,  again  turns  towards  the  sea — en- 
closing a  quadrangular  space  two  or  three  times  larger  than  the 
present  fort,  and  sufficiently  extensive  for  a  small  town.2  This  is 
the  site  of  "the  ancient  Pyrgi."3 

These,  and  the  slight  remains  on  the  Puntone  del  Castrato, 
presently  to  be  mentioned,  are  the  only  specimens  of  polygonal 
masonry  in  this  part  of  Etruria,  though  such  masonry  is  found  on 
three  other  sites  further  north.  The  strict  similarity  to  the  wall- 
ing of  cities  south  and  east  of  the  Tiber,  seems  to  imply  a  common 
origin,  and  that  not  Etruscan.  Moreover,  the  position  of  this 
town  in  the  plain,  scarcely  raised  above  the  level  of  the  sea, 
is  so  unlike  purely  Etruscan  sites,  which  are  always  strong  by 
nature  as  well  as  by  art,  and  the  materials  of  its  walls — limestone, 
travertine,  crag,  sandstone,  all  aqueous  formations — so  distinguish 
them  from  the  volcanic  fortifications  of  the  other  ancient  sites  in 
the  southern  district  of  Etruria,  that  we  are  led  to  the  conclusion 
that  it  was  built  by  a  different  race,  or  in  a  different  age.  Now, 
though  Ave  have  no  express  assertion  in  ancient  writers  that 
Pyrgi  itself  was  of  Pelasgic  origin,  we  know  that  its  temple  of 
Eileithyia  was  built  by  that  people,  and  that  it  was  the  port  of 
Agyllti  or  Ctere,4  which  was  founded  or  occupied  by  the  same 

One  block  is  9  ft.  C  in.  long,  3  ft.  9  in.  high,  4  Strabo,  V.  p.  226  ;  Diod.  Sic.  XV.  p. 

and  1  ft.  9  in.  thick.  337,  ed.  Rhod.  Pyrgi  can  hardly  have 

:  Canina  (Ann.  Instit.  1840,  pp.  39,  40)  been  founded  originally  as  the  port  of  Crere, 

gives  the  dimensions  as  850  by  650  Greek  for  it  was  at  least  8  miles  from  that  city, 

feet.  Abeken  calls  it  750  by  600  ft.  (Mit-  which  lay  only  4  miles  from  the  sea  ;  and 

telitalien,  p.  138),  which  nearly  agrees  with  there  can  be  no  reason  why  a  site  should 

my  msasurement  of  720  by  650  English  ft.  not  have  been  chosen  fora  port  much  nearer 

3  The  Itinerary  of  Antoninus  describes  dare,  as  there  is  nothing  in  this  spot  to  re- 

Pyrgi  as  34  miles  from  Rome,  which  is  the  commend  it  in  preference  to  any  other  part 

true  distance,  and  8  miles  from  Castrum  of  the  neighbouring  coast,  and  the  harbour 

Novum.  The  Maritime  Itinerary  makes  it  it  once  possessed  must  have  been  entirely 

30  miles  from  Portus,  at  the  mouth  of  the  artificial.  I  think  it  much  more  probable 

Tiber,  12  from  Alsium,  and  8  from  Castrum  that  the  earliest  structure  on  this  site  was 

Novum.  The  Peutingerian  Table  calls  it  the  celebrated  temple,  and  that  the  castle 

10  miles  from  Alsium,  which  is  correct,  but  sprung  up  subsequently  to  protect  that 

9  from  Castrum  Novum  ;  see  p.  226.  These  wealthy  shrine,  and  that  the  existence  of 

discrepancies  in  the  distances  are  of  little  a  fortress  here  determined  the  people  of 

consequence,  since  Pyrgi  occupies  the  rela-  C;ere  to  adopt  the  spot  for  their  port,  in- 

tive  position  assigned  to  it  between  Alsium  stead  of  constructing  another  on  a  more 

and  Castrum  Novum.  convenient  site— Alsium,  for  instance. 


CHAP,  xxii.]      THE    POLYGONAL    WALLS    OF    PYEGI. 


291 


race,  and  we  have  Virgil's  authority  as  to  its  high  antiquity,5  and 
its  name  in  proof  of  its  Greek  origin.  So  that  while  history 
gives  us  the  strongest  presumptive  evidence  that  Pyrgi  was  a 
Pelasgic  town,  its  existing  remains  confirming  that  evidence,  may 
be  considered  decisive  of  the  fact.6 

The  small  size  of  the  town,  scarcely  more  than  half  a  mile  in 
circuit,  as  determined  by  the  remains  of  its  walls,  is  another 
feature  which  distinguishes  it  from  all  the  Etruscan  sites  already 
described.  Yet  in  this  particular  it  quite  agrees  with  the  descrip- 
tion we  have  of  Pyrgi,  as  "  a  castle  "7  and  "  a  small  town."  8  It 
must,  nevertheless,  have  been  a  place  of  considerable  importance 
as  a  port,  naval  station,  and  commercial  emporium,9  and  it  was 
renowned  as  the  head- quarters  of  those  hordes  of  pirates,  who 
long  made  the  Tyrrhenians  as  much  dreaded  throughout  the  seas 
of  Italy  and  Greece,1  as  the  corsairs  of  Barbary  have  been  in 
later  times. 

Much  of  the  importance  of  Pyrgi  must  have  arisen  from  its 
temple  of  Eileithyia  or  Lucina,  the  goddess  of  childbirth, — a 


Canina  (Ann.  Inst.  1840,  p.  37)  cites 
Dionysius,  in  support  of  his  opinion  that 
this  temple  was  founded  by  the  Pelasgi 
at  least  two  generations  before  the  Trojan 
War. 

5  Virgil  (Mn.   X.   184)  calls  it  ancient 
even  in  the  days  of  2Eneas  ;  and  though  at 
liberty  to  indulge  in  the  proverbial  licence 
of  a  poet,  he  was  too  good  an  antiquary  to 
commit  a  glaring  anachronism. 

6  Canina  (Ann.  Inst.  1840,  p.  40)  thinks 
that  as  the  site  itself  did  not  afford  the 
Pelasgic  builders  of  Pyrgi  materials  for  the 
polygonal   masonry,    to    which    they  were 
accustomed,  they  cut  the  blocks  from  the 
neighbouring  mountains,  now  called  Monti 
del  Sasso,  which  yield   a  calcareous  stone 
naturally  assuming  polygonal  forms.     Some 
antiquaries,    v.'ith    Micali   (Mon.   Ined.    p. 
373),    and   Bunbury  (Class.   Mus.    V.  pp. 
147 — 186),  will  not  admit  that  this  poly- 
gonal masonry  shows  a  Pelasgic  origin,  but 
ascribe  it  rather  to  a  constructive  necessity, 
arising  out  of  the  nature  of  the  building 
materials  at  hand.     My  reasons  for  regard- 
ing the  polygonal  masonry  of  Italy,  in  type 
at  least  if  not  always  in   construction,  as 
Pelasgic,  will  be  given  in  Chapter  L.     It  is 
evident  that  a  choice  was  exercised  in  this 
instance,  for  the  local  rock  is  all  volcanic, 
either  soft  tufo,  or  black  lava,  which  lines 


the  shore  betv.een  Pyrgi  and  Civita  Vecchia  ; 
but  this  may  have  been  rejected  as  too  hard, 
or  it  might  not  have  given  the  desired 
cleavage.  The  variety  of  materials  employed 
— all  alike  thrown  into  polygonal  forms — 
proves  that  the  adoption  of  that  style  in 
this  instance  was  not  accidental,  but  inten- 
tional. At  Agylla,  however,  where  the 
rock  is  a  volcanic  tufo,  the  Pelasgi  seem, 
at  least  in  their  tombs,  to  have  hewn  it 
into  rectangular  blocks. 

7  Serv.  ad  &n.  X.  184. 

8  Rutil.  I.  224.    Strabo  also  (V.  p.  225) 
classes  it  among  the  tro\ixyi.a.  of  the  Etrus- 
can coast. 

9  Pyrgi  was  also  a  fishing-town  (Athen. 
VI.  c.  4).     It  seems  to  have  suffered  the 
usual  evils  of  a  seaport,  that — "  qusedam 
corruptela  ac  demutatio  morum" — as  Cicero 
terms  it  (cle  Rep.  II.  4)  ;  for  Lucilius  (ap. 
Serv.    ad    JE.n.    loc.    cit. )   mentions    the 
' '  scorta  Pyrgentia. ' ' 

1  Serv.  loc.  cit. — "Hoc  castellum  nobi- 
lissimuin  fuit  eo  tempore,  quo  Thusci  pira- 
ticam  exercuerunt ;  nam  illic  metropolis 
fuit."  The  small  size  of  Pyrgi,  as  Miiller 
remarks  (Etrusk.  I.  4,  8)  is  no  proof  against 
its  importance  in  ancient  times,  seeing  that 
the  once  renowned  ports  of  Greece  astonish 
the  modern  traveller  by  their  confined  di- 
mensions. 

U  2 


292  SANTA    SEVERA.  [CHAP,  xxn 

shrine3  so  richly  endowed  with  gold  and  silver,  and  costly  gifts, 
the  opima  spolia  of  Etruscan  piracy,  as  to  have  tempted  the 
cupidity  of  Dionysius  of  Syracuse,  who,  in  the  year  of  Rome  370 
(H.C.  384),  fitted  out  a  fleet  of  sixty  triremes,  and  attacked  Pyrgi, 
ostensibly  for  the  sake  of  repressing  its  piracies,  but  really  to 
replenish  his  exhausted  treasury.  He  surprised  the  place,  which 
was  very  scantily  garrisoned,  spoiled  the  temple  of  not  less  than 
n  thousand  talents,  and  carried  off  booty  to  the  amount  of  five 
hundred  more,  defeating  the  men  of  Caere,  who  came  to  its 
rescue,  and  laying  waste  their  territory.0 

This  is  all  we  know  of  Pyrgi  in  the  days  of  Etruscan  independ- 
ence. Her  history  must  in  great  measure  be  identical  with  that 
of  Caere,  on  which  she  was  so  intimately  dependent.  We  find 
her  mentioned  as  a  Roman  colony  in  the  year  563  (B.C.  191), 
when  with  Freg'ena},  Castrum  Novum,  and  the  maritime  colonies 
of  Latium,  she  was  compelled  to  add  her  quota  to  the  fleet  fitting 
out  against  Antioclms,  king  of  Syria.4  It  is  evident  that  under 
the  Roman  domination  she  lost  much  of  her  former  importance.* 
We  find  nothing  more  than  mere  statements  or  hints  of  her 
existence,6  till  in  the  fifth  century  after  Christ  she  is  said  to  have 
dwindled  from  the  condition  of  a  small  town  to  that  of  a  large 

2  Rite  matures  aperire  partus  otber  hand,  it  may  be  said,  that  Eileithyia 

Lenis  Ilithyia,  tuere  matres  ;  being  but  one  form  of  Juno,  the  great  god- 

Sive  tu  Lucina  probas  vocari  dess  of  Argos  (Hesych.  s.  v.  EtActffoicu),  the 

Seu  Genitalis  !  &c.  Pelasgic  colony  may  well   have   raised    a 

If  or.  Carm.  &ec.  13.  temple  to  her  honour — as  did  the  Argive 

Aristotle  ((Economic.  II.  20)  and  Polyse-  colony,    called   by  Dionysius   (I.    cap.  21) 

nus  also  (V.  cap.  II.  21)  call  this  goddess  Pelasgic,  which  settled  at  Falerii.     She  is 

Leucothea.      Niebuhr  (II.  pp.   478,   493,  sometimes   called    the   daughter    of   Juno 

Engl.  trans.)  and  Miiller  (Etrusk.  III.  3,  4)  (Paus.  I.  18,  5 ;  Iliad.  XI.  271).     Homer, 

call  her  Mater  Matuta,  who  was  identified  however,     elsewhere    (Iliad.     XIX.     119) 

by  the  Romans  with  the  Leucothea  of  the  speaks  of  this  goddess  in  the  plural  num- 

Greeks.     But  Matuta  is  also  allied  with  ber.     So  also  Hesychius.     For  a  new  view 

Eos  or  Aurora  (Lucret.  V.  655) ;  and  Ger-  of  the  derivation  of  the  name,  rid.  Ann. 

hard  (Gottheiten  der  Etrusker,  pp.  9,  25)  Inst.  1842,  p.  95  (Henzen). 

suggests   an    analogy   between   Eileithyia-  3  Diodorus  Sic.  XV.  p.  337  ;  Serv.  ad 

Leucothea,  and  the  Etruscan  Aurora,  who  ^En.  X.  184.     See  also  Aristot.  (Econ.  II. 

was  called  "  Thesan."    Etrusk.  Spiegel,  I.  20;  Strab.  V.  p.   226;  Polysen.  Strat.   V. 

taf.  LXXVI.     The  natural  relation  of  the  cap.  II.  21  ;  cf.  .Elian.  Var.  Hist.  I.  20. 

goddess  of  the  dawn  with  the  goddess  of  4  Liv.  XXXVI.  3. 

births  is  easily  understood;   that  with  a  *  Servius  (loc.  cit.)  speaks  of  Pyrgi  as 

goddess  of  the  sea,  is  not  so  evident.    As  "  nobilissimum  "  in  early  times,  and  im- 

Leucothea  was  deemed   powerful  in  pre-  plies  that  she  had  lost  her  importance  with 

serving  from  shipwreck,  and  was  the  patron-  her  piracies. 

deity  of  sailors,  it  is  an  argument  in  her  6  Liv.  XXV.  3  ;  Cic.  de  Orat.  II.   71  ; 

favour  in  this  instance.     Were  this  shrine  P.  Mela,  II.  4  ;  Plin.  III.  8  ;  Ptol.  p.  68, 

sacred  to  her,  it  would  seem  to  imply  that  ed.  Bert.  ;  Mart.  XII.  epig.  2  ;  Strab.  loc. 

the  port  was  prior  to  the  temple.     On  the  cit  ;  Serv.  loc.  cit. 


CHAP,  xxii.]       ANCIENT    TEMPLE    OF    EILEITHYIA.  293 

villa.7  We  hear  no  more  of  her  as  Pyrgi,  but  find  mention  of 
her  in  A.D.  1068,  as  the  Castle  of  Sta  Severa.8 

Of  the  celebrated  temple  there  are  no  traces  extant ;  nothing 
to  determine  even  the  site  it  occupied.  Canina  suggests  that, 
from  the  period  in  which  it  was  built,  it  ma,y  have  been  in  the 
most  ancient  Doric  st}ie.9  If  so,  it  must  have  resembled  the 
great  temples  of  Paestum,  standing  like  them  on  the  shore,  and 
rearing  its  massive  capitals  and  entablature  high  above  the 
towers  and  battlements  of  the  inclosing  walls,  at  once  a  beacon 
to  the  mariner,  and  a  stimulus  to  his  devotion. 

The  foundations  show  the  walls  of  Pyrgi  to  have  been  in  parts 
of  great  thickness,  implying,  what  might  be  expected  from  its 
exposed  situation  in  the  plain,  that  its  fortifications  were  of 
unusual  strength  and  loftiness.1 

The  port,  as  already  said,  must  have  been  wholly  artificial, 
which  seems  indeed  to  be  expressed  in  the  term  applied  to  it  by 
ancient  writers.3  Nothing  remains  to  determine  the  shape  of  the 
harbour,  but  Canina  thinks  it  was  formed  by  two  curved  moles, 
each  terminating  in  a  tower,  with  a  third  mole  in  front  of  the 
opening  between  them,  like  the  "island  "  at  Civita  Vecchia. 

There  are  no  tombs  visible  around  Sta  Severa,  not  even  a 
tumulus  on  the  plain,  but  at  the  foot  of  the  heights  which  rise 
inland,  sepulchres  have  been  discovered.  On  one  spot,  called 
Pian  Sultano,  the  Duchess  of  Sermoneta  has  excavated,  and  the 
tombs  she  found  were  of  very  simple  character,  similar  to  those 
of  Palo  and  Selva  la  Rocca.3 

''  Rutilius  (I.  224),  speaking  of  Alsiuin  reticulatum.     The  ancient  walls   seem   to 

•and  Pyrgi,  says —  have  varied  from  8  to  12  and  16  feet  in. 

"Nunc  villse  grandes,  oppida  parvaprius."  thickness. 

8  Nibby,  Dintorni  di  Roma,  III.  p.  94.  -  Canina  points   out    that   Strabo   and 

9  Annal.  Inst.  1840,  p.  42.  Dionysius  both  used  the  term  firivfiov,  in- 
1  The  name  of  Pyrgi  denotes  the  exis-  stead  of  Atju^v,   in  describing  Pyrgi — the 

tence  of  "towers"  in  the  ancient  walls,  former  term  implying  an  artificial   port, 

jet  there  are  no  traces  of  any  now  visible.  constructed  with  moles  or  breakwaters — 

It  is  evident  they  did  not  project  beyond  the  latter  a  natural  harbour  only.     Ann. 

the  line  of  walls,  as  at  Cosa  and  Falleri,  Inst.  1840,  p.  43.     This  view  is  favoured 

though  Canina,    in   his   restored    Plan   of  by  Hesychius  when  he  says  that  tirivtiov  is 

Pyrgi,   has  so  represented   them,    for  the  smaller  than  \i/j.riv. 

outer  face  of  the  foundations  is  in  parts  3  Micali,  Mon.  Ined.  pp.  375,  385.  The 

•clearly  definable  for  a  considerable  distance  ;  tombs   which   Abeken   (Mittelitalien,    pp. 

nor  are  there  traces   of    towers   within.  239,  242,  267)  describes  as  belonging  to 

Perhaps  they  rose  only  on  the  side  towards  Pyrgi,  or  to  a  village  dependent  on  her,  are 

the  sea,  where  huge  masses  of  ruin,  the  those  at  the  Puntone  del  Castrato,  treated 

"wrecks  of  the  fortress  and  port,  now  lie  of   in  the   next   chapter.     The   tombs  at 

on  the  shore,  fretting  the  waves  into  ever-  Zambra,  mentioned  at  p.  278,  are  supposed 

lasting  foam.     There  are  traces  of  Roman  by  Canina  to  have  belonged  to  the  necropolis 

work  on  this  side,  of  opus  inrertum  and  of  Pyrgi. 


CHAPTER    XXIII. 

SANTA   MARIXELLA.— PUNICUM. 

I  wandered  through  the  wrecks  of  days  departed, 
Far  by  the  desolated  shore. 

SHELLEY. 

FIVE  miles  beyond  S.  Severa  is  the  station  of  Santa  Marinella. 
Here  the  railroad  crosses  the  shoulder  of  a  low  headland,  on 
which  stand  a  few  buildings  and  a  lonely  date-palm.  The  pro- 
montory half  embraces  a  tiny  bay,  with  some  ruins  of  a  Roman 
mole  or  breakwater.  A  few  fishing-boats  are  drawn  up  011  the 
beach ;  the  half-draped  tawny  fishermen  are  sitting  beneath  their 
shade,  mending  their  nets ;  and  two  or  three  similar  craft,  with 
their  latteen  sails  glistening  like  snow  in  the  sunbeams,  are 
gliding  with  swan-like  motion  over  the  blue  waters.  The  hamlet 
is  supposed  to  mark  the  site  of  Punicum,  a  station  on  the  Via 
Aurelia.1  A  few  furlongs  before  reaching  it,  in  a  field  by  the 
road-side,  are  many  traces  of  Roman  habitation,  probably 
marking  the  site  of  a  villa.  Here  on  the  shore  are  a  couple  of 
ancient  bridges  standing  in  picturesque  ruin  near  the  road,  and 
marking  the  course  of  the  Via  Aurelia  along  the  coast.  Excava- 
tions have  been  made  in  this  neighbourhood  by  the  Duchess  of 
Sermoneta,  and  many  remains  of  Roman  magnificence  have  been 
brought  to  light.3 

1  Punicum   is    mentioned   cnly   by  the  the  Italian  peninsula.     But  were  that  the 

Peutingerian  Table.      Nibby  (Dintorni  di  case,  it  is  strange  that  we  find  no  mention 

Roma,    II.  p.    313)  thinks  it  must   have  of  such  a  settlement  in  Roman  writers, 
taken   its   name   from    the    pomegranates  ~  In  the  winter  of  1837,  on  the  shores 

(malum  punicum)  which  flourished  here,  of  the  little  bay,   were  found  remains  of 

or    from    some    heraldic    device    of    this  baths   and   other   buildings,   with   mosaic 

character;    but  it  is  more  likely  to  have  pavements,  together  with  a  singular  column, 

arisen  from  some  association  of  the  place  and  a  beautiful  statue  of  Meleager,  now  in 

with  the  Carthaginians.     Mommsen  (Rom.  the  Museum  of  Berlin.     Mon.  Ined.  Inst. 

Qesch.  I.  c.  10),  indeed,  is  of  opinion  that  III.  tav.  LVIII.     For  further  notices,  see 

there  was  a  Phoenician  settlement  or  factory  Bull.  Inst.  1838,  p.  1  ;  1839,  p.  85  ;  1840, 

on  this  spot,  the  only  one  on  the  shores  of  p.  115  ;  Ann.  Inst.  1843,  p.  237,  e    $eq. 


CHAP,  xxni.]  THE    SITE    OF    PUNICUM.  295 

Were  the  traveller  now  to  leave  the  train,  and  pursue  the  high- 
road towards  Civita  Vecchia  for  about  a  mile,  and  then  cross 
the  heath  to  the  extremity  of  the  range  of  wooded  hills  which 
here  rise  from  the  coast,  he  would  find  some  remains  of  far 
prior  antiquity  to  those  at  Santa  Marinella,  which  prove  the 
existence  of  a  long-forgotten  Etruscan  town  or  fortress  on  this 
spot.  Let  him  ask  for  the  "Puntone  del  Castrato,"  or  "  Sito 
della  Guardiola,"  and  he  may  obtain  a  guide  at  the  little  osteria 
of  Santa  Marinella. 

I  know  not  what  induced  the  Duchess  of  Sermoneta  to 
commence  excavations  on  this  site.  No  traces  of  sepulchres  are 
now  visible.  More  than  once  have  I  wandered  long  over  the 
heathy  crag-strewn  ground  at  the  foot  of  these  hills,  vainly 
seeking  vestiges  of  a  necropolis.  It  as  certain,  however,  that 
here  have  been  discovered  many  tombs  of  a  remarkable  character, 
being  rude  chambers  hollowed  in  the  rock,  lined  with  rough 
slabs,  and  roofed  in  either  by  a  single  large  cover-stone,  or  by 
two  slabs  resting  against  each  other,  gable-wise — extremely 
similar,  so  far  as  I  can  learn  from  the  description,  to  those  still 
to  be  seen  at  Saturnia.  There  is  some  analogy  also  to  the 
tombs  of  Magna  Gracia,  and  yet  more  to  the  cromlechs  of  our 
own  land,  and  other  parts  of  Europe  and  of  the  East.  The 
oriental  character  of  the  furniture  they  contained  confirms  their 
high  antiquity.3 

Abeken  speaks  of  a  huge  tumulus  rising  in  the  midst  of  these 
tombs.  This,  however,  I  found  to  be  nothing  but  the  termination 


3  These  tombs  were  found  in  1840.  The  surrounding  one  of  these  tombs  ;  and  he 
slabs  which  lined  them  were,  some  calcare-  thinks  it  served  to  separate  the  sacred 
ous,  some  volcanic,  partly  hewn,  partly  space  of  the  sepulchre  from  the  surrounding 
rough,  but  always  put  together  so  as  to  soil,  or  to  prevent  one  tomb  from  inter- 
present  a  tolerably  even  surface.  A  single  fering  with  another.  It  bears  an  analogy 
massive  slab  often  lined  each  of  the  three  to  the  trench  cut  in  the  rock  round  the 
side-walls  of  the  tomb,  and  a  fourth,  conical  tomb  at  Bieda.  See  p.  217.  Among 
leaning  against  the  front,  closed  the  door-  the  sepulchral  furniture  was  found  an 
way.  Sometimes  the  tombs  had  two  cham-  alabastos  with  hieroglyphics.  Abeken, 
bers,  the  outer  of  which  served  as  a  vesti-  Bull.  Inst.  1840,  p.  113,  et  seq.  ;  Ann. 
bule.  They  contained  benches,  or  sepul-  Inst.  1841,  p.  31  ;  Mittelitalien,  pp.  239, 
chral  couches,  of  rock.  Abeken  thinks  267.  Micali  (Mon.  Ined.  p.  356)  considers 
that  these  gable-roofed  tombs,  from  their  tombs  of  this  simple  character  the  most 
resemblance  to  guard-houses,  may  have  ancient  in  style,  though  not  always  in  con- 
suggested  to  the  peasantry  the  name  of  struction,  as  they  must  have  continued  in 
La  Guardiola,  conferred  on  this  site.  Over  use  for  ages,  and  probably  never  went  out 
every  tomb  rose  a  tumulus,  of  which  among  the  peasantry.  He  describes  some 
Abekeu  saw  few  or  no  traces  ;  but  he  says  as  built  up  of  many  blocks,  regularly  cut  and 
that  the  most  remarkable  feature  was  a  smoothed,  but  without  cement  (p.  386,  tav. 
cuniculus,  or  passage,  lined  with  slabs,  LV.j. 


296  SANTA    MAEINELLA.  [CHAP.  xxur. 

of  the  range  of  hills  which  here  sink  to  the  coast;  and  what 
he  took  for  a  vast  sepulchre  inclosed  by  masonry,  I  perceived  to 
be  the  arx  of  an  ancient  town,  marked  out  by  a  quadrangle  of 
foundations,  almost  level  with  the  soil ;  and  what  he  regarded  as 
an  outer  circuit  of  walls  to  his  tumulus,  I  discovered  to  be  the 
fortifications  of  the  town  itself,  extending  a  considerable  way 
inland,  along  the  brow  of  the  hill,  till  their  vestiges  were  lost 
among  the  crags  with  which  the  ground  is  strewn.  Traces  of 
several  gates  also  I  clearly  observed ;  and  in  more  than  one  spot 
remains  of  polygonal  masonry.4 

Here  then  stood  the  town  in  whose  cemetery  the  Duchess  of 
Sermoneta  made  excavations.  What  was  its  name  ?  We  have 
no  mention  by  ancient  authors  of  any  town  on  this  coast  between 
Alsiuni  and  Centum  Cellse,  whose  site  has  not  been  determined. 
That  this  was  of  very  ancient  date,  may  be  inferred  from  the 
silence  of  Roman  writers,  as  well  as  from  the  character  of  the 
remains,  which  mark  it  as  Etruscan.  Now,  on  the  coast  imme- 
diately below  it  stands  the  Torre  di  Chiaruccia,  the  Castrum 
Novum  of  antiquity  ;  a  name  which  manifestly  implies  the  exist- 
ence of  a  more  ancient  fortress,  a  Castrum  Vetus,  in  the 
neighbourhood ;  which,  there  can  be  little  doubt,  is  the  place 
whose  remains  occupy  the  Puntone  del  Castrate.5  This  may 
have  fallen  into  decay  before  the  domination  of  the  Romans,  or  it 
may  have  been  destroyed  by  them  at  the  conquest,  and  when  a 
colony  was  to  be  established,  a  fresh  site  was  chosen  on  the  coast 

4  I  have  given  notices  of  this   site  in  p.  34)  suggests  that  the  inner  and  higher 

Hull.  Inst.  1847,  pp.  51,93.   On  the  summit  quadrangle  of  masonry  may  have  marked 

of  the  mound  or  tumulus,  says  Abeken,  is  the  area  of  a  temple,    like   that  of  the 

a  quadrangular  inclosure  of   wall,   within  Capitol.     If  so,  the  presence  of  bones  in 

which  rises  a  second,  still  higher,  at  the  the  passage,  is  explained  by  the  well-known 

very  summit  of  the  mound.     The  ground  connection  between  temples  and  tombs, 
between  the  two  inclosures  is  paved  with  5  This  conjecture  of  mine  is  confirmed  by 

marine  breccia.      Within  the  upper  quad-  the  actual  name  of  the  site,  as  Dr.  Braun 

rangle    a    sepulchral    chamber    has    been  suggests  (Bull.  Inst.  1847,  p.  94 — Castrato 

discovered   about  14  feet  below   ground,  being,  probably,  a  mere  corruption  of  the 

originally  lined   with   masonry,   but   now  ancient  name.     I  am  indebted  to  the  Cav. 

much    ruined.     The   entrance  is  not  dis-  Canina  for  the  information  that  a  mosaic 

tinguishable.     The   whole    seems  to   have  discovered  a  few  years  since  at  Sta  Mari- 

formed  a  cemetery,   and   perhaps  the  in-  nclla,  bore  the  representation  of  a  town  on 

closing  walls   served  to  support   different  a  height,  which  he  suggests  may  have  been 

stories,  rising  above  the  sepulchral  chain-  this  on  the  Puntone  del  Castrato.     In  the 

her  ;  a  plan  adopted  by  the  Romans  in  the  old   fresco   maps   in  the   galleries  of  the 

Mausolea  of  Augustus  and  of  Hadrian,  and  Vatican,  some  ruins  are  indicated  on  this 

in  the  Septizonium  of  Severus.     Abeken,  height,  though  no  name  is  attached.     This 

.Bull.  Inst.  1840,  pp.  113 — 5  ;  and  Mittel-  shows   that    the    site  was    recognised  as 

italien,  p.  242.  ancient  at  the  close  of  the  16th  century, 

Abeken   elsewhere    (Ann.    Inst.     1841,  when  those  maps  were  executed. 


CHAP,  xxin.]    DISCOVEEY    OF    AN   ETRUSCAN    TOWN.  297 

below,  probably  for  convenience  sake ;  or  it  may  be,  that  the 
entire  population  of  the  old  town  was  transferred  to  the  new,  for 
the  same  reasons  that  led  to  the  foundation  of  the  duplicate  cities 
of  Falerii  and  Volsinii. 

About  two  miles  beyond  Santa  Marinella  stands,  close  to  the 
shore,  the  solitary  square  tower  of  Chiaruccia,  marking  the  site 
of  Castrum  Novum,  mentioned  above.  All  we  know  of  it  is  that 
it  was  a  station  on  the  Via  Aurelia  and  a  colony  on  this  coast,6 
and  that,  with  other  neighbouring  colonies,  it  reluctantly  fur- 
nished its  quota  to  the  fleet  which  wras  despatched  in  the  year 
563  (B.C.  191)  against  Antiochus  the  Great.7  In  the  time  of 
liutilius  it  was  in  utter  ruin — absumptum  fluctuque  et  tempore. 

Some  miles  nearer  to  Civita  Vecchia,  by  the  roadside,  near  a 
tower  called  Prima  Torre,  are  two  large  barrows,  which,  from  a 
slight  excavation  made  some  years  since,  are  thought  to  give 
promise  of  valuable  sepulchral  furniture. 

6  Liv.  XXXVI.  3  ;  Plin.  III.  8  ;  Ptol.  ancient  figure  of  Inuus  over  a  gate  at  Cast- 
<ieog.  p.  68,  ed.  Bert.  ;  Mela.  II.  4.  rum  on  this  coast,  that  the  god  may  have 

7  Liv.    loc.    cit.     The    Castrum  Inui  of  been  worshipped  at  both  sites.     Inuus  was 
Virgil  (.En.   VI.    776),  which  was  on  the  a   pastoral    deity,    equivalent   to    Pan,    or 
«oast  of  Latium,  seems  to  have  been  con-  Faunus.    Holstenius  (Annot.  ad  Cluver.  p. 
founded     by    Servius    (ad   loc.)    and    by  35)  and  Mannert  (Geog.  p.  375)  took  Sta 
Rutilius  (I.  232)  with  this  Castrum  Novum  Marinella   for    Castrum    Novum,    though 
in   Etruria — the  former   a  place  of   great  Cluver  (II.  p.  488)  had  previously  indicated 
antiquity,     the    latter    probably    only    of  the  ruins  at  Torre  di  Chiaruccia  to  be  the 
Roman  times.     But  Miiller  (Etrusk.   III.  site— an  opinion  which  is  now  universally 
•3,  7)  thinks  from  Rutiliiis'  mention  of  an  admitted  to  be  correct. 


CHAPTER    XXIV. 

CIYITA   VECCHIA.— CENTUM  CELL^E. 

Ad  Centumcellas  forti  defleximus  Austro  ; 

TranquiM  puppes  in  statione  sedont. 
Molibus  aequoreiiin  concluditur  amphitheatrum, 

Angustosque  aditus  insula  facta  tegit  ; 
Attollit  geminas  turres,  bifidoque  meatu, 

Faucibus  arctatis  pandit  utrumque  latus. 
Nee  posuisse  satis  laxo  navalia  portu, 

Ne  vaga  vel  tutas  ventilet  aura  rates. 
Interior  medias  sinus  invitatus  in  cedes 

Instabilem  fixis  aera  nescit  aquis. — UUTILIUS. 

WHOEVER  has  approached  the  Eternal  City  from  the  sea  must 
admit  the  fidelity  of  the  above  picture.  As  Civita  Vecchia  was 
1400  years  since,  so  is  it  now.  The  artificial  island,  with  its 
twin-towers  at  the  mouth  of  the  port ;  the  long  moles  stretching 
out  to  meet  it ;  the  double  passage,  narrowed  almost  to  a  closing 
of  the  jaws  ;  the  amphitheatre  of  water  within,  overhung  by  the 
houses  of  the  town,  and  sheltered  from  every  wind — will  be  at 
once  recognised.  It  would  seem  to  have  remained  in  statu  quo 
ever  since  it  was  built  by  Trajan.  Yet  the  original  town  was 
almost  utterly  destroyed  by  the  Saracens  in  the  ninth  century ; 
but  when  rebuilt,  the  disposition  of  the  port  was  preserved,  by 
raising  the  moles,  qua}T,  and  fortress  on  the  ancient  foundations, 
which  are  still  visible  beneath  them.1 

It  is  possible,  in  ancient  times,  when  the  ruler  of  the  world 
made  it  his  chosen  retreat,  and  adorned  it  with  his  own  virtues 
and  the  simple  graces  of  his  court,  that  Centum  Cellae  may  have 
been,  as  the  younger  Pliny  found  it,  "a  right  pleasant  place" — 
locus  perjucundus*  Now,  it  is  a  paradise  to  none  but  facchini 

1  There  are  other  remains  of  the  Roman  discovered  that  colossal  arm  in  bronze  now 

town  on  the  shore  without  the  walls  ;  and  in  the  Gregorian  Museum,  which,  though 

the  aqueduct  which  supplies  the  town  with  of  the  time  of  Trajan,  is  said  to  "  surpass 

•water  is  said  to  be  erected,  for  the  most  in  beauty  perhaps  all  ancient  works  in  this, 

part,  on  the  ruins  of  that  constructed  by  metal  with  which  we  are  acquainted." 
Trajan.     On  the  shore,  at  this  spot,  was  "  Plin.  Epist.  VI.  31. 


CHAP,  xxiv.]    ETRUSCAN    EELICS    AT    CIVITA   VECCHIA.  299 

and  doganieri.  What  more  wearisome  than  the  dull,  dirty  town 
of  Civita  Vecchia  ?  and  what  traveller,  who  in  former  times 
was  condemned  to  wait  here  for  steamer  or  diligence,  did  not 
pray  for  a  speedy  deliverance  from  this  den  of  thieves,  of  whom 
Gasperoni,  though  most  renowned,  was  not  the  most  accom- 
plished ?  Tempora  mutantur.  No  one  need  now  be  delayed  at 
Civita  Vecchia,  when  there  are  four  trains  running  daily  to  Rome, 
three  to  Orbetello,  and  one  to  Leghorn  and  Pisa. 

It  does  not  appear  that  this  site  was  ever  occupied  by  an 
Etruscan  town.  Yet  relics  of  that  antiquity  are  preserved  here, 
some  in  the  Town-hall,  mostly  from  Corneto,3  and  some  in  the 
house  of  the  Marchese  Guglielmi,  an  extensive  proprietor  of 
land  in  the  Roman  Maremma,4  besides  a  collection  of  vases, 
bronzes,  and  other  portable  articles  in  the  shop  of  Signer  Bucci, 
in  the  Piazza. 

Three  miles  from  Civita  Vecchia,  on  the  road  to  Corneto,  at  a 
spot  called  Cava  della  Scaglia,  Etruscan  tombs  have  been  opened,6 
which  seemed  to  have  belonged  to  the  neighbouring  Algae,  though 
that  place  is  known  to  us  only  as  a  Roman  station,  mentioned  in 
the  Maritime  Itinerary.  Its  site  is  marked  by  Torre  Nuova,  on 
the  sea  shore,  three  miles  from  Civita. 

Three  miles  to  the  east  of  Civita  Vecchia,  on  the  road  to 
Allumiere,  are  the  Bagni  di  Ferrata,  the  hot  springs  lauded  by 
Rutilius  under  the  name  of  Thermse  Tauri,6  and  mentioned  by 
Pliny7  as  the  "Aquenses  cognomine  Taurini,"  in  his  catalogue 

3  These   consist  of  three   sarcophagi  of  representing  the  deceased,  whose  name  is 
nenfro  with  recumbent  figures  on  the  lids,  inscribed   in    Etruscan   characters   around 
found    in    the    Montarozzi ;     two-winged  him.    Ill  the  opposite  tympanum  is  a  human 
sphinxes  and  half  a  dozen  female  heads  in  head  set  in  a  flower  ;  and  the  angles  of  the 
stone,  painted  in  imitation  of  life,  and  very  pediments  rest   on  lions'    heads.     Micali, 
archaic  in  character.     Besides  these,  there  Mon.  Ined.  pp.  403 — 7,  tav.  LIX.  Caniua, 
are  sundry  Roman  cippi  and  monumental  Etr.    Marit.    tav.    CIX.   Bull.   Inst.    1850, 
tablets,    among  which  will   be  found  the  p.  124  ;  1869,  p.  166. 

names  of  PompeiusandCsesennius — families  5  Excavations  were  made  here  in  1830 

of  Tarquinii — Yeturius,  which  answers  to  by  Signor  Bucci,  but  with  no  great  success. 

the    Velthur   in   the    Grotta   degli    Scudi  His  attention  was  drawn  to  the  spot  by  a 

(p.  337)— and  several  milestones,  probably  Figaro  of  Civita  Yecchia,  who,  fifteen  years 

of  the  Via  Aurelia.  previous,  had  found  there  a  shoe  of  bronze, 

4  The   collection   in   the   house   of   the  which  he  had  esteemed  of  no  value,  till  a 
Marchese  Guglielmi  is  composed  of  articles  foreigner,  entering  his  shop,  seized  upon  it 
found  in  his  own  land.    One  of  the  most  re-  and  carried  it  off,   leaving  a  napoleon  in 
markable  objects  is  an  urn  of  nenfro,  found  the  palm  of  the  astonished  barber. 

near  Montalto,  in  1840.     It  is  in  the  form  6  Rutil.  I.  249 — 

of  a  little  temple,  supported  on  Ionic-like  ^^  .^  Tauri  dictag  de  nomine  ^^^ 

columns,  witn  a  moulded  doorway  at  one  Nec  mQra  difficilis  miuibus  ire  tribus. 

end,  and  a  male  figure,  in  relief,  holding  a 

wand  and  patera,  at  the  other — probably  7  Plin.  III.  8. 


300  CIVITA    VECCHIA.  [CHAP.  xxiv. 

of  Roman  Colonies  in  Etruria.  They  are  still  much  resorted  to 
by  the  citizens  of  Rome  during  the  summer. 

Twelve  miles  from  Civita  Vecchia  in  the  same  direction,  near 
AUumiere,  or  the  alum-works,  is  the  town  of  Tolfa,  perched  high 
on  the  wooded  slopes  of  the  mountains  which  bear  its  name.  In 
the  wide  valley  beneath  it,  through  which  flows  the  Mignone, 
rise  several  of  those  cliff-girt  plateaux  of  tufo,  which  in  this  land 
•are  at  once  recognised  as  the  probable  sites  either  of  Etruscan 
habitation,  or  of  Etruscan  sepulture.  The  loftiest  of  these 
heights  shows  on  one  side  remains  of  fortifications  of  tufo 
masonry,  resembling  that  of  the  ancient  walls  of  Ctere,  and  a 
hollow  way  below  the  walls  seems  to  mark  the  line  of  road  which 
formerly  led  up  to  one  of  its  gates.  The  site  of  an  ancient  town 
is  manifest,  and  its  Etruscan  origin  is  proved  by  the  cemetery  in 
its  neighbourhood,  but  the  name  it  bore  of  old  is  utterly  un- 
known. 

The  existence  of  Etruscan  tombs  on  this  site  had  long  ago 
been  noted,8  but  systematic  excavations  were  first  undertaken  in 
the  winter  of  1865,  by  some  inhabitants  of  Tolfa.  Numerous 
sepulchres  were  opened — small,  unadorned  chambers  hollowed  in 
the  tufo,  generally  beneath  tumuli,  which  Aveve  sometimes  of 
square  form  ;  one  tomb  only  was  discovered  containing  rock-hewn 
benches,  and  these  were  carved  to  resemble  couches,  and  below 
them  were  two  dogs  and  a  stag  in  relief  in  an  archaic  style  of  art. 
Beautiful  painted  vases,  some  with  black,  others  with  red  figures, 
were  brought  to  light,  together  with  two  very  fine  mirrors,  and 
other  objects  in  bronze,  and  some  gold  jewelry.  Among  the 
tombs  were  found  a  number  of  wells,  about  a  metre  in  diameter, 
which  wrere  probably  sepulchres,  like  those  of  Poggio  Renzo  at 
Chiusi,  and  of  Marzabotta,  near  Bologna,  but  they  do  not  seem 
to  havo  been  sufficiently  explored  to  determine  the  fact.9 

Corneto  is  now  so  easy  of  access  by  railway  from  Civita  Vecchia, 
that  the  traveller  who  approaches  the  Eternal  City  by  that  port, 
should  make  a  point  of  visiting  the  painted  tombs  of  the  Monta- 
rozzi,  which  will  open  to  him  clearer  and  more  comprehensive 
views  of  the  early  civilization  of  Italy  than  he  can  derive  on  any 
other  site,  and  which  form  an  excellent  introduction  to  the  works 
of  ancient  art  in  Home. 

*  Bull.  Inst.  1831,  p.  210.  this  site,  sec  Bull.  Inst.  1866,  pp.   225— 

9  For  an  account  of  the  excavations  on       231.     Otto  Benndorf. 


SALTATKIX    AND    SUBULO,    GKOTTA    DEL    TRICLINIO. 


CHAPTER    XXV. 


THE  CEMETERY. 

What  men  or  gods  are  these  ?     What  maidens  loath  ? 

What  mad  pursuit  ?     What  struggle  to  escape  ? 

What  pipes  and  timbrels  ?     What  wild  ecstacy?  —  KEATS. 


Dead  men 
Hang  their  mute  thoughts  on  the  mute  walls  around.  - 


-SHELLEY. 


FROM  Viterbo  to  Corneto  there  is  an  excellent  road,  and  a 
daily  service  by  diligence.  The  thirty  miles  between  them  are 
professedly  accomplished  in  six  hours  ;  but  "  between  the  word 
and  the  deed  there  is  a  long  distance,"  as  the  proverb  saith. 
The  country  is  most  sparsely  inhabited.  In  the  twenty-one 
miles  of  undulating  downs  of  heath  or  corn  which  separate 
Vetralla  from  Corneto,  there  is  but  one  village,  that  of  Monte 
Romano,  lying  beneath  the  tufted  hill  of  that  name,  which 
forms  a  striking  feature  in  the  scenery^  of  this  district,  and  in 
whose  neighbourhood  Etruscan  antiquities  have  been  discovered. 

The  most  easy  method  of  reaching  Corneto  from  Rome  is  by 
the  Maremma  railway,  by  which  it  is  101  kilometres,  or  63  miles 
distant.  After  leaving  Civita  Vecchia,  the  line  follows  the  coast, 
but  at  some  distance,  traversing  wide  downs  of  corn,  and  being 
flanked  inland  by  a  long  olive-clad  ridge,  on  whose  further 
extremity  sits  enthroned  the  "  Queen  of  the  Maremma,"  crowned 


302  CORNETO.— THE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

with  a  tiara  of  many  towers.  The  station  is  nearly  three  miles 
from  the  town,  but  carriages  always  await  the  arrival  of  the 
trains,  and  take  a  good  hour  to  crawl  up  the  wooded  steep  to  the 
gate. 

B}f  the  carriage-road  from  Civita  Vecchia  the  distance  is  about 
the  same,  and  the  time  consumed  on  the  journey  not  much 
greater.  The  country  traversed  is  a  desert  of  undulating  heath, 
overrun  with  lentiscus,  myrtle,  and  dwarf  cork-trees,  the  haunt 
of  the  wild-boar  and  roe-buck.  The  road  is  a  continuous 
ascent  till  it  reaches  the  crest  of  the  long  barren  ridge,  where 
Corneto  comes  into  view  at  the  distance  of  several  miles.  The 
strangely  broken  surface  of  the  down  at  once  arrests  the  eye. 
To  the  right,  separated  from  it  by  a  deep  vale,  stretches  a  parallel 
ridge,  browed  with  white  cliffs.  That  once  bore  the  walls,  the 
temples,  the  palaces  of  ancient  Tarquinii — this  contained  its 
sepulchres.  The  one  was  the  city  of  the  living ;  the  other  the 
city  of  the  dead.  Formerly,  how  different !  now,  but  too  similar 
— rivals  in  desolation!  It  is  a  wild  and  dreary  scene.  Not  a  tree 
on  either  height,  or  in  the  vale  between — wide  sweeps  of  bare 
country  on  every  hand — the  dark,  serrated  range  of  the  Tolfa 
hills  to  the  south — an  aqueduct  of  many  arches  in  the  fore- 
ground; and  the  sunny  blue  of  the  Mediterranean,  the  only 
cheerful  feature  in  the  landscape,  gleaming  on  the  horizon. 

The  road  here  branches  to  Vetralla  on  the  one  hand,  and  to 
Corneto  on  the  other.  The  latter  track  traverses  the  hill  of  the 
Necropolis,  the  whole  surface  of  which  is  rugged  with  tumuli,  or 
what  have  been  such,  but  are  now  shapeless  mounds  of  earth, 
overgrown  with  lentiscus,  myrtle,  wild  olive,  broom,  and  rank 
grass,  and  giving  to  the  hill,  even  when  seen  from  afar,  a  strange, 
pimply  appearance.  Hence  its  appellation  of  "  Montarozzi." 

"  Fanno  i  sepolcri  tutto  '1  loco  varo." 

Towards  the  sea  the  eye  passes  over  lower  grounds,  in  which 
are  olive-groves,  a  farm-house  or  two,  and  several  tumuli  of  large 
size.  Lower  still  lies  the  ffat,  barren  strip  of  coast — the  region 
of  salt-works  and  deadly  fevers.  There,  on  the  beach,  stands  a 
hamlet,  dignified  with  the  title  of  Porto  Clementine  :  a  few  small 
craft  are  at  anchor  off  shore,  waiting  for  cargoes  of  corn  and 
salt. 

It  is  a  drive  of  nearly  three  miles  over  the  Montarozzi  to  the 
gate  of  Corneto.  Here  a  glance  brings  the  thoughts  from  the 
most  remote  antiquity,  down  to  the  days  of  chivalry.  Long  lines 


CHAP,  xxv.]         COENETO,    AND    THE    WAY    TO    IT.  303 

of  yellow  battlemented  wall  stretch  along  the  crest  and  down  the 
slope  of  the  hill ;  and  the  style  of  masonry,  the  absence  of  bas- 
tions and  ravelins,  and  of  embrasures,  show  these  fortifications  to 
date  from  before  the  invention  of  artillery. 

Though  the  chief  city  of  the  Papal  Maremma,  having  a  popula- 
tion of  nearly  five  thousand  souls,  and  lying  on  the  high-road 
from  Civita  Vecchia  to  Leghorn,  Corneto  has  no  inn,  where  the 
traveller,  fessus  viarum,  may  repose  and  recruit  in  comfort.  A 
picturesque  Gothic  building  in  the  lower  Piazza,  styled  from  its 
original  application  and  actual  condition  II  Palazzaccio — "the 
great  ugly  Palace  "  has  long  served  as  a  hostelry;  but  he  who 
expects  the  luxury  suggested  by  its  twisted  mullions  and  graceful 
tracery,  will  meet  with  disappointment.  He  will  find  such  comfort 
and  cleanliness  as  may  be  looked  for  in  an  Italian  country  town, 
and  much  civility  and  attention  from  the  hostess,  Luigia  Bene- 
detti,  and  her  daughters.  A  new  hotel,  better  suited  to  the 
requirements  of  modern  travellers,  is  about  to  be  opened  by  the 
Municipality  of  Corneto. 

Corneto  possesses  little  interest,  save  to  those  who  love  to 
dwell  with  the  past.  The  scenery  around  it,  though  wild,  and 
occasionally  grand,  is  not — for  Italy  at  least — picturesque.  Bare, 
hog-backed  heights — the  broad  desert  strip  of  shore — no  wood 
but  olive  plantations,  dull,  grey,  formal,  and  monotonous,  less 
cheerful  even  than  treeless  tracts,  and  which  are  to  scenery  what 
a  drab  coat  is  to  humanity — these  are  not  promising  materials 
for  the  portfolio.  The  city  itself  is  the  finest  feature  in  the  scene, 
and  viewed  from  the  north,  on  which  side  the  ground  sinks  pre- 
cipitously to  the  banks  of  the  Marta,  it  is  particularly  bold  and 
imposing.  With  this  exception,  the  scenic  delights  of  Corneto 
may  almost  be  summed  up  in  what  none  but  the  determined 
admirer  of  nature  will  appreciate — 

"  Watching  the  ocean  and  the  sky  together, 
Under  the  roof  of  blue  Italian  weather." 

With  so  little  of  the  beautiful  or  picturesque  around  it,  with 
dulness  and  dirt  within  its  walls,  the  atmosphere  in  summer 
leaden  and  febrile,  Corneto  has  no  attractions  beyond  the  relics 
of  ancient  days  in  its  neighbourhood. 

The  antiquity  of  Corneto  is  questionable.  The  fond  pride 
of  its  citizens  has  assigned  to  it  an  origin  in  the  remotest 
ages,  identifying  it,  on  the  strength  of  the  first  syllable — on 
the  Mace  don  and  Monmouth  principle — with  the  Cor}rthus  of 


304  CORNETO.— THE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

Virgil ; l  a  pretension  too  absurd  to  need  refutation.  If  it  had 
an  existence  in  Etruscan  times,  it  were  less  unreasonable  to 
suppose,  with  Gell,  that  it  occupies  the  site  of  Cortuosa,  or 
Contenebra,  towns  in  the  territory  of  Tarquinii,  which  were 
captured  and  destroyed  by  the  Ilomans,  A.U.C.  366.3  But  it  is 
most  unlikely  that  either  of  these  towns  stood  so  close  to  the  great 
city  of  Tarquinii ;  and  as  there  are  no  traces  whatever  of  ancient 
habitation,  it  is  more  probable  that  this  site  was  not  occupied  in 
Etruscan  times,  or  at  most  by  an  outpost  or  fort. 

There  are  not  a  few  relics  of  antiquity,  however,  in  Corneto.  In 
the  Cathedral,  beside  some  curious  inscriptions  of  the  middle 
ages,  is  a  marble  slab,  forming  a  step  in  the  aisle,  and  bearing  an 
Etruscan  epigraph,  probably  sepulchral.3  In  several  private 
houses  there  are  collections  of  Etruscan  antiquities, — in  the  Pa- 
lazzo Brttschi,  a  most  numerous  and  valuable  collection ;  and  a 
Museum  has  recently  been  formed  by  the  Municipality,  which 
already  contains  some  most  interesting  articles  discovered  on  the 
spot.  But  a  description  of  these  collections  we  must  leave  to  a 
subsequent  chapter,  and  hasten  to  the  painted  tombs,  which  are 
the  real  lions  of  Corneto. 

When  I  first  visited  Corneto,  I  had  the  advantage  of  the 
guidance  of  Signor  Carlo  Avvolta,  the  yonfalonicre,  or  chief 
magistrate  of  the  town.  He  was  a  lively,  intelligent,  old  gen- 
tleman, experienced  in  excavations,  deeply  interested  in  the 
antiquities  of  this  his  birthplace,  ever  ready  to  impart  informa- 
tion, and  displaying  as  much  courtesy  to  strangers  as  cordiality 
to  his  friends.  He  might  be  consulted  with  profit  also  on 
the  more  rousing  matters  of  Maremma  sports.  Though  nearly 
eighty  years  of  age,  he  was  still  a  keen  sportsman,  and  entered 
on  the  fatigues  and  perils  of  the  chase  with  the  ardour  of 
a  man  of  thirty.  Wherever  his  activity  might  lead  him  during 
the  day,  in  the  evening  he  was  sure  to  be  found  at  the  caffc>,  or  at 

1  So  sings  a  poet  of  the  fifteenth  century  Corneto  was  formerly  much  better  popu- 

(Uull.  Inst.  1839,  p.  68).  lated  than  at  present,  for  its  walls  are  now 

Cardinal  Garampi  (ap.  Tiraboschi,  Litter.  half  empty. 

Ital.  I.  p.  50,  ed.  Milano,  1822)  dates  the  2  Liv.  VI.  4.  Gell,  Rome,  I.  p.  373. 
origin  of  Corneto  from  the  eighth  or  ninth  We  have  no  clue  whatever  to  the  site  of 
century  of  our  era,  and  says  it  was  first  these  towns.  The  position  which  has  been 
called  Corgnitum,  perhaps  from  the  abun-  assigned  to  them  on  the  Marta,  where  it 
dance  of  cornels  in  the  neighbourhood.  issues  from  the  Lake  of  Bolseua,  and  again 
Canina  suggests  that  it  may  have  received  at  and  near  Norchia,  is  matter  of  mere  con- 
its  name  from  the  height  it  occupies,  which  jecture. 

terminates  in  a  double  projection,  like  the  3  In  Eoman  letters  it  would  be — LAUTH. 

horns  of  an  animal.    Etr.  Marit.  II.,  p.  38.  VKLCHAS.  THUIKKSU. 


Grotta  del  Cacciatore. 

G.  della  Pulcella. 

G.  Querciola. 

(i.  del  Triclinio. 

G.  del  Letto  Funelire. 

(T.  del  Morto. 

G.  del  Tifone. 

G.  dcgli  Scudi. 

G.  del  Cardinale. 

G.  dell'  Oreo. 


10. 


11. 
12. 


13. 


14. 


(  Grotta  del  Vecc 
|  G.  del  Vasi  Dip 
G.  del  Moribon 
G.  delle  Iscrizic 

{G.  del  Barone. 
G.  del  Mare. 
G.  Francesca. 
G.  delle  Bighe. 
VG.  della  Scrola 
G.  del  Pulcinell 


[To  fact  page  304,  Vol.  I. 


ITS    NECROPOLIS. 


Adapted  from  \\tsrrUAL. 


«/.  La  Mercareccia. 

h.  Caves. 

i.   Sites  of  the  ancient  Gates. 
k.  Fragments  of  the  ancient  Walls. 
7.  Ara  della  Regina. 
in.  Aqueduct. 
— -  Carriage  roads. 

—  Bridle  paths. 
-  -  -  Ancient  roads. 

Where  this  connects  the  portions  of  m,  it  markp 
the  subterranean  course  of  the  aqueduct. 


CHAP,  xxv.]     PAINTED    TOMBS    ON    THE    MOXTAROZZI. 


305 


the  spezlena,  where  he  would  descant,  with  all  the  enthusiasm  of 
his  nature,  on  the  last  boar  or  roe-buck  he  had  made  to  bite  the 
dust,  or  on  the  paintings  and  furniture  of  Etruscan  tombs. 

It  was  owing  to  his  antiquarian  zeal,  that  the  painted  tombs  on 
the  Montarozzi,  after  remaining  exposed  to  the  wantonness  of 
travellers  and  the  ignorance  of  shepherds  for  years — in  one  case 
for  more  than  a  century — were  fitted  with  doors  by  order  of  the 
government.  The  keys  were  intrusted  to  a  citizen  of  Corneto. 
This  man,  Agapito  Aldanesi,  after  exercising  his  vocation  of 
custodc  for  some  thirty  years,  departed  this  life  in  1873,  be- 
queathing his  keys  and  his  mantle  to  his  son-in-law,  Antonio 
Frangioni,  who  now  worthily  does  the  subterranean  honours  of 
the  spot. 

The  following  is  a  list  of  the  painted  tombs  in  the  Montarozzi 
now  open,  which  I  shall  describe  in  the  order  in  which  the}'  are 
generally  visited  : 


Discovered 

Grotta  Querciola 1831 

,.      de' Cacciatori 1873 

,,      della  Pulcella 1805 

„      del  Letto  Funebre 1873 

„      del  Triclinio,  or  G.  Marzi...  1830 

„      delMorto 1832 

„      del  Tifone,  or  G.  Pompei ...  1832 

,,      degli  Scudi 1870 

„      delCardinale IG'JD 

,,      dell'  Oreo,  or  di  Polifemo,  18C8 


Discovered 

Grotta  del  Vecchio  1864 

del  Vasi  Dipinti  18G4 

del  Moribondo 1872 

delle  Iscrizioni 1827 

del  Barone    1827 

del  Mare    1827 

Francesca 1833 

delle  Bighe   1827 

del  Pulcinella  ..  ..  187 14 


This  is  a  long  programme ;  therefore,  should  the  visitor  want 
either  the  time  or  the  inclination  to  accomplish  it,  I  would 
recommend  him  to  make  the  following  selection.  Grotta  de' 
Cacciatori,  G.  Querciola,  del  Triclinio,  del  Morto,  del  Tifone, 
del  Cardinale,  dell'  Oreo.  These  are  all  within  a  mile  of  Corneto, 
.-and  of  easy  access.  But  the  earliest,  and  some  of  the  most  inte- 
resting tombs  are  bej'ond  this  point,  and  can  only  be  reached 
•on  foot.  The  nearest  are  the  Grotta  del  Vecchio,  and  G.  del 
Vasi  Dipinti ;  but  the  most  ancient  of  all  the  painted  tombs  is 
the  Grotta  delle  Iscrizioni,  which  lies  at  the  further  end  of  the 
necropolis.  Somewhat  nearer  to  Corneto,  but  still  in  the  heart 
•of  the  Montarozzi,  are  the  Grotta  del  Barone,  and  G.  delle 
Bighe — typical  tombs  of  their  respective  classes. 

My  descriptions  of  the  paintings  in  these  tombs  may  seem 


4  To  these   may  be   added  three  other 
mameless  tombs,  very  recently  discovered, 
VOL.    I. 


but  not  at  present  accessible,  being  tempo- 
rarily reclosed  with  earth  (June,  1876). 

x 


30(i  CORNETO.— THE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

tedious  to  the  ordinary  reader,  but  lie  wh»  rends  them  on  the 
spot  will,  I  trust,  accord  them  the  merit  of  accuracy.  The 
frequent  visits  I  have  made  to  Corneto,  the  long  days  I  have 
spent  from  sunrise  to  sunset, 

•'  Hid  from  the  world  in  the  low-delved  tombs," 

the  paintings  in  many  of  which  I  have  copied  and  coloured  on 
the  spot,  so  as  to  familiarise  myself  with  all  their  details,  and  the 
attention  I  have  paid  to  the  subject,  warrant  me  in  laj'ing  claim 
to  greater  accuracy  than  can  be  attained  by  the  observation  of  a 
passing  tourist. 


About  half  a  mile  from  Corneto,  a  deep  pit  to  the  right  of  the 
road  marks  the  entrance  to  the 

GROTTA  QUEKCIOLA, 

a  name  derived  from  the  owner  of  the  ground  in  which  the  toml> 
lies. 

A  descent  of  about  twenty  steps,  hewn  in  ancient  times  from 
the  solid  rock,  leads  to  the  entrance  of  the  tomb,  which  is  closed 
by  a  modern  door.  This  opens  into  a  spacious  chamber.  The 
first  impression  is  one  of  disappointment.  The  chamber  is  in  the 
form  of  an  Etruscan  tomb — but  where  are  the  paintings  ? — win- 
close  a  sepulchre  with  naked  walls  ?  Presently,  however,  as  the 
eye  becomes  accustomed  to  the  gloom,  figure  after  figure  seems, 
to  step  forth  from  the  walls,  and  you  perceive  two  rows  of  them,, 
separated  by  a  striped  coloured  ribbon — the  upper  row  being 
nearly  four  feet,  the  lower  little  more  than  half  that  in  height. 
In  the  pediment,  left  at  each  end  of  the  chamber  by  the  ceiling 
sloping  down  from  the  central  beam,  is  a  third  row,  not  more 
than  twelve  inches  high. 

The  next  impression  is  one  of  surprise.  Can  this  be  the 
resting-place  of  the  dead  ? — Can  these  scenes  of  feasting  and 
merriment,  this  dancing,  this  piping,  this  sporting,  appertain  to 
a  tomb  ?  There  on  the  inner  wall,  and  occupying  the  principal 
row,  is  a  banqueting  scene — figures  in  richh'-broidered  garments 
recline  on  couches,  feasting  to  the  sound  of  the  lyre  and  pipes  ; 
attendants  stand  around,  some  replenishing  the  goblets  from  a 
sideboard  hard  by;  a  train  of  dancers,  male  and  female,  beat  time 
with  lively  steps  to  the  notes  of  the  instruments,  on  which  some 


CHAP,  xxv.]    GROTTA  QUERCIOLA— BANQUET  AND  DANCES.     307 

of  them  are  also  performing ;  while  in  the  lower  row  are  depicted 
field-sports,  a  boar-hunt  being  the  most  conspicuous. 

But  observe  that  fond  and  youthful  pair  on  the  central  couch. 
The  woman,  of  exquisite  beauty,  turns  her  back  on  the  feast, 
and  throws  her  arms  passionately  round  the  neck  of  her  lover,  who 
reclines  behind  her.  The  other  guests  quaff  their  Avine  without 
heeding  them.  The  elegant  forms  of  the  couches  and  stools, 
the  rich  drapeiy,  the  embroidered  coverlets,  show  this  to  be  a 
scene  of  high  life,  and  give  some  idea  of  Etruscan  luxury.5 
Even  the  dancers  are  very  richly  attired,  especially  the  women, 
in  figured  robes  of  bright  colours,  with  embroidered  borders  of  a 
different  hue.6  A  simple  mantle,  either  the  clilamys  or  scarf,  or 
the  liimation  or  blanket,  suffices  for  the  men  ;  but  the  attendants 
at  the  sideboard  have  unornamented  tunics.  The  dancing-girls 
are  decorated  with  jewellery — earrings,  necklaces,  and  bracelets 
— and  have  also  a  frontlet  on  their  brows  ; "'  while  the  men  wear 
chaplets  of  myrtle.  A  tibicen,  or  subulo,  as  the  Etruscans  called 
him,  blowing  the  double-pipes,8  and  a  citharista  with  his  lyre, 
stand  at  one  end  of  the  banqueting-scene,  and  a  subulo  at  the 
other ;  another  performer  of  each  description  mingles  in  the 
dance.9  All  this  feasting  and  merry-making  is  carried  on  in  the 


5  Diodorus  Siculus  (V.  p.  316,  ed.  Rlicd.) 
and  Posidonius  (ap.  Athen.  IV.,  c.  38)  tell 
us  that  the  EtruscaDS  were  wont  twice  a 
day  to  have  a  sumptuous  banquet  prepared, 
and    to   recline   under  flowered  coverlets, 
drinking  out   of    silver  vessels  of  various 
forms,   and   attended  by    a  multitude    of 
handsome  slaves,  magnificently  apparelled. 
Each   lectus  or   couch    in   this    scene   has 
beneath    it   the    usual   long   stool — hiipo- 
podtui/i  or  gubsdlium — and,  though  both 
are  intended  to  have  four  legs,   two  only 
are   represented.      The  dogs   beneath  the 
couches  answer  to  the  Ki/vts  rpairfgrifs  of 
Homer.    II.    XXIII.,    173;    Odyss.    XVII. 
309. 

6  They  wear  the  Ionic  cliiton,   or  long 
tunic,  with  short,  loose  sleeves  ;   and  over 
it  a  shawl,  in  some  instances  the  peplos, 
in  others  the  lighter  chlamys. 

~i  It  is  the  ampyx  or  zplicndone — the 
same  frontlet  as  is  generally  given  by  ancient 
artists  and  poets  to  Juno,  Diana,  and  the 
Muses. 

8  Varro,  de  Ling.  Lat.  VII.  35  ;  Festus, 
v.  Subulo.  Both  these  writers  cite  Ennius 
as  savin'' — 


Subulo  quondam  marinas  propter  adstabat 

plagas — 

a  position  in  which  a  fife-player  has  never, 
I  believe,  been  found  on  an  ancient  monu- 
ment, though  in  a  parable  which  Herodotus 
(I.  141)  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Cyrus,  one 
is  represented  as  playing — not  preaching, 
like  St.  Anthony — to  the  fishes.  Varro 
adds  that  the  root  of  subulo  must  be  sought 
in  Etruria,  not  in  Latium.  Vossius  went 
to  the  East  for  it,  and  fancied  he  had  found 
it  in  the  Arabic — gunbul — spica,  calamus. 
Macrobius  (Saturn.  II.  1)  represents  this 
class  of  men  as  being  proverbial  for  their 
indecent  language — subulonis  impudica  et 
prajtextata  verba.  The  pipes  used  by  the 
Etruscans  at  sacrifices  were  of  ivory  (Virg. 
Greorg.  II.  193),  or  of  box-wood  ;  those  at 
public  festivals,  of  lotus-wood,  of  asses' 
bones,  or  of  silver.  Plin.  XVI.,  66.  Pliny 
says  these  double  pipes  were  of  Phrygian 
origin.  VII.,  57. 

9  The  union  of  the  pipes  and  lyre  in 
ancient  music,  as  exemplified  in  this  and 
other  Etruscan  tombs,  is  frequently  men- 
tioned by  classic  writers.  Horace  (Epocl. 
IX.  5)  gives  us  to  understand  that  a  Doric 
x  2 


308  CORXETO.— THE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

open  air,  as  is  shown  by  the  trees  behind  the  festive  couch,  and 
alternating  with  the  dancers  ;  yet  the  candelabrum  indicates  it  to 
be  by  night. 

The  biga,  or  two-horse  chariot,  over  the  doorway,  from  its 
disproportionately  small  size,  seems  hardly  to  belong  to  the 
foregoing  scene,  and  was,  perhaps,  introduced  merely  to  fill  an 
awkward  space ;  though  it  may  also  have  reference  to  the  funeral 
games. 

To  hunt  the  wild  boar  of  Etruria — Tuscns  apcr — was  a  favourite 
sport  of  the  old  Romans,1  as  it  is  still  of  their  modern  represen- 
tatives. From  this  and  other  ancient  monuments  we  learn  that 
it  was  the  delight  of  the  Etruscans  also.  The  bristly  monster  is 
here  depicted  brought  to  bay  by  the  dogs.  Men  on  foot  and 
horseback  are  rushing  eagerly  to  the  attack ;  the  former,  while 
brandishing  a  spear  in  one  hand,  have  an  axe  in  the  other  to  cut 
their  way  through  the  thickets,  or  to  sever  the  boar's  head  from 
his  carcass.  Behind  these  figures  are  the  nets  into  which  it  was 
the  custom  to  drive  the  game,  in  order  to  bring  it  to  bay.  Such 
a  scene  is  described  by  Virgil,2  in  his  usual  circumstantial  and 
picturesque  manner,  and  with  more  conciseness,  but  not  less 
accuracy,  by  Horace  ;3  and  that  such  was  the  ordinary  mode  of 
hunting  the  boar  and  deer  among  the  Greeks  and  Romans  we 
have  abundant  evidence  in  ancient  writers.  In  this  lower  band 
there  seem  to  have  been  chariot-races  also,  though  many  figures 
have  been  obliterated  from  the  wall. 

In  each  pediment  are  two  warriors,  with  short  curved  swords, 
leading  their  horses  by  the  bridle ; 4  and  the  angles  are  filled 
by  panthers — animals  frequently  portrayed  in  Etruscan  tombs, 
and  generally  over  the  doorway ;  whence  it  has  been  concluded 
that  they  were  introduced  as  figurative  guardians  of  the  dead. 
But  their  presence  in  tombs  may  be  explained  by  their  being 

song  accompanied  the  lyre,  and  a  "barba-  *  Juven.  Sat.   I.   22  ;   Stat.  Silv.  IV.  6, 

rian,"  i.e.,   most  probably  a  Lydian,   the  10;  Mart.  VII.  epig.  27  ;  XII.  ep.  14,  9. 

pipes— as   he   elsewhere   (Od.  IV.  15,  30)  The  boars  of  Umbria  (Hovat.   Sat.   II.  4, 

says — Lydis  remixto  carmine  tibiis.    Lydian  40),  and  of  Lucania  (Sat.   II.    3,  234;  8, 

was  frequently  used  by  the  ancients  as  sy-  6)  were  also  celebrated  as  a  dish,  but  that 

nonymous  with  Etruscan,  on  account  of  the  of  Etruria  had  more  reputation,   at  least 

generally  received  tradition,  that  Etruria  than  the  former,  for  Statius  says — Tuscus 

had  been  colonised  from  Lydia,  but  the  pipe  aper  generosior  Umbro. 

was  really  of  oriental  origin.     See  Miiller,  2  Virg.  /En.  X.  707 — 715. 

Etrusk.  IV.  1,  3,  p.  203.  3  Horat.  Epod.  II.  31. 

None  of  the  subuloncs  in  this  tomb  wear  *  Gerhard    (Ann.    Inst.    1831,    p.    321) 

the  <f>opftfid,  or  capistrum — the  bands  fas-  considers  these  warriors  to  represent  the 

tencd  behind  the  head,  to  assist  the  action  souls  of  the  deceased,  figured  in  a  heroic 

of  blowing,  by  compression  of  the  cheeks.  and  deiried  aspect. 


CHAP,  xxv.]      BOAE-HUNT— TREATMENT    OF    WOMEN.  309 

sacred  to  Dionysus,  who,  according  to  the  tradition  which  made 
him  the  son  of  Zeus  and  Persephone,  the  goddess  of  death,  was 
himself  an  infernal  deity. 

This  tomb  was  discovered  in  April,  1831.  It  is  larger  and 
loftier  than  any  other  sepulchre  in  this  necropolis,  whose  walls 
are  completely  covered  with  paintings,5  and  in  its  original  state 
must  have  been  truly  magnificent ;  but  the  colours  have  now 
almost  faded  from  the  walls,  and  it  is  to  be  feared  that  ere  long 
they  will  vanish  entirely.  They  have  faded  very  much  during 
the  last  few  years,  and  the  stucco  has  also  fallen  from  the  inner 
wall,  so  as  almost  to  have  destroyed  the  banqueting-scene.6  This 
is  the  more  to  be  regretted,  on  account  of  the  peculiar  beauty  of 
the  design  here  exhibited,  which  places  this  among  the  best  of 
the  painted  tombs  of  Tarquinii.  In  fact  the  design  is  almost 
Hellenic,  yet  accompanied  by  features  purely  Etruscan ;  Gerhard 
regards  this  as  the  most  instructive  monument  extant  for  the 
history  of  pictorial  art  in  Etruria.7  Yet  though  the  influence  of 
Greek  art  be  manifest  in  this  tomb,  the  subject  is  genuinely 
Etruscan.  The  most  striking  peculiarity  is  the  presence  of  the 
two  sexes  on  the  same  festive  couch.  It  is  evident  that  the  fair 
one  in  this  scene,  from  her  amorous  attitude,  and  from  the 
absence  of  any  other  of  her  sex  at  the  banquet,  is  as  frail  as  fair 
— in  short,  that  she  is  a  hctfcra.8  But  in  others  of  these  painted 
tombs  women  of  most  modest  appearance  are  represented  re- 
clining with  the  men.  And  this  is  rarely  found  in  Greek  works 
of  art — bas-reliefs,  or  even  painted  vases.  For,  with  all  their 
refinement,  the  Hellenes  never  attained  to  such  an  elevation  of 

5  It  is  about  IS  feet  square,  and  about  form,  nor  have  I  ever  seen  its  counterpart. 
10  feet  high  at  the  sides,  and  12  to  the  The  two  amphorce  at  its  side  are  not  much 
central  beam  of  the  ceiling,  which  is  with-  superior  in  form.   The  folded  cushion  under 
out  decoration.     It  looks  S.  the  elbow  of  each  banqueter  is  the  v-rayicui- 

6  This  may  be  owing  to  the  action  of  the  viov  of  the  Greeks,  answering  to  the  cubital 
atmosphere,    for   it   is  probable  that   the  or  pulvinar  of  the  Romans.      The  flowered 
colours  lose  some  of  their  freshness  by  ex-  bedding  (avBivri  arpdi^in})  of  the  figure  in 
posure.       On    the  other  hand,   nothing  is  the  corner,  is  one  of  the  articles  cited  by 
more  injurious  than  humidity,  which  con-  Posidonius  (ap.  Athen.  IV.  c.  38)  as  a  proof 
ceals  the  true  colours,  and  ultimately  effaces  of  the  extravagant  luxury  of  the  Etruscans, 
them.     To  obviate  its  effects,  iron  gratings  8  Gerhard    (Ann.    Inst.    1831,    p.    347) 
are  now  substituted  for  the  wooden  doors  makes  her  an  honest  woman  and  the  wife 
with  which  the  tombs  were  formerly  closed.  of  her  feast-fellow.      Mrs.   Gray  (Sep.   of 

7  Ann.  Instit.  1831,  pp.  313,  319,  357.  Etruria,  p.  193),  with  a  praiseworthy  ten- 
A  strong  Greek  character  is  seen  not  only  derness  for  her  sex,  is  blind  to  the  amorous 
in  the  general  style  of  the   design,  but  in  abandon  of  this  fair  Etruscan,  and  can  see 
the  details  of  the  drapery,  the  furniture,  in  her  only  "an  afflicted  mother  consoled 
the  crockery  ;  yet  the  high-necked  krater  by  her  remaining  son." 

on  the  sideboard  is  very  un-Hellenic  in 


310  COPiXETO.— THE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

sentiment  towards  the  fair  sex,  as  to  raise  it  to  an  equality  with 
the  male.  In  the  feeling  with  which  they  regarded,  and  the 
suspicion  with  which  they  treated  their  women,  they  were  half- 
orientals  ;  the  polished  Athenians  in  this  respect  were  even 
behind  their  ruder  Dorian  rivals.  Their  wives  and  daughters 
were  never  suffered  to  share  the  festive  couch  with  their  lords. 
Hetanc  alone  were  admitted  to  that  equivocal  honour.  The 
superiority  of  the  Romans  in  this  point,9  there  is  little  doubt  was 
owing  to  the  example  of  the  Etruscans,  who  as  is  abundantly 
proved  from  their  monuments,  as  well  as  from  history,1  admitted 
their  women  to  an  equal  place  at  the  board.  Such,  however,  was 
not  the  custom  of  the  early  Romans,  for  they  reclined  at  table, 
while  their  women  sat  on  chairs  ;3  and  so  also  the}'  used  to 
represent  their  deities  in  the  lectistcrnia,  or  sacred  feasts,  for  the 
statue  of  Jupiter  was  laid  on  a  couch,  while  those  of  Juno  and 
3Iinerva,  his  sister-wife  and  daughter,  were  placed  in  a  sitting 
posture.3 

One  peculiarity  of  this  tomb  is,  that  there  are  no  chaplets 
represented,  either  suspended  from  the  Avails,  or  in  the  hands  of 
the  dancers.  The  colours  used  in  these  paintings  are  red,  A'ellow, 
blue,  grey,  black,  and  white.  It  is  said  that  when  the  tomb  was 

9  Quern  Romanorum  pudet  uxorem  du-  rami  (Mon.   Etrus.   I.  p.   665)  would  not 

cere  in  convivium  !  .  nuilto  lit  aliter  admit  it — each  considering  his  own   view 

in    Qnecia — triumphantly    exclaims   Corn.  most  flattering  to  his  Etruscan  forefathers. 

Nepos  (pnefat.).  "How  so  licentious  a  custom,"  exclaims 

1  Aristot.  ap.  Athen.  I.  c.  42.  That  the  Inghirami,  commenting  on  his  opponent, 
same  custom  prevailed  among  the  Volsci  "can  be  termed  refinement,  delicacy,  and 
seems  proved  by  certain  reliefs  discovered  the  elegant  custom  of  a  civilised  people,  as 
at  Yelletri.  Theopompus  (ap.  eund.  XII.  lie  declares  the  Etruscans  to  be,  I  leave  to 
c.  14),  while  he  admits  that  the  Etruscan  the  judgment  of  any  one  who  has  the  most 
women  took  their  meals  with  the  other  sex,  superficial  idea  of  decency."  Yet  in  the 
maligns  them  by  saying,  that  it  \vas  with  same  work  (I.  p.  408^  he  admits  that  both 
any  one  rather  than  with  their  own  hus-  sexes  are  sculptured  on  Etruscan  urns  re- 
bands.  But  the  simple  fact  of  the  two  clining  together  at  banquets  ;  but  he  in- 
sexes  reclining  together  at  meals,  must  terprets  such  scenes  symbolically,  fancying 
have  appeared  so  outrageous  a  breach  of  the  men  to  represent  heroes,  the  women, 
decorum  to  the  Greeks,  who  always  asso-  souls  ! 

dated  such  a  position  with  hetane  alone,  "  Varro,  ap.  Isid.   Orig.  XX.   11. — Viri 

as  to  lead  them  naturally  to  regard   the  discumbere  cej>erunt,  mulieres  sedere,  quia 

women  as  immodest ;  just  as  a  Persian  on  turpis  visus  est  in  muliere  accubitus.   Valer. 

hearing   of   distant  land*,    where   all    the  Max.  II.  1,  2. 

women  go  unveiled,  would  set  them  down  3  Valer.  Max.  loc.  cit.    Yet  Livy  (V.  13) 

as  dead  to  all  shame  and  virtue.     Before  and  Dionysius  (Excerp.  Mai,  XII.   7)   de- 

the  discovery  of  these  painted  tombs,  the  scril>e  Latona  and  Diana  reclining  with  male 

union  of  the  two  sexes  at  the  banquet  had  divinities   at  the  first  lectitternium  exhi- 

been  remarked  by  Micali  (Italia  avanti  il  bited  at  Rome  A.  u.  c.  355,  just  before  the 

dominio  de'  Romaui,  II.  p.  86,  t&v.  37)  on  capture  of  Veii. 
certain  Etruscan   monuments;   but  Inghi- 


CHAP,  xxv.j  GROTTA   DE1    CACCIATORI.  "  311 

opened,  an  Etruscan  inscription  was  legible  near  the  principal 
figures  of  the  banquet ;  but  it  has  completely  disappeared,  the 
surface  of  the  wall  in  this  part  having  sadly  suffered  from  time.4 


GROTTA  DE'  CACCIATORI. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  road,  and  rather  nearer  to  Corneto, 
on  a  spot  called  the  "  Calvario,"  is  a  group  of  tombs.  The  first, 
called  the  "  Tomb  of  the  Sportsmen,"  was  discovered  in  1873. 
You  descend  into  it  by  a  steep  passage  as  into  the  last.  It  has 
two  chambers.  The  outer,  about  fifteen  feet  long,  by  ten  wide, 
is  surrounded  by  trees,  or  rather  by  a  series  of  olive  saplings, 
painted  on  the  walls,  from  which  are  suspended  fillets  and  chap- 
lets,  ribbons  in  festoons,  mirrors,  and  in  one  instance  a  bird-cage. 
Alternating  with  the  trees  are  male  figures,  those  on  the  left  hand 
almost  obliterated ;  but  on  the  opposite  wall,  you  can  distinguish 
two,  each  with  a  cloth  about  his  loins,  engaged  in  a  frantic  dance  ; 
one  especially,  who  throws  his  head  back  and  raises  his  knee  to 
the  level  of  his  chin,  might  be  taken  for  one  of  the  infuriated 
marabouts  sometimes  seen  in  eastern  lands.  On  the  ground 
behind  him  a  sitbitlo,  similarly  clad,  but  with  a  tiitiilns  for  a  cap, 
lies  on  his  back  playing  his  pipes,  and  kicks  his  legs  in  the  air  as 
if  beating  time  to  his  own  music,  or  as  if  inspired  with  the  fast 
and  furious  mirth  of  the  dancers.  Dancing  figures  seem  origin- 
ally to  have  been  carried  all  round  the  room,  but  are  now  almost 
obliterated,  by  the  falling  away  of  the  surface. 

In  the  pediment  over  the  door  leading  to  the  inner  chamber  is 
the  scene  which  gives  its  name  to  the  sepulchre.  Two  horsemen, 
one  on  a  red,  the  other  on  a  green  steed,  are  represented 
returning  from  the  chase,  preceded  by  a  man  on  foot,  who  seems 
to  be  pointing  out  the  way  through  the  thickets,  and  followed  by 
a  slave  carrying  the  game  on  a  pole  across  his  shoulder,  and  by  a 
peasant,  with  dogs,  two  of  which  are  on  the  scent  of  a  hare  in  the 
right-hand  corner. 

The  inner  chamber,  which  is  only  ten  feet  square,  displays  yet 
more  remarkable  scenes  on  its  Avails.  Here  the  artist,  not  content 

4  For  notices  and  opinions  of  this  tomb,  1870,  p.  63  (Helbig).  For  illustrations, 
consult  Bull.  Instit.  1831,  p.  81-3  ;  Ann.  see  Mon.  Ined.  Inst.  I.  tav.  33.  Copies 
Inst.  1831,  p.  313,  etseq.  (Gerhard);  1831,  of  these  paintings  are  preserved  in  the 
p.  325  (Ruspi) ;  1831,  pp.  346—359  ^Grer-  Museo  Gregoriano  at  Rome,  and  are  en- 
hard)  ;  1834,  p.  56  (hunsen) ;  1863,  pp.  graved  in  the  work  of  that  name,  torn.  I. 
348—351  (Helbig) ;  1866,  p.  427  (Brunn) ;  tav.  CIV. 


312  CORNETO.— THE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

with  the  representation  of  the  human  figure  and  domestic  animals, 
as  in  the  other  painted  tombs  of  Etruria,  exhibits  his  skill  in  the 
delineation  of  landscape,  for  he  gives  us  three  sea-side  subjects, 
unique  in  character,  and  full  of  interest.  On  the  wall  facing  the 
door  is  depicted  a  boat  with  a  high  sharp  stern,  and  a  low  bow, 
on  which  is  painted  an  enormous  eye,  a  fashion  that  has  des- 
cended from  Etruscan  times  to  the  fishermen  of  modern  Italy. 
It  is  steered  by  a  man  with  a  broad  oar ;  several  other  figures  are 
sitting  or  standing  in  the  boat,  and  one  is  leaning  over  the  bow,  with 
ropes  in  his  hand,  as  if  he  had  just  made  a  cast  of  his  line  or  net. 
A  dolphin  is  sporting  in  the  waves  around  the  bows,  water-fowl 
are  pluming  themselves  on  the  rocks,  and  the  air  is  full  of  birds 
of  different  colours  and  species,  which  a  man,  standing  on  a  rock 
in  the  foreground,  is  attempting  to  knock  over  with  a  sling.  On 
the  left-hand  wall  is  a  somewhat  similar  scene.  The  boat  in  the 
centre  is  occupied  by  three  naked  men,  watching  a  fourth  who  is 
plunging  headforemost  from  a  high  rock  into  the  waves.  Behind 
him  is  another  man,  climbing  the  cliff  like  a  monkey,  apparently 
with  the  intention  of  following  suit.5  The  scene  on  the  right- 
hand  wall  is  almost  obliterated,  but  you  can  distinguish  a  third 
boat  with  a  man  standing  in  the  bow,  and  endeavouring  with  a 
barbed  trident  to  harpoon  not  the  fish,  but  a  pair  of  geese. 
Here  again  a  man  standing  on  the  rocks  in  the  foreground  is 
slinging  stones  at  the  wild-fowl  which  fill  the  air  around  him. 

On  each  side  the  door  of  this  inner  chamber  is  depicted  a 
panther  so  frequently  introduced  into  Etruscan  sepulchres. 

In  the  pediment  opposite  the  door,  a  fond  couple  are  reclining 
on  a  couch,  laid  on  the  ground;  he  naked  from  the  waist  upwards; 
she,  robed  in  red,  black,  and  green,  with  a  red  tutuhis  on  her 
head,  encircled  with  two  blue  chaplets.  The  difference  of  sex,  as 
in  all  these  painted  tombs,  is  marked  by  the  colour  of  the  flesh ; 
the  man  being  depicted  red,  the  woman  white.6  She  is  decorated 

5  Signer  Brizio,  in  his  description  of  this  rank  and  dignity  also  among  more  Eastern 
tomb,  thinks  this  man  has  fallen  into  the  nations.      "She  saw  men  portrayed  upon 
sea,  by  the  brow  of  the  cliff  giving  way,  the  wall,  the  images  of  the  Chaldeans  por- 
and  that  the  man  behind  him  is  trying  to  trayecl  with  vermilion.   ...   all  of  them 
save  him  (Bull.  Inst.  1873,  p.  82)  ;  but  princes  to  look  to,  after  the  manner  of  the 
from  the  nudity  of  the  falling  figure,  and  Babylonians  of  Chahlea,  the  land  of  their 
of  the  men  in  the  boat,  I  am  inclined  to  nativity."     Ezek.  xxiii.  14,  15.     Just  so 
regard  this  as  a  bathing  scene.  are  the  Assyrian  sculptures  coloured,  now 

6  A  similar  distinction  in  the  colour  of  in  the  British  Museum.     That  it  was  also 
the  sexes  was  observed  by  the  Egyptians  an  ancient  custom  in  Italy  to  represent  gods 
in   their  paintings.      Vermilion    seems   to  and  heroes  of  this  red  hue  is  evident  from 
have  l>een  the  conventional  hue  of  male  Pliny  (XXXIII.  36),  who  states  that  the 


CHAP,  xxv.]    MABINE    LANDSCAPES— BANQUET    SCENE.  313 

with  large  round  earrings,  snake-bracelets,  and  a  necklace  or  band 
round  her  throat.  He  also  wears  a  necklace  with  large  pendants 
in  the  shape  of  dogs'  heads.  While  he  holds  a  goblet  of  wine  in 
one  hand,  he  throws  the  other  arm  lovingly  round  her  neck, 
and  his  bare  foot  also  over  her  loins,  as  she  turns  towards  him 
to  offer  him  a  chaplet.  Two  slave-girls,  each  with  long  hair 
hanging  down  her  back,  and  each  holding  a  chaplet,  sit  at  the 
foot  of  the  couch ;  one  turns  her  head  round  to  watch  the 
amorous  pair ;  the  other  turns  her  back  on  the  scene  as  if  it  had 
no  interest  for  her.  A  youthful  subulo  plays  his  pipes  bjr  the  side 
of  the  couch ;  and  at  its  head  stands  a  naked  slave  boy,  holding 
up  a  small  black  cross,  perhaps  &  plectrum,  for  a  lyre  hangs  on  the 
wall  behind  him.  In  the  corner  a  large  krater  and  three  other 
vases  rest  on  the  ground,  and  a  cup-bearer  approaches  them  to 
replenish  his  pitcher  with  wine. 

The  figures  in  this  tomb  are  rudely  and  carelessly  drawn,  yet 
are  of  an  archaic  style  and  with  no  lack  of  character.  The  out- 
lines are  strong!}'  marked  with  black.  A  broad  band  composed 
of  sixteen  stripes  of  different  colours  surrounds  the  chamber 
beneath  the  roof,  and  from  it  depend  garlands  and  chaplets  of 
various  hues.  The  ceiling  is  carved  into  a  broad  beam  painted 
red  ;  and  the  slopes  on  either  hand  are  studded  with  flower-like 
spots,  alternating  with  squares.  This  tomb  faces  the  S.7 


Very  near  the  tomb  just  described,  but  on  the  verge  of  the 
height  facing  the  long  ridge  on  which  Tarquinii  once  stood,  is 
another  tomb,  called 

GROTTA  DELLA  PULCELLA. 

It  was  discovered  in  1865,  but  reclosed,  and  opened  again  in 
November,  1873.  It  is  entered  by  a  horizontal  passage,  forty-five 
yards  in  length,  sunk  in  the  rock,  and  opening  to  the  N.E. 

statue  of  Jupiter  was  wont  to  be   fresh  figures  on  their  sarcophagi  testify,  it  was  a 

painted  with  minium  or  vermilion  on  high  conventional  mode  of  expressing  a  state  of 

festivals,  and  that  Camillas,  the  conqueror  glorification  and  beatitude.      Tibullus  (II. 

of  Veii,  so  bedaubed  himself  on  his  triumph.  1.    55)  says   the  husbandman  of   old  was 

He  adds  that  in  his  day  the  custom  pre-  wont  to    dance  before    the    gods — minio 

vailed  in  ^Ethiopia,  where  all   the  great  suffusus  rubeuti. 

men  painted  themselves  of  this  hue ;  and  7  A  full   description    of   these  curious 
the  images  of  the  gods  were  similarly  be-  scenes,   differing  from  mine  in  some  par- 
dyed.     The  Komans  doubtless  derived  the  ticulars,  is  given  by  Signor  E.  Brizio,  Bull, 
custom  from  the  Etruscans,  with  whom,  as  Inst.  1873,  pp.  79-85,  and  97-98. 
these  painted   tombs  and  the  recumbent 


314  COEXETO.-  THE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

You  descend  three  steps,  and  find  yourself  in  a  small  chamber, 
only  ten  feet  square.  In  the  wall  opposite  is  a  sepulchral  recess, 
hollowed  in  the  rock,  just  long  and  deep  enough  for  a  body, 
quadrangular  below,  but  terminating  above  in  a  high-pitched 
pediment,  from  the  apex  of  which  a  huge  Gorgon's  head,  with 
winged  brows,  greets  you  with  bristling  teeth,  and  out-thrust 
tongue ;  but  whatever  effect  it  may  have  had  in  ancient  times,  it 
110  longer  preserves  the  tomb  from  intrusion.  On  the  inner  wall 
of  the  niche  you  can  discern  traces  of  two  winged  genii  or 
demons,  holding  up  a  veil  with  which  to  cover  the  corpse.  On 
one  side-wall  hangs  a  casket,  on  the  other,  two  fillets.  Externally 
the  niche  is  decorated  with  a  broad  egg  and  tongue  border,  and 
with  a  wave  pattern  as  a  fringe,  and  is  flanked  at  each  end  by  a 
short  Doric  column,  not  carved  but  painted.  On  the  wall  on 
either  hand  are  two  musicians,  one  with  the  lyre,  the  other  with 
the  double-pipes,  as  if  playing  to  the  corpse  which  lay  in  the 
niche  between  them. 

