mi mr ■■6 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. or mark the sites of the forum, basilica, and temples. The Porta di Giove is a solemn and imposing arch, and has the head of Jove remaining upon the key- stone. Near the walls are many large tombs, some rock sepulchres, some pyramidal tumuli, and some excavations with arches and porticoes. There was doubtless, in each city, a temple to the patron god ; and the names of some of these patrons have been preserved to us. For instance, Pales, patron of Rome, an Etruscan minor god ; Nortia, goddess of Fortune, the patroness of Vul- sinia and Vulterra ; Viridianus of Narni ; and Va- lentia of Ocriculum.* Without the city were placed thef temples of Venus or Aphrute, Mars or Maurs, and Vulcan or Sethlans, and Ceres. But it is pro- bable, from this very circumstance, that these divi- nities, with the exception of Sethlans, were regarded as strange gods, patrons of the nations with whom they were in alliance, and not provided for by Tao-es, as his laws were delivered to the Lucutnoes by Tarchun. Sethlans was a sort of guardian god of the boundaries ; and, in the Etruscan altar in the British Museum, is associated with Terminus, in the prayer that he would ward off evil and fire. Others explain the circumstance of these temples being situated without the gates thus : that Venus was placed without, in order to show that licentiousness was not admitted ; and Mars, in order to show that war was deprecated ; Ceres, because the proper * Vide Ancient History. f Vitruvius, i. 7. TAGES. 167 field for agriculture was in the open plain; and Vul- can, for the purpose of defending- the boundaries both without and within. It is scarcely necessary to debate whether the Rasena, at this early period, had or had not images. We think it very clear that they first introduced then) into Italy from Ludin and Egypt, where image worship had for centuries been established, although the inhabitants, both of Ludin and Egypt, acknow- ledged only one supreme and almighty God. Co- lossal figures of the lion-headed or hawk-headed divinities of the land of Ham, long prior to the days of Tarchun, may be seen in almost every museum in Europe. Laban the Syrian, 1745 years b. c, had idols. The Israelites could not refrain from them when Moses brought them to Mount Sinai. The Moabites and Ammonites had them ; and we know the form of Dagon, the maritime god of the Philis- tines. We have already said, that many of the traits of VirgiTs ^neas were probably taken from the life of Tarchun ; and ^neas is made to bring his Lares with him from Asia. Doubtless the Rasena brought their Lares, perhaps an image of the father of each princely colonising family, and of the three national gods ; and from these the larger temple images would afterwards be made. The Rasena must either have invented images, or have brought them ; and as, though there were numerous false divinities, there do not appear to have been any images in Italy before their day, nor amongst the native tribes for six centuries 168 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. afterwards, we conclude, both that they introduced sculptured forms into Etruria, and that they did not propagate them beyond their own governments. In the Galassi tomb opened at Cere in 1837, which is regarded as the oldest sepulchre known in Italy, lines of small images were found, no doubt of an- cestors and lares. The Etruscan cities were laid out in straight and regular streets, ending in the gates, and running in lines parallel to each other, and every fifth street was a broad one. Many of these streets* may still be traced by the old common sewers, which are visible in several of the Italian towns, and which ran directly under them. We will now suppose all these cities to be built and inhabited, and we will proceed to a more inter- esting ordinance of Tarchun, namely, the yearly meeting of the princes at the fane of Voltumna, in the state of Turchina. * Miiller on tlie Temple, vol. iii. 169 CHAPTER VIII. VOLTUMNA. There is in Etruria a valley, or rather an assem- b.c. blage of valleys, now called " Castel d'Asso," in the '^^^^' state of Tarquinia, near the town of Viterbo, and near Norchia or Erkle.* These valleys formed the grand public cemetery of the Etruscan nation, for kings, and priests, and heroes ; and there the names of many of them remain at this day, deeply engraved upon the front of their strange rock sepul- chres. It reminds Egyptian travellers of" Biban El Mulk," the burying valley of the Theban kings. We do not know the age of any of these tombs, because sharp engraving upon hard stone, does not retain the trace of time, so as to give evidence of the work being more or less early ; and the productions of * Norchia was the ancient Etruscan " Erkle," as we learn from manuscripts in the Vatican. The name is spelt in Etruscan inscriptions ERKLE, and in the annals of the Archaeological Society we have a letter written in the ninth century by Pope Leo the Fourth to the Bishop of " Urcle," now Norchia. T 170 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. men, who died three thousand years ago, are often more finely polished, and more delicately touched, less rubbed in their edges, and less injured in their substance, than those of our own middle ages, or of the Roman lower empire. This is demonstrated by multitudes of Egyptian statues, obelisks, and pillars, some of which may be seen in every museum in Europe. As the Etruscans would not require such a bury- ing place, until their heroes became somewhat nu- merous, we shall suppose the earliest sepulchre to date about 200 years before Rome, and the latest perhaps 90 or 100 years b. c, when the Etruscan nationality was destroyed by Sylla. These tombs are known to have belonged to warriors, because, when first opened, the sarcophagi found in them contained quantities of brazen armour ; (see Gell ;) and they are known not to have been used in later times, because no tomb has been found containing any Latin inscription ; and after the union of Etru- ria with Rome, Latin became the court language, and is found of a very old date, in many of the sepulchres in the municipia elsewhere. It would, besides, have been a sort of profanation to bury the Latinized Etruscans in the holy ground of their old, independent, and triumphant v/arriors. In this district, near these valleys, and either be- tween Viterbo and Castel d'Asso, or, as many think, on the ground which Viterbo now occupies, Tar- chun dedicated a temple and district to Voltumna — E.L.T.M.N., or Baal Tenmneh, as in some dialects VOLTUMNA. 171 it Avould be pronounced, the goddess of National Union and Concord. There,* once every year, all the twelve sovereigns of the twelve dynasties, and the governors of each town, and whoever might be considered as the princes and heads of the Rasena, were solemnly bound to meet, in order to celebrate their common origin, and their bond of union under one common law. This was their high court of parliament, beyond which there was no appeal; and here all national questions were discussed, and all grave complaints settled. Their first act was to choose a highf priest to oifer their common sacrifices for the common weal ; and their next was to elect a head, an Imperator or " Embratur," or " Meddix Tuticus," (whence magistratus,) as it was called in the Oscan language, a dictator, or an absolute sove- reign, for the time being ; under whose sole com- mand they marched forth in times of war.J In circumstances of great exigency this high officer, Lar of the Lares, seems to have kept his power for life, or until the purpose for which he was elected was accomplished. Tarchun had no equal during his existence, nor had Porsenna, from the time he comes before us, as espousing the cause of his coun- trymen, the Tarquins, in Rome, until he saw fit to abandon that cause, after Rome was prostrate. In other eases the ofiice was probably annual, and may have gone by lot, or rotation, or seniority, amongst the twelve sovereigns. * Vide Liv. iv. 25. f Livy, v. 1. X Dionys. iii. I 2 172 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. It is also not unlikely that, in times of peace, the high priest may occasionally have been the augur as well as the sovereign for the year, because each Lucumo was eligible to all these offices ; but such a case would seldom occur, because every free people is jealous of the accumulation of power in the same hand ; and in all our accounts of the Etruscan kings, augurs, and priests, though they were invariably men of the same class, they were generally different persons. The king is either re- presented as summoning the augur, or the priest as commanding the king to sacrifice ; yet, though this was the rule in offices for life, the annual Pon- tifex Maximus and the annual chief magistrate in each state was usually, if not invariably, the same. As soon as this pontifex king, or Lar of the Lares was chosen, each of the sovereign princes did him homage, and each presented him with a lictor, to form his body-guard, bearing the sceptre to rule and the rod to punish ; both of which emblems, we find from Rosellini, were borne by the kings of Egypt, and which intimate the duties of a ruler, "to whom the sword is not committed that it should be worn in vain." This meeting took place always in the spring, very probably in memory of the first spring,* when the Rasena landed in Tarquinia, and a great fair was held at the same time, which reminds us of the political annual meetings and fairs of the Hyksos kings in Avaris. It is supposed that merchants * Liv. iv. 25. VOLTUMNA. 1 73 from far distant shores,* even from Asia and Africa, were present at these fairs, wliero the northern and southern states of tlie only trading nation of Italy used to meet together. The Greeks originally were not there, because their vessels dared not appear iu the Turrhene Seas, and many writers-f- suppose that Scylla and Charybdis, are merely figures to intimate the dread in which they held the Etruscans, and may be the names of some of the little images, used by that people on the prows of their vessels. Greek ships were regarded as interlopers on the west coast of Italy ages later, even so late as the time of the Phocian engagement in the year of Etruria 654, i. e. in the 220J of Rome, and the carrying trade before this period was confined to the vessels of the Tyrseni themselves, the Carthaginians, and the Egyptians. The merchants probably lived in tents during the time of the meeting ; and though there was no town at Vultumna, Niebuhr^ has proved that there must, at all the fanes, have been inns and places of refresh- ment. Multitudes of people flocked here, as they do to all fairs, to buy and sell and get gain ; but the voices in the deliberative council were those of the princes only.|| Here and at this time, were made all common laws, here were remedied all common evils, and here were decided the grand questions of peace or * Vide Miiller on Etruscan commerce. t Miiller in Cuma, quotes Palaphates a Greek who asserts this. X Fasti consulares. § Vide Niebuhr in Feronia. II Liv. vi. 2, 174 HISTORY OF ETRURIA, war. No dynasty, without permission from this council,* could make a separate peace, or carry on a separate feud, and each member of the League had here a right to demand assistance from the whole. One state might be required to defend alone its own quarrel, the council not thinking that its cause justified the embroiling of the others, or one province might, for particular reasons, be ex- cused, whilst all the others were bound to act toge- ther in an enterprise. Thus, upon one occasion, Livy-f- says, "All the people of Etruria took up arms except the Arretini ;" and^ thus Veii, when she asked assistance against Rome, was, from a mistaken policy, refused. There can be little doubt, that the twelve bound up fasces of the lictors represented this league, so strong in union, and that the fable of the man, who broke each separate stick of the bundle before his sons, when he had loosened the cord which bound them, was suggested by this very polity. Rome adopted and retained the twelve rods without any regard to the meaning of them, each one repre- senting a tribe. They remind us of the twelve rods, each conveying the same meaning, that is, each representing a tribe, which, three centuries earlier, the Hebrew;]: princes had by God's com- mand laid up in the tabernacle. The grand council of Voltumna could ordain, that a state should defend itself, or could command the assist- ance of so many of the others, or of the whole * Liv. V. 17. t ix- 32. X Numb. xvii. VOLTUMNA. 176 body to be given to it ; and every separate town in Etniria of a certain importance, could, when it pleased, call a meeting of this council. This we find from Veii and Falisci at different times exercising the right,* The parties required to be present at these meet- ings were only the princes of Etruria, the Augurs, the Aruspices, and the Feciales, each of whose oflSces we shall presently explain ; but the parties whose presence was permitted were, whoever desired to celebrate the feast, or to attend the fair. Deputies from the allies of Etruria were doubtless expected, and representatives from the states of their own blood in the north and south, after those states had an existence. But North and South Etruria, though equally governed by the laws of Tages, never formed one polity with Etruria Proper, and never were incorporated in her government. They acknowledged their origin, and looked up to their mother with reverence, gratitude, and pride, bat they were not subjects, they were not even fellow- citizens, and when they joined in battle, or in an enterprise, with those from whose houses they had sprung, they did so as equals and allies, we had almost said, as foreigners. That the Italian allies were at this meeting we know, because Livy f names the Samnites, and because the Gubbio tables ac^ knowledge the common sacrifices of the Umbri and the Etruscans. This meeting of course became a model to the * Livy, iv. 23. f x. 16. 176 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. native Italians, when they, in the lapse of years, held friendly communication with their polished neighbours, whose institutions they wisely imitated, and who appear to have stamped with order and refinement every mark of their footsteps in Italy. Hence we have the "Fanum Feroniae" of the Latins, and the " Fanum Artense" of the Vulsci, and the " Fanum Lucinse" of the Sabines, all upon the same system, and all (because called Fanes) attributed by the ancient history to the Etruscans.* Our word " Fane" is derived from the same source, and means the same thing, i. e. " a sacred spot ;" and inscrip- tions in some of the larger and finer of the Etruscan tombs at Tarquinia and Chiusi, inform us that many of the distinguished sepulchres were also fanes. As the place of meeting in the plain of Viterbo was called " Fanum Voltumnae," and not either " the Temple," or " the City" of Voltumna, and as Feronia and Artena, had neither of them grand temples, so we imagine the holy fane to have been an inconsiderable square building, containing a small symbolical statue ; and some large hall sup- ported upon Tuscan pillars, might possibly be near it, as the seat of council, where the princes delibe- rated upon state matters, apart from the people, and far from the bustle of the merchants and the gathering of the multitude. The valley of Castel d'Asso, called by the Romans " Castellum Axia,"t was protected by a strong fort, and as the valley leads onwards, it comes to a small shrine now dedicated to " San Giovanni di * An. Hist. vol. xvi. t Vide Cicero. VOLTUMNA. 