The  side-walls  of  the  tomb  display  banqueting-scenes,  each 
wall  having  two  couches,  on  which  recline  pairs  of  opposite  sexes, 
distinguishable  not  merely  by  their  costume,  but  by  their  com- 
plexion. The  men  are  bare  to  the  waist,  and  wear  garlands  of 
myrtle  leaves  round  their  brows.  The  women  wear  yellow  trans- 
parent cltitoncs,8  or  chemises,  spotted  with  black,  and  red  pallia 
with  rich  borders  of  other  colours.  All  have  frontlets  of  gold, 
and  are  decorated  also  with  earrings,  snake-bracelets,  and  neck- 
laces of  different  patterns  ;  one  especially,  a  deep  network  of  gold 
terminating  in  tassels,  is  worthy  of  attention  from  lady  visitors. 
The  strafjula,  or  coverlets,  are  white  or  blue  bordered  with  red, 
or  red  bordered  with  blue.  The  cushions  of  the  couches  are  of 
chequers  alternating  with  meander  patterns,  in  broad  vertical 
bands.  Beneath  the  couches  are  low  footstools  as  usual. 

On  the  first  couch  on  the  left-hand  wall  the  gentleman  holds 
a,  lyre,  and  lifts  his  right  hand  as  if  to  strike  its  chords.  His 
companion  holds  up  both  her  hands,  either  to  beat  time  to  his 
music,  or  to  testily  her  enjoyment.  Notice  the  unnatural  length 
of  her  fingers,  an  archaicism  in  Etruscan  art.  Her  hair  is  red, 


8  Yellow,  or  saffron-coloured  gowns  were  part  in  the  festivals  of  Diana,  wore  dresses 

much  worn  by  Jictccrcc  in  Greece  (Aristoph.  of  the  same  hue  (Lys.    645).     Crocus,   or 

Lysist.  44;  Eccles.  879  ;  Thesmoph.  253),  saffron,  in  fact,  seems  to  have   been  the 

and   also    by   married   women  when  they  colour  most  attractive  to  a  Greek  eye,  and 

wished  to  allure  their  husbands  (Aristoph.  most  in  fashion  for  full  dress  in  the  time 

Lys.  219).     Young  girls  also,  when  taking  of  Aristophanes. 


CHAP,  xxv.]  GROTTA    DELIA    PUCELLA.  315 

but  her  eye  deep  black,  of  that  almond  form  so  much  admired  in 
Spain  and  the  East.  At  the  foot  of  the  couch  stands  a  naked 
boy  with  wine-jug  and  drinking-bowl,  reacty  to  minister  to  the 
wants  of  the  revellers.  The  scene  is  continued  on  the  wall 
flanking  the  door,  where  are  traces  of  another  slave,  jug  in  hand, 
at  a  table  or  sideboard. 

The  youth  on  the  next  couch  holds  a  pliiala  over  his  head, 
tilting  it  to  show  that  he  has  quaffed  its  contents,9  while  his  lady, 
who  is  fair,  with  blue  eyes  and  auburn  hair,  stretches  one  hand 
towards  him  in  approbation.  At  the  foot  of  this  couch  stands  a 
pretty  little  girl,  from  whom  the  tomb  has  received  its  modern 
appellation.  She  has  black  hair  and  eyes,  charming  features, 
and  a  graceful  figure  ;  her  bosom  is  bare,  but  her  yellow  tunic 
descends  to  her  heels  without  concealing  her  red  boots.  She 
holds  a  kantliarus  in  one  hand,  and  points  with  the  other  to  her 
mistress,  as  if  to  call  her  attention  to  the  goblet  of  wine. 

On  the  first  couch  on  the  opposite  wall  the  lady  is  offering 
fruit  or  an  egg  to  her  mate,  and  both  have  their  hands  uplifted, 
as  if  in  exultation.  On  the  adjoining  couch  the  man  is  chucking 
his  fair  companion  under  the  chin,  but  she  does  not  resent  the 
liberty,  for  though  chiding  him  coquettishly  with  one  hand,  she 
rests  the  other  on  his  body.  His  face  shows  a  pentimento.  A 
female  slave  standing  at  the  foot  of  the  couch,  and  stretching  out 
both  arms  to  her  mistress,  completes  the  scene.  The  trees 
behind  the  couches  show  these  revels  to  take  place  in  the  open 
air.  On  each  side  of  the  door  is  depicted  a  sideboard  with  vases 
— the  complement  to  the  feast.  The  ceiling  is  painted  with  four 
longitudinal  beams  down  the  middle,  and  with  rafters  on  either 
slope.  The  figures  in  this  tomb,  though  somewhat  archaic, 
are  very  carefully  drawn,  and  cannot  be  later  than  the  fifth 
century,  B.C.1 

A  little  beyond  the  last  tomb,  is  another,  discovered  in  1873, 
which  has  received  the  name  of 

GROTTA  DEL   LKTTO   FUXEBRE, 
or  "  Tomb  of  the  Funeral  Bier,"  from  the  most  prominent  object 

9  This  phiida  is  decorated  with  a  leaf  l  An  excellent  description  and  able  cri- 

pattem,  which  throws  light  on  certain  cu-  ticism  of  the  paintings   in  this  tomb  are 

rious    disks  in  the   inner  chamber  of  the  given  by  Signor  E.  Brizio,  Bull.  Inst.  1873, 

Grotta  Campana,  Yeii,  proving  them  to  re-  pp.  98-101. 
present  drinking- bowls.     See  p.  41. 


316  CORXETO.— THE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

depicted  on  its  walls.  This  is  a  couch  of  extraordinary  size, 
which  almost  fills  the  wall  facing  the  entrance.  It  is  not  the  low 
bed,  on  which  the  dead  or  dying  man  is  represented  as  stretched 
in  two  other  tombs  in  this  necropolis,  but  an  elevated  bier  or 
catafalque,  en  which  a  body  might  lie  in  state.  But  there  is  no 
corpse  here  depicted ;  the  couch  is  empty,  although  a  pair  of 
double  cushions  suggest  that  it  was  prepared  for  two  bodies, 
which  is  further  indicated  by  a  conical  crown  or  tutidiis,  bound 
with  a  garland  of  ivy  or  laurel  leaves,  resting  on  each  cushion. 
Beneath  the  bier  is  the  usual  footstool. 

At  the  head  of  the  bier,  two  men  half  draped,  wearing  green 
garlands  round  their  brows,  and  long  torques  of  ivy  leaves  about 
their  necks,  are  carousing  at  a  banquet,  attended  by  two  naked 
slaves ;  while  an  mdetris,  with  black  hair,  a  yellow  band  round 
her  head,  and  a  capistrum  tied  over  her  mouth,  stands  at  the  other 
end  of  the  bier,  playing  the  double  pipes,3  the  instruments  them- 
selves being  obliterated  from  the  wall. 

On  either  side-wall  is  a  banqueting  scene,  but  the  revellers, 
though  of  opposite  sexes,  are  here  kept  distinct ;  on  the  right 
are  two  men,  half  draped ;  on  the  left,  three  women,  decorated 
with  chaplets  and  torques,  wearing  yellow  gowns,  and  red  mantles. 
The  men  are  served  by  boys,  but  the  ladies  are  waited  on  by  a 
female  slave,  in  yellow  chiton  and  red  tutnlits,  who,  while  bringing 
them  a  jug  of  wine  and  a  goblet,  is  stopped  on  her  way  by  a  slave 
of  the  opposite  sex,  who  admiringly  chucks  her  under  the  chin. 
A  youthful  sulido  stands  at  a  c}Tpress  tree,  playing  his  double 
pipes.  A  girl  dances  to  his  music,  footing  it  in  a  quaint  attitude, 
which  finds  its  counterpart  in  the  Grotta  del  Triclinio.3  Next, 
a  Pyrrhichistes,  with  helmet,  shield,  and  spear,  is  suggestive  of 
an  armed  race  or  dance.  A  discobolus,  nearly  nude,  follows, 
about  to  hurl  his  quoit,  and  there  are  other  figures  which,  from 
the  exfoliation  of  the  surface,  are  no  longer  intelligible,  though 
one  exhibits  much  energy  and  excellent  design.  The  scene 
terminates  with  two  steeds  on  the  wall  to  the  left  of  the  entrance, 
ridden  by  naked  youths. 

The  banquet  is  represented  as  under  shelter,  which  is  indicated 
by  festoons  of  white  curtains,  bordered  Avith  red,  supported  on 


2  This  is  the  only  instance  among  the  Etruscan  sarcophagi  and  vases, 

wall-paintings  of  Tarquinii  of  a  flute-player  3  Her  costume  also  resembles  that  of  the 

l>eing  furnished  with  a  capistrum,  although  crotaliatria  in  the  Gr.  Triclinio,    differing 

they  are  so  represented  in  several  painted  only  in  having  a  circular  disk  or  brooch, 

tombs  at  Chiusi,  and  not  unfrequently  on  red  and  yellow,  on  her  bosom. 


CHAP,  xxv.]  GROTTA    DEL    LETTO    FUNEBRE.  317 

each  side-wall  by  a  blue  column,  over  which  the  curtains  hang. 
Two  similar  columns  support  the  tent  over  the  bier.  All  the 
other  figures  are  represented  in  the  open  air,  as  is  shown  \>y  the 
trees,  and  by  the  double  row  of  ivy  leaves  with  berries,  in  the 
band  over  their  heads,  which  is  interrupted  only  by  the  curtains. 
On  the  right-hand  wall,  next  the  festive  couch,  is  a  group 
of  figures  on  foot.  A  half  naked  man  is  dancing  with  frantic 
abandon  to  the  music  of  the  double  pipes,  pla}Ted  by  a  boy  at  a 
c}Tpress  tree.  Then  there  is  a  gigantic  pugilist,  who,  with 
one  arm  raised  over  his  head,  is  striking  a  violent  blow,  Avhile, 
with  the  other  held  out  in  advance,  he  parries  the  attack  of  his 
adversary.  But  no  foe  is  visible  ;  and  it  may  be  that  he  is  exult- 
ing in  his  victoiy  over  another  naked  man  behind  him,  who  holds 
something,  perhaps  a  sponge,  to  his  nose,  as  if  he  had  already 
received  a  smasher,  for  which  he  is  comforted  "by  a  male  slave, 
who  is  waiting  on  the  revellers.  Next  to  the  pugilist,  a  pair  of 
horses  are  being  harnessed  to  a  biga ;  the  first,  a  grey  steed,  is 
caressed  by  the  lad,  who  stands  at  his  head,  while  his  groom 
attaches  him  to  the  pole  ;  the  other,  a  black  horse,  is  awaiting 
his  turn.  Another  biga,  on  the  wall  flanking  the  door,  is  ready 
for  the  contest.  Behind  the  first  biga,  a  row  of  trees,  more  like 
blue  paddles  on  long  red  stems,  probably  marks  the  spina  of  the 
hippodrome.  The  horses  are  remarkably  well  drawn,  and  their 
points  carefully  displayed.  The  red  horse  in  the  second  biga 
especially,  is  formed  like  a  blood-horse  of  to-day,  with  fine  head 
and  neck,  head  well  put  on,  straight  crupper,  and  deep  quarters, 
and  carries  both  head  and  flag  like  an  Arab.  In  the  pediments 
are  the  usual  pair  of  panthers,  or  cats,  each  watching  a  bird  over 
its  head.  The  band  of  figures  is  about  twenty-six  inches  in  height. 
Beneath  it,  encircling  the  tomb,  is  a  large  wave-pattern,  painted 
black,  with  fish,  alternately  blue  and  red,  plunging  above  it.  The 
decorations  of  the  ceiling,  as  well  as  of  the  walls,  so  closely 
resemble  those  of  the  adjoining  Grotta  del  Triclinio,  and  some 
of  the  figures  also  bear  so  near  a  resemblance,  that  it  is  difficult 
to  resist  the  impression  that  the  tombs  have  been  painted  by  the 
eame  hand.  There  is  nothing  in  the  style  of  art  opposed  to  this 
view,  although  there  is  rather  less  archaicism  in  this  than  in  the 
neighbouring  tomb,  yet  not  more  than  may  be  explained  by  the 
difference  of  style  at  distinct  periods  of  the  same  artist's  life. 
The  design  certainly  betrays  a  freer  hand;  the  attitudes  are 
more  easy  and  natural,  so  in  parts  is  the  drapery,  but  there  is 
hardly  the  same  careful  and  conscientious  delineation  of  details. 


318  COBNETO.— THE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

The  blue  in  this  tomb  is  remarkably  brilliant,  while  in  the 
Triclinio  it  is  the  colour  that  has  most  faded.  Certain  of  the 
figures  show  a  strong  approximation  to  the  Greek,  the  discobolus 
for  instance,  and  the  draped  figure  next  him,  but  most  of  the 
others  are  purely  Etruscan  in  character.4  The  tomb  faces  S.S.W. 

Close  to  the  tomb  just  described  is  the 

GlJOTTA    DEL    TllICLIXIO, 

called  also  from  the  owner  of  the  ground,  GROTTA  MARZI,  but  it 
is  better  known  by  the  former  designation.  It  was  discovered  in 
1830,  by  Manzi  and  Fossati.5 

The  first  peep  within  this  tomb  is  startling,  especially  if  the 
sun's  rays  happen  at  the  moment  to  enter  the  chamber,  which 
they  do  in  the  course  of  the  afternoon.  Such  a  blaze  of  rich 
colour  on  the  walls  and  roof,  and  such  life  in  the  figures  that 
dance  around  !  In  truth,  the  excellent  state  of  preservation — the 
wonderful  brilliancy  of  the  colours,  almost  as  fresh  after  three  or 
four  and  twenty  centuries,  as  when  first  laid  on — the  richness  of 
the  costumes — the  strangeness  of  the  attitudes — the  spirit,  the 
vivacity,  the  joyousness  of  the  whole  scene — the  decidedly  Etrus- 
can character  of  the  design,  distinct  from  the  Greek  and  yet  in 
certain  points  approximating  to  it — render  this  one  of  the  most 
interesting  tombs  yet  opened  in  Etruria. 

The  paintings  in  subject,  character,  and  arrangement,  are  very 
similar  to  those  in  the  Grotta  Quercioln,  but  there  is  only  a  single 
band  of  figures.  Here  are  the  same  scenes  of  joy  and  festivity  ; 
the  banquet  at  the  upper  end ;  the  dances  on  the  side-walls  ;  and 
on  each  side  of  the  door  a  man  on  horseback.  The  broad  beam 
of  the  ceiling  is  painted  with  ivy  leaves  and  berries  ;  the  slopes 
are  chequered  with  black,  red,  blue,  yellow,  and  white.  Where  the 
painting  has  suffered,  it  is  not  so  much  from  the  colours  fading,  as 

4  Signor  Hrizio,  who  lias  written  an  able  in  the  centre,  ami  G  ft.  3  in.  at  the  sides, 

criticism  on  these  paintings,  is  of  opinion  The  height  of  the  figures  is  about  3ft.  Gin. 

that  in  this,  among  the  painted  tombs  of  The  floor  of  the  inner  half  of  the  tomb  i» 

CJorneto,  yon  may  first  recognise  decided  raised  in  a  dais,  about  2  or  3  inches  high, 

traces  of  <ireek  influence  upon  Etruscan  in  one  corner  of  which  are  four  holes, 

art,  there  being  some  figures  conceived  and  inarking  the  place  of  the  sarcophagus, 

designed  on  principles  quite  opposed  to  which  was  found  in  it.  Few  of  the  painted 

Etruscan  art.,  and  which  are  decidedly  Hel-  tombs  on  this  site  seem  to  have  been  family 

lenic.  Hull.  Inst.  187-5,  p.  102.  sepulchres,  which  predominate  over  those 

4  This  tomb  faces  S.  by  W.  Its  dimensions  for  individuals  in  most  of  the  Etruscan 

arc  15  ft.  by  11  ;  nearly  8  ft.  in  height  cemeteries. 


CHAP.  XXV.] 


GEOTTA    DEL    TBICLIXIO. 


310 


in  the  Querciola  tomb,  as  from  the  stucco  peeling  from  the  wall, 
and  from  streams  of  a  semi-transparent  deposit  from  the  rock 
itself,  which  has  obliterated  a  considerable  portion  of  the  banquet ; 
but  there  still  remain,  little  impaired,  two  figures  of  opposite 
sexes,  reclining  on  a  couch,  attended  by  a  female  servant  with  an 
alabastos,  or  pot  of  ointment,  and  a  boy  with  a  wine-jug,  while 
a  snbulo  stands  in  one  corner  playing  the  double-pipes.  The 


CITHARISTA    AND    SALTATRIX,    GUoTTA    UEL    TUICLINIO. 


man  on  the  second  couch  is  almost  obliterated  ;  and  of  the  single 
male  figure  on  the  third  couch,  hardly  a  fragment  is  now  to  be 
traced.  The  sex  of  the  figures  is  distinguishable  by  the  colour  ; 
that  of  the  men  is  a  deep  red  ;  that  of  the  Avomen,  being  left 
unpainted,  is  of  the  ground-colour  of  the  wall — a  rich  creamy 
white.  This  distinction  holds  in  all  the  tombs ;  and  is  also 
made  on  the  pointed  vases  of  the  Second  or  Archaic  Greek  style, 
where  the  female  flesh  is  always  painted  white.  In  front  of  each 
couch  is  an  elegant  trapeza  or  four-legged  table,  bearing  dishes. 
full  of  refreshments ;  and  beneath  are  a  cock,  a  partridge,  and  a 
cat.  Depending  from  the  ceiling  above  the  banquet  are  chaplets 
of  different  colours.0 


fl  An  erudite  explanation  of  the  paintings 
of  this  tomb  is  given  by  Professor  (xerhard, 
Aim.  Instit.  1831,  p.  337—34(5.  In  illus- 
tration of  the  analogy  between  the  banquets 
of  the  Greeks  and  Etruscans,  he  quotes 
Amphis  (ap.  Athen.  XIV.  c.  49),  who  de- 
scribes a  banquet  as  composed  of  "  cheese- 


cakes, sweet  wine,  eggs,  sesame-cakes, 
ointment,  a  chaplet,  and  a  female  flute- 
player" — 

''A/j.r)Tfs,  olcos  r]5vs,  wd,  <Tr,(Ta/j.a?, 
Vlvpov,  areipavos,  ai>\r]Tpis. 

The  flute-player  is  not  here  of  the  fair  sex, 


320 


CORNETO.— THE  CEMETERY. 


[CHAP.  xxv. 


1 


Each  couch,  it  will  be  observed,  is  covered  with  a  cloth,  on 
which  the  cushions  are  laid ;  and  -each  figure  lies  under  a 
separate  coverlet,  differing  in  this  respect  from  the  recorded 
custom  of  the  Etruscans.7 

Much  more  animated  is  the  action  of  the  dancers  in  this  tomb 
than  in  the  Querciola.  There  are  five  of  them  on  each  wall, 

males  and  females  alternating,  sepa- 
rated by  trees,  with  birds  amid  the 
foliage.  Their  steps  are  regulated 
by  the  lyre  and  pipes  played  by  two 
of  the  men,  and  by  the  castanets 
rattled  by  one  of  the  women.8  All 
enter  heartily  into  the  spirit  of  the 
dance ;  but  here,  as  now-a-days, 
woman  asserts  her  right  to  excel, 
and  the  njnnphs  step  out  more 
merrily  than  their  partners  ;  espe- 
cially one,  who  with  head  thrown 
back  and  hands  raised,  betrays  true 
Terpsichorean  abandon,  and  might 
pass  for  some  Gaditana  puclla — 
some  "  lovely  girl  of  Cadiz  "  of  the 


ETRUSCAN    DANCING-GIRL. 


nor  is  this  so  general  on  Etruscan  as  on 
Greek  monuments,  though  instances  occur 
in  the  painted  tombs  of  this  same  necro- 
polis, of  women  blowing  the  tibia;  pares. 
Gerhard  (loc.  cit.  p.  340)  declares  that  all 
the  figures  in  this  tomb  wear  garlands  of 
myrtle,  and  so  they  are  represented  in  the 
copies  in  the  Vatican  and  British  Museums 
(cf.  Ann.  Inst.  1831,  p.  327),  but  no  signs 
of  such  garlands  have  I  been  able  to  per- 
ceive. Perhaps,  being  blue,  they  have 
faded  from  the  wall,  like  the  leaves  of  the 
trees  in  this  tomb.  In  the  above  woodcuts 
the  figures  are  represented  without  chaplets, 
as  they  now  appear  on  the  walls. 

'  Aristotle  (ap.  Athcn.  I.  c.  42)  records 
that  the  Etruscans  reclined  at  their  ban- 
quets under  the  same  himatia  with  their 
wives.  The  Ifidrtov  in  this  sense  is  the 
same  as  the  arpu>fj.a.,  and  is  equivalent  to 
the  pallium,  xtraynkt,  or  gtrayulum  of  the 
Romans.  The  undercovering  of  the  couch 
was  probably  designated  irtpiorpufta. 

8  Castanets—  crotula—  were  used  at  the 
dances  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  by  whom 
iieyhave  been  transmitted  to  the  southern 


people  of  modern  Europe.  Thus  the  "  Copa 
Syrisca,"  attributed  to  Virgil,  was — 

"  Crispum  sub  crotalo  docta  movere  latus. " 

So  the  senatorial  youths  of  Rome  in  early 
times  were  wont  to  dance — crotala  gestantes 
— Macrob.  Saturn.  II.  10.  The  castanets 
of  the  ancients  were  of  various  materials — 
wood,  shell,  brass,  or  sometimes  of  split 
reed.  Suiclas,  v.  KpAraXov.  Eustath.  ad 
Iliad.  XI.  160.  Those  of  the  Etruscans 
seem  never  to  have  varied  from  the  straight 
form  shown  in  this  tomb  ;  though  on  the 
vases,  which,  however,  represent  Greek 
rather  than  Etruscan  life,  they  have  some- 
times the  extremities  crooked.  On  the 
bronzes  they  are  of  the  same  form  as  in 
this  tomb  (Ann.  Inst.  1836,  p.  64  ;  Mon. 
Ined.  Inst.  II.  tav.  XXIX.)  ;  and  in  the 
Tomb  of  the  Tarquins,  at  Cervetri,  they 
are  also  like  these,  and  are  painted  on  the 
wall  as  if  suspended  over  the  head  of  a 
corpse.  Crotalon  was  used  by  the  Greeks 
as  a  term  of  reproach,  equivalent  to  our 
"rattle,"  or  "chatterbox."  Eurip.  CycL 
104  ;  Aristoph.  Nub.  260.  448. 


CHAP,  xxv.]        MODESTY    OF    ETBUSCAN  WOMEN.  321 

olden  time.  The  attitudes,  as  in  many  archaic  Greek  and 
Etruscan  designs,  are  sometimes  unnatural  and  unattainable, 
which  arises  from  the  inability  of  the  artist  to  foreshorten — the 
limbs  and  features  being  represented  in  profile,  even  when  the 
body  is  in  full.9  The  form  of  the  hands,  too,  is  remarkable- 
fingers  of  such  undainty  length  are  seen  only  in  the  most 
archaic  painted  tombs  of  Etruria,  though  general  on  black - 
figured  vases  of  the  Archaic  style,  and  also  in  the  early  bronze 
figures  of  Etruscan  deities.  Most  of  the  dresses  of  both  sexes 
are  transparent,  representing  some  light  material,  which  shows 
the  forms  beneath  ;  but  in  a  display  of  this  sort  these  ancient 
Taglionis  and  Ceritos  cannot  rival  those  of  modern  days. 
The  richness  of  the  borders  of  the  garments,  and  the  strange 
stiffness  and  regularity  of  the  folds,  are  quite  Etruscan.  So 
also  is  the  physiognomy  of  the  figures.  Yet  there  is  something 
Jewish  in  the  female  profiles.  Mark  this,  ye  seekers  of  the  Ten 
Tribes !  The  cheeks  show  that  a  high  colour  was  as  much 
admired  in  Italy  in  former  da}-s  as  at  present ;  and  probably  the 
Etruscan  fair  ones,  like  the  Greek  and  Roman,  heightened  their 
charms  with  rouge. 

It  is  worthy  of  remark  that  all  the  women  in  this  tomb,  even 
the  slave  who  is  waiting  on  the  banqueters,  are  decently  robed. 
So  it  is  in  the  other  tombs  ;  and  this  tends  to  belie  the  charge 
brought  against  the  Etruscans  by  the  Greeks,  that  the  men 
were  waited  on  by  naked  handmaids.1  No  such  representation 
lias  been  found  on  any  Etruscan  painting  or  relief  yet  dis- 
covered ;  on  the  contrary,  the  women  are  draped  with  more  than 
Greek  modesty.3  Only  in  one  tomb  in  this  necropolis,  that  of 
the  Scrofa  Nera,  is  a  woman  depicted  with  bosom  bare.  The 
Etruscans  may  not  have  been  better  than  their  neighbours  in 
such  matters,  but  any  reproach  of  this  sort  comes  from  the 
Greeks  with  a  very  bad  grace. 

It  is  evident  that  this  tomb  is  of  earlier  date  than  the 
Querciola.  That  shows  the  dominance,  this  the  partial  influence 

9  An  awkward  instance  of  this  may  l>e  need  not  refer  ;  the  Thessalian  women  are 

observed  in  the  female  attendant  behind  described  by  Fersseus  dancing  at  banquets 

the  couch,  whose  body  is  in  full,  but  head  naked,  or  with  a  very  scanty  covering  (ap. 

and  feet  in  profile,  and  turned  in  opposite  Athen.  XIII.  c.  86).    The  maidens  of  Chios 

directions.     The  left  foot  of  the  dancing  wrestled   naked   with   the   youths   in    the 

girl  in  the  woodcut  on  p.  320  is  the  only  gymnasium,   which   Athemeus  (XIII.    20) 

instance  of  foreshortening  in  this  tomb.  pronounces  to  be  "a  beautiful  sight."    And 

1  Timoeus  ap.    Athen.   XII.  c.   14  ;  IV.  at  the  marriage  feast  of  Caranus  the  Mace- 
c.  38.  donian,  women  tumblers  performed  naked 

2  To  the  nudity  of  the  Spartan  women  I       before  the  guests.     Atheu.  IV.  3. 
VOL.   i.  Y 


322  COENETO.— THE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

only  of  Greek  art.  Gerhard  considers  that  "  with  all  the 
delicacy  of  the  ornaments,  and  all  the  archaic  Greek  character 
of  the  design,  there  is  still  an  awkwardness  about  the  former, 
and  a  rudeness  in  the  latter,  which  mark  these  paintings  as 
imitations  of  the  Greek,  spoilt  in  the  execution."3  The  wood- 
cuts, which  are  faithful  transcripts  of  copies  carefully  made  from 
the  originals  with  the  camera  liicida,  speak  for  themselves  on 
this  point. 

Every  one,  on  entering  these  tombs,  must  be  struck  with  the 
inappropriateness  of  such  scenes  to  a  sepulchre ;  but  happily  for 
us  we  regard  them  from  the  high  vantage-ground  of  Christianity, 
and  our  view  is  not  bounded  by  a  paradise  of  mere  sensual 
gratification.  If  we  cast  ourselves  back  into  antiquity  and 
attempt  to  realise  the  sentiments  and  creed  of  a  Greek,  Etruscan, 
or  Roman,  we  shall  perceive  how  well  such  scenes  as  this  repre- 
sent, or  at  least  typify,  the  state  of  bliss  on  which  a  departed 
spirit  was  supposed  to  have  entered.  They  believed  in  the 
materiality  of  the  soul ;  and  their  Elysium  was  but  a  glorifica- 
tion of  the  present  state  of  existence ;  the  same  pursuits, 
amusements,  and  pleasures  the}'  had  relished  in  this  life  they 
expected  in  the  next,  but  divested  of  their  sting,  and  enhanced 
by  increased  capacities  of  enjoyment.  To  celebrate  the  great 
event,  to  us  so  solemn,  by  feasting  and  joviality,  was  not  with 
them  unbecoming.  They  knew  not  how  to  conceive  or  represent 
a  glorified  existence  otherwise  than  by  scenes  of  the  highest 
sensual  enjoyment.4 

The  funeral  feast  is  still  kept  up  by  the  most  civilised  pagans 
of  our  own  day,  the  Chinese,  and  even  by  certain  people  of 
Christendom, — by  such  as  on  account  of  their  isolated  position, 
or  of  national  prejudices,  have  adhered  most  closely  to  the 
customs  and  usages  of  antiquity.  The  wakes  of  the  Celtic  races 


3  Ann.  Inst.  1831,  p.  319.  super  silicem  positse  (coenae) — because  the 

4  The  funeral  feast  in  honour  of  the  dead  meal  was  spread  upon  the  rocks.      If  the 
•was  called  by  the   Greeks  vtKp6$eiirvov,  or  upper  and  open  chamber  in  the  tomlm  of 
•jrfpiSeiwov,  the  latter  term  being  applied,  Castel  d'Asso  and  Norchia  were   for  the 
it  may  be,  from  the  feast  being  held  "round  funeral  feasts,  it  well  illustrates  this  ety- 
about "  the  sepulchre,  though  some  would  mology.     That  the  ancients  did  hold  these 
derive  it  from  the  position  of  the  guests,  feasts   in   the    open   air,   and   among    the 
or  make  it  equivalent  to  a  ctrcumpotatio.  tombs,   is  pretty  evident.     At  Pompeii  a 
The  Romans  held  a  similar  feast,  and  called  triclinium  for  such  purposes  stands  in  the 
it  silicernium  (Festus,  sub  voce)  the  etymo-  midst  of  the  sepulchres.    Lucian  (de  Luctu. 
logy  of  which  word  is  uncertain  ;  though  p.  813,  ed.   1615)  tells  us  that  the  feast 
Servius  (ad  Mn.   V.  92)  suggests  a  very  was  held  to  comfort  the  relatives  of  the 

robable  one— silicernium  quasi  silicenium,  deceased,  and  induce  them  to  take  food. 


CHAP,  xxv.]          FUNERAL    FEASTS   AND    DANCES.  323 

of  our  own  land  have  in  all  probability  an  identity  of  origin— 
in  feeling  at  least — with  the  funeral  feasts  of  the  Greeks, 
Etruscans,  and  Romans. 

Dances,  among  the  ancients,  had  often  a  direct  religious 
meaning  and  application,  and  were  introduced  at  sacrifices  to- 
gether with  songs  in  honour  of  the  Gods.5  Music,  to  our  ideas, 
is  hardly  consistent  with  a  scene  of  mourning,  yet  it  might  be 
solemn  and  dolorous.  That  such  was  intended  to  be  its  cha- 
racter in  this  case,  the  accompanying  figures  forbid  us  to 
suppose ;  it  must  have  been  lively  and  animated,  in  harmony 
with  the  action  of  the  dancers.  But  on  other  Etruscan  monu- 
ments it  seems  to  have  been  of  a  different  character.  Not  a  few 
bas-reliefs  represent  the  prafica,  or  hired  mourners,  wailing  over 
a  corpse,  beating  their  breasts  and  tearing  their  hair,  while  a 
siibulo  chimes  in  with  his  double-pipes. 

It  may  be  questioned  whether  such  scenes  are  emblematical 
of  the  bliss  of  the  departed,  or  representations  of  the  actual 
feasts  held  in  their  honour ; 6  in  either  case  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  they  are  truthful  delineations  of  Etruscan  costumes 
and  manners.  I  am  inclined  to  a  descriptive  interpretation, 
admitting  at  the  same  time  the  symbolical  character  of  certain 
objects,  some  of  which  were  probably  introduced  on  that  account 
at  the  actual  feasts.  It  seems  to  me,  however,  quite  unnecessary 
to  regard  all  the  pictorial  furniture  of  these  tombs  as  symbolical, 
sis  some  have  done.  In  this  case,  for  instance,  the  trees  which 
.alternate  with  the  dancers,  are  most  probably  introduced  merely 
to  indicate  that  the  festivities  were  held  in  the  open  air ; "  and 
the  animals  seem  only  ornamental  accessories,  or  whims  of  the 

5  Plato,  de  Leg.  VII.  799.    Tibul.  II.  1,  the  dancing  of  the  Greeks,  and  what  poetry 

56.    Quintil.  I.  11.    Of  this  character  were  effected  bywords,  dancing  told  by  move- 

the  Cory bantian,  or  armed  dances  of  Phrygia  ments.     Becker,  Charicles,  sc.  VI. 

in  honour  of  Cybele  ;  the  Hyporchema  and  °  Micali  (Mon.  Ined.  p.  364)  views  them 

Geranos  in  honour  of  Apollo  (see  Miiller,  as  symbolical.     Gerhard  (Ann.  Inst.  1831, 

Dor.  II.  8,  14)  ;  and  the  Salian  dances  of  p.   321)  thinks  the  dances  symbolize  the 

the  Etruscans  and   Romans   in  honour  of  welcome  given  to  the  deceased  in  the  abodes 

Mars.    The  Dionysiac,  though  also  religious,  of  the  blessed  ;  and  is  of  opinion  that  these 

were  peculiar  in  their  mimetic  character —  festive  scenes  represent  the  bliss  of  souls  in 

in  representing  the  deeds  of  the  god.     Ser-  the  other  world.    (Ann.  Inst.  1831,  p.  346, 

vius  (ad  Virg.  Eclog.   V.   73)  gives  us  the  350). 

philosophy  of  sacred  dancing   among  th,e  7  The  trees  are  either  olives,  known  by 

ancients: — "  haec  ratio  est,   quod  nullam  their  small  black  berries,   or  myrtles,   or 

majores  nostri  partem  corporis  esse  volue-  the  lotus,  or  ivy,  now  represented  only  by 

runt,   quse  non   sentiret   religionem  :  nam  large  black  berries,    the  shrubs  to  which 

cantus  ad  auimuni,  saltatio  ad  mobilitatem  they  were  attached  having  almost  entirely 

pertinet  corporis."     The  bodily  expression  faded  from  the  walls. 
of  some  sentiment  was  the  essence  of  all 

Y  2 


324  CORNETO.— THE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

artist.  The  known  relation  of  the  panther  to  Bacchus  is  sugges- 
tive of  a  funeral  signification  of  the  two  over  the  doorway,  and 
the  same  may  be  said  of  the  ivy  which  surrounds  the  room  in  a 
broad  band  above  the  heads  of  the  figures ;  but  why  seek  a 
S3'inbolic  interpretation  in  the  cat  and  domestic  fowls  gleaning 
the  crumbs  of  the  feast,  or  in  the  cats  and  birds  among  the 
trees,  or  in  the  hare  and  fox  at  their  feet  ?  The  men  on  horse- 
back seem  introduced  by  a  sort  of  pictorial  synecdoche — a  portion 
being  put  for  the  whole — to  indicate  the  races  which  usually 
formed  part  of  the  funeral  entertainments.8 

Did  not  the  archaic  character  of  the  paintings  in  this  and 
similar  tombs  of  Tarquinii,  forbid  us  to  assign  to  them  so- 
recent  a  date,  the  frequent  occurrence  of  Bacchic  emblems  might 
lead  to  the  supposition  that  these  festive  scenes  represent  the 
Dionysia,  which  were  imported  from  Greece  into  Etruria  about, 
two  hundred  years  before  Christ,  and  thence  introduced  into. 
Rome.9 

The  colours  in  this  tomb  are  black,  deep  red,  or  maroon,, 
light  red,  blue,  and  yellow.  In  few  of  the  painted  tombs  in 
this  necropolis  do  we  meet  with  green.  All  the  colours,  except, 
the  blue  which  in  the  leaves  of  the  trees  has  much  faded,  retain 
their  original  brilliancy  ;  and  it  must  be  remembered  that  three 
or  four-and-twenty  centuries  have  elapsed  since  they  were  laid  on, 
and  that  they  are  on  the  bare  rock,  the  natural  creamy  hue  of 
which  forms  the  ground  to  the  whole.  Damp  does  not  seem  here 
to  have  affected  them  as  in  some  other  tombs.1 

I  have  said  that  the  colours  were  laid  on  the  bare  rock.  The 
surface  of  this,  however,  has  undergone  some  preparation. 
The  rock  is  a  calcareous  stone,  of  tertiaiy  formation,  full  of 
minute  marine  substances.  It  is  soft,  even  plastic  when  damp, 
but  acquires  a  considerable  degree  of  hardness  on  exposure  to 


s  Gerhard,  as  already  mentioned,  p.  308,  whom   he  declares  to  be  similar,  in  their 

regards  such  mounted  figures  to  be  emblems  attitudes  and  costume,  to  the  bayaderes  of 

of  the  souls  of  the  defunct.     The  birds  are  modern  Persia, 
thought  by  M.  Lajard  (Ann.  Inst.  1833,  i>.  <J  Liv.  XXXIX.  8.  9. 

J)  0-98)  to  be  emblematical  of  gods,  such  being  *  lluspi  (Ann.  lust.  1831,  p.  326)  main- 

the  usual  mode  of  expressing  divinity  on  the  tains  that  the  damp  has  been  a  preservative 

ancient  monuments  of  the  East.     He  finds  of  the  colours.    He  remarks,  that  when  the 

a  sacred  or  funeral  symbol  in  each  of  the  sun  enters  this  tomb,  and  dries  the  surface 

animals  in  this  tomb,  and  says  that  ribbons  of  the  wall,  the  figures  in  that  part  appear 

tied  to  trees,  as  in  this  scene,  have  a  re-  more  natural  and  beautiful  than  the  rest, 

ligious   meaning    in    Persia.       M.    Lajard  because  they  then  lose  their  extreme  depth 

perceives  still  further  oriental  analogies  in  of  colour,    and  acquire   just  the  tint   the 

this  tomb,  especially  in  the  dancing  women,  ancient  artist  intended. 


CHAP.  xxv.J  THE    DEAD    MAN'S    CHAMBER  325 

the  atmosphere.  Where  the  surface  of  the  wall  has  crumbled 
away,  it  is  evident  that  it  is  composed  of  a  stucco,  scarcely 
differing  in  texture  and  colour  from  the  rock  itself.  It  seems  to 
be  made  of  the  finer  particles  of  the  rock,  sifted  and  plastered 
over  the  coarser  surface,  and  subsequently  dried  and  indurated, 
perhaps  by  artificial  heat.  The  colours  were  laid  on  al  fresco.2 
These  remarks  apply  to  all  the  painted  tombs  of  this  necropolis, 
except  those  of  the  Typhon,  the  Cardinal,  and  the  Orcus,  which 
are  stuccoed  with  a  different  material. 

CAMERA  DEL  MORTO. 

About  a  hundred  yards  beyond  the  Grotta  del  Triclinio  is 
another  painted  tomb  called  "  The  Dead  Man's  Chamber,"  dis- 
covered in  1832. 

Most  of  the  tombs  hitherto  described  contain  festive  scenes ; 
but  here  is  a  painting  of  another  character.  On  one  of  the  side- 
walls,  the  body  of  a  hoary-bearded  man  in  red  drapery  is  seen 
stretched  on  an  elegant  couch,  and  a  young  woman  standing  on 
the  stool  by  his  bedside,  leans  over  him,  apparently  in  the  act 
of  drawing  his  hood  over  his  eyes.3  A  man  stands  at  the  bottom 
of  the  couch,  and  seems  with  one  hand  to  be  pulling  the  clothes 
over  the  old  man's  feet,  while  he  raises  the  other  to  his  head, 
according  to  the  conventional  yet  natural  mode  of  expressing 
grief  among  the  Etruscans.  Behind  him  stands  another  man, 
who  with  more  violent  gestures  appears  to  be  manifesting  his 

2  So  thinks    Ruspi  ;    and  Mr.    Ainsley,  361   (Gerhard)  ;  Bull.    List.    1831,   p.    5  ; 

•who    has   paid    great    attention    to   these  Ann.  Inst.    1863,  pp.   347-352   (Helbig)  ; 

paintings,  is  of  the  same  opinion.     "  From  1866,  pp.  426-7  (Brunn)  ;  1870,  pp.  58-63 

the  circumstance,"  he  says,  "of  the  colour  (Plelbig).     The  criticisms   of  the  last  two 

brushing   off   on  the  slightest    contact,    it  writers  are  particularly  valuable.    For  illus- 

might  be  concluded  that  the  paintings  are  trations,  see  Mon.  Ined.  Inst.  I.  tav.  XXXII. 

in  distemper,  but  the  proof  is  by  no  means  Mus.  Gregor.  I.  tav.  GIL     Good  copies  of 

complete,  for  a  stain  is  left  inward,  and  these  paintings  are  in  the  British  Museum, 

the  whole  substance  of  the  stucco  is  so  cle-  but  the  colouring  is  too  hard  and  crude, 

caved  as  to  rub  off  with  great  facility  ;  the  and  in  parts  incorrect,  particularly  in  the 

outline  also  is  frequently  traceable,  scratched  absence  of  the  distinction  between  the  sexes. 

in  the  stucco,  which  would  have  been  \\n-  Mrs.  Gray  also  has  given  a  plate  of  these 

necessary   in    distemper."      Otto    Donner  paintings  (Sepulchres  of  Etruria,  p.  188), 

declares  himself  unable  to  find  any  paint-  but  inaccurate  and  characterless  in  outline, 

ings  in  these  tombs  executed  in  distemper,  and  of  imaginary  colouring  throughout, 

and  pronounces  all  that  he  examined  to  be  3  This  is  the  figure    which   Mrs.    Gray 

in  fresco.     Bull.  Inst.  1869,  p.  205.  (Sepul.    of    Etruria,    p.     69)    likens   to   a 

For  details  and  criticisms  of  the  paint-  Capuchin    monk,    from   the   cowled   tunic 

ings  in  this  tomb  see  Bull.  Inst.  1830,  p.  in  which  he  is  dressed.     But  cucuttus  non 

231  ;   Ann.    Inst.   1831,   p.    324   (Ruspi)  ;  facit  monachum.     It  is  as  much  like  the 

1831,  p.  327  ;    1831,  pp.   337-346,  359-  bornoiis  of  Barbary. 


326  CORNETO.— THE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

sorrow  in  a  similar  manner,4 — if  he  be  not  dancing — a  supposition 
which  his  attitude  and  the  analogy  of  other  figures  in  this  tomb 
seem  to  favour.  A  third  man,  who  stands  at  the  head  of  the 
couch,  has  also  his  hand  to  his  head.  The  precise  attitudes  and 
meaning  of  these  figures  it  is  impossible  now  to  determine,  owing 
to  the  dilapidated  state  of  these  paintings,  but  two  of  them  at 
least  appear  to  be  giving  manifestations  of  deep  sorrow. 

Turn  to  the  other  walls  of  the  tomb,  and  the  scene  changes  from 
grave  to  gay  in  an  instant  !  Here  all  is  tipsy  dance  and  jollity  ! 
These  naked  men,  crowned  with  chaplets,  and  dancing  with 
Bacchanalian  frenzy,  seem  unconscious  of,  or  indifferent  to, 
the  mournful  scene  adjoining.  On  the  inner  wall,  one  fellow  is 
playing  the  fife,5  though  not  moderating  his  saltatory  action  a 
whit  on  that  account ;  the  other  is  brandishing  a  kylix  or  flat 
bowl,  which  lie  appears  to  have  just  emptied,  but  a  large  krater 
of  wine  stands  at  his  feet,  whence  he  ma}"  replenish  it  at  pleasure. 
Of  the  two  figures  on  the  adjoining  wall,  one  is  in  the  act  of 
quaffing  from  a  similar  bowl ;  the  other  is  whirling  a  chaplet  in 
his  hand  ;  and  all  four,  though  torn  into  fragments  and  almost 
destroyed  by  time,  display  in  their  disjecta  membra  such  feats  of 
capriole  agility,  that  the  seeker  for  Celtic  analogies  might  declare 
them  to  be  dancing  an  Irish  jig  or  a  Highland  reel.  Similar 
chaplets  are  represented  hanging  from  the  wall  around  the 
chamber,  even  over  the  death-bed,  and  some  are  seen  suspended 
from  the  olive-trees  which  alternate  with  the  dancers,  and  from 
the  handles  of  the  krater. 

The  fourth  Avail  of  this  tomb  has  no  paintings  beyond  the 
usual  pair  of  panthers  in  the  pediment.  In  the  corresponding 
position  on  the  opposite  wall  are  two  parti-coloured  lions  and 
two  blue  pigeons,  probably  introduced  as  mere  ornaments  ;  or,  if 
symbolical,  perhaps  representing  the  ministers  of  death  about  to 
seize  the  soul. 

You  are  struck  with  the  archaic  character  of  the  paintings  in 
this  tomb,  compared  with  those  in  the  Querciola  and  Triclinio. 

4  He   has  been    described    as  placing  a       657)  by  the  early  inhabitants  of  Italy  : — 

diapleton  his  head  (Hull.   Inst.    1832,  p.  ,  ,    ,  ... .    ,    .. 

01<>v  ,          ,       .  ,    ,    .  Cantabat  nuns,  cantabat  tibia  Judis  ; 

216)  ;    and    so  he    is    represented    in    the  „  ,-    .-i  •    f        •, 

Cantabat  mctstis  tibia  funenbus. 
restored    copies     in     the    Gregorian    and 

British  Museums.      The    other   two    male  We  have   already   seen   it  represented    at 

figures  in  this  scene  may  be  striking  their  games  and  scenes  of  festivity.     Here  it  is 

brows  to  betoken  grief.  an  accompaniment  to  the  mourning  of  sur- 

•'  The  tibia  is  here  introduced  in  one  of  vivors  over  the  corpse.     Instances    of   its 

the  three  occasions  on  which  it  was  fre-  employment  at  such  scenes  are  not  unfre- 

quently  used,  according  to  Ovid  (Fast.  VI.  quent  on  Etruscan  bas-reliefs. 


CHAP,  xxv.]  AN   ETRUSCAN    WAKE.  327 

Tliis  character  is  most  strongly  marked  in  the  physiognomy,  in 
the  eyes,  which  are  always  full  though  the  face  be  in  profile,  in 
the  shape  of  the  heads,  in  the  cut  of  the  beards,  and  in  the 
contour  of  the  bodies  of  the  dancers.  You  may  observe  this 
archaic  character  particularly  in  the  figure  of  the  woman,  in  her 
stiff,  ungainly  form,  and  may  remark  that  her  dress  differs  from 
that  of  the  females  in  the  two  said  tombs,  principally  in  her  hair 
hanging  down  in  long  braids,  and  in  her  long  and  sharp-toed 
boots.  Her  name,  written  in  Etruscan  characters  over  her  head, 
is  "  THAXAUEIL,"G  and  its  similarity  to  that  above  the  old  man 
"  THAXARSEIA,"  together  with  the  duties  she  is  performing,  seems 
to  mark  her  as  a  relative,  probably  his  daughter.  The  two  men 
at  the  foot  of  the  couch  are  now  anonymous,  but  the  third  has 
the  inscription  "  EXEL  "  above  him,  which  formed,  however,  but 
a  portion  of  his  name. 

This  is  one  of  the  earliest  tombs  yet  discovered  at  Tarquinii, 
second  in  point  of  antiquity  to  the  "  Tomb  of  the  Inscriptions  " 
alone.  The  art  is  purely  Etruscan,  without  any  traces  of 
Hellenic  influence. 

It  is  also  one  of  the  smallest  of  the  painted  sepulchres  of  Tar- 
quiiiii ;  indeed,  it  is  rare  to  meet  with  tombs  of  such  confined 
dimensions.7  The  colours,  in  as  far  as  they  are  preserved, 
retain  all  their  original  depth,  but  the  surface  of  the  wall  is 
greatly  dilapidated.  The  flesh  of  the  males  is  a  very  deep  red, 
save  that  of  the  corpse,  which  is  paler,  perhaps  intentionally  so 
represented.  That  of  the  woman,  as  usual,  is  left  uncoloured. 
The  average  height  of  the  figures  is  about  two  feet  and  a  half.8 

GllOTTA    DEL    TlI-'OXE. 

About  sixty  paces  farther  on,  in  a  pit  of  more  than  ordinary 
depth,  is  the  entrance  to  the  "  Cave  of  the  Typhon  "  or,  as  it  is 

6  The  Etruscan  letters  are  very  small,  painted  red,  and  is  represented  as  resting 
and  have  almost  faded  from  the  wall.     A  on  a  large  double  modilliou  or  bracket  of 
very  slight  alteration— the  insertion  of  one  the  same  colour,   in  the  pediment.     The 
stroke  and  the  omission  of  another — would  tomb  faces  S.W. 

make  her  name   "Thanachvil,"  which  by  8  A  plate  of  the  scenes  in  this  tomb  will 

metastasis    might   be    "  Thanchavil,"   the  be  found  in  Mon.   Ined.   Inst.   II.  tav.  2; 

known  Etruscan  form  of  Tanaquil — a  name  also  in  Mus.  Gregor.  I.  tav.  XCIX.    Copies, 

which  is  not  of  unfrequent  occurrence  on  of  the  size  of  the  originals,   exist  in  the 

monuments  of  this  antiquity.  Gregorian  Museum  at  Rome,   and  in  the 

7  It  is  only  8  ft.   square,   5  ft.   high  at  British  Museum.     For  criticisms,  see  Ann. 
the  sides,  and  somewhat  more  than  6  ft.  in  Inst.  1863,  pp.  342-3  (Helbig)  ;  1836,  p. 
the  centre.      The  beam  of  the  ceiling  is  423  (Brunn)  ;  1870,  pp.  47,  48  (Helbig). 


323  CORNETO.— THE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

otherwise  called,  the  "  Tomb  of  the  Pompeys," — GROTTA  DE* 
POMPEJ — discovered  in  1832.  Before  the  door  are  vestiges  of  a 
small  antechamber,  with  a  shaft  to  ;  descend  from  the  ground 
above,  as  in  the  tombs  of  Civita  Castellana  and  Falleri. 

The  door  is  opened — and,  oh !  the  gloom  of  this  dark-walled 
cavern ! — the  blackness,  the  solemn  silence,  the  sepulchral  damp, 
chill  and  awe  the  senses  and  oppress  the  spirits.  It  is  a  very 
Tartarus  after  the  gay,  Elysian  air  of  the  tombs  you  have  just 

quitted. 

Cernis,  custodia  qualis 
Vestibule  sedeat  ?  facies  quse  limina  servet  ? 

No  Fuiy,  no  Cerberus,  no  panther  even,  nor  lion,  mounts  guard 
at  the  door  of  this  Orcus,  but  the  stone  figure  of  a  grand,  though 
rude  old  Lucumo,  decked  with  fillet  and  torque,  reclines  just 
within  the  entrance — the  first  object  that  meets  your  e}re  when 
the  door  is  opened. 

Descend  these  half-dozen  steps  to  the  floor,  light  your  tapers, 
and  look  around.  This  tomb  differs  in  many  respects  from  those 
3rou  have  already  seen.  It  is  of  considerable  size  ;  9  its  flat  roof 
is  supported  in  the  centre  by  a  massive  square  pillar ;  and  a  triple 
tier  of  benches,  all  hewn  from  the  living  rock,  surrounds  the 
chamber.  In  fact  it  more  nearly  resembles  the  sepulchres  of 
Crere  than  those  of  Tarquinii.  Its  size,  and  the  many  sarcophagi 
which  lie  scattered  and  broken  about  the  tomb,  prove  that  this 
was  a  famity  vault,  the  last  resting-place,  it  may  be,  not  merely 
of  a  single  family,  but  of  a  gens,  or,  I  may  say,  a  clan  of  ancient 
Tarquinii. 

The  walls  of  this  tomb  are  not  covered  with  paintings,  but 
simply  adorned  with  a  double  band — the  upper,  of  dolphins 
sporting  above  the  waves ;  the  lower,  of  sun-like  flowers — except 
on  one  wall  where  a  small  space  is  occupied  by  a  funeral  pro- 
cession of  singular  interest.  The  square  pillar  in  the  centre  is 
also  painted.  On  three  of  its  sides  is  a  divinity  of  Etruscan 
mythology  ;  that  at  the  back  a  female,  terminating  in  foliage 
instead  of  legs,  the  other  two,  males,  conventionally  called 
Typhon  —  whence  the  tomb  receives  its  vulgar  appellation.1 

9  The  area,  or  the  arena,  so  to  speak,  of  of  the  ground.     The  pillar  is  nearly  5  ft. 

this  tomb,  is  26  ft.  by  15j  ;  but  if  to  this  square.     The  roof   is    flat,    stuccoed,   and 

be  added  the    depth  of  the   benches,   the  painted  with  broad  red  beams  intersecting 

dimensions   will    be    41-J-    ft.   long,    by  31  each  other  at  right  angles.     The  tomb  faces 

wide.     The  height  is  11  ft.,  and  the  floor  the  E. 
annot  be  less  than  30  ft.  below  the  surface  l  The  Etruscan  name  of  this  mythical 


CHAP,  xxv.]  GEOTTA    DEL    TIFOXE.  329 

They  have  human  bodies  of  life  size,  winged  and  terminating  in 


L 
C 

l 

! 

£O 

32 

a 


a\  /Lk  Q 


TYPHO",    I'AIXTEU    ON    THE    PILLAR. 


being  is  not  yet  known  to  us.  But  he  bears 
an  analogy  to  the  Typhon  of  the  Egyptians 
and  Greeks,  and  is  significant  of  the  prin- 
ciple of  Destruction  ;  just  as  the  Typhou  of 
Egypt  was  the  evil  and  destructive  power, 
in  opposition  to  Osiris,  the  good  and  pro- 
ductive. With  the  Egyptians  he  was,  in 
particular,  the  personification  of  whirlwinds 
and  storms, — and  so  Hesiod  (Theog.  307) 
describes  him — 8eiv6v  6'  v$pL<TTt}v  r'  &vffj.ov; 
cf.  Pliny,  II.  49,  50.  In  the  Greek  my- 
thology Typhon  was  one  of  the  giants  who 
made  war  on  the  gods,  and  were  smitten 
by  Jove's  thunder,  and  cast  beneath  iEtna 
and  other  volcanoes,  where  their  belchings 
caused  eruptions,  and  their  writhings 
occasioned  earthquakes.  Pindar,  Pyth.  I. 
29,  et  seq.  .ffischyl.  Prom.  351 — 372. 
Ovid.  Met.  V.  346,  et  seq.  ;  cf.  Yirg.  .£n. 
III.,  578.  Under  this  same  snake-tailed 
form  were  the  giants  described  by  the 
ancients.  Apollod.  I.  6,  2.  Ovid.  Trist. 
IV.  7,  17.  Pausan.  VIII.  29.  Serv.  ad 
2En.  loc.  cit.  Macrobius  (Saturn.  I.  20) 
gives  us  the  symbolic  meaning  of  these 


limbs,  and  says  that  ^Esculapius  and  Salus 
were  also  thus  imaged.  The  Giants  are  also 
frequently  represented  of  this  form,  on 
ancient  monuments.  It  is  obvious  that 
these  Giants  are  symbols  of  volcanic  powers. 
Their  contests  with  the  Gods  took  place  in 
the  Phlegramn  Fields,  or  in  other  volcanic 
regions.  Pindar,  Nem.  I.  100  ;  Strab.  V. 
p.  245,  VI.  p.  281  ;  Pausan.  loc.  cit.  The 
very  name  of  Typhon  indicates  this  meaning 
— being  derived  from  T£$OS,  "  smoke," 
metaphorically,  "conceit,  arrogance."  The 
origin  of  the  myth  is  manifest  in  the 
volcanoes,  the  smoking  sons  of  Earth,  who 
dared  to  brave  Heaven,  and  hurl  rocks  and 
fire  against  the  gods.  That  the  Etruscans 
should  have  had  such  a  being  in  their 
demonology  is  not  surprising,  when  the 
volcanic  character  of  their  country  is  re- 
membered. In  this  tomb,  he  is  repre- 
sented under  a  solemn,  imposing  aspect, 
not  with  that  exaggeration  of  the  horrible 
that  amounts  to  the  grotesque  and  to  cari- 
cature, which  we  see  in  the  Grotta  Dipinta 
at  Bomarzo. 


330  COEXETO.— TIIE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

serpents  instead  of  legs.  The  female  figure  is  tame  and  stiff, 
but  the  other  two  are  most  spirited  and  grand.  Such  as  these 
it  is  with  which  Tasso  peoples  hell — 

Oh  come  strane,  oh  come  orribil  forme  ! 
Quant'  e  negli  occhi  lor  tcrrore  e  morte  !  .  .  .  . 
E  'n  fronte  umana  ban  chiome  d'  angui  attorte  ; 
E  lor  s'aggira  dietro  immensa  coda  ! — 

Oh  what  unearthly,  oh  what  fearful  shapes  ! 

Terror  and  Death  are  flashing  from  their  eyes  ! 
Their  human  heads  are  haired  with  writhing  snakes, 

And  their  vast  tails  coil  back  in  loathsome  guise  ! 

• 

Both  of  these  figures  are  fine ;  one  remarkably  so.  The  atti- 
tude of  the  bod}' — the  outspread  wings — the  dark  massy  coils  of 
the  serpent-limbs — the  wild  twisting  of  the  serpent-locks — the 
countenance  uplifted  with  an  expression  of  unutterable  woe, 
as  he  supports  the  cornice  with  his  hands3 — make  this  figure 
imposing,  mysterious,  sublime.  In  conception,  the  artist  was  the 
Michael  Angelo  of  Etruria.3 

On  the  front  of  the  pillar  is  an  Etruscan  inscription  of  nine 
lines,  scratched  on  the  stucco,  now  much  injured,  but  the  name 
of  "Pumpus"  is  distinctly  visible  in  the  first  line.4 

In  front  of  the  pillar  and  attached  to  it,  is  a  large  squared 
mass  of  rock,  which  has  been  conjectured  to  be  an  altar,  011  which 
offerings  were  made  to  the  Manes.  Its  front  and  sides  were 
painted  with  figures  in  procession ;  but  these  have  now  almost 
utterly  perished.5  A  few  years  more,  and  no  trace  will  be  left  of 

"  The    Greeks    introduced    Typhous    or  4  This  inscription  is  given  by  Kellermann 

triants  into  their  architecture  as  Atlantes,  (Bull.  In&t.  1833,    tav.   suppl.  n.  4).     On 

as  is  proved  by  statues  found  beneath  the  the  cornice  of  the  pillar  is  a  band  of  wild 

Theseum    at   Athens.      Similar    monsters  beasts'   heads  painted,  and  below  the  Ty- 

were  used  by  the  Komans  in  architectural  phons  is  a  Doric   frieze   with  patera-\\\iQ 

decoration  as  Telamones.     At  Pompeii,  in  flowers  in  the  mttopce. 
the  "  Ciisa  tlella  Camera  Nera, "  are  many  5  This  procession,  as  it  existed  when  the 

of  them  painted,   supporting   the    cornice  tomb  was  opened,  is  represented  in  Mon. 

with  both  hands,  as  in  this  Etruscan  tomb.  Ined.  Inst.   II.  tav.   V.      The  face  of  one 

3  The  woodcut  on  p.  329,  which  is  taken  figure,   and  the  lower  part  of  another  in 

from  a  slight  sketch  by  the  author,  serves  tunic   and  sandals,  are  alone  now  distin- 

to  show  the  nature  of  the  Typhon,  but  fails  guishable  ;   but  these  fragments  suffice  to 

to    give  the  vigorous    design,  the  Satanic  show  this  scene  to  have  been  inferior  in 

sublimity  of    the   original   painting.     The  style  and   more  archaic  in  character  than 

expression  of  the  countenance  is  altogether  the   other  paintings    in  this   tomb.      The 

incorrect.     Down  to  the  knees  the  figure  altar,   or  whatever  it  be,   is  5  feet  high, 

is  flesh-coloured.     The  serpent  tails,  as  also  7  feet  wide,  and  3  feet  deep, 
the  wings,  are  painted  grey. 


CHAP,  xxv.]     PROCESSION    OF    SOULS    AND    DEMONS.  331 

the  paintings  in  this  tomb,  which  Avill  be  known  only  from  prints 
and  descriptions  as  things  that  have  passed  away. 

The  procession  painted  on  the  wall  of  this  tomb  has  given  rise 
to  as  much  speculation  as  any  other  local  relic  of  Etruscan  anti- 
quit}'.  Its  resemblance  to  the  relief  on  the  temple-tombs  of 
Norchia  is  visible  at  a  glance.6  In  both  are  genii  or  demons 
leading  souls  into  the  unseen  world ;  but  that  of  Norchia  is  so 
much  injured  as  scarcely  to  be  intelligible  without  the  aid  of  this 
painting,  which  is  a  key  to  its  interpretation.  Here  are  no 
shields,  helmets,  or  weapons  suspended — it  may  be  because  this 
was  of  the  inglorious  days  of  Etruria,  when  she  had  sunk  to  the 
tame  condition  of  a  Roman  province  ;  but  here  are  six  figures 
bearing  those  singular  twisted  rods,  the  symbols  of  the  Etruscan 
Hades,  which  are  sufficient  to  identify  the  character  of  this  paint- 
ing with  that  of  the  Norchian  relief.  Here  are  no  winged  genii, 
but  the  attributes  of  certain  of  these  figures  mark  them  to  be 
demons.  There  are  three  of  them  in  prominent  positions — at 
the  head,  in  the  rear,  and  in  the  centre  of  the  procession.  They 
are  of  different  colours ;  that  in  front  is  of  fair  complexion,  and 
seems  to  represent  a  female  ;  that  in  the  rear  seems  to  be  of  the 
male  sex,  from  his  deep  red  flesh  ;  Avhile  he  in  the  centre  is  of 
negro  hue  and  features,  and  is  recognised  as  the  Etruscan 
"  Charun."  All  are  distinguished  by  the  hammer  borne  aloft,  a 
frequent  emblem  of  supernatural  power,7  and  also  by  serpents 
bound  round  their  heads,  like  the  Furies  of  Greek  mythology.8 — 

Serpentelli  e  ceraste  avean  per  crine 

Onde  le  fiere  tempie  eran  avvinte. —  DANTE. 

6  See  Chapter    XVJII.   pp.    200,    201.  with  Charun,  are  sometimes  represented  in 

This  procession  is  9  feet  in  length,  and  the  the  act  of  tormenting  souls,  as  in  the  Grotta 

figures  are  as  large  as  life,   covering  the  Card  male,  and  the  now  lost  Grotta  Tartaglia, 

entire  wall  from  the  upper  bench  to  the  in  this  same  necropolis,  or  of  striking  them 

ceiling.     In  this  respect  also  they  corres-  down,  as  on  the  Admetus  and  Alcestis  Yase, 

pond  with  thos<;  in  the  Norchian  procession.  the  frontispiece  to  Vol.  II.  of  this  work. 

'    The  hammer  savours  nrach  of  the  East,  s  -iEschylus,   Choeph.    1049.     Pausanias 

thinks  Inghirami  (Mon.  Etrus.  I.  p.  254),  (I.  28,  6)  says  .ffischylus  was  the  first  so  to 

who  cites  Pococke  as  saying  that  the  Turks  describe  the  Furies,  for  in  their  temple  at 

believe  in  two  black  demons,  who  dwell  in  Athens  they  were  not  so  represented,  nor 

the  sepulchre  with  the  dead,  judge  him,  indeed  with  any  features  of  the  horrible, 

and  punish  him  with  hammers  if   found  In  the  Orphic  Hymns  (LXVIII.  19.  LXIX. 

guilty.     Dr.   Braun  (Ann.   Inst.   1837,   2,  10),  they  are  described  with  serpent-locks — 

p.  274)  calls  it  the  solemn  symbol  of  the  o<piojrA<kayuoi.    So  also  Ovid,  Met.  X.  349 — 

Cabiri,  in  whose  mysterious  worship  the  atro  crinitas  angue  Sorores— and  Catullus, 

Etruscan  Charun  had  his  seat  and  origin.  LXIV.    193.      Virgil  also   (Ma.   VI.    280) 

The   hammer    with   which    Charun    is  so  describes — 

generally  armed,  is  rather  an  attribute  than  Discordia  demens 

an  instrument.       Demons  with  hammers,          Vipereum  crinem  vittis  innexa  cruentis. 

however,  who  seem  to  have  much  analogy  Euripides  (Iphig.  Taur.  287)  seems  to  mean 


332  COENETO.— TUB  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

Among  the  Egyptians  also  the  snake-bound  brow  was  emble- 
matical of  sovereignty,  whether  of  gods  or  men.  The  import  of 
the  snake  in  the  mythological  system  of  the  Etruscans  seems  to 
have  been  very  similar ;  it  was  an  emblem  of  divine  or  super- 
natural power,  of  mystery,  perhaps  of  eternity,  certainly  of 
sacredness,  and  it  had  evidently  a  funereal  meaning.9  On  many 
Etruscan  monuments  it  is  seen  wound  round  the  arm  of  Charun, 
as  in  the  case  also  of  the  leading  demon  in  this  painted  proces- 
sion, who  might  well  pass  for  Tisiphone,  one  of  the  Furies.1 
The  same  figure  bears  in  her  other  hand  a  flaming  torch,  another 
attribute  of  the  Furies,  who  are  often  represented  brandishing  a 
snake  in  one  hand,  and  a  torch  in  the  other.3  She  may  there- 
fore be  regarded  as  one  of  the  "daughters  of  gloomy  Night," 
though  she  has  been  designated  "the  Avife  of  Charun;"  while  the 
red-faced  demon  in  the  rear  has  been  called  the  son  of  the  said 
dignitaries,  but  what  authority  there  is  for  supposing  "the  pilot 
of  the  livid  lake  "  to  have  been  a  family-man,  I  know  not.  It  is 
clear  that  the  black,  hideous,  bearded,  brute-eared  demon  in  the 
middle  of  the  procession,  who  towers  above  all  the  rest,  is  no 
other  than  the  conveyer  of  souls — terribili  squalore  Charon* — 

Che  intorno  agli  occhi  avea  di  fiamme  ruote. 

the    same    tiling  —  t'x'Srois    fffro^u/j.fi'r].  Roman  dictator,   seeing  bis  men  give  way 
Horace  (Od.  II.  13.  35)  and  Virgil  (Georg.  under  this  novel  attack,  taunted  them  with 
IV.  48'2)  describe  the  snakes  as  being  woven  being  overcome,  like  bees,  by  mere  smoke, 
in  with  the   hair  of  the  Furies  ;  and  the  rallied  them  to  the  charge,  beat  back  the 
latter  speaks  of  them  as  being  blue — the  Fidenates  with  great  slaughter,   and  cap- 
colour  generally  given  to  those  in  Etruscan  tured  their  city.     Liv.  IV.  -'53;  Flor.  I.  12; 
tombs.  Frontin.  Strat.  II.  4,  17.     The  second  time 
9  See  Chap.  XV.,  page  1C9.  was  in  the  year  398,  when  the  priests  of 
1  Virgil,  JEn.  VI.  571 —  Tarquinii  and  Falerii  resorted  to  the  same 

TV  •   i                                        •   •  ,   .  mode  of  attack,  advancing  like  Furies  in 

lisiphonc  .    .   .   torvosnuc  simstra  .  , 

Intentans  angues.  tlie  van  ot  tlielr  armJ''  armetl  wltn  naming 

torches  and  brandishing  serpents  in  their 

-  So  they  are  represented  on  monuments,  hands,  and  struck  a  temporary  panic  into 

Etruscan  or  Roman,  when  persecuting  Ores-  the  Romans  by  the  unwonted  sight.     Liv. 

tes — as  in   the    celebrated  sarcophagus  of  VII.  17;  Frontin.  loc.  cit.    It  is  interesting 

the    Lozzano    tomb,    now    in    the    Lateran  to  find  such  a  confirmation  of  history  in 

Museum  ;  and  on  many  Etruscan  urns  and  this   very    necropolis  of    Tarquinii.      The 

sarcophagi.  seekers  of  analogies  between  the  Celts  and 

There  are  two  events  in  Etruscan  history  Etruscans  might  find  tcmewhat  in  Tacitus 

which  throw  light  on  this  singular  paint-  (Ann.  XIV.  30),  who  relates  that  the  wo- 

ing.     The  first  occurred  in  the  year  328,  men  of  Mona  ran  about  like  Furies  armed 

when  the  citizens  of  Fideme,  finding  them-  with  torches  among  the  ranks  of  the  Britons 

selves  unequal  to  the   Romans  in  the  field,  who  were  drawn  up  on  the  shore  to  oppose 

rushed  out  from  their  gates,  like  Furies1,  the  landing  of  the  Romans, 

armed    with   torches,    and    bearing   parti-  3  Virg.  JEn.  VI.  299,  ct  scq. ;  cf .  Seneca, 

coloured  chaplets  like  serpents,   in  order  Here.  Fur.  III.  764,  et  seq. 
to  strike  terror  into  their  foes.     l!ut  the 


CHAP,  xxv.]  CHARUN    AND    HIS    CHARGE.  333 

The  second  figure  in  the  procession  is  a  cornicen,  or  blower  on 
the  horn,4  and  probably  represents  an  attendant  on  the  infernal 
deities.  One  of  the  other  figures  bears  a  lituus,  or  augur's 
crooked  staff  in  his  hand,5  and  the  rest,  with  the  exception  of  two 
or  three  in  the  centre,  have  the  singular  twisted  rods,  which  are 
seen  in  the  Norchian  bas-relief,  and  are  evidently  of  funereal 
import.  Whether  all  these,  or  only  those  who  do  not  bear  the 
rods,  are  souls,  is  difficult  to  determine,  but  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  the  two  principal  figures  of  the  group — the  man  on 
whose  shoulder  old  Charun  has  set  his  fearful  paw,6  and  the 
woman  behind,  under  the  charge  of  the  }Toung  demon — are 
intended  to  represent  the  spirits  of  the  defunct.  Each  of  these 
has  a  designator/  inscription  in  Etruscan  characters  attached — 
the  man,  indeed,  has  two  of  these  titles,  but  the  lower  one  is 
now  almost  destroyed.  That  above  his  head  is  very  distinct,  and 
runs  thus  : — 

In  Roman   letters   it   would   be—  ^V1W\V1  : 
LARIS.     PUMPUS.     ARNTHAL.     CLAX.  \  A  ^   i\  . 
CECHASE.?     The  first  two  words,   or  VxJ'H/  ' 
his pr&nomen  and  nomen,  are  repeated  ^  ^  ri  J, ^  \ 

in  the  lower  inscription.     There  was 

a  third  inscription  behind  the  red  demon,  of  which  only  the  last 
two  words  are  now  legible. 

4  So  it  is  described  by  Orioli  (Ann.  Inst.  this    trumpet   was    called    "  liticen,"    as 
1834,  p.  160),  but  it  might  as  well  repre-  a  tuM   "  tulicen,"  a  cornu    " cornicen." 
sent  a  tibicen  playing  on  the  curved  tibia  A.  Grell.   XX.  2  ;  Varro,  de  Ling.  Lat.  V.  ; 
of  Etruria   (Virg.   JEn.    XL    737),   though  Festus,   loc.   cit.      Miiller  (Etrusk.  IV.   1. 
that  is  said  to  have  been  used  at  festive  5,)  suggests  that  the  word  lituus  probably 
scenes.     Compare  Tibullus  (II.  1,  86),  who  meant  crooked  in  Etruscan. 

calls  the  crooked  pipe  Phrygian.     The  tuba,  6  Ambrosch  (de  Charonte  Etrusco,  cited 

or  cornu,  however,  being  used  at  funerals  by  Dr.  Braun,  Ann.  Inst.  1837,  2,  p.  268) 

(Virg.  JEn.  XL  192.    Ovid.  Amor.  II.  Eleg.  regards  this  paw  as  belonging  to  a  lion's. 

6,  6.     Petron.  Satyr.  LXXVIII.      A.  Grell.  skin  hanging    from    Charun's  shoulders  ; 

XX.  2),  may  well  have  a  place  ia  such  a  but  it  seems  to  me  to  be  the  brachial  ter- 

procession  as  this.  mination  of  the  demon. 

5  The  lituus  was  used  by  the  augurs  in  7  In  other   words  it  means — Lars  Pom- 
their  divinations  to  mark  out  the  heavens  peius,  son  of  Aruns  ....     The  last  word 
into  "regions,"  (Cic.  de  Divin.  I.  17.    Liv.  does  not  seem  to  be  a  proper  name,  but  is 
I.  ]  8.   Pint.   Ronml.    A.  Grell.  V.  8.   Mac-  more  like  a  verb.     Whoever  gives  a  careful 
rob.   Sat.  VI.   8.)  of  which  the  Etruscans  attention   to  Etruscan   sepulchral  inscrip- 
had  sixteen,  the  Romans  only  four.     Cic.  tions,  can  hardly  fail  to  arrive  at  the  con- 
de  Divin.  II.  18.     There  was  also  a  sort  of  elusion  that  the  word  "Clan"  signifies  natus 
trumpet  called  by  the  same  name,  probably  orjiliun.     Orioli  (Ann.  Inst.  1834,  pp.  169, 
because  it  was  similarly    crooked    (Festus  171)   regards  it  as  one  of   the  very  few 
v.  Lituus.     Cic.  de  Divin.  I.  17.     A.  Gjell.  Etruscan  words  which  have  survived  the 
loc.  cit.):  but  it  was  a  question  whether  lapse  of  ages.      "  I  know  not  if  it  have  any 
the  trumpet  was  called  from  the  staff,  or  relation  to  the  clan  of  Scotland  and  Sir  AV. 
the  staff  from  the  trumpet.     A  player  on  Scott — I  should  think  not  ;  but  I  find  it 


334  CORNETO.— THE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

It  is  evident  that  these  two  figures  are  portraits  of  the  persons 
interred  in  this  sepulchre.  But  why  represent  the  souls  of  the 
departed  in  the  clutches  of  demons  ? — such  a  sight  could  have 
heen  little  grateful  to  the  feelings  of  survivors,  on  their  annual 
visits  to  the  grave.  Mrs.  Gray's  lively  imagination  conceives  a 
romantic  tale  of  woe,  and  sees  in  this  pair  an  Etruscan  Paolo  and 
Franceses. 

0  lasso ! 

Quanti  dolci  pensier,  quanto  desio, 
Mend  costoro  al  doloroso  passo ! 

But  it  is  not  necessary  to  suppose  this  a  scene  of  retributive 
justice.  The  Charun  of  the  Etruscans  is  represented  of  this 
fearful  character,  rather  as  the  messenger  of  the  grim  King  of 
Terrors  than  as  a  persecutor  and  tormentor  of  guilty  spirits. 
Charun  is  in  general  but  the  guide,  the  infernal  Mercury  of  the 
Etruscans ;  whose  office  it  is  to  conduct  disembodied  souls  into 
the  unseen  world ;  and  such  seems  to  be  the  duty  he  and  his 
fellow-demons  are  performing  in  this  fresco.8 

It  is  obvious  at  a  glance  that  the  paintings  in  this  tomb  are 
of  much  later  date  and  of  more  advanced  art  than  those  in  the 
sepulchres  already  described.  There  is  nothing  archaic  about 
them.  Here  are  grouping,  perspective,  foreshortening,  full  faces, 
chiaroscuro — never  attained  or  even  attempted  in  the  earlier 
paintings ;  here  are  correctness  and  ease  of  design,  modelling  of 
form  instead  of  mere  outline,  a  natural  and  harmonious  tone  of 
colour  in  place  of  conventionalities  and  startling  contrasts,  drapery 
no  longer  in  stiff,  formal  plaits,  but  hanging  in  broad  easy  folds. 
In  a  word,  these  frescoes  are  so  like  those  of  Pompeii,  that  they 
might  be  pronounced  Greek,  were  it  not  for  their  national  pecu- 
liarities.9 There  is  no  doubt  that  they  belong  to  the  period  of 

still  existing  among  the  Tuscans  in  the  word  infernal  regions,  and  draws  a  parallel  be- 

Cfiiana,  corrupted  from  the  Latin  Clanis,  tween  it  and  the  triumphal  processions  of 

Glanis,  or  Clanius,  which  is  evidently  the  the  Romans,  as  represented  on  their  monu- 

Etruscan  dan  with  a  Latin  termination."  inents.     Dr.  Helbig  also  sees  in  the  figures 

lie  proceeds  to  show  that  Ckiana,  in  the  in  this  procession  a  strong  analogy  to  the 

language  of  modern  Tuscany,  means  a  canal,  reliefs  on  Roman  triumphal  arches.     Ann. 

or  water-course,  whence  the  emissary  of  the  Inst.  1870,  p.  71. 

lake  of  Perugia  has  received  this  name,  as  9  The   figures  on  the  pilaster,    both  as 

also  the  celebrated  Val  di  Chiana  ;  where-  regards  idea  and  invention,  are  perfectly 

fore  he  infers  that  the  primary  meaning  of  Greek,  says  Dr.  Brunn,  while  those  in  the 

clan  was  derivation,    whether  applied  to  procession  on  the  wall  are  entirely  Etruscan  ; 

children,  to  water,  or  to  anything  else.  the  grouping  may  be  due  to  Greek  influence, 

8  Urlichs  (Bull.  Inst.  1839,  p.  47)  con-  but  in  the  character  of  the  heads  and  figures 

ceives    this    procession   to    represent  the  the  true    Etruscan   realism   is   displayed, 

triumphal   ingress   of  the  dead   into   the.  Ann.  Inst.  1866,  p.  437. 


CHAP,  xxv.]  THE    POMPEYS    OF    ETEUEIA.  335 

Roman  domination  in  Etruria.  Read  the  inscription  on  one  of 
the  rock-hewn  benches,  and  you  have  proof  that  the  tomb  was 
used  by  the  conquerors  : — 

AVRELIA-  L-  F.  OPTVMA-  FEMIXA 
VIXSIT-  AN-  XLV 

On  one  of  the  sarcophagi  you  find  another  Latin  epigraph  Avith 
the  name  of  L.  PERCEXXA  or  TERCEXXA  l — an  Etruscan  name  in 
Roman  letters.  But  with  these  exceptions  everything  is  Etrus- 
can— the  form  and  character  of  the  sepulchre,  the  sarcophagi, 
the  dolphin-band,  the  procession,  the  Typhon  figures,  and  the 
inscriptions  on  wall,  pillar,  and  sarcophagi — are  all  purely  Etrus- 
can. From  the  recurrence  of  the  name  of  "Pumpus"  twice  on 
the  wall,  attached  to  the  principal  figure  in  the  procession,  and 
again  in  the  inscription  on  the  pillar,  it  is  highly  probable  that 
this  was  the  sepulchre  of  a  family  of  that  name,  from  which  the 
Roman  gens  of  Pompeius  was  descended  ; 2  if  so,  there  may  have 
been  no  mixture  of  Etruscan  and  Roman  bodies  in  this  tomb,  as 
appears  to  be  the  case,  for  those  with  Latin  epitaphs  may  have 
been  Etruscans  by  birth,  education,  customs,  religion — in  every- 
thing but  language  ;  their  native  tongue,  though  not  perhaps 
extinct,  being  in  their  time  no  longer  a  polite  language,  but  con- 
fined to  the  lower  orders,  like  the  Erse  and  Gaelic  with  us. 

Milton  is  said  to  have  drawn  the  scenery  of  the  "  Paradise 
Lost  "  from  that  of  Tuscany.  "With  more  perhaps  of  truth  may 
it  be  said  that  Ariosto  often  introduced  the  peculiarities  of  Cisa- 
pennine  scenery  into  his  great  epic.  This  has  often  been  brought 
to  my  mind  in  my  wanderings  through  Etruria.  What  is  the 
grotto  where  Orlando  found  the  fair  Isabella,3  or  the  cave  of  the 
sage  Merlin,4  but  one  of  these  ancient  sepulchres,  which  the  poet 
has  drawn  from  nature  ?  There  is  the  mouth  of  the  tomb  in  the 
face  of  the  hill,  choked  with  bushes  and  brambles — the  passage 
of  many  steps  hewn  out  of  the  rock,  and  leading  straight  down  to 
the  door  of  the  sepulchre — the  spacious  gloomy  chamber  within, 
retaining  the  marks  of  the  chisel  on  its  walls  and  ceiling,  and 

1  This  inscription  is  also  given  by  Keller-        "  Pumpu  "  family  was  discovered  in  1792 
mann  (loc.  cit. ).  containing  many  urns  inscribed  with  this 

2  The  name  of  "Pumpu,"  "Pumpus,"       name. 

or  "Pumpuni"  (Pompeius  or  Pomponius)  3  Orlando  Furioso,  XII.  88,  90. 

is  frequently  found  among  the  sepulchral  4  Orlando  Furioso,  II.  70,   71  ;  III.  6, 

inscriptions  of  Chiusi,  Cortona,  and  Perugia.  7,  15. 

At  the  last-named  site  a  sepulchre  of  the 


336  CORXETO.— THE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

resembling  a  temple  or  church  supported  hy  columns  with  archi- 
tectural adornments,  having  even  a  sort  of  altar  in  the  midst,  as 
in  this  Grotta  Pompej,  and  with  sculptures  or  paintings  on  the 
walls  around,  only  revealed  by  the  light  of  the  torch.  The  poet 
may  have  indulged  slightly  in  his  professional  licence,  but  who 
can  doubt,  on  seeing  the  tombs  of  Etruria,  especially  those  of 
Tarquinii  and  Ceere,  whence  the  portraiture  was  drawn  ?  One 
could  wish  the  poetical  description  borne  out  in  every  point — that 
there  was  still  some  genius  loci,  some  wise  Merlin — 

* 

Che  le  passate  e  le  future  cose 

A  chi  gli  dimando,  sempre  rispose — 

to  unravel  the  mysteries  of  antiquity  here  interred.3 

GEOTTA  DEGLI   SCUDI. 

About  400  yards  beyond  the  Grotta  de'  Pompej,  through  a 
hollow  spanned  by  the  arches  of  a  mediaeval  aqueduct,  runs  a 
road,  leading  from  the  ancient  city  across  the  Montarozzi  to- 
wards the  sea,  and  probably  of  Etruscan  formation.  Here  in  a 
bank  to  the  left,  opens  the  Grotta  degli  Scudi,  or  "  Tomb  of  the 
Shields,"  which  was  discovered  in  December,  1870.  It  contains 
a  large  central  chamber,  and  three  others  of  smaller  size  opening 
upon  it,  each  with  a  door  and  two  windows  cut  through  the  inter- 
vening wall  of  rock.  This  sepulchral  arrangement  in  imitation 
of  a  house,  is  not  uncommon  at  Cervetri,  but  unique,  so  far  as  I 
am  aware,  at  Corneto.  These  doors  are  of  the  usual  Etruscan 
form,  but  the  lintel  and  jambs  are  painted  with  black  stripes 
to  represent  the  rod  mouldings  which  usually  surround  them. 
Across  one  jamb  of  the  doorway  which  faces  the  entrance  is  an 
Etruscan  inscription.  On  the  opposite  jamb  is  depicted  a 
naked  boy,  carrying  a  wine-jug.  Turning  to  the  window  on  the 
right  hand  of  this  door,  you  perceive,  painted  on  the  wall  above 
it,  a  small  sarcophagus,  behind  which  sits  in  mournful  attitude,  a 
naked  and  winged  genius,  whose  red  flesh  shows  him  to  represent 
a  good  demon,  apparently  engaged  in  reading  an  inscription  on 
the  lid,  which  is  inverted,  so  that  he  can  read  it,  Avhile  to  the 
spectator  in  the  tomb  it  is  upside  down.  A  second  inscription  on 

5  For  further  details  and  opinions  of  this  1839,  pp.  46 — 48  (Urlichs).     A  plan  of  the 

tomb,  see  Ann.  Inst.  1834,  \>.  82  (Bunsen) ;  tomb,  with  illustrations,  will  be  found  in 

pp.    153—181  (Orioli);    1837,   2,   p.   268  Mon.  Ined.  Inst.  II.  tav.  3,  4,  5. 
(Braun) ;  Bull.  Inst.  1832,  p.  214  (Avvolta); 


CHAP,  xxv.]  GROTTA   DEGLI    SCUDI.  337 

the  body  of  the  sarcophagus  is  upright,  though  hardly  distinct 
enough  to  be  legible. 

On  the  wall  to  the  right  of  this  window,  on  a  festive  couch 
adorned  with  the  usual  meanders  and  chequers,  is  a  pair  of 
figures,  but  the  man  alone  is  recumbent ;  his  fair  companion  sits 
on  the  couch  at  his  feet.  He  is  depicted  with  a  full  face,  his 
head  crowned  with  laurel,  and  his  body  naked  to  the  waist,  below 
which  it  is  covered  with  a  white  himation.  She  is  drawn  in 
profile,  and  a  charming  profile  it  is,  of  the  Greek  type ;  the 
bloom  of  youth  is  shown  in  her  lips  and  cheeks ;  her  golden  hair 
would  hang  loosely  about  her  neck,  were  it  not  partly  confined  by 
a  fillet.  She  wears  a  necklace,  snake-bracelets,  and  earrings 
resembling  a  small  bunch  of  grapes.  Her  white  drapery  is  in 
harmony  with  her  youth  and  beaut}'.  The  repast  seems  to  have 
just  begun,  for  she  holds  out  her  hand  to  receive  an  egg  offered 
to  her  by  her  partner.  Bread,  grapes,  and  other  fruit  lie  on  the 
table  in  front.  A  female  slave,  robed  in  white,  holds  an  elegant 
fan  behind  her  mistress.  The  wall  behind  these  figures  bears 
inscriptions,  some  in  large,  others  in  small  characters,  but  for 
the  most  part  illegible. 

On  the  adjoining  wall  is  depicted  a  similar  scene,  but  the  man 
reclines  with  his  right  hand  on  his  companion's  shoulder,  holding 
a  pldala  in  the  other.  He  regards  her  fondly,  but  she  casts  her 
large  black  eyes  into  space,  and  clasps  her  hands  before  her,  as  if 
in  deep  thought.  The  accessories  are  very  similar  to  those  in 
the  last  scene,  but  in  the  corner  behind  the  lady  stand  two  musi- 
cians half  draped  in  white,  one  playing  the  lyre,  the  other  the 
double -pipes.  The  couple  on  this  couch  have  their  names 
attached ;  he  was  a  Yelthur  ;  she  of  the  Aprthnai  family. 

To  the  right  of  the  door  in  this  wall  is  a  pretty  figure  of  a 
naked  boy,  much  injured.  Beyond  the  adjoining  window  the 
figures  of  a  man  and  two  women  are  traceable,  he  with  white 
pallium  over  his  shoulder,  but  of  the  first  woman  little  be}Tond 
her  head  with  yellow  fillet-bound  hair  is  now  visible.  The  second 
stands  in  the  corner,  draped  in  white,  with  bare  arm  raised  to  her 
bosom,  looking  towards  a  male  figure  on  the  wall  at  right  angles ; 
but  this  figure  has  lost  all  distinctive  character.  Next  is  seen  a 
helmeted  head,  followed  by  a  trumpeter  blowing  a  curved  horn  or 
lituus,  jointed,  as  if  of  brass,  and  by  another  blowing  a  long 
straight  horn. 

We  have  now  been  half  round  the  tomb,  and  have  returned  to 
the  entrance  door.  On  the  wall  to  the  left  of  this  door,  are 
VOL.  i.  z 


338  COEXETO.— THE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

vestiges  of  three  figures,  now  almost  obliterated,  two  males  and 
two  females;  one  of  the  former  blows  a  lituns.  By  the  side  of 
the  first  window  on  the  left  of  the  chamber  is  a  long  Etruscan 
inscription,  of  two  lines,  running  vertically  up  the  wall,  but 
hardly  legible.  Nothing  more  is  distinguishable  on  this  wall,  till 
you  reach  the  further  window,  where  there  is  an  inscription  on 
the  right  jamb.  In  the  corner  beyond,  you  perceive  a  pair,  of 
opposite  sexes.  The  man  is  sitting  on  a  wooden  chair,  holding 
a  long  black  staff ;  while  the  woman  either  sits  or  stands  by  his 
side,  and  points  with  her  right  hand  to  his  mouth.  He  has  black 
hair  and  beard,  and  is  half  draped  in  a  white  pallium  bordered 
with  black,  which  offers  a  strong  contrast  with  his  deep  red  flesh; 
his  feet,  shod  with  sandals,  rest  on  a  stool.  She  has  black  eyes 
and  brown  hair,  and  wears,  over  a  yellow  chemise,  a  similar 
pallium  to  that  worn  by  her  companion.  An  inscription,  no 
longer  legible,  was  attached  to  each.6 

On  the  wall  adjoining  at  right  angles  stand  two  male  figures, 
also  in  white  robes  bordered  with  black.  Above  the  window  by 
their  side  is  depicted  a  youthful  Genius,  or  male-demon,  with 
open  wings,  sitting  in  an  easy  attitude,  and  resting  his  hammer 
on  the  ground,  as  if  to  show  he  had  finished  his  task. 

The  figures  in  this  tomb  are  about  4o  inches  high.  All,  or 
nearly  all,  have  inscriptions  over  their  heads,  now  for  the  most 
part  illegible.  A  wave  pattern  in  black  runs  round  the  chamber 
beneath  the  figures.  This  chamber  is  about  20  feet  square. 
The  roof  is  not  painted,  but  carved  into  beam  and  rafters.  The 
art  displayed  is  of  the  latter  days  of  Etruria.  Nothing  is  here 
archaic.  Here  we  have  chiaroscuro,  foreshortening,  and  three- 
quarter  faces  ;  and  a  freedom  of  style  which  marks  the  decadence 
rather  than  the  progress  of  art  towards  perfection.  There  is  so 
striking  a  resemblance  in  these  paintings  to  some  of  those  in  the 
neighbouring  Grotta  dell'  Oreo,  that  I  do  not  hesitate  to  pro- 
nounce them  to  be  of  the  same  school,  if  not  by  the  same  hand. 