177 Bieda," where there is an annual fair. The habits of the Italians make it probable, that this fair is l)nt the continuation of one, which has been held in the same spot, from time immemorial, and that the shrine of S. Giovanni, has only succeeded some other shrine, once in heathen times held sacred. It is thus possible, though we lay no weight upon the idea, that we may still discover and mark the spot, where Tarchun, the man who introduced augury into Italy, first retired at this solemn meeting, to inquire by lightning what was the will of the gods with regard to the League of the Etruscans, and by what means he could best promote their present security, and cement their future union. Doubtless this meeting was commanded by the laws of Tages, or it would not have lasted so long, for Miiller* thinks it was never dissolved, until those laws were superseded by Christianity. That able historian deduces the idea from various Italian inscriptions, which he transcribes, found at Perugia, Arretium, Bolsena, and other places, some of them dated in the reigns of the later Caesars in the third and fourth centuries, a.d., in which the " Praetores Hetruriae XV. Populorum, and the Praetores Umbriae XV. Populorum, are mentioned with reference to the " Sacra Etrurise." Thus showino- that the Umbri were probably, in three tribes, joined with the Etruscans. These tribes may have been Sar- sinati,Piceni,and one other. Some Italian antiquaries, as Reinesiiis, have wished to alter the number XV., * B.ii. 1—6. I 5 178 HISTORY OF ETRURTA. fancying that it must be an error for XII., but if these inscriptions relate to the common sacrifices of the two people, their united numbers must have ex- ceeded XII., and we are surprised to find them so limited as XV., considering how small the separate governments of the Italians usually were. We see in these inscriptions the justness of Cato's descrip- tion, that Umbria was " Pars Tuscise." At this meeting the augur in all cases settled disputes and confirmed judgments, by declaring the will of the gods upon the matter in debate — a tremendous power in the hands of an artful man. Livy says that the festival was kept with music and games,'* and upon the election of the common monarch, especially when that monarch was to head the League as their Dictator in war, he was dignified with the ensigns of sovereignty, which, as Tarchun introduced them into Italy, so he must have brought them with him from the country of his birth. The Etruscans, according to Diodorus Siculus, v., gave their king a throne of ivory ,t and a purple toga which was worked in gold stars and palm leaves :J also a golden bulla filled with perfumes to keep off * Liv. V. 1. t This was certainly obtained from or through Africa, and confirms our behef in the intercourse of the Etruscans with that continent. It was from thence that Solomon procured his ivory. X Rosellini, vol. iv., says that the palm was a common orna- ment of the Egyptians upon their dress and furniture during the reign of the 18th dynasty, and that it signified Lower Egypt, which was so long in possession of the Assyrians. VOLTUMNA. 170 infection and evil influences. He liad a golden crown upon his head, and a sceptre in his hand, with twelve lictors, who stood behind hiui and bore each an axe and a bundle of rods. The sceptre was in time surmounted by an eagle, and in Tarchun''s days it probably had a vulture, the Egyptian sym- bol of victory. The crown was probably the corona Etrusca of oak leaves. Thus, no doubt, was Tar- chun dressed, and thus was he seated and guarded when he took his place at Voltumna as the leader, lawgiver, sovereign, and head of the Etruscan people. Near this peculiarly sacred ground, there existed very lately, and perhaps may exist still, the two finest specimens known of Etruscan temple archi- tecture. They are at Norchia, the ancient Erkle, and are fagades hewn upon rock temples, or fane tombs. They have four square pillars in front, with an entablature and triglyph ornaments, over which is a pediment in the usual form y^N^ ^ filled with figures, but too much defaced for the subject to be traceable. Plates of them may be seen in Inghira- mi's Etruscan Antiquities, and they are interesting and curious specimens of Etruscan taste, though we do not refer them to the early period of this peo- ple in Italy ; and even as a testimony to the sacred- ness of Voltumna, they have no reference to the times of Tarchun.* * The authorities for this account of Voltumna are : Livy, ii. 44; iv. 23; v. 17 &c. ; vi. 2 ; x. 16. Dionys. iii. 6 1 . Diod, V. 40. Proved from Miiller, B. ii. 1. See Miiller on Pomp. Diod. Sic. V. Festus, Pliny, and Dionys. 180 CENT. XII. CHAPTER IX. TARCHUN AND HIS INSTITUTIONS. Augur — Aruspex — Lucumo and Noble — Kin^ — Senate — Clans — Feciales — Boundaries— Women. We will now proceed to give some account of the powers of king, augur, and priest, which were necessarily exercised by Tarchun in his own person, although generally divided in those of his succes- sors ; of the Feciales, the Lucumoes, the clients, and the several classes of the Etruscan people. The first and highest power in Etruria, as after- wards in Rome, was that of the Augur, who in the case of Tarchun, Romulus, and many other foun- ders of states, was the same with the king, though ostensibly his power related to sacred things only. If Tarchun introduced augury, then all the Italian augurs and all the earliest augural institutions must derive from him, and hence we refer to him the facts relating to their office, which are preserved to us in the narratives of others. The Augur was, in plain TARCnUN AND HIS INSTITUTIONS. 181 words, the representative of the Divinity upon earth, the absolute and despotic declarer of the divine will, whom it was blasphemy to contradict, and rebellion to disobey. The Divine Being, how- ever, whom he represented, and in whose character he must act, was pictured as the constant father and protector of his people, with his eyes ever upon their actions, his heart ever alive to their interests, and his ears ever open to their prayers. He cared for the least of his children as much as for the greatest, punishing equally their crimes, rewarding equally their virtues, and rendering it obligatory upon them all, from the sovereign to the peasant, to walk by one law, and to observe one rule. The augur expounded the will of the gods, consulted it himself according to a written code, and declared it to the people. Without him there could be no elec- tion to any ofHce, and in Etruria every office was elective, though many were for life. Without the augur there was no king, no dictator, no pontifex, no ruler, no vestal, no fecial, no priest. The Etrus- can maxim was, that " there is no power but of God : the powers that be are ordained of God," and there- fore alike in the meanest, and in the grandest and most important, of their deliberations concerning the public weal, the will of the gods was consulted. The person of the Augur was sacred, and his office endured for life, in order to raise him above fear in the discharge of his duty ; and he was supported at the public expense, that he might have no temptation to bribery. He was always a Lucumo, no man of low 182 HISTORY OF ETRUUIA. caste being eligible, and he must have been possessed of a competent knowledge of military affairs, for no general could cross a river, or a frontier of any kind, or fight, or divide among his soldiers the conquered land, without the augur's permission. TJiere could be no marriage, nor adoption in the lucumonal houses, and no meeting, either of themselves or their vassals, without him. There could be no public function without auspices, and the auspices must not be consulted if the augur forbade. He could dis- solve any assembly, and nullify any election, by de- claring, however untruly, that he heard thunder ; and the only bounds to his power, or check to his subtilty, was in the equal power of the other augurs his co-partners. Such a multitude of affairs would necessitate, at the very least, one augur in every great city, and there were probably three or four, according to the population, and the extent of labour which devolved upon them. Romulus ap- pointed an augur to each tribe, to interpret dreams, oracles, and prodigies, and to tell whether the thing decided upon, by them or for them, should be for- tunate or not. In Rome, Romulus elected three besides himself, and it is not unlikely that Tarchun may have set the example, and have left it as a rule, that each tribe in every state and city should have one augur. When this great officer died, his place was filled up by the remaining augurs, either with or without the Lucumoes. Tarchun established colleges for these men, and in the early days of Rome, the patri- TAHCHUN AND Ills INSTITUTIONS. 183 cians filled the vacancy if one died, by electing an- other in concert with the actual augurs, who might reject the person chosen by vote, if tliey pleased. Should an augur, touched with human passion, pronounce a decree which was evidently self-willed, and injurious to the public interests, another augur might oppose him, and by lightning revoke his de- cree ; otherwise it must stand. As not above three instances of this kind occur in history, we gather from it, that the augurs were always men, diligently educated, to understand their science, and to govern themselves, and that they were carefully chosen from amongst their equals, as the persons who were supposed to understand best the public interests, and to care most for them. This institution maintained its influence in Italy for many hundred years, whence we presume that there was much reality connected with its founda- tion, that its members had a real belief in divine guidance, and that they were usually upright and skilful in the exercise of their office.* Augury, as the science, or rather as the art of divi- nation, is rife at this day in India. The word, as we have said, in Hindoostanee, means a temple, and in Latin " augurium" has reference to the augur as officiating. Both Mliller and Niebuhr agree, that the whole of the ceremonies used in Italian augury, were Etrus- * Authorities for Augur. Cicero de Repub. ii. 9; De Nat. Deo. ii. 3, 9; ad Fam, vii. 16. Plin. viii. 28; xxviii. 4. Liv. X. 6 — 9; iii. 32. Dionys. ii. 22 ; ii. 6. Varro R. R. iii. Servius. 5 184 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. can, and that the distinctive mark by which the Etruscan faith might be recognised and separated from every aboriginal religious rite, was the neces- sity of consulting the divine will in a temple, i. e. on holy ground. It was the augur's office to see into the future, to keep up discipline, i. e. the autho- rity of present laws, and to decide every state dis- pute. He could never be disgraced or degraded, and disobedience to him was death. There was a college of augurs at Tyre, and an ancient author mentions that Pygmalion, the priest of Hercules, was not one of the augurs ; meaning by this obser- vation, that it was the common practice for the ruling prince in Tyre to be an augur also. The Haruspex was a different person from the Augur, and very inferior to him in dignity, though of the same class ; for he also must be a Lucumo, or at least noble. The word is supposed to be derived from ara specto, aris aspiciendis,* to look at the altar, or to inquire by it. But, if it is, as we believe, an Etruscan term, this is not its derivation, though it may be a good explanation of its meaning. In general the haruspex offered up the victim, and then consulted the entrails, to tell, by their appear- ance, the answer which the gods made to the sacri- fices. At other times, the priest offered up the sacrifice, whilst the haruspex inquired by lightning, or told the meaning of thunder, earthquake, the flight of birds, the fall of meteors ; or of any other sio-n that might have happened. Every magistrate * Vide Cicero de Div. TARCHUN AND HIS INSTITUTIONS. 1^5 was an arnspex in virtue of his office, but not an augur; nor dared he to take the auspices, if the augur forbade.* In Rome, and probably every- where else in Italy, the aruspices lived in colleges, under one head or master ; and Cicero tells us,t that they were instituted by Tages, and that the Romans used to send their children into Etruria,;}: to be instructed in their discipline. Wherever, therefore, we find, in Italian history, mention made of Augurs or Aruspices, there we trace the influence of Etruria, to whatever nation the men might belong, or whatever slight diversity there might be, in the signs they used, or in their national feelings. Just as whenever we meet the Roman Catholic, we see the influence and the headship of Rome, though the man himself may be a Briton, an American, or a Chinese, and though they may difffer from each other in many points of ritual and ceremony. It was a proverb amongst the Romans, " Harnspex, Tuscus semper," — not that the man was always Tus- can, for the Roman magistrates were usually Latin, but that the office was. Woraen§ of rank exercised this art as well as men, for Tanaquil, the wife of Tarquin, interpreted the signs for her husband ; Bygoe II wrote a book upon the Ars fulguritorum, which became one of the statute books of Etruria, andPlautus speaks of theHaruspic8e,or Lady Harus- pices.^ This science had fixed principles, or it could * Cic. de Leg. iii. 3. f Div. iii. 23. J Div. i. 41. § Livy, i. 34, 39. Dionys, iii, 47. II Servius apud ^n. vii. ^ Miiller, b. iii. 186 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. not have continued so many ages, and under such altered circumstances, to command respect, and to influence the minds of men : whatever these prin- ciples might be, they seem to have remained as a treasure and mystery in the hands of the Etruscan princes ; and, like the almanac, to have been com- municated in their results only to other nations, and not in their elements ; otherwise we should not find the Romans constantly sending for Haruspices and Diviners into Etruria, rather than into Sabina or any other part of Italy. The cradle of this science is doubtless to be sought in Egypt and Assyria ; the latter country alone using augury by the flight of birds, which the Hebrews were forbidden to study, and by lightning, which does not exist in Egypt, though some learned persons imagine that electricity and magnetism were much practised by the Egyptian priests, and even believe that in some of the temple scenes, found de- picted at Thebes, one man is producing sparks from the body of another. Not to enter into this discussion, we have scripture authority for the extraordinary knowledge of natural phenomena, possessed by the philosophers, both of Egypt and Assyria, through- out a succession of ages, under the name of magic and divination, practised by " magi and diviners, or wise men." The king of Egypt, in the days of Joseph, was an Assyrian, and his philosophers were probably learned men, both of Assyria and of Egypt ; whilst the Pharaoh of the time of Moses, with his wonder-working literati, were all Egyp- TAKCHUN AND HIS INSTITUTIONS. 