The  chambers  to  the  right  and  left  of  the  central  one  have  no 
decorations,  but  that  opposite  the  entrance  is  surrounded  with 
shields,  depicted  as  suspended  against  the  walls,  six  on  each  side, 
and  four  on  the  inner  wall.  The}'  are  merely  outlined  in  black, 
with  a  rim  painted  yellow ;  the  diameter  of  the  whole  being  about 
thirty-five  inches.  Most  of  them  bear  sepulchral  inscriptions, 
in  some  within  the  shield  itself,  in  others  crossing  the  disk, 

6  There  is  considerable  similarity  between  Proserpine  in  the  Tomba  Golini,  near 
this  pair  of  figures  and  that  of  Pluto  and  Orvieto. 


CHAP,  xxv.]  GROTTA    DEL    CARDIXALE.  339 

and  continued  on  the  wall  beyond.  The  name  of  "  Velchas  "  is 
repeated  so  frequently  in  the  inscriptions  in  this  tomb,  as  to 
leave  little  doubt  that  the  sepulchre  belonged  to  a  family  of  that 
name.7 

This  tomb  faces  the  S.E. 

Further  down  the  hollow  in  which  the  tomb5ust  described  lies, 
a  long  passage  in  the  right  bank  leads  to  the 

GROTTA  DEL  CARDINALE, 

the  "Tomb  of  the  Cardinal,"  the  earliest  discovered  of  the  painted 
tombs  of  Tarquinii,  found  as  long  since  as  1699,  re-opened  in 
1738,  again  in  1760,  and  finally  in  1780,  by  a  certain  Cardinal 
Garampi,  bishop  of  Corneto,  from  whom  it  derives  its  vulgar 
appellation.  A  more  appropriate  name  would  be  Grotta  del 
passagio  delle  Anime — "  Tomb  of  the  passage  of  Souls ;  "  or 
Grotta  Vesi,  from  an  Etruscan  inscription  on  the  wall.8  It  is 
the  largest  single-chambered  tomb  in  this,  or  perhaps  in  any 
•other  Etruscan  necropolis,  being  no  less  than  54  feet  square, 
with  a  flat  ceiling,  so  low  that  a  tall  man  can  scarcely  stand 
upright,  coffered  in  concentric  squares  and  oblongs,  and  sup- 
ported on  four  pillars,  six  or  seven  feet  square,  hewn  out  of  the 
rock  in  which  the  chamber  is  hollowed.  On  first  entrance,  when 
the  feeble  light  of  the  tapers  just  reveals  the  forms  of  these 
massive  pillars,  one  behind  the  other  in  dim  perspective,  you 
might  fancy  yourself  in  one  of  the  rock-hewn  temples  of  Eg}rpt  or 
India.  In  truth,  in  its  general  aspect  this  tomb  bears  no  small 
resemblance  to  a  temple ;  yet  the  paintings  on  the  walls  deter- 
mine its  sepulchral  character.  These  paintings  are  on  the  right 
hand  only  of  the  tomb,9  on  the  walls  and  pillars,  in  a  frieze  of 
small  figures  scarcely  a  foot  in  height,  and  are  now  almost  oblite- 
rated by  the  smoke  of  the  fires,  which  the  shepherds  of  genera- 
tions past  were  wont  to  make  in  the  tomb,  before  it  was  taken 

7  The  Grotta  dell'  Oreo  belonged  to  the  name  of  the  owners  of  the  tomb — a  name 
same  family.      I  am  not  aware  that  the  which   is   found    not   unfrequently  among 
paintings  in  this  tomb  have  been  described,  Etruscan  inscriptions,  generally  in  its  deri- 
•or  illustrated.  vatives — Vesial,  and  Yesialisa. 

8  This  inscription  is  of  two  lines  painted  9  One  third  of  the  tomb  is  in  an   un- 
in  black  letters  on  the  wall  to  the  left  of  finished  state.     In  the  central  portion,  tho 
the  doorway,  and  is  now  much  injured  ;  ceiling  is  coffered  as  in  the  tombs  of  Chiusi, 
but  the  name  of  VELUS  VESI  is  still  distinct.  and  the  Pantheon  at  Rome  ;  in  the  remain- 
I  have  given  it  in  Etruscan  characters,  as  ing  part  it  is  cut  into  rafters  highly  deco- 
it  now  exists,  in  Bull.  Inst.  1845,  p.  138.  rated  with  patterns  in  colour. 

^Vesi  seems  to  be  the  family  or  gentilitial 

z  2 


340  CORXETO.— THE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

under  the  protection  of  the  government.  So  sadly,  indeed,  have 
these  paintings  suffered  through  neglect  and  wantonness,  that  a 
stranger  unaware  of  their  existence  might  go  round  the  tomb 
without  perceiving  them.  Where  they  can  be  made  out,  they  are 
seen  to  be  drawn  with  much  spirit  and  masterly  ease,  especially 
those  on  the  pillars,  and  mark  a  later  epoch  than  belongs  to  any 
other  sepulchre  in  this  necropolis,  save  that  of  the  Typhon. 
From  the  style  of  art  and  the  character  of  the  decorations  in  this 
tomb,  it  is  highly  probable  that  it  dates  from  the  times  of  Roman 
domination,  as  late,  it  may  be,  as  the  sixth  century  of  the  City.1 
The  subjects  of  the  paintings,  nevertheless,  are  for  the  most  part 
unquestionably  Etruscan,  representing  the  passage  of  souls  into 
the  unseen  world,  and  their  condition  therein ;  and  opening  to 
us  a  clearer  and  more  comprehensive  view  of  Etruscan  religious 
belief,  than  is  to  be  gathered  from  any  other  monument  extant. 

Representations  of  these  paintings,  as  they  existed  many  years 
since,  are  given  by  Micali  and  Inghirami,  but  the  fullest  delinea- 
tions of  them  have  been  published  of  late  years  from  the  drawings 
of  Mr.  Byres,  an  English  artist  resident  in  Rome  in  the  middle 
of  the  last  centuiy,  who,  on  the  re-opening  of  this  tomb,  pro- 
ceeded to  Corneto  to  make  drawings  of  the  contents.3  Signer 
Carlo  Avvolta  assured  me  that  Byres  was  sent  by  the  British 
government,  and  was  accompanied  by  several  other  artists,  among 
whom  was  the  celebrated  Piranesi.  Avvolta  declared  that  he 
had  a  distinct  remembrance  of  the  party,  because,  there  being  no 
inn  at  Corneto,  they  were  entertained  by  his  father,  one  of  the 
principal  inhabitants.  The  visit  of  these  strangers,  their  foreign 
tongue,  and  the  rich  presents  they  made  his  mother  on  their 
departure,  made  a  deep  impression  on  his  boyish  memoiy ;  and 
the  old  gentleman  used  to  produce  from  the  recesses  of  some 
quaint  cabinet,  a  number  of  portraits  of  the  party,  which  they 
made  of  each  other,  and  left  as  a  memorial  of  their  visit. 

The  illustrations  of  Byres  are  valuable  records  of  the  original 
state  of  this  and  other  tombs  at  Corneto,  which  are  now  almost 

1  Gerhard  does  not  think  that  the  paint-  engraved,   but   never  reached   publication 
ings  betray  the  decadence  of  art  (Ann.  Inst.  during  his  lifetime,  and  after  lying  perdus 
1831,  p.  319).      Brunn,  on  the  other  hand,  in  Italy  for  sixty  or  seventy  years,   they 
is  of  opinion  that  the  national  element  is  were  brought  to   light   and  published  in 
here  seen  in  decay  and  decomposition,  no  London — "  Hypogaei,  or  the  sepulchral  ca- 
longer    having   a    distinct    character    and  vcrns  of  Tarquinia,  by  the  late  James  Byres, 
style,    but    mixed    with    and    contending  Esq. ,  of  Tonley,  Aberdeenshire.    Edited  by 
feebly  against  the  Hellenic  element.     Ann.  Frank  Howard.    London,  Colnaghi,  Cadell, 
Inst.  1866,  pp.  437-8.  Pickering,  1842." 

2  The   drawings    made   by   Byres   were 


CHAP,  xxv.]       BYRES    ON   THE    TOMBS    OF    COBNETO.  341 

destroyed,  or  reclosed  and  forgotten.  Many  of  the  figures  in 
this  tomb  which  are  given  b}"  Byres,  are  now  entirely  obliterated, 
and  of  others  nothing  but  a  faint  glimmering  is  now  discernible 
through  the  thick  smoky  coating  of  the  walls  ;  while  a  few  still 
remain  sufficiently  preserved  to  approve  the  general  accuracy  of 
his  drawings.3  Much  as  these  paintings  have  suffered  from 
smoke,  they  have  been  further  defaced  by  the  wantonness  of 
visitors.  Micali  says,  "  they  have  been  pilfered  piece-meal  by 
trans-Alpine  travellers,  who  boast  of  their  intelligence."  Such 
an  assertion  is  in  accordance  with  the  rampant  nationality  of  that 
writer,  but  of  such  pilferings  I  could  perceive  few  signs,  and  of 
the  names  scratched  on  the  wall,  which  have  done  the  most 
injury,  I  saw  none  but  Italian.  Though  Englishmen  have  an 
extended  reputation  for  this  sort  of  barbarism,  they  b}'  no  means 
monopolise  it.  "I  am  afraid  this  great  lubber,  the  world,  will 
prove  a  cockney "  in  other  portions  than  Britain.  Throughout 
Spain,  Portugal,  Italy,  and  the  Levant,  I  have  always  found  the 
same  propensity  to  record  individual  insignificance  prevalent — to 
fulfil,  what  some  one  calls,  "tons  les  petits  devoirs  d'un  voyageur;" 
and  on  any  remarkable  site  or  building,  especially  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  large  cities,  have  always  remarked  the  great  majority  of 
names  inscribed  to  be  those  of  natives. 

The  figures  painted  in  this  tomb  may  be  divided  into  two  classes 
or  worlds — the  living  and  the  dead  ;  which  in  some  instances, 
however,  are  scarcely  distinguishable.  In  the  latter  must  be 
included  another  class,  not  less  numerous,  for  the  tomb  teems 

(i  With  all  the  grisly  legions  that  troop 
Under  the  sooty  flag  of  Acheron. " 

3  There  is,  however,  a  tame  mannerism  that  Byres'  task  cannot  have  been  much 

about  his  drawings,  which,  after   having  easier  than  it  would  be  at  present ;  for  in 

carefully  compared  them  with  the  originals,  his  time  these  figures  seem  not.  to  have  been 

I  am  compelled  to  refer  to  the  artist  alone.  in  much  better  condition  than  they  are  now. 

Indeed,  from  the  superior  spirit  and  energy  Winckelmann  speaks  of  them  as  very  indis- 

of  the  original  figures,  and  from  the  inac-  tinct.      Cardinal   Garampi,   in  1786,   said 

curacy  of  some  of  Byres'  details,  I  am  of  certain    of    the    colours    only    were    pre- 

opinion  that  the  engravings  were  made  from  served,  and  the  figures  were  in  general  dark 

slight  sketches,  in  the  course  of  reworking  shadows,   with  the  attitudes  and  outlines 

which,  much  of  the  character  and  spirit  of  distinguishable.     And  even  in  1760,  Pac- 

the  originals  was  lost.      Agincourt's  evi-  ciaudi  said  they  had  almost  vanished,  and 

dence   is   to    the    same    effect  — ' '  J'en    ai  were  to  be  made  out  only  by  putting  the 

verifie  1' exactitude   sur  les  lieux  me'mes  ;  light  quite  close  ;  the  red  alone  being  very 

elle  est  entiere  quant  aux  sujets,  mais  le  apparent.      Some  are  now  only  to  be  traced 

style   du   dessin   m'a    paru    ame'liore,    et  by  the  scratched  outline,  while  others  which 

n'avoir  pas  le  caractcre  de  celui  qui  etait  were  merely  coloured  have  entirely  faded 

propre  aux   Etrusques."     Hist,    de  1'Art,  from  the  wall. 
III.  p.  9.     It  must  be  confessed,  however, 


342 


COEXETO.— TIIE  CEMETERY. 


[CHAP.  xxv. 


To  the  living  belong  the  combats  on  the  frieze  of  the  pillars, 
where  the  figures  are  represented  almost  or  entirely  naked,  and 
armed  with  sword  and  shield.  In  attitude  and  action  they  are 
in  general  spirited  and  expressive.  One  of  these  scenes  is  re- 
markably fine  and  spirited,  approximating  more  closely  to  the 
Greek  than  any  other  in  the  tomb.4  Here  indeed,  as  in  the 
Typhon  tomb,  the  art  displayed  on  the  pillars  is  almost  purely 
Greek,  while  that  on  -the  walls  is  unmistakably  Etruscan. 

The  mythological  scenes  are  yet  more  curious  and  interesting. 
They  represent  numerous  souls,  in  the  form  of  men,  robed  in 
white,  conducted  into  the  other  world  by  genii  of  opposite  charac- 
ters, the  good  being  depicted  red  or  flesh-colour,  the  evil  black, 
like  the  Furies  of  Grecian  fable  ; 5  both  alike  in  human  form,  but 
with  wings,  red  or  white,  at  their  shoulders.6  Sometimes  a  good 
and  evil  spirit  seem  contending  for  the  possession  of  a  soul, — as 
where  this  is  pursued  by  the  malignant  demon,  and  hurried  away 
by  the  better  genius ;  sometimes  they  are  acting  in  unison — as 
where  they  are  harnessed  to  a  car,  and  are  driven  by  an  old  man, 
who  may  possibly  represent  the  Minos  or  Rhadamanthus  of  the 


4  It   has   been  copied  by  Micali  (Ant. 
Pop.  Ital.  tav.  LXVL),  and  from  him  by 
Mrs.    Gray    (Sepulchres    of    Etruria,    p. 
203).     According  to  Sir  "VV.  Gell  (Rome,  I. 
p.  376),  "  many  of  these  figures  are  posi- 
tively the  same  as  those  represented  in  the 
Phigaleian  marbles,   and  particularly  the 
group  in  which  one  warrior  prevents  another 
from  killing  his  wounded  foe."     I  confess 
myself  unable  to  perceive  any  close  resem- 
blance between  the  groups,  though  it  exists 
between  particular  figures. 

5  jEschylus  (Eumen.   52)  describes  the 
Furies  as  "  black  and  utterly  horrible" — 
(cf.    Orph.    Hym.    69,    6. — Kvavoxptnoi. 
Eurip.  Orest.  321. — /xeAa7xP*>Tes)>  and  so 
they  were  always  represented  on  the  Greek 
stage,     .ffischylus  also   describes  them  as 
clad    in    sable    robes.      (Eumen.    375. — 
f*f\avti/M>i'fs,   cf.    352.      Choeph.    1049— 
<f>aioxi-r<aves).      Inghirami    (Mon.    Etr.    I. 
p.  277,  et  stq.)  opposed  the  idea  that  the 
demons  in  this  tomb  were  genii,  good  and 
bad  ;  and  pronounced  them  all  to  be  Furies. 
But  though  many  have  the  attributes  of 
the  Eumenides,  even  as  they  are  represented 
on  Etruscan  monuments,   the  distinctive, 
nay  antagonistic,  character  is  clearly  set 
forth. 

6  Byres  has   drawn   these   figures  with 


wings  at  their  ankles,  sometimes  fastened 
to  the  leg,  and  sometimes  like  those  at  their 
shoulders,  growing  from  the  flesh — the 
talaria  of  Mercury  and  Perseus  being 
represented  in  both  ways  on  ancient  monu- 
ments. Nothing  of  this  sort  could  I  per- 
ceive ;  it  was  manifest  to  me  that  these 
were  not  talaria,  but  simple  buskins  with 
peaked  flaps,  such  as  are  commonly  depicted 
on  Greek  vases,  and  on  Etruscan  urns  and 
sarcophagi,  as  the  distinguishing  attributes 
of  genii  or  demons,  as  well  as  on  the  legs  of 
Lares  in  the  frescoes  of  Pompeii.  This  fact 
is  most  clearly  marked,  for  where  the  flesh 
is  black,  as  in  the  case  of  the  evil  spirits, 
the  flaps  and  all  the  leg  below  them  are 
red  ;  and  where  the  flesh  is  red,  the  buskins 
are  black.  Talaria,  however,  would  not 
be  unapt  attributes  of  the  evil  demons,  for 
the  Furies  are  described  by  JEschylus 
(Eumen.  74,  131,147,  231,  246)  as  chasing 
guilty  souls  as  hunters  chase  their  prey,  and 
are  represented  by  other  ancient  writers  as 
being  winged  (Eurip.  Orest.  317.  Iphig. 
Taur.  287.  Orph.  Hymn.  68.  5.  Virg. 
JEn.  XII.  848) ;  and  so  they  are  often  re- 
presented on  Greek  and  Etruscan  vases, 
running  rapidly  with  wings  both  at  their 
shoulders  and  ankles.  ./Eschylus  (Eumen. 
5 1,250)  however  describes  them  as  wingless. 


CHAP,  xxv.]  SOULS  IN  CHARGE  OF  GOOD  AND  EVIL  SPIEITS.    343 

Etruscans.  In  another  instance  a  similar  pair  of  antagonist 
spirits  are  dragging  a  car,  on  which  sits  a  soul  shrouded  in  a 
veil.7  We  may  conclude  they  are  attending  the  soul  to  judgment, 
for  such  was  their  office,  according  to  the  belief  of  the  ancients, 
in  order  that  when  their  charge  was  arraigned  before  the  infernal 
judge,  they  might  confirm  or  contradict  his  pleadings,  according 
to  their  truth  or  falsehood.8  When  the  good  demons  have  any- 
thing in  their  hands,  it  is  simply  a  rod  or  wand,  but  the  malignant 
ones  have  generally  a  heavy  hammer  or  mallet,  as  an  emblem  of 
their  destructive  character  ;  and  in  some  instances,  probably  after 
condemnation  has  been  pronounced,  they  are  represented  with 
these  instruments  uplifted,  threatening  wretched  souls  who  are 
imploring  mercy  on  their  knees.  In  a  somewhat  similar  scene,  a 
soul  is  in  the  power  of  two  of  these  demons,  when  a  good  genius 
interposes  and  arrests  one  of  the  evil  ones  by  the  wing.  In  an- 
other scene  the  soul  is  represented  as  seizing  the  wing  of  the 
good  genius,  who  is  moving  away  from  him.9  The  same  dark 
demons  are  in  more  than  one  instance  mounting  guard  at  a  gate- 
way, doubtless  the  gate  of  Orcus — atri  janua  Ditis — which  stands 
open  day  and  night.  One  of  these  figures  is  veiy  striking,  sitting 
at  the  gateway,  resting  on  his  mallet,  his  hair  standing  on  an 
end,  and  his  finger  raised  as  if  to  indicate  the  entrance  to  some 
approaching  souls.  Were  this  figure  a  female,  it  would  answer 
in  every  respect,  even  to  the  colour  of  its  raiment,  to  the  Fury 
Tisiphone,  whom  Virgil  places  as  guardian  to  the  gate  of  Hell.1 

Some  of  these  scenes  are  now  but  faintly  traceable,  while  othevs 
are  still  distinct.  But  there  is  one  of  very  remarkable  character 
delineated  by  Byres,  which  is  not  now  to  be  verified.  It  repre- 
sents two  children,  Cupid  and  Psyche,  the  latter  with  butterfly- 

7  Ann.  Inst.  1837,  2,  p.  261.  generally  males,  though  Byres  here  repre- 

8  Plato  ap.  Apuleium,  de  Deo  Socratis,  sents  them  as  females.      So  in   the  copies 
p.  80.  ed.  Venet.  1-193.  made     by    Cattel,    by     order    of     Millin 

9  Byres  has  represented  almost  all  these  (Inghir.   Mon.    Etrus.   I.  p.   273,  VI.   tav. 
demons,  both  good  and   bad,  as   females.  E.    3),    and  so  Agincourt    also   represents 
But  two  or  three  of  the  former  only  can  them  (Histoire  de  1'Art,   IV.   pi.   10,  and 
now  be  distinguished  as  of  that  sex  ;  a  few  Ingh.  I.  p.  275,  IV.  tav.  27) ;  but  Micali 
are  clearly  males  ;  but  the  majority  preserve  makes  them  almost  all  males. 

no  sexual  distinction.     Yet  it  is  not  im-  1  Virg.  j£,n.  VI.  555 — 

probable  that  Byres  is  correct  in  this  par-  Tisiphoneque  sedens>  palla  succincta  cruentd 

ticular,   judging  from  the  analogy  of  the  Vestibuluin     exsomnis     servat     noctesque 

sepulchral    iirns,    on    which    the    winged  diesque. 

demons,    especially  those   who    are  mere 

messengers  of  Death,  are  commonly  repre-  A  female  demon,  in  a  similar  position  and 

sented  of  the  fair  sex,  but  those  with  ham-  attitude,   is  represented   on   an  Etruscan 

mer   or  mallet,    as  allied  to  Chamn,   are  urn  in  the  Campo  Santo  of  Pisa. 


344  COENETO.— THE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

•wings,  embracing  each  other  ;  with  a  good  genius  on  one  side  and 
an  evil  one  on  the  other.  They  appear  to  have  the  same  symbolical 
meaning  as  the  Cupid  and  Psyche  of  the  Greeks,  for  the  evil 
genius  is  drawing  Cupid,  i.e.,  the  bodily  appetites  and  passions, 
towards  the  things  of  this  Avorld,  represented  by  a  tree  and  a 
labourer  hurrying  along  with  a  huge  stone  on  his  head,  as  if  to 
intimate  that  man  is  born  to  trouble,  and  his  lot  below  is  all 
vexation  of  spirit ;  while  on  the  other  hand  Psyche,  or  the  more 
exalted  part  of  human  nature,  draws  him  back,  and  her  persua- 
sions are  seconded  by  the  good  genius,  who,  be  it  remarked,  does 
not  seize  the  soul,  like  the  antagonist  principle,  but  tries,  with 
outstretched  arms  and  gentle  looks,  to  win  it  to  herself.  Behind 
her  is  a  gate,  through  which  a  soul  is  calmly  passing,  as  if  to 
contrast  the  tranquil  bliss  of  a  future  existence  with  the  labour, 
unrest,  and  turmoil  of  this.2 

1  have  spoken  of  souls  on  cars ;  others  are  seated  on  horse- 
back ;  one  is  led  by  a  good  genius ;  another  genius  is  leading  a 
horse  to  a  soul  for  him  to  mount,  which  reminds  one  of  the  old 
ballad — 

"  Ho,  ho  !  the  dead  can  ride  apace — 
Dost  fear  to  ride  with  me  ? " 

These  favoured  spirits  may  represent  the  great  and  wealthy  of 
this  world,  or  may  merely  indicate  more  clearly  the  journey  into 
another  state  of  existence,  which  is  frequently  symbolised  by  a 
horse  on  the  Etruscan  monuments  of  Chiusi  and  Yolterra.  The 
majority  of  souls  are  on  foot — some  full  of  horror,  eager  to 
escape ;  others  imploring  mercy  from  their  malignant  tormentors ; 
but  many  are  calm,  resigned,  melancholy  beings,  gliding  along 
with  rods  in  their  hands.  There  is  abundant  room  here  for  the 
imagination.  Here  it  will  perceive  the  warrior,  arrested  in  his 

2  Though  I  have  heard  the  truth  of  this  series    of   Byres'   plates    with    the    origi- 
scene,   as  represented  by  Byres,   called  in  nal  paintings,  so  far  as  it  was  practicable, 
question,  I  see  no  reason  to  doubt  it.     It  is  and  have  found  them  to  correspond  in  sub- 
certain  that  the  figures  on  the  wall,  so  far  "  ject   and   general    character,    though    not 
as  it  is  possible  to  make  them  out,  corres-  always  in  minute  detail,  I  am  willing  to 
pond  with  those  in  his  plate,  though  almost  accord  him  credit  for  accuracy,  in  the  sub- 
all  distinctive  character  has  vanished.    The  ject  at  least  of  this  scene.     The  apparent 
stone-bearer  and  the    tree   are    the   most  confirmation  of  his  correctness  afforded  by 
distinct  portions;    the   two  genii  are  far  Lanzi  (II.  p.  252)  who  mentions  a  represen- 
f  rom    clear  ;    and    it    is    only   possible   to  tation  of  Psyche  with  butterfly-wings  in  the 
perceive  that  something  like  two  children  paintings  of  this  tomb  (cf.  Inghirami,  Mon. 
has  existed  in  the    centre    of    the   scene.  Etrus.  IV.  p.   112),  is  open  to  suspicion, 
The  soul  in  the  gateway  appears  to  me  to  as  Lanzi  had  evidently  seen  his  drawings, 
be    leaning   indolently   against   the    wall.  and  may  have  written  his  description  from 
Moreover,  as  I  have  compared  the  whole  them,  not  from  the  originals. 


CHAP,  xxv.]       SCENES    IX   THE    ETRUSCAN    HADES.  345 

career  of  glory ;  here  the  augur,  for  whose  sacred  functions  Death 
has  no  respect ; 3  there  the  hride,  giving  her  hand,  not  to  an 
earthly  husband  hut  to  a  ghostly  visitor ;  the  village  maiden  with 
her  water-pot  on  her  head ;  the  labourer  with  his  spade  or  pitch- 
fork on  his  shoulder,  hurried  away  by  one  who  knows  no  distinc- 
tion of  ranks  ; 4  and  the  infant  in  its  mother's  arms,  fetched  by  a 
pale  messenger,  ere  it  had  known  aught  of  the  joys  or  sorrows  of 
the  life  it  was  called  on  to  resign.3 

GROTTA   DELL'    ORCO. 

On  the  height  above  the  Grotta  del  Cardinale  is  the  enclosure 
of  the  new  Campo  Santo.  Beneath  the  Avail  of  this  cemetery,  on 
the  side  facing  the  S.W.,  is  the  entrance  to  the  "  Grotta  dell'  Oreo," 
more  vulgarly  called  "  Grotta  di  Polifemo."  This  tomb  was  dis- 
covered in  1868,  by  an  officer  of  the  French  army,  then  quartered 
in  the  Roman  State,  who,  in  his  patriotic  zeal  to  secure  tor  the 
Louvre  the  remarkable  frescoes  on  its  walls,  destroyed,  it  is  said, 
some  of  the  paintings,  and  defaced  others.  The  tomb  is  so 
irregular  in  form  that  it  is  difficult  to  say  into  how  mail}'  chambers 
it  was  originally  divided,  for  the  roof  has  fallen  in  parts,  so  as  to 
have  destroyed  the  partition-walls,  and  is  now  propped  up  by 
piers  of  masonry.  It  is  clear  that  the  paintings  on  its  walls  are 
not  all  by  the  same  hand,  or  even  of  the  same  epoch,  and,  to 
judge  from  them,  there  seem  to  have  been  three  distinct  sepulchres, 
now  thrown  into  one  by  the  fall  of  the  partition-walls.  The  paint- 
ings nearest  the  entrance  being  the  earliest,  we  will  commence 
with  the  wall  to  the  right  of  the  door,  and  take  our  readers  round 
the  tomb  to  the  left. 

We  first  notice  traces  of  an  elegant  floral  decoration,  running 
round  the  wall  into  a  deep  recess.  On  the  projection  beyond 

3  This  figure  is  represented  leaning  on  a       them,  are  very  like  those  used  in  this  part 
lituus.     Byres  draws  him  with  wings,  but       of  Italy  at  the  present  day  ;  but  in  Byres' 

could  perceive  no  traces  of  them.     He  has  plates  no  such  instruments  are  given,  nor 

a  snake  on  the  ground  by  his  side.      None  could  I  perceive  them  in  the  paintings, 
of  the  genii  in  this  tomb  have  these  reptiles  5  This    tomb    has    been    described    by 

bound  round  their  brows,  as  in  the  Grotta  Pacciaudi,  in  Caylus,  Antiq.  Egypt.    Etrus. 

Pompej  ;  but  Byres  gives  drawings  of  two  IV.  p.   110  ;  Piranesi,  Maniere  d'  adornar 

monstrous   serpents,    designed  with   great  gli  edifizi,    p.    22  ;    \Yinckelmann,    Storia 

boldness,  each  bestridden  by  a  boy,  who  is  delle  Arti.   I.  lib.  III.  cap.   2,  §  23,   24  ; 

lashing  it  with  a  cord.     They  are  no  longer  Garampi,  ap.  Tirabos.  Litter.   Ital.   I.  p. 

visible.  50  ;    Micali,  Italia  avanti  il  dominio  de* 

4  These  figures  are  represented  by  Micali  Roroani,  —  all  quoted'at  length  by  Inghirami, 
(Ant.    Pop.   Ital.    tav.   LXV.)  as  bearing  Mon.   Etrus.  IV.  Ragion.  VI.     The  tomb 
agricultural  implements,  which,  as  he  gives  faces  N.  W. 


346 


COENETO.— THE  CEMETERY. 


[CHAP.  xxv. 


this  recess  are  a  pair  of  figures  on  a  couch,  which  is  richly  orna- 
mented with  chequers  and  meander-patterns.  The  greater  portion 
of  this  scene  has  disappeared.  Of  the  man,  little  is  left  beyond 
his  head,  crowned  with  laurel,  and  his  right  hand  holding  a  twig. 


THE    WIFE    OF    ARNTH    VELCHAS,    GROTTA    DELL     ORCO,    CORNETO. 


His  partner  has  one  of  the  most  beautiful  heads  depicted  in  the 
tombs  of  Etruria.  She  has  deep  hazel  eyes,  rich  auburn  hair, 
and  a  profile  of  the  ideal  Greek  t}-pe.  She  wears  a  double  neck- 
lace, a  chaplet  of  laurel  leaves,  and  a  yellow  chemise,  with  a  brown 
battlemented  border.6  Of  her  name,  inscribed  above  her,  three 


6  The  Frenchman  had  evidently  the  in- 
tention of  detaching  this  head  from  the 
wall,  but  fortunately  could  not  put  it  into 
execution.  See  her  portrait  above.  The 
artist,  from  whose  drawing  this  woodcut  is 


copied,  has  mistaken  a  curl  for  the  ear, 
and  represented  this  feature  too  low  in  the 
head.  It  is  in  its  proper  place  in  the 
original,  as  I  can  attest. 


CHAP,  xxv.]     GROTTA  DELL'  ORCO.— SOULS  IN  ELYSIUM.       347 

letters  only  are  left;  his  was  "  Arnth  Velchas."     Her  figure  is 
thrown  out  by  a  background  of  black  rugged  masses,  somewhat 


resembling  clouds,  and  clouds  they  seem  intended  to  represent, 
for  these  figures,  as  may  be  inferred  from  the  proximity  of  the 
demon  on  the  adjoining  wall;  represent  the  souls  of  those  who 


348  COENETO.— THE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

were  here  interred,  in  a  state  of  beatitude,  rather  than  the  said 
persons  in  the  enjoyment  of  the  pleasures  of  their  earthly  existence. 
In  short,  there  is  little  doubt  that  we  are  here  introduced  to  the 
Etruscan  Hades  or  Orcus.7 

The  wall  at  right  angles  is  occupied  by  a  hideous  dusky  demon, 
with  an  eagle's  bill  for  a  nose,  open  mouth,  black  beard  and  eye- 
brow, brute's  ears,  and  hair  bristling  with  red,  snake-like  locks. 
His  flesh  is  not  black,  but  a  livid  blue.8  He  has  open  wings,  grey 
above,  and  blue,  black,  and  red  on  the  pinions.  His  dress  is  a 
white  tunic  with  a  red  girdle,  and  a  yellow  spotted  band  crossed 
over  his  bosom.  He  holds  aloft  a  stout  red  pole,  whether  ter- 
minating as  a  hammer  or  a  torch  is  not  now  discernible.  A 
huge  crested  and  bearded  snake  springs  from  his  right  shoulder, 
and  his  only  leg  now  visible  is  buskined  with  the  coils  of  yellow 
serpents,  which  depend  from  it  like  talaria.  A  sort  of  halo 
surmounts  his  head.  No  inscription  now  remains  to  determine 
his  appellation,  but  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  he  represents 
the  Etruscan  Charun. 

The  Avail  again  recedes,  and  we  come  to  a  second  banqueting- 
couch,  which  has  suffered  even  more  than  the  former.  The  man's 
head  is  only  in  part  preserved,  though  the  yellow  pallium,  thrown 
over  his  shoulder,  is  still  distinct.  The  upper  portion  of  the 
woman's  figure  is  quite  effaced,  but  the  white  drapery  covering 
her  lower  limbs  is  drawn  with  much  freedom  and  correctness. 
The  fragment  of  a  bo}r's  face,  who  appears  to  have  been  standing 
in  front  of  the  couch,  may  be  traced,  as  well  as  the  head  and 
shoulders  of  a  slave  girl  in  white  with  gold  torque  and  bulla,  occupy- 
ing a  similar  position,  but  her  features  are  obliterated.  From  the 
fragments  which  remain  of  this  scene,  we  perceive  that  it  was 
drawn  with  much  boldness  and  freedom,  and  belonged  to  the  best 
period  of  Etruscan  art.  Ths  figures  of  the  pair  on  the  couch  are 
thrown  out  from  the  wall  by  black  clouds,  as  in  the  scene  just 

7  Similar  clouds  have  been  found  in  only  be  their  colouring,  which  has  led  Dr.  Helbig 

one  other  painted  tomb  in  Etruria,  the  Tomba  to  the  conclusion  that  they  were  intended 

Golini at  Orvieto,  which,  like  this  of  Corneto,  to  represent  the  'AiSris  £6<pov  rjepJeira  of 

represents  souls  in  Elysium  in  the  presence  Homer  (Iliad  XV.  191),  the  cloudy  gloom 

of  Hades  and  Persephone.     But,  as  in  that  of  the  realms  of  Hades.     Ann.  Inst.  1870, 

tomb,  they  are  introduced  only  where  the  p.  20. 

white  drapery  might  otherwise  be  con-  8  The  infernal  demon  Eurynomos,  as  re- 
founded  with  the  white  stucco  ground,  presented  by  Polygnotus  on  the  Lesche  at 
Count  Conestabile  was  led  to  regard  them  Delphi,  was  of  a  colour  between  black  and 
as  a  mere  artistic  device.  Pitture  Murali,  blue,  like  that  of  the  flies  which,  settle  upon 
p.  110.  Here,  however,  similar  clouds  meat.  Pausan.  X.  28,  7.  The  Etruscans 
surround  the  entire  figures,  whatever  may  generally  depicted  Charun  of  this  livid  hue. 


CHAP,  xxv.]  ULYSSES   AND    POLYPHEMUS.  349 

described.  Over  the  lady  is  an  Etruscan  inscription  of  five  lines, 
only  in  part  legible  ;  and  over  the  man's  head  is  a  long  epigraph 
in  smaller  characters  in  a  single  line,  a  continuation  of  that  on 
the  side  wall  of  the  recess.  When  the  tomb  was  first  opened 
there  was  a  shield,  it  is  said,  resting  on  the  couch  in  front  of  the 
man,  which  shield  bore  an  inscription,  but  no  traces  of  either 
shield  or  inscription  are  now  visible. 

These  two  festive  scenes  belong  to  the  earliest  portion  of  the 
sepulchre. 

The  tomb  has  been  so  much  injured — how  far  by  the  patriotism 
of  its  discoverer,  it  is  now  difficult  to  say — that  large  portions  of 
its  walls  present  nothing  but  blank  rugged  surfaces  of  rock ;  but 
of  the  paintings  still  remaining,  those  already  described  alone 
have  a  personal  character,  or  bear  reference  to  the  individuals 
here  interred.  The  rest  present  us  with  scenes  from  the  Etrus- 
can Hades,  with  a  mixture  of  Hellenic  myths,  and  with  one  from 
the  heroic  cycle  of  the  Greeks. 

This  latter  scene,  which  gives  its  popular  name  to  the  sepulchre, 
we  find  in  a  large  recess  more  to  the  left.  Here  Ulysses,  whose 
name  in  Etruscan,  "  UTHUSTE,"  is  inscribed  in  large  characters 
on  the  wall,  is  depicted  in  the  act  of  blinding  Polyphemus.  The 
hero's  head  has  quite  disappeared,  and  his  figure,  which  occupied 
the  side-wall  of  the  recess,  is  almost  obliterated,  but  his  hands 
guiding  the  enormous  brand  well  sharpened  to  a  point,  as  de- 
scribed by  Homer,  are  still  visible.  The  figure  of  the  Cyclops, 
designated  "  CUCLU  "  in  the  Etruscan  inscription,  fills  the  inner 
wall  of  the  recess.  He  is  a  vast,  misshapen  monster,  with  head 
disproportionately  large,  his  enormous  eye  almost  filling  his  fore- 
head, mouth  bristling  with  teeth,  and  fringed  with  long  white 
moustache  and  beard,  shaggy  black  locks  hanging  about  his. 
shoulders  like  snakes,  but  not  concealing  his  monstrous  ear.  He 
is  just  springing  from  his  bed  of  rushes  as  the  hissing  brand 
enters  his  solitary  orbit ;  one  leg  is  stretched  convulsively  across 
the  recess,  his  right  arm  falls  powerless  over  the  brand.  His 
flesh  is  a  deep  red,  and  his  figure  is  broadly  outlined  with  black. 
He  is  as  hideous  a  giant  as  ever  imagination  conceived,  or  Jack 
of  nurseiy  renown  encountered,  and  answers  well  to  his  descrip- 
tion given  by  Virgil  in  the  well-known  line — 

Monstrum  horrendum,  informe,  ingen?,  cui  lumen  ademptum.9 

9  JEn.  III.  658.  Polyphemus  as  here  flattering  portrait  he  draws  of  himself., 
depicted  certainly  does  not  answer  to  the  Theoc.  Idyl.  VI.  3-i,  et  scq. 


350  CORNETO.— THE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

A  square  door  in  the  middle  of  this  wall  marks  the  entrance  to 
his  cave.     On  the  side-wall  to  the  right  is  represented  his  flock. 

This  scene  from  the  Odyssey  is  so  incongruous  with  the  others 
in  this  tomb,  which  have  all  reference  to  the  unseen  world  of  the 
Etruscans,  that  we  may  regard  it  as  forming  the  decoration  of 
a  separate  sepulchre,  or  as  an  interpolation  of  a  subsequent  age, 
a  view  confirmed  by  the  style  of  art ;  the  free  yet  careless  design, 
the  coarse  execution,  and  the  chiaroscuro  indicating  the  decadence 
of  Etruscan  art. 

A  little  further  on  we  come  to  a  projecting  portion  of  the  Avail, 
where  is  represented  a  majestic  figure  with  an  animal's  skin  over 
his  head,  which  at  first  suggests  Hercules,  but  his  concomitants 
and  the  inscription  on  the  wall  before  him,  "AITA"  (Hades),  mark 
him  as  the  Pluto  of  the  Etruscan  mythology.  He  sits  on  a 
throne,  the  upper  part  of  his  body  bare,  the  lower  covered  with 
brown  drapery.  His  flesh  is  deep  red,  his  beard  black,  and  there 
is  a  grand  and  gloomy  air  about  him  well  becoming  the  King  of 
the  Shades.  AVith  his  left  hand  he  holds  aloft  a  snake;  with  his 
right  he  appears  to  be  giving  orders  to  the  triple-headed  warrior 
who  stands  before  him.  At  his  feet,  and  behind  his  throne,  clouds 
are  rolling ;  some  dusk}r,  resembling  those  depicted  in  the  scenes 
nearer  the  door,  others  grey,  of  more  etherial  and  unmistakable 
character.  At  his  right  hand  stands  his  wife,  the  fair  Persephone, 
"  PHERSIPXEI,"  as  it  is  here  inscribed  ;  her  face  of  the  Minerva 
type,  so  far  as  the  features  can  be  distinguished,  her  head  bound 
with  green  snakes,  and  her  form  wrapped  in  Avhite  drapery,  with 
a  deep  vandyked  fringe,  like  a  tippet  over  her  shoulders.  The 
skin  Pluto  Avears  on  his  head  is  that  of  a  dog  or  Avolf,  the  "Albas 
Kvverj,  Avhich  Hesiod  describes  as  spreading  "  the  terrible  gloom 
of  night "  around  him.1  Over  their  heads  an  arch  or  dome  is 
marked,  to  indicate  "  the  resounding  mansions  of  the  mighty 
Hades,  and  of  dread  Persephone."2  Before  this  august  pair 
stands  a  figure,  Avith  three  heads,  yet  with  but  one  bod}',  which, 
armed  with  cuirass,  spear,  and  shield,  stands  erect  before  the 
throne,  as  if  to  receiATe  the  commands  of  the  god.  The  inscrip- 
tion by  his  side  is  "KELUN,"  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
figure  is  intended  to  represent  Gery on — forma  tricorporis  umbra?.3 

1  Hesiod.  Scut.  Here.  227.  3  The    name    may  have    been   written 

-  Hesiod.  Theog.   767.     It  will  be  ob-  "KERUX,"  but  a  portion  of  the  middle 

served  that  the  names  attached  to  these  letter  becoming  obliterated,  it  now  reads 

deities  are  not  Etruscan,  though  written  in  as    "  KELUN."      The    poets    placed    this 

that  character,  but  are  native  corruptions  monster    in  Tartarus,  with  the  Gorgons, 

of  the  Greek.  the  Harpies,  and  the  giant  Tityus,  (Hor. 


3o2  COBNETO.— THE  CEMETEUY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

His  triple  heads  are  extremely  handsome,  as  if  to  bear  out  the 
description  of  Hesiod4 — 

"BporSov  Ka\KiffTov  a.ira.VT(av 
Trjpvovfa. 

Behind  him  a  large  wing  marks  a  demon,  whose  white  arm  shows 
her  sex,  but  the  rest  of  the  figure  is  obliterated. 

On  the  wall,  at  right  angles  to  the  last,  are  vestiges  of  a  pro- 
cession of  figures.  The  first,  of  which  but  a  fragment  remains, 
is  designated  "  EIVAS,"  which  Dr.  Wolfgang  Helbig,  who  has 
written  an  elaborate  and  learned  article  on  this  tomb — to  which 
I  am  partly  indebted  for  my  description — takes  to  mean  Ajax 
Telamonius.5  He  is  preceded  by  a  venerable  man  with  white 
hair  and  beard,  and  head  covered  with  a  black  mantle.  His 
attitude,  as  well  as  the  expression  of  his  countenance,  is  expressive 
of  deep  dejection.  Further  examination  shows  him  to  be  blind, 
and  the  inscription  above  him,  "  HINTIIIAL  TERIASALS,"  proves 
him  to  be  "the  Shade  of  Tiresias."  6  Next  him  is  a  personage 
of  very  different  character,  a  bold  majestic  figure,  designated 
"  MEMRUX,"  which  can  be  no  other  than  the  handsome  son  of 
Aurora,  "  the  divine  Menmori."7  His  long  hair  hangs  in  golden 
tresses  over  his  shoulders,  though  his  beard  is  black.  He  is  half- 
draped  in  white  robes,  and  a  broad  band  of  the  same  hue  encircles 
his  waist,  passes  over  one  shoulder,  and  is  wound  round  his  left 
arm.  He  appears  to  be  holding  a  staff  in  his  right  hand.  The 
wing  of  a  demon,  at  the  head  of  the  procession,  shows  there  were 
four  figures  on  this  wall ;  but  that  was  not  all,  for  a  leafless  tree, 
which  rises  between  Memnon  and  Tiresias,  is  full  of  Lilliputian 
human  figures,  climbing  among  the  branches,  and  probably  repre- 
senting the  souls  which  populate  the  regions  of  the  dead.  The 
tree,  with  its  tiny  inhabitants,  strongly  reminded  me  of  the  bam- 
boo-clumps I  have  often  seen  in  South  America,  swarming  with 
marmosets  or  sackiwinkies. 

Next  follow  fragments  of  figures,  but  none  intelligible,  save  a 
demon  with  open  wings,  till  we  reach  the  front  wall  of  the  tomb. 
Here,  in  a  recess,  are  two  figures  carved  in  the  rock  in  high  relief, 
one  on  each  side.  That  to  the  right  is  naked,  save  a  cldamys  over 

Oil.  II.  14,  8  ;  Virg.  JEn.  -VI.,  280),  and  5  Annal.  Inst.  1870,  pp.  16-42;  64-70. 

he  had  a  further  connection  with  Pluto,  as  fi  A  mirror  with  the  shade  of  Tiresias — 

both  possessed  oxen  in  the  island  of  Erytheia  Hinthial  Terasias — supported  by  "Aitas" 

in  the  extreme  west,  or  at  the  gates  of  and  "Turms,"  Hades  and  Hermes,  is  illus- 

Night.  trated  in  the  Mon.  Instit.  II.  tav.  29. 

4  Hesiod.  Theog.  981.  7  Odyss.  IX.  522. 


CIIAP.  xxv.]     THESEUS    AND    PIRITHOUS    IN    OECUS.  333 

his  shoulder.  His  right  hand  is  raised,  but  his  head  and  all  the 
rest  of  his  figure  are  gone.  Of  the  figure  on  the  opposite  wall 
the  legs  alone  are  left,  with  a  large  snake  rising  from  the  ground 
between  them. 

On  the  wall,  at  right  angles  to  this,  we  have  a  scene  differing 
from  any  }*et  described.  So  far,  we  have  seen  souls  represented 
in  a  state  of  beatitude,  in  the  enjoyment  of  the  pleasures  Avhich 
most  highly  gratify  the  senses  on  earth.  We  have  seen  the  dread 
King  and  Queen  of  the  Shades  in  their  own  dominions ;  we  have 
seen  the  souls  of  heroes  and  prophets  in  solemn  procession 
headed  by  a  demon,  whether  of  good  or  evil  character  we  cannot 
determine,  as  her  attributes  are  wanting,  but  we  have  seen  nothing 
to  prove  that  they  were  not  in  Elysium.  Here,  however,  we  be- 
hold a  hideous  and  evidently  malignant  demon,  more  hideous 
even  than  that  first  described,  threatening,  or  triumphing  over,  if 
not  actual!}*  tormenting  two  beings  who  have  fallen  into  his  power. 
The  more  prominent  of  these  is  denominated  "THESE  "  or  Theseus, 
and  the  other,  who  has  no  inscription,  doubtless  represents 
Pirithous,  the  audacious  Lapith,  who,  with  the  assistance  of  his 
friend,  attempted  to  carry  off  Persephone  from  Hades.4  If  this 
view  be  correct,  these  paintings  represent  those  heroes  in  the  life, 
and  not  as  disembodied  spirits.  The  demon,  who  bears  the  novel 
name  of  "TUCHULCHA,"  has  asses'  ears,  two  hissing  snakes  bound 
round  his  brows  and  mingling  with  his  shaggy  locks,  an  enormous 
eagle's  beak,  which  serves  at  once  for  nose  and  mouth,  and  from 
which,  being  wide  open,  he  seems  to  be  uttering  horrible  roars. 
He  appears  to  be  seizing  Pirithous  by  the  neck  with  one  hand, 
while  with  the  other  he  brandishes  a  huge  black  and  blue 
serpent  over  the  head  of  Theseus.  His  open  wings  also  are 
painted  along  the  upper  edge  with  a  snake-like  border,  and  the 
very  feathers  seem  to  have  caught  the  hue  of  a  serpent's  skin. 
Of  Pirithous  little  remains  beyond  his  head,  but  the  figure  of 
Theseus  is  truly  beautiful.  His  face  and  attitude  are  expressive 
of  utter  resignation,  and  as  he  sits,  half-draped  in  white,  with 
one  hand  on  his  knee  and  the  other  dropping  at  his  side,  his 
whole  figure  might  serve  for  that  of  Our  Saviour,  wrhen  buffeted 
or  scourged  by  the  servants  of  Pilate.5  Immediately  behind 

4  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  opinion  at    Delphi,    as  sitting   in    Hades,   Theseus 

of  Dr.  Helbig  (Ann.  Inst.  1870,  p.  37)  as  holding  the  swords  of  both,  while  Pirithous 

to  the  name  of  the  second  figure  is  correct.  looked  at  the  weapons  with  indignation  that 

It  was  a  favourite  subject  of  Greek  artists  they  had  proved    of   no    service   in   their 

to  represent  these  two  friends  in  Hades.  nefarious  enterprise.     Paus.  X.  29,  9. 

Polygnotus  depicted  them,  on  the  Lesche  5  The  woodcut  on  p.  355,  while  it  gives 

VOL.    I.  A  A 


354  CORNETO.— THE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

Theseus  springs  an  enormous  serpent  crested  and  bearded,  which, 
•with  head  erect,  appears  to  be  attacking  a  figure  on  the  adjoining 
wall,  who  seems  to  be  endeavouring  to  escape  from  it ;  but  as  this 
figure  has  grey  flesh,  and  as  he  carries  a  pole  over  his  right 
shoulder,  he  may  represent  a  demon,  followed  by  the  snake  as  his 
instrument.6 

On  the  adjoining  wall,  at  right  angles,  we  see  a  kylikeion,  or 
sideboard,  with  five  large  jars  ;  the  two  outer  ones  resting  on 
kneeling  figures,  evidently  representing  metal.  In  front  of  it 
stand  two  tall  amphorce,  and  a  lebcs  or  mixing-basin.  Here  stands 
a  naked  slave  boy,  with  a  wine-jug  and  a  drinking-bowl  in  his 
hands.  He  wears  an  armlet  of  gold,  with  two  lullee  depending 
from  it.  By  his  side,  but  turning  from  him,  is  a  youthful  winged 
figure,  wearing  a  similar  armlet,  whom  we  at  once  recognise  as  a 
good  Genius,  not  only  by  the  human  colour  of  his  flesh,  but  by 
his  mild  and  benevolent  expression.  If  such  a  figure  were  found 
on  the  walls  of  a  Christian  catacomb,  instead  of  an  Etruscan 
tomb,  it  would  at  once  be  declared,  were  it  not  for  its  nudit}",  to 
represent  an  angel.  This  genius  carries  in  one  hand  a  large 
aldbastos.  The  group  seems  to  have  been  accessory  to  other 
figures,  which  originally  covered  the  long  blank  wall,  up  to  the 
entrance  of  the  tomb.  What  these  figures  were  must  ever  remain 
matter  of  conjecture,  unless  they  have  been  removed  to  Paris ; 
but  from  the  analogy  of  other  tombs,  we  may  surmise  that  the 
scenes  here  obliterated  were  of  a  joyous,  festive  character,  such 
as  would  displaj'  the  bliss  of  souls  in  Elysium.  There  were 
probably  more  couples  reclining  at  the  banquet,  as  the  sideboard 
and  wine-bearer  strongly  suggest ;  there  may  have  been  illustra- 
tions of  the  games,  which  the  ancients  believed  to  have  formed 
a  part  of  the  delights  of  Elysium,  but  at  least  \\Q  may  con- 
jecture that  the  figures  of  dancers  and  musicians  decorated  the 
long  tracts  of  wall,  now  blank,  up  to  the  banqueting-couch  first 
described. 

The  resemblance  between  the  paintings  in  this  sepulchre 
(excluding  the  Polyphemus  scene)  and  those  in  the  Tomba 
Golini  at  Orvieto  is  striking.  In  both  tombs  the  same  subject 
is  depicted,  though  it  is  treated  in  a  different  manner.  Here 

the  general  features  of  the  scene  with  accu-  6  This  figure  is  too  much  mutilated  to 
racy,  fails  altogether  in  rendering  the  ex-  be  intelligible.     Dr.  Helbig  takes  it  to  re- 
pression of  the  head  of  Theseus,  and  thus  present  Charun,  armed  with  the  hammer, 
makes  the  observations  in  the  text  appear  his  usual  attribute, 
inappropriate. 


A  A  2 


356  CORXETO.— THE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

characters  from  the  Greek  mythology  are  introduced  into  the 
Etruscan  Hades;  there,  the  scenes  are  purely  and  entirely  native. 
Though  the  art  displayed  in  both  instances  is  apparently  coeval, 
or  nearly  so,  the  predominance  of  the  Hellenic  element  is 
manifest  in  this  Grotta  dell'  Oreo.  Dr.  Helbig  pronounces  these 
paintings  to  be  the  first  yet  brought  to  light  at  Corneto  which 
represent  with  purity  the  tradition  of  the  free  Greek  style,  with 
its  tendency  to  the  beau-ideal.  But,  as  he  truly  remarks,  the 
artists  of  Tarquinii  seem  almost  always  to  have  caught  the  spirit 
of  Hellenic  art,  and  to  have  been  more  deeply  imbued  with  it 
than  those  of  other  Etruscan  sites,7 — a  fact  in  accordance  with 
the  old  tradition  of  Eucheir  and  Eufframmos. 


Emerging  from  this  tomb,  you  continue  your  walk  over  the  Mon- 
tarozzi,  which  here  assumes  that  peculiar  rugged  character 
whence  it  derives  its  name.  Tumuli,  or  the  remains  of  them,  are 
scattered  on  every  hand  in  hundreds — here  and  there  cut  into  by 
spade  or  mattock,  but  generally  overgrown  with  myrtle,  broom, 
and  lentiscus ;  tombs  yawn  around  you  at  eveiy  step,  once  the 
resting-places  of  the  princes  and  merchants  of  Tarquinii,  now  the 
dwelling  of  the  fox,  the  bat,  and  the  lizard,  the  shelter  of  the 
shepherd  from  the  storm,  or  of  the  homicide  from  his  pursuers  ; 
the  very  pathway  resounds  beneath  your  tread,  and  is  full  of 
chinks,  which  let  daylight  into  the  subterranean  abodes  of  the 
dead.  Here  you  are  stopt  by  piles  of  large  hewn  stones,  dug  out 
by  the  peasantry  from  the  substructions  of  the  tumuli,  to  be 
applied  to  the  construction  of  hovels  or  cattle-sheds ;  there  you 
cross  a  road  hewn  in  the  rock,  with  tombs  in  its  cliffs  to  attest  its 
antiquity. 

At  the  distance  of  nearly  two  miles  from  Corneto,  you  find,  at 
the  verge  of  the  steep  facing  the  site  of  the  ancient  city,  two  other 
painted  tombs,  approached  by  level  passages  cut  in  the  rock. 
One  of  them  is  called 

GROTTA  DEL  VECCHIO. 

These  two  tombs,  which  were  discovered  in  1864,  bear  a  close 
resemblance  in  form,  size,  decoration,  and  style  of  art.  They  He 
close  together.  That  we  shall  first  describe  receives  its  designa- 
tion from  an  old  greybeard  depicted  on  a  festive  couch  on  the  wall 
facing  the  door.  The  chamber  is  very  small,  not  more  than  ten 

"  Ann.  Inst.  1870,  p.  68. 


CHAP,  xxv.]  GEOTTA    DEL    VECCHIO.  357 

feet  square.  A  glance  suffices  to  prove  that  this  is  one  of  the 
earliest  painted  tornbs  of  Corneto  :  for  here,  as  in  the  Grotta 
delle  Iscrizioni,  everything  betrays  the  primitive  Etruscan  style, 
before  it  had  been  modified  and  improved  by  the  influence  of 
Hellenic  art.  The  old  gentleman  and  his  fair  partner  have  a 
purely  Oriental  physiognomy,  and  so  closely  resemble  that  quaint 
Etruscan  pair  in  terra-cotta,  who,  for  some  year  or  two,  have 
excited  the  wonder  and  amusement  of  cockneys  at  the  British 
Museum,  that,  if  that  strange  sarcophagus  had  been  discovered 
at  Tarquinii  instead  of  at  Caere  we  might  well  conclude  it  had 
been  found  in  this  sepulchre!  The  old  man,  unlike  most  of  the 
male  figures  in  these  tombs,  wears  a  white  shirt,  his  hoary  head 
is  bound  with  a  red  chaplet,  and  he  holds  a  large  phiala  in  one 
hand,  while  with  the  other  he  is  about  to  caress  the  young  girl 
who  shares  his  couch.  She,  nothing  loth,  turns  gaily  towards 
him,  and,  with  a  "  grata  protervitas"  which  he  seems  fully  to 
appreciate,  offers  him  a  striped  chaplet,  which  she  holds  daintily 
between  her  finger  and  thumb,  her  other  arm  resting  the  while 
on  his  body.  She  is  as  youthful  as  he  is  venerable,  and  might 
be  his  daughter  or  grand- daughter,  but  more  probably  is  the 
May  to  this  December.  She  has  no  ornaments  beyond  a  necklet 
or  band  round  her  throat,  unless  a  large  rosette  which  covers  her 
ear  is  intended  to  represent  an  earring.  She  wears  a  high  yellow 
tutulus,  bound  with  two  red  chaplets  crossing  each  other,  a  yellow 
spotted  chiton,  and  a  red  himation  over  her  shoulder.  The 
drapery  of  the  couch  is  red  bordered  with  blue.  On  the  wall 
behind  hang  chaplets  ;  and  beneath  the  table,  by  the  side  of  the 
couch,  stand  a  couple  of  red-legged  partridges.  Vestiges  of  a 
male  figure,  probably  a  subulo,  or  a  cupbearer,  standing  at  the 
foot  of  the  couch,  are  also  discernible. 

The  wall  to  the  right  seems  to  have  exhibited  a  similar  scene 
of  revelry,  but  the  surface  has  been  so  defaced  by  a  coating  of 
saltpetre  percolating  through  the  rock,  that  little  can  now  be 
made  out.  You  can  trace,  however,  a  banqueting-couch,  with 
red,  blue,  and  yellow  draper}7,  on  which  reclines  a  woman  in 
yellow  chiton.  Her  head  is  not  visible,  but  from  the  position  of 
her  body  she  seems  to  be  lying  in  the  arms  of  her  partner,  and  to 
be  raising  one  arm,  which  shows  a  snake-bracelet,  as  if  to  resist 
him  as  he  stretches  out  his  right  arm  to  embrace  her.  The  rest 
of  his  figure  is  obliterated.  At  the  foot  of  the  couch  stands  a 
woman  in  a  white  chiton,  with  long  brown  hair  and  disk-earrings, 
who  raises  her  arm  as  if  addressing  the  pair  on  the  couch. 


35$  CORNETO.— THE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

Behind  her  a  male  figure  draped  in  red  may  be  traced  by  frag- 
ments. On  the  opposite  wall  all  is  equall}'  confused  and  in- 
distinct, but  a  couch  may  be  made  out,  though  its  occupants  have 
disappeared,  and  a  female  figure  in  yellow  chiton  is  standing  with 
her  back  to  it. 

In  the  pediment  over  the  banquet-scene,  a  broad  yellow 
modillion  supports  the  roof-beam,  which  is  decorated  with  disks 
and  ivy-leaves.  This  modillion  is  flanked  on  either  side  by  a 
white  spotted  deer  attacked  by  a  particoloured  lion ;  both  bearing 
a  strong  resemblance  to  the  fantastic  animals  in  the  Grotta 
Campana  at  Veii,  the  earliest  painted  tomb  yet  discovered  in 
Etruria.  This  tomb  faces  E.S.E.8 

GROTTA  DEI  VASI  DIPIXTI. 

The  inner  wall  of  this  tomb,  as  of  the  last,  shows  a  banqueting- 
couch,  on  which  repose  a  similar  couple.  The  man,  bare  to  the 
waist,  and  with  a  chaplet  round  his  head,  holds  an  enormous 
kylix  in  one  hand,  whose  white  hue  is  suggestive  of  silver,  while 
with  the  other  he  chucks  under  the  chin  the  pretty  young  girl 
who  shares  his  couch.  But  though  she  turns  her  face  towards 
him,  she  seems  indifferent  to  his  caresses,  and  with  hand  upraised 
appears  even  to  repel  his  advances.  Observe  the  strange  way  in 
which  she  bends  the  fingers  of  this  hand.  She  has  black  hair, 
hazel  eyes,  and  regular  features,  and  is  decorated  with  a 
sphendone  round  her  brows,  large  circular  earrings,  and  a  neck- 
lace of  gold.  In  her  other  hand  she  holds  a  chaplet  studded 
Avith  black  beads.  She  wears  a  red  tutnlns  on  her  head,  the 
flaps  of  which  reach  to  her  waist,  and  a  yellow  short-sleeved 


8  Dr.  Wolf  gang  Helbig,  who  gives  a  detailed  and  regards  them  as  contemporaneous,  as- 

description  of  this  tomb  (Ann.  Inst.  1870,  cribing  the  shortcomings  of  the  paintings 

pp.   14,  45,  49,  72),   pronounces  the  artist  in  this  tomb  to  the  incapacity  of  the  artist, 

to  be  a  mere  bungler  as  compared  with  him  rather  than  to  the  infantile  condition  of  art 

of  the  "Tomb  of  the  Painted  Vases,"  very  at  the  period  they  were  executed  (pp.  49- 

inferior   both    as   regards    conception    and  51).      I  find  it  more  easy  to  agree  with  this 

execution,  and  points  out  that  the  figures  critic   when  lie  pronounces  the  design   ia 

are  drily  outlined,   without  any  expression  this  tomb  to  be  wanting  in  sentiment — that 

of  anatomical  details.     Admitting  the  artis-  the  young  girl  here  depicted  has  none  of  the- 

tic  inferiority,   I  would    ascribe   it  to  the  graceful  coyness  displayed  by  her  fellow  in 

greater  antiquity  of  this  tomb,  which  to  me  the  "Tomb  of  the  Vases,"  but  conducts  her- 

seems  second  in  that  point  to  none  in  this  self  with  a  joyous  abandon  ;  while  the  old 

necropolis,   unless  it  be  that  of  "The  In-  roue'of  Tarquinii,  as  he  terms  him,  displays, 

scriptions."     Dr.  Helbig,  however,  after  a  in  the  presence  of  his  young  mate,  an  un- 

careful   comparison  of  the  archaicisms  in  bridled  delight  which  is  truly  comical.     For 

each  tomb,  has  arrived  at  a  different  opinion,  an  illustration  see  Mon.  Ined.  IX.  tav.  14. 


3CO  CORXETO.— Tire  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  x\\\ 

chemise  spotted  with  black.  Of  the  lower  part  of  her  body 
little  remains  visible.  The  couch  is  draped  with  red,  bordered 
with  white,  and  in  front  of  it,  beneath  the  usual  footstool,  lies 
a  dog,  looking  up  as  if  jealous  of  the  attentions  his  master 
lavishes  on  the  fair  young  girl.  Sundry  chaplets  and  neck- 
laces depend  from  the  wall  behind,  together  with  a  casket 
suspended  by  a  cord. 

In  the  corner  to  the  left  a  young  maiden,  clad  and  decorated 
much  like  the  lady  on  the  couch,  is  seated  on  a  low  chair, 
covered  with  a  leopard's  skin.  A  naked  boy  sits  on  her  lap, 
and  testifies  his  fondness  by  throwing  one  arm  round  her  neck. 
He  holds  a  white  duck  in  the  other  hand.  The  youth  of  these 
figures  dispels  all  idea  of  sensual  love,  and  suggests  a  scene  of 
fraternal  affection. 

At  the  head  of  the  couch  a  naked  boy  stands  with  a  pair  of 
metal  simpula,  or  ladles,  and  a  colum,  or  wine-strainer,  read}'  to 
minister  to  the  wants  of  his  master,  for  close  behind  him  on  the 
right-hand  wall  stands  a  kylikeion,  or  sideboard,  on  which  are 
arranged  the  vases  of  the  banquet.  See  the  opposite  woodcut, 
which  represents  the  scene  adjoining  that  on  p.  359.  The  large 
krater  in  the  centre  is  yellow,  to  mark  it  as  of  plain  clay.  But 
the  figured  ampliorce  which  flank  it  are  coloured  precise!}'  like 
real  vases,  with  black  figures  on  a  reddish  ground,  and  the  scenes 
they  represent — a  dance  of  satyrs,  and  a  man  between  two  horses 
— are  the  counterparts  of  those  on  many  vases  of  this  archaic 
character.  Two  kylikes,  also  painted,  lie  inverted  beneath  the 
table.  Then  succeeds  a  dance  of  both  sexes,  carried  round  the 
rest  of  the  tomb  ;  trees,  hung  with  chaplets  or  fillets,  alternating 
with  the  dancers.  The  men,  distinguished  as  usual  by  their  red 
flesh,  wear  chaplets  round  their  heads,  and  are  naked,  save  that 
a  deep  red  cldamys  is  tied  round  the  waist,  the  ends  of  which 
curl  up  grotesquely,  as  if  agitated  by  the  lively  movements  of  the 
dance.  One  of  them,  shown  in  the  opposite  woodcut,  holds  a 
kylt x  as  large  as  a  washhand  basin,  which  from  its  white  hue,  and 
the  nails  which  stud  it,  seems  to  represent  silver;  the  others 
have  nothing  in  their  hands,  but  toss  them  about  in  a  Avild 
manner.  There  were  two  female  dancers;  of  one  a  few  fragments 
only  are  left,  but  from  these  you  learn  that  her  attitude  showed 
much  animation,  and  even  abandon.  The  other  saltatrix  is  in 
better  preservation ;  her  feet  are  gone,  but  her  arms  are  swa3ring 
in  the  dance  as  she  rattles  the  long  castanets  to  her  partner. 
There  are  vestiges  of  a  subulo  with  his  double-pipes  on  one  side 


362  COKNETO.— THE  CEMETEUY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

of  the  door,  and  on  the  other  a  fragmentary  figure  holds  what 
appears  to  represent  a  tambourine.9 

The  paintings  in  this  tomb  show  the  archaic  style  of  Etruscan 
art,  tempered  in  some  measure  by  Greek  influences.  These  are 
betrayed  in  the  strongly  marked  anatomical  details,  in  the 
character  of  certain  of  the  figures  which  show  an  analogy  to 
those  of  the  archaic  Greek  vases,  and  in  the  profiles  which  in 
some  instances  depart  from  the  early  Etruscan  type  and  approxi- 
mate rather  to  the  Greek.  The  vases  on  the  sideboard  alone 
suffice  to  mark  a  period  when  the  fictile  art  of  the  Greeks  was 
familiar  to  the  Etruscans,  and  aid  us  in  determining  the  antiquity 
of  the  tomb. 

We  recognise  in  these  paintings  great  carefulness  and  correct- 
ness in  the  design,  and  a  truthful  delineation  both  of  the  human 
form  and  of  the  accessories  introduced.  The  outlines  are  clear 
and  decided,  yet  delicately  drawn ;  the  details  conscientiously 
expressed  ;  and  everything  betrays  a  hand  striving  after  a  faithful 
rendering  of  nature,  and  working  fully  up  to  the  power  it 
possessed.  In  these  respects  the  scenes  in  this  tomb  stand  pre- 
eminent among  the  archaic  wall-paintings  of  Corneto,  showing  a 
manifest  improvement  on  the  misshapen,  ungainly  figures  of  the 
"  Iscrizioni,"  and  on  the  rigid  forms  and  blurred  outlines  of  the 
"  Barone."i 

GROTTA  DEL  MOIUBONDO. 

A  further  walk  of  three-quarters  of  a  mile  along  the  brow  of 
the  Montarozzi  leads  you  to  another  painted  tomb,  facing  the 
ancient  city.  It  is  called  the  "  Tomb  of  the  Dying  Man,"  and 
was  discovered  in  1872.  Like  the  last  two  described  it  is  very 
small,  hardly  eight  feet  square.  It  faces  N.N.W. 

On  entering,  your  eye  is  caught  by  the  figure  of  a  red  horse, 

9  In  the  pediment  over  the  banquet  are  individual  characters.     In  the  countenance 

two    hippocampi,   particoloured,    red   and  of  the  man  on  the  couch  we  recognise  delight 

white,  followed  by  red  eels.     The  ceiling  is  mingled  with  an  elevated  dignity  ;   in  the 

yellow,  studded  with  clusters  of  red  spots.  attitude  of  the  woman  an  elegance  some- 

The  tomb  faces  S.E.  what  refined  ;  in  the  figures  of  the  young 

"In  the  paintings  in  this  tomb,"  says  boy  and  girl,  a  sentiment  so  natural  that 

Dr.   Ilelbig,    « '  we  recognise  the  hand  of  a  it  sheds  over  the   entire  group  an  air  of 

true  artist,  distinguished   by  a  feeling  for  innocence."     For  his  description  and  criti- 

the   beautiful,  and   by  the   endeavour  to  cal  analysis  of  this  tomb,  see  Ann.   Inst. 

ennoble  his  subjects.     These  paintings  dis-  1870,    pp.    8-14,    45-50,    72;    cf.    Mon. 

play,  within  the  limits  of  the  archaic  style,  Ined.  Inst.  IX.  tav.  lS-13c. 
a  great  advance  towards  perfection  in  the 


CHAP.  xxv. J  GROTTA   DEL    MORIBONDO.  363 

with  blue  mane  and  tail,  on  the  Avail  opposite.  A  naked  youth 
runs  behind  him,  holding  the  reins  in  one  hand,  and  in  the  other 
a  crook,  with  a  sort  of  noose  depending  from  it.  With  this  ex- 
ception the  paintings  in  this  tomb  are  very  similar  to  those  in 
the  Grotta  del  Morto. 

On  the  wall  to  the  right  the  body  of  a  man  wrapped  in  red 
drapeiy,  with  a  hood  over  his  head,  is  stretched  on  a  conch, 
behind  which  stands  a  woman,  watching  him  anxiously.  Her 
face  is  obliterated,  but  3-011  can  distinguish  her  brown  hair,  a  red 
necklet,  a  rosette  earring,  her  white  chiton  striped  with  red,  and 
her  sharp-toed  blue  boots.  At  the  foot  of  the  couch  a  male 
figure,  in  a  grey  chlamys,  stretches  one  hand  out  towards  the 
dying  man,  and  raises  the  other  over  his  head — the  counterpart 
of  the  mourner  in  the  other  tomb.  A  girl  in  long  grey  chiton, 
and  of  a  graceful  though  archaic  figure,  stands  behind  him,  on 
the  adjoining  wall,  and  extends  both  arms  towards  the  dying 
man.  Blue  and  red  chaplets  are  suspended  above  the  couch. 
The  rest  of  the  paintings  in  this  tomb  have  been  destroyed  \>y  a 
deep  fissure  in  the  rock,  extending  quite  across  the  chamber,  and 
obliterating  the  figures  on  the  left-hand  wall ;  but  enough  remains 
to  show  that  there  were  two  male  dancers  very  similar  to  those 
in  the  Grotta  del  Morto,  represented  in  those  quaint  conven- 
tional attitudes  introduced  in  archaic  Etruscan  monuments,  to 
express  violent  motion. 

In  the  pediment  over  the  central  scene  are  two  blue  leopards, 
one  on  each  side  of  the  usual  modillion.  The  roof-beam  is 
carved  in  relief  and  decorated  with  red  disks.  The  blue  in  this 
tomb,  wherever  it  occurs,  is  of  wonderful  brilliancy. 

The  rigid  and  angular  forms,  the  exaggerated  muscular  deve- 
lopment, and  the  stiffness  of  the  drapery,  all  indicate  an  archaic 
period  of  art ;  yet  it  is  an  archaicism  that  betrays  the  influence  of 
a  freer  development  of  art.  The  subject  is  almost  identical  with 
that  of  the  Grotta  del  Morto,  yet  the  treatment  shows  a  great 
improvement  on  that  scene.  The  d}ring  man  is  designed  with 
much  more  truth  and  feeling ;  the  other  figures  are  not  inferior  ; 
bitt  the  naked  groom  holding  the  horse,  which  probably  symbolises 
the  passage  of  the  soul  to  another  world,  is  far  better  delineated, 
and  with  much  more  anatomical  correctness,  than  any  figure  in 
the  other  tomb.2 

These   paintings  cannot  be  of  later   date  than   those  in  the 

2  For  an  able  criticism  on  the  paintings  in  this  tomb,  see  an  article  by  Sig.  E.  Brizio, 
in  Bull.  Inst.  1873,  pp.  196-200. 


.304  CORNETO.—  THE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

Grotta  del  Vasi  Dipinti,  and  must  be  at  least  coeval  with  the 
earliest  Greek  vases,  having  black  figures  on  a  yellow  ground. 

GROTTA  DELLE  ISCRIZIONI. 

Several  hundred  j'ards  beyond  this  tomb,  in  the  face  of  the 
same  cliff,  is  another,  of  yet  higher  antiquity,  called,  from  the 
number  of  Etruscan  inscriptions  on  its  walls,  the  "  Tomb  of  the 
Inscriptions ;  "  known  also  as  the  "  Grotta  delle  Cam  ere  Finte," 
from  the  false  doors  painted,  one  in  the  centre  of  each  wall,  as 
if  to  indicate  entrances  to  inner  chambers.3 

The  figures  here  depicted  have  several  peculiarities.  They  are 
almost  or  entirely  naked  ;  the  colour  of  the  flesh  is  not  the  usual 
brick-red,  but  a  paler  tint,  more  true  to  nature  ;  and  there  is  a 
marked  approximation  to  the  oriental,  or  rather,  I  should  say,  the 
figures  are  quite  un-Hellenic  in  character,  and  betra}rthe  pure  and 
primitive  style  of  Etruscan  art. 

The  subjects  are  games  and  dances.  To  begin  with  the  wall 
immediately  to  the  left  of  the  entrance.  Here  two  naked  men 
seem  to  be  playing  at  dice,  on  a  small  table  which  stands  between 
them.  The  dice  are  not  depicted,  but  the  attitudes  of  the  men 
indicate  their  occupation.  If  it  be  so,  it  shows  that  the  Etruscans 
at  their  funerals  had  games  of  chance  as  well  as  of  strength  and 
skill ;  and  explains  the  frequent  discovery  of  dice  in  Etruscan 
tombs  among  the  relics  of  the  funeral  feast.4 

The  next  two  figures  on  the  side-wall  are  also  naked,  and  are 
boxing  with  the  ccstus  over  an  upright  stick,  crossed  like  a  T, 
which  limits  their  advances ;  these  figures  are  much  injured  by  a 

3  This  tomb  is  If)  ft.  C  in.  long,  by  12  ft.  from  their  native  land  to  colonise  Etruriu. 
3  in.  wide  ;    5  ft.   (5  in.    high  at  the  sides,  Herod.  I.  !M.     That  the  Etruscans  played 
and  6  ft.  9  in.  from  the  ground  to  the  ceu-  with  dice  we  have  historical  evidence  in 
tral  beam  of  the  ceiling.     It  was  discovered  Livy  (IV.  17\   who  records  a  tradition  of 
in   1827.     The   door  was  closed  by  a  large  Lars  Tolumnius,  King  of  Yeii.     Not  a  few 
rectangular  slab  of  stone,  divided  into  small  (ireek    vases  have   been  found  in  Etruria 
-square  compartments,  containing  figures  of  and    Campania,   which   represent    Achilles 
wild  beasts  or  monsters,  which  Micali  (Ant.  und  Ajax  playing  at  this  game- — the  most 
Pop.  Ital.  torn.  III.  p.  105,  tav.  LXVII.  7)  beautiful  of  them  is  in  the  Gregorian  Mu- 
oonceives  to  be    emblems   of    the  infernal  seuin.       Of    the    celebrated    pair    of    dice 
spirits  to  whom  the  guardianship  of   the  found  by  Campanari  at  Toscanella,  marked 
tomb  was  entrusted  ;    set  there  to  terrify  with    words    instead  of   pips   which   some 
those  who  would  violate  its  sanctity.     The  suppose  to  be  the  first  six  Etruscan  nume- 
f-l;ib  still  lies  within  the  tomb,  which  faces  rals,  and  on  which  a  theory  of  the  origin 

of    the    nation    and     language    has    been 

4  The  invention  of   dice   is  ascribed   to       founded,  we   shall   have  occasion  to  speak 
the    Lydians,    during   the    eighteen    years'       elsewhere. 

famine,   which    drove  a   portion    of   them 


CHAP,  xxv.]  TOMB    OF    THE    INSCEIPTIONS.  SG5 

deep  fissure  in  the  rock.  They  are  boxing  to  the  music  of  a 
subulo,  or  piper,5  in  blue  tunic  and  red  boots.  Next  is  a  pair  of 
athletes  wrestling,  and  in  spirited  attitudes — one  having  lifted 
the  other  from  the  earth,  and  thrown  him  completely  on  his 
shoulder.  The  victor  has  a  cloth  round  his  loins  ;  the  other  is 
quite  naked.  Each  of  these  figures  had  his  name  in  Etruscan 
characters  above  his  head,  but  the  inscriptions  are  now  mere 
fragments,  many  of  the  letters  having  faded,  or  peeled  from  the 
wall. 

The  false  door  in  this  wall  separates  these  combatants  from  an 
equestrian  procession,  which  fills  the  space  up  to  the  false  door 
in  the  centre  of  the  inner  wall.  There  are  four  mounted  figures, 
preceded  by  another  on  foot,  all  perfectly  naked.  From  the 
exultation  of  the  first  horseman,  who  throws  his  arms  into  the 
air,  and  from  the  anxiety  of  his  followers  to  urge  on  their  steeds, 
it  is  clear  that  the  scene  represents  a  race,  which  has  just  been 
won ;  the  victor  alone  having  his  name  recorded.  The  man  on 
foot  in  front  is  probably  an  umpire.  The  steeds  would  hardly 
pass  muster  at  Newmarket  or  Ascot,  though  they  show  no  lack  of 
spirit.  Yet  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  favourite  points 
with  the  turf-lovers  of  Etruria  are  here  set  forth  ;6  resulting  in  a 
conventional  form  of  singular  uncouthness,  which  has  not  its 
counterpart  in  any  other  tomb  of  this  necropolis,  though  bearing 
considerable  affinity  to  the  steeds  in  the  Grotta  Campana  at  Yeii. 
These  horses  are  alternately  red  and  black,  the  manes  and  hoofs 
of  the  former  being  blue,  of  the  latter,  red  or  white  ;  and  all 
alike  have  long  white  tails. 

The  eight  figures  between  the  next  two  false  doors — i.e.,  three 
on  the  inner,  and  five  on  the  side-wall — form  a  Bacchic  dance,  as 
is  apparent  from  the  goblets  and  vases  in  their  hands,  and  from 
the  tipsy  excitation  of  their  gestures.  The  leading  figure  appears 
at  first  a  female,  from  its  form  and  necklace ;  though  the  flatness 
of  the  bosom,  and  the  sameness  in  complexion  with  the  men  who 
follow,  favour  the  ruder  sex.  The  same  may  be  said  of  the  third 
figure,  whose  name  seems  to  mark  it  as  a  male.7  A  more  decided 
masculine  character  is  seen  in  the  anonymous  subulo  between 

3  This  scene  confirms  the  statement  of  renowned  for  their  race-horses.     Liv.  I.  35. 

Eratosthenes  and  Alcimus  (ap.  Athen.  IV.,  Their  passion  for  the  turf  must   have  led 

39  ;  XII.  c.  14),  that  the  Etruscans  boxed  them  to  cultivate  the  breed, 
to  the  sound  of  the  tibia;  the  latter  adds  '   In  the  description  given  in  the  Museo 

that  they  also  scourged,  and  kneaded  bread  Gregoriano,  torn.  I.,  they  are  called  women, 

to  the  same  music.  and  for  such  Micali  also  took  the  first  (III. 

6  The  Etruscans,  be  it  remembered,  were  p.  103). 


366  CORNETO.— THE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

these  two.  Each  of  the  three  has  a  chaplet  round  his  brow,  but 
the  first  has  a  high  white  cap,  or  tiitulus,  in  addition,  which  is 
also  worn  by  the  two  grey-beards  who  follow  on  the  side-wall. 
The  first  of  these  also  wears  a  necklace,  his  arms  are  hung  with 
red  chaplets,  and  he  is  brandishing  a  phiala,  the  contents  of 
which  he  has  either  just  quaffed,  or  poured  forth  as  a  libation. 
The  second  also  holds  a  kylix,  and  is  dancing  with  more  energy 
than  his  fellow.  He  is  followed  by  a  younger  man  with  black 
beard  and  red  necklace,  also  carried  away  by  Bacchanalian  furor. 
The  three  with  the  tutulus  may  be  priests,  yet  that  head-dress  in 
the  painted  tombs  is  sometimes  given  to  males  who  have  no 
distinctive  mark  of  the  sacerdotal  character.8  Four  of  these 
figures  have  a  cloth  wrapped  round  the  loins,  two  are  entirely 
naked,  save  that  their  legs  are  cased  in  long  peaked  boots,  such 
as  are  worn  by  the  women  in  the  tombs  of  the  Morto  and  Mori- 
bondo,  and  such  as  came  again  into  fashion  in  Italy  during  the 
middle  ages.  The  procession  is  brought  up  by  two  slaves,  who 
are  differently  attired  from  the  rest,  without  chaplets  or  neck- 
laces, or  even  boots,  but  who  wear  a  close-fitting  jacket,  or 
spencer;  both  carry  wine-jugs,  and  one  bears  a  large  kratcr  on  his 
shoulder.  The  jugs  and  drmking-bowls  are  precisely  similar  to 
those  which  modern  excavations  are  bringing  to  light  in  abun- 
dance ;  the  krater  is  somewhat  peculiar  in  form.  AVhy  the  fifer 
alone  in  this  procession  is  nameless  is  not  easy  to  say,  for  even 
the  dog  under  the  foot  of  the  leading  figure  has  its  appellation 
inscribed. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  painted  door  on  this  wall  is  a  bearded 
figure  in  red  pallium,  and  with  a  pair  of  chaplets  round  his  head, 
who  from  his  attitude  appears  to  represent  some  one  in  authority, 
commanding  the  slave  in  the  corner,  who  bears  several  branches 
of  trees  in  each  hand,  to  follow  the  Bacchic  dance.  He  appears 
to  have  just  arisen  from  a  couch,  where  the  slave  has  probably 
been  fanning  him  with  the  boughs. 

The  scene  on  the  right  of  the  entrance  is  difficult  of  explana- 

9  The  tutulus  is  described  by  Varro  (dc  hair  twisted  round  the  top  of  their  heads, 
Ling.  Lat.  VII.  44)  as  a  sort  of  meta  or  applied  to  it  the  same  appellation.  The 
cone,  worn  on  the  heads  of  priests.  Festus  tutulus  appears  to  have  been  worn  by 
tells  us  it  was  the  head-dress  of  the  Flam-  Etruscan  women  and  girls  of  all  classes  in 
inicae,  who  wore  their  hair  piled  up  above  very  early  times ;  as  we  find  it  continually 
their  head,  and  bound  round  with  a  purple  represented  in  the  most  archaic  wall- 
fillet  ;  and  also  a  woollen  cap  of  the  same  paintings,  and  it  seems  to  disappear  as 
form  as  the  Flamines  and  Pontifices  used.  Etruscan  art  became  subject  to  that  of 
Varro  adds  that  matrons  who  wore  their  Greece. 


CHAP,  xxv.]  PRIMITIVE    WALL-PAINTINGS.  367 

tion.  It  represents  an  old  man,  naked,  holding  in  one  hand  a 
forked  rod  ;  and  standing  before  a  low  stool,  on  which  a  boy,  also 
naked,  is  about  to  lay  a  blue  fish.  It  is  possible  that  the  stool  is 
a  sort  of  altar,  and  that  the  boy  is  making  an  offering  to  the  other 
figure,  which  may  represent  a  divinity.  I  have  heard  it  desig- 
nated "  The  God  of  Chastity  ;  "  and  there  are  features  which 
favour  this  conjecture.  It  might  be  explained  could  we  interpret 
a  long  inscription  in  Etruscan  characters  over  the  head  of  this 
figure.9 

Around  the  tomb  beneath  the  ceiling  runs  a  broad  band 
of  thirteen  stripes  or  ribbons  of  different  hues,  from  which 
depend  many  chaplets,  red  or  blue,  over  the  heads  of  the 
figures. 

Over  the  door  is  the  usual  pair  of  panthers,  and  in  each  angle 
of  the  pediment  is  a  recumbent  satyr,  phallic,  with  brute-ears, 
and  human  legs  terminating  in  goats'  hoofs — figures  that  seem 
taken  from  the  Greek  mytholog}-.  A  goose  stands  at  the  feet  of 
each.  In  the  opposite  pediment  are  a  pair  of  lions  dos-a-dos,  of 
deer,  and  of  panthers — all  parti-coloured,  and  curious  examples 
of  Etruscan  conventionalities  in  pictorial  art. 

The  paintings  in  this  tomb  are  of  a  more  quaint  and  archaic 
character  than  those  in  any  other  sepulchre  in  this  necropolis ;  and 
they  bear  a  closer  affinity  than  any  other  Etruscan  paintings  yet 
discovered,  both  in  design  and  colouring,  to  the  remarkable  scenes 
in  the  Grotta  Campana  at  Yeii — unquestionably  the  most  ancient 
specimens  of  pictorial  art  extant  in  Italy  or  in  Europe.  The 
resemblance  in  the  form  of  the  horses  has  already  been  mentioned; 
it  may  be  seen  also  in  the  parti-coloured  animals,  especially  the 
stags,  in  the  inner  pediment.  The  peculiarities  in  the  human 
figures  are  the  exaggerated  development  of  the  thighs  and  buttocks, 
the  meagre  waists,  the  round  shoulders,  the  disproportioned 
limbs,  and  attenuated  extremities.  In  the  general  contour  of  the 
bodies,  and  the  elongated  form  of  the  e}'es,  there  is  some  similarity 
to  the  black  figured  vases  of  the  Archaic  Greek  style.  Yet  it 
cannot  be  said  that  these  paintings  betray  a  Greek  influence. 
The  points  of  resemblance  are  rather  such  as  they  have  in 
common  with  other  ancient  works,  executed  in  a  like  infantile 
condition  of  art.  The  art  they  exhibit,  in  fact,  is  more  nearly 
allied  to  the  Egyptian  than  to  the  Greek,  yet  differs  essentially 

9  In  our  present  ignorance  of  the  Etnis-       names  or  oft-recurring  formulae,   must  be 
can  language,  all  attempts  at  translating       mere  guess-work, 
this  or  other  inscriptions,    except   proper 


368  COENETO.— THE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

from  both.     It  may  more  correctly  be  characterized  as  the  primi- 
tive st}'le  of  Etruscan  art.1 


More  to  the  west,  or  towards  the  centre  of  the  Montarozzi,  is 
the 

GIIOTTA  DEL  BARONE, 

or  "Grotta  del  Ministro,"as  it  is  otherwise  called,  because  it  was 
discovered  by  Baron  Stackelberg,  and  Chevalier  Kestner,  the  late 
Hanoverian  minister  at  Rome.2  It  is  remarkable  for  the  brilliancy 
of  its  colours,  and  for  the  simplicity  of  its  subjects,  which  are 
contained  in  a  single  frieze  of  figures,  about  thirty  inches  high, 
bounded  above  and  below  by  a  broad  band  of  variegated  stripes. 
On  the  inner  wall  are  a  man  and  boy,  both  wearing  a  pallium 
over  the  left  shoulder  ;  the  latter  playing  the  double-pipes ;  the 
former,  with  blue  hair,  or  it  may  be  a  cap,  and  black  beard,  has. 
his  arm  round  the  boy's  neck,  and  is  offering  a  kylix  to  a  dignified 
female  figure,  who  with  both  arms  raised  seems  to  reject  the  gift. 
She  is  draped  to  her  heels  in  a  long  white  chiton,  bordered  with 
brown,  and  wears  pointed  bright  blue  boots,  and  a  lofty  cap  or 
tiituliis,  from  which  depends  a  red  mantle,  not  shrouding  but  dis- 
playing her  form.  She  is  adorned  with  necklace  and  earrings, 
and  with  a  broad  ampyx  or  frontlet  of  gold,  which  seems  to  mark 
her  as  a  goddess,  or  at  least  as  a  priestess.3  On  each  side  of  this 

1  Gerhard  (Ann.  Inst.  1831,  p.  319;  thinks  3  By  some  she  has  been  supposed  to  re- 

tliis  tomb  displays  archaic  Greek  art,  par-  present  Ceres,  or  Cybele,  or  Proserpine ;  by 

taking  of  the  Etruscan  manner,  and  with  a  others  a  priestess,  as  well  from  her  broad 

rudeness  in  the  countenances  and  drapery  ampyx,  or  frontlet,  as  from  her  high  cap,  or 

rather  Tyrrhene  than  Greek.  Yet  Brunn  tutidus.  The  latter,  however,  cannot  have 

(Ann.  Inst.  1866,  p.  423)  and  Helbig  been  a  distinctive  mark  of  sacredness  or 

(Ann.  Inst.  1863.  p.  343)  can  perceive  but  di  vinity,  since  it  was  the  head-dress  of  Etrus- 

very  slight  traces  of  Greek  influence  in  can  women  generally  in  very  early  days,  as 

these  paintings.  For  other  notices  see  Ann.  is  abundantly  proved  by  the  most  archaic 

Inst.  1829,  p.  106,  et  neq.  ;  Gell's  Rome,  painted  tombs  of  Corneto.  Nor  does  the 

I.  p.  382,  et  seq.  ;  Micali,  Ant.  Pop.  Ital.  frontlet  afford  a  decided  test  of  the  condi- 

III.  p.  102,  tav.  LXYII.  5,  6.  Copies  of  tion  of  this  figure,  for  though  in  Greek 

the  paintings  exist  in  the  British  Museum,  works  of  art  it  was  introduced  as  an  attri- 

and  also  in  the  Vatican,  and  have  been  bute  of  Juno,  Venus,  and  other  fair  divi- 

engraved  in  the  Museo  Gregoriano,  I.  tav.  nities,  it  was  worn  also  by  women,  as  by 

CIII.  The  illustrations  given  by  Mrs.  Andromache  (Iliad  XXII,  469),  and  in  these 

Hamilton  Gray  (Sepulchres  of  Etmria,  pp.  very  tombs  of  Corneto  we  see  it  decorating 

179,  183)  are  caricatures,  such  as  ladies  the  brows  of  the  herctra  in  the  Grotta. 

only  dare  indulge  in.  Querciola,  and  of  a  dancing-girl  in  the 

*  This  tomb  is  15  feet  by  13,  and  of  the  Grotta  Francesca.  We  learn  from  Aris- 

usual  height,  from  6  to  8  feet.  It  was  tophanes  (Lysist.  1316)  that  it  was  the 

opened  in  1827.  custom  of  Greek  women  to  bind  their  hair 


CHAP,  xxv.]  GEOTTA    DEL    BAEONE.  369 

group  is  a  man  on  horseback,  and  both  riders  appear  from  their 
whips  with  barbed  handles  to  be  preparing  to  contend  in  a  race 
for  the  chaplets  or  crowns  which  hang  above  them. 

On  the  right-hand  wall  the  scene  seems  to  denote  a  foregone 
conclusion.  The  race  has  apparently  terminated,  and  the  com- 
petitors, standing  by  the  goal  which  is  indicated  by  a  fillet  sus- 
pended from  the  wall,  are  respectively  claiming  the  prize — each 
holding  up  a  chaplet  to  attest  his  victory.  The  point  in  dispute 
seems  to  be  referred,  on  the  opposite  wall,  to  the  decision  of  the 
woman  or  priestess  already  described,  who  here  stands  between 
the  rival  horsemen;  but  to  which  she  awards  the  prize  is  not 
evident,  unless  her  turning  her  face  to  one,  and  her  back  on  the 
other,  decide  the  question;  though,  as  the  artist  was  obviously 
unable  to  depict  a  figure  otherwise  than  in  profile,  this  was  an 
unavoidable  position. 

The  inner  pediment  contains  a  pair  of  particoloured  seahorses 
and  some  dolphins,  on  a  ground  of  grey — a  thin  solution  of  black. 
In  the  opposite  pediment  is  the  usual  pair  of  panthers. 

The  freshness  of  the  colours  in  this  tomb  is  remarkable.  The 
blue  of  the  man's  hair  or  cap,  of  the  long-toed  boots,  and  of  the 
borders  of  the  garments,  seems  actually  to  have  a  bloom  upon  it; 
whereas  in  certain  other  tombs,  this  is  the  colour  which  has  most 
faded.  The  red  is  also  very  strong  and  bright;  that  of  the  horses 
and  of  the  men's  flesh  is  exactly  the  same  tint.  Brown  occurs  in 
the  pallia  of  the  racers  and  in  the  border  of  the  woman's  chiton. 
The  trees  which  fill  up  the  spaces  on  the  walls,  are  more  correctly 
delineated  than  usual,  and  their  leaves  are  either  red,  or  a  faint 
green — a  colour  rarely  seen  in  the  tombs  of  Tarquinii.4  Of  the 
oft-recurring  conventionalities  and  contrasts  in  colour,  which  give 
Etruscan  paintings  so  peculiar  a  character,  this  tomb  presents 
excellent  specimens — one  man  having  blue,  the  rest  white  or 
yellow  hair;5  and  some  of  the  horses  having  blue  hoofs,  and  all 
white  manes  and  tails,  though  their  bodies  are  black  or  red. 

These  figures  are  of  very  archaic  design.  Those  of  the  women 
especially  have  all  the  rigidity  of  very  early  art,  or,  as  Kestner 

•with  the  ampyx  in  preparation  for  the  often  to  the  neglect  of  nature  and  correct- 
dance,  ness. 

4  A  decided  green  is  rarely  seen  in  early  5  The  hair  was  probably  coloured  yellow, 

Etruscan  paintings.    Perhaps  they  refrained  which  has  turned  to  a  dirty  white  or  grey, 

from  using  it,  because  their  yellow  was  thick  So  also  the  ornaments  of  the  female  figures, 

and  heavy,  and  would  not  make  a  brilliant  which  were  doubtless  coloured  to  represent 

green — brightness  and  striking  contrasts  of  gold, 
colour  being  the  great  aim  of  their  artists, 

VOL.    I.  B  B 


370  CORXETO.— THE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

expresses  it,  much  of  the  grandiose  spirit  of  the  Egyptian  and 
archaic  Greek ; G  while  the  man  and  boy  on  the  inner  wall  are 
stepping  out  with  the  ease  of  more  advanced  art.  But  the  figures 
of  the  racers  are  very  inferior,  showing  great  stiffness  and  clumsi- 
ness, though  their  horses  are  drawn  with  considerable  correctness 
and  spirit,  and  with  more  compact  forms  than  those  in  the  Grotta 
delle  Iscrizioni.  These  differences  in  style  have  led  to  the 
opinion  that  these  figures  are  not  the  work  of  a  single  artist,  or 
of  the  same  period,  and  that  they  have  been  repainted  after  the 
lapse  of  centuries,  and  the  outlines  altered  in  the  process.7  But 
all  the  figures  in  this  tomb  are  unquestionably  referable  to  the 
infancy  of  Etruscan  art.  There  is  certainly  a  great  want  of 
distinctness  in  the  outlines,  but  this  appears  to  me  to  be  owing 
to  the  imperfection  of  the  materials  used.  I  see  no  traces  of 
retouching  or  repainting,  and  think  that  the  brown  mistiness 
which  envelops  the  figures  may  be  owing  to  some  preparation 
used  as  a  ground  for  the  pigments,  which  ground  has  changed 
colour  in  the  course  of  ages.8 

GROTTA  DEL  MARE. 

Close  to  the  tomb  last  described  is  a  small,  double-chambered 
one,  called  "  Tomb  of  the  Sea,"  probably  from  the  character  of 
its  paintings,  which  are  confined  to  the  pediment  of  the  outer 
chamber,  and  represent  four  seahorses — two  on  each  side  of  a 
large  ornament,  which  bears  some  resemblance  to  a  scallop- 
shell. 

Seahorses  and  other  marine  animals  and  emblems  are  of  such 
frequent  occurrence  in  Etruscan  tombs,  as  well  as  on  sarcophagi 
and  funeral  urns,  as  not  to  be  without  a  meaning.  As  already 
stated,  they  probably  have  reference  to  the  passage  of  the  soul  to 

6  Ann.   Inst.  1829,  p.    112.      Gerhard  c.  2,  §  24),  speaks  of  similar  female  figures 

thinks  they  are  imitations  of  the  Greek,  of    Egyptian    rigidity,     placed    motionless 

executed  by  Etruscan  artists.     Ann.   Inst.  among    a    group    of    dancing-women,     in 

1831,  p.   319.     But  later  critics  see  few  certain  painted  tombs  of  Tarquinii  open  in 

traces  of  Greek  influence  in  these  paint-  his  day  ;  and  he  took  them  for  divinities, 
ings.     Both  Brunn  and  Helbig  pronounce  "  Ann.  Inst.  1829,  p.  113 — Kestner. 

them  to  be  only  somewhat  subsequent  to  8  For  further  notices  of  this  tomb   sec 

those  in  the  tombs  of  the  "  Iscrizioni  "  and  Micali,   Ant.   Pop.   Ital.   III.  p.   102,   who 

"Morto."     Ikith    regard    the   composition  also  gives  an  illustration  of  a  portion  of  its 

as  more  harmonious,  and  Brunn  perceives  paintings  (tav.  LXVII. ).     The  best  copies 

in   the  calm  attitudes  of  the  figures  the  are   preserved   in   the  Museo  Gregoriano. 

influence  of  sculpture.     Ann.  Inst.   1866,  and  have  been  published  in   the  work  of 

p.    424   (Brunn)  ;    1870,    p.    47    (Helbig).  that  name.     I.  tav.  C. 
Winckelmann  (Storia  delle  Arti,   lib.  III. 


CHAP,  xxv.]  GEOTTA    FEANCESCA.  371 

another  state  of  existence,  according  to  the  general  belief  of  the 
ancients  that  the  disembodied  spirit  had  to  cross  a  lake  or  river 
on  its  way  to  its  future  abode.  By  some  they  have  been  regarded 
as  symbols  of  demons  or  infernal  monsters.  It  seems  not  im- 
probable that  in  some  cases  they  may  be  emblems  of  the  maritime 
power  of  Etruria,  who  long  ruled  the  waves,  and  gave  her  name 
in  ancient  times  to  that  portion  of  the  Mediterranean  which  sepa- 
rates Italy  from  Spain. 

GROTTA  FRANCESCA. 

The  tomb  of  this  name,  which  is  also  called  the  "  Grotta 
Giustiniani,"  from  a  young  lady  who  was  present  at  its  opening, 
is  not  far  from  the  group  just  described.9  The  walls  are  sadly 
dilapidated,  so  that  the  greater  part  of  the  figures  which  once 
adorned  the  tomb  are  effaced.  Here,  as  in  the  Grotta  Barone, 
110  feasting  is  depicted,  but  only  the  dances  and  sports  Avhich 
attended  the  funerals  of  the  Etruscans.  On  the  inner  wall,  the 
principal  figures  are  two  women,  playing,  one  the  double-pipes, 
the  other  the  castanets ;  the  latter  wears  the  ampyx  or  frontlet, 
and  from  her  dress  and  attitude,  as  she  rests  one  hand  on  her 
hip,  while  she  brandishes  the  castanets  with  the  other,  might 
pass  as  the  prototype  of  the  modern  maja  of  Andalucia.  Her 
companion  the  tibicina,  has  yet  more  of  a  modern  air  ;  pipes  and 
bare  head  excepted,  she  is  just  such  a  dame  "as  a  few  years  ago 
you  might  have  met  any  day  in  Ilegent  Street.  Nothing  is  new 
under  the  sun — shawls,  pelerines,  and  flowered  gowns  with  deep 
flounces  and  ribbon  borders,  seem  to  have  been  as  well  known  in 
Etruria  twenty-two  or  three  centuries  ago,  as  they  are  to  us.1 

I  cannot  say  as  much  of  the  dress  of  the  two  men  on  this  wall, 
which  would  scarcely  be  deemed  becoming  now-a-da}rs.  He  on 
foot,  with  the  crook  in  his  hand,  has  nothing  but  a  blue  cldamys 


9  This  tomb  was  discovered  in  1833  by  yellow,   covered  with  red  spots,   and  ter- 

Chevalier  Ivestner.      It  is  14  feet  by  12,  minates   in   a   deep    flounce    of   the    same 

;and  of  the  usual  height.     It  faces  S.S.W.  colour,    but   studded    with    much    smaller 

'The  beam  of  the  ceiling  is  only  marked  out,  spots.     She  wears  a  red  jacket,  with  white 

:not  relieved  ;   and  the  rafters  are  repre-  shoulder  straps,  the  jacket  being  fastened 

jsented  by  broad  stripes  of  red  paint.     In  round  her  waist  by  a  white  belt,  perhaps 

the  left-hand  corner  is  a  rock-hewn  bench  representing  silver.      Her  companion  also 

for  a  sarcophagus,  or  for  the  corpse.  wears  a  yellow  spotted  chiton,  with  a  red 

1  Both  these  women  wear  necklaces  and  mantle,    bordered    with    white,    over    her 

bracelets.     She  with  the  castanets  has  blue  shoulders — in  form    just    like    a    modern 

eyes  and  red  hair.     Her  chiton,  or  gown,  pelerine, 
which  reaches  only  half  down  her  leg,   is 

B  B  2 


372  COENETO.— THE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

or  shawl  over  his  shoulders  ;  he  driving  the  bif/a  in  the  opposite 
corner  wears  simply  a  short  white  tunic  or  shirt,  so  short  that  it 
scarcely  serves  its  purpose  ;  each  from  the  middle  downwards  is 
bare,  or,  as  Hood  would  say, — 

"  Thence,  further  down,  the  native  red  prevails  • 

Of  his  own  naked  fleecy  hosiery. " 

The  horses  in  the  chariot  are  one  red,  the  other  blue,  and  their 
tails  are  curiously  knotted  or  clubbed,  as  they  are  often  repre- 
sented on  the  painted  vases.  In  the  pediment  are  two  blue 
panthers,  one  on  each  side  of  the  usual  bracket. 

Turn  to  the  right-hand  wall.  What  spirit,  what  life,  what 
nature,  in  this  dancing-girl !  Her  gown  of  gauze  or  muslin  floats 
around  her  in  airy  folds  ;  the  broad  blue  ribbon  which  binds  her 
"  bonny  brown  hair,"  and  the  red  scarf  hanging  from  one  shoulder 
across  her  bosom,  stream  behind  her  with  the  rapidity  of  her 
movements  ;  while  she  droops  her  face  and  raises  her  arm  to 
give  expression  to  her  steps.  Her  other  arm  is  a-kimbo,  so  that 
you  might  declare  she  was  dancing  the  salterella.  For  spirit, 
ease,  and  grace  she  has  no  rival  among  the  ballerine  of  Tarquinii. 
Her  dress  is  peculiar — I  remember  nothing  like  it  on  painted 
wall  or  vase.  It  is  as  modern  as  that  of  her  neighbours.  It  is 
hard  to  believe  she  has  been  dancing  in  this  tomb  for  many 
centuries.  She  has  now  unfortunately  but  a  short  time  to  live  ; 
she  will  soon  take  her  last  step — from  the  wall.  Her  partner  in 
the  dance  is  almost  obliterated,  though  enough  remains  to  mark 
his  attitude  as  easy  and  graceful.  Next  to  him  are  some  frag- 
ments of  another  woman  ;  but  everything  else  on  this  wall  is 
effaced. 

The  opposite  wall  is  also  much  dilapidated,  but  several  figures. 
are  traceable.  A  man  and  woman  standing  in  the  corner,  in 
long,  broad-bordered  robes,  do  not  seem  to  be  dancing.  Hard 
by  are  two  men  half  draped,  apparently  encountering  a  wild  boar, 
or  some  animal  no  longer  visible,  for  one  of  them  holds  a  spear 
as  if  in  the  act  of  piercing  it ;  behind  them  stand  two  bay  horses,, 
from  which  they  may  have  dismounted. 

The  figures  in  this  tomb,  though  rudely  executed,  show  much 
more  freedom  and  are  of  later  date  than  those  in  most  of  the 
tombs  of  the  Graeco-Etruscan  class  in  this  necropolis.  They 
appear  decidedly  later  even  than  those  in  the  Grotta  Querciola.3 

-  For  particulars  of  this  tomb  see  Bull.  lust.  1833,  p.  74,  et  seq.  Ann.  Inst.  1834,. 
p.  190,  ct  scq.  Bull.  lost.  1873,  p.  204. 


CHAP,  xxv.]  GROTTA   DELLE    BIGHE.  373 

GROTTA  DELLE  BIGHE. 

Not  far  from  the  Grotta  Francesca  is  the  "  Tomb  of  the 
Chariots,"  or  "  GROTTA  STACKELBERG,"  as  it  has  been  styled 
from  the  gentleman  who  first  copied  and  described  its  paintings. 

Though  the  scenes  in  this  tomb  are  in  many  parts  greatly 
injured,  a  glance  suffices  to  show  that  in  its  original  state  it  must 
have  been  more  richly  decorated  than  any  other  painted  sepulchre 
in  this  necropolis.  Walls  and  ceiling  must  have  blazed  with 
colour.  Like  the  Querciola  tomb,  this  has  a  double  frieze  of 
figures  ;  but  here  the  arrangement  is  reversed,  and  the  smaller 
frieze  is  above  the  larger.  As  in  that  tomb,  the  end-wall  is  here 
occupied  by  a  banquet,  and  the  side-walls  by  dances,  of  very 
similar  character.3 

This  banquet  differs  from  those  in  the  tombs  already  described, 
in  the  absence  of  the  fail*  sex ;  so  that  it  is  rather  a  symposium 
than  an  ordinary  feast.  The  absence  of  edibles  on  the  tables  con- 
firms this  view.  The  guests,  however,  though  all  males,  recline 
in  pairs,  on  three  couches ;  and  are  attended  by  two  naked  slaves 
and  by  a  subiilo  playing  his  pipes.  Beneath  the  couches  are  several 
blue  ducks. 

The  dancers  are  of  both  sexes,  distinguished  by  their  colour ; 
the  women  draped  with  tunic  and  chlamys,  and  wearing  the  tutulus 
on  their  heads ;  the  men  with  merely  a  slight  scarf  round  their 
loins.  All,  as  well  as  the  banqueters,  are  crowned  with  myrtle. 
In  action  and  character  they  are  very  similar  to  those  in  the 
Grotta  del  Triclinio,  yet  inferior  in  spirit.  One  girl,  however, 
playing  the  pipes  is  full  of  life,  a  true 

meretrix  tibicina  cujus 
Ad  strepitum  salias  terras  gravis. 

The  dance  was  continued  011  three  sides  of  the  tcmb,  but  is  now 
scarcely  distinguishable  on  more  than  one,  the  paintings  having 
been  greatly  injured  by  the  damp. 

The  ground  of  this  frieze  has  the  peculiarity  of  being  a  deep 
red;  whereas  in  the  upper  and  smaller  frieze  it  is  left  of  the 
colour  of  the  rock,  a  creamy  white.  This  small  band  is  more 

3  This  tomh  was  discovered  in  1827.     It  unlike  compass-dials;  the  slopes  on  either 

is  about  15  ft.  square,  6  ft.  high  at  the  hand  are  chequered  with  various  colours, 

sides,  and  8  ft.  6  in.   from  the  floor  to  the  as  in  the  Grotta  del  Triclinio.     The  lower 

central  beam  of  the  ceiling.     This  beam  is  frieze  of  figures  is  3  ft.  in  height,  the  upper 

painted  with  ivy-leaves,   and  circles,   not  only  16  inches. 


374  COENETO.— THE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

remarkable  than  the  other.  It  contains  a  multitude  of  figures 
scarcely  more  than  a  foot  in  height,  and  not  fewer  originally  than 
one  hundred  in  number,  though  not  so  many  are  now  remaining. 
They  represent  the  public,  probably  the  funeral,  games  of  the 
Etruscans.4  On  one  wall  are  several  Mga>,  or  two-horse  chariots 
—whence  the  appellation  of  the  tomb — not  in  the  act  of  racing, 
but  apparently  preparing  for  the  contest.  The  horses  are  red, 
blue,  or  white — a  variety  of  colour  introduced  for  the  sake  of 
contrast.  On  the  other  walls  are  figures  on  horseback — others 
boxing  with  the  ccstus — wrestling — hurling  the  discus — leaping 
with  poles — while  some,  with  helmets,  spears,  and  shields,  seem 
preparing  for  the  Pyrrhic  dance  or  for  gladiatorial  combats.  All 
these  were  the  games  of  the  Greeks  also,  save  the  last,  which 
were  unknown  to  that  people,  but  had  their  origin  in  Etruria, 
and  were  borrowed  thence  by  the  Romans.5  Among  these  figures 
are  two  serpent-charmers,  each  with  a  reptile  round  one  arm,  and 
a  rod  in  the  other  hand  ;6  and  this  presents  a  fresh  link  between 
Etruria  and  the  East,  besides  affording  a  confirmation  of  the 
fact,  made  known  by  other  monuments  and  by  history,  that  the 
control  of  serpents  was  an  art  cultivated  in  Etruria — probably  as 
a  means  by  which  the  priesthood  impressed  a  sense  of  its  supe- 
riority on  the  minds  of  the  vulgar. 

Most  of  these  figures  are  naked ;  a  few  only  have  red  or  blue 

4  If  such  scenes  as  these,    which  occur  the  O.K&VTIOV,  or  contest  of  hurling  the  dart, 

frequently  in  the  painted  tombs  of  Etruria,  which  was  one   of  the  five  games  of  the 

especially  in  those  of  Chiusi,  lie  more  than  (jrreek2)cntatklon  :  the  other  four — leaping, 

representations  of  the  solemn  games  held  at  running,  casting  the  quoit,  and  wrestling — 

funerals,  it  is  probable  that  they  not  merely  beingalsohererepresented.     The  pentathlon 

typify  the  state  on  which  the  souls  of  the  was  introduced   at    the    public   games   of 

blessed  had  entered,  but  portray  the  actual  Greece,  in  the  18th  Olympiad  (708  B.C.)  ; 

pursuits  in  which  they  were  supposed  to  boxing  and  horse  and  chariot-racing  were 

be    engaged.       Virgil   gives   authority   for  subsequent  novelties.     Miiller  (Etrusk.  IV. 

this   suggestion,    when    he    describes   the  1,  8,  9,)  considers  that  the  Etruscans  were 

delights  of  the  Elysiau  fields  as  similar  to  imitators    of   the  Greeks   in   their   public 

those  the  blessed  had  enjoyed  on  earth —  games,  with  the  exception  of  gladiatorial 

combats,  which  were  peculiarly  their  own. 

l%alLtSalUIUC1S      eXCI'Cent      meml'ra  6  This  seems  to  have  escaPed  the  Obser- 

Contendunt  ludo,  et  fulva  luctantur  arena,        vation  of  eve1^  one  who  has  written  on  the 
Pars  pedibus  plaudunt  choreas,  et  carmina,       tomb— at  least  I  can  find  no  statement  to 
dicunt. — JEn.  VI.  6J2.  this  effect.     The  figures  are  not  so  repre- 

sented in  any  copies  of  these  paintings  that 
And  again,  T   ,  J 

I  have  seen — not   even   in   those   on   the 

quaj  gratia  curriim,  same  scale,  in  the  Vatican  and  the  British 

Armorumque  fuit  vivis,  quae  cura  nitentes        Museum,  where  what  they  hold  in  their 

rascere    equos,     eadem     sequitur    tellure  ui        *i  n   i 

»„    vr    rro  hands     rather     resembles     the     so-called 

lepobios. — jan.  vi.  ojo.  ,.  .,     -     .  ,         , 

acrostohon,  or  scroll  of  victory,  often  de- 

'  See  page  71.     The  figures  with  spears      picted  on  vases.     But  to  me  it  seems  clearly 
n  this  scene  may  be  intended  to  represent       to  have  been  intended  for  a  serpent. 


CHAP,  xxv.]     PUBLIC    GAMES    OF    THE    ETRUSCANS.  375 

tunics.  In  the  same  frieze  at  the  corners  of  the  walls  are  stands, 
or  platforms,  on  which  spectators  of  both  sexes,  richly  clad,  are 
seated,  looking  on  at  the  sports ;  while  beneath  them  the  lower 
orders,  mostly  naked,  are  seen  reclining  on  the  ground.  There 
is  nothing  here  to  give  us  a  high  idea  of  the  morality  or  decency 
of  the  Etruscan  plebs.7 

In  the  pediment  above  the  banquet  is  a  large  wide-mouthed 
krater,  supported  by  two  small  naked  figures,  each  with  a  jug  and 
dipping-ladle  ;  and  each  angle  of  the  pediment  is  occupied  by  a 
sitting  figure,  half-draped,  garlanded  for  the  banquet,  pledging 
his  opposite  neighbour  with  true  convivial  earnestness.  In  the 
pediment  over  the  doorway  is  the  usual  pair  of  panthers,  and 
also  a  pair  of  geese ;  which,  like  the  former,  may  be  regarded  as 
guardians  of  the  tomb.  Remember 

' '  Those  consecrated  geese  in  orders, 
That  to  the  Capitol  were  warders ; 
And  being  then  upon  patrol, 
With  noise  alone  beat  off  the  Gaul." 

The  correctness,  freedom,  and  spirit  of  these  paintings  mark 
them  as  of  a  good  school  of  Etruscan  art,  and  of  a  later  date  than 
those  in  most  of  the  painted  tombs  of  Tarquinii,  always  excepting 
the  Orcus,  the  Typhon,  and  the  Cardinal.  The  relative  posi- 
tion, however,  that  they  occupy  among  the  other  wall-paintings 
of  Etruria  on  this  site,  has  been  disputed.  Professor  Gerhard 
pronounces  them  to  be  of  the  purest  archaic  Greek  st}Tle,  and  of 
earlier  date  than  those  of  the  Triclinio  and  Querciola,  which 
display  a  free  and  perfect  manner,  whereas  these  partake  of  the 
primitive  manner  of  Greek  art.8  Dr.  Brunn  also  places  them 
next  the  Grotta  Baroiie  in  point  of  antiquity,  and  regards  them 
as  decidedly  earlier  than  the  Triclinio  and  Querciola,  suggesting 
that  the  fineness  and  delicacy  of  execution  for  which  they  are 
remarkable  makes  them  appear  less  archaic  than  they  really  are.9 
Dr.  Helbig,  on  the  contrary,  considers  them  as  of  a  more 

7  When    Tarquinius   Prisons   built    the .  where  the  colour  has  entirely  faded,   tlie 

Circus  Maximus  at   Rome,  he  had   seats  figure   may  yet   be   clearly  distinguished, 

constructed  for   the   Patres   and   Equites,  Here    is   an  analogy  to  the  vases   of   the 

raised  12  feet  from  the  ground.    Liv.  I.  35  ;  earlier  styles,  with  this  difference,  that  the 

cf.  Dionys.    III.    68.     But  the  seats  here  outlines  on  the  vases  are  scratched  after 

depicted  are  too  low  for  a  man  to  stand  the  paint  has  been  laid  on,  for  the  sake  of 

upright  beneath  them.     The  outlines  of  the  force  and  detail, 
figures  in  this  frieze  have  been  scratched  in  8  Ann.  Inst.  1831,  p.  319. 

before  the  colours  were  laid   on,  so  that  9  Ann.  Inst.  1866,  p.  425. 


376  COEXETO.— THE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

advanced  period  of  art,  and  less  archaic  in  character  than  the 
paintings  in  the  Triclinio,  though  earlier  than  those  in  the  Quer- 
ciola.1  To  me  it  appears  that  the  figures  in  the  lower  frieze  are 
much  more  archaic  than  those  in  the  upper,  which  show  more 
freedom  and  spirit,  as  well  as  more  Greek  feeling,  but  whether 
they  are  of  later  date,  or  by  a  different  hand,  I  do  not  pretend  to 
determine.2 

At  the  farther  end  of  the  Montarozzi,  just  above  the  spot  where 
the  high  road  to  Viterbo  forks  to  Civita  Vecchia,  is  another 
painted  tomb,  the 

GllOTTA   DEL    PULCIN7ET.I.A, 

called  also  "  Tomba  Baietti "  from  its  discoverer,  who  opened 
it  in  1871.  It  faces  S.S.W.  It  is  of  very  small  dimensions, 
hardly  ten  feet  square.  On  the  wall  opposite  the  entrance  one 
figure  only  is  depicted,  that  of  a  naked  man,  dancing,  with 
one  hand  to  his  head,  amid  red  trees  with  blue  leaves.  Several 
red  chaplets  are  suspended  from  the  wall,  and  in  the  centre 
hangs  a  heptachord  lyre  to  which  a  plcctron  is  attached  by  a 
string.3 

On  the  wall  to  the  right  five  figures  are  still  extant — first  a 
male  almost  obliterated ;  then  another  man  with  a  boy  before 
him,  whose  shoulder  he  seems  to  be  striking  with  a  long  lance  or 
pole,  while  the  boy  appears  to  be  claiming  protection  from  a 
third  man  on  horseback,  who  is  holding  a  branch  over  his  own 
head,  as  though  it  were  a  whip.  His  horse  is  painted  pale  blue 
or  green,  with  red  mane,  tail,  and  hoofs.  Of  the  last  figure  on 
this  wall  the  lower  limbs  only  are  preserved.4 

Turning  to  the  opposite  wall,   you  see  a  man  dancing  with 

1  Ann.   Inst.   1863,  p.    352  ;  cf.  1870,  and  the  Gregorian  .Museums. 
p.  64.     Bunsen  (Ann.  Inst.  1834,  p.  57)  :|  Brizio  takes  this   man   for  a   cithar- 

gives    the   preference  to  this   toml>   over  ccdus,  about  to  take  his  lyre  from  the  wall, 

the  Querciola,  as  exhibiting  the  beauty  of  Bull.  Inst.  1873,  p.  75. 
the  Greek  ideal  in  the  countenances,  move-  4  Brizio  (loc.  cit.)  takes  the   man  with 

inents,  and  attitudes.  the    long  pole    to    be    the    gymnasiarch, 

3  Helbig  (op.  cit.  pp.  57 — C3)  considers  teaching  two  pupils  how  to  leap,  and  cites 

the  evident  archaicism  in  the  lower  band  similar  scenes  in  the  Francois  and  Casuccini 

to  be  conventional,  but  does  not  attempt  to  tombs  at  Chiusi  ;    but  it  is  not  easy  to 

explain  the  absence  of  this  feature  in  the  accept  this  interpretation,  seeing  that  two 

upper  frieze.    Illustrations  of  the  paintings  of  the  figures  on  this  wall  are  now  almost 

in  this  tomb  are  given  in  the  Museo  Gregor.  obliterated.     The  man  on  horseback,  as  he 

tav.  101,  and  in  Micali,  Ant.  Pop.Ital.  tav.  suggests,    probably   represents  the    horse- 

68.    Copies  are  also  preserved  in  the  British  races  held  in  honour  of  the  deceased. 


CHAP,  xxv.]  GROTTA   DEL    PULCINELLA.  377 

energetic  action  in  front  of  another  armed  and  mounted  on  a 
white  horse,  whose  mane,  tail,  and  hoofs  are  coloured  blue, 
and  whose  neck  he  appears  to  be  caressing.  The  warrior  wears 
a  white  helmet  with  a  blue  crest,  a  cuirass  or  jerkin,  painted  deep 
red,  as  if  to  indicate  leather,  and  greaves  coloured  blue  to  repre- 
sent steel.  He  carries  also  a  circular  shield,  deep  red^  with  a 
white  border — probabty  indicating  leather  with  a  metal  rim. 
The  next  figure  is  bearded,  and  wears  on  his  head  a  tutulus,  or 
rather  a  foolscap,  striped  white  and  red,  and  tipped  with  a  tassel ; 
his  jacket  is  short,  close-fitting,  and  chequered  black,  red,  and 
white,  and  over  it  hangs  something  like  a  tippet  with  a  long 
fringe.  From  this  fantastical  costume,  not  unlike  that  of  the 
Pulcinella  of  the  Italian  stage,  the  tomb  has  taken  its  name.5 
This  and  the  warrior  are  the  only  figures  that  are  clad ;  all  the 
rest  in  this  tomb  are  naked.  Trees  as  usual  intervene  between 
the  figures,  and  chaplets  hang  from  their  branches  and  from  the 
walls  above. 

These  figures  are  painted  on  a  stucco  surface,  and  rudely  and 
carelessly  drawn.  They  have  been  sadly  injured,  but  enough 
remains  to  show  them  to  be  very  quaint  and  curious,  and  of  an 
early  period  of  art,  though  not  in  the  most  archaic  style. 

In  the  pediment,  on  each  side  of  the  bracket,  is  a  yellow  lion, 
with  open  mouth,  red  tongue,  and  blue  mane.6 


Among  this  group  of  painted  tombs  was  one  which,  so  far  as 
I  can  learn,  I  was  the  first  to  describe,  and  I  took  on  m}rself  the 
privilege  of  naming  it,  from  its  most  remarkable  feature,  GROTTA 
BELLA  SCROFA  HERA.  As  it  is  no  longer  open,  and  has  never 
been  under  lock  and  key,  I  shall  transfer  my  account  of  it  to  the 
Appendix  to  this  Chapter,  in  case  it  should  at  some  future  day  be 
brought  again  to  light. 

GROTTA  DEL  CITAREDO. 

A  tomb  with  paintings  of  a  remarkable  character  was  discovered 
in  this  necropolis  in  1862,  which,  from  a  prominent  figure  on  its 
walls,  received  the  appellation  of  "  Tomb  of  the  Lyrist."  The 

5  Brizio  takes  this  figure  to  represent  a  G  For  a   description    of   this  tomb,    see 

histrio,   or  mimer.      He  is  the  only  figure  Bull.  Inst.  1873,  pp.  73-79.     E.  Brizio,  in 

in  the  tomb  who  wears  a  beard.     In  the  this  article,  refers  the  paintings  to  the  first 

tombs   of  Chiusi  where  dwarfs  are  intro-  period  of  Etruscan  art,  but  considers  them 

duced,   they  have   large    beards,    and   are  later  than  those  in  G.  Iscrizioni,  Gr.  Morto, 

dressed  somewhat  like  this  Pulcinella.  and  (jr.  Barone. 


378 


COKNETO.-TiiE  CEMETERY. 


[CHAP.  xxv. 


paintings  it  contained  were  of  so  much  beaut}*  and  interest  as  to 
merit  a  description,  although  the}r  are  now  things  of  the  past;  for 
the  tomb  has  been  reclosed,  whether  ever  again  to  admit  the 
light  of  day  is  quite  uncertain. 

The  figures  on  its  walls  were  all  those  of  dancers,  with  the 
exception  of  a  pair  of  naked  pugilists  flanking  the  entrance.  On 
the  wall  to  the  right  were  five  men,  alternating  with  shrubs 


HKAl)    OF    THE    CITHAiUKULS,   OlloTTA    UtL    CIjAUEUu,    COKAE1O. 

hung  with  fillets  and  chaplets.  He  in  the  centre  was  quite  nude, 
and  his  fellows  had  but  a  light  cldamys  on  their  shoulders,  which 
did  not  conceal  their  nakedness,  and  all  wore  their  hair  hanging 
in  long  thin  curls  down  their  backs.  Two  were  wreathed  with 
laurel,  one  with  oak-leaves.  One  played  the  double-pipes,  and 
another  flourished  a  huge  kylix  over  his  head,  just  as  an  Irishman 
in  his  tipsy  jollity  might  brandish  the  empty  punch-bowl. 

On  the  opposite  wall  the  dance  was  kept  up  by  four  women  in 
talaric  chitones  of  gauze  or  muslin,  which  covered  but  did  not 
conceal  their  limbs.  Each  wore  a  light  scarf  over  her  shoulders, 
and  her  hair  in  loose  dishevelled  masses,  which  floated  on  the 
wind  with  the  movements  of  the  dance ;  one  of  them  rattled  the 


CHAr.   XXV.] 


GROTTA    DEL    CITAREDO. 


379 


castanets,  and  another  blew  the  double-pipes.  In  the  midst  of 
these  nymphs  danced  a  young  man,  with  no  covering  beyond  a 
chlamys  on  his  shoulders,  his  hair  in  long  loose  locks,  and  his 
mouth  open,  indicating  that  he  was  accompanying  with  his  voice 
the  notes  he  Avas  eliciting  from  his  lyre.  The  woodcut  shows 
the  head  of  this  remarkable  figure.  The  dance  was  continued 
on  the  inner  wall  of  the  tomb,  where,  on  each  side  of  two  large 


HEA1>    01'    A    SALTA1KIX,    QlloTTA    UEL    CI'l'AUEDU,    COK.NKTU. 

windows  painted  on  the  wall,  was  another  female  dancer,  in 
every  respect  similar  to  those  just  described.  Beyond  the  usual 
snake  bracelets,  these  women  wore  no  ornaments,  not  even  the 
customary  chaplets  or  fillets  round  their  heads,  but  their  lips  and 
cheeks  were  coloured  with  vermilion. 

The  separation  of  the  sexes  in  this  tomb — the  men  with  a  single 
exception  dancing  on  one  side,  the  women  on  the  other — is  unique 
among  the  numerous  similar  scenes  of  merriment  in  Etruscan 
wall-paintings.  The  head-dresses  also  of  both — the  loose  hair 
of  the  women,  and  the  long  thin  tresses  of  the  men — have  no 
counterpart  in  any  other  painted  tomb  of  Etruria.  Still  less  in 


380  COBNETO.— THB  CEMETEUY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

any  other  monument  of  equal  antiquity  in  this  land  do  we  find  an 
attempt  to  express  individual  character  and  elevation  of  feeling, 
such  as  are  here  successfully  portrayed  in  the  countenance  of  the 
citharoedue. 

In  point  of  antiquity,  the  art-critics  are  agreed  in  placing  this 
tomb  at  the  head  of  the  'second  class  of  Etruscan  painted  tombs, 
and  pronounce  the  figures  to  display  a  decided  advance  on  those 
of  the  most  archaic  class,  both  in  design  and  colouring.  They 
consider  them  to  be  composed  of  a  strange  mixture  of  Greek  and 
Etruscan  elements — the  attitudes,  the  movements,  and  the  design 
being  Etruscan,  while  the  countenances  of  the  citharocdus  and  of 
some  of  the  other  figures  manifest  the  pure  beauty  of  the  Greek 
ideal.7 


To  arrange  these  painted  tombs  in  the  order  of  their  antiquity 
is  no  easy  task ;  still  more  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  is  it  to 
assign  to  each  its  precise  date.  We  must  limit  our  endeavours 
in  this  direction  to  a  general  classification  of  these  tombs.  They 
may  be  divided  into  three  classes  : — 

1st.    The  Archaic,  or  purely  Etruscan. 
2nd.  The  Grseco-Etruscan. 
3rd.   The  Romano-Etruscan. 

All  critics  agree  in  assigning  the  first  place  in  point  of  antiquity 
to  the  Grotta  delle  Iscrizioiii  and  the  Grotta  del  Morto.  Then 
follow  the  Grotta  del  Barone,  the  Grotta  del  Vecchio,  Grotta  dei 
Vasi  Dipinti.  In  the  same  class  I  would  place  the  Grotta  del 
Moribondo  and  Grotta  del  Pulcinella,  ascribing  to  them  a  some- 
what later  date  than  to  the  foregoing. 

The  second  class  comprehends  the  Grotta  del  Citaredo  (now 
reclosed),  the  Grotta  del  Triclinio,  Grotta  delle  Bighe,  Grotta 
Querciola,  Grotta  della  Pulcella,  Grotta  del  Letto  Funebre, 
Grotta  dei  Cacciatori,  Grotta  Francesca,  and  Grotta  della  Scrofa 
Nera  (now  reclosed). 

In  the  third  class  are  Grotta  dell'  Oreo,  Grotta  degli  Scudi, 
Grotta  Bruschi  (now  reclosed),  Grotta  del  Cardinale,  and  Grotta 
del  Tifone.8 

•  Ann.  Inst.  1863,  p.  344  et  seq. ;  Bull.  and  antiquity  of  these  painted  tombs,  see 

Inst.  18G3,  p.  107,  et  seq.  (Helbig.);  Ann.  the  articles  in  the  Annals  of  the  Institute, 

Inst.  1866,  p.  425  (Brunn).  For  illustra-  1863,  pp.  336-360  (Helbig)  ;  1866,  pp. 

tions  see  Mon.  Ined.  Inst.  VI.  tav.  79 —  422-442  (Brunn)  ;  1870,  pp.  5-74  (Hel- 

tav.  d  agg.  M.  big).  These  distinguished  critics  agree  in 

8  For  able  criticisms  on  the  character  the  main  points  of  the  classification,  and 


CHAP,  xxv.]  COMPAEATIVE  ANTIQUITY  OF  THE  TOMBS.          381 

To  the  precise  date  of  these  paintings  we  have  no  direct  clue. 
Those  of  the  earliest  class  we  can  only  compare  with  the  archaic 
productions  of  Hellenic  art,  which  extend  back  to  an  undefined 
antiquity,  and  come  down  almost  to  the  full  development  of  that 
art  in  the  fifth  century  B.C.  Though  we  cannot  fix  the  precise 
limits  of  the  second  class,  we  are  not  wholly  without  data  for 
oui'  guidance.  We  can  assert  that  they  must  be  later  than 
Polygnotus,  who  flourished  about  the  middle  of  that  century, 
because  he  was  the  first,  Pliny  informs  us,  to  draw  women  with 
transparent  garments,  to  represent  figures  with  open  mouths, 
displaying  the  teeth,  and  to  give  expression  and  character  to  the 
countenance  ; 9  and  we  know  that  they  must  be  prior  to  the  sixth 
century  of  Rome,  to  which  period  we  must  assign  the  paintings 
of  the  third  class.  In  this  direction  we  have  a  landmark  in  the 
celebrated  cista  of  the  Kircherian  Museum,  which  dates  from  the 
end  of  the  fifth  century  of  Rome,  and  which,  though  found  at 
Palestrina,  displays  an  art  almost  purely  Greek,  and  yet  so  closely 
allied  to  Etruscan  art  on  bronze  works  of  the  same  description, 
as  not  to  be  distinguished  from  it.1 


differ  principally  as  to  the  position  to  be 
assigned  to  the  Grotta  delle  Bighe  ;  Brunn 
ranking  it  with  the  Grotta  del  Citaredo, 
Helbig  placing  it  after  the  G.  Triclinio 
and  before  the  G.  Querciola. 

9  Plin.  N.  H.  XXXV.,  25. 

1  Ann.  Inst.,  1863,  p.  357.  Some  have 
taken  the  beard  as  a  test  of  the  antiquity 
of  early  Italian  monuments,  on  the  ground 
that  prior  to  the  year  of  Rome  454  there 
were  no  barbers  in  Italy  ;  for  in  that  year, 
says  Varro  (de  Re  Rust.  II.  cap.  11), 
"  barbers  first  came  from  Sicily,  and  that 
there  were  none  in  earlier  times  is  indicated 
by  the  statues  of  the  ancients,  which  for 
the  most  part  have  large  beards."  Compare 
Chrysippus  (ap.  Athen.  XIII.  18),  who  says 
the  practice  of  shaving  originated  in  the 
time  of  Alexander,  and  Pliny  (N.  H.  VII. 
5'.)),  who  adds  that  Scipio  Africanus  was 
the  first  Eoman  who  shaved  daily.  But 
this  test,  as  applied  to  Etruscan  monuments, 
is  not  to  be  relied  on.  Not  because  the  Etrus- 
cans are  known  to  have  used  depilatories  of 
pitch  instead  of  razors,  and  to  have  had 
houses  for  the  removal  of  the  hair,  as  the 
Greeks  had  barbers'  shops  (Athen.  XII.  14  ; 
-Elian,  de  Nat.  Anim.  XIII.  27).  But  be- 
cause in  some  of  the  earliest  monuments  of 
Etruria,  such  as  the  paintings  in  the  Grotta 


Campana  at  Veii,  and  the  archaic  cippi  of 
Chiusi,  no  beards  are  introduced  ;  while  on 
others  of  late  date,  even  of  Roman  times, 
like  the  Grotta  Dipinta  at  Cervetri,  figures 
are  represented  with  beards,  and  these  not 
mythological  personages,  like  some  who  are 
bearded  in  the  Orcus  and  Typhon-tombs 
in  this  necropolis  of  Tarquinii.  Moreover, 
it  is  highly  probable  that  the  figures  in 
Etruscan  scenes  of  festivity  were  often  re- 
presented beardless,  to  indicate  the  eternal 
youth  they  were  supposed  to  enjoy  in  Ely- 
sium. So  that  the  fact  of  a  monument 
having  all  its  male  figures  beardless,  does 
not  necessarily  stamp  it  as  subsequent  to 
300  B.C.  Notwithstanding  the  weighty 
authority  of  Dr.  Brunn  in  its  favour  (Ann. 
Inst.  1860,  p.  488),  I  cannot  but  regard 
this  test  of  the  beard  as  a  very  unsafe 
guide  to  the  relative  antiquity  of  Etruscan 
monuments,  whether  of  painting  or  of 
sculpture,  in  comparison  with  that  afforded 
by  the  style  of  art. 

In  our  inquiry  into  the  antiquity  of  Greek 
monuments,  we  have  certain  grand  land- 
marks for  our  guidance  ;  and  though  it  may 
well  be  that  art  in  Etruria  was  less  rapid 
in  its  development  than  in  Greece,  yet,  as 
we  cannot  doubt  that  in  very  early  times, 
it  was  subjected  to  Hellenic  influences, 


382  CORNETO.— THE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

It  will  be  observed  that  the  tombs  of  the  third  class  differ  from 
all  the  rest  in  making  a  direct  reference  to  Etruscan  mythology. 
The  figures  in  the  earlier  sepulchres  represent  creatures  of  this 
world  in  the  most  joyous  moments  of  life — feasting,  dancing, 
hunting,  sporting — though  there  are  valid  reasons  for  regarding 
such  scenes  as  descriptive  of  funeral  rites  and  customs.  But 
the  later  tombs  disclose  another  state  of  existence  ;  with  few  ex- 
ceptions, the  scenes  are  no  longer  of  this  world — the  principal 
actors  are  divinities  or  demons — the  figures  are  disembodied 
spirits.  Why  are  such  representations  not  found  in  the  earlier 
tombs  ?  It  can  hardly  be  accidental.  The  demonology  of  the 
Etruscans  must  have  existed  from  the  remotest  period  of  their 
history,  yet  it  is  not  set  forth  on  their  earlier  monuments.  On 
the  most  ancient  pottery,  whether  relieved,  scratched,  or  painted, 
we  rarely  find  more  than  detached  figures  of  divinities — as  fre- 
quently perhaps  symbolised  as  portrayed.  So  also  in  the  earlier 
works  in  metal  and  stone — the  religious  creed  is  rather  hinted 
at,  and  obscure!}',  than  clearly  expressed.  It  is  only  on  urns, 
sarcophagi,  mirrors,  and  other  monuments  of  later  date,  that  we 
see  genii  or  other  divinities  taking  part  in  human  affairs. 

The  onry  solution  I  can  suggest  is,  that  in  the  earlier  ages 
of  Etruria  the  system  of  religion  was  thoroughly  oriental — like 
her  art,  it  savoured  of  Egypt — the  people  were  so  enthralled 
by  the  hierarchy,  that  they  may  not  have  dared  to  represent, 
perhaps  scarcely  to  contemplate,  the  mysteries  of  their  creed  ; 
but  that  after  their  intercourse  with  Greece,  their  religion,  as  well 
as  their  arts,  gradually  lost  that  orientalism  which  had  charac- 
terised it ;  the  distinctions  of  esoteric  and  exoteric  were  in  great 
measure  broken  down,  and  the  people  dared  to  look  within  the 
veil,  hitherto  lifted  by  none  but  the  augur  and  aruspex. 

In  contemplating  these  painted  walls,  the  question  naturally 
arises — Are  they  fair  specimens  of  Etruscan  art  ? — are  wre  justi- 
fied in  judging  from  them  of  the  state  of  pictorial  art  among  this 
ancient  people,  any  more  than  wre  should  be  in  drawing  conclu- 
sions of  modern  Italian  art  from  the  painted  decorations  of 
•chambers,  from  sign-posts,  or  from  stage-scenery?  Can  we 
suppose  that  any  but  inferior  or  provincial  artists  would  con- 

whether  we  regard  the  recorded  settlement  ing  to  its  productions  the  same  tests  as  we 

of  Demaratus  at  Tarquinii  about  657  B.C.  should  apply  to  works  of 'Greek  art,  mak- 

as  history  or  fable,  and  that  it  continued  ing  such  allowances  for  a  somewhat  slower 

to  feel  those  influences  in  a  greater  or  less  development,   as  we   should   make  in  the 

degree   throughout   the  subsequent  course  case  of  works  of  art   from  Greek  colonies 

of  its  existence,  we  are  justified  in  apply-  in  other  parts  of  Italy. 


CHAP,  xxv.]      DEA10NOLOGY    OF    THE    ETRUSCANS.  333 

descend  to  apply  their  pencil  to  the  walls  of  a  tomb,  only  for  their 
work  and  their  reputation  to  be  buried  from  the  world  ?  Micali 
thought  all  these  wall-paintings  were  the  wrork  of  provincial 
artists  ;3  but  I  cannot  agree  with  him.  With  regard  to  this 
individual  site,  it  is  the  cemetery  of  Tarquinii,  the  ecclesiastical  if 
not  the  political  metropolis  of  Etruria,  the  source  of  her  religious 
doctrines  and  rites,  the  fount  of  the  Etruscan  Discipline ;  the 
city  which  long  maintained  an  extensive  intercourse  with  Greece, 
and  whither  Eucheir  and  Eugrammos  of  Corinth  resorted — 
whether  actual  beings  or  symbols  of  the  arts  implied  in  their 
names,  it  matters  not.  Here,  if  anywhere  in  Etruria,  art  must 
have  flourished.  Nothing  can  here  be  termed  provincial.  More- 
over, to  take  a  more  general  view,  there  was  a  sacredness  attaching 
to  tombs  among  the  nations  of  antiquity,  to  which  we  are  strangers, 
and  which  must  be  realised  by  us  before  we  can  judge  correctly 
on  this  matter.  The  P}rramids  attest  to  all  time  the  honour  paid 
by  the  Egyptians  to  their  dead.  The  Greeks,  besides  their  recorded 
opinions,  have  left  palpable  memorials  of  the  importance  they 
attached  to  well-furnished  and  decorated  sepulchres :  to  such  a 
pitch,  indeed,  were  they  inclined  to  carry  their  extravagance, 
that  their  legislators  were  at  times  obliged  to  curb  it  by  sump- 
tuary laws  for  the  dead.  The  Romans  raised  still  prouder 
mausolea — such  enormous  piles  as  serve  their  descendants  for 
fortresses  and  amphitheatres.  Why  then  should  not  the  wealthy 
princes  of  Tarquinii  have  engaged  the  most  celebrated  artists  of 
their  day,  to  decorate  their  family  sepulchres  ?  The}'  furnished 
them  with  treasures  of  gold  and  jewellery,  and  with  the  choicest 
specimens  of  fictile  and  toreutic  art — why  should  they  have  been 
content  with  inferior  performances  on  the  walls  ?  I  see  no  reason 
to  doubt  that  these  paintings  are  the  works  of  the  Giottos,  the 
Signorellis,  the  Raphaels,  the  Caraccis,  of  Etruria.3  Analogy 
confirms  this  view  ;  for  Nicias,  the  Athenian,  an  artist  of  such 
eminence  as  to  be  extolled  by  Praxiteles,4  did  not  disdain  to 
decorate  the  walls  of  sepulchres  with  his  pencil.5 

2  Micali,  Ant.  Pop.  Ital.  II.  p.  246.  4  Plin.  XXXV.  40. 

3  Gerhard  (Bull.  Inst.  1834,  p.  12)  is  of  3  Pausan.  VII.  22,  6.     See   page  38  of 
opinion,  from  the  strong  Greek  character  of  this  work.     We  are   not  told   that    Poly- 
certain   of  these  paintings,   that  they  are  gnotus,     the    celebrated     wall-painter     of 
-the  work  of  Greeks   resident  in    Etruria,  Greece,  of  whose  works  at  Delphi  Pausanias 
influenced  by  the  native  taste  ;  and  Bunsen  gives  a  detailed  account  (X.  25 — 31),  ever 
(Ann.  Inst.  1834,  pp.   57,  74)  thinks  they  exercised  his  brush  in  the  adornment  of 
are  by  Greeks,  or  by  native  artists  who  had  tombs.     From  the  paintings  in  certain  of 
studied  in    Greece,   or   in  her  colonies  iu  these  tombs,  however,  we  may  form  some 
Italy.  idea  of  the  character  and  style  of  his  works. 


384  CORNETO.— THE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

I  have  described  all  the  painted  tombs  now  to  be  seen  in  the 
necropolis  of  Tarquinii.  Many  others  have  been  discovered  in 
past  ages ;  but  some  have  been  immediately  ruined  by  the  admis- 
sion of  the  light  and  atmosphere ;  others  have  fallen  more 
gradually  to  decay ;  some  have  been  wantonly  destroyed ;  and  a 
few  have  been  re-closed,  lost  sight  of,  and  forgotten.  Some, 
again,  of  late  years  have  been  purposely  closed  by  the  excavators 
immediately  after  their  discovery,  as  a  future  means  of  obtaining 
money.  It  is  no  uncommon  thing  for  a  stranger  on  making  the 
tour  of  the  Montarozzi  to  be  accosted  by  some  labouring  man, 
who  engages  to  open  for  him  a  painted  tomb,  "  which  nobody 
else  has  seen,"  for  a  douceur  of  from  20  to  50  francs.  In  this 
way  the  disappearance  of  the  Scrofa  Nera  and  other  painted 
tombs  in  this  necropolis  may  be  accounted  for.  Records  of  not  a 
few  lost  tombs  are  in  existence.  Among  the  earliest  found  was 
one  opened  in  1699,  close  to  the  walls  of  Corneto,  in  the  tenuta 
Tartaglia,  whence  it  has  received  its  name.  It  was  illustrative  of 
the  religious  creed  of  the  Etruscans,  representing  souls  in  the 
charge  of  winged  genii.  Three  of  these  souls,  in  the  form  of 
naked  men,  were  suspended  by  their  hands  from  the  roof  of  the 
chamber,  as  appears  in  the  copy  that  has  been  preserved ;  and 
the  demons  stood  b}',  one  with  a  mallet,  some  with  torches,  and 
some  with  singular  nondescript  instruments,  with  which  they 
seemed  about  to  torture  their  victims.  To  a  Protestant  the 
scene  was  suggestive  of  the  horrors  of  the  Inquisition;  to  a 
Roman  Catholic  of  the  pains  of  purgatory.6 

Another  early  account  of  the  now  lost  tombs  of  Tarquinii  was 
written  about  the  year  1756,  \>y  an  Augustin  monk  of  Corneto, 
Padre  Giannicola  Forlivesi,  who,  at  a  time  when  Etruria  was 
little  regarded  in  Europe,  interested  himself  in  her  antiquities, 
and  wrote  a  minute  account  of  the  painted  tombs  of  this  necro- 
polis.7 This  work,  which  has  never  been  printed,  was  some  years 

6  Passeri  (Paralipom.  ad  Dempst.,  p.  139)  tambours — probably  the  Corybantes  or 

regarded  it  as  a  scene  in  the  Etruscan  pur-  Galli,  who  danced  at  her  festivals  ;  for 

gatory.  Notices  and  illustrations  of  these  they  used  such  instruments,  though  the 

curious  paintings  will  be  found  in  Buonar-  former  at  least  always  danced  armed  like 

roti,  p.  42,  adDempst.II.  tab.  LXXXVIII. ;  the  Curetes  of  Crete.— Strab.  X.  p.  468, 

(iori,  Mus.  Etrus.  III.  p.  91.  et  scq.  Cf.  Horace,  Od.  I.  xvi.  7.  In 

'  He  described  several  tombs  no  longer  another  tomb  was  depicted  Ceres,  drawn  by 

to  be  found.  One  was  decorated  with  a  a  pair  of  serpents.  In  a  third  was  repre- 

painting  of  Cybele,  with  turreted  crown,  sented  a  galley,  with  oars  and  sails,  with 

and  a  spear  in  her  hand,  seated  on  a  car  a  king  seated  on  the  deck  between  two 

drawn  by  four  lions,  and  preceded  by  women,  while  Tritons  were  sporting  in  the 

twelve  musicians,  with  fifes,  cymbals,  and  waves,  and  blowing  shell-trumpets.  In  a 


CHAP,  xxv.]         THE    LOST    TOMBS    OF    TAKQUINII.  385 

since  in  the  hands  of  Avvolta  of  Corneto;  but  he  lost  it  by  lending 
it,  and  whether  it  was  still  in  existence  he  could  not  tell.  The 
marrow  of  it,  however,  has  been  extracted  by  Gori,  who  acknow- 
ledges his  obligations  to  the  Augustin  ;8  and  Avvolta  also  has 
given  to  the  world  a  sketch  of  its  contents.9 

In  the  work  of  B}rres,  already  mentioned,  plates  are  given  of 
several  other  painted  tombs,  once  existing  in  this  necropolis,  but 
no  longer  to  be  seen ;  and  the  peculiar  characteristics  of  Etruscan 
art  are  better  preserved  in  these  than  in  his  illustrations  of  the 
Grotta  Cardinale.1 

Other  painted  tombs,  no  longer  visible,  have  been  known  in 
our  own  time.  There  was  one  thirty  or  forty  years  ago  near  the 
Grotta  del  Morto,  which  had  a  pillar  in  the  centre,  niches  around 
the  tomb,  and  large  figures  painted  on  the  walls,  with  Etruscan 
inscriptions  attached.  The  surface  had  so  much  decayed  that 
the  paintings  were  almost  destroyed,  but  the  figure  of  a  woman  in 
magnificent  apparel,  with  a  very  remarkable  head-dress,  was  then 
visible.2  The  tomb  is  now  lost  sight  of. 

Another  painted  tomb  was  opened,  near  the  Grotta  Querciola, 
in  1844.  It  contained  but  four  figures,  rudely  executed — two  of 
human  beings,  two  of  demons.  The  former  were  taking  a  last 
farewell  of  each  other ;  a  grim  Charun,  mallet  in  hand,  was 
seizing  one  of  them  to  lead  him  away,  while  a  similar  demon 
stood  at  the  gate  of  Orcus,  resting  on  his  hammer,  which  was 
encircled  by  a  serpent — a  representation  quite  unique.  The 
meaning  of  the  scene  seems  to  be  this.  One  soul  is  borne  by  the 
messenger  of  Death  to  the  other  world ;  the  other  has  yet  to  live 
awhile,  as  is  gracefully  indicated  \yy  the  repose  of  his  attendant 
spirit.  This  tomb  was  left  open  but  a  short  time,  during  which 
&  record  of  it  Avas  fortunately  preserved  b\r  Dr.  Henzen,3  and 
then  it  was  re-closed;  per  le  vigne — "for  the  sake  of  the  vine- 
yards." 

Several  other  painted  tombs,  opened  of  late  years,  and  now 

fourth  was  a  procession  of  nine  "priests,"  l  For  an  account  of  these  tombs,  see  the 

with  lotus-flowers,  birds,  or  vases  in  their  Appendix,  Note  III. 

hands.      But  the  most  remarkable    scene  2  Bull.  Inst.  1832,  p.  214. 

described  by  the  Padre  was  a  man  crowned  3  Bull.  Inst.  1844,  p.  97.     This  appears 

with  laurel,   seated   on  an  elephant,    and  to   be   the   same   tomb    described   by  l)r. 

attended  by  a  number  of  spearmen  on  foot.  Brunn,    Ann.    Inst.    1866,    p.    438,    tav. 

This     probably    represented     the    Indian  d'A.  \V.,  but  neither  in  the  article  nor  in 

Bacchus.  the    illustration  is   a   serpent   introduced. 

8  Gori,  Mus.  Etrus.  III.  p.  90  ;  cf.  Maf-  The  tomb  was  first  opened  in  1832,  and  it 

fei,  Osservaz.  Litter.  V.  p.  312.  is  possible  that  after  the  lapse  of  34  years, 

*  Bull.  Inst.  1831,  p.  91.  the  serpent  may  have  been  obliterated. 

VOL.  i.  c  c 


386 


CORXETO.— THE  CEMETERY. 


[CHAP.  xxv. 


reclosecl,  have  been  described  by  Signer  E.  Brizio,  in  the  Bulle- 
tins of  the  Archaeological  Institute  of  Rome.4 

It  is  worthy  of  remark,  that  all  the  painted  tombs  now  open 
are  beneath  the  level  surface  ;  not  one  has  a  superincumbent 
tumulus,  though  such  monuments  abound  on  this  site.  More 
than  six  hundred,  it  is  said,  are  to  be  counted  on  the  Montarozzi 
alone ;  and  they  may  be  considered  to  have  been 
originally  much  more  numerous.  They  seem  to  have 
been  all  circular,  surrounded  at  the  base  with  masonry, 
on  which  the  earth  was  piled  up  into  a  cone,  and 
surmounted  probably  by  a  lion  or  sphinx  in  stone,  or 
by  a  cippus,  inscribed  with  the  name  of  the  family 
buried  beneath.  After  the  lapse  of  so  many  ages,  not 
one  retains  its  original  form,  the  cones  of  earth  having 
crumbled  down  into  shapeless  mounds,  though  several 
have  remains  of  masonry  at  their  base.  One  is  nearly 
perfect  in  this  respect.  It  is  walled  round  with  traver- 
tine blocks,  about  two  feet  in  length,  neatly  fitted 
together,  but  without  cement ;  forming  an  architectural 
decoration  which,  from  its  similarity  to  the  mouldings 
of  Norchia  and  Castel  d'Asso,  attests  its  Etruscan 
origin.  It  rises  to  the  height  of  five  or  six  feet, 
and  on  it  rests  a  shapeless  mound,  overgrown  with  broom  and 
lentiscus.5  The  entrance  is  \>y  a  steep  passage,  leading  down  to 
a  doorway  beneath  the  belt  of  masonry.  The  sepulchral  chamber 
is  not  in  this  case  remarkable ;  but  beneath  a  neighbouring 
tumulus  is  one  of  very  peculiar  character.  The  rock  is  hollowed 
into  the  shape  of  a  Gothic  vault,  but  the  converging  sides,  instead 
of  meeting  in  a  point,  are  suddenly  carried  up  perpendicularly, 
and  terminated  by  a  horizontal  course  of  masonry.  The  form  is 
very  primitive,  for  it  is  precisely  that  of  the  Regulini  tomb  at 
Cervetri,  one  of  the  most  ancient  sepulchres  of  Etruria,  and  also 
bears  much  resemblance  to  the  Cyclopean  gallery  of  Tiryns  in 
Anjolis.6 


MOULDING 

OF    THE 
MAUSOLEO. 


4  See  Note  IV.  in  the  Appendix  to  this 
Chapter. 

4  This  tomb  is  called  "II  Mausoleo. " 
Other  tumuli,  much  akin  to  this,  but  with 
some  variety  in  the  masonry,  were  in 
existence  a  few  years  since,  but  have  been 
destroyed  by  the  peasantry,  who,  it  is  to  be 
feared,  will  soon  pull  this  also  to  pieces,  for 
the  sake  of  the  hewn  blocks  around  it.  One 
had  a  cone  cut  into  steps,  like  the  tomb  at 


Bieda,  shown  in  the  woodcut  at  p.  217. 

6  A  tomb  has  been  found  in  this  necro- 
polis, vaulted  over  with  a  conical  cupola, 
formed  by  the  gradual  convergence  of  hori- 
zontal courses  of  masonry,  exactly  as  in  the 
Treasury  of  Atreus  at  Mycenoe.  It  was 
about  18  feet  in  diameter.  Gell,  Rome,  II. 
p.  106;  Mon.  Ined.  Inst.  I.  tav.  XL.  b.  4. 
It  has  either  been  reclosed,  or  its  site  is 
forgotten.  I  have  sought  it  long  in  vain. 


CHAP,  xxv.]    THE  MAUSOLEUM— TUMULAE  SEPULCHRES.        387 

These  tumuli  are  probably  the  most  ancient  description  of 
tomb  in  Etruria.  Such,  indeed,  was  the  form  of  sepulchres 
among  the  primitive  nations  of  the  world.  It  varied  in  different 
lands.  The  Egyptians,  Assyrians,  and  Hindoos  assumed  the 
pyramid  ;  while  in  Asia  Minor,  and  by  the  early  races  of  Europe 
— Greeks,7  Italians,  Scythians,  Celts,  Scandinavians,  and  Ger- 
mans— the  cone  was  preferred.  The  ancient  tribes  of  America 


IL    MAUSOLEO,    ON    THE    MOXTAROZZI. 

also  adopted  the  same  mode  of  sepulture  ;  and  the  vast  pyramids 
rising  from  the  plains  of  Mexico  and  Yucatan,8  rivalling  those  of 
Egypt  in  dimensions,  and  the  conical  mounds  of  Peru,  seem  to 


'  Pyramids,  however,  are  found  in 
Greece,  though  of  much  inferior  size  to 
those  of  Egypt.  Pausanias  (II.  25,  7) 
speaks  of  one  existing  in  his  day  on  the 
road  from  Argos  to  Epidaurus  ;  and  there 
are  several  still  extant,  the  best  preserved 
of  which  is  near  Argos.  It  is  49  feet  by 
39  at  the  base,  and  built  of  polygonal 
masonry,  inclining  to  the  horizontal  and 
rectangular.  A  plate  and  description  of 
it  are  given  by  Colonel  Mure,  in  his  very 
interesting  Tour  in  Greece  (II.,  p.  195,  et 
seq. ),  who  ascribes  it  to  the  same  primitive 
school  of  architects  that  built  the  Treasury 
of  Atreus. 

8  The  two  pyramids   of    the    Sun  and 


Moon  in  the  plain  of  Teotihuacan,  are 
particularly  remarkable  for  their  size  ;  and 
one  of  them  has  shafts  and  galleries  within 
it,  like  those  which  have  been  discovered 
in  the  Pyramids  of  Egypt.  A  further 
analogy  with  the  cemeteries  of  the  old 
world  is  displayed  in  the  multitude  of 
smaller  pyramids,  all  sepulchres,  ranged 
in  avenues  or  streets  around  these  colossal 
monuments.  The  counterpart  of  this  Mi- 
coatl,  or  "  Path  of  the  Dead,"  may  be  seen 
in  the  Montarozzi  of  Tarquinii,  but  still 
more  strikingly  in  the  Banditaccia  of  Cer- 
vetri.  See  Prescott's  Hernan  Cortes,  II. 
p.  354-7,  and  Stephens'  Yucatan  for  a  de- 
scription of  these  Transatlantic  monuments, 
c  c  2 


388  CORXETO.— THE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

attest  a  relation  between  the  people  of  the  Old  and  New  World. 
Tumuli  were  in  use  among  the  Lydians,  the  traditional  colonisers 
of  Etruria,  and  the  tombs  of  the  Indian  Kings  described  by 
Herodotus  and  Strabo,  which  still  in  hundreds  stud  the  bare 
ridges  between  Sardis  and  the  Gygean  Lake  are — magna  corn- 
ponere  parvis — just  like  the  mounds  of  the  Montarozzi.  The 
Turks  call  the  spot  Bin  Tepe,  or  the  Thousand  Hills.  The 
largest  of  these  tumuli  was  the  sepulchre  of  Alyattes,  the  father 
of  Crcesus,  and  as  described  by  Herodotus  it  was  very  like  the 
"Mausoleo"  of  the  Montarozzi ;  "having  a  basement  composed 
of  huge  stones,  the  rest  of  the  monument  being  a  mound  of 
earth."  9  The  description  given  by  Dionysius  of  the  necropolis 
of  Orvinium,  a  city  of  the  Aborigines,  a  most  ancient  people  of 
Italy,  long  prior  to  the  foundation  of  the  Etruscan  state,  answers 
eo  strikingly  to  the  Montarozzi,  that  we  might  imagine  he  was 
writing  of  Tarquinii.  His  words  are — "  The  foundations  of  its 
walls  are  visible,  and  certain  tombs  of  manifest  antiquity,  and 
inclosures  of  cemeteries  lengthened  out  in  lofty  mounds."  l 

It  was  within  one  of  these  tumuli  of  the  Montarozzi  that 
Avvolta,  in  1823,  discovered  "  the  celebrated  virgin  tomb  which 
gave  rise  to  all  the  excavations  subsequently  made  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  Corneto."  The  discovery  was  owing  to  accident. 
He  was  digging  into  the  tumulus  for  stones  to  mend  a  road, 
when  he  perceived  a  large  slab  of  ncnfro,  part  of  the  ceiling  of 
the  tomb.  Making  a  hole  beneath  it,  he  looked  in,  and  there  (to 
give  his  own  words) — "  I  beheld  a  warrior  stretched  on  a  couch 
of  rock,  and  in  a  few  minutes  I  saw  him  vanish,  as  it  were,  under 
my  eyes ;  for,  as  the  atmosphere  entered  the  sepulchre,  the 
armour,  thoroughly  oxydised,  crumbled  away  into  most  minute 
particles ;  so  that  in  a  short  time  scarcely  a  vestige  of  what  I 
had  seen  was  left  on  the  couch.2 .  .  .  Such  was  my  astonishment, 


9  Herod.  I.  93.     The  tomb  of  Alyattes  is  them.    Huge  sepulchral  mounds  abound  all 

extremely  large — a  mere  mound  of  earth,  along  the  coast  of  Asia  Minor,  from  the 

or  rather  of  artificial  concrete — and  has  no  Troad  southwards.     Many  are  still  to  be 

masonry  now  visible  around  its  base  ;  but  seen  in  the  Morea,    which  the  Greeks  of 

this  may  be  concealed  by  the  sinking  of  tho  old  ascribed    to  the  Phrygians,   who  were 

earth  from  above.     The  other  tumuli  of  traditionally  believed  to  have  come  to  Greece 

the  Bin  Tepe  are  of  various  sizes,  though  with  Felops.     Heraclides,  ap.  Athen.  XIV. 

all    save   two    much    inferior    to    that   of  21. 

Alyattes,  none  of  them  now  showing  base-  l  Dion.  Hal.  I.  p.  12,  ed.  Sylb. 

ments  of  masonry.     They  are  all  composed  "  The  same  singular  effect  of  the  atmo- 

of    artificial    concrete,    more    difficult    to  sphere  is  narrated  of  the  Grotta  Torlonia  at 

penetrate  than  rock.     I  speak  from  experi-  Cervetri. — Visconti,    Antichi   Monument! 

ence,  having  spent  a  winter  in  exploring  Sepolcrali  di  Ceri,  p.  21. 


CHAP,  xxv.]      VAST    EXTENT    OF    THE    NECEOPOLIS.  389 

that  it  were  impossible  to  express  the  effect  upon  my  mind  pro- 
duced by  this  sight ;  but  I  can  safely  assert  that  it  was  the 
happiest  moment  of  my  life."  3 

The  contents  of  this  tomb,  so  far  as  they  can  be  judged  of 
from  Avvolta's  description,  indicate  a  high  antiquity  ;  and  the 
golden  crown  and  rich  bronzes  show  it  to  have  belonged  to  some 
person  of  consequence.  This  tomb .  had  evidently  never  been 
opened  since  the  days  of  the  Etruscans,  and  such  sepulchres 
being  exceedingly  rare,  are  of  immense  importance  to  the  archaeo- 
logist. We  visit  Museums,  and  see  the  produce  of  cemeteries  in 
objects  rich  and  rare,  but  as  to  their  arrangement  as  sepulchral 
furniture  we  gather  not  an  idea.  Or  even  should  we  be  present 
at  the  opening  of  a  tomb,  if  it  has  been  rifled  in  past  ages,  as  is 
the  case  with  the  vast  majority,  we  can  have  no  confidence  in  the 
genuineness  of  the  arrangement;  we  cannot  regard  it  with  the 
same  interest  as  if  we  were  convinced  every  object  occupied  its 
original  position.  Or,  should  we  be  so  fortunate  as  to  hit  upon 
a  virgin-tomb,  it  is  not  unlikely  that  it  is  full  of  earth — that  the 
roof  has  fallen  in,  deranged  the  original  collocation,  and  destro}red 
the  furniture  ;  and  happy  shall  we  be  if  we  can  save  anything 
uninjured  from  the  wreck. 

The  necropolis  of  Tarquinii  was  of  vast  extent.  Avvolta 
assured  me  that  it  covered  sixteen  square  miles.  Others  tell  us 
it  stretched  eight  miles  in  length  and  six  in  breadth  4 — an  extent 
hardly  to  be  credited.  It  covers  not  only  the  whole  of  the 
Montarozzi,  which  is  so  thickly  sown  with  tombs,  that  almost 
every  step  you  take  is  on  hollow  ground,  but  it  extends  far  down 
the  slope  towards  the  sea,  and  comprehends  also  Monte  Quag- 
liero,  on  the  opposite  bank  of  the  Marta,  and  to  the  north  of  the 
ancient  city,  as  well  as  the  Poggio  della  Vipera  higher  up  the 
same  stream.  It  is  highly  probable  that  the  heights  around  the 
city  in  every  other  direction  Avould  be  found  to  contain  tombs,  for 
the  Etruscans  did  not  confine  their  cemeteries  to  one  spot,  but 
availed  themselves  of  any  advantages  afforded  b}r  the  disposition 
of  the  ground  or  the  nature  of  the  soil,  and  sometimes  quite 
encircled  the  city  of  the  living  with  a  "  city  of  the  dead." 

The  necropolis  on  the  slope  of  Monte  Quagliero  was  discovered 
only  in  1829.  A  sepulchral  road,  sunk  in  the  tufo,  crossed  the 

3  For  further  particulars  of  this  tomb,  Inst.  1829,  tav.  d'agg.  B. 

see  Ann.  Inst.  1829,  pp.  95 — 98  ;  and  for  4  Pacciaudi,  quoted  by  Lanzi,  II.  p.  465 

the  plan  and  sections  of  the  tomb,  showing  cf.  Inghir.  Mon.  Etr.  IV.  p.  111. 
the  arrangement  of  its  contents,  see  Ann. 


390  CORXETO.— THE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

hill,  and  contained  sepulchres  in  both  its  walls.  Other  tombs  were 
sunk  beneath  the  surface,  for  there  were  no  tumuli  on  this  spot.5 
Excavations  were  carried  on  in  this  necropolis  pretty  briskly 
some  thirty  or  forty  years  ago,  but  the  attention  of  the  tomb- 
burglars  has  since  been  absorbed  by  the  more  lucrative  opera- 
tions at  Vulci  and  Chiusi.  For,  though  tombs  are  so  abundant 
that  almost  every  step  you  take  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Corneto 
is  over  a  sepulchre,  yet  the  cemetery  has  been  so  well  rifled  in 
bygone  ages,  that  it  is  rare  to  find  anything  to  repay  the  expense 
of  exploration.  Certain  excavators  on  this  site  are  of  opinion 
that  this  rifling  took  place  in  the  time  of  Julius  Cffisar,  when  the 
painted  vases  were  much  prized,  and  were  sought  for  eagerly  in 
the  tombs  of  Campania  and  Corinth.6  The  reason  assigned  for 
this  opinion  is,  that  the  more  ancient  tombs  have  been  plundered, 
while  those  of  later  date  have  generally  been  spared.  This, 
however,  may  be  accounted  for  by  the  superior  wealth  treasured 
in  the  older  sepulchres ;  for  these  same  gentlemen  inform  us  that 
the  poorer  tombs  of  equal  antiquity  are  often  intact — a  fact  which 
is  to  be  wondered  at,  seeing  there  is  no  external  distinction  now 
visible,  whatever  there  may  have  been  of  old.  Nor  is  there  any 
local  separation — nothing  like  classification  in  the  arrangement — 
but  sepulchres  of  all  ranks  and  of  various  dates  are  jumbled  together 
in  glorious  confusion.  It  seems  as  though,  after  the  necropolis 
had  been  fairly  filled,  the  subsequent  generations  of  Tarquinians 
thrust  in  their  dead  in  every  available  spot  of  unoccupied  ground ; 
and  so  it  continued  to  a  late  period,  for  there  are  tombs  of 
llomans,  as  well  as  of  Etruscans,  and  some  apparently  even  of 
the  early  Christians.  From  the  number  of  painted  vases  yielded 
by  this  necropolis,  I  should  conclude  that  the  rifling  was  of  much 
later  date  than  Julius  Caesar;  more  probably  of  the  time  of  Theo- 
doric  (A.D.  489 — 526),  when  grave-spoiling  was  general  throughout 
Italy.  For  that  monarch  thought,  with  the  Wife  of  Bath— 

"  It  is  but  waste  to  bury  preciously," 

and  sanctioned  the  search  for  gold  and  silver,  yet  commanded 
everything  else  to  be  spared.7 

Taking  all  classes  of  tombs  into  account,  those  which  are 
virgin  or  intact  are  said  to  be  not  one  per  cent.;  but  those  which, 
like  Avvolta's  tomb,  contain  articles  of  value,  are  in  much  smaller 
proportion. 

5  Bull.   Inst.  1829,  p.  8;  Ann.   Instit.  6  Suet.  Jul.  81;  Strab.  VIII.  p.  381. 

1830,  p.  38—  VTestphal.  7  Cassiodor.  Variar.  IV.  34. 


CHAP,  xxv.]    SCULPTURED  TOMB  OF  THE  MERCAEECCIA.      391 

On  the  slope  of  the  Montarozzi,  towards  the  sea,  there  are 
some  tumuli  of  great  size,  which  promise  well  to  the  excavator. 
In  this  neighbourhood  is  a  remarkable  tomb,  which,  though  now 
in  a  very  dilapidated  state,  should  not  fail  to  be  visited  by  the 
traveller.  Let  him  leave  Corneto  by  the  Civita  Vecchia  gate,  and, 
instead  of  pursuing  the  road  to  that  port,  let  him  take  a  lane  a  little 
above  it,  which  will  lead  him  through  olive-woods,  till,  at  the  dis- 
tance of  a  mile  or  more  from  the  city,  he  will  enter  a  grass-grown 
area,  inclosed  by  low  cliffs,  which  are  hollowed  into  caverns, 
some  of  vast  extent.  Among  them  is  the  tomb  in  question.  The 
spot  is  called 

LA  MERCAEECCIA, 

and  the  tomb  is  known  by  that  name,  or  is  called  Grotta  degli 
Stucchi.  Its  outer  wall  has  fallen,  so  that  the  tomb  is  quite 
exposed.  The  walls  of  the  first  chamber  have  been  covered  with 
reliefs,  now  scarcely  traceable,  save  in  a  frieze  beneath  the 
ceiling,  where  animals — apparently  wild  beasts — are  represented 
in  combat,  or  devouring  their  prey — a  frequent  subject  on 
Etruscan  vases  and  bronzes  of  archaic  character.8  Among  them 
is  the  figure  of  a  boy  distinctly  traceable,  who  seems  to  be 
struggling  Avith  a  huge  beast  like  a  hyaena.  Another  animal  on 
the  same  wall  appears  to  be  a  winged  sphinx.  The  walls  below 
the  frieze  bear  traces  of  figures  almost  as  large  as  life— men  and 
horses — now  almost  obliterated,  nothing  remaining  distinct.  It 
would  be  surprising  were  it  otherwise,  for  the  rock  is  a  friable 
tufo,  and  the  tomb,  for  the  last  sixty  or  eighty  years  at  least,  has 
been  used  as  a  cow-shed  or  sheep-fold.  The  walls  have  been 
hollowed  into  niches  for  the  lamps  of  the  herdsmen,  holes  made 
in  the  reliefs  for  their  pegs,  and  the  whole  tomb  is  blackened 
with  the  smoke  of  their  fires.  Were  it  not  for  this,  traces  of 
colour  would  doubtless  be  discernible  on  the  reliefs,  as  on  those 
of  Norchia.9 

It  is  lamentable  to  see  this,  almost  the  sole  instance  known,  of 
an  Etruscan  tomb  with  internal  sculptural  decorations,  in  such  a 
state  of  ruin.  Had  any  care  been  taken  to  preserve  it,  were  it  a 
mere  door  or  fence  to  keep  out  mischievous  intruders,  the 
sculptures  would  in  all  probability  be  still  as  fresh  as  the  reliefs 

8  This  subject  is  very  common  on  early  Xanthus,  in  the  British  Museum  ;  also  the 

Greek  works  of  art,  the  Doric  vases  to  wit  reliefs  from  Assos  in  Mysia,  in  the  Louvre, 
—and  is  also  found  on  Lycian  and  Asiatic  9  A  century  ago,  according  to  Gori,  the 

Greek   monuments.      See   Fellows'   Lycia,  cornice  or  frieze  was  red,  and  the  beams  of 

pp.  174,  176,  197;  and  the  reliefs  from  the  roof  red  and  blue. 


392  CORNETO.— THE  CEMETEUY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

on  the  sarcophagi  and  ash-chests.  How  long  it  has  been  subject 
to  neglect  on  the  one  hand,  and  wantonness  on  the  other,  is  not 
known.  There  is  no  record  of  its  discovery.1  A  century  ago, 
according  to  Byres,  the  sculptures  were  at  least  intelligible  ;  but 
even  then  the  outer  wall  had  fallen,  and  the  tomb  was  open  to  all 
intruders.3  From  the  spirit  and  freedom  evident  in  the  remains 
yet  visible,  as  well  as  from  Byres'  plates,  which  betray  too  much 
mannerism,  we  may  learn  that  these  reliefs  belong  to  a  late 
period  of  Etruscan  art — a  period  apparently  agreeing  with  that  of 
the  best  sarcophagi  and  ash-chests. 

The  ceiling  of  this  tomb  is  hewn  into  the  form  of  a  trapezium, 
with  beams  on  each  of  its  sides,  sloping  off  from  the  centre, 
which  is  occupied  by  a  square  aperture,  tapering  up  like  a  funnel 
through  the  rock  for  twenty  feet,  till  it  opens  in  a  round  hole  in 
the  surface  of  the  plain  above.  In  the  sides  of  this  chimney  or 
shaft  are  the  usual  niches  for  the  feet  and  hands.  This  can 
hardly  have  been  the  sole  entrance,  though  tombs  so  constructed 
have  been  found — some  in  this  very  necropolis,  illustrated  by 
Byres,  and  described  by  Winckelmann,  and  others  in  the  plain  of 
Ferento  already  mentioned.  A  similar  tomb  has  been  discovered 
on  the  Aventine  Hill,  the  necropolis  of  early  Rome.3  Yet  it 
seems  strange  that  a  sepulchre  so  elegantly  decorated  as  this, 
should  be  so  carefully  concealed — that  there  should  be  so  much 
"  art  to  conceal  the  art."  It  is  worthy  of  remark  that  in  its  roof 
this  tomb,  which  is  unique  in  this  respect,  represents  that  sort  of 
cavccdium,  which  Vitruvius  terms  diapluviatum,4  or  that  descrip- 

1  The  earliest  mention  of  it  is  by  Maffei  him  the  sepulchre  "  in  our  name,"  and  to 
(Osserv.  Letter.  V.  p.  311),  who  published  compel  those  who  had  abstracted  the  con- 
in  1739.  Gori  in  1743  gave  a  description  tents  to  restore  them  forthwith.  The  civic 
and  illustrations  (Mus.  Etr.  III.  p.  90,  powers,  it  appears,  were  themselves  the 
class  II.  tab.  7,  8).  culprits,  for  they  replied  that  nothing  had 

It  is  not  improbable  that  this  is  the  been  found  but  some  gold,  which  they  had 
tomb  referred  to  by  Tope  Innocent  VIII.  at  expended  on  repairing  the  fortifications, 
the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century,  in  a  letter  Bull.  Inst.  1839,  p.  t>9.  Or  this  tomb 
which  he  wrote  to  the  citizens  of  Corneto,  may  be  the  monument  which  is  described 
about  a  certain  "sepulcnnn  marmoreum  "  in  a  poem  of  even  earlier  date,  and  which 
just  then  discovered.  This  cannot  have  so  astonished  the  natives  with  its  mag- 
reference  to  a  marble  sepulchre,  such  as  nificence  as  to  be  taken  for  the  palace  of 
flanked  Roman  roads,  for  it  was  evidently  Corythus.  The  benches  around,  the  carved 
subterranean  ;  it  must  mean  a  tomb  with  ceiling,  with  its  chimney,  and  the  sculptures 
reliefs,  which  are  vulgarly  designated  on  the  walls  here  described,  all  tally  with 
"  marmi"  by  the  Italians,  just  as  we  the  description  given  in  the  poem, 
speak  of  the  "Elgin  marbles."  The  tomb  2  Byres,  Hypogaei,  part  I.  plates  5—8. 
must  have  been  highly  adorned  in  itself,  3  Bartoli,  Sepolcri  Antichi,  tav.  L.  It 
and  rich  in  furniture  ;  for  the  Holy  Father  was  discovered  in  1692. 
sent  "a  beloved  son"  to  Corneto  expressly  4  Vitruv.  VI.  3.  No  specimen  of  such  a 
to  see  it,  charging  the  authorities  to  show  carcedium  is,  I  believe,  extant,  but  a 


CHAP,  xxv.]  MYSTEEIOUS   CAVEEXS.  393 

tion  of  court,  the  roof  of  which  slopes  from  within,  so  as  to  carry 
the  rain  outwards,  instead  of  conveying  it  into  the  impluvium  or 
tank  in  the  centre  of  the  atrium.  It  may  be,  however,  that  this 
opening  represents — what  it  more  strictly  resembles — a  chimne}7 ; 
for  we  know  it  was  the  practice  of  the  Greeks  of  old  to  have  a 
vent  for  the  smoke  in  the  centre  of  their  apartments.5 

A  steep  passage  cut  in  the  floor  of  the  tomb  leads  down  to  an 
inner  chamber,  the  roof  of  which  is  level  with  the  floor  of  the 
first.  Byres  represents  a  procession  painted  on  its  inner  wall — 
a  number  of  souls,  one  of  whom  seems  of  princely  or  magisterial 
dignity,  conducted  by  winged  genii ;  but  hardly  a  trace  of 
colour  now  remains,  and  no  forms  are  distinguishable.0  It  is  a 
fair  inference,  however,  that  a  tomb  so  richly  decorated  with 
sculpture  and  painting  was  not  of  the  commune  vulgus,  but 
the  last  resting-place  of  some  Lucumo,  or  prince  of  Etruria.7 

In  the  cliffs  which  surround  the  Mercareccia  are  the  mouths  of 
several  caverns,  which  seem  to  have  been  tombs,  subsequently 
enlarged  into  "antres  vast."  But  between  this  and  Corneto  are 
others  cf  much  larger  size.  One  day  I  joined  a  party  on  an  ex- 
ploring expedition  to  them.  We  went  provided  with  torches,  for 
without  them  it  were  dangerous,  as  well  as  useless,  to  penetrate 
tliese  <.  Grof;S  an(j  caverns,  shagged  with  horrid  shades." 

The  mouths  of  the  caves  are  generally  low  and  shapeless,  afford- 
ing no  index  to  the  extent  and  character  of  the  interiors,  which 
stretch  far  into  the  bowels  of  the  earth,  sometimes  in  galleries  or 
passages,  sometimes  in  spacious  halls,  whose  lofty  ceilings  are 
sustained  by  enormous  pillars  hewn  out  of  the  rock,  presenting  a 
rude  analogy  to  the  subterranean  temples  of  Egypt  and  Hindostan. 
Their  artificial  character  is  manifest ;  but  whether  they  are 

painting  of  it  may  be  seen  on  the  walls  of  the  materials  he  published.     According  to 

the  Casa  de'  Capitelli  Dipinti,  and  also  of  his  account,  the  beams  of  the  outer  chamber 

the  Casa  <le"  Dioscuri,  at  Pompeii.  were   painted    red    and    blue  —  "a    very 

5  Orph.  Hymn.  LXXXIII.  2;  cf.  Herod.  pleasant    effect."      The   cornice  also  was 
VIII.  137  ;  though  Becker  (Charicles,  Exc.  painted,  as  well  as  some  of  the  reliefs.  The 
I.  Sc.  III.)  cannot  understand  the  Ka.irvoS6%T]  inner  wall   of    the  second    chamber   was 
here  as  a  regular  chimney.  painted    almost   as    Byres    represents    it, 

6  As  regards  the  relation  of  the  inner  to  though  each  figure  had  its  name  in  Etrus- 
the  outer  chamber,  this  tomb  is  not  unique.  can  letters  ;  but  the  other  walls  also  had 
The  tapestried   sepulchre,    represented  by  figures  of  men  alternating  with  trees,  as  in 
Lyres,    and   now   lost   sight  of,    was  con-  many  of  the  tombs  of  Corneto.     The  men 
structed  on  the  same  plan,  as  is  also  the  were  all  naked,  save  a  light  chlamys  or 
singular  "Tomb  of  the  Tarquins  "  at  Csere.  scarf,  and  some  had  birds  in  their  hands, 

7  This  tomb  was  described  and  drawn  by  one  a  lyre,  and  one  was  watering  a  tree 
the  Padre  Forlivesi,  to  whom  Gori  (Mus.  from   a  vase.      Tliese   seem  to   have   dis- 
Et.  III.  p.  90)  owns  himself  indebted  for  appeared  before  Byres'  time. 


394  COENETO.— THE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

natural  caverns,  subsequently  fashioned  by  man,  or  are  wholly 
artificial,  it  is  difficult  to  say.  There  is  not  enough  regularity  to 
evince  plan,  nor  anything  to  indicate  a  definite  object  in  the  con- 
struction, so  that  I  am  inclined  to  agree  with  the  popular  belief, 
which  regards  them  as  quarries,  opened  for  the  building  of 
Corneto.  Nevertheless,  when  we  remember  what  burrowers 
were  the  ancient  Etruscans,  the  extent,  number,  and  variety  of 
their  subterranean  works,  we  cannot  despise  the  opinion,  held  by 
some,  that  these  caverns  are  of  very  early  date,  and  associated 
with  Etruscan  times  and  rites.8 


APPENDIX    TO    CHAPTER    XXV. 

NOTE  I. — CHAP-LETS  ix  ETRUSCAN  TOMBS. 

THE  frequent  occurrence  of  chaplets  depicted  on  the  walls  of  these  tombs 
cannot  fail  to  arouse  inquiry  as  to  their  signification.  If  these  sepulchral 
paintings  be  nothing  more  than  representations  of  actual  feasts,  the  presence 
of  chaplets  is  sufficiently  explained  by  the  well-known  custom  of  the 
ancients  of  wearing  crowns  and  garlands  at  banquets  and  other  festive 
occasions.  By  both  Greeks  and  lioinans  they  were  assumed  after  the  meal 
and  before  the  drinking-bout  which  followed  ;  wherefore  to  wear  a  garland 
was  equivalent  to  being  in  cups  (Plant.  Amphit.  act  III.  sc.  4.  1C).  By  the 
Greeks  they  were  generally  composed  of  myrtle-twigs,  as  in  the  Grotta 
Querciola  and  other  tombs  of  Tarquinii,  or  of  ivy,  both  of  which  were 
deemed  an  antidote  to  the  effects  of  wine  (Plato,  Sympos.  37.  Plutarch. 
Sympos.  III.  q.  1,  2.  Athen.  XV.  17,  18)  ;  or  of  poplar  (Theocrit.  Idyl.  II. 
1*21)  ; — sometimes  bound  with  ribbons,  and  with  flowers,  roses  or  violets, 
interwoven.  Hence  Athens  derived  her  epithet  of  "  violet-crowned," 
(lo<TTf<pavoi'A.6fjvai — Aristoph.  Equit.  1323;  Acharn.  G38).  The  Greeks  made 
them  likewise  of  wool,  for  crowns  of  victor}'  (Pind.  Isth.  V.  79).  The 
Romans  also  made  chaplets  of  the  same  simple  materials — Nature's  best 
ornaments — sometimes  fastening  flowers  to  strips  of  bast  (nexae  philyra. 
coronte— Hor.  Od.  I.  38,  2.  Ovid.  Fast.  V.  335 — 337)  ;  and  likewise  of 
wool  bound  round  with  ribbons,  which  was  the  most  ancient  material 
(Fcstus  v.  Lemnisci).  That  the  Etruscans  also  wore  woollen  chaplets  is 
shown  by  the  sarcophagi  and  urns  which  bear  the  effigy  of  the  deceased 
reclining  on  the  festive-couch,  for  such  seems  to  be  the  texture  represented, 
and  that  flowers  were  bound  into  them  by  ribbons — lemnisci — is  proved  by 
many  of  the  same  monuments,  especially  those  of  terra-cotta.  Of  similar 
materials  seem  to  be  the  chaplets  depicted  in  these  tombs,  which  often  show 
a  ribbon  twisted  round  them,  the  red  or  white  spots  in  them  probably 
representing  flowers,  or  it  may  be  gems.  Of  the  same  description  are  the 
longer  garlands  worn  by  the  Etruscan  sepulchral  statues  on  the  breast, 

8  Urlichs  (Bull.  Instit.  1839,  p.  67)  con-  Chapter  XIV.  p.  161.     But  those  quarries 

siders  these   caverns  to   be   the  quarries  are  expressly  stated  to  be  near  the  lake  of 

mentioned  by  Vitmvius  and  Pliuy,  under  Volsinii. 
the   name   of   Lapidicinae   Anitianae.     See 


CHAP,  xxv.]         CHAPLETS    IX    ETRUSCAN   TOMBS.  395 

equivalent  to  the  virodvuulSfs  of  the  Greeks  (Plut.  Symp.  III.  loc.  cit. ;  Athen. 
XV.  16,  22),  and  the  breast-garlands  of  the  Romans  (Ovid.  Fast.  II.  739  ; 
Tibul.  I.  7,  52  ;  Hor.  Sat.  II.  3,  250).  It  may  be  observed  that  in  the 
earlier  tombs,  garlands  of  leaves  are  never  represented,  but  always  chaplets 
of  wool.  On  Greek  vases  the  heads  of  banqueters  of  both  sexes  are  some- 
times represented  bound  with  fillets — Taivlai,  vittie — the  long  ends  of  which 
hang  down  behind  (Mon.  Ined.  Inst.  III.  tav.  XII.),  but  in  Etruscan  scenes 
the  males  are  never  so  represented.  The  Etruscans  on  triumphal  or  other 
solemn  occasions  wore  chaplets  of  pure  gold  in  the  form  of  leaves,  sometimes 
set  with  gems,  and  terminating  in  ribbons  of  the  same  metal  (Plin.  XXI.  4, 
XXXIII.  4  ;  Appian.  de  Keb.  Punic.  LXVI.  ;  Tertul.  de  Corona  Milit.  XIII.), 
nearly  such  as  are  found  in  their  tombs.  But  the  Romans  in  the  height  of 
their  luxury  used  golden  chaplets  at  their  entertainments,  as  well  as  on 
occasions  of  great  pomp  or  solemnity.  On  a  few  of  the  latest  Etruscan 
monuments  these  ornaments  are  gilt,  but  in  the  generality,  which  belong  to 
earlier  times  and  more  simple  manners,  the  chaplets  represent  wool  or  other 
primitive  materials. 