187 tians, and possessed of knowledge which enabled them to exercise jiowers not as yet attained by us. On the other hand, Nebuchadnezzar and Bel- shazzar, with their learned council, were all Assy- rians. From the honourable position of these men, and from Moses, the adopted son of the Egyptian princess, among the one people, and Daniel, the young Hebrew prince, among the other, receiving their style of education, as being the best and the highest that could be bestowed upon them, and from the Scriptures mentioning it as praiseworthy and honourable, that they were skilled in all this wisdom, we gather that the magi of the east, like the Augurs and Aruspices of the Rasena, belonged to the class of the nobility, according to the continental idea of that term. As they were often called upon to interpret only, whilst the priest sacrificed, we learn that they did not supersede the priests, and were not, like so many of them, the hereditary servants of any parti- cular divinity.* We have intimated that the Augurs and Aruspices were all noble, though they might not be equal in rank to the Lucumoes. Now, upon the continent of Europe, we have, in a great measure, the same divisions of classes which existed in Egypt, in Ludin and in Etruria, in the days of Tarchun. We have the sovereign hereditary, or, as it lately was in Poland and Germany, and is now in the Papal States, elec- tive ; and we have, next to him, the greater and * Livy, V. 22. 188 HISTOEY OF ETRURIA. lesser hereditary nobility, by whom alone it is fitting that all the court offices, and highest magistracies in the realm, should be filled. This nobility com- prises the whole gentry of the country ; all of them, and them only. Upon the Continent there cannot properly be said to exist such an institution as the British peerage, or such a class as that to which we English are accustomed to limit the term noble. In foreign kingdoms there can be no sons of dukes who are accounted commoners, and no grandsons of dukes who, as with us, sink undistinguished into the body of the people. On the contrary, they continue to be marked with the family titles, ad infinitum, and although multiplied by tens and hundreds, all the branches of a foreign house are as noble as the head : noble merely mean- ing a man of gentle blood, entitled to wear the family arms, and descended at some period more or less remote, from an ancestor whom the sovereign had raised to the ruling class, or on whom he had conferred a title. On the Continent, this descent or title is common to all a man's posterity, and in virtue of it they are eligible, if educated, and not in other respects unfit, to all places of trust and power, to all situations in the court, and to all posts in the army.* * To compare the British gentry with the continental nobihty may seem foreign to a history of the Etruscans, and may require some apology as a digression. Yet we cannot help remarking, that while the primogeniture which keeps titles, estates, and lustre in the elder branch, is doubtless a most beneficial institu- TARCnUN AND HIS INSTITUTIONS. 189 The Etruscans had these Nobles, including the knights and gentry, and besides them they had, like ourselves,a peerage called "Lucumoes," who formed, as our peers do, the standing council of the sove- reign, and the hereditary senate of the state. Their eldest sons, and the other branches of their families, were not their equals as long as they lived, and until they became Lucumoes, were not eligible to the sovereign power, neither were any foreigners, however high their rank or great their considera- tion, capable of bearing magisterial offices in Etruria, tion to the nation, the more remote branches of titled famihes and the ancient gentry who never have enjoyed titles, are un- mindful of their proper place, when they allow the immediate scions of the peerage to monopolize the name of nobility in its continental sense. Mr. Howard of Corby, an English com- moner, is, according to continental judgment, as noble as his chief, the Duke of Norfolk ; and " Mr. Dundas of that ilk," a Scottish commoner, is, in like manner, as noble as his cadets the Earl of Zetland, Viscount Melville, and Lord Amesbury. And yet both, unless they possessed more acquaintance with the subject than most Englishmen do, would be in danger, on the Continent, of being confounded with the Bourgeoisie, be- ca.use both are commoners, though the one is a cadet of a great ducal house, and the other has enjoyed the rank of gentleman since the Heptarchy, with various peers for his younger branches. From not understanding the meaning of the word " noble," in the mouth of a foreigner, the wife of an Edmonstone, whose family twice in the 14th century, matched directly with royal princesses, would now very hkely give place to the wife of a new made Bavarian baron. There is as much foUy in losing one's rank, as in assuming too high a tone, and our countrymen on the continent are often unfortunate in faUing into both errors. 190 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. unless they were first created Lucumoes. From the continuance of this order in numbers even to the latest dates in the sepulchres, there can be no doubt that the king or Lar, possessed the power of filling up vacancies in his Senate, occasioned by the ex- tinction, in process of time, of the original great houses. The Lucurao, or peer, was in Rome called Senator; though it may admit of a question, whether the term Lucumo was common to all the peers, or be- longed only to the chief and captain of the peers. He may possibly have been the Decurion of his Curia, or we believe at all events, that there were distinctions among the men of lucumonal rank, as there are grades in the British peerage. There were many privileges and offices which no Etruscan could enjoy who had not this rank, whilst all who had it, possessed amongst themselves a perfect equality of civil rights. This was the state of the world at the time of Tarchun's birth, and he did not change it. He is said himself, to have been the son of a king of Lu- din. But this king was probably only a Lucumo, having some greater authority over him, for Tar- chun did not, as the son of a despotic monarch pro- bably would have done, establish despotism and hereditary power. We have examples in Etruscan history of one great family, as the Tins in Perugia, and the Cecinas in Volterra, by preponderance of influence in its own senate, maintaining the rule in one state; and Tarchun's children, if he had any, TARCriFN AND HIS INSTITUTIONS. 