With  woollen  wreaths,  also,  the  ancients  adorned  their  wine-vessels, 
especially  those  for  mixing — krateres,  kelelce — (Theoc.  Idyl.  II.  2),  and, 
perhaps,  also  crowned  them  with  flowers  (Virg.  Mn.  I.  724 ;  Serv.  ad  locum  ; 
III.  525  ;  VII.  147)  ;  though  some  think  these  and  similar  passages  in 
Homer  mean  only  "  filling  to  the  brim."  In  reference  to  this  custom  we  are 
said  metapnorically  to — 

"  Wreathe  the  bowl 
With  flowers  of  soul." 

An  analogy  to  this  may  be  observed  in  the  Camera  del  Morto  of 
Tarquinii,  where  the  Crater-like  vase  between  the  dancers  is  decorated  with 
chaplets. 

But  the  chaplets  in  these  tombs  may  be  more  than  festive — they  may 
have  a  sacred  and  funereal  import.  If  so,  they  have  an  analogy  to  the 
in/idee  of  the  Romans,  which  were  used  at  solemn  rites  and  festivals, 
suspended  on  the  statues  of  gods,  on  altars,  in  temples  or  at  their  doors,  on 
the  victims  to  be  sacrificed,  or  were  worn  by  priests  about  their  brows — or 
were  used  as  symbols  of  supplication.  For  authorities,  see  Smith's  Dictionary 
of  Antiquities,  v.  I»fula,  Vitta  ;  to  which  may  be  added  Varro,  de  Ling. 
Lat.  VII.  24,  and  Frontin.  Strat.  I.  12,  5,  who  are  the  only  ancient  writers 
that  mention  infulcc  in  connection  with  sepulchres.  But  the  frent'ee,  which 
were  analogous,  are  mentioned  in  such  a  connexion  by  C;ecilius  (ap.  Festum, 
s.  voce),  who  speaks  of  "  a  tomb  full  of  them,  as  usual."  Pliny  (XXI.  8) 
says  that  "  crowns  Avere  used  in  honour  of  the  gods,  of  the  Lares  public  and 
private,  of  sepulchres,  and  of  the  Manes "  (cf .  Ovid.  Fast.  II.  537  ;  Trist. 
III.  3,  82  ;  Tibul.  II.  4,  48)  ;  they  were  also  offered  to  the  Lares  (Plaut. 
Aulul.  prol.  25,  and  II.  7,  15  :  Tibul.  I.  10,  22  ;  Juven.  IX.  138),  whose 
images  were  even  decorated  with  them  (Tibul.  II.  1,  GO  ;  Fest.  v.  Donaticse). 
The  Greeks  crowned  the  funeral  urns  of  their  friends  (Plut.  Demetr.  ad  fin.). 
Philopoemen's  urn  was  so  covered  with  chaplets  as  scarcely  to  be  visible 
(Plut.  Philop.  ad  fin.)  ;  Hannibal  crowned  the  urn  of  Marcellus  (Plut.  Marc, 
ad  fin.)  ;  and  on  ancient  vases,  funeral  stelce  are  often  represented  hung 
with  chaplets  or  bound  with  fillets  (Stackelberg,  Graeber  der  Hellenen,  taf. 
XLV.  XLVI.  ;  Millingen,  Vases  Grecs,  collect.  Coghill,  pi.  XXVI. ;  Inghir. 
Mon.  Etr.  VI.  tav.  L.  5).  Even  the  dead  themselves  were  sometimes  crowned 


396  CORNETO.— THE  CEMETEKY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

(Knrip.  Troad.  1143;  Aristoph.  Eccles.  538;  Lysist.  602 — 4;  Cicero  pro 
Fine.  31  ;  Tertul.  de  Coron.  X.  ;  Clem.  Alex.  Psedag.  II.  p.  181),  especially 
when  they  had  acquired  in  their  lifetime  a  crown  as  a  distinction  (Cicero  de 
Leg.  II.  24  ;  Plin.  XXI.  5).  Clemens  of  Alexandria  explains  this  custom  of 
crowning  the  dead,  by  the  crown  being  a  symbol  of  freedom  and  delivery 
from  every  annoyance.  Claudian  (Rapt.  Proserp.  II.  326,  et  seq.)  represents 
the  Manes  themselves  feasting  at  a  banquet,  and  decorated  with  crowns. 

As  there  is  abundant  evidence  that  crowns  and  chaplets  were  used  by  the 
ancients  as  sepulchral  furniture,  it  is  highly  probable  that  those  depicted  in 
these  tombs,  though  primarily  festive,  had  at  the  same  time  a  sacred  import 
— which  is  strongly  intimated  in  the  Grotta  del  Iscrizioni,  where  they  are 
worn  and  carried  by  priests  and  musicians  in  a  Bacchic  procession.  The 
only  hues  of  which  such  chaplets  seem  to  have  been  made,  are  white,  purple 
or  red,  and  blue,  in  which  case  they  were  sacred  to  the  Manes,  and  veiy 
rarely  black. 

For  the  use  of  festive  chaplets  among  the  Greeks,  see  the  Fifteenth  Book 
of  Athenaeus'  Deipnosophista?,  which  is  devoted  to  this  subject ;  and  for  the 
use  of  chaplets  by  the  Romans,  see  Plin.  Nat.  Hist.  XXI.  1 — 10. 

An  erudite  article  on  the  tcenice  represented  on  ancient  vases,  and  their 
various  applications  and  significations,  will  be  found  in  the  Ann.  Inst.  1832, 
p.  380,  et  seq.,  from  the  pen  of  Professor  Welcker.  See  also  Becker's  Gallus. 
Sc.  X.  excurs.  2. 

NOTE  II. — GROTTA  DELLA  SCROFA  NERA  (see  p.  377), 

or  "  Tomb  of  the  Black  Sow."  This  tomb  had  no  passage  cleared  down  to 
its  doorway  ;  but  among  the  half  destroyed  tumuli  of  the  Montarozzi  was  a 
pit,  six  or  eight  feet  deep,  overgrown  by  lentiscus  ;  and  at  the  bottom  was 
a  hole,  barely  large  enough  for  a  man  to  squeeze  himself  through.  Having 
wormed  my  way  through  this  aperture,  I  found  myself  in  a  dark,  damp 
chamber,  half-choked  with  the  deln-is  of  the  walls  and  ceiling.1  Yet  the 
walls  had  not  wholly  fallen  in,  for  when  my  eyes  were  accustomed  to  the 
gloom,  I  perceived  them  to  be  painted,  and  the  taper's  light  disclosed  on  the 
inner  wall  a  banquet  in  the  open  air,  for  the  ivy  which  forms  a  cornice  round 
the  chamber  is  depicted  springing  from  the  ground  in  one  corner.  The 
painting  is  so  much  injured  that  some  of  the  figures  are  almost  obliterated. 
I  made  out,  however,  three  separate  lecti  on  this  wall,  each  with  a  pair  of 
figures  ;  one  only  of  whom,  on  the  central  couch,  is  a  woman,  distinguished 
by  her  white  flesh  ;  the  rest  are  males.  From  the  absence  of  other  women, 
and  of  the  tables,  the  usual  concomitants  of  the  banquet,  this  seems  to  be 
rather  a  symposium  or  drinking-bout,  than  a  regular  cleipnon.  This  view  is 
corroborated  by  another  feature  :  in  front  of  the  couches,  besides  the  usual 
male  attendant,  bare  from  the  waist  upwards,  stands  a  woman  playing  the 
lyre,  her  lower  limbs  wrapped  in  blue  richly  bordered  robes,  but  her  shoulders 
and  bosom  bare.  Her  foot  rests  on  a  low  tripod  stool.  This  is  the  only  in- 
stance I  remember  of  a  semi-nude  female  introduced  into  the  mural  paintings 
of  Etruria.  Beneath  the  couch  stand  some  domestic  fowl  ;  and  one  of  the 

1  This  tomb  is  14  ft.  6  in.  long,  by  11  rafters  indicated  with  red  paint.  The 
ft.  6  in.  wide.  It  has  the  broad  beam  of  figures  on  the  walls  are  about  3  ft.  6  in. 
the  ceiling  painted  with  red  circles,  and  the  high. 


CHAP,  xxv.]  GEOTTA    BELLA   SCEOFA   NEEA.  397 

pigeons  presents  an  instance  of  that  curious  foreshortening  of  animals, 
which  is  not  uncommon  on  black-figured  vases,  but  is  rarely  to  be  seen  in 
the  painted  tombs  of  Etruria.  Of  the  eight  figures  in  this  scene  only  two 
retain  their  heads  ;  but  these  enable  us  to  judge  of  the  character  and  expres- 
sion of  the  painting  in  its  original  state.  The  drapery  of  the  couches  is  par- 
ticularly worthy  of  notice,  being  marked  with  stripes  of  different  colours 
crossing  each  other,  as  in  the  Highland  plaid ;  and  those  learned  in  tartanology 
may  possibly  pronounce  which  of  the  Macs  has  the  strongest  claim  to  an 
Etruscan  origin. 

The  banquet  was  continued  on  the  wall  to  the  left,  but  there  it  is  now 
almost  obliterated.  It  was  continued  also  on  the  wall  to  the  right,  by  another 
couch  with  two  male  figures,  each  raising  aloft  a  kylix  he  has  just  emptied  ; 
and  both,  as  well  as  the  other  revellers  whom  Time  has  not  beheaded,  having 
their  brows  bound  with  blue  wreaths  of  myrtle.  They  are  attended  by  two 
servants,  one  of  whom  is  bringing  a  fresh  supply  of  wine.  The  scene  seems 
to  have  terminated  on  this  wall  in  a  hunt,  probably  of  the  wild  boar,  in  all 
ages  the  favourite  sport  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  Etruscan  Maremma.  No 
such  beast  is  visible  in  the  present  dilapidated  state  of  the  wall,  but  there  is 
a  man  in  a  grove  of  trees  hurling  his  long  lance,  and  having  his  chlamys 
wound  round  his  left  arm  for  a  shield,  as  the  Highlander  uses  his  plaid,  and 
the  Spaniard  his  manta. 

The  same  sport  is  represented  in  the  pediment  above  the  banquet,  where 
an  enormous  sow,  not  such  as  met  the  eyes  of  ^Eneas  on  the  wooded  shore, 
with  thirty  .ittle  ones  as  white  as  herself,  but  black  as  night,  with  crimson 
dugs  and  mane,  is  attacked  in  front  by  a  huntsman  with  knotted  lance,  and 
from  behind  by  several  dogs,  which  another  huntsman  is  setting  upon  her.2 

In  this  tomb  there  is  nothing  Egyptian  or  archaic  in  the  countenances,  or 
the  forms,  as  in  the  neighbouring  Grotta  del  Barone.  The  features  here  are 
Greek,  though  with  much  of  an  Etruscan  character.  The  eyes  are  in  profile, 
and  not  in  full,  as  in  the  earlier  tombs.  There  is  an  absence  of  rigidity,  a 
freedom,  and  correctness  of  design,  which  show  an  advanced  state  of  the  art, 
and  which  cannot  belong  to  a  very  remote  age.  This  is  particularly  visible 
in  the  limbs  of  the  man  attacking  the  sow,  which  display,  not  merely  in  out- 
line, but  in  the  modelling  of  the  muscles,  no  small  acquaintance  with 
anatomical  design.  This  tomb,  then,  must  be  classed  among  those  of  more 
recent  date,  such  as  the  Bighe  and  the  Querciola — yet  considerably  earlier 
than  the  Cardinal  and  the  Typhon.  It  belongs  to  the  latter  part  of  the 
second  period,  when  Etruscan  art  had  not  wholly  lost  its  archaicism  and  dis 
tinctive  features,  but  was  acquiring  a  more  full  development  under  Hellenic 
influence. 

The  site  of  this  tomb  is  not  known  even  to  the  custode,  and  I  fear  it  will 
now  be  vain  to  seek  it  among  the  countless  mounds  and  pitfalls  which  chequer 
the  surface  of  the  Montarozzi.  I  know  not  why  it  was  not  furnished  with  a 
door  at  the  time  of  its  discovery.  It  can  hardly  be  on  account  of  the  some- 
•what  obscene  character  of  one  of  the  figures,  or  the  same  cause  should  render 
two  other  of  these  painted  sepulchres  unfit  for  eyes  polite.3 

2  This  may  perhaps   represent  Theseus  at  the  brute.     The  same  subject  was  repre- 

and  the  Sow  of  Crouimyon,   a  not  unfre-  sented    on    one  of  the   sarcophagi   in    the 

quent  subject  on  the  painted  vases,  where  Grotta   Dipinta,   Bomarzo,   and  a  cone  of 

-the   hero,    however,    is   sometimes    armed  metal,  8  Ibs.  in  weight,  was  found  within 

with  neither  sword  nor  shield,  but  with  a  the  tomb, 
conical  mass  of  stone,  which  lie  is  hurling  3  Hound  this  tomb,  as  round  many  others 


398  CORNETO.— THE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 


NOTE  III. — LOST  TOMBS  DELINEATED  BY  BYRES.     Sec  p.  385. 

ONE  of  the  painted  tombs  illustrated  by  Byres  (part  L,  plates  2,  3,  4)  was 
unique  in  character.  It  was  somewhat  on  the  plan  of  the  Grotta  Tifone, 
surrounded  by  a  double  tier  of  rock-benches,  having  a  massive  square  pillar 
in  the  centre,  and  divided  by  a  partition-wall  of  rock,  into  two  chambers. 
The  dimensions  of  the  entire  tomb  were  not  less  than  59  feet  by  53  ft.  6  in., 
which  surpass  even  those  of  the  Grotta  Cardinale  ;  so  that  this  was  the 
largest  sepulchre  yet  discovered  in  this  necropolis.  The  interior  chamber 
was  surrounded  by  a  double  border  of  vine-leaves  above,  and  of  the  wave- 
pattern  below.  In  one  pediment  was  painted  a  rabbit  between  two  triple- 
headed  serpents  ;  and  on  the  wall  below  was  a  long  inscription  in  four  lines 
of  Etruscan  characters,  scarcely  legible  in  Byres'  plate,  which,  fortunately, 
is  not  the  only  record  of  it  in  existence."1  The  pillar,  like  that  in  the  Grotta 
Tifone,  had  a  colossal  figure,  ten  feet  high,  painted  on  at  least  two  of  its 
sides.  One  was  a  young  man,  naked,  save  a  cloth  about  his  loins,  holding  a 
bough.  His  full  face,  foreshortened  limbs,  and  correctly  drawn  figure, 
prove  a  late  date — certainly  not  earlier  than  the  days  of  Roman  domination 
in  Etruria.  The  other  figure  was  that  of  a  winged  genius  in  the  act  of 
running.  He  was  bearded,  and  draped  with  a  short  tunic  worn  over  a 
longer  one  reaching  to  his  feet  ;  his  brow  was  bound  with  snakes,  a  pair  of 
the  same  reptiles  formed  his  girdle,  and  he  brandished  a  third  with  one 
hand,  and  held  a  rod  in  the  other. 

Another  tomb  represented  by  Byres  (part  IV.,  plates  1,  2,  3)  displayed 
two  figures  of  opposite  sexes,  one  on  each  side  a  moulded  doorway  contain- 
ing a  niche,  and  each  holding  a  pair  of  snakes,  which  the  man  controls  with 
a  wand,  the  woman  with  an  olive  branch.  The  walls  of  this  tomb  were 
painted  with  an  imitation  of  tapestry,  fastened  up  by  nails,  hanging  in  folds, 
and  terminating  below  in  a  vine-leaf  border. 

A  third  painted  tomb  given  by  Byres  (part  IV.,  plates  4 — 8)  was  adorned 
with  banqueting-scenes.  On  each  side-wall  were  two  couches,  each  bearing 
a  pair,  of  opposite  sexes.  One  of  the  fair  ones  wore  a  Phrygian  cap,  and, 
turning  round  to  her  mate,  seemed  to  be  pressing  him  to  drink  ;  another 
was  quaffing  wine  from  a  rhyton,  and  her  companion  from  a  phiale  ;  the 
third  was  chatting  about  a  fillet,  which  her  fellow  was  about  to  bind  on  her ; 
and  in  the  fourth  scene,  the  man  had  a  lute,  and  the  woman  held  up  to  his 

in  Etruscan  cemeteries,   may  be  observed  inscription  of  four  lines  (class  II.  tab.  VII. 

nails,    much   rusted,    on  which  articles  of  3),  and  vouches  for  its  correctness,    as  it 

l>ottery  or  bronze  were  suspended   against  was  carefully  copied  a  few  days  after  the 

the  walls.     Land  (II.  p.  267)  and  Inghi-  tomb  was  opened.     Gori  says  it  is  in  the 

rami  (IV*.  p.    112)  thought  they  originally  Montarozzi,  four  miles  from  Corneto.     He 

supported  aidna.     But  though  the  Etrus-  gives  a  second  inscription  of  two  lines  on 

cans  probably  decorated  their  apartments  the    opposite   wall.       (Cf.    Inghir.    Mon. 

with  such  hangings,  their  funeral  feasts  are  Etrus.  IV.  tav.  19.)     The  first  begins  with 

generally  represented  as —  the    name   of    "  llamtha   Matulnei" — the 

c<n  „  i    •  second  with  "  Larth.   Ceisiuis."     A  lady  of 

Ca'na1  sine  uuhcis —  .,  .     ,      .,       „  .       .  ,.        ,•'. 

this   family,    Ciesenma,    is   mentioned    by 

perhaps  because  they  were  held  in  the  open  Cicero  (pro  Caecina,  IV.)  as  being  of  Tar- 
air.  In  one  tomb  only,  the  Grotta  del  quiuii  and  the  wife  of  his  client  Caecina. 
Letto  Funebre,  are  curtains  painted  on  the  The  name  of  "Ceises"  also  occurs  on  a 
wall  over  the  funeral  banquet.  tomb  at  Castel  d'  Asso  (see  page  186), 
4  Tliis  is  clearly  the  same  tomb  described  which  is  worthy  of  notice,  as  Ceesennia  had 
by  Maffci  (Osserv.  Letter.  V.  p.  310)  and  an  estate  at  Castellum  Axia. 
Gori  (Mus.  Etrus.  III.  p.  89),  who  gives  an 


CHAP,  xxv.]     PAINTED    TOMBS    LOST    OR    EECLOSED.  399 

view  a  drawing  of  a  boar-hunt,  which  she  had  just  unrolled.  This  was  a 
remarkable  scene — quite  unique.  At  one  end  of  each  couch  was  a  slave — 
a  boy  by  the  man,  a  girl  by  the  woman — bringing  wine-jugs  or  chaplets  ; 
and  on  the  inner  wall  were  other  slaves  at  a  sideboard,  or  tending  a 
candelabrum,  burning  among  the  trees.  In  spite  of  the  mannerism  of  the 
artist,  there  was  a  more  archaic  character  about  the  paintings  in  this  tomb, 
than  in  any  other  he  has  illustrated. 

Inghirami  (Mon.  Etrus.  IV.  tav.  29,  30,  31)  gives  some  interesting 
coloured  friezes  and  architectural  decorations  from  certain  lost  tombs  of 
Tarquinii,  which  attest  their  origin  by  Etruscan  inscriptions. 

NOTE  IV. — PAINTED  TOMBS,  OPENED  OF  LATE,  AND  RECLOSED.    See  p.  38G. 

Of  the  Grotta  Bruschi,  already  mentioned,  a  description  will  be  given  in 
the  next  chapter,  when  I  treat  of  the  Museo  Bruschi,  where  fragments  of 
its  paintings  are  preserved. 

Other  painted  tombs,  discovered  many  years  since,  but  immediately  filled 
with  earth,  have  been  re-opened  within  the  last  three  or  four  years  by  Signori 
Rosa  and  Brizio,  on  behalf  of  the  Government,  and  the  latter  gentleman 
has  preserved  records  of  the  subjects  depicted  on  their  walls,  from  which  I 
have  gathered  the  following  brief  notices.  The  tombs  were  in  so  ruinous  a 
condition,  that  they  were  re-closed  almost  immediately. 

I. — A  tomb  of  very  small  size,  and  simple  decorations,  at  the  extremity  of 
the  Montarozzi,  about  three  and  a  half  miles  from  Corneto.  On  each  side  of 
the  door  was  depicted  a  pugilist  in  the  attitude  of  boxing,  and  in  the  pedi- 
ment above,  a  pair  of  panthers.  In  the  opposite  pediment  were  two  lions, 
devouring  stags.  Of  the  other  figures  three  only  remained  distinguishable- 
Two  were  dancers,  the  man  girt  round  the  loins  with  a  red  chlamys;  the- 
woman,  wearing  a  light  vest,  with  a  red  chlamys  also  about  her  hips,  and 
adorned  with  disk-earrings  and  snake-bracelets  ;  she  was  dancing  with  lively 
steps  to  the  rattle  of  her  own  castanets,  and  to  the  music  of  a  lyre,  played 
by  a  citharmdus  on  the  adjoining  wall.  The  style  was  archaic,  very  similar 
to  that  of  the  Grotta  del  Vecchio  and  Grotta  de'  Vasi  Dipinti,  and  the  paint- 
ings evidently  belonged  to  the  same  early  period  of  Etruscan  art.  Bull. 
Inst.  1873,  pp.  194-6. 

II. — A  tomb  about  thirty  paces  from  the  Grotta  del  Moribondo,  having  a 
false  door  on  its  inner  wall,  painted  to  resemble  bronze.  Here  three  figures- 
only  were  extant.  On  each  side  of  the  said  door  was  a  citharcedus  crowned 
with  laurel,  playing  a  heptachord  lyre,  and  dressed  in  tunic,  mantle,  and 
sharp-toed  boots.  The  mantles  had  a  tricolour  border,  red,  white,  and  green. 
A  man  naked,  save  a  chlamys  about  his  loins,  was  dancing  to  their  music. 
These  figures  were  all  stunted,  their  limbs  thick  and  clumsy,  very  unlike  the 
slender  and  graceful  forms  usually  depicted  on  the  walls  of  Etruscan  tombs. 
The  art  here  had  not  much  of  an  archaic  character,  and  bore  considerable 
resemblance  in  some  respects  to  that  in  the  Grotta  del  Citaredo.  Bull.  Inst. 
1873,  pp.  200-4. 

III. — Another  tomb  in  the  slope  opposite  Tarquinii,  about  two  miles  from 
Corneto.  The  colours  had  here  faded  to  a  great  extent,  so  that  the  figures,, 
which  represented  the  usual  games  and  dances,  were  but  dimly  visible.  The 
best  preserved  was  that  of  a  saltatrix,  described  as  truly  beautiful,  her  long 
black  hair  falling  on  her  shoulders,  and  her  attitude  full  of  spirit  and  anima- 
tion. Then  there  were  dancers  of  the  male  sex  ;  one  nourishing  a  goblet ; 


400  CORNETO.— THE  CEMETERY.  [CHAP.  xxv. 

another  with  a  buckler  on  his  arm  ;  a  third  naked,  dancing  the  Pyrrhic  dance, 
with  helmet,  spear,  and  shield  ;  two  pugilists  contending  ;  and  two  musicians 
with  the  double-pipes.  These  paintings  showefl  a  stage  of  development  in 
which  art,  freeing  itself  from  archaic  trammels,  was  assuming  a  broad  and 
grandiose  style,  as  in  the  Grotta  (Juerciola,  and  Grotta  Francesca.  Bull.  lust. 
1874,  pp.  9y-102. 

IV. — Near  the  last  was  another  tomb,  which  from  the  inscriptions  on  its 
walls,  seems  to  have  belonged  to  the  family  of  "  Ei/.enes."  Here  a  soul  w^as 
depicted  between  two  demons,  each  bearing  a  hammer  in  one  hand,  and  a 
snake  in  the  other,  with  which  he  was  threatening  his  victim.  The  design 
was  coarse,  vulgar,  and  conventional  ;  showing  the  hand  of  an  artisan, 
rather  than  that  of  an  artist.  Bull.  Inst.  1874,  pp.  102-4. 

Other  painted  tombs,  referred  to  at  p.  305,  are  of  even  more  recent  discovery. 
They  have  neither  been  described,  nor  illustrated,  and  as  I  found  them  in 
June,  187G,  temporarily  re-closed,  I  am  indebted  for  the  following  brief 
notices  to  the  intelligent  observation  of  Antonio  Frangioni,  the  cicerone. 
These  tombs  all  lie  close  to  the  road,  and  in  the  near  neighbourhood  of  the 
Grotta  Triclinio.  One,  which  was  opened  on  13th  November,  1874,  displays 
a  banquet,  or  rather  i-i/i^wsium,  for  on  each  side-wall  four  men  are  reclining 
in  pairs,  under  green  coverlets,  the  couches  being  separated  by  red  columns 
— a  novel  feature.  On  the  wall  facing  the  entrance  stands  a  large  wine-jar, 
in  the  midst  of  a  group  of  dancers  of  both  sexes,  one  of  whom  plays  the 
lyre,  another  the  double-pipes.  In  the  pediment  above  them  are  two  large 
lionesses,  from  which  Antonio  designates  the  tomb.  From  his  description  I 
gather  that  the  art  here  displayed  is  of  archaic  character  and  date. 

Very  near  the  last  is  a  tomb,  opened  5th  April,  1875,  which,  from  the 
description  Antonio  gives,  must  be  well  worth}7  of  preservation.  It  contains 
some  eighteen  or  twenty  figures,  arranged  almost  precisely  as  in  the  neigh- 
bouring Grotta  del  Triclinio,  and  as  the  style  of  art,  so  far  I  can  learn,  and 
the  decorations  of  the  tomb  are  also  similar,  there  is  a  great  probability  that 
the  paintings  are  by  the  same  hand.  On  the  wall  facing  the  doorway  are 
three  pairs,  of  opposite  sexes,  reclining  at  a  banquet,  waited  on  by  two  naked 
boys.  In  the  pediment  above  this  scene  are  two  panthers  painted  to  the 
life.  On  each  side-wall  are  five  dancers,  male  and  female  alternating, 
separated  by  trees.  One  of  them  holds  a  cup  and  a  wine-jug,  and  another 
plays  the  double-pipes.  All  the  figures  are  said  to  be  of  beautiful  design, 
and,  with  the  exception  of  three  dancers,  in  excellent  preservation.  Copies 
liave  already  been  made  for  the  Archaeological  Institute  of  Koine. 

Another  tomb,  adjoining  that  of  the  Triclinio,  was  opened  7th  April,  1875. 
On  the  inner  wall  a  pair  of  figures  are  reclining  on  a  banqueting-couch,  the 
woman  wearing  a  tuiulus,  and  both  betraying  a  close  analogy  to  the 
pair  in  the  Grotta  del  Vecchio.  On  one  side-wall  a  single  figure  only,  that 
of  a  sulmlo,  is  extant  ;  but  the  wall  opposite  shows  three  men  dancing,  one 
with  a  lyre,  and  all  bearing  a  strong  resemblance  to  the  group  of  bacchanals 
in  the  Grotta  delle  Iscrizioni.  From  Antonio's  description  I  gather  that  the 
ail  here  is  quite  archaic,  and  that  this  tomb  is  to  be  classed  among  the 
earliest  in  the  necropolis  of  Tarquinii. 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  these  three  tombs  will  soon  be  fitted  with  doors, 
and  placed  under  Antonio's  protection. 


BRONZE    DISK,    WITH    THE    HEAD    OF    THE    HORNED    BACCHUS. 


CHAPTER    XXVI. 

COKXETO-TARQUINIA.— THE  MUSEUMS. 
"Remnants  of  things  that  have  passed  away." — BrRON. 

BY  royal  decree  of  10  September,  1872,  the  town  of  Corneto 
assumed  the  above  as  her  legal  appellation. 

The  Municipality  for  50  years  past  has  permitted  private 
speculators  to  excavate  in  the  Montarozzi.  The  art-treasures 
thus  brought  to  light  were  dispersed  to  all  parts  of  Italy  and 
Europe,  while  the  spot  that  yielded  them  had  nothing  to  show. 
Corneto  has  at  length  the  good  fortune  to  possess  an  enlightened 
and  patriotic  chief  in  its  present  Sindaco,  Signor  Luigi  Dasti, 
who,  determining  to  secure  for  his  native  town  whatever  monu- 
ments of  value  and  interest  may  illustrate  its  ancient  history,  has 
not  only  put  a  stop  to  all  private  enterprise  in  the  Montarozzi, 
but  has  instituted  systematic  excavations  on  behalf  of  the 
Municipality,  and  has  moreover  devoted  a  suite  of  rooms  in 
the  Town-hall  for  the  exhibition  of  the  articles  that  may  be 
disinterred. 

The  "  Museo  Etrusco  Municipale,"  is  quite  in  its  infancy.  It 
was  commenced  only  in  1874,  yet  has  already  no  mean  show  of 
antiquities,  and  with  the  measures  now  taken  to  secure  its  enrich- 

VOL.  I.  D  D 


402  CORNETO-TAEQUINIA.— THE  MUSEUMS.     [CHAP.  xxvi. 

ment,  it  has  a  fair  prospect  of  possessing,  in  a  few  3rears,  one  of 
the  most  interesting  collections  of  Etruscan  relics  to  be  seen  in 
Italy. 

On  the  ground  floor  of  the  "  Palazzo  Governativo,"  are  some 
choice  sarcophagi,  the  first  fruits  of  the  excavations  of  1876.  In 
one  tomb,  at  the  further  extremity  of  the  Montarozzi,  were  found 
no  less  than  fifteen  of  these  coffins,  three  of  them  of  marble,  a 
rare  material  in  Etruscan  monuments. 

Foremost  in  interest  is  the  sarcophagus  of  the  "SACERDOTE," 
or  priest,  remarkable  both  as  regards  its  character,  and  its  admir- 
able state  of  preservation.  On  the  lid  reclines  on  his  back  a 
man  of  middle  age,  his  right  hand  raised  as  if  in  the  •  act  of 
blessing,  his  left  holding  a  small  covered  incense-pot,  coloured 
yellow,  to  resemble  gold.  His  flesh  is  painted  red,  his  eyes 
and  hair  retain  traces  of  colour;  his  beard  is  crisp  with  curls, 
and  he  wears  large  rings  in  his  ears.  His  long  chiton  reaches  to 
his  toes,  showing  his  bare  feet,  shod  with  stout  sandals.  His 
skeleton  was  found  within  the  sarcophagus,  and  his  skull  is 
preserved  in  a  glass  case  hard  by,  together  with  two  spear-heads, 
much  rusted.  From  an  inscription  on  the  lid,  behind  his  head, 
we  learn  his  name  to  have  been  "  Laris  Partiun.  " — (Partiunus  or 
Partunus). 

The  sarcophagus  has  no  architectural  decoration,  but  each  of 
its  sides  is  adorned  with  paintings,  now  dimly  visible  through 
a  semi-transparent  film  with  which  the  marble  is  encrusted. 
These  paintings,  so  far  as  they  can  be  discerned,  display  a 
strong  resemblance  to  those  on  the  celebrated  Amazon  sarco- 
phagus in  the  Etruscan  Museum  at  Florence  ;  indeed,  as  that 
monument  was  also  found  on  the  Montarozzi,  they  may  well  be 
by  the  same  hand.  The  subjects  on  three  of  the  sides  are  the 
same — the  combat  of  the  Greeks  with  the  Amazons — though  the 
treatment  is  different.  Here  both  parties  are  contending  on  foot, 
so  there  is  necessarily  less  of  that  variety  and  striking  contrast 
which  characterize  the  other  monument,  where  the  Amazons  are 
depicted  fighting  either  from  chariots,  or  on  horseback.  Yet 
these  scenes  seem  full  of  incident  and  spirit,  so  far  as  we  can 
judge  from  the  lower  limbs  only  of  the  figures,  not  a  single  head 
being  visible.  At  each  small  end  of  the  sarcophagus  an  Amazon 
is  represented  on  horseback,  charging  her  foe,  and  these  figures 
being  more  distinct  give  some  idea  of  the  character  and  beauty  of 
the  other  scenes.  On  the  second  long  side,  the  paintings  are 
almost  obliterated,  but  from  the  fragments  discernible  we  learn 


CHAP,  xxvi.]  THE    MUNICIPAL    MUSEUM.  403 

that  the  figures  here  were  of  both  sexes,  apparently  moving  in 
procession. 

Another  fine  marble  sarcophagus  found  in  the  same  tomb  has 
been  designated  the  "  MAGNATE,"  from  the  effigy  of  an  elderly 
man  who  reposes  on  the  monument  which  contains  his  remains. 
The  inscription  attached,  which  shows  his  name  to  have  been 
"  Velthur  Partumis,"  states  him  to  have  reached  the  age  of  82, 
though  the  sculptor  has  represented  him  some  20  3rears  younger. 
He  holds  a  bossed  phiala  in  his  right  hand,  as  he  reposes,  as 
usual,  half  draped,  on  his  left  side.  On  the  lid  at  the  back  of 
his  head  a  female  bust  is  painted  to  the  life,  whether  representing 
a  woman  or  a  divinity  is  not  easy  to  determine.  On  each  side 
of  her,  at  the  angles  of  the  bed  on  which  the  old  gentleman  is 
reposing,  crouches  a  little  lion  with  a  yellow  mane  extending 
along  his  back  in  a  double  row  of  curls,  quite  to  his  tail.  In 
corresponding  places  at  the  foot  of  the  couch,  is  a  head  of  the 
horned  Bacchus  between  two  winged  sphinxes. 

Each  side  of  the  sarcophagus  is  adorned  with  a  band  of  small 
figures  in  relief,  and  coloured  on  a  dark  grey  ground,  represent- 
ing combats — on  one  side  of  Greeks  and  Amazons,  on  the  other 
of  Centaurs  and  Lapiths.  The  art  is  of  the  Decadence  and 
poor,  yet  the  scenes  are  evidently  copies  of  superior  designs,  the 
composition  and  motive  being  generally  good,  and  many  of  the 
figures  displaying  much  spirit  in  spite  of  stumpy  forms  and 
unskilful  execution.  The  colouring  is  bright  and  harmonious, 
the  various  hues  being  thrown  out  by  the  grey  ground  so  as  to 
produce  an  effective  whole,  although  the  surface  is  somewhat 
waxy  in  appearance. 

The  scene  which  depicts  the  Centaurs  and  Lapiths,  comprises 
also  two  Furies  brandishing  torches  and  snakes,  against  two 
armed  youths,  who  probably  represent  Theseus  and  his  Lapith 
friend  Pirithous. 

A  third  sarcophagus  of  white  veined  marble,  without  inscrip- 
tion or  decoration  of  any  kind,  bears  on  its  lid  the  effigy  of  a 
most  corpulent  gentleman,  a  true  obesns  Etruscus,  who  reclines  in 
the  attitude  of  one  satiated  with  his  debauch,  one  hand  support- 
ing his  head,  the  other  resting  on  his  belly.1 

In  another  room  on  the  ground  floor  are  two  sarcophagi  of 
neiifro,  recently  discovered,  with  reliefs  of  an  unusual  character. 
On  the  lid  of  the  first,  the  effigy  of  the  deceased  lies  flat  on  his 

1  For  a  description  of  these  sarcophagi,  see  Bull.  Inst.  1876,  pp.  70 — 75,  written  by 
the  Sindaco,  Signer  Luigi  Dasti. 

D    D    2 


404  CORNETO-TAEQUINIA.— THE  MUSEUMS.     [CHAP.  xxvi. 

back,  patera  in  hand.  On  each  side  of  the  sarcophagus,  a  lion 
and  lioness  are  devouring  a  stag ;  at  each  end  are  two  winged 
sphinxes  ris-a-vis ;  at  each  angle  a  Lasa  or  Fury  draped  to  the 
feet  but  with  bosom  bare,  stands  with  wings  upraised,  brandish- 
ing a  snake  in  either  hand.  The  other  sarcophagus,  instead  of 
the  effigy  of  the  deceased,  bears  that  of  Cerberus,  very  rudely 
carved  on  its  lid,  and  at  each  angle  a  little  lion  devouring  his 
prey.  The  relief  on  the  sarcophagus  itself  is  no  less  curious, 
representing  combats  of  men  with  wild  beasts.  At  one  end  a 
man  kneeling  on  a  rock  seizes  a  hippogriff  by  the  throat,  and  is 
about  to  stab  it  with  his  sword  ;  at  the  opposite  end,  a  naked 
man  armed  with  a  lance  combats  a  lioness  or  leopard.  In  the 
middle  two  men  armed  with  shields  alone  are  contending  with  a 
wolf;  one  of  them  has  fallen  to  the  earth  and  covers  himself  with 
his  shield,  while  the  beast  leaps  over  him.  A  Lasa,  or  it  may  be 
a  woman,  lifts  a  stone  to  hurl  at  the  wolf.  This  subject  is  repeated 
on  the  other  side,  but  in  a  ruder  style  of  art.  Its  meaning  I  am 
at  a  loss  to  understand.  The  contests  of  the  amphitheatre  are 
naturally  suggested,  but  the  presence  of  the  female  figure  is 
opposed  to  such  an  interpretation. 

In  the  court-yard  are  several  other  sarcophagi  of  nenfro,  most 
of  them  plain,  but  with  epitaphs  in  Etruscan, — some  of  the  same 
family,  "  Partunus  :  "  one  with  the  novel  name  of  "  Spantus." 

In  the  first  room  upstairs  are  several  heads  of  nenfro,  of  life- 
size — probably  portraits — dug  up  in  forming  the  New  Cemetery 
on  the  Montarozzi ;  portions  of  figures  in  the  same  stone  from 
the  Grotta  dell'  Oreo  ;  a  lion  rudely  sculptured  ;  a  slab  with  very 
archaic  reliefs  ;  and  another,  which  represents  a  man  falling  on, 
his  sword,  probably  Ajax  Telamonius. 

In  another  chamber  is  a  large  nenfro  sarcophagus,  on  whose  lid 
reclines  an  old  man  half-draped,  who  from  a  phiala  is  giving 
drink  to  a  doe,  which  lies  in  his  lap.  This  is  a  singular  scene, — 
though  not  quite  unique.  The  reliefs  on  one  side  of  the  sarco- 
phagus show  the  favourite  subject  of  the  Greeks  contending  with 
the  Amazons  ;  on  the  other  side  is  also  a  battle-scene,  but  re- 
presented with  so  little  spirit,  that  the  combatants  seem  rather  to 
be  practising  the  use  of  arms,  than  fighting  in  earnest.  The  art 
is  of  the  Decadence,  and  the  monument  is  evidently  of  the  latter 
days  of  Etruria. 

Another  room  is  hung  with  illustrations  of  many  of  the  painted 
tombs  of  the  Montarozzi. 

On  a  central  table  in  the  third  room  upstairs  stands  a  kylix  of 


CHAP,  xxvi.]  BEAUTIFUL    GEEEK    VASES.  405 

rare  beauty  and  interest,  brought  to  light  in  1874.  It  is  of  large 
size,  more  than  21  inches  in  diameter.  The  figures  are  yellow 
on  a  black  ground,  yet  the  design  is  that  of  the  black  figured 
vases — severely  archaic.  Round  the  bowl  all  the  gods  of  Olym- 
pus, distinguished  by  their  names  as  well  as  by  their  attributes, 
are  depicted  in  appropriate  positions  and  relations.  The  names 
of  "Oltos"  and  "  Euxitheos "  commemorate  the  artist  and 
potter.2  These,  like  all  the  other  inscriptions  on  the  bowl,  are  in 
Greek,  but  on  its  foot  is  an  Etruscan  inscription  of  38  letters  in 
one  line,  without  the  usual  stops  between  the  words,  scratched  in 
by  some  Etruscan  who  once  possessed  the  vase.  In  Roman  letters 

it  WOuld  run  thus ITUNTURTKEVENELATELINASTINASKLIXHARAS.3 

There  are  many  other  painted  vases,  chiefly  of  a  late  period ; 
also  a  few  articles  of  bucclicro,  like  the  black  ware  of  Chiusi,  rarely 
found  at  Corneto,  and  only  in  tunnel  or  passage-like  tombs, 
which  are  the  earliest  on  this  site.  Among  the  painted  vases, 
the  following  are  the  most  noteworthy  : — 

Two  large  cenocJiotp,  in  the  most  archaic  style,  each  with  three 
bands  of  animals  or  chimaeras,  on  a  pale  yellow  ground. 

Two  amphora,  with  black  figures,  showing,  one  a  Bacchic,  the 
other  a  Pyrrhic,  dance.  These  are  Etruscan  imitations  of  Greek 
vases. 

Kylix,  with  yellow  figures,  of  beautiful  }ret  somewhat  archaic 
design,  displaying  a  race  of  fifteen  naked  youths  on  horseback. 
The  ease  and  grace  with  which  these  boys  sit  their  steeds,  and 
the  variety  of  action  and  sentiment  they  display,  render  this  cup 
quite  charming. 

Kylix.  Of  the  same  character  as  the  last,  in  the  best  style  of 
severe  art.  In  the  disk  within  the  bowl  a  warrior,  holding  a 
nymph  by  the  wrist,  endeavours  to  lead  her  away ;  that  his  per- 
suasion is  not  without  effect  is  expressed  by  the  mingled  coyness 
and  coquetry  of  her  attitude  and  countenance.  On  the  outside 
of  the  cup  are  depicted  Theseus  and  Ariadne.  The  "  beautiful- 
tressed"  nymph,  with  one  arm  over  her  head,  is  sleeping  on  a  rock 
beneath  the  shade  of  a  vine ;  over  her  hovers  Eros,  bearing  a  fillet 
or  ribbon  in  his  hands.  The  faithless  Theseus  is  stooping  in  the 
foreground  to  pick  up  his  sandal,  and  carries  a  short  stick  to 


•  A  kylix  found  at  Vulci  bears  the  same  Oltos,  is  fully  described  by  him  in  Bull, 

names,  as  those  of  its  painter  and  potter.  Inst.  1875,  pp.  171 — 3.  The  version  he 

Bull.  Inst.  1875,  p.  171.  gives  of  the  Etruscan  inscription  is  not  so 

3  This  vase,  which  is  styled  by  Dr.  Hel-  correct  as  that  given  above,  as  I  have 

big  the  chef-d'oeuvre  of  Euxitheos  and  proved  by  a  comparison  with  the  original. 


406  COENETO-TAKQUINIA.— THE  MUSEUMS.     [CHAP.  xxvi. 

mark  his  preparation  for  a  journey.  Behind  him  stands  Hermes, 
with  his  usual  attributes,  pointing  outwards,  as  if  to  hasten  his 
departure.  Another  scene,  on  the  same  vase,  represents  Cassandra 
seeking  refuge  at  an  altar  from  the  pursuit  of  Ajax,  while 
Hecuba  sits  under  a  Doric  column  of  the  temple.4 

Amphora ;  with  black  figures.  Hercules  and  Apollo  contend- 
ing for  the  tripod.  Minerva  and  Yenus  behind  them. 

Amphora.  Black  figures.  Achilles  and  Hector  fighting  over 
the  body  c*f  Patroclus. 

Kylix.  Small,  with  the  head  of  a  Satyr  painted  on  it  in  yellow 
and  white  pigments. 

Among  the  relics  of  Etruscan  antiquity  in  other  materials, 
notice, — • 

In  bronze — a  disk,  about  a  foot  in  diameter,  with  the  head  in 
relief  of  the  horned  Bacchus,  or  the  river-god  Achelous,  in  almost 
perfect  condition,5  represented  in  the  woodcut  at  the  head  of  this 
chapter — a  pretty  female  head  in  the  same  metal — a  few  mirrors, 
the  best,  gilt,  representing  the  Judgment  of  Paris. 

A  tiny  flask  of  variegated  glass,  flat,  with  rings  at  the  shoulders ; 
very  delicate  and  prettj'. 

The  building  in  which  this  collection  is  exhibited  was  formerly 
the  "  Ergastolo,"  or  prison  and  house  of  correction  for  priests — 
the  only  institution  of  the  kind  in  the  Papal  State.  It  is  a 
spacious  building,  containing  about  seventy  cells,  a  few  under 
ground,  but  the  greater  part  spacious  and  airy  enough,  where  the 
peccant  ecclesiastics,  barring  penances  and  want  of  liberty,  must 
have  been  at  least  as  comfortable  as  in  a  convent. 

MUSEO  BRUSCHI. 

Count  Bruschi,  a  landed  proprietor  of  Corneto,  has  a  large 
collection  of  Etruscan  antiquities  found  at  various  periods  in  his 
land,  which  he  courteously  allows  to  be  exhibited  to  strangers. 
These  treasures  have  not  been  subjected  to  any  systematic 
arrangement,  but  are  scattered  throughout  his  palace,  so  as  to  make 
it  no  easy  matter  to  give  such  a  description  of  them  as  will  serve 
for  a  guide.  There  are,  however,  two  small  cabinets  devoted  to 
these  antiquities,  where  some  of  the  choicest  articles  are  deposited. 
The  first  contains  several  vases  in  the  earliest  Greek  style,  and 

4  This  beautiful  L-ylix  is  described  by  in  imitation  of  life.  These  bronzes  are  too 

Helbig,  (Bull.  Inst.  1875,  pp.  174 — 6)  but  small  and  thin  ever  to  have  served  as 

he  attaches  no  names  to  the  figures.  shields,  and  were  probably  suspended  a& 

a  The  eyes  are  supplied  by  some  material  ornaments  on  the  wall  of  the  tomb. 


CHAP,  xxvi.]  MUSEO    BEUSCHI.  407 

of  unusually  large  size — amphora,  olpte,  or  cenockoce — with  bands 
of  figures  of  animals  and  chimseras  on  a  very  pale  ground.  Here 
are  also  a  few  fine  specimens  of  the  black  bucchero,  or  genuine 
Etruscan  ware,  found,  though  rarely,  in  this  necropolis,  with 
archaic  figures  in  relief.  In  striking  contrast  with  these  are 
some  vases  of  the  latest  Greek  style,  showing  the  debased  art  of 
the  Decadence  ;  but  the  greater  part  of  the  pottery  in  this  cabinet 
is  of  the  Second,  or  Archaic  Greek,  st}rle,  with  black  figures  on  a 
yellow  ground.  I  will  briefly  point  out  some  of  the  most  remark- 
able of  these  vases,  premising  that,  where  not  specified  to  the 
contrary,  all  those  described  are  of  the  Second  style. 

Two  amphora,  with  Hercules  overcoming  the  Nemean  lion,  in 
the  presence  of  Pallas  and  Hermes. 

Amphora.  A  spirited  combat  between  a  warrior  in  a  quadriga, 
and  two  on  foot. 

Amphora.     Hercules  overcoming  the  triple-headed  Geryon. 

Amphora.  Spirited  contest  between  the  Greeks  and  Trojans 
over  the  body  of  Patroclus.  One  of  the  combatants  has  an  octopus 
painted  on  his  shield,  as  his  device. 

Amphora.     Hercules  with  the  Centaur  Nessus. 

Amphora.  Apollo  playing  the  lyre  to  two  nymphs ;  Mercury 
and  Neptune  standing  by. 

Pelikc.     Birth  of  Minerva. 

Amphora.     A  spirited  race  of  quadric/a. 

Amphora.     Ariadne  seated  on  a  goat,  and  holding  a  kylix. 

Amphora.  Quadriga  foreshortened,  as  in  the  well-known 
metope  from  Selinus.  The  inscriptions  are  unintelligible,  which 
makes  it  probable  that  this  vase  was  an  Etruscan  imitation  of  the 
Greek. 

Amphora.     Peleus  seizing  Thetis  round  the  waist. 

Kylix.  In  the  Third  style — the  same  subject;  the  goddess 
having  her  name  attached. 

Pelike.     A  horse's  head  only,  on  each  side  of  the  vase. 

These  vases  are  mixed  with  others  of  different  styles  and 
epochs,  with  articles  in  terra-cotta,  bronze,  ivory,  glass,  and 
alabaster.  Among  the  bronzes  are  two  disks,  with  heads  of  the 
horned  Bacchus,  like  that  in  the  Corneto  Museum  ;  and  among 
the  terra-cottas  there  are  pomegranates,  figs,  quinces,  and  other 
fruits — very  fair  imitations. 

In  various  rooms,  on  the  higher  floors  of  the  palace,  I  noted, 
two  oenochoce  in  the  earliest  style — two  archaic  heads  of  terra- 
cotta,— an  amphora,  in  the  Second  style,  showing  Hercules  con- 


408 


COKNETO-TAKQUINIA.— THE  MUSEUMS.      [CHAP.  xxvi. 


tending  with  three  Titans,  Cerberus,  with  two  heads  only,  lying 
on  his  back  between  the  combatants, — a  small  kylix  in  the  Third 
style,  with  a  pretty  bath-scene,  in  which  a  number  of  youths  are 

using  the  strigil ; 6  a  large  skyphos, 
adorned  with  the  figures  of  six  guinea- 
fowls,  an  unique  subject  for  a  Greek 
vase ! — a  small  bronze  pot,  with  beau- 
tiful figures  in  relief. 

In  the  gallery,  above  the  principal 
saloon,  is  a  sarcophagus  of  terra-cotta, 
with  a  female  figure  on  its  lid.  A  cup 
in  the  form  of  a  negro's  head.  Eggs 
and  chicken-bones,  the  relics  of  some 
Etruscan  funeral  feast.  Two  very 
early  pots,  one  of  black,  the  other  of 
yellow  ware,  with  ornaments  scratched 
upon  them.  The  former  has  an  in- 
scription round  the  neck,  in  very 
archaic  (Pelasgic?)  characters. 

The  best  vases  are  kept  in  a  cabinet 
upstairs,  and  very  choice  and  beautiful  vases  these  are,  mostly  of 
the  Second  style,  and  not  a  few  intact,  perfect  and  fresh  as  when 
they  were  deposited  in  the  tombs  500  years  before  Christ.  The 
following  are  all  of  the  Second  style,  with  black  figures  on  a 
yellow  ground. 

Amphora.     Europa  seated  on  the  bull,  and  holding  his  horn. 
Amphora.     Minerva  and  Hercules  in  a  quadriga  vanquishing 
the  Giants.     There  is  another  amphora  with  the  same  subject, 
treated  with  more  spirit ;  on  the  reverse,  Hercules  at  an  altar  is 
playing  the  lyre  to  Minerva,  who  stands  opposite,  armed. 

Amphora.  Hercules  overcoming  Hippolyta.  The  Queen  of 
the  Amazons  is  in  Greek  armour,  but  wears  tight  drawers, 
decorated  with  the  meander  pattern. 


ETRUSCAN   STRIOJL. 


6  The  striffil  was  a  metal  scraper  used 
after  bathing  to  remove  the  perspiration 
from  the  skin  ;  as  a  groom  would  remove 
the  foam  from  a  horse's  coat  with  a  bit  of 
iron  hoop.  The  curved  part  of  the  instru- 
ment is  hollow  like  a  boat ;  either  to  hold 
oil  to  soften  the  effect  on  the  skin,  which 
was  far  from  pleasant  if  the  strigil  was  too 
often  or  violently  used,  as  Augustus  experi- 
enced (Sueton.  Aug.  80)  ;  or  to  allow  the 
grease  scraped  from  the  body  to  run  off  as 


by  a  gutter.  See  the  Scholiast  on  Juvenal 
III.,  262.  It  was  generally  of  bronze, 
sometimes  of  iron  (curvo  dcstringere  ferro, 
Mai-t.  XIV.,  ep.  51),  and,  very  rarely,  of 
silver.  The  metal  is  always  very  thin ; 
and  it  is  rare  to  find  strigils  in  a  perfect 
state.  They  are  occasionally  found  bearing 
Etruscan  inscriptions.  Roman  strigils 
were  of  different  forms,  but  those  of  the 
Etruscans  were  invariably  shaped  like  that 
in  the  above  woodcut. 


CHAP,  xxvi.]  GBEEK    POTTEEY.  409 

Amphora.     Theseus  slaying  the  Minotaur. 

Amphora.  Bacchus  sitting,  kantharus  in  hand,  in  a  galley, 
whose  prow  is  in  the  form  of  a  pig's  snout,  the  eye  being  promi- 
nently marked.  The  crew  is  composed  of  Satyrs  of  very  small 
size,  one  of  them  steering.  Two  Maenads  are  also  on  board,  one 
of  whom  sits  in  the  stern  playing  the  lyre.  The  reverse  shows  a 
similar  subject ;  but  here  Bacchus  is  represented  in  pursuit  of  a 
Satyr  in  the  bow  of  the  ship,  whom  a  Maenad  endeavours  to  stop. 
Behind  Bacchus  a  Satyr  is  playing  the  lyre,  and  another,  with 
arm  raided,  is  beating  one  of  the  crew.  In  the  stern  sits 
another  nymph  or  Msenad,  and  below  deck  are  other  women  with 
tiny  Satyrs,  sitting  at  the  oars.  This  is  a  very  curious  subject, 
and,  so  far  as  I  know,  unique. 

Amphora.  A  spirited  scene  of  a  warrior  in  a  biga,  overthrow- 
ing his  foes.  Instead  of  the  letters  which  should  compose  the 
names,  there  are  mere  spots,  which  seem  to  mark  this  vase  as  an 
Etruscan  imitation  of  a  Greek  original. 

Amphora.  Bacchus,  kantharus  in  hand,  between  two  loving 
couples,  each  composed  of  a  Satyr  and  a  Maenad. 

Amphora.  Three  Maenads  appear  to  have  been  dancing  with 
castanets,  when  a  Satyr  rushes  in,  and  carries  off  one  of  them  oil 
his  shoulder. 

Amphora  of  small  size.  Peleus  seizing  Thetis,  whose  attendant 
nymphs  rush  away  in  alarm.  A  scene  exquisitely  elaborated. 

Amphora.  A  Panathenaic  vase ;  Athene  Promachos  between 
two  Doric  columns,  surmounted  as  usual  by  cocks.  No  inscrip- 
tion. On  the  reverse,  a  contest  of  pugilists. 

Amphora.  Bacchus  seated  on  a  plicatilis,  or  folding-stool,  be- 
tween two  harpies. 

Olpe  in  the  form  of  a  negro's  head.  A  Bacchic  scene  round 
the  neck. 

Amphora.  A  very  early  and  beautiful  vase,  but  with  a  subject 
not  easy  of  explanation.  A  woman,  or  goddess  richly  veiled  and 
draped  sits  on  a  handsome  chair,  beneath  which  are  a  small 
sphinx  and  a  dog.  A  mirror,  suspended  from  the  wall,  shows 
the  scene  to  be  within  doors,  and  in  the  gyncekonitis.  Before  her 
stand  Mercury  and  Minerva ;  behind  her  a  naked  man,  wearing 
a  chaplet,  and  another  man  draped,  holding  a  spear  and  a  fish. 
The  vase  was  broken  of  old,  but  mended  with  many  metal  rivets. 
This  is  one  of  the  best  vases  in  the  collection.7 

"  Bull.  Inst.  1869,  p.  170. 


410  CORNETO-TABQUINIA.— THE  MUSEUMS.      [CHAP.  xxvi. 

The  following  are  in  the  Third  style  : — 

Kratcr.  A  beautiful  vase,  showing  "  Pelias  "  on  his  way  to  be 
chopped  up  and  boiled.  The  old  man,  walking  feebly  with  a 
stick,  is  dragged  along  by  one  of  his  daughters,  who  seizes  him 
by  the  wrist  with  one  hand,  and  carries  a  sword  in  the  other, 
with  which  she  is  about  to  put  into  execution  the  advice  of  the 
treacherous  Medea.  On  the  reverse  is  another  of  his  daughters. 
There  is  much  character  and  truth  in  the  figures  and  countenances. 

Kyllx.  Within  the  bowl,  Hercules  is  attacking  the  Centaur 
Nessus,  as  he  carries  off  Deianira.  On  the  outside  is  represented 
the  combat  between  the  Centaurs  and  Lapithre,  in  the  fine  style 
of  Greek  art. 

Kyllx.     Another,  precisely  similar,  found  in  the  same  tomb. 

Kelcbc.  Apollo  sitting  011  a  rock,  bough  in  hand,  while  a  Muse 
offers  him  a  tyre. 

Kylix.  Three  Satyrs,  one  of  whom  has  seized  a  Maenad,  and 
is  carrying  her  away  on  his  shoulder,  while  she  strikes  at  him 
with  a  tliyrsus. 

Stamnos.  Hercules  and  the  Centaur  Pholus  at  a  large  vase, 
into  which  the  demi-god  dips  a  wine-jug. 

Kylix.  In  the  disk,  within  the  bowl/  an  epliebus  is  admiring  a 
suit  of  armour  on  the  ground  before  him.  On  the  outside  are 
two  combats,  full  of  spirit  and  truth  to  nature. 

Kylix.  Within  the  bowl  a  Discobolus  with  a  quoit.  On  the 
outside  two  combats,  of  equal  merit  with  the  last. 

KantJtarus.     Bacchic  revels. 

Lckythus,  with  a  single  figure  outlined  in  black,  on  a  white 
ground.  Yases  of  this  class  are  so  rarely  found  in  Etruria,  that 
we  may  pronounce  this  an  importation  from  Athens,  or  from 
Sicily. 

Pliicila.  Two  bowls  of  this  form,  called  omphalike,  from  the 
boss  or  navel  in  the  centre,  of  black  ware,  each  with  reliefs  of 
four  quadriga?. 

There  are  many  small  terra- cotta  heads  and  masks  around  the 
Avails.  In  a  case  are  a  few  beautiful  vases  of  variegated  glass, 
called  Babylonian,  but  found  in  Etruscan  tombs.  Of  jewellery 
there  is  a  choice  collection,  comprising,  besides  scarabei,  speci- 
mens of  almost  every  stage  in  the  development  of  Etruscan  gold- 
work  ;  but  the  most  remarkable  objects  are  three  necklaces  of 
gold,  one  composed  of  little  bottles,  like  vinaigrettes ;  another  of 
small  lulla:,  and  a  third  of  tiny  Jibulce.  A  case  of  bronzes 
contains  some  choice  works  in  this  material,  especially  strigils, 


CHAP.   XXVI.] 


BEONZE    FLESH-HOOKS. 


411 


and  mirrors  bearing  mythological  subjects,  with  some  female 
heads ;  candelabra ;  elegant  bronze  handles  to  caldrons,  or  to 
wooden  furniture,  which  has  long  since  perished;  and  several 


^ 
Fig.  1.  Fi. 

KKEAGH.E,    Ott    FLESH-HOOKS. 


kreagra,  or  flesh-hooks,  with  six  or  eight  long  curved  prongs,  like 
grappling-irons,  which  have  greatly  puzzled  modern  sages.8 


8  These  hooks  were  at  first  supposed  to 
be  instruments  of  torture,  with  which  the 
early  Christians  had  their  flesh  torn  from 
their  bodies.  But  being  frequently  found 
in  tombs  purely  Etruscan,  that  notion  was 
repudiated ;  and  it  remains  a  question 
whether  they  were  mere  kitchen-utensils, 
or  implements  used  in  sacrifices,  either  for 
taking  up  or  turning  over  the  burnt  flesh, 
as  such  instruments  were  employed  by  the 
Jews  (I.  Sam.  ii.  13) — for  offering  the  en- 
trails to  the  divinity — or  for  putting  out 
the  fire  by  pieces  of  fat  at  the  end  of  the 
prongs — or  were  employed  at  the  funeral 
pyre  for  separating  from  the  embers  the 
ashes  of  the  deceased.  Bull.  Inst.  1840, 
p.  59.  There  is  no  doubt  that  they  are  the 
kreayrcc — airb  rov  ra  Kpta.  aypfiitiv — re- 
ferred to  by  Aristophanes  (Equit.  772),  and 
described  by  the  Scholiast  (ad  locum)  as 
culinary  instruments  ;  though  also  men- 
tioned by  the  great  comedian  (Eccles.  1002, 


Tesp.  1155),  as  serving  more  general 
purposes  of  grappling  or  holding  fast.  It 
has  been  supposed,  from  the  small  ring  to 
which  the  lower  prong  is  often  attached, — 
not  clearly  shown  in  the  above  woodcut, 
fig.  2, — that  they  may  have  served  as  torch- 
holders,  especially  as  the  handle  proves 
them  to  have  been  generally  attached  to  a 
pole  of  wood.  But  many  are  without  tlii.s 
ring,  and  have  a  claw  instead,  as  shown  in 
fig.  1  :  besides,  it  would  be  difficult  to 
account  for  the  prongs  at  all  on  this  sup- 
position. From  the  prongs  being  sometimes 
blunted,  it  is  argued  that  they  were  for  ' 
mere  show,  and  served  no  practical  purpose. 
Yet  in  almost  all  those  I  have  seen  so 
blunted,  it  has  been  clear  that  this  was  not 
their  original  form,  but  that  the  prongs 
had  been  broken  off.  These  kreagrce  were 
called  by  the  Komans  harpayones  ;  and  it 
must  have  been  a  similar  instrument  on  a 
larger  scale  which  was  used  for  grappling 


412  CORNETO-TARQUIXIA.— THE  MUSEUMS.      [CHAP.  xxvi. 

GROTTA  BRUSCHI. 

Other  most  interesting  relics  of  Etruscan  antiquity  are  pre- 
served in  this  chamber.  These  are  portions  of  a  painted  tomb, 
discovered  in  1864,  on  the  Montarozzi,  not  far  from  the  Grotta 
Cardinale.  When  the  tomb  was  opened,  the  paintings  were  in  a 
ruined  condition ;  a  great  part  of  the  figures  had  disappeared, 
and  what  remained  threatened,  from  the  softness  of  the  rock, 
soon  to  fall  irom  the  walls.  After  careful  drawings  had  been 
made,  the  Count  had  the  best  preserved  portions  of  the  paintings 
detached  from  the  walls  and  conveyed  to  his  palace.  From  the 
drawings,  which  have  been  published  by  the  Archffiological  Insti- 
tute of  Rome,  we  learn  the  character  of  these  paintings  and  their 
style  of  art.9  The  chamber  was  surrounded  by  a  band  of  figures, 
beneath  which  ran  a  large  Greek  fret,  with  dolphins  plunging 
above  the  waves.  There  were  no  banqueters  at  their  revels,  no 
funeral  games,  no  scenes  of  joy  and  merriment.  Long  solemn 
processions  of  figures,  robed  in  white,  surrounded  the  tomb.  On 
one  wall  was  a  large  male  figure  on  horseback,  probably  repre- 
senting the  soul  of  the  Etruscan  here  interred,  attended  by  other 
figures  on  foot,  all  in  white  tunics,  the  foremost  among  them 
blowing  a  long  straight  trumpet.  In  front  of  this  procession 
stood  a  woman,  in  long  white  or  yellow  chiton,  with  a  dark  mantle 
round  her  waist,  a  garland  on  her  head,  and  a  pomegranate  in 
her  hand.  Before  her  a  slave  girl,  also  draped  in  white,  held  up 
a  mirror  to  her  mistress.  This  pair  of  figures  also  has  been 
rescued  from  the  tomb,  and  is  preserved  in  this  collection.  On 
another  wall,  was  another  long  procession  of  men,  in  white  togas, 
or  rather  two  processions  meeting.  Those  marching  from  the 
left,  bore,  some,  circular  horns,  others,  straight  horns  of  the 
lituus  form,  and  preceded  a  figure  of  larger  size,  and  more  richly 
clad,  whose  epitaph  was  inscribed  on  the  wall  behind  him.  The 
cortege  was  brought  up  by  a  black  demon,  with  open  wings,  who 
appeared  to  be  driving  the  rest  before  him.  A  similar  series  of 
figures  came  from  the  right,  all  in  white  togas,  and  with  inscrip- 
tions over  their  heads,  in  great  part  obliterated.  They  were 
headed  by  a  small  boy,  and  followed  \>y  a  red  demon  in  a  dark 
tunic,  with  snakes  coiled  round  his  legs  for  talaria,  and  a  long 

ships,  and  was  sometimes  termed  an  "  iron  wolf."     Hesych.  v.  \VKOS.     They  are  said 

hand  " — ferrea  manus — (Liv.  XXVI.  39  ;  to  have  been  an  invention  of  Pericles.  Plin. 

cf.  XXX.  10.    Flor.  II.  2.    Frontin.  Strat.  VII.  57,  ad  fin. 
II.  3,  23.     Lucan.   III.  635.     Dion  Cass.  9  Mon.  Ined.  Vol.  VIII.  tav.  36. 

XLIX.  3  ;  L.  32,  34,)  and  figuratively  "a 


CHAP,  xxvi.]  GROTTA  BRUSCHI.—  TOMB  A  DEL  GUERRIERE.     413 

inscription  by  liis  side.  He  led  a  soul  on  horseback,  draped  in 
white,  and  indicated  by  a  long  epitaph.  This  figure  and  his 
attendant  demon  have  been  cut  from  the  walls,  and  are  preserved 
in  the  Palazzo  Bruschi. 

On  another  wall  was  a  similar  procession,  headed  by  figures 
bearing  fasces  and  curved  trumpets,  and  in  the  centre  walked  two 
figures,  male  and  female,  of  much  larger  size  than  the  rest.  All 
the  figures  described,  which  retained  their  heads,  were  represented 
in  profile ;  but  in  one  corner  stood  a  pretty  female  figure,  in 
white  drapery,  whose  face  was  drawn  in  full ;  while  in  the  opposite 
corner  sat  a  hideous  Charun,  half-draped,  and  buskined,  with 
monstrous  nose  and  gaping  mouth,  and  an  enormous  hammer  on 
his  shoulder,  apparently  content  to  see  his  realms  so  well  peopled 
with  souls  from  the  upper  world. 

The  art  in  these  paintings  betrayed  a  late  date,  quite  as  late  as 
that  of  the  Grotta  Tifone.  The  processions,  in  fact,  in  the  two 
tombs,  bore  a  close  resemblance  in  many  respects.  There  was 
nothing  archaic  here ;  everything  bespoke  an  advanced  period  of 
art,  but  there  was  a  want  of  dignity  in  the  conception,  and  a  care- 
lessness in  the  execution,  that,  in  the  opinion  of  a  most  competent 
critic,  stamp  the  art  in  these  paintings  as  "altogether  municipal."1 

The  Bruschi  gardens,  outside  the  city  on  the  road  to  Civita 
Vecchia,  are  worthy  of  a  visit,  even  from  the  antiquary.  The 
parterres  are  adorned  with  altars,  sarcophagi,  fragments  of 
columns,  and  other  relics  of  Etruscan  and  Roman  antiquity ; 
and  in  the  lower  garden  are  some  stone  lions,  of  amusing 
quaintness. 

The  brothers  Marzi,  of  Corneto,  have  a  collection  of  vases  and 
bronzes,  the  fruit  of  their  own  excavations  ;  but  it  has  not  a 
permanent  character,  being  increased  by  fresh  discoveries,  or 
diminished  by  sales. 

In  1869  these  gentlemen  had  the  good  fortune  to  disinter  a 
singular  and  most  interesting  sarcophagus,  eleven  feet  long,  not 
lying  in  a  tomb,  but  sunk  beneath  the  surface.  It  contained  the 
skeleton  of  a  warrior,  which  fell  to  dust  on  exposure  to  the 
atmosphere,  cased  in  his  armour,  with  his  weapons  by  his  side, 
and  the  various  implements  of  his  daily  life  around  him,  all  of 
most  archaic  character,  yet  in  excellent  preservation.  There 
was  his  shoulder-strap  (gyalori)  of  elastic  bronze,  retaining  its 
lining  of  cloth  ;  his  breastplate  of  the  same  metal,  covered  with  a 

1  H.  Erunn,  Ann.  Inst.  1S6C,  pp.  439  —  442. 


•114  CORNETO-TARQUINIA.— THE  MUSEUMS.      [CHAP.  xxvr. 

sheet  of  gold  decorated  with  bands  of  ducks  and  other  figures  in 
relief;  his  circular  shield,  lined  with  leather,  and  stamped  with 
archaic  ornaments  in  concentric  circles.  No  helmet,  no  greaves, 
no  sword,  but  his  dagger  and  his  knife  were  there,  with  handles 
encased  in  ivory  and  amber;  the  head  and  the  hut-end  of  his 
lance,  and  the  heads  of  his  double  battle-axe.  All  these  weapons, 
as  well  as  most  of  the  other  articles,  were  of  bronze  ;  no  trace  of 
iron  or  steel  being  found  in  the  coffin.  Among  the  objects  of 
personal  use  or  ornament  were,  a  ra/or  of  the  crescent  form  usual 
in  very  early  times,  a  travelling-flask,  two  horse-bits,  sundry 
jibnlcc  of  gold,  silver,  or  bronze,  rings  of  bronze,  and  an  Egyptian 
scarab(fus,  set  in  silver. 

Around  the  corpse  were  numerous  articles  of  domestic  use — 
two  large  vases,  made  of  bronze  plate's  fastened  together  with 
nails,  in  the  earliest  style  of  metal-work ;  many  cups,  pots,  and 
plates  of  bronze ;  two  bowls  of  quince-wood,  studded  with  nails ; 
and  several  bowls  and  a  plate  of  silver.  There  were  no  Greek 
vases  here ;  only  a  few  articles  of  pottery  of  veiy  archaic  and 
oriental  character,  resembling  the  earliest  ware  of  Rhodes  and 
Cyprus.  The  most  remarkable  piece  was  a  little  yuttus  terminat- 
ing in  a  pig's  head,  and  adorned  with  ducks  and  geometrical 
patterns,  which,  like  the  decorations  on  the  breastplate,  are  said 
to  bear  an  affinity  to  the  ornamentation  of  Nineveh  and  Babylon. 
The  contents  of  this  sarcophagus  mark  it  as  unquestionably  one 
of  the  earliest  sepulchral  monuments  yet  discovered  in  this,  or 
uny  other  necropolis  of  Etruria. 

The  articles  in  this  "Warrior's  Tomb"  were  purchased  in 
1873  by  Mr.  George  Bunsen,  by  whom  they  have  been  transferred 
to  the  Museum  at  Berlin.2 


Painted  pottery  is  far  less  abundant  on  this  site  than  at  Yulci. 
It  is  of  various  descriptions  and  degrees  of  merit ;  from  the 
coarse,  staring,  figured  ware  of  Volterra,  to  the  florid  forms  and 
decorations  of  Apulia  and  Lucania,  and  the  chaste  and  elegant 
Attic  designs  of  Vulci — which,  in  fact,  is  its  general  cha- 
racter. And  this  is  singular,  for  we  might  expect  that  the 
Corinthian  artists  who  settled  here  with  Demaratus,  the  father  of 
Tarquinius  Priscus,  would  have  introduced  a  Doric  style  of 

:  For  a  detailed  description  of  the  con-  — 266  ;  both  articles  by  Dr.  Helbig.  For 
tents  of  this  tomb,  see  15ull.  Inst.  1869,  pp.  illustrations  see  Mon.  Inst.  X.  taw.  x-xd. 
257—260  ;  and  Ann.  Inst.  1874,  pp.  249 


CHAP,  xxvi.]   BEAUTIFUL  WOEKS  IN  BRONZE  AND   IVOEY.   415 

pottery ;  whereas  there  is  here  little  or  nothing  that  reminds  us 
of  Corinth  or  Sicyon ;  but  much  of  the  Attic  character  so  pre- 
valent at  Yulci.3  The  best  ware  of  Tarquinii  is  in  no  degree 
inferior,  either  in  form,  material,  varnish,  or  design,  to  that  of 
Yulci ;  and,  if  there  be  a  difference,  it  is  that  it  is  generally  less 
archaic  in  character. 

Besides  vases,  many  fine  sarcophagi  of  ncnfro  and  of  marble 
have  been  found  here — "  ash-chests  "  rarely  ;  for  the  Tarquinians 
.were  accustomed  to  bury,  rather  than  burn,  their  dead.  Bronzes 
are  not  very  abundant  on  this  site  ;  yet  I  have  seen  some  of  great 
beauty,  with  reliefs  of  mythological  subjects.  In  one  tomb  were 
found  eleven  bronze  disks,  about  sixteen  inches  in  diameter — 
seven  of  them  with  a  lion's  head,  and  the  rest  with  a  face  of  the 
horned  Bacchus,  or  river-god  Achelous,  in  high  relief,  in  the 
centre,  but  none  so  perfect  as  that  in  the  Municipal  Museum. 

The  most  beautiful  work  in  bronze,  however,  that  this  necro- 
polis is  known  to  have  produced,  was  a  group  of  Venus  and 
Cupid,  found  in  1855  by  Signor  Giosafat  Bazzichelli  of  Yiterbo. 
The  laughter-loving  goddess  was  sitting  in  a  majestic  attitude, 
while  her  son  stood  by  her  side  in  the  act  of  drawing  his  bow. 
Unfortunately  the  group  was  but  a  fragment ;  the  heads  were 
gone,  and  the  limbs  of  both  were  injured,  }-et  even  in  its  muti- 
lated state  Dr.  Brunn  describes  it  as  "  resplendent  with  the  most 
sublime  Greek  beaut}'."  He  does  riot  hesitate  to  compare  it 
with  the  celebrated  bronzes  of  Siris,  now  in  the  British  Museum, 
and  assigns  it  to  the  same  period,  that  of  Alexander.  He  cha- 
racterises the  style  as  less  severe  and  chaste,  more  broad,  soft, 
and  delicate,  yet  notices  the  majest}',  which,  in  spite  of  the 
pervading  elegance,  triumphs  in  the  conception  of  the  Venus ; 
and  pronounces  the  group  worthy  to  be  named  by  the  side  of 
those  renowned  works  of  Hellenic  art.1 

At  the  same  time  and  by  the  same  hand  were  discovered,  in  a 
virgin  tomb,  which  also  contained  some  beautiful  jewellery,  four 
remarkable  reliefs  in  ivory,  which  had  formed  the  decorations  of 
a  wooden  box  or  casket.  These  reliefs,  which  retained  traces  of 
colour  and  gilding,  represented  a  banquet — a  bit/a  at  full  gallop 

3  Niebuhr  (I.   p.    133)   is   mistaken    ill  Greek  art  in  the  vases  of  Tarquinii,   and 

asserting  that  there  is  a  striking  similarity  thinks  the  companions  of  Demaratus  were 

between  the  vases  of  Corinth  and  Tarquinii.  workers  in  metal,  for  which  branch  of  art 

Occasional    resemblances    may    occur,    but  the  Dorians  were  renowned, 
they  are  by  no  means  characteristic.     Ger-  4  Ann.     Inst.     1860,    pp.     489  —  493. 

hard  (Ann.   Inst.    1831,    p.  213)  remarks  Mon.  Inst.  Vi.  tav.  47.  6. 
that   there    is   little  like    the   infancy    of 


416  COBNETO-TARQUINIA.— THE  MUSEUMS.      [CHAP.  xxvr. 

drawn  by  winged  horses — a  huntsman,  winged,  transfixing  a  stag 
— a  marine  demon,  reclining  on  a  couch,  and  holding  a  fish  in 
each  hand.  They  are  said  to  bear  much  analogy  to  the  reliefs 
of  the  temple  of  Assos,  to  be  executed  in  the  style  of  the  purest 
and  most  refined  archaicism,  and  to  belong  to  an  epoch  in  which 
Etruscan  art  still  remained  perfectly  unaffected  by  Greek  in- 
fluences.6 

I  must  not  omit  to  mention  that  some  of  the  best  imitations  of 
Greek  vases  I  have  ever  seen  are  made  by  Signer  Scappini,  of 
Corneto,  under  the  auspices  of  Monsignor  Sensi. 

8  Ann.  Inst.  1860,  pp.  478—488,  Brunn.    Mon.  Inst.  VI.  tav.  46. 


HALF-Bl'RIKD    GATEWAY    IX    THE    WALLS   OF    TARQUIXII. 


CHAPTER     XXVII. 

TARQUINII—Tiiv  CITY. 

Giace  1'alta  Cartago  ;  appena  i  segni 

Delle  alte  sue  ruine  il  lido  serba. 

Muojono  le  citta,  muojono  i  regni  ; 

Copre  i  fasti  e  le  pompe  arena  ed  erba. — TASSO. 

That  castle  was  the  strength  of  all  that  state, 

Untill  that  state  by  strength  was  pulled  dowiie ; 

And  that  same  citie,  so  now  ruinate, 

Had  bene  the  keye  of  all  that  kingdomes  crowne. — SPENSER. 

AFTER  beholding  the  wonders  of  the  Montarozzi,  the  attention 
is  naturally  directed  to  the  city  from  which  these  tombs  were 
peopled.  "  If  such  were  its  sepulchres,"  we  ma}*  exclaim  with 
Lanzi,  "  what  must  have  been  its  palaces !  "  Its  antiquity, 
power,  and  magnificence  are  naturally  inferred, — what  was  its 
history  ? 

The  origin  of  Tarquinii  is  wrapt  in  the  mists  of  fable.  The 
story  told  by  the  ancients,  is  this  :  —  Soon  after  the  Trojan  War, 
Tyrrhenus,  son  of  Atys,  king  of  Lydia,  being  compelled  by 
famine  to  quit  his  native  land,  brought  a  colony  to  this  part  of 
Italy,  and  built  the  Twelve  Cities  of  Etruria,  appointing  to  that 
work  his  relative  Tarchon,  from  whom  the  city  of  Tarquinii,  one 


418 


TAEQUINIL— THE  CITY. 


[CHAP,  xxvii. 


of  the  Twelve,  received  its  name.1  From  this  tradition  there  is 
one  dissentient  voice,  that  of  Justin,  who  says  that  Tarquinii 
Avas  built  by  the  Thessali  and  Spinambri,2  or,  in  other  words,  by 
the  Pelasgi.3  This  Tarchon  was  a  man  of  such  wonderful  wisdom, 
which  he  had  displayed  even  from  his  childhood,  that  he  was 
traditionally  said  to  have  been  born  with  a  hoary  head.4  He  it 
is  who  is  introduced  by  Virgil  as  leading  his  forces  to  the  assist- 
ance of  ^-Eneas,  against  Turnus  and  Mezentius.5 

Here,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Tarquinii,  and  about  the  period 
in  question,  it  came  to  pass,  said  the  Etruscan  tradition  recorded 
in  the  sacred  books  of  the  nation,  that  as  a  certain  peasant  was 
ploughing  the  land,  and  chanced  to  make  a  furrow  deeper  than 
usual,  up  sprang  a  wondrous  being,  a  boy  in  appearance,  but  a 
patriarch  in  wisdom,  Tages  by  name,  the  son  of  a  Genius,  and 
grandson  of  Jove.6  The  peasant,  amazed  at  this  apparition, 
uttered  a  loud  cry ;  a  crowd  gathered  round ;  and,  "  in  a  short 
time,"  says  Cicero,  who  relates  the  story,  "  all  Etruria  was 


1  Strab.  V.  p.  219  ;  Herod.  I.  94 ;  Veil. 
Paterc.  I.  1.     Strabo  calls  the  city  Tapicvvia, 
Stephanus  Tapx<*>vu>v ;    Dionysius  (III.    p. 
184)  TapKvvloi.     So  also  Strabo,  elsewhere 
(p.  220).     From  the  Tomb  of  the  Tarquins 
we  may  conclude  that  its  Etruscan  name 
was  Tarchna.     Whether  Tarchon  was  the 
son  or  brother  of  Tyrrhenus  ancient  writers 
are  not  agreed  (Serv.  ad  .iEn.  X.  198  ;  Cato, 
ap.  Serv.  ad  .Sin.  X.  179;  Lycoph.  1246  ; 
but  Miiller  (einl.  2,  8  ;   IV.  4,  2)  regards 
them    as    identical — as    respectively    the 
Ktruscan  and  Greek  names  of  the  same  in- 
dividual.      Miiller's  theory   is  this  : — A 
Tyrrhene  is  a  man  of  Tyrrha,  the  Lydian 
Torrha  ;  the  vowel  was  pronounced  short, 
and  therefore  obscurely  ;  the  Etruscans  as- 
pirated strongly  ;  what  was  more  natural, 
then,  than  that  a  Tyrrhene  should  be  called 
by   them    Tarchun  ?      That   the   Tyrrheni 
were  Pelasgi  from  Tyrrha  in  the  interior  of 
Lydia,  says  Grote  (History  of  Greece,  III. 
p.  239),  "  is  a  point  on  which  we  have  not 
sufficient  evidence  to  advance  beyond  con- 
jecture ; "  and  the  evidence  on  which  Miiller 
built  "  seems  unusually  slender." 

2  Justin.  XX.  1. 

3  Niebuhr,     I.    pp.     36,    116.     Mtiller 
(Etrusk.  einl.  2,   7)  also  regards  Tarquinii 
as  of  Pelasgic  origin,  but  thinks  that  this 
Pelasgic  colony  came  from  the  Lydian  coast, 
thus  reconciling  the  two  traditions.     He 


fixes  the  date  of  this  emigration  about  the 
year  290  before  the  foundation  of  Rome, 
or  1044  B.C.,  which  he  considers  the  com- 
mencement of  the  Etruscan  Era  (einl.  2, 2). 
Gerhard  (Ann.  Inst.  1831,  p.  203)  also 
thinks  Tarquinii  was  Pelasgic. 

4  Strab.  loc.  cit. 

5  .Slneid.  VIII.  506  ;   X.  lf>3.     Joannes 
Lydus  (de  Ostent.  III. )  speaks  of  two  Tar- 
chons — one,  the  founder  of  the  Etruscan 
state;  the  other,  the  ally  of  JLneas  —  and 
distinguishes   them  as  the  elder  and  the 
younger. 

6  Festus,  v.  Tages.   The  Etruscans,  how- 
ever, regarded  Tages  as  the  son  of  Hercules 
and  Minerva,  as  we  learn  from  an  Etruscan 
mirror,  confirmed  by  other  monuments. — 
Ann.  Inst.  1841,  p.  94 — Braun.     An  argu- 
ment confirmatory  of  the  Pelasgic  origin  of 
Tarquinii  may   be   drawn  from    this  very 
name.     Tagus  was  the  title  of  the  chief- 
tain of  the  confederate  cities  of  Thessaly 
(X'enoph.  Hist  Graec.  VI.  1 ;    Pollux,  I.  c. 
10),  whence  Tarquinii,  according  to  Justin, 
derived  her  origin  ;  and  the  word  Thessali 
was  used  as  a  synonym  with  Pelasgi  (Strab. 
V.  p.  220),  the  latter  people  having  one  of 
their  principal  seats  in  that  land.     Grote 
(Hist.  Greece,  II.  p.   373)  shows  that  the 
title  Tagus  was  once  applied  by  a  Roman 
consul    to   the    chief    magistrate   of    the 
several  cities  of  Thessaly. 


CHAP,  xxvii.]  LEGENDS    OF    TABCHON    AND    TAGES. 


419 


assembled  on  the  spot."  The  mysterious  hoy  then  made  known 
to  them  the  practice  of  divination  by  the  inspection  of  entrails 
and  the  flight  of  birds;  they  treasured  up  all  he  had  said  or 
sung,  and  committed  it  to  writing ;  and  these  records  formed  the 
code  of  the  sacred  Discipline  of  the  Etruscans,  Avhich  regulated 
their  entire  polity,  civil  and  religious,  and  was  by  them  trans- 
mitted to  the  Romans.7  Though  all  this  is  evidently  fable,8  yet 
through  the  mists  of  tradition  we  catch  a  glimpse  of  substantial 
forms;  we  can  perceive  the  high  antiquity  of  the  city  of  Tarquinii, 
dating  from  the  very  foundation  of  the  Etruscan  state — its  im- 
portance, in  the  derivation  of  its  name  from  the  mythical  hero  of 
the  land,  the  founder  of  the  Twelve  Cities ;  and  as  the  spot 
selected  for  the  divine  revelation  of  the  national  system  of  polity. 
That  it  was  one  of  the  Twelve,  none  can  doubt.  Nay,  it  can 
urge  claims  to  metropolitan  supremacy  ;  and,  if  not  the  political 
head,  it  must  at  least  be  regarded  as  the  ecclesiastical  metropolis 
of  the  land,  the  city  peculiarly  honoured  by  the  gods,  the  spot 
where  the  religious  system  and  the  peculiar  civilisation  of  the 
Etruscans  took  their  rise.9 


~>  Cic.  de  Divin.  II.  23,  39  ;  Ovid. 
Metam.  XV.  553 — 9  ;  Censorin.  de  die 
Nat,  IV.  ;  Serv.  ad  31n.  VII  [.  398  ; 
Lucan.  I.  636  ;  Amra.  Marcell.  XXI. 

1,  10  ;  Arnob.  II.  69;  Isid.  Orig.  VIII.  9; 
Mart.  Capella  de  Nupt.  II.  p.  27 ;  VI.  p. 
134  ;  Joan.    Lydus  de   Ostentis,    II.   III. 
Miiller  credits    the    version   of    the   last 
named  writer,  that  the   husbandman  who 
ploughed   up   the    oracular   child  was    no 
•other  than  Tarchon  himself  (Etrusk.  III. 

2,  3).      Elsewhere  (III.  2,  n.  14)  he  says, 
in  reference  to  Tarchon's  hoary  head,  "It 
is  very  clear  that  Tarchon  and  Tages  were 
personages  of  the  same  legend,  who  might 
fce   easily   confounded."      Cluver   (II.    p. 
519)  seems  to  regard  them  as  identical. 

8  Cicero  (de  Div.  II.  23)  so  regarded  it, 
and  laughed  to  scorn  any  who  should  credit 
it.      Miiller  considers  these  traditions  of 
Tarchon  and  Tages  as  local  and  genuinely 
Etruscan  (Etrusk.  einl.   2,   1,  and  8  ;  IV. 
4,    2).     Cluver   (Ital.    Ant.    II.   p.    520) 
suggests  that  the  legend  of  Tages  was  a 
mere  version  of  the  creation  of  Adam,  who 
first   taught   his   children    and   children's 
children  the  practice,    not  of   divination, 
but  of  all  divine  worship  and  sacred  rites, 
which  he  had  received  from  God  himself. 

9  It  is   nowhere   expressly  stated   that 


Tarquinii  was  the  chief  city  of  the  Con- 
federation, yet  it  is  implied  in  the  fact  of 
its   being  the   spot   where   the   civil  and 
religious  polity  of  the  Etruscans  had  their 
origin,  and  of  its  eponym  us  Tarchon  being 
the  traditional  founder  of  the  Twelve  Cities. 
The  metropolis,  in  the  primary  sense  of  the 
term,  it  undoubtedly  was.    Miiller  remarks 
(Etrusk.  einl.    2,  1,  2),  that  "the  Etrus- 
cans themselves  regarded  Tarquinii  as  the 
metropolis  of  their  Twelve  Cities.'1     And 
again  (einl.    2,    16) — i(  Tarquinii  is   that 
particular   spot  of  Etruria,   to  which  are 
attached  all  traces  of  a  permanent  unity 
and  a  close  connection  of  the  Etruscan  cities 
under  one  head."     Cluver  (II.  p.  520) also 
thinks  the  metropolitan  supremacy  of  Tar- 
quinii is  clearly  implied.     If  this  be  so,  it 
must,  a  fortiori,    have   been    one   of  the 
Twelve,  and  no  proof  of  this  is  requisite. 
Yet  I  may  add  that  Dionysius  (III.  p.  184) 
calls  it   "a  great  and  flourishing  city"  in. 
the  time  of  Demaratus,  which  is  confirmed 
by  Cicero,  Ilepub.  II.   19.    Its  eminence  is 
also  strongly  implied  by  its  conduct  in  the 
war  with  Servius  Tullius  (Dion.   Hal.  IV. 
]).  231),  and  again  in  the  war  of  398,  when 
Tarquinii  and  Falerii  took  the  lead  of  all 
the  Etruscan  states  (Liv.  VII.  17). 