101 would doubtless have been selected by the voice of common gratitude to succeed him in Tarquinia. But the constitution of his government was the absolute dominion of law over all, and, consequently, the superiority of office united to the equality of men. The king was supreme, and for life ; but the king must be elected by the Lueumoes, and from amongst them. The augur was the highest of earthly powers, yet the augur must be elected by his brethren. All the princes of Etruria were Lueumoes. They were the chief landholders ; and in them, as a body, consisting of one head and many mem- bers, resided the whole power of the state. The younger branches of a Lucumo's family were Aruns, and the head lucumo or king was " Lar," declined by Larth and Larthia, &c. &:c. Lar is pro- bably derived from the Hebrew "ID, Sar, a prince or chief Livy latinizes all these ranks as principes, whilst Plutarch continually gives the term " Lucu- mo," without understanding its meaning. Tarchun, in the name of Tages, commanded that all the kings of Etruria Proper should be elected by the Lueumoes of the several states for life ; each king being pontifex maximus in his OM^n dominions, and absolute whenever not restrained by law. When he died, his son might be elected to succeed him ; but he had no more right to the succession than the heir of any other family of his tribe. A plurality of votes decided ; but if the senators could not agree, as to 192 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. who should be their head, each chief lucumo reigned a certain number of days, until the succession was de- termined. Livy says, each senator reigned five days. Plutarch in Numa says, only twenty-four hours, whilst Niebuhr thinks that each reigned during ten days, or jjerhaps longer, by rotation. The king originated every new law, and proposed it to the senate, who approved or rejected, amended or ad- vised upon it, but could originate nothing. At the same time the king could establish no law without the senate's consent. The king was the sole and absolute judge, to absolve or to punish, in civil and criminal causes ; he appointed all the great officers of state ; was head of the nobles, father of the peo- ple, protector of the kingdom, general of the army, and sole declarer of peace and war. The king, says Niebuhr,* was inaugurated by consulting the gods, and all the tribes must agree upon his election. He was probably examined by the pontifices, as to his fitness for office, because he was himself to be pontifex maximus ; and it is in imita- tion of this Assyrian custom of uniting king and high priest in one person, that we find the kings of Israel so frequently presuming to take upon them- selves the high priesfs office. f The king fined and punished ; and was absolute without the city and in war ; but within the city there lay an appeal against his sentence from every * ii. 352. t 1 Sam. xiii. 9. 2 Chron. xxvi. 16. TARCIIUN AND IIIS INSTITUTIONS. 193 citizen, or, at least, from every Lucumo, to his })cers. The king* had lands appropriated to his dignity, called demesne lands, and a determinate portion of the spoil and conquered territoryf in war, consist- ing of one-third. He could assemble tlie senate or the peoi)le, or the senate and people together, whenever he chose ; he had the care of all the public money ;:j: and it was his duty, every ninth day, i. e. the day following every eighth day, to give audience, and to show himself to his people in the gate, or in the forum, in order to hear their com- plaints, to decide quarrels, to redress grievances, to receive their salutations,^ and to announce to them the feasts for the following week, and the changes of the moon, which regulated their kalendar. Those who know the Scriptures, are well aware that this custom of sitting in the gate|| to give judgment is eastern ; and it implies that those who hold the sovereign power should be careful publicly to ac- knowledge the sovereign's duties. The prince was hereby reminded that he was to rule for the benefit of his subjects ; and that it was his province to maintain the peace, to prevent robbery, and redress wrong. Whilst the people acknowledged that the prince was their constituted protector as well as ruler, first in justice as first in power; and they became ac- quainted with his person, not only as the repre- sentative of law, but as their father, and the object * Arnold from Cicero. t Cic. de Repub. v. 3. X Dion. i. 84, 85, 87- § Macrob. Saturnal. i. 15. II 2 Sam. xix. 8. Jerem xxxviii. 7. Prov. xxxi. 23. K 194 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. of tlieir obedience and affection, Macrobiiis* says, that every week the Etruscans greeted their king, and asked after his health, at these patriarchal meetings. The king was elected by tlie senate. This senate Tarchun caused to consist in each sejDarate state, of Lucumoes or peers only ; and, being once introduced by hira, on a principle of government agreeable to the genius of the Italians, the senates were gra- dually adopted in every little capital of every petty tribe in communication with the Rasena, until, at the time when Rome was founded, Niebuhr asserts that there was no city on the Mediterranean without them. Livy chiefly mentions the senates of Etruria, as, for example, Arretium and Perugia, Falerii or Fa- lisci, and Veii. Zonaras and Appian name Volsinia ; and we shall find the senates of the various Latin, Greek, Umbrian and Samnite towns occasionally quoted from ancient authors, in the progress of this work.f The senate consisted of all the Lucumoes or peers, and with them, as with our own House of Lords, their rank was hereditary, their class the same, their political privileges equal, but their degrees of rank were different, the first ten being higher than the others, and probably having a right to the curule chair, which appertained either to high rank or office. We read of curule Ediles in Rome ; and we find, in the Etruscan sepulchres, curule chairs of different materials, on which images * Saturnal. i. 15. t See Livy, ix. (3 ; v. 27. TAUCIIUN AND IllS INSTITUTIONS. 195 of departed greatness have been seated, both male and female. The female we must suppose to have been the wife of the sovereign only. But the male, being- sometimes of stone, sometimes of marble, and sometimes of wood, we think, may denote Senators of merely different degrees of rank, or wealth. One of these chairs is to be seen in the Corsiui palace in Rome.* Each Lucumo was equally eligible to become the prince of his people, or head of the whole league. Each was a sovereign in his own house, and master of his own dependants ; and each had a check upon the acts of his king or Lar by the power of the auspices, which each was competent to con- sult, and by the appeal which every chief might make to his own peers. Each might declare that what his prince proposed was unlawful, and could hold an assembly of his equals to try the question, as we learn from Attus Naevius, who opposed Tar- quin. Not only every Lucumo, but every Etruscan citizen, might change his place of residence as often as he pleased, and become the denizen of any other state or city ; but the great families never did change their localities, except by banishment. They had large tracts of land allotted to them, in per- petuity, like the Highland clans, which always remained in the same house, as we learn from the many generations found in the same sepulchres, and from the rivers and districts which they have called by their names, and upon which, if we may * Vide Niebuhr. K 2 196 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. judge from similarity of nomenclature, a descendant here and tliere is supposed to linger still. Tarchun's first colony consisted of these men and of their families, i, e. of the Dn? L.ch.mes or chiefs, the princes of whom were eleven in number, and himself the twelfth and the one supreme head ; and along with them, of their followers, called vassals, or clients, or clansmen. These followers, the country being once settled, consisted not merely of the original Rasena, who came with their lords from the opposite shores of the Medi- terranean, but of all, of every description, who chose to live under their protection ; whether from having been the former proprietors, as Umbri and Pelasgi, they chose to remain as tenants upon the soil which they had once called their own; or whether emigrating from foreign tribes, they desired to esta- blish themselves upon the property, and join the vassalage of some powerful chief in Turrhenia. This species of social government was not only fairly represented by the Highland clans in Scotland, but it was probably called by the very same name, the word "clan," susceptible of this explanation, being- found in the Etruscan sepulchres,* and being after- wards Latinized into clientes or clients. Wherever Italy was civilized, subsequent to this period, there we find the government of Houses ; and the govern- ment of Houses is no other than that of Clans. In Rome each man took the name of his chief, as in * Vide Arcliaeologia Romana for 1837. Orioli in Tifone, vol. vii. TARCIIUN AND HIS INSTITUTIONS. 197 Scotliuul, and formed a Gens ; the name being pos- sibly derived from CLNs. In Etrnria, each man kept his own name, but formed, quite as inalien- ably, part of a particular Clan. The bond between clansman and chief was the strictest that can be conceived between man and man ; the Lucurao every- where representing his people, and being considered as their protector and head. The Lucumo, as we learn from Dionysius, was bound to help his vassals in time of need, to do and obtain for them justice, and to give them a right in all the land or spoil which conquest, by their aid, might bestow upon him. From Dionysius* and Livyt we learn that it was his province to arm them, and to call them forth to war when re- quired. The clansman who deserted his lord, and the lord who broke faith with his clansman, were equally devoted to the infernal gods. The chief could adopt into the Clan as many strangers as he pleased; but only those of the same blood could share the same grave.J Varro tells us, that when the Romans required help from the Tuscans, they applied to theLucumoes, Plutarch says, that the Lueumo and his men helped Romulus ; and Servius, that the twelve states of Etruria were each governed by a Lucumo, (i. e. Lar,) of whom one was chief. Virgil, a Mantuan by birth, confirms to us that the Lucurao was the usual name of all the chief peers, and not of the sovereign * ix. t ix. I Cicero de Leg. 22, 55. 98 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. only ; for he says that Mantua was divided in twelve Curiae, with a Lucumo over each.* The Lucumo, as we gather from Livy, was the governor, judge, priest, and general of the people.-f- The clansmen, on the other hand, were the mem- bers who supported the chief; they laboured for him, traded for him, and fought for him. The glory of his house was their glory, and the misfor- tunes of his family were their misfortunes.:}; They paid his debts if poor, ransomed him, if prisoner, and followed him into banishment, if exiled. This we know from the fate of Tarquin and others. They found their well-being in him, and he found his well-being in them. The connexion between them, like that of every primitive people, was p:\- triarchal ; and they had even their share in the go- vernment of their country, by voting on his side. Men who despise, as slavish or degrading, the relation of patron and client, should visit, with eyes and ears open, the mountains of Scotland. There they may still witness the hardy independence and intrepid daring, the warm affections and the gene- rous impulses which grow up as the fruits of such a system. It is consoling to know that roniance, when it exhibits and works up the noblest feelings of our nature, has its elements founded in truth. It is gra- tifying and delightful to our better minds, though it may be humbling to our pride and selfishness, to see amongst the poor Highlanders, the contempt for * Servius, JEu. x. 202. f Livy, x. 13; ix 3. t Dion. TAUCIIUN AND MIS INSTITUTIONS. 199 all that is mercenary, the value for all that is ele- vated, the refined tone of feelings which marks tiic poorest cottage, and the spirit of self-sacrifice and sub- lime magnanimity, which will display itself in word and action, the moment that chord is touched, whicli lies deep in the Highland heart, of the connexion between the clansman and his chief. This spiiit is not yet quite extinct ; and oh ! that it never might be ! There are still districts in which the old bond has not been broken ; where poverty can Avalk erect, and be warmly welcomed in the houses of the great, if it bear but on its front the ancient badge of integrity, fidelity, and courage. Throughout the British empire, and, indeed, throughout Europe, we can find men who will give, and proudly give their heart's blood for the man or the principle they love. But in the Highlands we find the poor and uneducated, who will give it from depth of filial sentiment, without faction, without bigotry, without self-interest, and who have not learned, and never will learn, to sell either their minds or bodies for the price of gold. This spirit of lofty honour and profound affection, though doubtless, in some respects, the result of peculiarities in the Highland temperament, yet, from having been so general, proves itself also to have been the effect of the Highland institutions ; and where the cord has been loosed, or the tie dissolved, it has in no instance, been on the side of the people, but on that of the alienated chief, who has been brought 200 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. up for himself, with foreign feelings in a foreign land.* In the beautiful words of the Edinburgh Review, No. 152, — *' The social affections, if concentrated within a well-defined circle, possess an intensity and endurance unrivalled by those passions of which self is the immediate object. The emotions with which the Spartan and the Jew have yearned over the land of their fathers, are emotions stronger than appetite, vanity, ambition, avarice, or death." And these are the emotions which the Rasena felt for the country of their adoption, the original princes of their blood, and the sacred institutions of Tages. The reasoning Lowland Scotchman, and the calm phlegmatic Englishman, who consider all these feelings as visionary, will no more believe that they existed of old throughout the land of Etruria, than that they are to be found in the Highlands now. Because they find no such devotion in themselves to their highest or first of kin, they cannot credit it in others, not considering that their state of society is differently ordered, and that their in- stitutions do not call such emotions forth. Where * We know of one mighty potentate, who, but for the de- votedness of his clan in former times, would now have been the insignificant laird of a little tower; and who, of late years, when asked what was to become of the poor cotters whose black turf cabins he was destroying, replied, with a sneer, " Lochdhu is deep enough for them all.'' Towards such chiefs the Highlander's heart is cold, and the throb of his pulse is low. TARCHUN AND HIS INSTITUTIONS. 201 the liead boasts of caring nothing for the body, as in England, the body, in return, will care nothing for the head ; but in Etruria no man lived for him- self, he lived for his country and his kindred. And this is as free and as happy a state as the bulk of a nation can ever know; for amongst the Clans any continuance of domestic tyranny was impossible, the good will of the people towards the chief being even more necessary than the good will of the chief to- wards his people ; and there can be no doubt that, if a tyrant did arise in Etruria, he was put away for the next of kin more worthy, even as has occurred in various instances amongst the clans in Scotland.