B  K  2 


420  TAKQUINTL— THE  CITY.  [CHAP,  xxvir. 

Of  the  early  history  of  Tarquinii  we  are  utterly  ignorant ;  as 
we  find  no  mention  of  it  from  the  time  of  Tarchon  till  the  close 
of  the  first  century  of  Rome,  when  Demaratus,  a  wealthy  mer- 
chant of  Corinth,  being  compelled  to  fly  from  his  native  city  on 
the  usurpation  of  Cypselus  and  the  expulsion  of  the  Bacchiads, 
migrated  to  Etruria,  with  which  he  had  long  been  in  the  habit  of 
commercial  intercourse,  and  settled  at  Tarquinii.  He  married  a 
lady  of  that  city,  and  begat  two  sons.1  He  brought  with  him  a 
large  band  of  fellow-refugees,  among  them  two  potters  or  workers 
in  clay,  Eucheir  and  Eugrammos — names  indicative  of  their 
skill — and  a  painter  named  Cleophantos.  Whether  these  were 
real  existences,  or  mere  s}'mbols  of  their  respective  arts,  the 
tradition  obviously  meant  that  Demaratus  introduced  the  civiliza- 
tion of  Greece  and  her  refinement  in  the  arts  into  the  land  of  his 
adoption.2  He  was  well  received  by  the  Tarquinienses, — one 
account,  indeed,  represents  him  as  attaining  to  the  supreme 
power  in  that  city,  in  consequence  of  his  great  wealth.3 

Lucumo  or  Lucius,  the  eldest  son  of  Demaratus,  and  heir  of 
his  vast  possessions,  married  an  Etruscan  lad}r  of  noble  birth ; 
but  though  thus  allied  to  their  aristocracy,  and  himself  a  native 
of  Tarquinii,  he  was  looked  down  on  by  the  Etruscans  on  account 
of  his  foreign  origin.  Unable  to  brook  this  wound  to  his  pride, 
he  quitted  the  city  of  his  birth,  and  seeking  a  fairer  field  for  his 
ambition,  migrated  to  Rome,  where  his  talents  and  wealth 
eventually  raised  him  to  the  throne,  which  he  filled  as  Tarquinius 
Priscus.4  "With  his  history  after  he  quitted  his  native  city,  we 

1  Liv.  I.   34  ;  Dion.  Hal.    Ilf.    p.  184  ;  Niebuhr,  who  shows  (I.  p.   372,  et  «?<?.) 
Strab.  V.  p.  219  ;  Cic.  Tusc.  Qusest.  V.  37;  that  the  chronological  basis  on  which  it 
de  Repub.  II.    19  ;  Macrob.  Saturn.  I.  6.  rests    is   iitterly  unsound.     He   does  not 
Dionysius  says  he  had  made  his  immense  positively  deny  the  existence  of  such  a  man 
fortune  by  trading  with  Etruria  alone.  as  Demaratus,   but  totally  rejects  his  re- 

2  Plin.  K  H.  XXXV.   5,   43.      He  says  lationship  with  Tarquinius  Priscus,  whom 
that  these  two  fctores  first  introduced  the  he  regards  not  as  an  Etruscan  at  all,  but  as. 
plastic  art  into  Italy.     Tacitus  (Ann.  XI.  a  Latin— which  he  deduces  from  his  cog- 
14)  says  Demaratus  taught  the  Etruscans  nomen,  Priscus.     The  two  potters  he  looks 
alphabetical    writing  ;     and    according    to  on,  not  as  real  personages,  but  as  symbols 
Cicero  (de  Repub.  II.    19)  and  Dionysius  of  moulding  or  painting  on  clay.     Yet  these 
(loc.    cit.),    he  instructed  his  sons  in  all  names  were  not  always  mere  abstractions  ; 
the  arts  of  Greece,  for  which  Rome  was  for  I  have  seen  that  of  "  Eucheir  "  inscribed 
indebted    to    Tarquin,    who — Gnecum    in-  as  the  potter  on  a  Greek  vase,  and  there  is 
genium    Italicis   artibus    niiscuisset—  says  a  iyllx  in  the  British  Museum,  with  the 
Floras,  I.  5.  inscription  ETXEPO2  EOOIE2EN.   Muller 

:t  Strab.  VIII.  p.  378.  (einl.  2,  16,  n.  32)  agrees  with  Niebuhr  in 

4  Liv.  I.   34  ;  Dion.   Hal.   III.    p.  IS.")  ;  considering  the  two  legends  of  Demaratus 

Polyb.   VI.   2,  ap.  Suid.  v.    Aewcios.     All  and  L.  Tarquinius  as  originally  in  no  way 

this  pretty  legend  of  Demaratus  falls  to  the  connected.      He    regards  (einl.    5,  4)   the- 

ground  at  a  touch  of  the  critical  wand  of  legend  of  Demaratus  as  purely  Corinthian, 


CHAP,  xxvii.]  LEGENDS  OF  DEMAEATUS  AND  TARQUINIUS.    421 


have  nothing  more  to  do  than  to  mention  that,  if  chroniclers 
may  be  credited,  he  had  his  revenge  on  his  fellow  countrymen,  by 
the  conquest  of  the  entire  Etruscan  Confederation,  which  sent 
him  twelve  fasces,  and  the  other  insignia  of  empire  in  acknow- 
ledgment of  its  submission  to  his  authority.0  It  may  be,  how- 
ever, that  the  legend  of  Tarquin's  migration  to  Rome  and  his 
attainment  of  the  kingly  power  are  merely  significant  of  the 
conquest  of  that  city  by  an  Etruscan  prince,  who  introduced  the 
institutions  of  his  country,  and  made  Home  the  capital  of  a  power- 
ful state  in  connection  with  the  national  Confederation.6  In  this 
case  we  may  regard  the  legend  of  Tarquin's  conquest  of  the 
Twelve  Cities  as  significant  either  of  the  metropolitan  power  of 
Tarquinii  over  the  rest  of  Etruria,7  or  as  an  invention  of  the 
annalists  to  account  for  the  introduction  of  the  Etruscan  insignia, 
of  authority  into  Rome.8 

When  Servius  Tullius  ascended  the  throne,  the  Etruscans, 
who  had  been  subdued  by  his  predecessor,  says  Dionysius, 
revolted  ;  and  Tarquinii,  with  Veil  and  Csere,  took  a  prominent 
part  in  the  war,  which  lasted  twenty  years,  and  ended  in  the 
entire  subjugation  of  the  Confederation.9 


not  Italian,  ami  as  showing,  whether  true 
or  false,  the  early  commerce  of  Tarquinii 
with  Corinth. 

5  Dion.   Hal.  III.   p.    195  ;  Flor.   I.   5. 
See  Niebuhr's  objections  to  this  tradition 
of  Tarquin's  conquest  of  Etruria,  I.  p.  379. 
Miiller  (einl.  2,  16)  also  regards  this  legend 
of  Tarquin's  conquest  as    "  impossible  ; '' 
for  Etruria  was  then  at  the  zenith  of  her 
power.     Mannert  (Greog.  p.  333)  also  points 
out  the  impossibility  of  this  conquest,  as 
being  opposed  to  all  the  occurrences  of  the 
later  history  of  Etruria.      The  silence  of 
Polybius,  Cicero,  and  Livy,  proves— thinks 
Niebuhr — that  they  did  not  credit  it. 

6  Niebuhr  (I.  p.  384)  is  of  opinion  that 
the    legend     of    the    Tarquinius    Prisons 
"  clearly  implies  a  belief  that  there  was  a 
time  when  Rome  received  Tuscan  institu- 
tions from  a   prince  of  Etruria,  and  was 
the  great  and  splendid  capital  of  a  power- 
ful Etruscan  state."     Miiller  (einl.  2,  16) 
is   much    of   the    same    opinion.       Arnold 
<Hist.  of  Rome,  I.  p.  56)  also  considers  the 
Etruscan  dynasty   of   Rome   to   show  the 
dominion  of  Etruria  over  the  Latins,  and 
the  expulsion  of  the  Tarquins  to  signify  the 
decline  of  the  city  of  Tarquinii,  and  the 
liberation  of  Rome  from  the  Etruscan  yoke. 


'  Miiller  (einl.  2,  16)  so  interprets  this 
tradition  of  Tarquin's  conquest  of  all 
Etruria.  "If  you  will,"  says  he,  "you 
may  view  the  two  Tarquins  as  regents  of 
Tarquinii  in  Rome ;  but  this  seems  in 
both  cases  open  to  doubt."  He  would 
rather  consider  Priscus  and  Superbus 
as  names  descriptive  of  an  earlier  and 
later  tyranny ;  and  the  two  kings  so 
specified  as  being  in  fact  "nameless  in 
history."  Niebuhr  (I.  p.  383)  suspects 
a  connexion  between  the  Roman  legend 
of  Tarquin,  being  the  supreme  ruler  of 
all  Etruria,  and  the  Etruscan  one  of 
Tarchon,  who  conquered  that  land  anil 
founded  the  Twelve  Cities. 

s  Strabo  (V.  p.  220)  ascribes  the  intro- 
duction of  the  Etruscan  insiynia  into  Rome 
to  Tarquin  himself,  who  brought  them  from 
Tarquinii  ;  Livy  (I.  8)  to  Romulus.  The 
statement  of  Strabo  that  "Tarquin  adorned 
Etruria  "• — which  from  the  context  would 
seem  to  refer  more  particularly  to  his  native 
city,  Tarquinii — "by  means  of  resources 
derived  from  Rome,"  seems  opposed  to  the 
tradition  of  his  subjugation  of  that  land, 
and  more  consistent  with  his  conquest  of 
Rome  as  an  Etruscan  prince. 

9  Dion.  Hal.  IV.  pp.  214,  231.     To  this 


422  TARQUINII. -TiiE  CITY.  [CHAP.  xxvn. 

After  Tarquinii  Superbus  had  been  expelled  from  Rome,  he 
sought  assistance  from  the  Tarquinienses  and  Veientes  on  the 
plea  of  consanguinity.  It  seemed  good  to  the  people  of  Tarquinii 
that  their  race  should  reign  at  Home,  and  in  conjunction  with 
Veii  they  sent  an  army  to  reinstate  Tarquin.  In  the  battle 
which  ensued,  the  Veientes,  who  had  been  often  beaten  by  the 
Romans,  turned  and  fled;  but  the  Tarquinienses,  "a  new  enemy, 
not  only  maintained  their  ground,  but  even  repulsed  the  Romans.'* 
This  was  the  battle  of  the  Arsian  AVood,  in  which  Junius  Brutus, 
the  First  Consul,  and  Aruns  Tarquinius  fell  by  each  other's  hands; 
and  the  Etruscans  had  to  learn  from  divine  lips  that  they  were 
beaten.1 

We  hear  nothing  further  of  Tarquinii  for  more  than  a  century, 
till  in  the  year  of  Rome  357  (397  B.C.),  she  took  up  arms  to 
assist  Veii,  then  closely  besieged  by  the  Romans,  but  was  severely 
punished  for  her  interference.2 

The  next  mention  we  find  of  her  is  in  the  year  366  (388  B.C.), 
when  the  Romans  invaded  her  territory,  and  destroyed  the  towns 
of  Cortuosa  and  Contenebra.3 

In  the  year  395  (359  B.C.)  her  citizens  retaliated  by  ravaging 
the  Roman  territor}',  routed  their  army,  and  put  to  death  in  the 
Forum  of  Tarquinii  three  hundred  and  seven  of  the  captives,  as 
a  sacrifice  to  their  gods — the  disgrace  of  the  Romans  being  in- 
creased by  the  ignominy  of  the  punishment.4  In  397  the  Tar- 
quinienses were  joined  by  the  Falisci,5  and  in  the  following  year 
occurred  that  singular  scene,  already  referred  to,  when  the 
Etruscan  priests,  with  flaming  torches  and  serpents  in  their 
hands,  led  the  van  of  their  force  against  the  Romans,  who, 
terrified  at  this  charge  of  Furies,  at  first  gave  wa}r ;  but  being 
laughed  out  of  their  fears  by  their  leaders,  rallied,  and  put  the 
foe  to  the  rout.  Hereupon  the  allied  cities  gathered  all  the 
force  of  the  Confederation,  and  marched  to  the  Salinas,  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Tiber,  where,  being  suddenly  attacked  by  the 

conquest  of  Etruria  by  S.  Tullius,  the  same  regarded  the  expulsion  of  the  Tarquins  as  a 

objections  will  apply  that  are  urged  against  rebellion  against  their  authority  in  particu- 

that  by  his  predecessor.     Niebuhr  (I.   p.  Jar.    The  expedition  of  Porsena  seems,  how- 

367)  rejects  it  as  fictitious.  ever,  rather  to  indicate  that  it  was  regarded 

1  Liv.  If.  6,  7  ;  Dion.  Hal.  V.  pp.  279,  as  a  rebellion  against  the  entire  Confedera- 

288,  ct  seq.   Livy,  in  representing  Tarquinii  tion. 

on  this  occasion  at  war  with  Rome  for  the  "  Liv.  V.  16. 

first  time,  is  quite  opposed  to  Dionysius ;  3  Liv.  Vf.  4. 

but  seems  to  corroborate  the  opinion  above  4  Liv.  VII.  12,  15. 

mentioned  of  the  early  Etruscan  conquest  *  Liv.  VII.  16. 
of  Rome,  and  to  show  that  the  Tarquinienses 


CHAP,  xxvii.]  HISTORY    OF    TAEQUINII.  423 

Romans,  eight  thousand  of  them  were  captured,  and  the  rest 
slain  or  driven  out  of  the  Roman  territory.0  But  Tarquinii  was 
not  yet  subdued ;  she  continued  the  war  manfully,  and  in  the 
year  400  (354  B.C.)  sustained  another  signal  defeat,  in  which  a 
vast  number  of  her  soldiers  were  taken  prisoners,  who  were  all 
slain  in  cold  blood,  save  three  hundred  and  fifty-eight  of  noble 
birth,  who  were  sent  to  Rome,  and  there  in  the  Forum  were 
scourged  to  death,  or  perished  by  the  axes  of  the  lictors.  Thus 
bitterly  did  the  Romans  avenge  the  sacrifice  of  their  countrymen 
in  the  forum  of  Tarquinii.  Not  yet,  however,  Avas  the  spirit  of  the 
Tarquinienses  subdued  ;  they  still  maintained  the  war,  aided  by 
the  Crerites  and  Falisci.  But  their  allies  of  Caere  proved  faith- 
less, and  made  a  separate  peace  with  Rome,  and  the  other  two 
cities  continued  a  fruitless  struggle,  till  in  the  year  403  (351  B.C.), 
when  the  Romans  had  laid  waste  their  lands  with  fire  and  sword, 
"  doing  battle,"  as  Livy  says,  "  with  fields  rather  than  with 
men,"  they  besought  and  obtained  a  truce  for  forty  years.7 

At  the  expiration  of  that  period  they,  in  conjunction  with  the 
rest  of  the  Confederate  cities,  save  Arretium,  again  took  up  arms, 
and  besieged  Sutrium,  then  in  alliance  with  Rome,  which  made 
vain  efforts  to  raise  the  siege  ;  till  in  the  following  year,  444 
(310  B.C.),  Fabius  routed  the  Etruscans  with  a  shower  of  stones 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  that  town  ;  and  followed  up  his  victory 
by  crossing  the  Ciminian  Mount.8  Tarquinii,  though  not  ex- 
pressly mentioned,  doubtless  took  part  in  the  great  struggle  and 
defeat  at  the  Yadimonian  Lake  in  445  ;  for  in  the  next  year 
she  was  compelled  to  furnish  corn  for  the  Roman  army,  and  to 
petition  for  another  truce  of  forty  years.9 

Though  we  find  no  further  mention  of  Tarquinii  in  Etruscan 
times,  there  is  little  doubt  that  she  took  part  in  the  final  great 
struggle  for  independence,  and  joined  her  confederates  in  the 
second  fruitless  stand  made  at  the  Yadimonian  Lake  in  the  j'ear 
471  (283  B.C.).1  At  what  precise  period  she  fell  under  Roman 
domination  we  know  not ;  but  it  must  have  been  at  the  close  of  the 

8  Liv.  VII.  17  ;  Frontin.  Strat.  II.  4,  9  Liv.  IX.  39,  41  ;  Diod.  Sic.  XX.  p. 
17  ;  Diod.  Sic.  XVI.  p.  432.  The  latter  781.  Niebuhr  (III.  p.  276)  regards  Tar- 
writer  says  nothing  memorable  was  effected  quinii  as  the  only  bitter  enemy  that  Rome 
— only  the  ayer  Faliscus  was  devastated.  possessed  among  the  Etruscans,  after  the 
Yet  Rutilus  the  dictator  had  his  triumph —  fall  of  Veii. 
Fasti  Capitolini,  anno  397.  *  Of  this  final  war  we  have  but  scattered 

7  Liv.  VI I.  19 — 22.  notices.     A  connected  and  detailed  account 

8  Liv.  IX.   32,   33,  35,   36  ;  cf.   Diod.  was   doubtless   given   in  the   lost    second 
Sic.  XX.  p.  773,  ed.   Rhod.;  Flor.  I.  17  ;  decade  of  Livy. 

Fasti  Capitolini,  anno  444. 


424  TARQUINIL— THK  CITY.  [CHAP.  xxvu. 

fifth  century  of  Home.  In  the  Second  Punic  War  she  furnished 
Scipio's  fleet  with  sail-cloth.2  The  city  was  subsequently  a 
colon}'  and  a  municipium  ;3  and  inscriptions  found  on  the.  spot 
prove  it  to  have  been  flourishing  in  the  time  of  Trajan  and  the 
Antonines.  It  is  supposed  to  have  been  desolated  by  the  Goths 
and  Lombards  in  the  sixth,  and  by  the  Saracens  in  the  ninth 
century  of  our  era,  at  which  time  its  inhabitants  removed 
to  the  opposite  hill,  and  founded  Corneto  ;  but  it  was  not  finally 
deserted  till  the  year  1307,  when  its  last  remains  were  destroyed 
by  the  Cometans.* 

The  site  of  the  ancient  city  is  still  called  Turchina,5  or  Piano 
di  Civita.  From  the  Montarozzi  nothing  is  to  be  seen  of  it  but 
the  high,  bare  table-land  on  which  it  stood,  girt  about  with  white 
cliffs.  This  table-land  lies  inland  from  the  Montarozzi,  and 
parallel  to  it,  and  rises  five  or  six  hundred  feet  above  the  sea.  It 
is  nearly  two  miles  from  Corneto,  across  the  deep  intervening 
valley  ;  and  as  there  is  no  road  or  even  track,  the  excursion 
must  be  made  on  foot  or  horseback — the  latter  being  advisable 
for  ladies,  as  the  slope  is  steep  and  rugged.  The  highest  part  of 
the  city  is  to  the  west,  opposite  Corneto.  Here  and  in  many 
other  parts  around  the  brow  of  the  cliffs  are  a  few  massive 
rectangular  blocks,  the  foundations  of  the  ancient  walls,  but  other 
trace  of  a  city,  above  ground,  there  is  none — a  long,  bare  plat- 
form, overrun  with  weeds  or  corn-stubble,  meets  the  eye,  with 
not  a  sign  of  life,  on  its  melancholy  surface,  or  at  most  a  few 
cattle  grazing,  and  a  lonely  herdsman  seated  on  some  prostrate 
block,  or  stretched  beneath  a  lowly  bush.  Yet  that  this  has  been 
the  site  of  a  city  will  not  be  doubted  by  him  who  regards  the 
soil  on  which  he  treads ;  which  is  composed  of  brick-bats, 
earthenware,  hewn  stone,  and  marble — ineffaceable  traces  of  an- 
cient habitation.  A  practised  eye  might  even  perceive  in  these 
fragments  records  of  the  city's  history — that  it  was  originally 
Etruscan  is  proved  by  the  potteiy,  which  resembles  that  on 
purely  Etruscan  sites ;  while  the  intermixture  of  marble  tells  of 
the  domination  of  the  Romans,  and  the  frequent  fragments  of 

"  Liv.  XXVIII.  45.  Tomb  of  the  Tarquins  at  Caere,  must  have 

3  Plin.  III.  8  ;  Frontin.  deCol.  ;  Cicero,  been  TAKCHXA.     The  name  of  "Turchina" 
pro  Ctecina,  cap.    IV.  ;  Ptolem.   Geog.    p.  is  also  given  by  the  Cornetani  to  a  height 
7'2,  ed.  Bert.  halfway    Between    the    ancient    city   and 

4  Garampi,  ap.   Tirabos.   Letter.  Ital.  I.  Monte    Uomano,    whence    water    is    still 
P-  50.  brought  to  Corneto  by  the  aqueduct.     It  is 

a  This  is  very  nearly  the  Etruscan  ap-       marked  by  this  name  also  on  Canina's  map. 
pellation,    which,   as    we    learn    from    the       Etr.  Marit.  tav.  74. 


CHAP,  xxvii.]       EXTANT    REMAINS    ON    THE    SITE.  425 

verd-antiqtte,  and  other  rare  and  valuable  stones,  determine  it 
to  have  been  a  place  of  wealth  and  consequence  under  the 
Empire.6 

The  lover  of  nature  will  turn  from  these  dim  traces  of  anti- 
quity to  the  bright  scene  around  him.  He  looks  across  the 
deep,  bare,  lonesome  valley  to  the  opposite  height  of  the  Mon- 
tarozzi,  whose  long,  rugged  mass  bounds  the  view  to  the  south 
and  west,  terminating  abruptly  in  yellow  cliffs,  which  are  crowned 
by  the  many  towers  of  Corneto.  The  lofty  bare  height  to  the 
north-west  is  Monte  Quagliero,  part  of  the  ancient  necropolis  ; 
the  trees  in  the  intervening  hollow  mark  the  course  of  the 
Marta  ;  and  stretching  away  over  a  tract  of  level  shore,  the  eye 
reaches  the  broad  blue  of  the  Mediterranean,  and  travels  on  to 
the  graceful  headland  of  Monte  Argentaro,  to  the  Giglio  and 
Giannuti,  its  islet  satellites,  and  if  the  weather  be  clear,  to  the 
peaks  of  Elba,  dim  and  grey  on  the  blue  horizon.  From  this 
quarter  round  again  to  the  south  stretches  the  wide  sweep  of  the 
Etruscan  plain,  broken  and  undulating — no  longer  here  richly 
wooded  as  in  days  of  yore,7  but  for  the  most  part  naked  and 
barren  ;  with  the  dark  crests  of  the  Canine  mountains  on  the 
north  ;  the  giant  mass  of  Santa  Flora,  a  wedge  of  snow,  towering 
behind ;  Monte  Fiascone  rising  like  a  long  Avave  in  the  north- 
east ;  the  loftier  double-peaked  Cimiuian  at  its  side ;  and 
bounding  the  view  to  the  south,  the  long,  serrated,  and  forested 
range  of  the  Tolfa,  sinking  to  the  sea  at  Civita  Vecchia. 

On  the  way  from  this  point  eastward  to  a  lofty  part  of  the 
ridge  several  remains  are  passed — here  mere  substructions,  there 
fragments  of  walling — here  a  well,  there  a,  vault  opening  in  the 
slope.  Still  more  numerous  are  such  vestiges  on  the  summit  of 
this  height,  which  seems  to  have  been  the  Arx  of  Tarquinii. 
Here  are  nothing  but  substructions,  yet  the  outline  of  several 
buildings  may  be  traced,8 — possibly  temples  of  the  three  great 
divinities,  Jupiter,  Juno,  and  Minerva,  which  were  usual  in 
Etruscan  cities,9  and  which  analogty  teaches  us  to  look  for  on  the 
Acropolis,  or  most  elevated  position.  This  spot  is  known  by  the 

6  It  is  said  that  saarabei  and  beautiful  8  On  the  side  facing  the  Montarozzi,  the 

cameos  are  often  brought  to  light  by  the  blocks  are  arranged  in  terraces  down  the 

plough.      Ann.  Inst.  1829,  p.  93.  slope,  possibly  the  steps  by  which  the  su- 

'  Stat.    Sylv.   V.    '2,  I  ;    Varro,    de  He  perincumbent  buildings  were  approached, 

Rust.  III.  12.     The  latter  writer  speaks  of  but  more  probably  so  placed  for  the  sake  of 

a  park  here,  stocked  with  wild  animals,  not  a  firmer  foundation, 
only  deer,    roebuck,    and   hares,    but  also  9  Serv.  ad  JEn.  I.  426. 

•wild  sheep. 


426  TARQUIXIL— THE  CITY.  [CHAP.  xxvn. 

name  of  Ara  della  llegina,  or  "  The  Queen's  Altar."  It  is  three 
miles  and  more  from  Corneto  as  the  crow  flies,  and  double  that 
distance  by  the  high  road. 

At  a  little  distance  behind  these  substructions,  a  semi-circular 
line  of  blocks  is  to  be  traced,  which  appears  to  mark  the  outline 
of  the  citadel.  On  the  east  of  it  are  traces  of  a  gate ;  and  on 
the  opposite  side,  in  the  slope  facing  the  Montarozzi,  is  a  half- 
buried  arch,  which  must  be  an  ancient  gateway,  now  encum- 
bered with  debris.  It  is  shown  in  the  woodcut  at  the  head  of 
this  chapter.1 

From  the  Arx  the  hill  is  seen  to  turn  to  the  north-east, 
showing  the  form  of  the  city  to  have  been  that  of  an  obtuse  angle. 
The  arm  most  remote  from  Corneto  is  bounded  at  the  distance  of 
nearly  a  mile  by  a  high  sugar-loaf  mound,  and  the  intervening 
slopes  are  thinly  strewn  with  blocks  of  the  ancient  walls — one 
stone  rarely  standing  upon  another.  The  conical,  or  rather 
wedge-shaped,  height,  called  La  Castellina,  appears  to  have  been 
without  the  limits  of  the  city,  from  which  it  is  separated  by  a 
hollow.3  Were  it  excluded,  the  city  must  still  have  been  about 
five  miles  in  circuit. 

The  line  of  walls  may  be  traced  in  many  detached  portions  by 
substructions.  The  blocks,  though  sometimes  volcanic,  are 
generally  cut  from  the  calcareous  cliffs  of  the  city,  in  dimensions 
and  arrangement  resembling  the  remnants  of  masonry  at  Veii  and 
Caere,  and  Avith  equal  claims  to  be  considered  Etruscan.  In  fact, 
where  the  outline  of  a  city  is  almost  determined  by  nature,  the 
original  line  of  Avail  at  the  verge  of  the  cliff  may  well  have  been 
preserved  in  all  ages,  and  how  often  soever  the  upper  portions 
may  have  been  renewed,  it  is  highly  improbable  that  the  founda- 
tions would  have  been  disturbed.  There  seem  to  have  been 

1  The  arch  is  only  6  ft.  6  in.    in  span,  tion  of  the  arch,  or  if  speaking  from  per- 

anrl  about  3  ft.  thick,  inwards ;  so  that  it  sonal  observation,  he  must  have  referred 

must  have  been  a  mere  postern.     The  depth  to  another  similar  monument,  for  the  arch- 

of  the  voussoirs  is  21   inches,  and  of  the  way  mentioned  in  the  text,  and  illustrated 

courses  in  the  surrounding  masonry,  17  or  from  a  sketch  by  my  own  hand,  is  on  the 

1 8  inches.  south  of  the  city,  and  was  undoubtedly  a 

Canina  gives  on  illustration  of  this  arch-  gate  in  the  city-walls. 

way  (Etruria  Marit.  tav.  77),  yet  speaks  2  We&tphal  (Ann.  Inst.  1830,  p.  37) 
of  it  as  on  the  north  side  of  Tarquinii,  and  took  this  height  for  the  acropolis.  Ita 
as  opening  in  the  substructions  of  a  cause-  slope,  indeed,  bears  fragments  of  ancient 
way,  which  crossed  the  valley  in  this  direc-  walling,  but  whether  these  belonged  to  a 
tion  to  the  heights  of  Santo  Spirito,  and  fortification,  or  mark,  as  Canina  supposes, 
also  served  as  an  aqueduct  to  convey  water  the  precinct  of  a  temple  which  crowned 
thence  to  the  ancient  city  (II.,  pp.  35,  57).  the  summit,  now  occupied  by  mediaeval  re- 
He  was  either  misinformed  as  to  the  posi-  mains,  I  could  not  determine. 


CHAP,  xxvii.]  THE  ACEOPOLIS  AND   ANCIENT  WALLS.  427 

many  gates.  The  sites  of  some  are  very  discernible — especially 
in  that  part  nearest  Corneto. 

The  principal  remains  within  the  Avails  are  evidently  Roman. 
Just  under  the  Arx  to  the  west  are  traces  of  Baths,  excavated  in 
1829.  Little  is  now  to  be  seen,  but  when  opened  there  were 
painted  walls,  broken  statues  and  columns,  Latin  inscriptions, 
beautiful  mosaics,  and  other  remains  which  told  of 

'•  What  time  the  Romaine  Empire  bore  the  raine 
Of  all  the  world  and  florisht  most  in  might." 

Traces  of  other  buildings  have  been  discovered — a  nymphceum, 
temples,  reservoirs — in  fact,  every  excavation  brings  some  ruin  to 
light,  for  the  entire  surface  of  the  hill  is  a  thick  stratum  of 
debris ;  but  as  such  researches,  however  valuable  to  science,  are 
seldom  lucrative  to  the  speculator,  we  cannot  expect  many  exca- 
vations to  be  made.3 

In  the  winter  of  1875-6,  however,  a  company  of  thirteen  gentle- 
men of  Corneto,  with  the  Sindaco  at  their  head,  influenced  by  the 
love  of  antiquarian  research,  rather  than  by  the  hope  of  gain, 
commenced  excavations  on  the  site  of  the  ancient  city.  They 
continued  their  labours  for  three  months,  and  though  they  did 
not  find  much  of  value  to  reward  their  enterprise,  they  had  the 
satisfaction  to  disclose  a  large  portion  of  the  southern  walls  of 
the  Arx,  extending  for  at  least  sixty  metres.  These  walls  are  of 
regular  masonry  in  six  or  seven  courses,  each  course  being  about 
eighteen  inches  in  height.  The  blocks,  which  are  of  the  local 
stone,  are  all  arranged  with  their  ends  outwards,  and  often 
immediately  over  each  other  in  a  hap-hazard  manner,  as  in  very 
primitive  masonry.  In  front  of  the  wall  ran  an  ancient  road  about 
ten  feet  wide,  with  a  pavement  of  squared  slabs  laid  diagonal!}'. 
This  is  now  covered  up,  as  are  also  sundry  wells  or  pits  beneath 
the  wall,  the  contents  of  which  I  could  not  learn  from  my  guide, 
one  of  the  excavators.  Within  the  walls,  were  opened  several 
subterranean  structures,  in  which  were  found  fragments  of 
marble,  terra-cottas,  and  articles  in  bronze  and  gold,  as  well  as 
coins.  One  of  these  chambers  contained  a  great  number  of 

3  For  notices  of  the  excavations  on  the  to  the  Cloaca  Maxima,  at  the  foot  of  the 

site  of  Tarquinii,  see  Bull.  Inst.  1829,  p.  hill  of  Tarquinii.  I  have  sought  it  in  vain  ; 

197;  1830,  pp.  72,  238;  1831,  p.  4;  nor  is  it  mentioned  by  any  one  but  himself . 

1835,  p.  27.  He  can  hardly  mean  the  half -buried  arch, 

Micali  (Ant.  Pop.  Ital.  II.  p.  222)  men-  of  which  a  woodcut  is  given  at  the  head 

tions  a  large  cloaca,  similar  in  construction  of  this  chapter. 


428  TARQUIXIL— THE  CITY.  [CHAP.  xxvn. 

terra-cotta  heads.  Multitudes  of  large  iron  nails,  probably  used 
for  fastening  timber,  which  has  long  ago  perished,  lay  in  heaps 
on  the  ground,  together  with  many  fragments  of  glass,  and  of  red 
Aretine  pottery,  with  adornments  in  relief. 

A  remarkable  relic  on  the  site  of  the  city  is  a  tomb,  or  what  is 
precisely  similar  to  those  found  in  abundance  on  Etruscan  sites 
— a  chamber  hollowed  in  the  rock  beloAv  the  surface,  of  the 
ordinary  sixe,  with  walls  slightly  converging  as  usual,  and  ceiling 
carved  into  beam  and  rafters.  As  it  is  in  the  very  heart  of  the 
city,  it  naturally  suggests  a  doubt  if  it  were  really  a  tomb,  and 
not  rather  a  cellar  or  underground  apartment.  But  in  the 
records  of  these  excavations  I  find  it  mentioned  as  a  tomb,  and 
as  containing,  when  opened,  fragments  of  beautiful,  painted 
vases,  mingled  with  burnt  bones.4  It  must  then  be  regarded  as 
an  exception  to  the  rule  of  Etruscan  burial — as  the  tomb  of  some 
illustrious  individual,  who  was  honoured  with  sepulture  within 
the  city-walls.5 

Such  are  the  extant  remains  of  the  city  which  formerly 
occupied  this  site — a  city  among  the  most  ancient,  and  once,  it 
may  be,  the  chief  in  all  Italy — the  metropolis  of  the  Etruscan 
Confederation — which  was  in  the  zenith  of  her  power  and 
splendour  when  Home  was  but  a  group  of  straw-built  huts  on  the 
Palatine — which  gave  a  dynasty  to  the  Seven  Hills,  and  ex- 
changed with  the  cities  of  Greece,  even  in  that  early  age,  the 
products  of  her  skill  and  labour.  AVho  can  behold  unmoved 
her  present  desolation  ?  Where  stood  temple  and  tower,  palace 
and  forum,  where  shone  the  glories  of  art  and  the  lavishments 
of  wealth  and  luxury,  nature  now  displays,  as  in  mockery, 


''  Bull.  Inst.  1830,  p.  72.  Instances  of  colonies  it  was  usual  to  inter  within  the 

.similar  intramural  sepulture  I  have  ob-  city  (Pint.  Lycurg.  ;  Polyb.  VIII.  p.  533, 

served  on  the  site  of  the  ancient  C;ere.  I  ed.  Casaub. ;  Pans.  I.  43,  3),  yet  in  the 

am  assured  by  Signer  Luigi  Dasti,  the  historic  period  it  was  the  general  custom 

Sindaco  of  Corneto,  that  in  the  excavations  to  bury  without  the  walls,  as  at  Athens 

made  on  the  site  of  this  ancient  city  in  the  (Cic.  ad  Div.  IV.  12),  except  when 

spring  of  1876,  several  subterranean  tombs  peculiar  honour  was  to  be  shown  to  the 

were  brought  to  light.  I  visited  the  spot  dead  ;  as  when  Themistocles  was  interred 

in  May,  to  assure  myself  of  the  fact,  but  in  the  forum  of  Magnesia  (Pint.  Themist. 

foimil  that  all  these  structures  had  been  ad  fin. ),  and  Timoleon  in  that  of  Syracuse 

reclose.l  with  earth.  (Plut.  Timol.  ad  fin.).  Polybius  (loc.  cit) 

0  This  was  the  custom  with  the  Romans.  tells  us  that  at  Tarentuin  the  citizens  al- 

<'ic.  de  Leg.  II.  23;  Plut.  Publicola,  ad  ways  buried  their  dead  within  the  walls, 

tinem.  And  in  Greece,  though  in  early  in  fancied  obedience  to  an  ancient  oracle, 

times  the  dead  were  buried  in  their  own  which  had  declared  that  the  city  would  be 

houses  (Plato,  Minos,  II.  p.  315,  ed.  Steph.),  happy  and  prosperous  in  proportion  to  the 

and  though  in  Sparta  and  some  of  her  number  of  its  inhabitants. 


CHAP,  xxvn.]         TOMBS    WITHIN    THE    WALLS.  429 

her  summer  tribute  of  golden  corn — seges  uli  Troja  fuit.  Or 
where  the  rock-strewn  soil  refuses  to  yield,  all  is  a  naked 
waste — 

"  The  mighty  columns  are  but  sand, 
And  lazy  snakes  trail  o'er  the  level  ruins." 

The  sage  or  artist  from  Athens  or  Corinth — the  Eg3rptiaii 
priest  or  magician — the  Phoenician  merchant — the  Samnite  ally 
— the  subject  Umbrian — the  rude  Gaul  or  stern  lloman  marvel- 
ling at  the  magnificence — the  stately  augur — the  haughty  Lucumo- 
— the  fierce  corsair — the  crowd  of  luxurious  citizens,  the  rank, 
the  wealth,  the  beauty  of  Tarquinii — where  are  they?  Your 
voice  passes  over  the  lonely  waste,  and  meets  not  the  wall  of 
temple,  mart,  or  palace,  to  echo  the  cry,  "Where  are  the}-?'' 
The  city  is  no  more — one  stone  of  it  is  scarce!}'  left  upon 
another.  And  its  inhabitants  ?  They  lie  in  the  depths  of 
yonder  hill.  Not  one  abode  of  the  living  is  left,  but  sepulchres 
in  thousands.  There  lie  the  remains  of  Tarquinii  and  of  her 
citizens,  their  treasures  of  gold  and  silver,  of  bronze  and  pottery, 
of  painting  and  sculpture,  all  they  prized  in  life,  lie  not  here,  but 
there — buried  with  them.  Strange  that  Avhile  their  place  of 
abode  on  earth  is  mute,  their  sepulchres  should  utter  such 
eloquent  truths ! 


ANCIENT    CLOACA    ON    THE    MAKTA. 


CHAPTER    XXVIII. 


Iiule  Graviscarum  fastigia  rara  videmus 

Quas  premit  festival  saepe  paludis  odor. 
Sed  memorosa  viret  densis  vicinia  lucis, 

Pineaque  extremis  fluctuat  umbra  fretis.  —  RUTILIUS. 

As  Tarquinii  carried  on  an  extensive  commerce  with  foreign 
countries,  yet  was  situated  some  miles  from  the  sea,  she  must 
have  had  a  port.  This  is  nowhere  expressly  named  by  the 
ancients,  yet  as  the  only  town  on  this  coast  below  Tarquinii  was 
Graviscse,1  said  by  Livy  to  have  belonged  to  that  city,2  it  is 
highly  probable  that  Graviscse  was  its  port. 

Of  Graviscse  a  few  scattered  notices  only  have  come  down  to 
us.  We  have  no  record  of  its  foundation,  yet  we  learn  that  it 
was  of  high  antiquity.3  It  was  probabty  a  colony  of  Tarquinii, 


1  Called  also  Gravisca,  and  Graviscium. 
Plin.  III.  8  ;  Strab.  V.  p.  225 ;  Mela,  II. 
4  ;  Ptolem.  p.  68,  ed.  Bert. 

2  Liv.  XL.  29. 

3  Virgil  (Jin.  X.  184)  mentions  it  among 
the  Etruscan  cities  of  the  time  of  .Eneas. 
Sil.  Italicus  (VIII.  475)  characterises  it  as 
— veteres  Graviscse. 


There  are  certain  coins — with  the  legend 
TPA,  and  the  head  of  Jupiter,  two  eagles 
on  a  thunderbolt,  and  two  dots  as  the  sign 
of  a  sextans, — which  have  been  attributed 
to  Graviscse.  Lanzi,  Sagg.  II.  pp.  26,  68. 
But  numismatists  now  refer  them  to  Acragag 
in  Sicily. 


CHAP,  xxviri.]    THE  SITE   OF   GKA.VISC2E  DISPUTED.  431 

established  solely  for  purposes  of  commerce ;  and  it  must  have 
followed  the  fortunes  of  its  mother-city.  Yet  it  fell  into  the 
hands  of  the  Romans  at  an  earlier  period,  for  it  was  taken  from 
Tarquinii.  In  the  year  573  (181  B.C.)  it  became  a  Roman 
colony,4  and  it  appears  to  have  been  in  existence  as  late  as 
Trajan,5  but  in  the  time  of  Rutilius  it  wras  in  utter  ruin,  and 
scarcely  a  vestige  of  it  was  visible.6  If  this  were  the  case  nearly 
1500  years  since,  what  can  we  expect  to  find  now  ?  Its  general 
position  on  the  coast  below  Tarquinii  is  pretty  clearly  indicated 
by  the  geographers  and  Itineraries,7  but  its  precise  site  has  not 
been  satisfactorily  determined, — most  antiquaries  placing  it  at 
or  near  the  Porto  San  Clementine,  between  the  mouths  of  the 
Marta  and  Mignone;8  some  at  the  mouth  of  the  latter  stream;9 
Westphal  alone  pointing  out  a  site  on  the  right  bank  of  the 
Marta.1  I  have  visited  all  three  spots,  and  am  of  opinion  that 
the  last  is  the  true  site  of  Gravisca?,  or  at  least  of  the  port  of 
Tarquinii. 

S.  Clementine,  or  Le  Saline,  as  it  is  called  from  the  neigh- 
bouring salt-works,  is  a  small  port,  four  or  five  miles  below 
Corneto.  Though  called  a  port,  it  is  scarcely  a  village — a  large 
Dogana,  a  puny  fort,  and  a  few  hovels  inhabited  \yy  the  labourers 
in  the  salt-works,  being  its  sole  ingredients.  A  little  commerce, 
however,  is  carried  on,  for  it  exports  salt  to  Fiumicino  for  the 
capital,  and  corn  in  some  quantities  to  France  and  England,  as 
in  ancient  times  to  Rome.2  This  is  in  the  cool  season.  In  the 
summer  months  the  place  is  well  nigh  deserted.  Not  a  soul 
enters  this  fatal  region,  save  under  imperious  necessity.  The 
doganiere  turns  his  face  to  the  waveless,  slimy  expanse,  which 

4  Liv.  loc.  cit. ;  cf.  Fabrctfci,  X.  p.  748.  lying  between  Cosa  and  Castrum  Novutn. 
Prontinus  (cle  Coloniis)   speaks  of  a  later  Precision  in  distances  is  not  to  be  looked 
colonisation  of  Graviscse  by  Augustus,  and  for  from  the  ancient  geographers,  on  account 
says  that  Tiberius  marked  out  its  ayer  by  of  their  imperfect  means  of  information, 
huge  stones.  nor  from  the  Itineraries,   because  of  the 

5  This  is   learned   from    an   inscription  great  facility  for  the  commission  of  errors 
found     at     Tarquinii,     which     refers    to  in  the  transcribing  of  figures.     We  must 
Graviscse.     Ann.  Inst.  1832,  p.  152.  be  content  with  an  approximation  to  truth. 

6  Rutil.  Itin.  I.  281.  "  Cluver,  II.  p.  484.     Cramer,  Ancient 

7  Strabo  (loc.   cit.)  describes  it  as  300  Italy,  I.   p.  197.     Micali,  Ant.  Pop.  Ital. 
stadia  (3  7  4  miles)  from  Gosa,  and  somewhat  I.  p.   146.     Abeken,  Mittelitalien,    p.   36. 
less  than  180  (22£  miles)  from  Pyrgi.    The  9  Canina,  Bull.  Inst.  1847,  p.  92.    This 
Maritime  Itinerary  of  Antoninus  gives  the  view  is  based  on  the  Itineraries, 
distance    from   Pyrgi   as    27   miles.      The  1  Ann.  Inst.  1830,  pp.  28,  30. 
Peutingerian    Table    is    defective    in    the  2  Liv.  IX.  41.     I  cannot  learn  that  coral 
distances  on  this  side  of  Graviscse,  but  states  is  found  on  this  coast  as  in  ancient  times, 
that  from  Cosa  to  be  21   miles,  which  is  — Plin.  XXXII.  11. 

much  too  small.     Ptolemy  indicates  it  as 


432  GRAVISC2E.  [CHAP,  xxvin. 

raocks  his  woe  with  its  dazzling  joy,  and  sighs  in  vain  for  a 
breath  of  pure  air  to  refresh  his  fevered  brow ; — the  lonely 
sentinel  drags  his  sickening  form  around  the  pyramids  of  salt 
which  stud  the  shore,  using  his  musket  for  a  staif,  or  he  looks 
out  from  his  hovel  of  reeds  on  the  brink  of  a  salt-pit,  to  the  bare 
trembling  swamp  around,  and  curses  the  fate  which  has  con- 
signed him  to  this  lingering  death.  It  is  a  dreary  spot,  where 
danger  is  not  masked  in  beauty,  but  comes  in  its  native  deformity. 
Such  has  ever  been  the  character  of  this  coast.  Virgil  describes 
it  as  most  unhealthy — and  the  very  name  of  Graviscse,  according 
to  Cato,  is  significant  of  its  heavy  pestilent  atmosphere.3  The 
curse  on  Moab  and  Ammon  is  here  realised — "  Salt-pits  and  a 
perpetual  desolation." 

These  salt-works  produce  annually  eight  pyramids,  each  con- 
taining nearly  a  million  of  pounds.  It  is  strange  that  none  of 
this  salt  is  consumed  at  Corneto,  which  receives  her  supply  from 
France — the  heavy  duties  on  the  native  product,  still,  as  in  the 
days  of  Porsena,4  a  government  monopoly,  making  it  more 
expensive  than  that  imported. 

At  San  Clementine  are  traces  of  ancient  habitation — two  vaults 
and  a  sewer  of  Roman  date,  and  fragments  of  pottery  mingled 
with  the  soil.  The  space  thus  strewn  is  very  circumscribed; 
nothing  above  ground  is  of  Etruscan  character,  and  no  remains 
of  an  ancient  port  are  visible.  Yet  traces  of  Etruscan  burial 
have  been  found  in  the  neighbourhood  which  favour  the  view, 
though  they  do  not  warrant  the  conclusion,  that  this  is  the  site 
of  Graviscse.5 

Three  miles  along  the  shore  to  the  south,  stands  the  lonely 
Tower  of  Bertaldo,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Mignone.6  It  is  more 
commonly  called  Sant  Agostino,  from  a  legend  of  that  saint. 
The  holy  man,  as  he  once  strayed  along  this  shore,  was  ponder- 
ing on  the  mysteries  of  the  Trinity,  and  doubts,  suggested  by  the 
evil  powers  whose  attacks  he  deplores  in  his  "  Confessions,"  were 
arising  in  his  mind,  when  on  reaching  this  spot,  he  beheld  a 

3  Virg.  £n.  X.  184  ;  Serv.  in  loc. ;  Until.  In  one  were  found  all  the  bones  of  a  horse, 
I.  2S2.     Cato,  ap.  Serv.  loc.  cit.  and  (as  if  the  owner  had  left  to  his  steed 

4  Liv.  II.  9.  the  post  of  honour)  by  its  side  lay  a  human 

5  Westphal  is  in   error  in  denying  the  skeleton  of  gigantic  size.    Ann.  Inst.  1829, 
existence  of  ancient  remains  on  this  site.  p.  95—  Avvolta. 

Ann.   Inst.    1830,  p.   28.      Painted  vases  6  Anciently  the  Minio,    mentioned    by 

have  been  found  here,  not  in  tombs,  but  Virgil,  JGn.  X.   183  ;  Serv.  in  loc.  ;  Mela, 

in    sarcophagi    of    stone   or    earthenware,  II.  4  ;  Until.  I.   279.     Cluver  (II.  p.  483) 

buried  at  a  very  little  depth  below  the  BUT-  regards    the    Rapinium   of  the   Maritime 

face,  and  in  a  circumscribed  spot  of  ground.  Itinerary  as  a  corruption  of  Minio. 


CHAP,  xxvni.]    THE  MOST  PEOBABLE  SITE  OF  GEAVISC^.    433 

child  busied  in  filling  with  water  a  small  hole  in  the  sand. 
St.  Augustine  asked  what  he  was  about.  "  Trying  to  put  the 
sea  into  this  hole,"  replied  the  -criatura.  "Impossible!"  cried 
the  saint,  laughing  at  the  boy's  simplicity.  "  More  easy  this," 
said  the  other,  who  now  stood  confessed  an  angel,  "than  for  thee 
to  comprehend  those  sublime  mysteries  thou  art  vainly  seeking 
to  penetrate."  This  cannot  have  been  the  site  of  Graviscae,  which, 
as  we  learn  both  from  Hutilius  and  the  Itineraries,  stood  con- 
siderably to  the  north  of  the  Minio.  It  probably  marks  the  site 
of  Rapinium,  a  station  on  the  Via  Aurelia,  half-way  between 
Centum  Cella?  and  Graviscte. 

To  reach  the  site  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Marta,  it  is 
necessary  on  leaving  Corneto  to  take  the  road  to  Leghorn,  as  far 
as  the  Marta,  two  miles  distant ;  then,  crossing  the  bridge,  turn 
at  once  to  the  left,  and  after  a  couple  of  miles  in  a  country- 
road,  you  will  reach  some  Roman  ruins  by  the  way-side.  A  few 
furlongs  beyond  is  an  eminence,  some  thirty  or  forty  feet  high, 
on  and  around  which  are  scattered  sundry  large  blocks  of  tufo, 
and  fragments  of  travertine  columns.  This  I  take  to  be  the  site 
of  Graviscie.  That  more  than  a  temple  or  villa  occupied  it  is 
clear,  from  the  extent  of  the  broken  pottery,  and  from  several 
circumstances  presently  to  be  mentioned.  True,  it  is  almost  two 
miles  from  the  sea,  yet  scarcely  a  furlong  from  the  Marta,  which 
here  swells  into  a  respectable  stream,  and  bears  palpable  evidence 
of  having  been  of  much  more  importance  in  ancient  times  than 
at  present,  and  of  having  been  in  direct  connexion  with  this 
eminence. 

To  discover  these  traces  of  antiquity,  you  must  follow  the 
course  of  the  stream  from  the  point  where  you  first  meet  with 
the  Roman  ruins  ;  and  at  the  distance  of  two  or  three  furlongs 
you  will  come  upon  some  large  blocks  rising  from  the  soil. 
Further  examination  will  show  them  to  be  the  crest  of  an  arch. 
Look  over  the  bank — you  will  perceive  the  vault  beneath  you ; 
and  if  you  clamber  down,  you  will  find  it  to  be  one  of  the  finest 
specimens  of  an  ancient  arch  in  all  Etruria.  My  astonishment 
on  making  this  discovery  was  great.  A  friend  who  had  previously 
visited  this  site,  had  remarked  the  blocks  rising  from  the  soil,  but 
had  not  perceived  the  grand  relic  of  antiquity  at  his  feet.  Grand 
it  is,  for  the  vault  is  not  inferior  to  the  Cloaca  Maxima  in  span, 
or  about  fourteen  feet,  while  the  masonry  is  on  a  much  larger  scale.6 

7  The  rovssoirs  are  from  five  to  »ix  feet  scarcely  two  feet  and  a  half  ;  but  there  is 
in  depth  ;  those  of  the  Cloaca  Marlma  are  a  triple  row  of  them. 

VOL.   I.  F    F 


434  GRAVISC^.  [CHAP,  xxvin. 

The  arch  opens  in  a  long  embankment  of  regular  masonry,  which, 
rising  some  twenty  feet  above  the  stream,  extends  in  frag- 
ments a  considerable  distance  towards  the  sea.  The  masonry  of 
both  arch  and  embankment  is  of  tufo,  uncemented,  and  is  of 
manifest  antiquit}T.  The  vault  must  be  the  mouth  of  a  sewer  or 
stream,  as  is  clearly  shown  by  the  mound  of  earth  which  chokes 
it.  Were  it  not  for  this,  and  the  trees  which  have  taken  root  in 
it,  the  arch  could  not  be  examined  from  this  bank ;  and  to  the 
boughs  of  the  said  trees  I  acknowledge  my  indebtedness  for 
the  sketch  which  is  copied  in  the  woodcut  at  the  head  of  this 
Chapter. 

Remounting  the  bank,  I  descried  a  double  line  of  substructions 
stretching  away  in  connection  with  the  arch,  in  a  direct  line 
towards  the  height  of  the  town.  I  traced  it  across  the  plain,  till 
the  modern  road,  which  skirts  the  base  of  that  eminence,  oblite- 
rated its  vestiges.  It  was  obviously  the  ancient  road  or  causeway 
from  the  stream  to  the  town.  Scarce  a  block  of  the  pavement 
remained,  but  the  skeleton — the  double  line  of  kerb-stones — 
was  most  palpable.  This  causeway  explained  the  long  embank- 
ment to  have  been  a  quay,  and  a  port  was  at  once  confessed.7 
I  could  not  doubt  that  this  was  a  quay,  for  the  opposite  bank 
was  very  low,  and  entirety  without  masoniy.  The  whole  seemed 
the  counterpart  of  the  Pulchrum  Littus  and  the  Cloaca  Maxima ; 
the  embankment  being  of  the  same  height,  the  vault  of  the  game 
dimensions,  and  the  object  being  doubtless  similar — to  drain  the 
low  grounds  on  this  bank,8  to  permit  vessels  to  lie  alongside,  and 
to  serve  as  a  barrier  against  occasional  floods — the  Marta  being 
the  natural  arid  only  emissary  of  the  Lake  of  Bolsena.  This 
must  have  been  one  reason,  added  to  the  all-cogent  one  of 
superior  salubrity,  which  led  the  founders  of  the  town  to  select 
a  site,  not  on  the  sea-shore,  or  on  the  banks  of  the  stream,  but 
on  the  first  convenient  eminence,  though  it  were  two  miles  inland. 
This  quay,  sewer,  and  causeway,  prove  to  a  certainty  that  this 

8  The  river  would  not  serve  as  a  port  in  the  plain.     The  proprietor  of  the  ground, 
now-a-days,  but  must  have  been  quite  deep  Signer  Falzacappa,  of  Corneto,  is  of  opinion 
and  broad  enough  for  the  galleys  of  the  that  the  arch,  called  by  the  peasantry  II 
ancients.     The  causeway  may  possibly  have  Pontone,  is  a  bridge  originally  crossing  the 
formed  part  of  the  ancient  Via  Aurelia,  Marta  itself,  which  has  since  changed  its 
but  the  absence  of  all  traces  of  a  bridge  course.      But    the    comparatively  narrow 
across  the  Marta  at  this  point  seems  opposed  span  of  the  arch,  the  absence  of  all  ves- 
to  that  view.  tiges  of  a  former  channel,  and  the  long 

9  The  arch  may  have  been  a  bridge  over  embankment,  forbid  me  to  entertain  this 
a  small  stream,  which  fell  into  the  Marta,  view. 

but  no  traces  of  a  channel  could  I  perceive 


CHAP,  xxviii.]     THE  PORT   OF  TAEQUINII  DISCOVEEED.          435 


site,  whatever  may  have  been  its  name  in  ancient  times,  was  the 
port  of  Tarquinii.9 

West  of  the  town  is  a  rising  ground,  in  which  are  some  caves, 
and  here,  it  is  said,  tombs  have  been  found.  Sepulchres  richly 
decorated  and  furnished,  are  not  likely,  however,  to  be  discovered 
here  ;  for  this  town  can  have  been  little  more  than  a  place  of 
business  to  the  parent  city — a  landing-place  for  goods — where  the 
merchant  princes  of  Tarquinii  had  their  warehouses  and  offices.1 
No  one  would  have  dwelt  in  the  pestilent  atmosphere  of  this 
swampy  coast,  who  could  have  afforded  a  residence  on  the  com- 
paratively salubrious  heights  of  Tarquinii.  The  fever-fraught 
•climate  of  the  summer  months  is  the  only  feature  which  the  site 
retains  of  its  ancient  character.  Nothing  can  be  more  dreary  and 
desolate  than  the  scene  around.  The  sun  calls  forth  no  beauty  ; 
the  showers  no  verdure  or  luxuriance.  Of  the  dense  pine-groves 
which  overshadowed  the  waves  of  old,3  not  a  tree  remains — the 
vine}Tards  which  still  earlier  gave  Graviscae  renown,3  have  now  no 
•existence, — a  patch  of  corn  here  and  there  in  the  plain,  and  the 
grey  olive-woods  on  the  distant  slopes  of  the  Montarozzi,  are  the 
only  signs  of  cultivation  within  view. 


1  I  stated  my  opinion  that  this  was  the 
.site  of  Graviscse  in  Bull.  Inst.  1847,  p.  92. 
To  this,  Canina,  who  placed  that  town  near 
the  mouth  of  the  Mignone,  which  site,  he 
says,  agrees  with  the  distance  of  rather  less 
than  180  stadia,  laid  down  by  Strabo  as 
that  between  Pyrgi  and  Graviscs?,  objected, 
and  pronounced  the  remains  discovered  by 
me  to  belong  to  a  station  on  the  Via  Aurelia, 
indicated  in  the  Maritime  Itinerary  under 
the  name  of  Maltanum,  which,  he  thinks, 
from  the  agreement  of  the  other  Itineraries, 
.stood  precisely  at  the  mouth  of  the  Marta. 
Nowthe  Itineraries,  to  which  Canina  appears 
to  have  yielded  implicit  credence,  are  often 
in  error,  or  widely  at  variance — as  a  com- 
parison of  them  in  this  very  instance  will 
attest.  The  principal  objection  to  this  being 
the  site  of  Graviscae  is  the  position  to  the 
south  of  the  Marta  assigned  to  that  town 
by  the  Itineraries.  (See  Westphal's  observa- 
tions on  this  subject.  Ann.  Inst.  1830, 
p.  32.)  On  other  points  I  may  appeal  to 


them  in  support  of  my  view  that  this  is  the 
site  of  Graviscae.  For  if,  with  Canina,  I 
cite  the  Maritime  Itinerary  in  evidence,  I 
find  Graviscse  placed  12  miles  from  Cen- 
tumcellae,  but  the  Mignone,  where  Canina 
places  Graviscse,  is  only  7  or  8  miles  dis- 
tant ;  the  Saline,  where  others  have  placed 
it,  is  but  10,  whereas  my  site  is  just  12J 
miles  from  that  port.  And  while  Strabo's 
distance  of  180  stadia  from  Pyrgi  is  better 
answered  in  the  Saline  than  in  either  of  the 
other  sites ;  the  Maritime  Itinerary  in 
stating  it  at  27  miles,  favours  the  site  on 
the  right  bank  of  the  Marta.  This  shows 
how  little  dependence  is  to  be  placed  upon 
the  Itineraries  for  precise  information. 

2  It  was  probably,  like  Alsium  and  Pyrgi, 
a  mere — oppiduui  parvum  (Rutil.  I.  224); 
for  Strabo  (V.  p.   223)  and  Pliny  (III.  8) 
assert  that  there  was  but  one  Etruscan  city 
on  this  coast — Populonia, 

3  Rutil.  Itin.  I.  283. 

4  Plin.  N.  H.  XIV.  8,  5. 


F   F   2 


436 


GRAVISC^. 


[CHAP,  xxvin 


APPENDIX   TO   CHAPTER   XXVIII. 


VIA   AURELIA. 


(Continued  from   payc   22G.) 


ANTONINE  ITINERARY. 


Pyrgi 

Castro  Novo 
Centum  Cellis 
Martha 
Forum  Aurelii 
Cossam 


M.r.  vnr. 
v. 
x. 

XIIII. 

xxv. 


ANTONINE  MARITIME  ITINERARY. 


M.P.  III. 

VII. 

V. 

III. 

III. 

VI. 

III. 

III. 

VI. 

III. 

XXV. 


Panapionem 

Castrum  Novum 

Centum  Cellos 

Algas 

Rapinium 

Graviscas 

Maltanum 

Quintianam 

Regas 

Arnine  fluv. 

Portum  Herculis 


PEOTINGERIAN 

TABLE. 

Pyrgi 

Punicum 

— 

Castro  Novo 

M.P.  VIIIL 

Centum  Cellos 

HIT. 

Mindo  fl. 

— 

Gravisca 

— 

Co 

— 

Tabellaria 

V. 

Marta 

II. 

Foro  Aure'ii 

III. 

Armenita  fluv. 

inr. 

Ad  Nonas 

in. 

Succosa 

n. 

Cosam 

ii. 

Some  of  the  distances  given  after  Centum- 
Cellae  are  veryj  incorrect,  and  show  that 
the  Table  in  this  part  is  not  to  be  trusted. 


For  a  continuation  of  the  Via  Aurelia  from  Cosa  to  Luna,  see  Chapter  XLV. 


ETRUSCAX   KRATER. 


CHAPTER    XXIX. 

JT7ZC7. 

lluine  di  cittadi  e  di  Ccastella 

Stavan  con  gran  tresor  quivi  sozzopra. — ARIOSTO. 

What  sacred  trophy  marks  the  hallowed  grov.nd  ? .  .  . 
The  rifled  urn,  the  violated  mound. — BYRON. 

VULCI  is  a  city  whose  very  name,  fifty  years  since,  was  scarcely 
known,  but  "  which  now,  for  the  enormous  treasures  of  antiquity 
it  has  yielded,  is  exalted  above  every  other  city  of  the  ancient 
world,  not  excepting  even,  in  certain  respects,  Herculaneum  or 
Pompeii."1  Little  is  to  be  seen,  it  must  be  confessed,  on  its  site  ; 
yet  a  visit  to  it  will  hardly  disappoint  the  traveller.  It  lies  about 
eighteen  miles  north-west  of  Corneto.  The  road,  for  the  first 
eleven  or  twelve,  or  as  far  as  Montalto,  is  the  coast-railway  from 
Rome  to  Pisa,  and  follows  the  line  of  the  ancient  Via  Aurelia ; 
traversing  a  country  bare  and  undulating,  and  of  little  beauty. 
Let  the  visitor  descend  at  the  station  of  Montalto,  about  half  a 

1  Dr.  Braun,  Ann.  Inst.  1842,  p.  39. 


One  Roman  Mile 

I.   Tenuta  di  Ponte  Sodo. 
II.  Tenuta  di  Castelluccia  di  Void. 
III.  Tenuta  di  Campo  Morto. 

A   Castelluccia. 

B    Castellina. 

C    Scavi  of  Campanari,  Candelori,  Fossati. 

D    Scavi  of  Feoli. 

E    Scavi  of  Principe  di  Canino. 

F    Casette  del  Pian  di  Maggio. 

G   La  Cucumelletta. 

H  Small  tumulus — La  Rotonda. 

I    La  Cucumella. 

K  The  Isis  tomb. 

L    Tombs  of  masonry. 

M  Traces  of  a  Roman  Aqueduct. 

N,  0,  P,  Q,  R,  Outline  of  the  ancient  City. 

The  dotted  line  from  0  to  R  indicates 

fragments  of  the  walls. 
S    Rite  of  an  ancient  Bridge. 
T    Two  adicuhe  of  Roman  times. 
U  Line  of  ancient  road  from  Vetulonia  to 

Tarquinii,  flanked  with  tombs, 
p.   Remains  of  a  Christian  chapel. 


PLAN   OF  VULCI  AND   ITS  NECROPOLIS. 


CHAP,  xxix.]  EEGISVILLA— MONTALTO.  439 

mile  from  the  town.  This  is  a  small,  dull  place,  with  no  attrac- 
tion beyond  a  tolerably  comfortable  inn.  It  is  supposed  to  be 
the  site  of  the  Forum  Aurelii,  a  station  on  the  Via  Aurelia.3  At 
the  mouth  of  the  Flora,  on  which  it  stands,  are  a  few  Roman 
remains.  On  the  shore,  about  three  miles  to  the  south-east,  stood 
Regse,  the  site  of  a  very  ancient  Pelasgic  settlement,  Regisvilla, 
whose  king  Maleos,  or  Malseotes,  the  legendary  inventor  of  the 
trumpet,  abandoned  his  throne,  and  migrated  to  Athens.3  The 
site  is  now  called,  from  its  prominent  rocks,  Le  Murelle.4 

Vulci  lies  near  the  Ponte  della  Badia,  seven  or  eight  miles 
inland  from  Montalto,  and  is  accessible  in  a  carretino,  or  light 
vehicle.5  All  this  district  is  a  desert — a  desert  of  corn,  it  is  true, 
but  almost  uninhabited,  so  deadly  is  the  summer-scourge  of 
malaria.  One  house  alone  is  passed  on  the  road  to  the  Ponte 
della  Badia,  and  that  is  a  little  mill,  on  the  Timone,  which  is 
here  spanned  by  a  natural  bridge,  called,  like  that  of  Veii,  Ponte 
Sodo.  Beneath  it  is  a  cavern,  grotesquely  fretted  with  stalactites. 

On  passing  the  Ponte  Sodo  we  entered  on  a  vast  treeless  moor, 
without  a  sign  of  life,  save  a  conical  ca-panna  of  rushes  here  and 
there  rising  from  its  surface,  and  a  dark  castle,  standing  in  lonely 
pomp  in  the  midst,  nearly  three  miles  before  us.  All  this  moor, 
from  the  other  side  of  the  Ponte  Sodo,  up  to  the  castle  and  far 
beyond  it,  was  the  necropolis  of  Vulci ;  but  no  signs  of  sepulture 
were  visible,  except  one  lofty  tumulus — the  Cucumella — half-way 
between  us  and  the  castle.  As  we  proceeded,  however,  we 
observed  numerous  pits,  marking  the  spots  where  tombs  had 
been  recently  opened,  and  partly  reclosed  with  earth. 

We  alighted  at  the  castle-gate.  It  is  a  fortress  of  the  middle 
ages,  and  in  most  other  lands  would  be  a  piece  of  antiquity. 
Here  it  is  a  modern  work,  with  little  interest  beyond  its  pic- 

2  Cluver.  II.  p.  485  ;  Mannert,  however  is  probably  a  Roman  corruption  of  the  more 
(Geog.  p.    370),  places  Forum  Aurelii  at  ancient  name  of  Regae,  which  afterwards 
Castellaccio,  near  the  mouth  of  the  Arrone,  came  again  into  use.     "Welcker  (cited  by 
half-way  between  the  Fiora  and  the  Marta;  Gerhard,  Ann.  Inst.  1831,  p.  205)  derives 
a  site  more  in  accordance  with  the  Peutin-  it  from  firiyal,  clefts,  a  name  indicative  of 
gerian  Table.     The  Fiora  is  the  Armenita  its  situation. 

of  the  Table,  and  the  Arnine  of  the  Mari-  4  Holster.    Annot.   ad   Cluver.   p.    34  ; 

time  Itinerary.      Some  singular  Etruscan  Westphal,  Ann.  Inst.  1830,  p.  30. 

monuments  have  been  found  in  the  neigh-  5  There  are  two  roads  from  Montalto  to 

bourhood  of  Montalto. — Micali,  Mon.  Ined.  Yulci,  both  practicable  for  light  vehicles. 

p.  1 95,  tav.  XXXIV. ;  p.  403,  tav.  LIX.  The  shorter  runs  on  the  right  bank  of  the 

3  Strab.  V.  p.  225  ;  Lactant.  ad  Stat.  Flora,  but  that  on  the  left  bank  is  pre- 
Theb.  IV.  224.     Miiller  (Etrusk.  einl.  2,  ferable.     This  it  is  which  is  described  in 
6)  thinks  he  derived  this  name  from  the  the  text.     It  is  marked  in  the  Map. 
headland  of  Malea  in  Laconia.     Regisvilla 


440  VULCI  [CHAP.  xxix. 

turesque  character.  When  I  first  knew  it,  it  was  a  Papal  custom- 
house ;  and  a  few  doganieri  mounted  guard  here  over  the  neigh- 
bouring frontier,  and  took  toll  on  the  cattle  and  goods  which 
crossed  it.  The  castle  stands  on  the  verge  of  a  deep  ravine 
which  is  here  spanned  by  a  narrow  bridge,  fenced  in  with  parapets 
so  tall  as  to  block  all  view.  Not  till  I  had  crossed  it  had  I  any 
idea  of  its  character ;  and  then,  from  the  slope  below,  it  burst  on 
me  like  a  fresh  creation.  It  is  verily  a  magnificent  structure, 
bestriding  the  rock}-  abyss  like  a  colossus,  with  the  Fiora  fretting 
and  foaming  at  a  vast  depth  beneath.0  But  what  means  this 
extraordinary  curtain  of  stalactites  which  overhangs  the  bridge 
on  this  side,  depending  in  huge  jagged  masses  from  the  parapet, 
and  looking  as  though  a  vast  cataract  had  rolled  over  the  top  of 
the  bridge,  and  been  petrified  in  its  fall,  ere  it  could  reach  the 
ground  ?  One  might  almost  fancy  the  bridge  had  been  hewn  out 
of  the  solid  rock,  and  that  the  workmen  had  abandoned  it  before 
its  completion, — like  Michael  Angelo's  statues  with  unfinished 
extremities.  How  else  came  this  rugged  appendage  fixed  against 
the  very  top  of  so  lofty  a  structure  ?  The  only  solution  is — it  is 
the  result  of  an  aqueduct  in  the  parapet.  I  observed  the  rocks 
around  fretted  in  the  same  manner,  and  then  comprehended  that 
the  water  flowing  from  the  table-land  of  the  necropolis,  charged 
with  tartaric  matter,  in  its  passage  through  the  aqueduct  had 
oozed  out  of  its  channel,  and  by  the  precipitation  of  the  earthy 
matter  it  held  in  solution,  had  formed  this  petrified  drapery  to 
the  bridge.  The  stalactites  stand  out  six  or  seven  feet  from  the 
wall,  and  depend  to  a  depth  of  fifteen  or  twenty  feet.  Indepen- 
dently of  their  remarkable  conformation,  their  colouring — a  clear 
creamy  white — combines,  with  the  grey  or  reddish  masonry, 
to  add  to  the  effect  of  the  bridge.  The  solemn  castle,  high  on 
the  cliff  by  its  side,  rearing  its  dark-red  tower  against  the  sky — 
the  slopes  clothed  with  the  ilex  and  shrubs — the  huge  masses  of 
rock  in  the  hollow — the  stream  struggling  and  boiling  through 
the  narrow  cleft — the  steep  frowning  cliffs  seen  through  the  arch 
— are  so  many  accessories  in  keeping  with  the  principal  object, 

6  The  height  of  the  arch  above  the  stream  figure  in  relief  on  its  key-stone.     There  is 

is  said  to  be  96  French  feet,  and  its  span  a  third  arch,  still  smaller,  close  under  the 

62  feet.     The  width  of  the  bridge  is  only  castle,  not  perforating  the  structure,  but 

10  feet,  and  its  entire  length  243  feet.  merely  recessed  in  it.  Being  on  the  southern 

Ann.  Inst.  1832,  p.  261.  There  is  a  second  side  of  the  bridge,  it  is  not  shown  in  the 

arch,  only  15  feet  in  span,  formed  merely  annexed  woodcut.     A  view  of  the  bridge 

to  lighten  and  strengthen  the  long  wall  of  from  that  side  is  given  in  Mon.  Jned.  Inst. 

masonry  on  the  right  bank.  It  has  a  draped  I.  tav.  41. 


CHAP,  xxix.]  PONTE    BELLA    BADIA.  413 

forming  with  it  as  striking  and  picturesque  a  scene  as  I  remember 
in  Etruria. 

What  is  the  date  of  the  bridge,  and  by  whom  was  it  constructed  ? 
Signor  Vincenzo  Campanari,  who  first  made  it  known  to  the  world, 
took  for  granted  that  it  was  of  Etruscan  architecture ;  7  but  M. 
Lenoir,  who  exercised  a  more  critical  eye,  entertained  doubts  of 
this.  The  truth  is,  that  the  bridge  is  of  different  periods.  It 
has  three  projecting  piers  of  red  tufo,  much  weather-worn,  which 
are  obviously  of  earlier  construction  than  the  neat  and  harder 
nenfro  masonry  which  encases  them.  Both  the  tufo  and  nenfro 
portions  are  in  the  same  emplecton  style,  like  the  Avails  of  Sutri, 
Nepi,  and  Falleri ;  and  the  latter  portion  is,  in  part,  rusticated. 
This  style,  having  been  adopted  by  the  Romans,  aifords  no  de- 
cided clue  to  the  constructors  of  the  bridge.  The  return-facing 
of  the  arch,  however,  is  of  travertine,  and  may  with  certainty  be 
referred  to  that  people,  as  it  possesses  features  in  common  with 
bridges  of  undoubted  Roman  origin — the  Ponte  d'Augusto  at  Narni, 
and  the  celebrated  Pont  du  Gard.  The  aqueduct,  also,  I  take  to  be 
Roman,  simply  because  it  passes  over  arches  of  that  construction  ; 
for  the  skill  of  the  Etruscans  in  hydraulics  is  so  well  attested,  as 
to  make  it  highly  probable  that  to  them  were  the  Romans  indebted 
for  that  description  of  structure.8  The  tufo  buttresses  are  veiy 
probably  Etruscan,  for  they  are  evidently  the  piers  of  the  original 
bridge ;  and  may  have  been  united,  as  Lenoir  suggests,  by  a 
horizontal  frame  of  wood-work,  a  plan  often  adopted  by  the 
Romans — in  the  Sublician  bridge,  to  wit — which  subsequently 
gave  place  to  the  nenfro  masonry  of  the  time  of  the  Republic,  and 
to  the  arches.  This  seems  a  plausible  hypothesis  ;  and,  in  default 
of  a  better,  I  am  willing  to  adopt  it.  The  nenfro  and  travertine 
portions  are,  in  any  case,  of  Roman  times,  whatever  be  the 
antiquity  of  the  tufo  piers.9 

The  enormous  masses  of  stalactite  which  drape  the  bridge 
seem  to  indicate  a  high  antiquity  for  the  whole  structure ;  and, 
doubtless,  they  must  have  been  the  formation  of  centuries  :  yet 

7  Ann.  Inst.  1829,  p.  195.  quity   of   the   projecting    piers.      Etruria 

8  Canina  takes  the   aqueduct  to   be  of       Marit.  II.,  pp.  87,  92,  101. 

Imperial  times,  and  probably  of  the  time  9  These  piers  are  merely  encased,   not 

of  Claudius,  in  whose  reign  the  greatest  connected  with  the  rest  of  the  structure. 

arched  works  of  the  Komans  were   con-  Lenoir  points  out  an  analogy,  as  regards, 

structed,  and  to  have  been  made  to  convey  these  tufo  piers,  between  this  bridge  ami 

water  to  the  Thermae  in  the  city,  which  are  the  Ponte  Nonno,  on  the  Via  Prrenestina, 

unquestionably  of  Roman  ongin.     To  the  near  the  site  of  Gabii,  which  is  known  to 

same  period  he  also  refers  the  bridge,  but  be  of  high  antiquity.     Ann.  Inst.  1832,  p. 

does  not  notice  the  difference  in  the  anti-  261. 


444  VULCI.  [CHAP.  xxix. 

we  need  not  refer  them  to  too  remote  a  period ;  for,  in  a  parallel 
case  at  Tivoli,  a  vault  in  the  face  of  a  cliff,  lined  with  Homan 
reticulated  work,  has  had  its  mouth  blocked  by  an  immense  sheet 
of  this  fantastic  formation,  many  tons  in  weight. 

About  a  mile  below  the  bridge,  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Fiora, 
stood  the  ancient  city  of  Vulci.  It  occupied  a  platform  of  no 
great  elevation,  and,  except  on  the  river  side,  not  defended  by  in- 
accessible cliffs  ;  yet  it  is  the  only  height  in  the  wide  plain  at  all 
adapted  to  the  site  of  a  cit}%  Its  surface  is  now  sown  with  corn  ; 
and,  besides  the  usual  traces  of  ancient  habitation  in  broken 
pottery,  there  are  ruins  of  extensive  baths,  and  the  wreck  of  a 
small  temple,  with  cclla  and  niches  still  standing,  and  the  statues 
•of  its  divinities  and  the  columns  Avhich  adorned  it  tying  in 
shattered  fragments  around.1  All  these  are  Roman,  and  of 
Imperial  times.  Of  the  Etruscan  city  there  are  no  traces,  beyond 
portions  of  the  walls,  of  tufo  blocks,  on  the  brow  of  the  cliffs  to 
the  south  and  west.  The  sites  of  five  gates  can  be  recognised. 

The  city  was  of  no  great  size — not  larger  than  Faesulse  or 
Rusellffi,  or  about  two  miles  in  circuit.2  Yet,  at  the  period  of  its 
.greatest  prosperity,  it  must  have  been  extremely  populous ;  for 
its  sepulchres  disclose  this  fact.  Its  vast  wealth,  which  is  learned 
from  the  same  source,  must  have  been  obtained  by  foreign  com- 
merce ;  yet  the  position  of  the  city,  seven  or  eight  miles  from  the 
sea,  and  on  no  navigable  stream,  is  such  as  could  have  been 
chosen  only  by  agriculturists. 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact,  and  one  which  proves  how  limited  is 
our  acquaintance  with  antiquity,  that  though  this  city,  from  its 
population,  wealth,  and  magnificence,  must  at  some  period  have 
been  among  the  first  in  Etruria,  we  have  absolutely  no  account 
of  its  history  in  Liv}r,  Dionysius,  or  any  other  ancient  writer — 
nothing  beyond  a  bare  record  of  its  existence  in  the  catalogues 
of  geographers.3  The  history  of  Yulci  is  chronicled  in  its 

1  From  the  variety  in  these  fragments,  imagined  it  to  have  occupied  both  banks  of 
in  size,  style,  and  material,  it  would  seem  the  river,  and   that    its  two  parts,  thus 
that  several  public  luildings  had  occupied  divided,     were     connected     by     bridges, 
this  site — all  of  the  Empire.     For  notices  Museum  Etrusque,  p.  16. 

of  the  remains  on  the  site  of  the  city,  sec  3  Pliny  (III.  8)  mentions  its  inhabitants 

Bull.  Inst.  1835,  p.  177;  1836,  p.  36;  and  as — Volcentini,  cognomine    Etrusci,  — and 

1835,  p.  122  ;  where  an  account  is  given  states  that  Cosa  was  in  their  territory — 

of  an  ancient  furnace,  containing  fragments  Cossa  Volcientium.     Ptolemy  (p.   72,  ed. 

of  pottery — suggesting  a  native  manufactory  Bert.)  calls  it  Ov6\not,  and  Stephanus  says 

of  vases.  — "OAKIOJ/,  a  city  of  Etruria ;   according  to 

2  Micali,   Ant.    Pop.    Ital.     I.    p.   147.  Polybius,  VI.,  the  name  of  its  people  was 
Some  have  thought  it  once  spread  over  the  'OAKITJTOI  and   'O\Kit'is.      The   name  has 
adjacent  heights.     The  Prince  of  Canino  been   supposed   of   Greek   origin,    yet  its 


CHAP,  xxix.]          ITS    HISTORY    ALMOST    A    BLANK. 


445 


sepulchres.  Were  it  not  for  these,  and  the  marvellous  secrets 
they  disclose,  Vulci  might  have  remained  to  the  end  of  time  in 
obscurity — its  site  unheeded,  its  very  existence  forgotten. 4 

The  only  event  in  the  annals  of  Yulci,  which  has  come  down 
to  us,  is  recorded  in  the  Fasti  Consulares,  preserved  in  the 
Capitol.  It  is  the  defeat  of  its  citizens,  in  concert  with  the 
Volsinienses,  by  T.  Coruncanius,  the  Roman  Consul  in  the  year 
474  (B.C.  280). 5  This  date  proves  the  power  and  importance  of 
Vulci,  that,  after  the  disastrous  defeats  the  Etruscans  had  experi- 
enced at  the  Vadimonian  Lake,  in  the  years  444  and  471,  where 
the  strength  of  the  nation  was  completely  broken,  Vulci  could 
still  make  head  against  Rome;  and  its  conjunction  with  Volsinii, 
which  at  that  time  must  have  been  one  of  the  mightiest  cities  in 
Etruria,  is  a  further  evidence  of  its  importance.6  It  is  even 
probable  that  at  this  late  period  of  the  national  independence, 
after  Veii,  Falerii,  and  other  cities  south  of  the  Ciminian,  had  been 
conquered,  Vulci  took  rank  among  the  Twelve.7  That  it  was 


genuiue  Etruscan  character  is  evident  at 
a  glance.  Its  initial  syllable  places  it  in 
the  same  category  with  Volaterrse,  Volsinii, 
Voltumnae  Fanum,  Felsina,  Falerii,  and 
the  names  of  numerous  Etruscan  families — 
some  of  which  bear  a  close  analogy,  as 
Velcia,  Velscia,  Phelces  or  Phelcia,  Yelchas, 
Velchnas,  Velczna,  Velzina.  The  M.  Ful- 
cinius  of  Tarquinii,  whom  Cicero  (pro 
Csecina,  IV.)  speaks  of  as  owner  of  an 
estate  near  Castellum  Axia,  seems  to  have 
derived  his  name  from  Vulci. 

4  Gerhard  (Ann.  Tnst.  1831,  p.  101)  is 
inclined  to  date  the  foundation  of  Vulci 
after  the  battle  of  Cuma,  or  about  the  year 
of  Rome  278  ;  but,  I  think,  without 
adequate  reason.  His  arguments  are,  the 
silence  of  ancient  writers,  the  close  vicinity 
of  Tarquinii  and  Regisvilla,  the  former  of 
which  he  imagines  began  to  decline  in 
power  about  that  period,  leaving  Vulci  to 
rise  into  importance.  But  if  Cosa,  as  some 
suppose  from  Pliny's  mention  of  it,  were  a 
colony  of  Vulci,  the  latter  must  have 
existed  in  very  early  times. 

The  similarity  between  the  names  of 
Volci  or  Vulci,  and  Volsci  or  Vulsci  (fie 
Cato,  ap.  Priscian.  V.  12;  VI.  8),  is  very 
apparent.  But  what  real  connection  ex- 
isted is  not  so  easy  to  determine.  We 
know  that  the  land  of  the  Volsci,  as  well 
as  all  Campania,  was  at  one  period  subject 
to  the  Etruscans  (Cato,  ap.  Serv.  ad  l£,n. 


XI.  567  ;  a:l  Georg.  II.  533  ;  Sfcrab.  V. 
p.  212;  Polyb.  II.  17,  1);  and  thence 
Micali  (Ant.  Pop.  Ital.  I.  p.  149)  infers 
that  a  colony  of  Volsci  may  have  settled 
at  Vulci  during  that  domination.  Niebuhr 
(I.  p.  12),  cf.  p.  70)  thinks,  from  the 
:nention  by  Livy  (XXVII.  15),  of  a  people 
bearing  almost  the  same  name,  the  Vol- 
centes,  in  connection  with  the  Lucani  and 
Hirpini,  that  there  is  substantial  ground 
for  conjecturing  that  the  Vulcientes  were 
not  Etruscans,  but  an  earlier  people,  who 
had  kept  their  ground  against  those  in- 
vaders ;  or,  in  other  words,  that  the  Etrus- 
cans, by  their  conquest,  separated  two 
portions  of  the  same  primitive  Italian  race 
— just  as  the  Gaels  of  Scotland  were  widely 
severed  from  their  Celtic  brethren  of  Gaul 
by  the  Roman  and  Teutonic  conquests  of 
Britain.  If  Niebuhr  (I.  p.  72)  be  correct 
in  supposing  a  close  affinity  between  the 
names  and  races  of  the  Falisci  and  Volsci, 
the  same  may  also  have  existed  between 
the  Falisci  and  Vulcientes. 

5  The  Fasti,  which  follow  the  Catonian 
sera,  have  it  473.     See  Gruter,  p.  296. 

6  Muller,  Etrusk.  einl.  2,  17  ;  II.  1,  2. 

7  This  view,  which  is  favoured  by  the 
immense  treasures  of  its  necropolis,  is  al- 
most established  by  a  monument  discovered 
a    few  years  since  at   Cervetri,    and   now 
preserved  in  the  Lateran  Museum.     It  is  a 
bas-relief,  which  seems  to  have  formed  one 


446  VULCI.  [CHAP.  xxix. 

not  at  its  conquest  destroyed,  as  lias  been  supposed,8  is  proved 
by  the  Roman  remains — baths,  statues,  inscriptions,  coins — 
which  have  been  here  brought  to  light.  Pliny  and  Ptolemy 
prove  its  existence  under  the  Empire  ;  and  coins  of  Constantine, 
Valentinian,  and  Gratian,  show  it  to  have  stood  at  least  as  late 
as  the  fourth  century  after  Christ.9 

The  name  of  the  ancient  city  has  been  preserved  traditionally  ; 
and  this  site  has  been  known,  from  time  immemorial,  as  the 
Pian  di  Voce.1  Yet  the  Prince  of  Canino,  Lucien  Bonaparte, 
who  owned  the  greater  part  of  the  necropolis,  fancied  this  to  be 
the  site  of  the  long-lost  Vetulonia,  on  whose  ruins  rose  the  city 
of  Vulci.2  The  Prince,  however,  had  but  shallow  ground  for  his 
conjecture,  and  stood  almost  alone  in  this  view ;  the  general  and 
better  supported  opinion  being,  that  Vetulonia  occupied  some  site 
on  this  coast  more  to  the  north. 

The  city  of  Vulci  stood  on  lower  ground  than  its  necropolis ; 
not  so  much  therefore  is  to  be  seen  from  its  site,  as  from  the 
opposite  cliffs,  from  which  spot  the  stern  grandeur  of  the  scene 
is  most  imposing.  The  wide,  wide  moor,  a  drear,  melancholy 
waste,  stretches  around  you,  no  human  being  seen  on  its  expanse; 
the  dark,  lonely  castle  rises  in  the  midst,  with  the  majestic  bridge 
spanning  the  abyss  at  its  side ;  the  Fiora  frets  in  its  rocky  bed 
far  beneath  your  feet,  and  its  murmurs  conveyed  to  your  ear  by 
the  tall  cliffs  you  stand  on,  are  the  sole  disturbers  of  the  solemn 
stillness.  Deep  is  the  dreariness  of  that  moor.  Not  the  Landes 
of  Gascony,  not  the  treeless  plains  of  the  Castilles,  not  the  shores 
of  the  Gygsean  Lake,  surpass  it  in  lifeless  desolation.  The  sun 

side  of  a  marble  throne.  On  it  are  three  Gruter,  pp,  301,  447,  1.  Tombs  purely 
separate  figures,  each  with  the  name  of  a  Roman  have  also  been  discovered,  and 
people  of  Etruria  attached — VETULONENSES  some  even  with  Christian  inscriptions. 
— .  .  .  CENTANI — and  TARQUINIENSES.  The  l  Micali  (Ant.  Pop.  Ital.  I.  p.  147) 
middle  word  can  have  been  no  other  than  claims  the  merit  of  having  first  pointed  out 
Vulcentani  ;  there  is  just  room  for  the  this  as  the  site  of  Vulci,  yet  Holstenius 
three  initial  letters  in  the  space  where  the  (Annot.  ad  Cluver.  p.  40)  more  than  acen- 
inscription  is  defaced.  It  seems  highly  tury  before,  had  mentioned  this  as  the 
probable  that  the  names  of  the  Twelve  Piano  di  Volci — the  site  of  the  ancient  city, 
people  of  Etruria,  and  their  several  devices,  All  doubt  of  its  identity  has  now  been  re- 
were  recorded  on  this  monument.  Bull.  moved  by  the  discovery  of  Latin  inscriptions 
Inst.  1840,  p.  92  (Canina) ;  Ann.  Inst.  on  the  spot.  Bull.  Inst.  1835,  pp.  11,  121. 
1842,  pp.  37—40  (Braun),  and  tav.  d'  Agg.  2  Ann.  Inst.  1829,  pp.  188—192  ;  Mus. 
€.  Even  Annio  of  Viterbo  made  a  happy  Etr.  pp.  13,  163.  His  opinion  was  based 
guess  at  this  eminence  of  Vulci,  and  in  principally  on  an  inscription  on  a  vase 
his  Comments  on  his  Catonis  Origines,  found  in  this  necropolis— VieAONOXEJ, 
called  "  Volcen  "  one  of  the  Twelve.  written  against  a  figure  in  a  Bacchic  scene. 

8  Bull.  Inst.  1831,  p.  168— Gerhard.  See  Bull.   Inst.    1829,  p.    140  ;   1830,  p. 

3  Bull.  Inst.  1835,  pp.  121,  177  ;    cf.  187  ;  Ann.  Inst.  1831,  p.  186. 


CHAP,  xxix.]  SITE    OF    THE    ANCIENT    CITY.  447 

gilds  but  brightens  it  not.  The  dark  mountains,  which  bound  it 
on  the  north  and  east,  are  less  gloomy  in  aspect,  and  afford  a 
pleasing  repose  to  the  eye  wearied  with  wandering  over  its 
surface. 

"  All  is  still  as  night ! 
All  desolate  ! — Groves,  temples,  palaces — 
Swept  from  the  sight ;  and  nothing  visible 
Amid  the  sulphurous  vapours  that  exhale, 
As  from  a  land  accurst,  save  here  and  there 
An  empty  tomb,  a  fragment  like  the  limb 
Of  some  dismembered  giant. " 

Can  it  be  that  here  stood  one  of  the  wealthiest  and  most  luxuri- 
ous cities  of  ancient  Italy — the  chosen  residence  of  the  princes 
of  Etruria  ?  Behold  the  sole  relics  of  its  magnificence  in  the 
stones  scattered  over  yonder  field  on  one  side,  and  in  the  yawning 
graves  of  the  vast  cemetery  on  the  other,  a  surer  index  than  the 
crumbled  city  presents  to  the  civilisation  once  flourishing  on  this 
site,  but  long  since  extinct — the  one  desolated,  the  other  rifled — 
both  shorn  of  their  glory.  The  scene  is  replete  with  matter  for 
melancholy  reflection,  deepened  by  the  sense  that  the  demon  of 
malaria  has  here  set  up  his  throne,  and  rendered  this  once 
densely-peopled  spot  "  a  land  accurst." 

The  remains  of  two  bridges,  it  is  said,  may  be  traced,  connecting 
the  city  with  the  necropolis ;  but  none  could  I  perceive,  though 
it  is  highly  probable  that  there  was  some  more  direct  communica- 
tion than  the  distant  Ponte  della  Badia.  Were  it  so,  it  may  have 
been  at  a  spot  called  II  Pelago,  where  the  stream  widens  into  a 
small  lake  or  pool,  and  its  banks  lose  their  precipitous  character.3 
It  is  a  spot  which  has  claims  on  the  artist  as  well  as  the  anti- 
quary. The  range  of  lofty  cliffs,  fretted  with  stalactites,  feathered 
with  hanging  wood,  and  washed  by  the  torrent,  presents,  in  con- 
junction with  the  distant  castle,  the  broken  ground  of  the  city, 
and  the  wild  mountains,  rare  morsels  of  form  and  colour  for  the 
portfolio. 

In  the  cliffs  near  the  Ponte  is  a  natural  cavern,  scarcely  worth 
the  difficult}*"  of  the  descent  to  it. 

Fifty  years  ago  the  existence  of  this  vast  cemetery  was  utterly 
unknown.  In  the  early  part  of  1828  some  oxen  were  ploughing 
near  the  castle,  when  the  ground  suddenly  gave  way  beneath 

3  The  Prince  of  Canino  asserts  the  exist-  more  than  a  mile  below  the  Ponte  della 

ence  of  two  bridges  in  ruins  (Ann.  Inst.  Eadia,  which  agrees  with  the  position  of 

1829,  p.  192)  ;  Westphal  (Ann.  Inst.  1830,  II  Pelago.     It  is  marked  S  in  the  Plan, 
p.  40)  speaks  of  the  remains  of  one  only, 


448  VULCI.  [CHAP.  xxix. 

tliem,  and  disclosed  an  Etruscan  tomb  with  two  broken  vases. 
This  led  to  further  research,  which  was  at  first  earned  on  un- 
known to  the  Prince  of  Canino,  but  at  the  close  of  the  year  he 
took  the  excavations  into  his  own  hands,  and  in  the  course  of 
four  months  he  brought  to  light  more  than  two  thousand  objects 
of  Etruscan  antiquity,  and  all  from  a  plot  of  ground  of  three  or 
four  acres.4  Other  excavators  soon  came  into  the  field ;  every 
one  who  had  land  in  the  neighbourhood  tilled  it  for  this  novel 
harvest,  and  all  with  abundant  success ;  the  Feoli,  Candelori, 
Campanari,  Fossati, — all  enriched  themselves  and  the  Museums 
of  Europe  with  treasures  from  this  sepulchral  mine.  Since  that 
time  the  Prince  or  his  widow  has  annually  excavated  on  this  site, 
and  never  in  vain ;  and  the  glories  of  ancient  ceramographic  art, 
which  he  thus  brought  to  light,  and  diffused  throughout  Europe, 
have  made  the  name  of  Lucien  Bonaparte  as  well  known,  and 
will,  perhaps,  win  for  him  as  lasting  a  renown  as  his  conduct  on 
the  19th  Brumaire,  or  the  part  he  played  in  the  councils  of  his 
Imperial  brother. 

The  necropolis  embraced  both  banks  of  the  Fiora.  In  the 
tract  between  the  city  and  the  Ponte  della  Badia,  on  the  right 
bank,  known  as  the  tenuta  Camposcala,  excavations  were  com- 
menced by  the  Campanari  in  1828 ;  and  thence  came  most  of  the 
vases  in  the  Vatican  and  the  British  Museum.  Of  the  multitude 
of  tombs  here  opened,  few  remain  unclosed ;  but  of  these  one, 
discovered  in  1830,  and  called  Grotta  del  Sole  e  della  Luna — 
"  Tomb  of  the  Sun  and  Moon,"  particularly  deserves  attention, 
It  has  eight  chambers  ;  the  walls  of  some  are  curiously  adorned 
with  panels,  and  the  ceilings  with  mouldings  in  regular  patterns, 
all  carved  from  the  rock,  in  relief,  in  evident  imitation  of  wood- 
work. One  of  these  ceilings  has  a  singular  fan-pattern,5  the 
counterpart  to  which  is  found  in  two  tombs  at  Cervetri ;  whence 
we  may  conclude  it  was  no  uncommon  decoration  of  Etruscan 
houses.  In  this  same  tenuta,  under  the  walls  of  the  city,  was 
found  in  1833,  a  painted  tomb  of  remarkable  character,  the  first 
discovered  on  this  site.  It  is  now  utterly  destroyed,  but  a  record 
of  it  has  been  preserved,  and  copies  of  its  paintings  now  in  the 
British  Museum  rescue  it  from  oblivion.6 

4  Museum  Etrusque,  p.  12.  usual  Etruscan  form,  is  painted  with  red 

5  This  pattern  is  given  in  Mon.   Ined.       and  black  ribands,  diagonally,  so  often  seen 
Inst.  I.  tav.  XLI.,  together  with  the  plan       in  Egyptian  door-mouldings. 

and  sections  of  this  tomb.     The  moulding  °  For  a  description  of  it  see  the  Appendix 

round  one  of  the  doors,  1  esides  being  of  the       to  this  chapter. 


CHAP,  xxix.]  PAINTED   TOMB  DISCOVERED  BY  FBAN^OIS.     449 

In  April  1857,  another  painted  tomb  of  still  greater  interest 
and  importance,  was  discovered  in  this  necropolis,  by  Signer 
Alessandro  Frangois,  from  whom  it  takes  its  name.  On  the 
banks  of  the  Fiora,  on  the  verge  of  the  cliffs  opposite  the  ancient 
city,  and  at  the  height  of  100  feet  above  the  stream,  Francois 
found  a  passage  cut  in  the  rock,  which  lie  followed  out  until  it 
led  him  to  a  magnificent  tomb  of  eight  chambers,  hewn  in  the 
travertine.  Two  of  these  only  were  painted ;  the  central 
chamber,  and  the  inner  room  beyond  it,  which  however  had  only 
floral  decorations ;  but  the  principal  chamber,  which  was  23 
feet  by  20,  was  surrounded  with  scenes  of  striking  interest.  On 
the  left  half  of  the  walls  was  represented  the  sacrifice  of  Trojan 
captives  to  the  shade  of  Patroclus,  Achilles  himself  and  Ajax 
being  the  butchers.  M.  Noel  des  Yergers,  under  whose  auspices 
Frangois  was  excavating,  calls  this  scene  an  Etruscan  translation 
of  Homer's  description  of  the  sacrifice,  and  not  a  faithful  transla- 
tion either,  since  personages  of  the  Etruscan  spirit-world  are 
here  mixed  up  with  those  of  the  Greek  mythology.7  Charun  with 
his  hammer  and  a  winged  Lasa  are  present  at  the  slaughter ;  and 
the  shade  of  Patroclus  himself,  as  he  appeared  to  his  friend  in  a 
dream,  stands  watching  the  sacrifice  offered  to  his  manes.  Other 
scenes  of  slaughter  were  there  :  Ajax  about  to  murder  Cassandra ; 
and  the  Theban  Brothers  dying  by  each  other's  hands.  The 
other  half  of  the  chamber  exhibited  scenes  no  less  sanguinary, 
though  illustrative  not  of  Greek,  but  of  Etruscan  traditions. 
Here  was  Mastarna,  better  known  by  his  Roman  name  of  Servius 
Tullius,  cutting  the  bonds  of  his  friend  Cseles  Vibenna ;  here 
was  Tanaquil,  the  wife  of  the  first  Tarquin ;  and  "  Cneius 
Tarquinius  of  Rome  "  meeting  his  death  from  the  hands  of  an 
Etruscan  ;  and  here  were  other  scenes  of  blood,  in  which  unarmed 
men  were  falling  beneath  the  sword — victors  and  victims  all 
designated  by  Etruscan  appellations.  I  merely  mention  in  this 
place  the  discovery  of  this  wonderful  tomb,  as  nothing  is  now  to 
be  seen  on  the  spot.  Prince  Alessandro  Torlonia,  to  whom  the 
ground  belongs,  had  these  frescoes  detached  from  the  walls,  and 
removed  to  Rome,  where  after  lying  in  his  palace  for  many  years, 
they  have  very  recently  been  transferred  to  the  Collegio  Romano. 
They  will  be  further  described  when  we  treat  of  the  Museo 
Kircheriano,  where  they  are  now  exhibited. 

It  is  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Fiora  that  most  of  the  excavations 

7  Etrurie  et  les  Etrusques,  III.  p.   18.     For  illustrations  of  these  paintings  see  the 
said  work,  planches  XXI. — XXX. 

A'OL.    I.  G   G 


450  VULCI.  [CHAP.  xxix. 

have  been,  and  are,  annually  made.  Here,  about  a  mile  from  the 
castle,  towards  the  Cucumella,  we  came  upon  a  gang  of  ex- 
cavators, in  the  employ  of  the  Princess  of  Canino  ;  most  of  the 
necropolis  on  this  bank  of  the  Fiora  being  her  property.  And 
a  pretty  property  it  is,  rendering  an  excellent  return  to  its 
possessor;  for  while  her  neighbours  are  contenting  themselves 
with  well-stocked  granaries,  or  overflowing  wine -presses,  the 
Princess  to  her  earlier  is  adding  a  latter  harvest — the  one  of 
metaphorical,  the  other  of  literal  gold,  or  of  articles  convertible 
into  that  metal.  Yet,  in  gathering  in  the  latter  harvest,  the 
other  is  not  forgotten,  for,  to  lose  no  surface  that  can  be  sown 
with  grain,  the  graves,  when  rifled,  are  re-filled  with  earth.  On 
this  account,  excavations  are  carried  forward  only  in  winter. 

At  the  mouth  of  the  pit  in  which  they  were  at  work,  sat  the 
capo,  or  overseer — his  gun  by  his  side,  as  an  in  terrorcm  hint  to 
his  men  to  keep  their  hands  from  picking  and  stealing.  We 
found  them  on  the  point  of  opening  a  tomb.  The  roof,  as  is 
frequently  the  case  in  this  light,  friable  tufo,  had  fallen  in,  and 
the  tomb  was  filled  with  earth,  out  of  which  the  articles  it  con- 
tained had  to  be  dug  in  detail.  This  is  generally  a  process  re- 
quiring great  care  and  tenderness,  little  of  which,  however,  was 
here  used,  for  it  was  seen  by  the  first  objects  brought  to  light 
that  nothing  of  value  was  to  be  expected — hoc  miscrtv  plebi  stabat 
scpulcnim.  Coarse  pottery  of  unfigured,  unvarnished  ware,  and 
a  variety  of  small  vases  in  black  clay,  were  its  only  produce  ;  and 
as  they  drew  them  forth,  the  labourers  crushed  them  beneath 
their  feet  as  things  "  cheaper  than  seaweed."  In  vain  we  pleaded 
to  save  some  from  destruction ;  they  were  roba  di  sciocchczza — 
"foolish  stuff" — the  capo  was  inexorable;  his  orders  were  to 
destroy  immediately  whatever  was  of  no  pecuniary  value,  and  he 
could  not  allow  us  to  carry  away  one  of  these  relics  which  he  so 
despised.  It  is  lamentable  that  excavations  should  be  carried  on 
in  such  a  spirit ;  with  the  sole  view  of  gain,  and  with  no  regard 
to  the  advancement  of  science.  Such  is  too  frequently  the  case. 
Yet  they  are  occasionally  conducted  by  men  whose  views  are  not 
bounded  by  money-bags,  but  who  are  actuated  by  a  genuine  love 
and  zeal  for  science.  The  man  to  whom  the  Princess  had  in- 
trusted the  superintendence  of  her  scavi  was  "  a  lewd  fellow  of 
the  baser  sort,"  without  education  or  antiquarian  knowledge, 
though  experienced,  it  may  be,  in  determining  the  localities  of 
tombs,  and  the  pecuniary  value  of  their  contents.  Excavations 
were  differently  conducted  during  Lucien's  lifetime,  for  he  per- 


CHAP,  xxix.]    LUCIEN   BOXAPAETE'S    EXCAVATIONS.  451 

sonally  superintended  them.8  Since  the  period  of  which  I  write 
matters  have  much  improved.  The  present  government  of  Italy 
watches  more  carefully  over  antiquarian  researches,  and  appoints 
experienced  men  to  superintend  the  progress  of  scavi  in  the 
various  districts  of  Etruria,  who  note  the  character  of  the 
sepulchres,  the  nature  and  arrangement  of  their  contents,  and 
report  all  discoveries  of  importance,  to  the  Commission  of  An- 
tiquities at  Piome.  The  additional  light  thus  thrown  on  anti- 
quarian science  is  most  valuable.  As  it  was,  facts,  often,  it  may 
be,  of  great  importance,  were  unnoticed  and  unrecorded.  We 
saw,  in  the  Museums  of  Europe,  from  Paris  to  St.  Petersburg, 
the  produce  of  these  Vulcian  tombs,  we  admired  the  surpassing 
elegance  of  the  vases  and  the  beauty  of  their  designs,  and 
marvelled  at  the  extinct  civilization  they  indicate ;  but  they 
afforded  us  no  conception  of  the  places  in  which  they  had  been 
preserved  for  so  many  centuries,  or  of  their  relations  thereto. 
Besides  the  official  record,  notices  of  the  discovery  of  remarkable 
tombs  or  objects  are  given  periodically  in  the  publications  of  the 
Archaeological  Institute  of  Rome,  and  of  other  antiquarian 
societies  of  Italy. 

In  watching  the  excavations  at  Vulci  I  learned  that  the  con- 
tents of  adjoining  tombs  often  differed  widely  in  antiquity,  style, 
.and  value — that  sepulchres  of  various  ranks,  and  different  periods, 
lay  mixed  indiscriminately,  and  that  the  same  tomb  even  some- 
times contained  objects  of  several  ages,  as  though  it  had  been  the 
vault  of  one  family  through  many  generations. 

The  external  difference  between  the  cemeteries  of  Tarquinii 
.and  Vulci  is  striking  enough.  There  you  have  a  hill  studded 
with  sepulchral  mounds,  and  distinguishable  afar  off  by  its  rugged 
outline  ;  here  is  a  vast  uniform  level,  with  scarcely  an  inequality 
on  its  surface — one  lofty  barrow  alone  rising  from  it,  to  mark, 
like  the  tumulus  on  the  plain  of  Marathon,  or  the  lion-crested 
mound  on  that  of  Waterloo,  that  this  is  a  field  of  the  dead.  The 
tombs  of  Vulci  are  sunk  beneath  the  level  surface.  They  are 
not  in  general  of  large  size,  and  are  usually  of  oblong  form, 
••surrounded  with  benches  of  rock,  on  which  the  dead  were  laid, 
generally  without  any  iuclosure  or  covering  beyond  their  armour 

8  Gerhard  (Bull.  Inst.  1831,  p.  88)  com-       the  same  condemnation.      The  mercenary 
plains  of  the  incivility  and  vandalism  of       character  and  barbarism  of  Italian  excava- 
•inost  of  the  excavators  at  Vulci,  making  a       tore  are  notorious,  and  prompt  one  to  cry — 
particular  exception  in  favour  of  the  Prince.        Desine  scrutari  quod  tegit  ossa  solum  ! 
Bunsen  (Ann.  Inst.  1834,  p.  85)  pronounces 

O  G   2 


452  YULCI.  [CHAP.  xxix. 

or  habiliments.  Yet  some  sarcophagi  of  great  beauty  and  interest 
have  been  found  here.  The  abundance  of  bones,  and  the  rarity 
of  cinerary  urns  or  vases,  show  that  interment  was  more  in 
fashion  than  cremation.  The  doorways  to  the  tombs  are  of  the 
usual  Egyptian  form,  and,  though  sunk  deep  beneath  the  soil, 
are  often  adorned  with  the  square  lintelled  moulding  so  common 
at  Bieda.  Some  thirty  j'ears  ago,  it  was  calculated  that  more 
than  six  thousand  tombs  had  already  been  opened  in  this 
necropolis ; 9  which  number  had  increased  in  1856  to  more  than 
15,000.! 

LA   CUCUMELLA.2 

This  singular  tumulus,  which,  standing  in  the  midst  of  the 
bare  plain,  is  visible  at  the  distance  of  many  a  mile,  is  a  vast  cone 
of  earth,  like  Polydore's  tomb — inycns  agyeritur  tumido  tellus — 
above  two  hundred  feet  in  diameter,  and  still  forty  or  fifty  in 
height,  though  much  lowered  from  its  original  altitude  bjr  time 
and  the  spade  of  the  excavator.  It  was  encircled  at  its  base  by  a 
wall  of  masonry,  which  was  traceable  by  fragments  in  1830,. 
though  not  a  block  is  now  left.  The  mound  was  opened  by  the 
Prince  of  Canino,  in  1829.  Above  this  wall  were  found  sundry 
small  sepulchral  chambers,  as  in  the  tumuli  of  Cervetri  and 
Chiusi ;  but  all  are  now  re-closed.  They  were  probabl}'  tombs, 
of  the  dependents  and  slaves  of  the  great  personage  or  family  for 
whom  the  mausoleum  was  erected.3 

In  the  heart  of  the  mound  were  unearthed  two  towers,  one- 
square,  the  other  conical,  both  between  thirty  and  forty  feet  in 
height,  of  horizontal,  uncemented  masonry,  but  extremely  rude 
and  irregular,  and  so  loosely  put  together  as  to  threaten  a  speedy 

9  Micali,  Mon.  Ined.  p.  361.  hardly  be  so  at  Tarquinii  and  Caere,  -where- 

1  Noel  des  Vergers,  Etrurie,  III.  p.  16.  tumuli   are   so   abundant.      Knapp  (Ann. 

2  Cucumella — probably  a  cacumine—is  Inst.  1832,  p.  280)  accounts  for  the  general 
a  term  commonly  applied  in  Central  Italy  adoption  of  the  tumulus  on  certain  sites, 
to  a   mound,    hillock,    or  barrow.      This  by  the  inferior  hardness  and  compactness 
Vulcian  tumulus  is  called  the  Cucumella,  of  the  rock  in  which  the  tombs  were  ex- 
pa?1  excellence,  as  there  is  no  other  on  this  cavated.     But  this  notion  is  quite  upset  by 
site  to  rival  it.     There  may  be  some  affinity  an  extended  view  of  Etruscan  cemeteries, 
in  the  word  to  the  Etruscan,  for  we   find  For  in  the  friable  arenaceous  earth  of  Chiusi 
the  proper  nnme  of  "  Laris  Cucuma,"  on  a  and  its  neighbourhood,  artificial  tumuli  are 
tile  in  the  Pasquini  collection  at  Chiusi.  never  found,   whereas  at  Cervetri,   where 
Mus.  Chius.  II.  p.  124.  the  tufo  is  as  hard  as  on  any  other  site,  they 

3  Micali  (M  >n.  Ined.  p.  361)  regards  the  are   most  numerous.     The  reason  of  this, 
tumulus  as  a  mark  of  distinction  and  dig-  peculiarity  certainly  does  not  lie  in  a  con- 
nity.     It   may   be  in  this  case,  -  but  can  structive  necessity. 


CHAP,  xxix.]  LA    CUCUMELLA.  453 

fall.4  The  conical  tower  appears  to  have  been  hollow ;  but 
neither  this,  nor  the  other,  has  any  visible  entrance ;  and  it 
seems  probable  that  they  served  no  more  practical  purpose  than 
to  support  the  figures  with  which  the  monument  was  crowned.5 

At  the  foot  of  these  towers  is  now  a  shapeless  hollow;  but 
here  were  found  two  small  chambers,  constructed  of  massive 
regular  masonry,  and  with  doorways  of  primitive  style,  arched 
over  by  the  gradual  convergence  of  the  horizontal  courses.  They 
were  approached  by  a  long  passage,  leading  directly  into  the 
heart  of  the  tumulus ;  and  here  on  the  ground  lay  fragments  of 
bronze  and  gold  plates,  very  thin,  and  adorned  with  ivy  and 
myrtle  leaves.  Two  stone  sphinxes  stood  guardians  at  the 
entrance  of  the  passage,  and  sundry  other  quaint  effigies  of  lions 
and  griffons  were  also  found  within  this  tumulus.6  No  other 
furniture  was  brought  to  light ;  whence  it  was  evident  that  the 
tumulus  had  been  rifled  in  by-gone  ages.  The  masonry  of  the 
towers,  the  primitive  doorways,  and  the  character  of  the  few 
articles  found,  tend  to  prove  this  tomb  to  be  of  very  ancient 
date — much  prior  to  the  generality  of  sepulchres  in  this 
necropolis.7 

Signor  Frai^ois,  the  great  explorer  of  Etruscan  cemeteries, 
persuaded  that  the  real  sepulchre,  over  which  the  tumulus  had 
been  raised,  was  still  concealed,  made  excavations  in  1856  for  its 
discovery,  in  connection  with  M.  Noel  des  Vergers.  He  ran  a 
trench  completely  round  the  base  of  the  mound,  but  without 
success.  He  fell  a  victim  the  year  following,  to  the  deadly 
atmosphere  of  the  site,  and  "  the  Cucumella  still  rears  its  head 
like  the  mysterious  sphinx  of  these  dangerous  solitudes." ' 

This  tumulus  bears  a  striking  analogy  to  that  at  Sardis,  known 
to  be  the  sepulchre  of  Alyattes,  king  of  Lydia,  and  father  of 
Crresus,  which  had  a  basement  of  huge  stones,  surmounted  by 
-a  mound  of  earth.  Five  termini — ovpot. — stood  on  the  summit, 

4  Gerhard   (Bull.    Inst.     1829,    p.    51)  G  Ann.  Instit.  1832,  p.  273. 
•accounts  for  the  rudeness  of  this  masonry  "'  For  an  account  of  the  opening  of  this 
by  supposing  it  to  have  been  faced,  probably  tumulus,  see  Bull.  Inst.  1829,  p.  50,  et  seq, 
with   metal,   as  marble  was   not   used   in  (Gerhard)  ;  and  Micali,  op.  cit.  III.  p.  94. 
•architecture  by  the  Etruscans.     This  sup-  For  a  plate  of  the  monument,   see  Mon. 
position  is  quite  unnecessary,  for  the  towers  Ined.   Inst.  I.,  tav.  41,  2,  and  Micali,  op. 
were  not  intended  to  be  seen,  being  buried  cit.   tav.    62,   who  represents   the   square 
in  the  earth.  tower  with  a  door. 

5  According  to   Micali  (Ant.   Pop.  Ital.  s  Noel  des  Vergers,  Etrurie,  III.  p.  15. 
p.  148)  several  sphinxes  were  found  on  the  Illustrations  of  some  of  the  fruits  of  M.  des 
summit  of  the  towers,  and  it  may  be  pre-  Vergers'  excavations  at  Vulci,  are  given  in 
sumed  that  they  were  for  the  external  de-  his  beautiful  work. 

coration  of  the  tumulus. 


454  YULCI.  [CHAP.  xxix. 

says  Herodotus,  and  on  them  were  carved  inscriptions,  recording 
the  construction  of  the  monument,  and  that  it  was  raised  princi- 
pally hy  the  hands  of  young  women.  The  tumulus  was  six 
stadia  and  two  plethra  (3,842  ft.  8  in.)  in  circumference,  and 
thirteen  plethra  (1,314  ft.  1  in.)  in  diameter.9  As  the  Lydians 
are  traditionally  the  colonisers  of  Etruria,  when  we  find  similar 
monuments  in  this  land,  we  may  regard  them  as  strengthening 
the  probability  of  the  tradition,  and  may  assign  them  an  early 
date  in  style,  if  not  always  in  actual  construction.  The  tumulus 
of  Alyattes  was  six  or  seven  times  as  large  as  the  Cucumella,  yet 
the  affinity  is  not  the  less  striking.  But  there  are  scores  of 
sepulchral  mounds  011  the  Bin  Tepe  at  Sardis,  whose  dimensions 
agree  with  those  of  the  Cucumella.  It  is  in  character  and 
arrangement  alone,  not  in  size,  that  the  mound  of  Alyattes  is  to 
be  regarded  as  a  type  of  Lydian  tombs,  for  Herodotus  specifies 
this  as  among  the  marvels  of  the  land  on  account  of  its  size — 
Zpyov  Tj-oAAov  ^e'yioroz; — inferior  only  in  magnitude  to  the  works  of 
the  Egyptians  and  Babylonians.  The  five  termini  on  the  Lydian 
monument  are  not  clearly  and  definitely  described ;  but  the 
inscriptions  on  them  show  an  analogy  to  the  stelce  of  the  Greeks 
and  Etruscans  ;  and  as  they  could  not,  consistently  with  the 
rest  of  the  monument,  have  been  on  a  small  scale,  the  probability 
is  that  they  were  either  cones  surmounting  towers,  or  the  termi- 
nations of  such  towers,  rising  above  the  body  of  the  mound.1  It 
is  a  remarkable  fact,  that  the  tomb  of  Porsena,  at  Clusium,  the 
only  Etruscan  sepulchre  of  which  we  have  record,  bore  a  close 
affinity  to  the  only  Lydian  sepulchre  described  by  the  ancients — 
the  square  merely  taking  place  of  the  circle;  for  it  is  said  to 
have  had  "  five  pyramids  "  rising  from  a  square  base  of  masomy, 
"one  at  each  angle,  and  one  in  the  centre/'"  And  the  curious 
monument  at  Albano,  vulgarly  called  the  tomb  of  the  Horatii  and 
Curiatii,  has  a  square  basement  of  masonry,  surmounted  by  four 
cones,  and  a  cylindrical  tower  in  the  midst.3  Five,  indeed,  seems- 

9  Herod.  I.  93.  Yon  Prokescli  and  Von  Olfers  who  cites  him 
1  When  writing  the  above,  I  was  not  (Lyd.  Konigsgriiber  bei  Sardes)  appear  to 
aware  that  anything  remained  on  the  tumu-  have  recognised.  It  is  about  9  feet  in 
lus  of  Alyattes  to  verify  the  statement  of  diameter,  and  bears  not  a  vestige  of  an  in- 
Herodotus  ;  but  having  since  passed  a  scription,  not  answering  in  this  respect  to 
winter  on  the  Bin  Tepe,  encamped  beneath  the  description  given  by  Herodotus, 
the  shadow  of  this  gigantic  mound,  I  can  -  Varro,  ap.  Plin.  XXXVI.  19,  4. 
testify  that  on  its  summit  still  lies  a  shape-  3  It  is  supposed  by  some  to  be  the  sepul- 
less  fragment  of  one  of  the  termini  which  chre  of  Pompey  the  Great,  erected  here- 
decorated  its  crest ;  but  I  failed  to  perceive  abouts  by  his  wife  Cornelia — Pint.  Pom- 
in  it  any  resemblance  to  a  phallus,  such  as  peius,  ad  finem.  To  this  opinion  Canina  is 


CHAP,  xxix.]    ANALOGY  TO  THE  TUMULI  AT  SAEDIS.  455 

to  have  been  the  established  number  of  cones,  pyramids,  or 
columnar  cippi,  on  tombs  of  this  description ;  whence  it  has  been 
suggested  that  three  other  towers  are  probably  buried  in  the 
unexcavated  part  of  the  Cucumella.4 

Southward  from  this  is  a  much  smaller  mound,  called  "La 
Cucumelletta,"  because  it  is  a  miniature  of  the  other.  It  was 
opened  by  the  Prince  in  1832,  and  was  found  to  contain  five 
chambers. 

Still  nearer  the  Cucumella  is  a  low  tumulus,  called  "  La 
Rotonda,"  about  thirty  feet  in  diameter,  and  walled  round  with 
a  single  course  of  travertine  blocks.  The  cone  of  earth  which 
surmounted  it  is  now  levelled  to  the  top  of  the  masonry.  There 
is  a  trench  and  rampart  around  it,  as  in  the  conical  rock-hewn 
tomb  of  Bieda.  The  chamber  is  now  choked  with  earth;  but  in 
it  were  found  vases  of  great  beaut}-.0 

Another  tumulus,  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Fiora,  near  the 
site  of  tile  ancient  city,  was  opened  by  Campanari,  in  1835.  In 
the  middle  of  the  chamber,  stretched  on  the  ground,  lay  the 
skeleton  of  a  warrior,  with  helm  on  his  head,  ring  on  his  finger, 
and  a  confused  mass  of  broken  and  rusted  weapons  at  his  feet. 
Against  the  wall  of  the  tomb,  depending  from  a  nail,  which,  from 
rust,  could  hardly  support  it,  hung  a  large  bronze  shield,  lined 
with  wood.  An  elegant  bronze  vase  and  a  tripod  were  also 
there,  but  no  pottery.  In  an  adjoining  chamber,  however, 
where  articles  of  jewellery,  strewed  on  the  ground,  indicated  a 
female  occupant,  there  were  some  beautiful  painted  vases.6 

These  warrior-tombs  are  not  uncommon,  scattered  indiscrimi- 

inclined — Ann.  lust.  1837,  2,  p.  57.  Others  observes,  mark  the  latter  days  of  the  Re- 
regard  it  as  the  tomb  of  Aruns,  son  of  public.     It  must   be  a   Roman  tomb— in 
Porsena,    who    fell    at   Aricia,   contending  imitation  of  those  in  use  in  the  early  days 
with  the  Greeks  of  Curna  in  the  year  250  of  of  Italy — whether  of  Pompey,  or  of  some 
Rome  (Liv.  II.  14;  Dionys.  V.  36;  VII.  5).  other  wealthy  Roman,  is  a  matter  of  mere 
Piranesi  first  started  this  opinion,  and   is  conjecture.     The  yens  Pomptia,  however, 
supported  in  it  by  Nibby,   Gell,  and  the  had  an  Etruscan  origin,  as  we  learn  from 
Due  de  Luynes,  Ann.   Inst.  1829,  p.  309.  the  Grotta  del  Tifone  at  Corneto  ;  and  the 
But  there  is  no  valid  reason  for  regarding  great  Pompey  is  known  to  Live  possessed  a 
this  tomb  as  of  very  early  date,  or  of  Etrus-  villa  near  Alba.     Plut.  Pomp.  loc.  cit. 
can  construction.     The  basement  was  faced  4  Ann.   Inst.   Ib32,  p.   273 — Lenoir.     I 
with  emplecton  masonry,  now  destroyed  by  much  doubt  this.     There  may  be  one  or 
the  recent  repairs,   but  above  this,  where  two  more,  but  from  the  position  of  the  dis- 
the  original  structure  is  disclosed,  it  is  seen  closed   towers   in   the    mound,    there   can 
to  be  of  opusincertum,  in  strata  alternating  hardly  have  been  five, 
with  courses  of  masonry.     This  stamps  it  "'  Ann.  Inst.  1832,  p.  277.     MOD.  Ined. 
as  Roman  ;  no  instance  of  such  a  construe-  Inst.  I.,  tav.  41,  3. 
tion  having  been  found  in  genuine  Etruscan           6  Bull.  Inst.  1835,  p.  203,  ct  seq. 
monuments.    The  mouldings  also,  as  Canina 


456  VULCI.  [CIIAP.  xxix. 

natety  among  those  of  men  of  peace.  In  some  are  found  arms  of 
various  descriptions,  the  iron  generally  much  oxydised,  the 
helmets  frequently  bearing  marks  of  the  battle-fray,  in  "good  old 
blows  "  of  sword  or  lance,  and  sometimes  encircled  with  chaplets 
of  ivy,  myrtle,  or  oak-leaves,  in  pure  gold,  of  the  most  delicate 
and  exquisite  workmanship  ;  as  if  to  show  that  the  departed  had 
fallen  in  the  moment  of  victory,  or,  it  may  be,  to  typify  the  state 
of  triumphant  bliss  into  which  his  spirit  had  entered.  Not 
always  are  there  remain?,  of  the  corpse  itself.  When  the  soil  is 
unusually  dry,  bones  may  be  found  not  entirely  decayed ;  but  it 
more  often  happens  that  on  the  rocky  bier  lie  the  helmet, 
breastplate,  greaves,  signet-ring,  weapons — or,  if  it  be  a  female, 
the  necklace,  ear-rings,  bracelets,  and  other  ornaments,  each  in 
its  relative  place  ;  but  the  body  they  once  encased  or  adorned, 
has  left  not  a  vestige  behind.  In  some  of  the  warrior-tombs  of 
this  necropolis,  as  also  on  other  sites,  the  bones  ot  a  horse  and 
dog  have  been  found  by  the  side  of  those  of  the  man  ;7  whence  we 
may  infer  that  the  Etruscan  believed  in  a  future  state  of  existence 
for  the  brute  creation, 

"  And  thought,  admitted  to  that  equal  sky 
His  faithful  dog  would  bear  him  company  ; " 

a  doctrine  held  by  the  civilised  nations  of  antiquity,  as  well  as  by 
"the  poor  Indian;  "  for  Virgil  pictures  the  souls  in  Elysium  as 
practising  equitation;  and  Homer  mentions  the  sacrifice  of 
horses  and  household  dogs  at  the  pyre  of  Patroclus.8 

Among  the  tombs,  in  that  part  of  the  necropolis  to  the  south, 
called  the  Campo  Morto,  are  scattered  here  and  there  sundry 
square  areas  paved  with  large  flags,  and  surrounded  by  walls  of 
regular  masonry.  It  seems  probable  that  they  were  mtr'uue,  or 
spots  appropriated  to  the  burning  of  the  dead,  which,  though  not 
a  common  custom  with  the  Etruscan  inhabitants  of  Yulci,  may 
have  prevailed  among  their  Roman  successors.9 

7  Bull.  Instit.  loc.  cit.  where  the  corpse  was  burnt  alone,  whereas 

8  Virg.  J£n.  VI.  655.    Horn.  II.  XXII 1.  in  the  bustum  it  was  also  buried.    Festus,  v. 
171 — 4.     Lucian   (de  Luctu,    p.   810,    ed.  Bustum.      The  best  specimen  of  an  ustrina, 
Bourd. )   says  that   horses   and  concubines  extant  is  that  large  quadrangle  on  the  Via 
were  sometimes  slain  at  the  funeral  pile,  Appia  about  four  or  five  miles  from  Rome, 
and  clothes  were  cast  on  it,  or  buried  with  which  Gell  took  to  be  the  Campus  Sacer 
the  defunct,  as  though  he  would  use  such  Horatiorum,    mentioned    by  Martial   (III. 
things  in  the  other  world  as  he  had  been  epig.  47.  3).     A  detailed  description  of  it 
wont  to  enjoy  in  this.  is  given  by  Fabretti  (Inscrip.  Ant.  III.  p. 

^  The  ustrina  or  ustrinum  differed  from       '230). 
the  buxtum  or  rvjufios,  in  being  the  place 


CHAP.    XXIX. J 


WARRIOR-TOMBS— ISIS    TOMB. 


GROTTA  D'!SIDE. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  tombs  discovered  in  Etruria  was 
opened  in  1839,  in  a  part  of  this  necropolis  called  Polledrara,  to 
the  west  of  the  Ponte  Sodo.  In  interest  and  importance  it 
rivalled  the  Regulini-Galassi  tomb  at  Cervetri;  for,  besides 
objects  of  native  art,  of  very  high  antiquity,  anterior  to  all 
Hellenic  influence,  it  contained  articles  purely  and  unequivocally 
Egyptian,  attesting  the  very  early  intercourse  between  Etruria 
and  Egypt.  This  tomb  had  nothing  remarkable  in  its  con- 


EGYPTIAN    FLASK. 


OSTRICH-EGG,    PAIXTED. 


struction;  it  was  hollowed  below  the  surface,  like  the  other  tombs 
of  Vulci,  and  had  an  antechamber  and  three  inner  chambers. 
From  the  character  of  its  contents,  it  received  the  name  of  the 
"  Tomb  of  Isis  ;  "  but  it  was  really  the  sepulchre  of  two  Etruscan 
ladies  of  rank,  whose  effigies  are  still  in  existence,  though  nearly 
three  thousand  years  may  have  elapsed  since  their  decease. 

The  tomb  is  now  reclosed,  but  its  contents  have  been  fortu- 
nately kept  together.  They  were  once  in  the  possession  of  the 
Prince  of  Canino,  son  of  Lucien  Bonaparte,  but  have  now  passed 
into  the  British  Museum.  All  have  a  strong  Egyptian  or  oriental 
character ;  but  with  the  exception  of  those  evidently  imported 
from  the  banks  of  the  Nile,  they  are  Etruscan  imitations  of 
Egyptian  art,  with  the  native  stamp  more  or  less  strongly  marked. 
The  genuine  Egyptian  articles  consist  of  six  ostrich-eggs,1  one 


Imitations   of    ostrich    eggs,    in    terra       Yulci  (Micali,  Mon.   Ineil.   p.    57),  which 
cotta,   have   been  found   in   the  tombs  of       seems  to  indicate  that  they  were  of  funereal 


458 


VULCI. 


[CHAP.  xxix. 


painted  with  winged  camels  shown  in  the  woodcut ;  four  carved 
with  figures  in  very  low  relief — griffons  and  other  chimseras,  or 

wild  beasts  fighting  or  de- 
vouring their  prey  ;  and  the 
sixth  with  a  warrior  in  his 
bif/a,  attended  by  another 
chariot,  and  four  horsemen, 
carved  in  the  same  manner 
on  the  shell.  The  eggs  have 
holes  in  them,  as  if  for  sus- 
pension, and  bring  to  mind 
the  great  rock's  egg  of  the 
Arabian  Nights  ;  or,  rather, 
recall  the  fact  of  ostrich- 
eggs  being  suspended  in 
mosques  at  the  present  day. 
Genuinely  Egyptian  also  are 
five  vases  of  greenish  enamel, 
flat-sided  like  powder-flasks, 
and  with  hieroglyphics  round 
the  edge  .s  B  ut  thr  e  e  a  la  ba  s  t i , 
terminating  above  in  female 
busts,  with  hands  on  the 
t'NGUENT-voT  IN  THE  FORM  OF  A  WOMAN.  bosoms,  are  mere  imitations 

of  Egyptian  articles ;  so  also 

are  two   unguent-pots,  in  the   shape  of  small  sitting  figures  of 
women,  about  six  inches  high,  one  of  them  shown  in  the  above 


application,  and  that  the  demand  was 
greater  than  the  supply.  Yet  the  eggs  of 
smaller  birds,  imitated  in  that  material, 
have  also  been  found  in  this  necropolis. 
Ann.  Inst.  1843,  p.  351.  We  know  that 
the  eggs  of  the  ostrich  were  sometimes  used 
as  vases  by  the  ancients.  Flin.  X.  1.  Hens' 
eggs  are  often  found  in  tombs,  not  only  in 
Etruria,  but  in  Greece  and  her  colonies, 
and  are  sometimes  inclosed  in  vases.  They 
are  not  always  fragile,  for  many  museums 
in  Italy  contain  specimens  of  this  singular 
sepulchral  furniture.  Whether  mere  relics 
of  the  funeral  feast,  or  intentionally  left  in 
the  tomb  with  the  wine,  honey,  milk,  &c., 
as  food  for  the  Manes,  or  for  some  purely 
symbolical  purpose,  it  is  not  easy  to  deter- 
mine. The  signification  of  fertility,  ordi- 
narily attached  to  eggs,  can  hardly  apply 


to  a  sepulchre.  The  egg  was  more  probably, 
in  this  case,  an  emblem  of  resurrection. 
It  was  used  by  both  Greeks  and  Komans 
in  lustrations.  (Lucian.  Diog.  et  Poll.  p. 
114,  ed.  Bourd.  ;  Juven.  Sat.  VI.  518  ; 
Ovid.  Are  Amat.  II.  329).  By  the  latter 
people  it  was  sometimes  supposed  to  possess 
strange  efficacy  ;  for  Livia  Augusta,  when 
pregnant  with  the  Emperor  Tiberius,  in 
order  that  her  child  might  prove  a  male, 
hatched  an  egg  in  her  own  bosom.  Flin. 
X.  76. 

2  See  the  woodcut  on  p.  457.  The  hiero- 
glyphics have  been  deciphered,  and  "con- 
tain invocations  to  the  gods  to  grant  a 
happy  New  Year  to  the  owner  of  the  vase. " 
Vases  of  precisely  similar  character,  found 
in  Egyptian  tombs,  are  also  to  be  seen  in 
the  British  Museum. 


CHAP,  xxix.]  EGYPTIAN  ARTICLES  IN  AN  ETRUSCAN  TOMB.    459 


woodcut;  and  a  vase  with  many  colours,  which  is  unique  in 
Etruscan  pottery — the  ground  being  dark-grey,  and  the  figures 
black,  red,  blue,  yellow,  and  white.  So  Egyptian-like  are  the 
chariots,  and  the  procession  of  females  painted  on  this  vase,  that 
the  general  observer  would  at  once  take  it  for  an  importation  ; 
yet  the  learned  have  pronounced  it  Egyptian  only  in  character, 
and  native  in  execution, 
though  of  most  archaic  st}de 
and  early  date,3  the  myth 
which  represents  Theseus 
and  the  Minotaur  being 
purely  Hellenic. 

The  effigies  of  the  two 
ladies  differ  in  material,  as 
well  as  in  taste.  One  is  a 
full-length  figure  of  stone, 
two  feet  nine  inches  high, 
clad  in  a  long  chiton,  reach- 
ing to  her  feet,  and  over  it  a 
shorter  tunic  open  in  front 
and  clasped  at  the  waist, 
sandals  on  her  feet,  but  no 
ornaments  beyond  those  with 
which  nature  honoured  her 
head — two  long  tresses  being 
left  on  each  side  of  her  face 
to  fall  to  her  bosom,  just 
such  as  are  cherished  now-a- 
days  by  misses  in  their  teens ; 
and  her  "  back-hair  "  being 
plaited  into  a  number  of 

tails,  clubbed  together  at  the  end.  What  magic  power  may 
have  lain  in  her  e}Tes,  we  know  not,  as  they  have  been  taken 
from  their  sockets,  probably  being  of  some  precious  material. 
Nor  can  we  compliment  her  on  her  form,  which  is  stiff  and 
masculine,  though  such  may  have  passed  for  elegant  among 
the  daughters  of  Ham,  to  whom  she  bears  a  striking  re- 
semblance, 
this  fair  Etruscan.4 


STATUE    OF    AX    ETRUSCAN    LADi'. 


The  above  woodcut  gives  a  front  and  back  view  of 


3  Micali,  Mon.  Ined.  p.  39,  tav.  IV.  1. 

4  This  figure,  though  Egyptian  in  cha- 
racter, is  admitted  to  be  a  work  of  Etruscan 


art,    and    among    the    earliest    examples, 
extant. 


400 


VULCI. 


[CHAP.  xxix. 


If  \\e  cannot  say  of  this 

"  Sweet  Tyrrlu'iic  maid,  a  very  shower 
Of  beauty  was  her  earthly  dower," 

no  more  can  we  declare  her  companion  to  be — 

"  A  lovely  lady,  garmented  with  light 
From  her  own  beauty." 

She  had  her  hust  taken  in  bronze,  and  being  of  vainer  mood  than 
her  fellow,  and  less  modest  withal,  had  it  represented  bare,  taking 
care  to  put  on  her  best  necklace  —  and  a 
gorgeous  one  it  must  have  been,  though 
stiffening  her  neck  like  a  warrior's  gorget — 
and  to  have  her  hair  carefully  arranged  and 
curled  when  she  sat  to  the  artist.  And  she 
seems  to  have  worn  a  broad  gold  frontlet,  for 
such  an  ornament,  embossed  with  figures, 
was  found  in  the  tomb.  Then  she  affected 
modest}',  and  with  a  gilt  bird  on  her  hand, 
thought  to  make  herself  more  engaging.  Yet 
posterity,  whom  she  intended  to  enchant,  will 
hardly  accord  this  Etruscan  Lesbia  credit  for 
great  charms;  and  will  be  apt  to  exclaim  with 
Juvenal,  denouncing  bedizened  dowagers — 

Intolerabilius  nihil  est  quam  femina  dives. 

The  pedestal  is  in  keeping  with  the  bust, 
being  richly  adorned  with  figures  of  lions, 
sphinxes,  and  chariots.  The  antiquity  of 

BRONZE    BUST    OF    AN  A  .  .  •  i 

KTUUSCAN  LADY.         this  bust  is  proved,  not  only  by  its  style,  but 

by    its    workmanship;    not    being   cast,    but 

formed   of  thin   plates  of  bronze,  hammered   into   shape,    and 

finished  with  the  chisel — the  earliest  mode  of  Etruscan  toreutics.5 


5  The  earliest  works  of  the  Greeks  in 
bronze  must  have  been  so  formed,  for  we 
know  that  the  most  ancient  statue  in  bronze 
— that  of  Jupiter  on  the  Acropolis  of  Sparta 
— was  wrought  in  separate  pieces,  nailed 
together  (Pausan.  III.  17,  6).  This  ham- 
mered work  —  gphyreUitoti  —  can  hardly 
have  been  later  than  the  beginning  of  the 
sixth  century  B.  c. ,  because  Pausanias 
(VIII.  14,  S;  X.  38.  6  ;  cf.  Plin.  XXXV. 


43)  tells  us  that  the  art  of  casting  statues  in 
bronze — xuvevna — was  invented  by  Ilhoecus 
of  Samos,  who  built  the  great  temple  of 
Hera  in  that  island  (Herod.  III.  60),  and 
who  is  believed  to  have  flourished  before 
600  B.C.  On  the  revival  of  the  arts  in  the 
middle  ages,  says  Micali  (Mon.  Ined.  p. 
52),  the  earliest  statues  in  bronze,  as  that 
of  Boniface  VIII.  in  Hologna,  erected  in 
1301,  were  formed  of  plates. 


CHAP.    XXIX.] 


TOEEUTICS    AND    CERAMICS. 


461 


In  the  same  tomb  were  found  two  oblong  bronze  cars,  on  four 
wheels,  and  with  a  horse's  fore-quarters  springing  from  eacli 
angle.  They  must  have  been  for  fumigation,  and  may  have  been 
dragged  about  the  tomb  to  dispel  the  effluvium,  on  the  occasion 
of  the  funeral  feast,  or  the  annual  parentalia,  and  were  probably 
equivalent  to  the  focolari,  so  common  in  the  tombs  of  Chiusi. 
There  were  also  found  sundry  quaint  vessels  in  bronze,  with 
some  tripods  and  a  lamp — all  of  mere  funereal  use,  being  too 
thin  and  fragile  to  have  served  domestic  purposes — a  spoon  of 


IVOUY    SPOON    FOUND    IN    THE    ISIS-TOMD. 


ivoiy,  and  some  plates  and  vessels  of  alabaster,  which  were 
probably  used  at  the  funeral  feast,  and  left  as  usual  in  the 
tomb  together  with  an  abundance  of  the  green  paste,  of  which 
the  Egyptians  made  necklaces  and  bracelets  to  adorn  their 
mummies.6 

On  the  painted  pottery,  found  at  Vulci,  it  were  needless  to 
expatiate.  Every  Museum  in  Europe  proclaims  its  beauty,  and, 
through  it,  the  name  of  Vulci,  little  noised  in  classic  times,  and 
well  nigh  forgotten  for  two  thousand  }-ears,  has  become  immortal, 
and  acquired  a  wider  renown  than  it  ever  possessed  during  the 
period  of  the  cit}r's  existence.  Vulci  has  none  of  the  tall  black 
ware  with  figures  in  relief,  so  abundant  at  Chiusi  and  its  neigh- 
bourhood ;  but  of  painted  vases  there  is  every  variety — from  the 
earliest,  quaintest  efforts,  through  every  grade  of  excellence,  to 
the  highest  triumphs  of  Hellenic  ceramographic  art.  Of  the 
early,  so-called  Doric,  potteiy,  little  is  found  at  Vulci ;  nor  of 
the  Perfect  style,  which  is  predominant  at  Nola,  is  there  so  great 
an  abundance  here  ;  the  great  mass  of  Vulcian  vases  being  of 
the  Attic  style — of  that  severe  and  archaic  design,  which  is  always 
connected  with  black  figures  on  a  yellow  ground.7  The  best 


6  For  an  account  of  the  articles  in  this 
tomb,  see  Bull.  Inst.  1839,  pp.  71—73 
— Urlichs  ;  Micali,  Mon.  Ined.  pp.  37 — 71, 
tav.  IV.— VIII.  ;  Ann.  Inst.  1843,  p.  350, 
Bull.  Inst.  1844,  p.  105.— Braun. 


'  A  comparison  of  the  pottery  found  at 
Vulci  and  Tarquinii  is  greatly  in  favour  ot' 
the  former.  The  subjoined  table  shows 
the  comparative  per  centage  of  each  de- 
scription of  vases. 


462 


VULCI. 


[CHAP.  xxix. 


vases  of  Vulci,  in  the  chaste  simplicity  of  their  style,  closely 
resemble  those  of  Nola  and  Sicily ;  yet  there  are  characteristic 
shades  of  difference  in  form  and  design,  which  can  be  detected 
by  a  practised  eye.  On  this  site,  more  than  on  any  other  in 
Etruria,  have  been  found  those  singular  vases  painted  with  eyes, 
so  common  also  in  Sicily,  the  meaning  of  which  continues  to 
perplex  antiquaries.  Specimens  of  them  are  given  in  the  annexed 
woodcut,  and  in  that  at  the  head  of  the  following  chapter — the 


KYLIX,    OH   DRINKING-BOWL,    FROM    VULCI. 

former,  a  kylix,  or  drinking  bowl,  in  the  possession  of  the 
Marquis  of  Northampton ;  the  latter,  a  scene  copied  from  an 
amphora  in  the  British  Museum. 

I  cannot  here  enter  into  further  details  of  the  vases  of  Vulci ; 
for  a  description  of  them  would  be  almost  identical  with  that  of 
the  painted  pottery  of  Etruria.  It  would  not  be  too  much  to  assert 
that  nine-tenths  of  the  painted  vases,  that  have  been  brought 
to  light  in  Etruria,  are  from  this  site.  The  extraordinary 
multitude  of  these  vases,  bearing  Greek  subjects,  of  Greek  design, 
and  with  Greek  inscriptions — the  names  of  the  potter  and  painter 


Painted  vases,  with  figures,  ) 
(i.e. ,  the  two  best  classes) ) 

Painted  vases,  with  animals,  / 
(i.e.,  the  Egyptian  style)  ^ 

Painted   vases,   with   mere ) 
ornaments     .  ^ 

Plain,  uncoloured  ware 

Black  ware,  with  reliefs. 
Ditto,         varnished 
Ditto,         unvarnished 


Tar-    Vulci. 
quinii. 


16 

20 

10 
1 
5 

44 


10 


2 
4 

34 


100       100 

The  average  produce  of  excavations  on  this 
site  is  said  to  be  thirty  times  greater  than 


at  Tarquinii.  At  Yulci  virgin-tombs  are  to 
the  rest  as  1  to  90.  In  eight  months  of 
excavation,  Fossati  found  but  three  intact, 
containing  painted  vases,  though  more  than 
twenty  intact  with  ordinary  black  ware. 
Ann.  Inst.  1820,  p.  128. 

Gerhard  considered  the  painted  vases  of 
Vulci  to  belong  to  a  period  not  earlier  than 
the  74th  Olympiad  (484  B.C.),  nor  later 
than  the  124th  (284  B.C.),  or  between  the 
tliird  and  fifth  centuries  of  Home — an 
opinion  founded  on  the  forms  of  the  vases, 
the  subjects  represented,  and  on  palseo- 
graphic  evidences.  Bull.  Inst.  1831,  p. 
167.  But  the  Doric  vases  are  certainly 
earlier  than  he  supposed. 


CHAP,  xxix.]     THE    PAINTED    POTTERY    OF    VULCI.  463 

being  also  recorded  as  Greeks — lias  suggested  the  idea  that  Vulci 
must  have  been  a  Greek  colon}',8  or  that  a  portion  of  its  inhabi- 
tants were  of  that  nation,  living  in  a  state  of  isopolity  with  the 
Etruscans.9  But  these  views  are  opposed  by  the  fact  that  nothing 
found  on  this  site,  except  the  painted  vases,  is  Greek  ;  the  tombs 
and  all  their  other  contents  are  unequivocally  Etruscan.  On  this 
site  it  is  that  the  very  few  vases,  bearing  Etruscan  inscriptions 
and  subjects,  have  been  found.  The  kratcr  at  the  head  of  this 
chapter,  which  bears  the  strange  scene  that  forms  the  frontis- 
piece to  the  second  volume,  is  a  notable  specimen  of  this  class  of 
vases.1 

Although  thousands  on  thousands  of  painted  vases  have  been 
redeemed  from  oblivion,  this  cemetery  still  j'ields  a  richer  harvest 
than  an}r  other  in  Etruria.  No  site  has  been  so  well  worked  by 
the  excavator — none  has  so  well  repaid  him ;  yet  it  seems  far 
from  exhausted.  Nor  is  it  rich  in  vases  alone.  Bronzes  of 
various  descriptions,  mirrors  with  beautiful  designs,  vessels, 
tripods,  candelabra,  weapons — are  proportionately  abundant,  and 
maintain  the  same  relative  excellence  to  the  pottery.  That 
exquisite  cista,  or  casket,  with  a  relief  of  a  combat  between  Greeks 
and  Amazons,  now  in  the  Gregorian  Museum,  and  which  yields 
not  in  beauty  to  any  of  those  rare  relics  of  ancient  taste  and 
genius,  which  the  necropolis  of  Praeneste  has  produced,  was 
found  at  Vulci.  No  site  yields  more  superb  and  delicate  articles 
in  gold  and  jewellery — as  the  Cabinets  of  the  Vatican,  and  of  the 
brothers  Castellani  at  Rome  can  testify ;  none  more  numerous 
relics  in  ivory  and  bone,  or  more  beautiful  specimens  of  variegated 
glass.3 

To  this  we  may  add  that  no  cemetery  in  Etruria  has  yielded 
more  beautiful  examples  of  statuary  in  terra-cotta  than  that  of 
Vulci,  though  such  works  of  art  are  of  rare  occurrence  in 


8  Gerhard,  Ann.   Inst.  1831,   pp.  106,  al-o  some  admirable  papers,   by  Bunsen, 
107.     He  subsequent!}-  (Bull.   Inst.   1832,  Ann.  Inst.    1834,   pp.   40—86.     Opiniona 
]>p.    76,    78)    rejected  this   hypothesis    in  of  Miiller,  Boeckh,  Panofka,  and  Gerhard, 
favour  of  that  of  an  isopolity  of  Greeks  and  on  various  points  connected  with  this  sub- 
Etruscans.     "Welcker  (cited  in  Ann.  Inst.  ject,  will  also  be  found  in  Bull.  Inst.  1832, 
1834,  pp.  43,  285)  thinks  this  colony  was  pp.  65 — 104.     But  every  work  on  ancient 
one  of  potters,  living  as  a  separate  body  for  vases,   that  has  appeared  during  the  last 
ages,    preserving    their     peculiarities    of  fifty  years,  treats  more  or  less  of  the  pottery 
religion  and  rites.  of  Vulci. 

9  Ann.  Inst.  1834,  p.  45.  2  For  notices  of  the  beautiful  works  in 
1  The   fullest   account   of  the  vases   of  bronze  and  jewellery  found  on  this  site,  see 

Vulci  will  be  found  in   Gerhard's   ' '  Rap-  the  Annali  and  Bulletin!  of  the  Archseolo- 

porto  Vulcente,"  Ann.   Inst.    1831.     See  gical  Institute  of  Rome—  passim. 


WINK-JVC,    FROM    Vl'LCI,  WITH    TIIE    HEAD    OF    PALLAS-ATIJKXE. 


CHAP,  xxix.]  BEAUTIFUL    WINE-JUG.  465 

Etruscan  tombs,  save  in  the  shape  of  portrait-busts,  modelled 
from  the  life. 

Among  the  choice  and  bizarre  objects  in  this  material,  and  a 
hybrid  between  sculpture  and  pottery,  is  a  beautiful  oenocliov,  or 
wine-jug,  from  the  tombs  of  Vulci,  now  in  the  British  Museum. 
The  body  is  in  the  shape  of  a  female  head,  probably  representing 
Pallas  Athene,  highly  decorated,  and  wearing  a  helmet,  the  crest 
of  which  forms  the  spout  of  the  vase.  The  pot  has  a  double 
handle,  the  lower  one  for  pouring,  the  upper  for  carrying. 
•'  The  helmet,"  says  Mr.  Newton,  "is  ornamented  on  each  side 
with  a  seated  female  figure  in  relief,  and  in  front  with  a  female 
head  issuing  from  leaves  ;  over  the  forehead  is  a  row  of  rosettes  ; 
the  earrings  are  in  the  form  of  Avinged  female  figures,  sur- 
mounted by  rosettes ;  the  necklace  is  formed  of  pendants  ;  the 
whole  has  been  coloured,  and  the  earrings  gilt.  The  design  of 
this  vase  is  bold  and  original,  the  modelling  excellent,  and  much 
taste  is  shewn  in  the  application  of  the  ornaments.  It  is  further 
interesting  from  the  correspondence  in  form  of  the  jewels  with 
those  found  in  Etruscan  tombs  of  the  Macedonian  period." 
Such  graceful  freaks  as  this  are  rare  in  Etruscan  pottery,  though 
not  unfrequent  in  that  of  Magna  Grsecia,  from  which  this  is 
distinguished,  by  its  air  of  superior  solidity.  An  illustration  of 
this  fantastic  jug  is  given  in  the  woodcut  opposite,  though  no 
engraving,  it  has  been  truly  said,  can  convey  the  polychromic 
charm  which  belongs  to  the  original.3 


APPENDIX    TO    CHAPTER    XXIX. 

NOTE. — THE  CAMFAXAKI  PAINTED  TOMB  AT  VULCI.     See  p.  448. 

THIS  tomb,  when  opened,  was  in  a  very  dilapidated  condition  ;  much  of 
the  surface  of  the  wall  had  fallen,  and  the  external  air  speedily  affected  the 
remainder.  Campanari,  who  discovered  the  tomb,  made  an  attempt  to  detach 
the  fast  perishing  painting  from  the  damp,  crumbling  walls ;  but,  at  the  very 
commencement  of  the  process,  the  stucco,  rotted  by  the  humidity  of  twenty 
centuries,  gave  way,  and  the  painting  fell  in  pieces  at  his  feet.  He  had 
previously,  however,  had  a  copy  made  of  it,  which  is  now  in  the  British 
Museum,  and  engravings  of  the  same  have  been  published  in  Mon.  Ined. 
Instit.  II.  tav.  53,  54.  Descriptions  are  also  given  in  Bull.  Inst.  1833,  pp.  77 
— 80 — Kestner;  Ann.  Inst.  1838,  pp.  249 — 252 — Sec.  Campanari.  From  these 
sources  I  obtain  the  following  description. 

3  Ann.  Inst.  1852,  pp.  357—360  (Braun).  Mon.  Inst.  V.  tav.  48. 

VOL.    I.  H   H 


4GS  VULCI.  [CHAP.  xxix. 

On  the  outer  wall  of  the  tomb,  on  one  side  of  the  door,  stood  the  figure  of 
Charun,  or,  as  the  inscription  attached  styles  him,  "  CHAHU,"  with  hideous 
visage,  leaning  on  his  mallet.  Within,  on  the  opposite  wall,  sat,  on  an 
elegant  curule  chair  or  throne,  a  king  arrayed  in  Tyrian  purple,  with  crown 
on  his  head,  and  long  sceptre  in  his  hand,  tipt  by  a  lotus-flower.  Before  him 
stood  his  queen,  in  long  chiton,  mantle,  and  veil.  This  pair,  in  all  probabilit}-, 
represented  the  king  and  queen  of  the  Shades,  Hades  and  Persephone,  or,  as 
the  Etruscans  called  them,  "Aite"  and  "Phersipnei."  Behind  the  throne  stood 
three  draped  male  figures,  whose  venerable  aspect  seemed  to  mark  them  as 
the  judges  of  the  dead — Minos,  ^Eacus,  and  Rhadamanthus.  On  either  hand 
was  a  procession  of  figures,  of  both  sexes,  going  towards  the  throne,  supposed 
to  be  souls  proceeding  to  judgment  ;  though  there  was  nothing  in  dress, 
appearance,  or  attributes,  to  mark  them  as  of  the  lower  world.  The  group 
on  each  side  the  throne  was  very  similar  ;  in  fact  it  has  been  considered  the 
same  family — in  one  case  going  to  judgment,  in  the  other  entering  the  abodes 
of  the  blessed.  The  figures  were  as  large  as  life,  except  Charun,  who  was 
but  half  the  size. 

The  style  of  art  was  more  advanced  than  in  any  of  the  tombs  of  Tarquinii, 
not  even  excepting  those  of  the  Cardinal  and  Typhon.  The  paintings  were 
quite  Roman  in  character,  and  could  hardly  be  earlier  than  the  frescoes  of 
Pompeii,  which  they  resembled  in  freedom  of  design,  truth  and  nature  of  the 
attitudes,  and  mastery  over  those  difficulties  which  in  every  land  attend  the 
early  stages  of  art.  Yet  the  Charun  who  stood  sentinel  over  this  tomb  was 
in  a  very  different  and  more  archaic  style.  He  may  have  been  painted  at 
the  first  formation  of  this  sepulchre,  and  the  other  figures  added  in  the  days 
of  Roman  domination,  or  the  archaicism  of  his  figure  may  be  a  conventionality 
of  a  later  age.  Another  feature  of  late  date  was  a  massive  column  of  peperino, 
supporting  the  ceiling,  with  a  remarkable  capital  of  the  composite  order, 
having  heads,  male  and  femafe,  between  the  volutes.  Campanari  removed  this 
to  Toscanella,  where  it  is  still  to  be  seen  in  his  garden.  See  the  woodcut 
at  page  481. 

This  sepulchre  seems  to  represent  the  lower  world, — Charun  mounts  guard 
at  the  entrance,  the  King  of  Hades  sits  on  his  throne  within  ;  but  the  absence 
of  Furies,  as  well  as  of  Genii  and  Junones,  essentially  distinguishes  this  from 
the  infernal  scenes  in  the  Pompey  and  Cardinal  tombs  of  Tarquinii,  as  wrell 
as  from  those,  to  which  in  other  respects  it  bears  more  affinity,  in  the 
Grotta  dell'  Oreo  in  the  same  necropolis,  and  in  the  Tomba  Golini  at 
Orvieto. 


SCENE    FROM    AN    AMPHORA    FOUND    AT    VULCI. 


CHAPTER    XXX. 

CANINO    AND    MUSIGNANO. 

Magni  stat  nominis  umbra. — LUCAN. 
Quicquid  sub  terra  est  in  apricum  proferet  setas. — HORAT. 

THREE  or  four  days  may  be  pleasantly  spent  at  Vulci,  in  ex- 
ploring the  neighbourhood  and  watching  the  progress  of  the 
•excavations  ;  returning  every  evening  to  Montalto,  to  secure  the 
two  greatest  by-road  luxuries  in  Italy — a  decent  dinner  and  a 
flealess  bed.  Let  no  one  conceive  that  he  may  pernoctate  at 
the  Ponte  della  Badia  with  impunity.  My  fellow-traveller,  on  a 
previous  visit  to  Vulci,  had  been  induced  to  take  up  his  quarters 
for  the  night  in  the  guard-room  of  the  castle,  where  the  soldiers 
did  their  best  to  accommodate  him ;  but  he  was  presently  attacked 
in  his  camp  by  legions  of  sharp-shooters,  sure  of  aim  and  swift  of 
foot — who  compelled  him,  sighing  for  the  skin  of  Achilles,  to  beat 
=a  precipitate  retreat  and  take  up  a  position  in  the  court-yard  of 
the  castle — sub  Jove  frigido — for  the  rest  of  the  night.  As  the 
nearest  resting-places  are  Montalto  and  Canino,  both  seven  or 
eight  miles  distant,  and  as  in  the  latter  village  the  traveller  will 
find  only  a  hospitium  miserabile,  with  but  slight  diminution  of 
the  said  annoyances,  his  better  plan  is  to  drive  back  nightly  to 
Montalto,  and  comparative  comfort. 

Let  the  traveller  also  provide  himself  at  the  inn  with  such  cold 
viands  as  he  may,  for  the  sustenance  of  his  inner  man  during 
these  day-long  excursions.  Not  a  mouthful  will  he  otherwise 
procure  for  love  or  money  ;  and  a  keen  appetite,  be  it  remembered, 
is  the  perquisite  of  hunters  of  antiquities  and  the  picturesque,  in 
•common  with  their  brethren  in  quest  of  ignobler  game.  With 

H  H  2 


468  CANINO    AND    MUSIGNANO.  [CHAP.  xxx. 

what  relish,  when  the  hour  of  twelve  arrived,  were  we  wont  to 
throw  our  portfolios  aside,  and  reclining  in  Etruscan  fashion  on 
our  elbows,  fall  to  our  humble  banquet  of  hard-boiled  eggs,  cold 
chicken,  or  cutlets,  basking  all  the  while  "in  the  blue  noon 
divine  !  "  and  we  would  pledge  one  another  in  draughts  from  the 
Flora,  with  as  much  gusto  as  ever  Etruscan  prince  or  Lucumo 
emptied  his  patera  of  choice  Graviscan  or  Creritan,  or  as  luxurious 
Roman  quaffed 

"  His  wines  of  Setia,  Gales,  and  Falerne, 
Chios  or  Crete." 

Among  the  videnda  of  this  neighbourhood,  Musignano,  the 
villa  of  the  late  Prince  of  Canino,  and  afterwards  the  residence 
of  his  widow,  claimed  a  visit.  Our  road  thither  from  Vulci  lay 
across  the  plain,  a  treeless  expanse  of  pasture  or  corn-land,  till* 
we  approached  the  hills  at  whose  foot  lay  the  villa,  embosomed 
in  dense  groves.  These  hills,  called  Monti  di  Canino,  rise  nearly 
1500  feet  above  the  sea,  an  isolated  limestone  mass  in  the  midst 
of  the  volcanic  plain — an  inferior  and  tamer  Soracte.  As  it  was- 
late  in  the  day  we  passed  the  villa,  and  continued  to  Canino  two- 
or  three  miles  further.  This  village,  which  gives  its  name  to  the 
principality,  is  of  considerable  size,  the  abode  chiefly  of  those 
employed  in  the  iron-foundries  in  the  neighbourhood.  It  is  built 
on  the  verge  of  a  ravine,  bearing  in  its  cliffs  traces  of  tombs,, 
which  mark  the  site  of  an  Etruscan  town,  whose  name  has  long 
been  forgotten.  The  only  accommodation  for  the  traveller  is  a 
miserable  "  Locanda,"  the  resort  of  carriers  and  iron-smelters, 
where,  in  the  midst  of  a  thousand  discomforts,  we  Avere  fain  to- 
pass  the  night.1  In  the  morning  we  drove  back  to  Musignano. 

The  villa  is  a  very  plain  building,  with  no  pretensions  to  exter- 
nal magnificence.  It  was  originally  an  abbey,  giving  its  name — 
La  Badia — to  the  famous  bridge,  and  it  retains  a  gloomy  monastic- 
air.  Were  it  in  England,  it  might  pass  for  a  mad-house.  The 
ponderous  gateway  was  flanked  by  Etruscan  lions  and  griffons  in 
stone,  and  in  the  quadrangle  within  Avere  several  similar  objects- 
of  antiquity — relics  from  the  Cucumella.  Signore  Valentini,  the 
son-in-LiAv  of  the  Princess,  received  us  courteously,  and  shoAved 


1  By  leaving  Montalto  early  in  the  day,  him,  on  alighting  at  Musignano,  send  his 

the  traveller  will  have  ample  time  to  visit  vehicle  on  to  Canino  to  bait  the  horses,  and 

Musignano,  and  return  the  same  night,  or  he  can  follow  on  foot  at  his  leisure.     It  is 

to  push  on  to  Toscanella — the  next  site  of  a  pleasant  walk  through  the  grounds. 
Etruscan  interest.     In  the  latter  case,  let 


CHAP,  xxx.]  LUCIEN    BONAPAETE'S    VILLA.  469 

us  what  vases  and  other  relics  her  cabinet  at  that  time  contained. 
Few  of  the  treasures  of  this  unrivalled  mine  of  Etruscan  wealth 
were  retained  on  the  spot.  The  finest  vases,  as  soon  as  dis- 
covered, were  bought  \yy  the  Pope  for  the  Gregorian  Museum, 
or  found  their  way  into  foreign  museums ;  and  the  richest  and 
rarest  articles  of  gold  and  jewelry  met  with  ready  purchasers  in 
the  Cavaliere  Campana,  and  a  few  other  kindred  collectors  of 
antique  treasures. 

The  few  vases  in  the  Princess's  cabinet  were  such  as  could  not 
find  a  ready  sale  on  account  of  their  imperfect  state.  Most  of 
this  pottery  had  been  found  in  fragments,  and  had  been  cemented 
together  by  an  artist  in  the  pay  of  the  Princess.  Articles  thus 
restored  are  not  materially  lessened  in  value,  if  the  paintings 
themselves  be  not  injured ;  and  even  when  these  are  imperfect, 
if  the  part  deficient  be  not  so  large  as  to  destroy  the  whole 
beauty  and  meaning  of  the  subject;  or  if  it  be  such  as  may  be 
easily  restored  b}-  a  skilful  pencil,  the  vase  will  not  be  greatly 
depreciated.  Articles  in  a  very  imperfect  state  will  sometimes 
fetch  enormous  prices.  So  skilful  are  some  of  these  restorers, 
that  they  will  make  imperfect  vases  pass  for  perfect,  so  as  almost 
to  deceive  the  best  judges. 

Several  of  these  vases  had  the  mysterious  eyes  painted  on 
them,  which  are  so  often  found  on  the  pottery  of  Vulci ;  and  a 
curious  specimen  of  which  is  given  in  the  woodcut  at  the  head  of 
this  chapter,  copied  from  an  amphora  in  the  British  Museum.2 

The  bronze  articles  in  the  cabinet,  though  not  numerous,  were 
in  excellent  preservation,  and  some  of  great  beaut}' ;  indeed  the 
bronzes  of  Vulci  are  inferior  to  none  in  elegance  of  form,  and  in 
the  design  and  execution  of  their  adornments. 

But  the  most  interesting  feature  of  this  mansion  was  its  gallery 
of  family  portraits.  There  was  Lucien  himself  at  full  length,  the 
original  of  the  well-known  prints — his  lady — and  their  handsome 
children,  in  family  groups.  There  was  the  great  Corsican  in 
various  periods  of  his  career — the  venerable  Madame  Letizia, 

2  This  scene  is  remarkable,  inasmuch  as  hind  at   his   feet ;  and  behind   them   are 

the  eyes  are  made  to  represent  the  winged  Diana  with  her  bow,  and  Mercury  with  his 

bodies  of   monsters,    conventionally  called  petasus,  caduceus   and    talaria.      On   the 

Sirens,  though  here  of  both  sexes.      Such  other   side   of   the   amphora,    the  pair   of 

Sirens  are  commonly  supposed  to  be  em-  human-headed,  eye-bodied  birds  is  repeated, 

blems  of  souls  ;  but  Micali  (Ant.  Pop.  Ital.  but  between  them  is  the  favourite  subject 

III.  p.  129)  considers  them  in  this  instance  of  Peleus  and  Thetis  (see  Micali,  op.  cit. 

to  represent  Bacchus  and  Libera,    or  the  tav.  LXXXIV.).     For  further  remarks  on 

great    infernal    deities.       Between    them  the  eyed  vases,  see  the  Appendix,  Note  I. 
stands  Apollo  playing  the  lyre,  with  the 


470  CANINO    AND    MUSIGNANO.  [CHAP.  xxx. 

whose  remains  lie  at  Cometo — her  brother,  the  Cardinal — the 
beautiful  Pauline — and  all,  or  nearly  all,  the  members  of  this 
renowned  family.  In  1854  the  villa  passed  into  the  hands  of 
Prince  Torlonia,  and  it  has  now  lost  its  attractions. 

The  grounds  attached  to  the  villa  are  laid  out  in  the  English 
st}ie  ;  and  the  park-like  scenery  tempts  the  traveller  to  linger. 
Here,  among  the  scattered  sarcophagi,  whose  recumbent  figures 
accord  with  the  repose  of  the  scenery,  was  one  which  arrested 
our  attention.  It  bore  a  female  figure,  as  large  as  life,  rudely  but 
boldly  executed,  not  reclining  as  usual  on  her  elbow,  but  stretched 
on  her  back,  like  the  effigies  on  mediaeval  monuments.  The  bas- 
relief  below  displayed  one  of  those  scenes  of  domestic  bereave- 
ment, so  frequently  and  touchingly  represented  on  the  Etruscan 
urns  of  Volterra  and  Chiusi.  Two  winged  genii,  ministers  of 
death,  whose  office  was  betokened  \>y  the  snakes  twisted  round 
their  arms,  have  seized  upon  a  young  girl — the  same  probably 
whose  effig}r  reclines  on  the  lid — and  are  about  to  lead  her  awajr, 
.when  a  majestic  figure,  her  father  it  must  be,  interposes,  and  with 
outstretched  hands  seems  imploring  them  to  release  her ;  while  her 
mother,  with  younger  children  in  her  arms  and  at  her  side,  looks 
on  in  motionless  woe.  On  one  side  of  this  group,  but  in  a  sepa- 
rate compartment,  stood  a  winged  Charun,  resting  on  his  oar,  as 
if  awaiting  the  arrival  of  the  soul :  and  at  the  other  side  stood  a 
similar  figure  with  hammer  uplifted,  ready  to  strike  the  fatal 
blow.3 

Two  large  sarcophagi  of  nenfro  with  male  figures  on  the  lids, 
and  Etruscan  inscriptions  showing  them  to  have  belonged  to  the 
family  of  "  Tute,"  are  from  the  excavations  made  by  Prince 
Torlonia.  The  relief  on  one  display's  the  deceased  in  magisterial 
attire,  standing  in  a  Mga,  preceded  by  two  lictors  with  fasces,  and 
followed  by  two  apparitorcs  or  servants,  one  bearing  a  large 
writing-tablet.  The  procession  is  moving  to  the  music  of  two- 
trumpeters.  The  subject,  as  well  as  the  style  of  art,  betrays  the 
period  of  Roman  domination.4 

Two  other  sarcophagi  of  singular  interest  were  also  formerly 
at  Musignano,  and  may  still  perhaps  be  seen  at  the  Villa.  They 
are  described  in  the  Appendix  to  this  Chapter. 

3  Micali  has  described  and  illustrated  365. — Braun.  I  have  reason  to  believe 
this  sarcophagus.  Mon.  Ined.  p.  303,  tav.  that  it  has  been  removed  from  Musignano. 
XLVIII.  1.  See  also  Ann.  Inst.  1843,  p.  4  Bull.  Inst.  1869,  p.  172. 


CHAP,  xxx.]  EYES   ON    GREEK    YASES.  471 


APPENDIX    TO    CHAPTER    XXX. 

NOTE  I. — EYES  ON  THE  PAINTED  YASES.    See  p.  4GO. 

THE  meaning  of  these  eyes  on  the  painted  vases  has  not  been  satisfactorily 
determined.  They  are  generally  termed  "  mystic,"  and  they  are  at  least 
mysterious.  They  are  found  not  only  on  vases  of  undoubted  Greek  origin, 
as  on  those  of  Nola,  Sicily,  and  Adria,  but  are  also  often  scratched  on  the  black 
relieved  Avare  of  Chiusi  and  Sarteano,  which  has  every  evidence  of  a  purely 
Etruscan  character.  It  has  been  thought  that  they  have  a  Bacchic  import — 
an  opinion  which  finds  support  in  the  figures  or  subjects  with  which  they  are 
often  connected  ;  such  as  vine  or  ivy  branches — bunches  of  grapes — the  god 
of  wine  himself  standing,  goblet  in  hand,  between  the  eyes,  or  his  head  alone 
in  that  position — Satyrs  and  Maenads  dancing — Silenus  on  his  ass — Gorgons' 
heads,  which  are  symbols  of  the  infernal  Bacchus — or  subjects  bearing  refer- 
ence to  some  one  or  other  of  the  attributes  or  to  the  varied  character  of  this  great 
divinity  of  the  ancients.  They  have  been  found  also  in  the  form  of  panthers' 
heads.  The  Bacchic  nature  of  the  scene  in  the  woodcut  at  page  4G7,  and  the 
relation  of  Hermes,  Apollo,  and  Artemis  to  Dionysus,  are  set  forth  by  Micali 
(Ant.  Pop.  Ital.,  III.  p.  129).  But  the  subject  is  sometimes  such  as  cannot 
easily  be  interpreted  as  Bacchic — warriors,  represented  singly  or  in  combat, 
on  horseback  or  in  chariots — the  deeds  of  Hercules,  or  other  Greek  myths — 
chima?ras — Pegasi — athletes  exercising — Furies,  or  other  winged  deities,  as 
shown  in  the  woodcut  at  p.  462. 

There  is  some  plausibility  in  the  opinion  that  these  eyes  were  charms 
against  the  evil  eye,  in  which  the  ancients  believed  as  strongly  as  the  modern 
southrons  of  Europe. 

Nescio  quis  tencros  oculus  mihi  fascinat  agnos. — Yirg.  Buc.  III.  103. 

We  know  that  the  Gorgonion  was  supposed  to  have  the  power  of  averting 
evil  (Lucian.  Philopatris,  p.  1120,  ed.  Bourdel.),  and  these  eyes  may  be  those 
of  Gorgons,  for  they  are  evidently  intended  to  represent  a  face,  the  other 
features  even  being  sometimes  introduced.  Micali  opines  that  the  eyed  vases 
were  8<opa  O7m;pta— presents  made  by  the  bridegroom  on  seeing  his  bride 
unveiled  (Mon.  Ined.  p.  208). 

The  introduction  of  eyes  in  such  cases  may  perhaps  be  more  satisfactorily 
accounted  for  by  the  resemblance  and  relation  of  vases  to  boats.  The 
presence  of  eyes  on  the  bows  of  ancient  vessels,  perhaps  originating  in  the 
fancied  analogy  with  fish,  or  to  intimate  the  vigilance  necessary  to  the  pilot, 
is  well  known.  The  names  of  several  sorts  of  goblets — such  as  a-Kvfyos, 
<r/ca'<£?7,  K.dv6apos,  Ku/i/3/7,  Kinr€\\ov}  Kap'%f)(Tiov,  UKUTOS,  OKUTIOV — are  common  to 
them  with  boats  ;  and  it  is  on  vases  of  this  description  that  eyes  are  most 
frequently  painted.  This  analogy  between  boats  and  cups  is  greatly  con- 
firmed by  the  fables  of  Hercules  crossing  the  sea  to  Spain  in  a  goblet 
(Apollod.  II.  p.  100,  ed.  1599  ;  Athen.  XI.  38,  39  ;  Macrob.  Saturn.  Y.  21)— 
the  prototype  of  St.  Eaymund. 


472  CANINO    AND    MUSIGNANO.  [CJIAP.  xxx. 


NOTE  II. — SINGULAR  SARCOPHAGI.    See  p.  470. 

THKSE  two  sarcophagi  were  found  at  Vulei,  in  the  winter  of  1845-40,  and 
thence  transported  to  Musignano.  They  are  about  seven  feet  in  length. 
One  is  of  a  material  unusual  in  this  part  of  Etruria — a  semi-transparent 
marble,  often  mistaken  for  alabaster,  which  Canina  pronounces  to  come  from 
the  Circajan  promontory  It  bears  on  its  lid  not  a  single  figure  as  usual,  but 
a  wedded  pair,  clasped  in  each  other's  arms — 

grcmio  jacuit  nova  nupta  mariti  — 

lying  half-draped  in  that  loving  posture,  described  in  the  Canticles — "  His 
left  hand  is  under  my  head,  and  his  right  hand  doth  embrace  me."  Satisfac- 
tory, doubtless,  to  their  Manes  was  this  petrification  of  their  conjugal  fond- 
ness, but  posterity  could  have  taken  it  for  granted — cib  s1  intende  bene.  This 
unusual  attitude  seems  to  hint  at  some  tragical  event  that  cut  down  both  at 
one  stroke.  The  relief  below  represents,  as  if  for  contrast,  a  combat  between 
Greeks  and  Amazons  ;  and  at  the  ends  of  the  monument  are  lions  and 
griffons  devouring  cattle. 

The  other  sarcophagus  is  of  pfpfrino,  and  bears  a  similar  pair  on  its  lid. 
Its  relief  is  in  a  superior  style  of  art.  It  evidently  represents  a  nuptial 
scene,  for  in  the  centre  stands  a  female  figure,  embracing  a  youth.  Other 
figures  stand  on  either  side.  Behind  the  bride  is  a  youthful  slave  who 
holds  a  large  umbrella  over  her  head  ;  then  another  woman  bearing  a  Itydria 
on  her  head,  and  a  proclious  in  her  hand  ;  a  third  with  a  large  fan  (pints — 
flabellum),  exactly  like  the  Indian  fans  of  the  present  day  ;  and  a  fourth 
with  lyre  and  plectrum.  Behind  the  youth  stands  a  man  with  a  folding-stool 
(oKAaSias — plicaiilis)  ;  another  with  a  lituus  or  augur's  wand ;  a  third  with  a 
large  circular  curved  trumpet  ;  and  a  female  flute-player  with  double-pipes 
and  a  chaplet,  or  it  may  be  a  capistrunt,  in  her  hand.  At  one  end  of  the 
monument  a  fond  couple  are  sitting  in  a  liya  under  a  large  umbrella,  and 
in  the  act  of  embracing,  which  suggests,  even  more  strongly  than  the  recum- 
bent figures  on  the  lid,  that  the  deceased  pair  were  cut  off  at  once  ;  for  the 
chariot  indicates  the  passage  to  the  other  world,  while  the  fatal  event  is  also 
sj^mbolised  by  a  winged  Fate  cr  Fury  with  snakes  round  her  arms,  who 
accompanies  the  liga.  At  the  other  end  a  man  of  magisterial  dignity  is 
in  the  act  of  mounting  a  biga,  accompanied  by  his  apparitor  with  wand  anel 
lituus.  At  each  end  of  the  liel  are  three  female  heads,  set  in  flowers. 

These  monuments  are  described  in  Bull.  Inst.  184G,  p.  8G ;  critically 
examined  by  Dr.  Braun,  Ann.  Inst.  18G5,  pp.  244-252  ;  and  illustrated  in 
Mon.  Ined.  Inst.  VIII.  tav.  18-20. 


THE    SARCOPHAGUS    OF    THE    NIOBIDS. 


CHAPTER    XXXI. 

TOSQA33ELL&.—TUSCANIA. 

Vedemo  Toscanela  tanto  anticha 
Quanto  alcun  altra  de  questo  paese. 

FACCIO  DKGLI  UBERTI. 

ABOUT  nine  or  ten  miles  to  the  east  of  Canino  lies  Toscanella, 
an  Etruscan  site  of  considerable  interest,  which  may  be  reached 
in  a  carriage,  either  from  Viterbo,  Corneto,  or  Canino.  This 
part  of  the  great  plain  is  diversified  by  oak-woods,  which  afford  a 
pleasing  contrast  to  the  naked  sweeps  nearer  the  sea  and  the 
•Ciminian  Mount.  Toscanella,  with  its  many  lofty  towers,  is  the 
most  conspicuous  object  in  the  thinly-peopled  plain,  and  may  be 
descried  from  a  great  distance.  Yet  it  stands  on  no  eminence, 
but  on  the  veiy  level  of  the  plain,  nearly  surrounded  by  profound 
ravines.  It  is  a  mean,  dirty  town ;  and  its  interest  lies  in  its 
picturesque  situation,  its  Etruscan  remains,  and  its  churches, 
which  are  choice  specimens  of  the  Lombard  style.  Here  and 
there  in  the  streets  is  a  rich  fragment  of  mediaeval  architecture. 
The  walls  of  the  town  are  of  the  same  period  ;  no  traces  of  the 
ancient  fortifications  remain,  except  011  the  adjoining  height  of 
San  Pietro. 

In  such  a  by-road  town  as  this,  it  were  folly  to  expect  a  good 
inn.  On  my  first  visit  to  Toscanella,  I  procured  tolerable  accom- 


474  TOSCAXELLA.  [CHAP.  xxxi. 

modation  in  the  house  of  a  butcher,  and  afterwards  in  a  little  inn 
kept  by  Filippo  Pandolfini,  who  served  me  with  a  clean  bed  and  a 
decent  meal.  At  that  time  Toscanella  had  interest  as  the 
residence  of  the  brothers  Campanari,  whose  names  nre  known 
throughout  Europe,  wherever  a  love  of  Etruscan  antiquities  has 
penetrated.  The  two  brothers  whom  I  knew  are  no  more,  but  I 
recall  with  respect  and  gratitude  the  many  pleasurable  and  profit- 
able hours  I  have  spent  in  their  society,  and  I  take  this  oppor- 
tunity of  saying  a  word  in  tribute  to  their  memory. 

Carlo  Campanari,  the  eldest,  was  well  known  in  England  l>y 
his  collection  of  Etruscan  antiquities  which  he  exhibited  in  Lon- 
don some  forty  }rears  since,  and  great  part  of  which  was  eventually 
purchased  by  the  British  Museum.  For  many  }'ears  he  was  the 
active  director  of  excavations,  which  he  commenced  in  conjunc- 
tion with  his  father,  Signer  Vicenzo,  also  an  ardent  labourer  in 
Etruscan  fields,  and  greatly  has  the  world  benefited  by  his 
patient  and  persevering  labours,  and  by  the  light  they  have  thrown 
on  the  history,  customs,  and  the  inner  life  of  the  Etruscans.  To 
him  am  I  indebted  for  much  courtesy  and  kindness,  and  for  his 
readiness  at  all  times  to  impart  the  results  of  his  long  experience. 
Secondiano  Campanari  did  not  take  so  active  a  part  in  excava- 
tions as  his  elder  brother,  but  devoted  his  attention  to  a  critical 
examination  of  Etruscan  monuments  ;  arid  many  valuable  papers 
has  he  published,  principally  in  the  records  of  the  Archaeological 
Institute.  Domenico,  the  youngest  brother,  at  the  period  re- 
ferred to  resided  in  London,  where  he  acted  as  the  agent  for  the 
Institute  in  England,  as  well  as  for  the  sale  of  the  articles  trans- 
mitted by  his  brothers.  Thus,  in  this  fraternal  triumvirate,  the 


old  adage  was  verified  : 


Tre  fratelli— 
Tre  castelli. 


Besides  their  society,  which  rendered  Toscanella  at  that  period 
a  place  of  much  interest  to  the  antiquary,  these  gentlemen  had 
many  things  rich  and  rare,  the  produce  of  their  scavi,  to  offer  to 
the  traveller's  notice.  Their  house  was  a  museum  of  Etruscan 
antiquities.  In  the  vestibule  were  stone  sarcophagi  with  figures 
reclining  on  the  lids  ;  and  sundry  bas-reliefs  in  terra-cotta  were 
embedded  in  the  walls.  Their  garden  was  a  most  singular  place. 
You  seemed  transported  to  some  scene  of  Arabian  romance,  where 
the  people  were  all  turned  to  stone,  or  lay  spell-bound,  awaiting 
the  touch  of  a  magician's  wand  to  restore  them  to  life  and  activity. 
All  round  the  garden,  under  the  close-embowering  shade  of 


CHAP,  xxxi.]     THE    CAMPANAEI,  AND    THEIE    GAEDEN.          475 

trellised  vines,  beneath  the  drooping  boughs  of  the  weeping 
willow,  the  rosy  bloom  of  the  oleander,  or  the  golden  fruit  of  the 
orange  and  citron,  lay  Lucumones  of  aristocratic  dignity — portly 
matrons,  bedecked  with  jewels — stout  youths,  and  graceful 
maidens — reclining  on  the  lids  of  their  coffins,  or  rather  on  their 
festive  couches — meeting  with  fixed  stare  the  astonishment  of  the 
stranger,  yet  with  a  distinct  individuality  of  feature  and  expres- 
sion, and  so  life-like  withal,  that,  "like  Pygmalion's  statue 
wraking,"  each  seemed  to  be  on  the  point  of  warming  into 
existence.  Lions,  sphinxes,  and  chimseras  dire,  in  stone,  stood 
among  them,  as  guardians  of  the  place ;  and  many  a  figure  of 
quaint  character  and  petrified  life,  looked  down  on  you  from  the 
vine-shaded  terraces,  high  above  the  walls  of  the  garden. 

In  the  garden  wall  was  a  doorway  of  Etruscan  form  and 
moulding,  surmounted  by  a  cornice  bearing  the  formula  "EcAsu- 
THIXESL  "  in  Etruscan  characters — all  taken  from  a  real  tomb. 
The  door  opened  into  what  seemed  an  Etruscan  sepulchre,  but 
was  really  a  cavern  formed  in  imitation  of  the  said  tomb,  and 
filled  with  the  identical  sarcophagi  and  other  articles  found 
therein,  and  arranged  pretty  nearly  as  they  were  discovered.  It 
was  a  spacious  vaulted  chamber,  and  contained  ten  sarcophagi — 
a  family  group — each  individual  reclining  in  effigy  on  his  own 
coffin.  It  was  a  banqueting  hall  of  the  dead  ;  for  there  they  lay 
in  festive  attitude  and  attire>  yet  in  silence  and  gloom,  each  with 
a  goblet  in  his  hand,  from  which  he  seemed  to  be  pledging  his 
fellows.  This  solemn  carousal,  this  mockery  of  mirth,  reminded 
me  of  that  wild  blood-curdling  song  of  Procter's — 

"  King  Death  was  a  rare  old  fellow— 
He  sat  where  no  sun  could  shine ; 
And  he  lifted  his  hand  so  yellow, 
And  poured  out  his  coal-black  wine  ! 

Hurrah  !  hurrah  ! 
Hurrah  for  the  coal-black  wine  !  " 

In  truth,  he  must  have  been  of  stern  or  stolid  stuff  whose  fancy 
was  not  stirred  at  the  sight  of  this  frozen  banquet. 

The  figures  on  Etruscan  sarcophagi  and  urns  are,  with  very 
few  exceptions,  represented  as  at  a  banquet — generally  with 
patera  in  hand,  but  the  women  have  sometimes  an  egg,  or  piece 
of  fruit  instead,  as  on  the  walls  of  the  painted  tombs ;  sometimes 
tablets  ;  or  a  fan  of  leaf-like  form,  like  our  own  Indian  fans  ;  or 
it  may  be  a  mirror,  which  with  their  rich  attire  and  decorations 
betrays  the  ruling  passion  strong  in  death.  In  a  few  instances  I 


476 


TOSCANELLA. 


[CHAP.  xxxi. 


have  seen  a  bird  in  the  fair  one's  hand — passer,  delic'ue  pucllfe — 
and  more  rarely  a  drinking-cup,  which,  when  we  call  to  mind  the 
character  the  Greeks  have  given  them,  we  might  expect  to  find 
of  more  frequent  occurrence.1  The  men  are  generally  only  half- 
draped,  and  have  torques  about  their  necks. — 

Flexilis  obtorti  per  collum  it  circulus  auri — 

or  wear  the  long  breast-garlands  worked  round  with  wool,  which 
were  worn  by  Greeks  and  Romans.3  The  ladies  have  sometimes 
torques,  sometimes  necklaces,  long  ear-rings  of  singular  form,  and 
bracelets,  and  both  sexes  have  often  many  rings  on  their  fingers 
• — ccnsu  opimo  diyitos  oncrando — a  custom  which  Rome  it  is  said, 
derived  from  Etruria.3  The  Etruscans,  indeed,  seem  to  have  had 
an  oriental  passion  for  jewelry — a  passion  which  was  shared  by 
the  Romans,4  and  has  been  transmitted  to  their  modern  represen- 


1  Theopompus  (ap.   Athen.  XII.  14)  de- 
scribes  the  fair    Etruscans   us    f '  terrible 
women  to  drink,   pledging  any  man  who 
happens  to  be  present,"  and  he  adds,  as  if 
to  qualify  his  censure,  "  and  they  have  very 
beautiful  faces." 

2  Called  viro8v/ji.id5fs.     Athen.  XV.  16. 
a  Florus    (I.     5).     Livy    (I.     li;,    and 

Dionysius  (II.  p.  105)  ascribe  the  use  of 
rings  in  very  early  times  to  the  Sabines. 
Pliny,  however,  asserts  that  the  custom  of 
wearing  rings  was  derived  from  the  Greeks. 
He  adds,  that  none  of  the  statues  of  the 
early  kings,  save  those  of  Xuma  and  S. 
Tullius,  were  represented  with  them,  not 
even  those  of  the  Tarquins  (XXXIII.  4,  6). 
at  which  he  greatly  marvels.  It  is  probable 
that  the  custom  was  introduced  into  either 
Greece  or  Etruria  from  the  East.  We  learn 
from  these  sepulchral  statues  that  rings 
were  usually  worn  by  the  Etruscans,  as  by 
the  Greeks  and  Romans,  on  the  fourth 
linger  of  the  left  hand  (A.  Gell.  X.  10  ; 
Macrob.  Saturn.  VII.  13  ;  Isidor.  Orig. 
XIX.  32)  ;  the  reason  of  which  is  said  to 
be,  that  the  Egyptians  had  discovered  by 
dissection,  that  a  certain  nerve — Isidore 
says  a  vein — led  from  that  finger  to  the 
heart  ;  and  that  digit  was  singled  out  for 
distinction  accordingly.  Ateius  Capito  (ap. 
Macrob.  loc.  cit.)  gives  a  more  plausible 
reason. 

4  In   early  times  the  Remans  emulated 
Srartan  severity,  and  wore  iron  rings  for 


signets.  It  was  long  ere  the  senators 
circled  their  fingers  with  gold.  Iron  was 
emphatically  the  metal  of  the  stern  Romans 
of  old,  and  it  was  a  sense  of  the  degeneracy 
induced  by  luxury  that  made  Pliny  (loc. 
cit.)  exclaim  : — "  His  was  the  greatest 
crime  in  life,  who  first  arrayed  his  fingers 
in  gold."  Even  Marius  in  his  triumph 
over  Jugurtha  though  an  Etruscan  crown 
of  gold  was  held  over  his  head  from  behind, 
wore  a  ring  of  mere  iron  ;  and  a  similar 
ring,  as  Pliny  remarks,  was  probably  on 
the  hand  of  the  conqueror,  and  of  the  slave 
who  held  the  crown.  At  first  it  was  dis- 
graceful for  a  man  to  wear  more  than  one 
ring,  and  women  wore  none,  except  what  a 
virgin  received  from  her  betrothed,  and  she 
might  wear  two  gold  ones.  (Isid.  Orig.  loc. 
cit. )  But,  in  after  times,  with  the  excess 
of  luxury,  the  Romans  used  not  only  to 
wear  a  ring  on  every  finger  (Mart.  V.  epig. 
6,  5),  but  many  on  each  joint  (Mart.  V. 
epig.  11);  and  to  cover  their  hands  with 
them,  so  that  Quintilian  (XI.  3)  was  obliged 
to  caution  would-be  orators  on  this  subject. 
Martial  (XI.  epig.  59)  speaks  of  a  man  who 
wore  six  on  every  finger  !  and  recommends 
another,  who  had  one  of  a  monstrous  size, 
to  wear  it  on  his  leg  instead  of  his  hand 
(XI.  epig.  37).  To  such  extravagant  effe- 
minacy was  this  habit  carried,  that  even 
slaves,  like  Crispinus,  had  a  different  set 
of  rings  for  summer  and  for  winter,  those 
for  the  latter  season  being  too  heavy  for  hot 


CHAP,  xxxi.]  ETEUSCAN    SAECOPHAGI.  477 

tatives,  as  a  Sunday's  walk  on  the  Corso  Avill  abundantly  testify. 
These  figures  all  rest  on  their  left  elbow,  supported  by  cushions, 
and  the  sarcophagi  beneath  them  are  often  hewn  to  imitate 
couches.  Thus,  as  in  the  painted  tombs,  they  are  represented  in 
the  height  of  social  enjo^yment,  to  symbolise  the  bliss  on  which 
their  spirits  had  entered ; a  or,  it  may  be,  to  describe  their  actual 
pursuits  in  another  world  ;  and  these  effigies  ma}-  image  forth  not 
the  men  but  their  manes,  at  the  revels  in  which  they  were  believed 
to  indulge. 

Pallida  laebatur  regio,  gentesque  sepultse 
Luxuriant,  epulisque  vacant  genialibus  umbras. 
Grata  coronati  peragunt  convivia  Manes.6 

These  figures  are  of  nenfro,  coarsely  executed,  yet  bold  and 
full  of  character,  and  are  manifestly  portraits.  The  flesh  of  the 
men  was  originally  painted  a  deep  red — the  hue  of  beatification 
— their  drapery  purple,  blue,  yellow,  or  white,  and  their  ornaments, 
yellow  to  represent  gold  ;  even  the  differences  of  complexion  were 
marked,  some  having  eyes  of  cerulean  hue,  and  others,  like 
Horace's  Lycus, 

— nigris  oculis  nigroque 
Crine  decori. 

This  varied  colouring  was  completely  preserved  at  the  time  of 
their  discovery,  but  was  exchanged,  in  those  which  lay  in  the 
garden,  for  an  uniform,  weather- staining  of  green.7 

The  principal  figure  in  the  tomb  was  the  patriarch  of  his  race, 
whose  name  was  set  forth  as  "  VIPIXANAS  VELTHUR  VELTHURUS 
AVILS  LXV."  which  would  be  Latinised  by  "  Vibenna  Voltur  Vol- 
turius  (Yeturius?),  vixit  annos  LXV."S  Then  there  was  a  matron, 
some  twenty  years  younger,  probably  his  wife,  with  features 
worthy  of  a  Cornelia  ;  and  various  juniors  of  the  family,  among 
them  a  foppish  youth  of  twent}',  with  twisted  torque  about  his  neck, 

weather.     Juven.  Sat.  I.  28: —  Quos  inter  Augustus  recumbens 

Purpureo  bibit  ore  nectar. 
Ventilet     ajstivum     digitis     sudantibus 

aurum,  G  Claudian.  Rapt.  Proserp.  III.  326. 

Nee    sufferre    queat     majoris     pondera  7  Bull.  Inst.  1839,  p.  24.     One  figure  is 

gemmse.  saij  to  have  been  painted  black,  and  to 

Well  might  Juvenal  add—  have  had  negro's  features. 

•P..™.  .,  ..  •,  *  This  repetition  of  the  name  with  an 

Difficile  est  satiram  non  scribere.  . 

addition  is  not  unique.     It  is  found  also  on 

5  This   was   probably  the   conventional  an  urn  at   Perugia — "Ls   Varna   Varnas 

mode   of    expressing    apotheosis.       Thus,  Ateial."     Vermigl.   Sepolcro  de'  Volunni, 

Horace  (Od.  III.  3,  ll)represents  Augustus,  p.  52.     So  occasionally  in  Roman  names— 

thougli  living,  as  a  demigod,  reclining  with  L.   Sextius  Sextinus  -  Quintus   Quinctius 

Pollux  and  Hercules  : —  Cincinnatus. 


478  TOSCANELLA.  [CHAP.  xxxi. 

his  hair  bound  with  a  fillet,  and  the  effects  of  early  indulgence 
visible  in  his  bloated  frame  ;  his  sister,  a  pretty  girl  of  fourteen, 
and  another  sweet  damsel  with  Grecian  features.  Verily,  if  these 
be  faithful  portraits,  Italian  beauty  has  not  improved  in  the  last 
three  or  four-and-twenty  centuries ;  and  the  Etruscan  fair  pos- 
sessed other  charms  than  those  exerted  by  Tanaquil  and  Begoe.9 

The  walls  of  the  tomb  were  hung  with  vases,  jugs,  goblets,  of 
bronze  as  well  as  earthenware,  while  tall  amphora? ,  and  full- 
bellied  jars  of  unglazed  clay,  with  a  rabble  rout  of  pots  and  pans, 
and  sundry  bronze  candelabra,  strigils,  flesh-hooks — lay  about  in 
glorious  confusion. 

In  the  centre  of  the  chamber  was  a  lidless  sarcophagus,  with  a 
relief  of  a  human  sacrifice — a  subject  rarely  met  with  on  Etruscan 
monuments,  except  as  illustrating  the  myth  of  Iphigenia. 

I  was  surprised  to  hear  that  the  greater  part  of  these  sarcophagi 
came  from  a  single  tomb.  It  was  opened  in  1839,  in  a  spot  called  II 
Calcarello,  and  contained  no  less  than  twenty-seven  of  these  large 
coffins ;  those  of  the  women  forming  a  circle  in  the  centre,  and 
those  of  their  lords  arranged  in  a  larger  circuit  around.  The 
ceiling  of  the  tomb  had  fallen  in,  though  supported  by  three 
columns,  which  were  not  able  to  uphold  the  weight  of  a  superin- 
cumbent pavement  of  large  rectangular  blocks.  On  this  pavement 
lay  a  flat  circular  stone,  like  a  solid  wheel  or  thin  millstone,  with 
an  Etruscan  inscription  round  its  edge,  showing  it  to  be  the 
cippus,  or  tomb-stone  to  the  sepulchre.1 

One  of  these  ncnfro  sarcophagi  was  among  the  finest  I  have 


9  The  beauty  of  the  Etruscan  women  is  zone,  with  its  amulet  properties,  is  men- 
attested  by  Theopompus  (ap.  Athen.  XII.  tioned  by  Festus,  r.  Pradia. 
c.  14).  Begoe  was  an  Etruscan  nymph,  l  See  the  woodcut  at  p.  481.  This  disk- 
who  wrote  on  the  Ars  Fulguritarum,  or  art  like  cippus,  which  Canina  takes  for  an 
of  divination  from  things  struck  by  light-  Etrusco-Doric  capital,  calls  to  mind  the  stone 
ning,  and  her  books  were  preserved  at  laid  on  the  tumulus  of  Phocus  in  JEgina, 
Rome,  in  the  Temple  of  Apollo  (Serv.  ad  with  which  Peleus,  according  to  the  legend, 
JEn.  VI.  72).  Lactantius  (ad  Stat.  Theb.  using  it  as  a  discus,  struck  Phocus  and 
IV.  516)  speaks  of  an  Etruscan  nymph,  slew  him.  Pausan.  II.  29,  9. 
who  performed  such  feats  as  would  have  The  inscription  on  this  cippus  is  ECA. 
made  Sullivan  the  Whisperer  stare  with  Sv<Ai.  LARTHIAL.  TAR  .  .  . .  s.  SACNIV. 
•astonishment.  She  whispered  the  dread  The  fourth  word,  which  is  the  gentilitial 
name  of  God  into  the  ear  of  a  bull,  and  he  name,  was  most  probably  "  Tarchnas,"  or 
fell  dead  at  her  feet.  This  nymph  Miiller  Tarquinius,  for  there  is  just  space  sufficient 
(Etrusk.  III.  4,  2)  thinks  was  no  other  for  the  missing  letters.  This  seems  to  in- 
than  Begoe.  Gerhard  (Gottheiten  der  dicate  the  existence  of  a  branch  of  the  Tar- 
Etrusker,  p.  44)  suggests  the  same.  Tana-  quin  family  at  Tuscania,  as  well  as  at  Caere, 
quil's  powers  of  divination  are  well  known.  where  their  tomb  has  been  discovered. 
Liv.  I.  34  ;  Arnob.  adv.  Nat.  V.  18 ;  Kellermann,  however,  reads  the  name 
Claudian.  Laus  Serense,  16.  Her  magic  "Tarsalus."  Bull.  Inst.  1833,  p.  61. 


CHAP,  xxxi.]         SAECOPHAGLTS    OP    THE    NIOBIDS.  479 

seen  executed  in  this  coarse  material.2  On  the  lid  lay  a  man 
of  middle  age,  a  true  obcsus  Etruscus — turgidus  epulis,  reclining, 
half-draped,  on  the  festive  couch.  His  face,  as  usual  with  these 
sepulchral  effigies,  had  so  much  individuality  of  character,  that 
none  could  doubt  its  being  a  portrait.  A  striking  face  it  was, 
too, — with  commanding  brow,  large  aquiline  nose,  mouth  speaking 
intelligence  and  decision,  though  somewhat  sensual  withal,  and 
an  air  of  dignity  about  the  whole  countenance,  marking  him  as 
an  aristocrat — one  of  the  Patres  Conscripti  of  Tuscania.  No 
inscription  set  forth  his  name,  pedigree,  or  age. 

His  sarcophagus  bore  a  bas-relief  of  the  slaughter  of  the 
Niobids.  At  each  end  sat  one  of  the  avenging  deities,  speeding 
the  fatal  arrows.  In  the  centre  of  the  group  stood  a  bearded 
man,  in  tunic  and  buskins,  perhaps  Tantalus  the  father,  but 
more  probably  Amphion  the  husband  of  Niobe  ;  and  at  his  side 
stood  the  fond  mother  herself,  "  all  tears,"  vainly  seeking  to 
shelter  her  children  with  her  garments, — 

Tota  veste  tegens,  Unam,  minimamque  relinque  ! 
De  multis  minimam  posco,  clamavit,  et  unam  ! 

She  was  not  represented,  according  to  the  received  version — 
Tra  sette  e  sette  suoi  figliuoli  spenti, 

for  their  number  was  here  but  six,  three  of  each  sex,  which  is  at 
variance  with  all  the  Greek  and  Latin  authors  who  have  recorded 
the  myth  ;3  indeed,  it  is  rarely  that  the  Etruscan  monumental 
versions  of  well-known  traditions  agree  in  every  particular  with 
those  recorded  by  classic  writers.  At  one  end  of  the  sarcophagus 
was  a  Centaur  contending  with  two  Lapithse,  and  at  the  other, 

2  An  illustration  of  it  is  given  in  the  eleg.   20,    7)  follow  his  version.     Sappho 
woodcut  at  the  head  of  this  Chapter  ;  but  (ap.    A.    Gell.   XX.   7)  increases  them  to 
the  bas-relief  is  in  a  much  better  style  of  eighteen  ;  Hesiod  (ap.  Apollod.  loc.  cit.)  to 
art  than  is  there  exhibited.     The  monu-  twenty,  in  which  he  is  followed   by  Pindar 
ment  is  about  7  feet  in  length.  and  Mimnermus,  (ap.  .Elian,  loc.  cit.),  and 

3  Lasus  (ap.  Lilian.  V.  H.  XII.  c.  36),  Bacchylides  (A.  Gell.  loc.  cit.).  Alcman(ap. 
Apollodorus  (III.  5,  6),   Ovid  (Met.   VI.  .Elian,    loc.  cit.)  reduces  the  number  to 
182),  and  Hyginus  (Fab.   IX.  XL),  pive  half.     Herodotus  (ap.    Apollod.   loc.   cit.) 
her  seven  children  of  each  sex.     The  same  alone  makes  the  number  less  than  is  repre- 
is    implied    by    Euripides    (Phoen.     162).  sented  on  this  sarcophagus — two  sons  and 
Homer  (H.   XXIV.    604)  says  they  were,  three  daughters.     This  discrepancy  is  cited 
twelve  in  number —                                        '     by  A.  Gellius  as  an  instance  of  the  strange 

..„..-  , ,     , „ ,  and  ridiculous  diversity  in  Greek  poetic 

Et  utv  OuyaTfofs.  ef  5  tiieej  Tj/SiWTfs.  ,.  , ,          ,,       ,,     ,,    .  ., 

'  fables.     He  adds,  that  some  say  there  were 

Eustathius  (ad  locum)  and  Propertius  (II.       only  three  children  in  all. 


480  TOSCANELLA.  [CHAP.'  xxxr. 

Achilles  was  dragging  the  corpse  of  Hector  round  the  walls  of 
Troy  ;  but  instead  of  the  body  being  attached  to  the  chariot  by 
the  heels,  as  Homer  represents  it,  it  was  here  fastened  by  the 
neck — a  further  instance  of  discrepancy  between  Greek  and 
Etruscan  traditions.4  The  style  of  art  marked  this  sarcophagus 
as  of  no  early  date.  It  was  probably  of  the  time  of  Iloman  domi- 
nation, perhaps  even  as  late  as  the  Empire.5 

There  is  good  reason  for  believing  that  the  sarcophagi  were  not 
in  general  made  expressly  for  the  individual  whose  remains  they 
inclose,  as  the  lids  must  have  been.  From  the  symbolical  or 
mythological  character  of  the  subjects  in  the  bas-reliefs,  which 
rarely  bear  any  apparent  reference  to  the  individual  interred,  and 
from  the  frequent  recurrence  of  the  same  scenes,  it  seems  probable 
that  the  sarcophagi  were  manufactured  wholesale  by  the  Etruscan 
undertakers,  and  when  selected  by  the  friends  of  the  deceased, 
they  were  fitted  with  effigied  lids  to  order;  or  the  recumbent 
figures  were  rudely  struck  out,  and  finished  into  likenesses  of  the 
departed.  This  will  account  for  the  not  unfrequent  incongruity 
between  the  two  parts,  which  are  sometimes  even  of  a  different 
stone.  The  likeness  may  have  been  taken  after  death,  or  from 
those  small  terra-cotta  heads  so  often  found  in  the  tombs,  and 
which  were  probably  moulded  from  the  life.  Sarcophagi  and  urns 
of  terra-cotta  are  frequently  found  at  Toscanella,  but  are  generally 
very  inferior  in  style  of  art  to  those  of  stone,  displaying  much 
uncouthness  and  exaggerated  attenuation — caricatures  of  the 
human  form ;  yet  some  have  been  found  of  great  beauty,  as  that 
of  the  wounded  youth,  commonly  called  Adonis,  in  the  Gregorian 
Museum.  These  earthenware  coffins  are  often  found  with  those 
of  nenfro,  whence  it  would  appear  that  the  difference  was  a  matter 
of  choice  or  expense  rather  than  of  antiquity.6  The  former  were 
used  principally  by  women.  It  is  clear  that  interment  was  much 
more  general  at  Tuscania  than  cremation;  yet  large  jars  con- 
taining the  ashes  of  the  dead  are  often  found  in  the  same  tomb 
with  sarcophagi. 

4  On    an   Etruscan    amphora,    once   in  1841,  p.  134 — Braun. 

Campanari's  possession,  was  a  still  more  5  From   coins   of    Augustus  and    other 

singular  version  of  Achilles'  triumph.     His  Roman  remains   found  in  the  tomb,  this 

chariot  dragging  the  corpse  was  driven  by  sarcophagus  has  been  considered  as  late  as 

his  auriya  round  the  tomb  of  Patroclus  ;  that  Emperor.     Bull.  Inst.  1839,  p.  40. — 

while  he,   though  completely  armed,   and  Abeken.     See  also  1839,  p.  25— Jahn. 

though  the  steeds  were  at  full  gallop,  was  G  Pliny  (XXXV.  46}  remarks  that  many 

giving  proof  of  his  "swift-footed  "  powers,  people  preferred  being  interred  in  coffins  of 

by  runniny  at  its  side,  looking  back  on  the  earthenware — fictilibus  soliis. 
mangled   corpse   of  his  foe.     Bull.    Inst. 


CHAP,  xxxi.]       CAPITAL    OF    PAEIS    AND    HELEN. 


481 


In  this  garden  Avas  a  singular  capital  of  a  composite  column, 
taken  from  the  painted  tomb  of  Vulci.7  It  was  of  pcperino,  and 
between  each  pair  of  volutes  was  a  head,  male  and  female  alter- 
nately. From  the  Phrygian  cap  of  the  men,  the  relic  received 
the  name  of  "the  column  of  Paris  and  Helen."  Such  capitals 
cannot  be  of  very 
early  date.  There  was 
a  finish  and  free- 
dom about  this  which 
would  not  allow  us  to 
claim  for  it  an  origin 
prior  to  the  Roman 
conquest  of  Etruria. 
The  other  fragments 
shown  in  the  annexed 
woodcut,  are  the  disk- 
\\\\.ecippus found  above 
the  tomb  in  the  Cal- 
carello,  and  a  portion 
of  the  masonry  which 
encircled  a  tumulus, 
interesting 
cimen  of 
moulding. 

Signer  Lorenzo  Va- 
lerj,  the  spez'iale  or 
apothecary  of  Tosca- 
nella,  has  a  collection 
of  Etruscan  antiqui- 
ties for  sale.  As  a 

man   of  experience   and   research,    his   acquaintance   would   be 
valuable  to  the  visitor  curious  in  Etruscan  matters. 

Several  Etruscan  sarcophagi  of  interest  are  to  be  seen  at  the 
Spedale,  near  the  Viterbo  Gate. 

Of  the  origin  and  history  of  Tuscania  we  have  no  record.  The 
only  mention  of  it  in  ancient  writers  is  found  in  Plin}-,  who  classes 
it  among  the  inland  colonies  in  Etruria  ;8  and  in  the  Peutingerian 


as  a  spe- 
Etruscan 


ET11USCAN    CAPITAL,    CIPl'US,    AND    MOULDING. 


7  See  p.  466.  The  column  on  which  the 
capital  rests  in  the  above  cut  does  not 
belong  to  it.  Several  capitals  of  similar 
character  have  been  found  in  various  parts 
of  Italy — one  at  Salerno,  another  at  Cora, 

third,  without  volutes,  is  in  the  Museum 
VOL.  I. 


of  Berlin  (Bull.  Inst.  1830,  p.  136  ;  Mon. 
Ined.  Inst.  II.  tav.  20),  a  fourth  has  been 
discovered  by  Mr.  Ainsley,  at  Sovana  (see 
p.  512);  and  fragments  of  others  have  been 
found  at  Rome  and  Pompeii. 
8  Plin.  III.  8. 


482  TOSCANELLA.  [CHAP.  xxxi. 

Table,  which  shows  it  to  have  been  on  the  Via  Clodia,  between 
Blera  and  Saturnia.9  It  is  from  its  tombs  alone  that  we  know 
it  to  have  existed  in  Etruscan  times ;  }*et  it  must  have  been  a 
place  of  inferior  importance,  and  was  probably  dependent  on 
Tarquinii. 

Of  the  original  town  there  is  no  vestige  beyond  some  substruc- 
tions of  the  walls  of  cmplecton  masonry,  and  some  sewers,  cut  in 
the  cliffs  beneath  the  height  of  San  Pietro.  Here,  too,  are  traces 
of  the  Roman  colon}-,  in  fragments  of  reticulated  walling ;  and 
remains  of  a  circus  were  discovered,  some  years  since,  in  the 
ravine  beneath.1  The  ancient  town  must  have  been  larger  than 
the  modern,  for  it  comprehended  the  height  of  San  Pietro, 
which  is  without  the  modern  walls,  and  which,  being  rather 
more  elevated  than  the  rest  of  the  town,  and  at  the  ex- 
tremity of  the  tongue  of  land,  was  evidently  the  Arx  of 
Tuscania.  That  it  was  continued  as  a  fortress  during  the 
middle  ages,  is  proved  by  the  tall,  square  towers  of  that  period, 
which  encircle,  like  a  diadem,  the  brow  of  the  hill.  Eight  are 
still  standing,  more  or  less  impaired.  They  are  double,  like 
certain  of  the  Round  Towers  of  Ireland — a  tall,  slender  tower 
being  encased,  with  little  or  no  intervening  space,  in  an  outer  shell 
of  masonry.  Lest  some  should  be  led  away  by  this  analogy  to 
cherish  the  idea  that  the}'  are  of  very  ancient  construction,  or,  by 
a  bold  leap,  should  arrive  at  the  conclusion  that  the  Etruscans 
and  Irish  had  a  common  origin,  I  must  repeat  that  the  masonry 
of  these  towers  stamps  them  as  indubitably  of  the  middle  ages.2 

The  richest  jewel  on  this  tiaraed  height  is  the  church  of  San 
Pietro,  one  of  the  most  interesting  ecclesiastical  structures  of 
Central  Italy.  The  style  is  Italian  Gothic.  Though  this  church 
cannot  compete  in  grandeur  or  richness  with  the  celebrated 
Duomi  in  the  same  style,  at  Pisa,  Siena,  and  Orvieto ;  yet,  in 
the  small  and  snug  way,  it  is  a  gem,  and  will  repay  the  lover  of 
art  for  an  express  visit  to  Toscanella.  Its  charms  lie  chiefly  in 
its  facade,  which,  though  rich  in  the  general  effect,  is  most 
grotesque  in  detail.  Beasts,  birds,  and  reptiles  move  in  stone 

9  See  pp.   61,    490.      Vestiges  cf  this  mound,  similar  to  the  Cucumella  at  Vulci." 

road  are  to  be  seen  in  the  glen  beneath  S.  — Sepulchres  of  Etruria,  p.  326.     Nothing, 

Pietro  towards  the  Marta.  however,  is  more  improbable.    This  height, 

1  Bull.  Inst.  1839,  p.  28.  from  its  relative  position,  its  local  character, 

-  They  have,  however,   been  taken  for  and  the  ancient  walling  and  sewers,  wa 

Etruscan,  and  supposed  to  have  been  built  obviously  a  portion  of  the  Etruscan  town — 

over  Etruscan  graves,  and  to  "  have  formed  most  probably  the  citadel. 
the   centre   of  some  immense    sepulchral 


CHAP.  xxxi. J   TDE    ANCIENT   AND    THE    MODERN    TOWN.       483 

about  the  marigold  window,  the  round-arched  doorways,  and  the 
arcaded  galleries — here  stepping  forth  from  the  masonry,  there 
chasing  one  another  up  and  down  the  facade.  Scarcely  a  square 
foot  hut  displays  some  grotesquely  in  high  or  low  relief,  some 
grinning  head,  some  uncouth  form,  some  fantastic  chiimera. 
The  whole  facade  is  teeming  with  life.  This  is  not  in  harmony 
with  the  repose  of  architecture,  still  less  with  the  solemnity  and 
dignity  of  ecclesiastical  edifices.  Perhaps  it  was  to  qualify  this 
profane  character  that  a  sprinkling  is  introduced  of  angels,  saints, 
men,  and  devils.  But  what  can  we  say  of  trifacial  heads — grim 
caricatures  of  the  Trinity — more  than  once  seen  on  this  facade  ? 
— or  of  artisans  and  tradesmen  at  their  respective  avocations,  all 
in  caricature  ?  Yet  such  in  a  hand  of  reliefs  surround  the  porch 
of  San  Pietro. 

The  aisles  of  the  church  are  divided  by  two  rows  of  massive 
columns  of  Roman  antiquity,  probably  from  some  temple  which 
stood  on  this  height.  Beneath  the  choir  is  a  ciypt,  supported  by 
twenty-eight  slender  columns  of  no  uniformity. 

Of  the  same  style  as  S.  Pietro,  inferior  in  richness  of  decora- 
tion, yet  still  more  grotesque,  is  the  church  of  Santa  Maria,  in 
the  hollow  at  the  back  of  San  Pietro. 

The  necropolis  lay  in  the  broad,  deep  ravines  round  Toscanella, 
and  on  the  opposite  heights.  There  are  many  tombs  in  the  cliffs, 
not  with  architectural  facades,  as  at  Castel  d'Asso  or  Norchia, 
but  with  simple  doorways,  and  interiors  presenting  little  variet}r 
— unadorned  chambers  surrounded  by  rock-hewn  benches.  The 
most  remarkable  tomb  on  this  site  is  in  the  cliffs  below  the 
Madonna  dell'  Olivo,  about  half  a  mile  from  the  town.  Here,  a 
long  seAver-like  passage  leads  into  a  spacious  chamber  of  irregular 
form,  with  two  massive  columns  supporting  its  ceiling,  and  a 
rude  pilaster  on  the  wall  behind.  But  the  peculiarity  of  the 
tomb  lies  in  a  cuniciilns  or  passage  cut  in  the  rock,  just  large 
enough  for  a  man  to  creep  through  on  all-fours,  which,  entering 
the  wall  on  one  side,  after  a  long  gyration,  and  sundry  branch- 
ings now  blocked  Avith  earth,  opens  in  the  opposite  wall  of  the 
tomb.  Formerly,  this  was  the  only  instance  known  of  anything 
like  a  subterranean  labyrinth  in  an  Etruscan  sepulchre,  but  it  is 
now  quite  eclipsed  b}r  that  in  the  singular  Poggio  di  Gajella  of 
Chiusi.  Be  it  remembered  that  the  only  Etruscan  tomb  described 
by  the  ancients,  that  of  Porsena,  at  Clusium,  is  said  to  have  con- 
tained a  labyrinth.3  Let  the  traveller  inquire  for  the  Grotta  della 

3  Plin.  Nat.  Hist.  XXXVI.  10,  4. 

I  I  2 


484  TOSCANELLA.  [CHAP.  xxxi. 

Regina,  and  let  him  provide  himself,  at  Toscanella,  with  tapers 
and  matches,  or  his  excursion  will  be  in  vain.4 

In  the  cliffs  round  the  town  are  several  instances  of  columbaria. 
They  are  large  chambers  in  the  rock,  filled  from  floor  to  ceiling 
with  small  niches,  like  pigeon-holes,  capable  of  holding  an  urn  or 
pot,  but  differing  from  the  niches  in  lloman  columbaria,  in  the 
absence  of  the  olla-liole.  One  of  these  tombs,  in  the  cliff  above  the 
Viterbo  road,  is  remarkable  for  its  size,  and  its  division  into  three 
chambers,  with  a  massive  pillar  of  rock  supporting  its  roof.  It  is 
shown  in  the  opposite  woodcut,  with  Toscanella  in  the  distance. 
The  nearer  height  with  the  towers  is  the  hill  of  S.  Pietro.  As 
the  Romans  seem  to  have  taken  the  idea  of  their  columbaria  from 
the  Etruscans,  it  is  difficult,  in  the  absence  of  all  sepulchral  fur- 
niture, to  pronounce  on  the  origin  of  these  and  similar  tombs ; 
}'et  I  think  it  probable  that  these  niched  sepulchres  were — in  type 
at  least — Etruscan.5 

Most  of  the  tombs  of  Toscanella,  however,  are  sunk  beneath 
the  surface  of  the  ground,  as  at  Vulci.  Campanari's  excavations 
were  principally  in  the  table-land  on  the  west  of  the  town.  Here 
it  was  that  the  tomb  with  the  Niobe  sarcophagus  and  twenty- six 
others,  was  discovered. 

On  my  first  visit  to  Toscanella,  Signer  Carlo  Campanari  was 
excavating  in  the  tenuta  of  the  Marchese  Persiani.  Here,  in  a 
shallow  pit,  he  found  a  chest  of  stone,  in  size  and  form  like  a 
large  dog-kennel,  yet  an  evident  imitation  of  a  house  or  temple ; 
for  it  had  a  door  moulded  at  one  end,  and  a  gable  roof,  with 
beams  beneath  the  eaves.  It  lay  so  little  below  the  surface,  that 
it  was  surprising  it  had  not  been  brought  to  light  by  the  plough. 
The  form  of  this  urn  is  not  uncommon.  What  was  most  remark- 
able was,  that  it  did  not  contain  the  ashes  of  the  dead ;  for  they 
lay  on  the  ground  hard  by,  covered  by  a  tazza.  It  was  merely 
a  monumental  stone. 

After  witnessing  at  Vulci  the  ruthless  destruction  of  every 
article  which  bore  no  pecuniary  value,  it  was  pleasing  to  observe 
the  different  spirit  in  which  the  excavations  at  Toscanella  were 

4  The  tomb  receives  its  name  from  the  regards  these  Toscanella  columbaria  as 

figure  of  a  female  found  painted  on  the  lloman,  about  the  fourth  century  of  the 

wall,  when  it  was  opened  agrs  since,  but  City.  Mittelitalien,  p.  258.  Similar 

now  utterly  obliterated.  A  plan  and  plate  columbaria  have  been  discovered  beneath 

of  this  tomb  are  given  by  Micali,  Ant.  Pop.  the  surface  at  Toscanella,  but  without  in- 

Ital.  tav.  LXIII.,  and  by  Canina,  Etr.  scriptions  to  determine  their  antiquity — 

M  irit.  tav.  XC.  nothing  beyond  small  cinerary  pots, 

0  AVekcn,  while holdingthe  same  opinion, 


CHAP,  xxxi.]  CAMPANAETS   EXCAVATIONS.  487 

conducted.  Here,  every  article,  every  fragment,  was  carefully 
laid  aside  by  the  workmen,  to  be  submitted  to  Campanari's 
inspection. 

The  Etruscan  pottery  found  at  Toscanella  is  of  very  inferior 
quality.  The  beautiful  painted  vases,  unearthed  in  thousands  at 
Yulci,  are  never  found  in  this  necropolis.  Yet  the  distance  is 
but  fourteen  or  fifteen  miles.  Are  we  to  suppose  that  the  Tus- 
canienses  could  not  afford  to  purchase  such  valuable  furniture  ? 
That  Tuscania  was  not  poverty-stricken,  is  clear  from  the  rich 
bronzes,  gold  ornaments,  and  jewellery,  found  in  its  subterranean 
chambers.  We  must  rather  regard  such  differences  in  sepulchral 
matters  as  the  result  of  fashion,  prejudice,  or  caprice. 

Many  years  since,  Signer  Campanari,  wishing  to  carry  on  his 
excavations  on  a  larger  scale,  set  about  forming  a  society  or  com- 
pany for  the  purpose,  when  the  Papal  Government,  suspicious  of 
all  associations  whatsoever,  stepped  forward  and  at  once  opposed 
and  furthered  his  design  by  offering  itself  as  his  coadjutor.  In 
Italy  then,  as  in  Spain — 

Alia  van  leyes 
Do  quieren  reyes — 

"  Laws  go  as  sovereigns  please."  So  lie  accepted  the  offer, — 
and  on  these  terms.  Expenses  and  returns  to  be  shared  equally; 
but  Campanari  to  receive  a  stated  annual  sum  for  his  personal 
superintendence  and  direction.  In  the  partition  of  the  spoil  one 
party  was  to  make  the  division,  the  other  the  selection ;  and  as 
Campanari  knew  the  value  of  such  articles  better  than  most  men, 
the  Government  left  the  division  to  him,  and  reserved  to  itself 
the  choice.  Thus  he  laboured  for  some  time  in  the  Tenuta  di 
Camposcala  at  Vulci ;  and  the  result  was — the  Gregorian  Museum. 
The  Government  used  to  exchange  with  him  the  least  valuable 
articles  which  had  fallen  to  its  share  for  others  of  greater  beauty 
and  rarity ;  for  its  aim  was  to  form  a  perfect  museum,  which, 
while  comprehending  specimens  of  the  various  objects  found  in 
Etruscan  tombs,  should  contain  articles  of  first-rate  excellence  as 
works  of  art,  or  of  superior  interest  as  illustrative  of  the  manners, 
customs,  and  creed  of  the  ancient  inhabitants  of  Italy. 

The  man  of  antiquarian  tastes  might  spend  a  week  or  so  of 
winter  pleasantly  enough  at  Toscanella,  watching  the  progress  of 
the  excavations,  exploring  the  sepulchres  and  the  picturesque 
ravines,  examining  or  sketching  San  Pietro  and  Sta.  Maria,  and 
the  singular  relics  in  Campanari's  garden ;  and  such  quiet  pur- 


488  TOSCANELLA.  [CHAP.  xxxr. 

suits  might  be  diversified  by  excursions  to  places  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood, or  by  an  occasional  boar-hunt,  in  company  with  the 
squirearchy  of  Toscanella. 

A  ride  of  fifteen  or  sixteen  miles  will  take  him  to  Montefiascone, 
by  a  road  too  rugged  for  carriages,  yet  abounding  in  beautiful 
scenery — of  which  the  wild  open  plain,  with  its  belt  of  mountains, 
robed  in  purple  or  SHOAV,  groves  of  picturesque  cork-trees,  a 
mediaeval  castle  in  ruins,  and  the  lovely  lake  of  Bolsena,  with  its 
fairy  islets,  are  the  principal  features.  Viterbo  is  somewhat 
nearer,  and  the  road  is  carriageable,  though  very  inferior  in 
beauty  ;c  Vetralla  is  about  eighteen  miles  distant,  but  the  road  is 
a  mere  bridle-path.  Castel  d'Asso,  Norchia,  and  Bieda,  are  also 
within  an  easy  distance,  but  not  of  easy  access,  owing  to  the 
numerous,  perplexing  ravines  which  intersect  the  plain ;  and  a 
guide  is  indispensable.  To  Yulci  it  is  fourteen  or  fifteen  miles; 
and  to  Corneto  about  seventeen — both  carriage-roads.  So  that 
within  a  morning's  ride  or  drive  He  all  the  most  interesting  sites 
of  the  great  Etruscan  plain. 

6  At  a  spot,  called  Cippolara,  about  half-  See  Santi  Fartoli,   Sepolcri  Antichi,   tav. 

way  between  Toscanella  and  Viterbo,  are  XCVII.     This  site  lies  to  the  north  of  the 

many  tombs  ;  and  here  Buonarroti,  in  1694  road.     Musarna  lies  off  the  road  a  mile  or 

(p.    99,  ap.    Dempst.    de   Etr.    Reg.   II.),  two  to  the  south  ;  see  Chapter  XVII. 
found  urns  and   cippi  with   inscriptions. 


CHAPTER    XXXII. 

ISCHIA,   FAEXESE,  AND  CASTEO. 

Urbes  constituit  tetas,  hora  dissolvit. — SENECA. 

A  thousand  years  scarce  serve  to  form  a  state, 
An  hour  may  lay  it  in  the  dust. — BYBOX. 

NORTH  of  Toscanella  lies  a  group  of  Etruscan  sites.  The 
road,  which  is  scarcely  carriageable,  passes  through  the  villages 
of  Arlena,  Tessenano,  and  Celere,  none  of  which  betaiy  an 
antiquity  higher  than  Roman  times,  and  at  the  distance  of  twelve 
or  fourteen  miles  reaches  Ischia,  whose  position  on  a  tongue  of 
land  between  profound  ravines,  full  of  tombs,  marks  it  as  of 
Etruscan  origin.  There  is  nothing  of  interest,  however ;  the 
tombs  are  utterly  defaced  by  their  appljcatiotftb  the  uses  of  the 
inhabitants.  The  ancient  name  of  the  place  is  unknown.  It  was 
a  small  town,  probably  dependent  on  Tarquinii  or  Vulci.  Its 
Etruscan  character  is  not  generally  recognised ;  yet  Campanari 
made  excavations  here  some  years  since. 

Four  or  five  miles  north  of  Arlena,  and  about  the  same  distance 
from  Ischia,  lies  Piansano,  among  the  hills  to  the  west  of  the 
Lake  of  Bolsena.  On  a  height  to  the  south  of  the  village, 
excavations  made  a  few  years  since  by  Count  Oini  disclosed  the 
remains  of  an  Etruscan  town,  or,  at  least,  of  a  fortress,  the 
periphery  of  whose  walls  can  be  traced,  and  the  site  of  a  gate 
recognised.  Tombs  also  were  found  in  the  cliffs  below.  On  an 
opposite  hill  were  discovered  the  remains  of  an  ancient  building 
constructed  of  squared  blocks  of  ncnfro,  and  traversed  by  a  canal.1 

As  Ischia  is  on  the  way  to  Pitigliano  and  Sovana,  it  may  be 
well  to  state  that  accommodation  is  to  be  had  at  the  house  of 
Sabetta  Farolfi — tolerable  enough  considering  the  intense  squalor 

of  the  town ; 

— quis  enim  non  vicus  abundat 
Triskbus  obsccenis  ? — 

1  Bull.  Inst.  1869,  p.  174. 


490  ISCHIA,    FARNESE,    AND    CASTRO.       [CHAP,  xxxii. 

for  here  you  meet  with  clean  sheets,  foul  tables  and  tongues, 
unbounded  civility  and  scanty  comfort,  wretched  meals  and 
good  society.  The  house  is  patronised  by  the  aristocracy  of 
Ischia,  and  is  the  evening  resort  of  the  archpriest,  the  medico, 
the  spczialc,  and  other  conscript  fathers  of  the  town,  who  showed 
their  politeness  l>y  urging  me,  though  impramus  and  way-worn,  to 
a  rubber  of  whist. 

Two  or  three  miles  west  of  Ischia  lies  Farnese,  a  village  in  a 
similar,  though  less  imposing,  situation,  and  bearing  the  same 
evidences  of  Etruscan  antiquity.  As  general  on  ancient  sites 
where  population  has  never  ceased  to  exist,  the  sepulchres  in  the 
cliffs  here  have  had  their  original  character  destroyed  by  then' 
conversion  to  cattle-stalls  and  hogsties.  Campanari  has  made 
slight  excavations  in  the  plain  around  Farnese.  The  village  is 
more  decent  in  appearance  than  Ischia,  yet  its  ostcria  loses  in 
comparison  even  with  that  of  La  Farol.fi.  The  Chigi  palace  here 
was  occupied,  at  the  time  of  my  visit,  by  Marecbal  Bourmont, 
the  hero  of  Algiers.  Exiled  from  his  country  for  the  part  he 
played  in  "  the  three  great  da}Ts  of  July,"  he  fixed  his  residence 
at  Farnese,  exchanging  the  stirring  life  of  the  camp,  and  the 
brilliant  saloons  of  the  Tuileries,  for  the  seclusion,  monotony, 
and  death-like  tranquillity  of  this  Italian  village. 

The  antiquit}r  of  Farnese  has  long  been  acknowledged.  Manner! 
and  Cramer  take  it  to  be  Maternum,  a  station  on  the  Via  Clodia;2 
Cluver  holds  the  same  opinion,  but  inclines  to  think  it  identical 
with  Sudertum,  a  town  mentioned  only  incidentally  by  ancient 
writers,  without  any  hint  as  to  its  locality.3  This  is  mere  con- 
jecture, for  no  remains  which  throw  light  on  the  subject  have  been 
discovered  on  the  spot. 

Two  or  three  miles  west  of  Farnese  lies  Castro,  another 
Etruscan  site.  The  path  to  it  runs  through  a  ravine,  and  at  one 
point  passes  over  a  hill,  whose  entire  slope  from  base  to  summit 
is  strewn  with  huge  masses  of  lava, — 

•  Mannert,  Geog  pp.  384,  388.  Cramer,  3  Liv.   XXVI.   23.   Pliny  III.    8  ;  Ptol. 

Ancient  Italy,  I.   p.   245.     Maternum  is  Georg.  p.  72,  ed.  Bert.     Cluver.  Ital.  Ant. 

thus  marked  in  the  Peutingerian  Table  : —  II.  p.  517.     Holstenius  (Annot.  ad  Cluver. 

p.  41)  thinks  Madernum  the  same  as  the 

Foro  Cloclii  Sudernum  mentioned  by  Ptolemy,  and  says 

l>lera  XVI.  the  site  is  now  called  "Maderni,"on  the 

Marta  VIIII.  left  bank  of  the  Fiora,  a  few  miles  below 

Tuscana  Castro,  and  has  many  remains.     I  regret 

Materno  XII.  that  I  have  not  been  able  to  verify  this 

Saturnia  XVIII.  statement. 

Succosa  VIII. 


CHAP,  xxxn.]  FARNESE  AND  CASTRO  ARE  ETRUSCAN  SITES.  491 

"  Crags,  knolls,  and  mounds  confusedly  hurl'd, 
The  fragments  of  an  earlier  world." 

Castro  lies  in  a  wilderness — it  is  a  city  of  desolation.  You 
mount  from  the  ravine  to  the  plain,  and  see  before  you  a  dense 
wood,  covering  a  narrow  ridge  between  steep  precipices.  You 
enter  the  wood,  not  to  thread  your  way  over  smooth  turf  or  fallen 
leaves,  but  to  scramble  over  heaps  of  ruins,  broken  columns, 
capitals,  and  rich  cornices,  mingled  with  coarser  debris  ;  through 
all  which  vegetation  has  forced  its  way,  and  is  striving  in  turn  to 
conceal  the  wrecks  of  art  which  had  displaced  it.  A  truer  picture 
of  the  place  can  hardly  be  given  than  that  Byron  has  drawn  of 
the  Palatine. 

All  this  devastation  is  but  of  modern  date.  Little  more  than 
two  hundred  years  since,  Castro  was  a  nourishing  city ;  the  capital 
of  a  Duchy,  which  comprised  the  greater  part  of  the  Etruscan 
plain,  and  which  gave  a  title  to  the  king  of  Naples;  but  in  1647, 
Pope  Innocent  X.  rased  it  to  the  ground,  because  the  bishop  of 
the  see  had  been  murdered— it  was  supposed  by  the  Duke 
Farnese,  lord  of  Castro — and  the  bishopric  was  transferred  to 
Acquapendente. 

Castro,  as  usual,  stands  on  a  tongue  of  land  between  two  glens. 
Descend  into  them,  and  here,  if  a  lover  of  nature,  you  will  be 
charmed  with  the  bold  forms  and  rich  colouring  of  the  ilex-hung 
cliffs — with  the  varied  covering  of  the  slopes — with  the  pictur- 
esque windings  of  the  sheep-tracks,  the  only  signs  of  life  in  these 
wilds — with  the  meanderings  of  the  rivulet,  which  "  singeth  its 
quiet  tune,"  now  to  the  darkling  canopy  of  foliage,  now  to  the 
bright  blue  sky.  Or  if  a  lover  of  antiquity,  you  will  find  interest 
in  tombs  hollowed  in  the  rock — some  of  several  chambers,  some 
full  of  pigeon-holes,  as  at  Toscanella,  others  mere  niches,  or 
long  shelf-like  recesses,  one  over  the  other,  as  in  the  necropolis 
of  Falerii — in  fragments  of  rock-cut  cornices — in  the  ruins  of  two 
bridges — and  in  vestiges  of  an  ancient  road. 

High  in  the  cliff,  opposite  the  extremity  of  the  town,  a  hundred 
feet  or  more  above  the  stream,  is  a  circular  hole,  inaccessible 
from  below,  which  seems  to  be  a  window  to  a  tomb  sunk  in  the 
plain  above  ;  or  it  may  be  the  mouth  of  a  sewer. 

The  columbaria  are  generally  in  the  cliffs  immediately  beneath 
the  city-walls.  Of  the  ancient  fortifications  I  perceived  no 
fragments,  but  considerable  remains  of  medieval  date  are  extant 
on  the  south  side,  in  small  cemented  masonry  cut  from  the 
yellow  tufo  cliffs  on  which  they  stand.  In  these  walls  are  sundry 


492  ISCHIA,    FAENESE,    AND    CASTRO.       [CHAP.  xxxn. 

apertures  like  tall  arched  doorways,  which,  from  their  position, 
can  only  be  the  mouths  of  sewers.  More  ancient  drains  also  are 
not  wanting,  of  the  usual  upright  form,  cut  in  the  cliff  itself,  and 
determining  the  antiquity  of  the  town. 

I  left  Castro  with  something  like  disappointment.  Not  that 
it  is  not  worthy  of  a  visit ;  but  my  expectations  had  been  too 
highly  raised,  and  I  looked  for  more  numerous  and  curious  relics, 
of  Etruscan  antiquity.  Yet  the  only  verbal  reports  of  it  that  had 
reached  my  ears  were  from  the  peasantry  of  the  neighbouring 
villages,  since  I  had  never  met  with  any  antiquary,  native  or 
foreign,  who  had  visited  the  spot ;  and  as  to  written  descriptions, 
the  most  recent  I  know  is  more  than  two  hundred  years  old,  from 
the  pen  of  Cluver,  which  is  but  a  translation  of  that  by  Leandro 
Alberti,  who  wrote  nearly  a  century  earlier.  "  Castro,"  says  the 
latter,  "is  so  encompassed  about  with  rocks  and  caverns,  that  it 
seenieth  to  them  that  behold  it,  rather  a  dark  den  of  wild  beasts, 
than  the  abode  of  domesticated  man."4  To  this  Cluver  adds, 
that  similar  caverns  and  marvellous  fissures  are  to  be  seen  at 
Famese.5  Now  the  truth  is  that  there  are  comparatively  few 
rock- sepulchres  around  Castro — not  half  so  many  as  around 
Norchia,  Bieda,  Toscanella,  Pitigliano,  Sovana,  and  other  Etrus- 
can towns,  similarly  situated ;  and  such  as  are  found  here  are 
rude,  and  roughly  hewn,  and  in  no  way  remarkable.  Yet  the 
description  is  so  far  true,  that  Castro  is  a  most  gloomy  site — one 
of  the  gloomiest  I  remember  in  Etruria.  It  is  not  its  desolation 
alone, — Capena,  Norchia,  Ferento,  Tarquinii,  Vulci,  and  other 
sites,  are  also  uninhabited  and  deserted.  It  is  not  its  overgrowth 
of  wood, — Rusellffi  and  Cosa  are  similiarly  covered.  It  is  its 
general  aspect.  Nowhere  is  the  wood  more  dark  and  dense^- 
nowhere  are  the  cliffs  blacker  and  more  frowning — nowhere  are 
the  ravines  more  solemn  and  apparently  endless,  more  impres- 
sively lonesome  and  silent — nowhere  is  there  a  more  utter  absence 
of  habitation  within  ken — on  no  site  does  the  Past  becloud  the 
spirit  with  a  deeper  awe. 

To  the  Etruscan  name  of  this  town  we  have  no  clue.  Its 
present  appellation  seems  to  indicate  its  importance  as  a  fortress 
in  lioman  times.  Cluver  regards  it  as  the  site  of  the  ancient 
Statonia,  but  gives  no  satisfactory  reasons  for  his  opinion;0  and 

4  Descrittione  d'ltalia,  p.   58,  ed.  1551.  5  Cluver,  ItaL  Ant.  II.  p.  518. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  in  Alberti's  6  Cluver,  II.  p.  517.     His  opinion  rests 

and   even   in   Cluver' s   time,    Castro  was  principally  on  the  vicinity  of  Castro  to  the 

inhabited.  Lago  Mezzano,  which  he  says  is  without 


CHAP.   XXXII.] 


WHERE    STOOD    STATOXIA? 


493 


until  we  have  some  more  definite  evidence,  we  must  be  content 
to  remain  in  the  dark  as  to  the  ancient  name  of  Castro.7 

If  not  on  this  site,  where  shall  we  place  the  ancient  Statonia  ? 
It  is  a  question  not  to  be  answered  easily.  Pliny  indicates  a  site 
not  far  from  the  sea,8  though  not  actually  on  the  coast.9  From 
his  and  other  notices  of  it  in  connection  with  Tarquinii,  it  seems 
highly  probable  that  it  stood  close  to,  if  not  actually  within  the 
territory  of  that  cit}r,  as  Yitruvius  appears  to  intimate.1  There 
is  every  reason  to  believe  that  Statonia  stood  somewhere  in  this 
northern  district  of  the  Etruscan  plain,  but  to  Avhich  of  the 
ancient  sites  in  this  quarter,  of  undetermined  name,  to  assign  it, 
we  have  yet  no  means  of  deciding. 

Four  or  five  miles  north-east  of  Ischia  lies  Yalentano,  on  a  hill 
of  black  ashes,  part  of  the  lip  of  the  great  crater-lake  of  Bolsena. 
It  is  larger  than  Ischia  or  Farnese,  but  can  offer  no  better  accom- 
modation to  the  traveller.  From  a  terrace  outside  the  walls  a 
magnificent  view  of  the  lake  is  to  be  had,  but  I  saw  it  in  lowering 


doubt  the  Lacus  Statoniensis  of  antiquity. 
Supposing  him  to  be  correct  in  this  par- 
ticular, Castro  is  not  so  near  that  lake  as 
Ischia,  Farnese,  Pitigliano,  Sorano,  and 
Grotte  San  Lorenzo,  all  Etruscan  sites,  any 
one  of  which  has  on  this  score  a  stronger 
claim  to  be  considered  the  representative 
of  Statonia.  Then  he  says  that  ancient 
inscriptions  have  been  discovered  at  Castro, 
which  prove  its  antiquity ;  but  he  does 
not  tell  us  that  any  one  of  these  bears 
reference  to  Statonia.  An  additional  reason 
xirged  by  him  is  that  here,  as  well  as  at 
Farnpse,  are  quarries  of  white  rock,  which 
he  identities  with  the  lapidlcincc  of  silex, 
of  which  Vitruvius  (II.  7)  and  Pliny 
(XXXVI.  49)  speak  as  existing  in  the 
territory  of  Statonia.  This  stone,  as  already 
mentioned  (Chap.  XIV.  p.  161),  was  proof 
against  the  action  of  fire  and  frost,  peculiarly 
adapted  to  moulds  for  metal-casting,  and 
of  such  hardness  and  durability  as  to  render 
it  invaluable  for  statues  and  architectural 
adornments.  Now  it  is  true  that  there  are 
cliffs  of  a  whitish  rock  to  the  east  of  Castro  ; 
but  they  prove  nothing  as  to  the  identity 
of  that  town  with  Statonia  ;  first,  because 
the  rock  is  not  described  by  Vitruvius  as 
white,  but  like  the  Alban  stone,  or  pepe- 
rino,  that  is  a  greenish  grey,  though  Pliny 
seems  to  have  blundered  in  copying  from 
Vitruvius,  albi  for  Albani  ;  and  next,  be- 
cause the  rocks  at  Castro  are  of  a  soft, 


volcanic  character,  with  none  of  the  pro- 
perties of  the  silex — a  term  usually  applied 
by  the  Romans  to  the  lava  or  basalt  of 
their  paved  roads  (Liv.  XLI.  27.  Tibul. 
I.  7,  60),  and  occasionally  to  hard  lime- 
stone, as  in  the  well-known  inscription  on 
the  walls  of  Ferentinum.  It  would  not 
seem  that  the — viridis  silex  nusquam  co- 
piosus,  et  ubi  invenitur  lapis  non  saxum — 
mentioned  by  Pliny  in  the  same  chapter 
with  these  quarries,  was  also  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  Statonia.  The  said  quarries, 
again,  are  not  said  to  have  been  at  the  town 
of  Statonia,  but  merely  in  its  ayer,  just  as 
those  round  the  Volsinian  lake  were  in  the 
ayer  of  Tarquinii. 

7  Mannert  (Greog.  p.  388)  places  Statonia 
either  at   Castro   or  at  Farnese  ;  Cramer 
(I.  p.  223) and  Abeken(Mittelitalien,p.34), 
following  Cluver,  recognise  it  in  Castro. 

8  Plin.    XIV.    8,    5.      He   records   the 
renown  of  its  wine. 

9  Plin.  III.  8  ;  cf.  Strab.  V.  p.  226. 

i  Vitruv.  II.  7  ;  Plin.  XXXVI.  49 ; 
Varro,  de  Re  Rust.  III.  12.  The  last- 
named  writer  says  there  were  immense 
preserves  of  hares,  stags,  and  wild  sheep, 
in  the  ayer  of  Statonia.  Cluver  thinks 
that  Statonia  could  not  have  stood  in  the 
direct  line  between  Tarquinii  and  the  lake 
of  Volsinii,  because  the  ayer  Tarquinieiiais 
extended  up  to  that  lake. 


•194  ISCIIIA,    FABXESE,    AND    CASTRO.       [CHAP.  xxxn. 

weather,  when  the  clouds  lay  like  a  grey  pall  on  its  waters,  and 
only  when  they  occasionally  broke  could  I  catch  a  glimpse  of  its 
broad,  leaden  surface,  with  its  two  islets  of  fabulous  renown,  and 
the  headland  of  Capo  di  Monte  appearing  like  a  third.  I  could 
perceive  no  traces  of  ancient  habitation  on  this  site,  Etruscan  or 
Iloman,  nor  could  I  learn  that  such  exist.  The  walls  are  wholly 
media3val,  and  of  tombs,  there  are  none ;  in  truth,  the  volcanic 
ashes  and  scorire  of  which  the  hill  is  composed  would  render  it 
impracticable  to  construct  tombs  here  in  the  usual  manner  of  the 
Etruscans.3 

Canina  would  claim  Yalentano  as  the  site  of  the  Fanum 
Yoltumna?,  the  celebrated  shrine  at  which  the  princes  of  Etruria 
were  wont  to  meet  in  council  on  the  affairs  of  the  nation.  Not 
that  he  cites  the  authority  of  ancient  writers,  or  monumental 
evidence,  in  support  of  this  collocation,  but  taking  it  for  granted 
that  the  Fanum  must  have  stood  in  the  territory  of  Vulci,  and 
yet  near  the  Volsinian  Lake,  he  selects  Valentano  as  the  most 
likely  spot  to  answer  these  requirements.3  Any  site  we  may 
assign  to  the  Fanum  must  be  conjectural.  But  a  strong  objection 
to  Yalentano  lies  in  the  absence  of  all  traces  of  ancient  habita- 
tion on  this  height. 

From  Yalentano  there  is  a  track,  a  mere  bridle-path,  to  Pitig- 
liano,  about  t\velve  miles  distant  to  the  north-west.  About 
midway  it  passes  the  Lake  of  Mezzano,  a  small  piece  of  water 
embosomed  among  wooded  hills,  which  is  pronounced  by  Cluver 
to  be  the  Lacus  Statoiiiensis.4  That  lake,  however,  is  said  by 
Pliny  and  Seneca  to  have  contained  an  island,  which  this  of 
Mezzano  does  not,  so  that  we  must  either  reject  Cluver's  conclu- 
sion, or  suppose  that  the  island  has  since  disappeared.  As  there 

2  This  town  is  supposed  by  Cluver  (II.  no    reference    to    topographical    relations  ; 

p.  516)  to  be  the  representative  of  Verentum,  and   Yeii,  a  century  before  Pliny's   day, 

a  place  of  which  no   express   mention    is  had  been  recolonised  by  the  Romans,  and 

made,   but  which  he  conjectures  to  have  was  then  existing  as  a  municipium.     The 

existed,  from  the  persuasion  of  a  corruption  balance  is  also  greatly  in  favour  of  ' '  Veien- 

in  the  text  of  Pliny.     But  I  cannotseethat  tani,"  inasmuch  as  Pliny  in  his  catalogue 

he  has  adequate  ground  for  this  opinion.  would  surely  not  omit  all  mention  of  that 

He  thinks  that  in  Pliny's  catalogue  of  Roman  colony,    which   was    the    nearest    of    all, 

colonies  in  Etruria  (III.  8),  the  "  Veientani  "  almost  within  sight  of  the  Seven  Hills,  and 

of  the  ordinary  version  should  be  "  Veren-  whose  past  history  was  so  intimately  inter- 

tani,"  as  some  readings  have  it,  both  be-  woven  with  that  of  Rome.      If  this  be  the 

cause  it  comes  next  in  the  list  to  Vesentini  correct  reading,  there   is  no  proof  of  the 

— Vescntum  being  the  island  Bisentino,  in  existence  of  such  a  town  as  Verentuin. 
the  lake  of  Bolsena — and  because  Veil  had  3  Etruria  Marittima  II.,  p.  131. 

ceased  to  exist  before  Pliny's  time.     But  I  4  Cluver,  II.  p.   517.     Mannert  (Geog. 

roust  venture  to  differ  entirely  from  Cluver  :  p.  388)  and  Cramer  (I.  p.  223)  agree  with 

Pliny's  list  is  clearly  alphabetical,  and  has  him. 


CHAP.  XXXII.] 


YALENTANO— LAGO  MEZZANO. 


495 


is  no  other  lake  in  central  Etruria  which  can  answer  to  the 
Statonian,  we  must  take  the  alternative,  and  consider  the  island 
to  have  floated,  as  it  is  described,5  and  to  have  become  eventually 
attached  to  the  shores  of  the  lake.  Such  seems  to  have  been  the 
case  with  the  Vadimonian  lake,  which  is  now  almost  choked  by 
the  encroachment  of  its  banks  on  the  water ;  and  a  similar 
process  is  going  forward  in  the  Lacus  Cutilire,  in  Sabina,  and  in 
the  sulphureous  lakes  below  Tivoli ;  where  masses  of  vegetable 
matter,  floating  on  the  water,  assume  the  appearance  of  islands, 
and  having  had  their  cruise  awhile,  become  entangled  at  length 
by  some  prominent  rock  or  tree  on  the  shore,  attach  themselves 
permanently  to  it,  and  settle  down  into  respectable  portions  of 
terra  jirma.6 


5  Plin.  II.  90  ;  Seneca,  Nat.  QuzEst.  III. 
25.  There  are  only  four  other  lakes  in 
Etruria  which  contain,  or  are  Said  to  have 
contained,  islands — the  Volsinian,  the 
Vadimonian,  the  Thrasymene,  and  the 
Lacns  Aprilis  or  Preiius.  The  first  two  are 
mentioned  by  Pliny,  and  the  second  by 
Seneca,  in  addition  to  the  Lake  of  Statonia, 
so  that  it  cannot  be  confounded  with  them. 


The  Thrasymene  is  too  much  inland,  seeing 
that  Statonia  was  not  far  from  the  coast. 
And  of  the  Lacus  Aprilis,  now  Lago  Casti- 
glione,  may  be  said,  what  will  apply  with 
equal  force  to  the  Thrasymene,  that  it  is 
much  too  remote  from  Tarquinii  ;  for 
Statonia,  as  already  shown,  was  either  close 
to  or  within  the  ayer  of  that  city. 
6  See  Chapter  XI.  p.  144. 


CHAPTER   XXXIII. 

PITIGLIANO   AND    SOEANO. 

Nihil  privatiru,  nihil  publice  stabile  est ;  tarn  hominum,  quam  urbium,  fata  volvuntur. 

SKNKCA. 

Ay,  now  am  I  in  Arden  :  when  I  was  at  home  1  was  in  a  better  place  ;  but  travellers 
must  be  content.  As  You  UKK  IT. 

PITIGLIANO,  an  Etruscan  site,  and  the  principal  town  in  this 
part,  of  Tuscany,  lies  about  twelve  miles  to  the  N.W.  of  Valen- 
tano.  With  a  competent  guide  it  may  be  reached  also  from 
Castro  or  Farnese,  twelve  miles  distant.  When  I  first  knew  this 
road  it  was  on  the  border  between  the  .Roman  and  Tuscan  States, 
and  had  a  bad  reputation  as  the  resort  of  outlaws  from  both 
States.  But  these  are  Will-o'-the-Wisp  perils,  ever  distant  when 
approached.  The  appearance  of  the  country,  however,  is  not 
suggestive  of  security, — dense,  gloomy  woods  alternating  with 
open  moors,  and  not  a  house  by  the  wayside,  save  one  farm  on  a 
green  spot,  half-way  to  Pitigliano. 

This  town  stands  on  the  northern  limits  of  the  great  Etruscan 
plain,  which  is  here  bounded  by  a  range  of  mountains,  among 
which  the  snowy  peak  of  Monte  Amiata  towers  supreme  in  the 
north,  and  the  nearer  heights  sink  gradually  in  the  east  to  the 
long-drawn  ridge  which  girdles  the  Lake  of  Bolsena.  In  the  west, 
a  line  of  mist  marks  the  course  of  the  deep-sunk  Fiora,  and  leads 
the  eye  southwards  across  the  plain  to  the  bare  crests  of  the 
Monti  di  Canino,  which  rise  like  an  island  from  a  sea  of  foliage, 
with  the  blue  Mediterranean  gleaming  beyond  on  one  hand,  and 
the  grey  mass  of  the  Ciminian  bounding  the  horizon  on  the  other. 

At  a  little  distance,  Pitigliano  seems  to  stand  on  the  unbroken 
level  of  the  plain,  but  as  usual  occupies  a  tongue  of  land,  flanked 
by  ravines ;  so  that  when  you  seem  just  at  its  gates,  a  deep 
chasm  yawns  at  your  feet,  which  must  be  traversed  to  its  lowest 
depths  ere  you  can  reach  the  town.  When  3*011  have  surmounted 
the  long  steep,  and  passed  the  line  of  fortifications,  which,  as  at 
Nepi,  cross  the  root  of  the  tongue — nature  on  every  other  side 


CHAP.  XXXIIL]     PITIGLIANO  AND  ITS  ETRUSCAN  KEMAINS.    497 

affording  sufficient  protection  —  seek  incontinently  II  Bimbo. 
This  "  Baby  "  is  no  painted  effigy  of  sucking  humanity,  rocked 
by  the  breezes — nor  even  a  living  specimen  of  that  "  best  philo- 
sopher, might}'  prophet,  seer  blest,"  whom  Wordsworth  apostro- 
phises— but  is  represented  by  the  mature  and  portly  person  of  a 
respectable  townsman,  Giuseppe  Bertocci. 

Pitigliano  is  a  place  of  considerable  importance,  with  some 
3000  inhabitants,  of  whom  more  than  a  tithe  are  Jews,  led  to 
congregate  here,  as  at  Gibraltar,  by  the  annoyances  and  persecu- 
tions they  were  formerly  subjected  to  in  the  neighbouring  State. 
In  spite  of  the  wealth  thus  created,  Pitigliano  is  a  mean  and  dirty 
town,  without  any  interest  inside  its  gates.  A  glance  beyond 
them  will  convince  you  that  it  is  an  Etruscan  site  ;  though  being 
never  visited  loy  antiquaries,  it  has  not  been  recognised  as  such.1 
Its  ancient  name,  even  under  the  Romans,  is  quite  unknown  ;2 
tind  its  very  existence  is  unrecorded  before  the  eleventh  century, 
Avhen  it  is  mentioned  in  a  Papal  bull  as  Pitilianum. 

There  is  a  fragment  of  the  ancient  walls  on  the  northern  side 
of  the  town  ;  and  if  you  leave  it  by  the  Porta  di  Sotto,  you  have, 
immediately  on  your  right,  a  fine  fragment  of  emplecton  masonry 
of  tufo,  eight  courses  high — precisely  similar  to  the  walls  of 
Sutri,  Nepi,  Falleri,  and  Bieda.  As  you  descend  the  steep  road 
you  have  tombs  on  every  hand — from  the  brow  of  the  town- 
crested  height,  down  to  the  banks  of  the  stream,  and  again  up 
the  opposite  side  of  the  ravine — slope,  cliff,  and  ledge  are  honey- 
combed with  sepulchres.  Here  too  are  portions  of  the  ancient 
road,  sunk  in  the  tufo,  with  water-channel  at  its  side,  and  niches 
in  its  walls.  The  tombs  here,  beyond  the  columbaria,  which  are 
unusually  numerous,  are  not  now  worthy  of  particular  notice. 

1  Even  Repetti,   who  in  his  admirable  site  of  Eba.     Cramer  (I.  p.  222)  follows 
"  Dizionario   della  Toscana,"  gives  a  de-  him.      Canina   (Etr.   Marit.    II.,    p.    95) 
tailed  account  of  the  place,  is  at  a  loss  to  suggests  Capalbio,  thirteen   miles  to  the 
determine   its  origin  ;    but  he   relies    on  west  of  Vulci.     Neither  offers  anything  as 
literary,  not  on  monumental  evidence.  to  the  site  of  Caletra.     Or  may  not  Piti- 

2  Bertius    in    his    edition   of    Ptolemy  gliano  be  Statonia  ? — it  is  but  a  few  miles 
(Geog.  p.  72)  marks  it  as  the  site  of  yH/8a  from  the  Lago  Mezzano,  and  its  wine  is 
— a  colony  mentioned  by  that  geographer  celebrated  in  this  district  of  Italy.     It  is 
as  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Saturnia  and  singular  that  it  is  the  only  recognised  Etrus- 
Suana.     But  may  it  not  be  Caletra,  which  can  site,  whose  modern  name  possesses  all 
must  have  been  in  this  district  ?     Saturnia  the  elements  of   the  ancient  and  long-lost 
is  said  by  Livy  (XXXIX.  55)  to  have  been  Yetulonia— P.  1. 1.  n.  =  V.  t.  1.  n.— but  this 
— in  agro  Caletrano  ;  and  Pitigliano  is  but  analogy  can  be  but  accidental,  as  the  posi- 
ten  miles  from  Saturnia,  as  the  crow  flies,  tion  of  Pitigliano  is  much  too  remote  from 
and  is  by  nature  the  most  important  Etrus-  the  sea  to  answer  to  the  site  of  that  early 
can  site  in  this  vicinity.    Cluver  (II.  p.  515)  and  maritime  city  of  Etruria. 

suggests  Monte  P6,  near  Scansano,  as  the 

VOL.   I.  K  K 


493  PITIGLIANO    AND    SOEANO.  [CHAP,  xxxm. 

Whatever  may  have  been  their  decorations  within  or  without, 
some  two  thousand  years  of  profanation  have  well  nigh  effaced 
their  original  character,  and  left  them  as  problems  to  be  solved 
only  by  the  antiquary.  Thus  it  always  happens  where  population 
has  most  flourished  and  longest  endured.  It  is  at  the  long-de- 
serted sites  of  Castel  d'Asso  and  Norchia  that  the  sepulchres  are 
best  preserved.  Man  is  ever  the  worst  foe  to  the  works  of  man. 

The  table-lands  around  Pitigliano  are  full  of  tombs,  especially 
on  the  west,  where  for  miles  the  plain  is  undermined  with  them. 
No  excavations  have  been  made ;  but  accident,  from  time  to  time, 
brings  sepulchres  to  light.3 

Though  there  is  little  to  interest  the  antiquary  at  Pitigliano, 
there  is  food  enough  for  the  artist.  Few  towns  in  volcanic 
Etruria  are  more  imposingly  situated,  and  in  the  midst  of  finer 
scenery.  The  spot  that  produced  and  inspired  a  Zuccherelli 
should  have  some  claims  to  beaut}'.  Its  ravines,  though  darkly, 
damply  profound4 — grand  as  are  their  tall  impending  cliffs — 
gloom}'  and  solemn  as  are  their  silent  recesses — are  at  all  seasons, 
highly  picturesque,  at  some  even  truly  beautiful.  In  what  rich 
and  harmonious  colouring  were  they  decked  when  I  beheld  them ! 
The  many-tinted  rocks  had  their  blended  warmth  cooled  and 
shadowed  by  the  drapery  of  foliage — the  tender  green  of  the 
budding  vegetation,  the  darker  verdure  of  the  ilex  and  ivy,  the 
pale  blue  of  the  aloe ;  while,  like  silver  bands  on  a  mantle  of  green 
velvet,  the  streamlets  flowed  through  the  wooded  hollows,  here 
spanned  by  a  rustic  mill,  there  by  a  ruined  bridge.  One  of  these 
rivulets  leaps  at  one  bound  from  the  plain  to  the  depths  of  the 
ravine.  Omit  not  to  visit  this  "  Cascatella; "  it  is  worthy  of  a  place 
in  your  sketch-book,  and  cascades  do  not  often  adorn  the  plains 
of  Etruria.  Though  little  more  than  a  brook,  the  stream  makes 
the  most  of  itself  in  its  plunge,  and  roars,  raves,  and  foams  in. 
decent  imitation  of  its  betters,  which  make  more  noise  in  the  world. 
At  some  distance,  however,  you  perceive  not  this  assumption,  but 
have  a  waving  sheet  of  foam,  murmuring  on  a  dark  wall  of  rock. 

On  this  height,  called  the  Poggio  Strozzoni,  once  stood  the 
villa  of  the  Counts  Orsini,  for  more  than  three  centuries  the 
feudal  lords  of  Pitigliano  ;  but  not  one  stone  of  their  mansion  now 


3  At  Ponte  di  S.  Pietro  on  the  Fiora,  traces  of  an  Etruscan  town,  with  rock-hewn 

between  Pitigliano  and  Manciano,  Cainpa-  sepulchres  and  niches  around  it. 

nari  has  made  slight  hut  promising  exca-  4  Ilepetti  says  they  are  ISO  braccia,  or 

vations.     On  the  heights  on  the  opposite  nearly  350  feet,  deep, 
side  of  the  river  I   observed   unequivocal 


CHAP,  xxxiii.]  POPULAR   TEADITIOXS.  499 

remains  on  another.  Vestiges  of  former  magnificence,  however, 
mark  the  spot,  in  two  colossal  recumbent  figures  hewn  from  the 
living  rock.  The  popular  voice  calls  them  "  Orlano  (Orlando) 
and  his  wife," — the  lioland  of  chivalry  and  of  song — he  whose 
brand  "  was  worth  a  hundred  of  Death's  scythes," — he  who 

"  With  many  a  Paladin  and  Peer, 
In  Roncesvalles  died — " 

These,  however,  are  not  chivalresque  but  allegorical  figures,  of 
cinquecento  times.  "  Orlano  "  has  not  Durindana  but  a  cornu- 
copia \>y  his  side,  and  spills  nothing  but  fruit  and  flowers.  There 
are  bas-reliefs  of  the  same  date  on  the  rocks  hard  by.  Tradition 
thus  accounts  for  the  ruin  of  the  villa  : — 

The  last  Count  kept  a  mistress  at  Sorano,  yet  was  extremely 
jealous  of  his  Avife.  She,  fond  and  faithful,  viewed  his  visits  to 
the  neighbouring  town  with  great  suspicion.  On  his  return  one 
day,  finding  her  from  home,  he  went  to  Pitigliano  to  seek  her, 
and  met  her  on  the  bridge  which  crosses  the  stream,  just  above 
the  cascade.  "What  have  they  been  doing  at  Pitigliano  to-day?" 
asked  he.  "  Much  the  same  as  at  Sorano,  I  suppose,"  was  the 
innocent  reply.  A  guilty  conscience  and  his  jealous  disposition 
caused  him  to  misinterpret  this  answer,  and  regarding  it  as  a 
confession,  he  seized  her  in  his  wrath,  and  hurled  her  into  the 
torrent.  He  fled,  and  was  never  heard  of  more ;  and  his  villa  fell 
into  utter  ruin.  So  says  tradition — history  may  tell  another  tale.5 
•  Pitigliano,  like  Toscanella,  is  an  excellent  point  d'appui,  whence 
to  make  excursions  to  the  neighbouring  sites  of  interest — Saturnia, 
Sovana,  Sorano,  Castro,  to  wit ;  °  and  is  fortunate  in  having  a 
decent  hospitiiim.  "  The  Baby "  belies  his  name,  for  he  is  a 
stout  fellow,  equally  removed  from  first  and  second  childhood ; 
and  his  wife,  Lisa,  is  one  of  the  most  lively,  obliging  landladies 
that  ever  welcomed  traveller,  or  ruled  the  frying-pan — 
Che  donna  fu  di  piu  gaia  sembianza  ? 

Their  house  is  no  inn — such  a  convenience  exists  not  at  Pitigliano  ; 
it  is  a  casa  yarticolarc,  where  you  may  be  entertained  for  a  con- 
sideration, moderate  enough. 

The  traveller  will  not  fare  so  well  at  Sorano,  another  Etruscan 
site,  four  or  five  miles  to  the  north-east  of  Pitigliano.  Inn,  of 
course,  there  is  none — for  who  visits  this  secluded  spot  ? — but 

5  For  a  sketch  of  this  quarrelsome,  tyran-  f>  from  Sorano,  12  frcm  Castro,  10  from 
nical  family,  and  their  doings  in  this  part  Manciano,   16  from  Saturnia  by  the  high 
of  Italy,  see  Repetti,  v.  Pitigliano.  road,  30  from  Orbetello,  35  from  Grosseto, 

6  Pitigliano  is  2^  miles  from   Sovana,  18  from  Acquapendente. 


600  PITIGLIANO   AND    SORANO.  [CHAP,  xxxm, 

there  is  its  usual  substitute,  where  shelter  muy  be  had  for  the 
night.  Ask  for  the  house  of  La  Farfanti,  detta  La  Livornesa, 
Here,  one  large  smoke-dried  room  serves  for  kitchen  and  salle  if 
manger;  and  on  the  upper  floor  a  single  chamber,  crowded  with 
beds,  accommodates  the  family  and  guests.  I  turned  frcm  the 
door  to  seek  more  comfort  elsewhere,  but  in  vain  ;  the  rain  was 
descending  in  torrents,  and  I  was  fain  to  return,  stipulating  for 
the  sole  possession  of  one  of  the  beds — a  fantastic  demand,  which 
excited  great  ridicule  at  my  expense,  and  was  not  granted  without 
much  hesitation.  But  with  a  proverb  I  carried  my  point — Le 
ortiche  non  fan  buona  salsa,  e  due  picdi  non  istan  bcne  in  tina 
scarpa — "  Nettles  don't  make  good  sauce,  nor  can  two  feet  stand 
well  in  one  shoe."  Here  accordingly  I  passed  the  night,  in  com- 
pany with  eight  men  and  two  women — the  former  being  knights 
of  the  spade  and  plough,  who,  reeking  from  their  labours,  shuffled 
oft'  their  habiliments,  and  kept  up  a  tuneful  chorus  of  such  tib'ue 
j>arcs  as  nature  had  furnished  them  with,  till  daylight  recalled 
them  to  the  field.  Travelling,  like  "  misery,  acquaints  a  man 
with  strange  bed-fellows." 

Let  me  however  do  La  Farfanti  justice,  as  I  did  the  supper  she 
provided,  which  would  have  done  credit  to  the  cuisine  of  the  first 
hotel  of  Livorno,  her  native  town,  and  went  far  to  atone  for  other 
discomforts.  "  God  never  strikes  with  both  hands,"  saj-s  the 
Spanish  proverb.  Rarely  indeed  does  the  by-way  traveller  in 
Italy  meet  with  such 

Muncke  sub  lare  pauperum 
Ccenae. 

as  fell  to  my  lot  at  Sorano. 

Sorano  stands  on  a  tongue  of  land  at  the  extreme  verge  of  the 
Etruscan  plain.  Cross  the  deep  ravines  around  it,  and  you  are 
at  once  among  the  mountains.  On  this  side  you  have  volcanic 
formation — on  that,  aqueous  deposit.  Its  elevation  preserves 
Sorano  from  the  pestiferous  atmosphere,  which  has  depopulated 
the  neighbouring  Sovana.  The  town  is  small,  mean,  and  filthy, 
with  streets  steep,  narrow,  and  tortuous.  In  the  centre  rises  ?i 
precipitous  mass  of  rock,  whose  summit  commands  one  of  the 
most  romantic  scenes  in  this  part  of  Italy, — the  town  clustering 
round  the  base  of  the  height — the  grand  old  feudal  castle,  with 
its  hoary  battlements,  crowning  the  cliffs  behind — the  fearful 
precipices  and  profound  chasms  at  your  feet — and  the  ranges  of 
mountains  in  front,  rising  in  grades  of  altitude  and  majest}",  to 
the  sublime  icy  crest  of  Monte  Amiata. 


CHAP,  xxxni.]          SOEANO— NOX    AMBROSIACA.  501 

The  picturesque  beauties  of  Sorano  are  not  less  when  seen 
from  below ;  especially  from  the  road  leading  to  Castel  Ottieri, 
whence  the  view  of  the  town  and  castle-crowned  cliifs  can  hardly 
be  rivalled  in  Italy — that  land  of  rock,  ruin,  and  ravine. 

Of  antiquities,  Sorano  has  little  or  nothing  to  show.  There 
are  some  traces  of  an  ancient  road  sunk  in  the  rock  beneath  the 
town,  which  has  been  supplanted  by  a  modern  corkscrew  gallery. 
There  are  vestiges  also  of  a  Roman  road  in  the  hollow,  in  blocks 
of  lava,  which  lie  in  the  stream.  Tombs  are  not  abundant,  and 
with  the  exception  of  columbaria,  which  are  unusually  numerous, 
often  at  inaccessible  elevations  in  the  cliifs,  they  are  of  little 
interest,  beyond  serving  to  establish  the  Etruscan  antiquity  of 
the  site.  Most  of  the  tombs  are  so  defaced  as  to  be  hardly  dis- 
tinguishable from  natural  caverns.  In  the  ravine  to  the  west  is  a 
narrow  ridge  of  rock,  perforated,  as  at  Norchia,  so  as  to  assume  the 
appearance  of  a  bridge ;  whence  its  vulgar  name  of  II  Pontone. 

In  the  neighbourhood  of  Sorano,  in  the  direction  of  Sovana, 
was  found  a  few  years  since  one  of  the  most  beautiful  mirrors  of 
bronze  that  ever  issued  from  an  Etruscan  tomb.  The  figures  it 
bears  are  in  flat  relief,  exquisitely  chiselled,  and  represent  the 
Judgment  of  Paris — a  subject  of  common  occurrence,  but  here 
treated  in  a  peculiar  manner.  This  mirror  is  now  in  the  posses- 
sion of  the  Marchese  Strozzi  of  Florence,  and  will  be  further 
mentioned  when  we  describe  the  monuments  of  Etruscan  art  in 
that  cit}r.7 

What  may  have  been  the  ancient  name  of  Sorano,  we  have  no 
means  of  determining.  Cramer  conjectures  it  may  have  been 
Sudertum  ; s  but  Cluver,  with  equal  probability,  places  that  town 
at  Farnese.9 

Tbe  attractions  of  Pitigliano  and  Sorano  to  the  traveller  lie  in 
their  scenery  alone.  At  no  other  ancient  sites  in  the  volcanic 
district  of  Etruria  are  the  cliifs  so  lofty,  the  ravines  so  profound, 
the  scenery  so  diversified,  romantic,  and  imposing ;  and  it  may 
be  safely  affirmed  that  among  Etruscan  sites  in  general,  though  few 
have  so  little  antiquarian  interest,  none  have  greater  claims  on 
the  artist  and  lover  of  the  picturesque.1 

7  See  Vol.  II.  p.  106.  nothing  as  to  its  antiquity  ;   except  that 

8  Cramer,  Ancient  Italy,  I.  p.  223.  the  abundant  ruins   on  the  site  seem  to 

9  Cluver,  Ital.  Ant.  II.  p.  517.  mark  it  as  chiefly  of  mediaeval  times.     The 
1  About  two  miles  or  more  from  Sorano  peasants  tell  you  it  is  extremely  ancient, 

to  the  east,  is  a  deserted  and  ruined  town       but   they  know  no   more   of   comparative 
called   Vitozzo.     I   saw  it   only  from    the       antiquity  than  of  comparative  anatomy, 
opposite  side  of  a  wide  ravine,  and  can  say 


BKONZE    BUST,     FKOM   THE   ISIS-TOMB,  VULCI. 


ADDENDA    TO    YOL.   I. 


Page  130,  to  note  6. — Lanciani  places  the  Fanum  Feroniaj  on  the  hill  of 
Sant  Antimo,  near  Nazzano,  where  in  1808  the  remains  of  a  noble 
temple  of  the  Ionic  order  were  discovered,  of  circular  form, 
20  metres  in  diameter.  Bull.  Inst.  1870,  p.  30. 

Page  154,  to  note  9. — In  the  Bazzichelli  Collection  was  the  celebrated  vase 
of  Euthymides,  son  of  Polios.  Ann.  Inst.  1870,  pp.  2G7 — 271. 
Klugmann,  taw.  d'agg.  o,  r. 

Page  185. — In  the  castle  and  fosse  of  Castel  d'Asso,  many  missiles  of  terra 
cotta  in  the  form  of  acorns  have  been  found — larger  than  those 
of  lead,  and  of  extremely  hard  clay.  Bull.  Inst.  1873,  p.  109. 

Page  264,  to  note  8. — But  on  a  stamnos,  illustrated  in  Mon.  Inst.  vi.  tav.  8, 
on  which  Philoctetcs  is  represented  as  bitten  by  the  serpent,  and 
•  rolling  on  the  ground  in  agony,  a  goddess  of  very  similar 
character,  and  with  her  hands  in  the  same  position,  is  introduced, 
standing  on  a  pedestal,  with  fire  on  the  ground  before  her.  An 
inscription  designates  her  as  "  C'hryse." 

Page  2G6,  to  note  4. — Professor  Helbig  takes  the  Regulini-Galassi  tomb  to  be 
contemporary  with  the  sepulchre  at  Palestrina,  which  has  recently 
yielded  even  more  wonderful  but  similar  treasures  in  the  precious 
metals  and  bronze,  and  he  would  refer  both  tombs  to  about  the 
middle  of  the  seventh  century,  B.C.  He  pronounces  the  silver 
bowls  found  in  both  tombs  to  be  not  Egyptian,  but  Phoenician 
imitations,  and  thinks  they  must  have  been  imported  into  Italy 
by  the  Carthaginians  about  650  B.C.  See  his  article  on  Phoenician 
art,  Ann.  Inst.  1876,  pp.  197 — 257. 

Page  358,  last  line. — The  flaps  or  lappets  of  her  tutulus  are  probably  the 
Kpr)8ffjLvn  of  Homer,  Odys.  I.  334  ;  vi.  100  ;  xvi.  416. 

Page  366,  to  note  8. — The  tutulus  seems  to  have  been  also  a  Phoenician 
head-dress.  See  Layard's  Xineveh,  II.  pp.  386, 1589,  where  women 
wearing  the  tutulus  are  represented  seated  in  Tyrian  boats. 


ERRATA    IN    VOL.    I 


Page     Iviii,  note  0,  for  "  Samothraci,"  read  "  Samothrace." 
,,       Ixxiii,     ,,     1,/oc  "(JtXoT«'x»'Ot,"  rfci  "(/>iAoTfx»'oi." 
,,     oxxvii,  line  7,  for  "his  discovery,"  read  "this  discovery." 
,,  cxxviii,    ,,  15,  for  "discovered,"  recul  "  made  known." 

,,        ,,        last  line,  for  "discovered  by  Mr.  Pullan,"  read  "  discovered  by  Count  Bossi,  and  de- 
scribed by  Mr.  Pullan." 

,,     11,  note  G,  last  line,  for  "  p.  79,"  read  "  p.  80." 
,,     21,     ,,     7,  for  "rreAaroi,"  read  "ireAarai." 
„    32,  line  9  from  the  bottom,  (Me  "late." 
,,    42,    ,,  1,  for  "  bronze  mirrors,"  read  "bronzes." 
,,    55,    ,,  22, /or  "  with  the  tall  campanile,"  read  "  and  tall  campanile." 
,,    60,    ,,  13,  for  "  coins,"  read  "  money." 
,,    00,    „  15,  for  "money,"  recul  "coinage." 

,,    S3,  note  3,  line  14,  for  "The  discovery  since  their  day,"  read  "  The  recent  discovery." 
„  103,  line  10,  for  "jet,"  read  "jut." 

,,  112,  note  II.,  line  4,  for  "  its  size,  much  superior,"  read  "  its  size,  in  which  it  was  much  superior." 
,,  1:50,  line  10,  for  "  being  struck,"  recul  "having  been  struck." 
,,  135,  note",  line  3,  for  "95,"  remi  "05." 
,,  172,     ,,    6,     ,,  17,  for  "also,"  read  "however." 
„  200,     ,,     2,     ,,  10,  for  "euicuicAoi,"  read  "  (VKVK\OL.  " 

,,  208,  line  5  from  the  bottom,  for  "  were  wont  to  recline,"  rend  "  were  reclining." 
,,  249,  ,,  23,  for  "  the  late  Marchese  Campana,"  read  "  the  Marchese  Canipana." 
„  250,  ,,  11  from  the  bottom,  transpose,  and  place  "and  each  pilaster  bears  a  shield  carved  111 

relief,"  at  the  end  of  the  sentence. 
,,  274,     ,,  11,  dele  "late." 

„  14,  for  "  Since  his  death,"  read  "  Of  late  years." 
,    4,  for  "  is  name,"  read  "its  name." 

11,  for  "the  Cathedral,"  read  "Santa  Maria  in  Castello." 
,     7,  add  "Cf.  Aristoph.  Raiue,  154 — 157." 
,     8,  add  "  For  birds  in  Elysium,  see  Tibul.  I.  3,  59." 
,    1,  for  "  three  figures,"  read  "  four  figures." 

,     6,  after  "So  far,"  insert  "excepting  the  scene  from  the  Odyssey." 
,    2  from  the  bottom,  for  "  which  seems  to  mark,"  read  "which  has  been  supposed  to 

mark." 

,,  375,  last  line,  for  "  makes,"  read  "  mike." 
,,  388,  line  5,  for  "Gygean,"  read  "Gygiwm." 
,,  39(5,  last  line,  for  "fowl,"  read  "fowls." 

,,  398,  note  3,  last  line  but  2,  after  "  In  one  tomb  only,"  insert  "  now  open." 
,,  405,  line  7,  for  "Euxitheos,"  read  "  Euchsitheos." 
,,  405,  note  3,  for  tltf  concluding  sciitftire,  "  The  version  he  gives,"  &e.,  read  "and  by  Heydemann, 

Ann.  Inat.  1875,  pp.  AH— 207.     Sec  Moil.  Inst.  1875,  tav.  23,  24." 
,,  40(5,  line  18,  for  "representing,"  read  "erroneously  supposed  to  represent." 
,,  408,    ,,    0,  after  "six  guinea-fowls,"  insert  "  probably  representing  the  sisters  of  Meleager." 
„  422,  note  4,  dele  "  12." 
,,  459,    „    3,  Mid"  Helbig  takes  th?m  for  Phoenician  or  Carthaginian  imitations.     Ann.  Inst. 

1876,  p.  241." 

„  461,    „    6,  add  "Ann.  Inst.  1806,  p.  409.—  Brunn." 
,,  463,  line  21,  for  "  yields  not,"  read  "  scarcely  yields." 
,,  472,     ,,  20,  for  "hytlria,"  read  "ci*la." 

,,  489,  note  1,  add  "It  is  supposed  to  be  an  Etruscan  fountain  and  lavatory.    Ann.  Inst.  1870, 
pp.  227—231,  tuv.  d'agg.  K." 


EXD    OF    VOL.    I. 


BRADBUUY,    AGXEW,   &  CO.,   PRINTERS,    WHITEFRIARS. 


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