* We shall find examples, as we proceed in this history, which show that the Etruscans, though patient, peaceable, and orderly, were no more en- during of unjust wrong, than brave men have been in any other climate, or under any other form of social life. We have dwelt upon this matter, perhaps some- what long, and somewhat wide of the purpose, yet it was impossible to describe the Lucumoes without also describing the clients, through whose adhesion and numbers they became Lucumoes, at least in the first instance ; and no doubt every chief at Vol- tumna had also with him chosen followers of his own Clan — followers whom he treated neither as servants nor as slaves. We have said that, besides the King, the Augur, the Aruspex, the Lucumo, and their vassals, the * See Stuart's Highlands. K 5 202 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. presence of the Feciales was requisite at the coun- cil of Voltumna. The Fecial was a very remark- able Etruscan institution. He was an officer to watch over and preserve the public peace, to take away the reasons for war, and to repress the spirit of vengeance. Servius (viii.) tells us, the order was derived to Rome from Falisci or Ardea, and it shows us that the Rasena, though brave, armed, and disciplined, were a people who had no delight in battle or in blood. Tarchun founded colleges of these men ; they were all noble, and their office sacred ; and hence, whilst officiat- ing, their persons were inviolable. There were several of them in each state, and their character was something between an ambassador and a herald. Like all the Lucumoes, they were priests, and could take auspices ; but they were not here- ditary. If one tribe offended another, the Feciales were sent in a dress of ceremony, and crowned with vervain,* to the Senate of the state against which complaint was made. Doubtless they rode in cha- riots, each drawn by two horses, richly caparisoned, as we see represented in the sepulchres, and at- tended by a small guard of armed and resolute men. Arrived and admitted into the senate, where state causes were heard, the Feciales named the grievance of which they complained, and demanded redress within thirty days, or, as some authors say,t within * A plant sacred to the Phoenician god of citadels. — A. His. xvii. p. 225. t Niebuhr. TARCHUN AND HIS INSTITUTIONS. 203 ten tlays, rej)eating the demand thrice, so as to give three truces to the offenders, of ten days each, or thirty days in all. At the end of this time, if their representations were not attended to, they took Tina and the other gods to witness, that they had performed their duty, and that it was now for their country to decide upon the event. On their return home, they announced to their senate that war was now lawful ; and, if it was resolved upon, they re- turned to the limits of the hostile state, and there, casting a spear across the frontiers into the enemies' territory, called the gods to witness against the want of justice in that people, and their obstinacy in refusing reparation. The confederation of the social war is represented on the Samite coins, by a Fecial clothed in a tunic, sacrificing a pig,* this being the prayer of impreca- tion : " May Jove strike the breaker as the Fecial strikes this pig."t Virgil (viii.) represents this cere- mony as consecrating every warlike alliance, and it is a common subject upon ancient gems. The Fecial must equally sanction by his presence every treaty of peace, and alliance of friendship, and on very solemn occasions the head of his college, called by the Latins "Pater Patratus," was himself obliged to attend. I It is conjectured that the chief reason why no man could be head Fecial who had not both * Varro. Cicero. t Livy. ix. It is remarkable that this sacrifice and prayer are to be found unaltered amongst the gypsies. — See Sorrow's Gipsies in Spain. X Livy i. 24. 204 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. a father and a son living, was that these ties might bind him in the strongest manner, to wish for peace and to deprecate war with its certain evils and un- certain successes. Dionysius of Halicarnassus places the Feciales amongst the earliest institutions of Italy, and calls them by the name of Spondophorai, a Greek heraldic office, no doubt imitated from them. The Feciales, like most other Etruscan institutions, gradually found place amongst their neighbours, and give us a most interesting view, of the moderation and sobriety which marked the indelibly eastern character of the Rasena. After Turrhenia was conquered, and her boun- daries fixed, Tarchun established the Feciales, and encroached upon his neighbours no more. It was in his time, and probably is still, a fixed notion among the people of the East, that God has given a certain portion of land to each nation, either for perpetuity, or for a certain number of centuries. That during this time he will help them to defend their land, and will render them victorious over those who attack them ; but that he will not give them the land of others, nor bless them in any attempt to usurp foreign rights and properties.* We have the most convincing evidence of these ideas in many parts of the Scriptures. St. Paul tells us, speak- ing to the Greeks at Athens, that God who made the world and all things therein, hath made of one blood * Deut. ii. 5, 19, whole chapter very strong; Josh. xxiv. 4; Judges xi. 24. 7 TARCIIUN AND HIS INSTITUTIONH. 205 all nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before ap- pointed, and the bounds of their habitations.* And Moses says that when the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people, ac- cording to the number of the children of Israel. In the Book of Numbers, the Israelites are encouraged to fall upon their enemies, because " their defence" (that is, the protection of God during their day) is de- parted from them. We cannot say that the Israelites had Feciales, but between Egypt and Canaan we find them once, twice, and even thrice, sending some of their nobles as ambassadors of peace to the kings of the countries they passed through, to Moab and Ammon, Edom, and the Amorites ; and every war and every peace amongst them was always solemnized with sacrifice. The institution of the Feciales proves to us that might with the Rasena was not held to be right, and that their great gods were considered as the foes and punishers of unjust war. In consequence of which maxims, the Etruscans conquered far, and colonized, and allied themselves, and diffused their influence still further. Yet they never considered the twelve dynasties of Etruria Proper to extend beyond the bounds originally fixed by Tarchun, i. e. from the Po to the Tiber, and they looked upon war as so great an evil, that even when just and necessary, it required an excuse, and time to * Acts xvii. 26 ; Num. xiv. 9 ; Deut. xxxii. 8 ; Judges xi. 12. 206 HISTORY OF ETRURIA, be given, both to the offending; and offended, for passion to cool and reason to resume her sway. The Feciales were a college appointed to watch over the public peace,* and their ceremonies were called in Rome the Jus Feciale. Besides these magnates, whose presence was in- dispensable at Voltumna, there must have been other classes whom we shall notice afterwards, such as naturalized strangers, merchants, and slaves. Pro- bably there were no women of the upper classes at these meetings, for the Etruscan women, though much honoured and carefully instructed, and eligible even more than the English women, to offices of responsibility, but seldom came forward in public life. They were doubtless educated in the bosom of their own families ; they ruled in their own houses, for they kept all the keys, excepting those of the cellar ;t they headed their husband's tables, as we see in the representations of feasts in the tombs at Chiusi and Tarquinia. They rode in chariots, had places of honour in the public games, and were admitted both to the throne and to the priesthood. It is even possible that they occasionally fought in the army, from Virgil's episode of Camilla, queen of the Volsci ; as Virgil M^ould not have put into his poem anything that would have revolted the common opi- nions or traditions of his countrymen, as to the state * Authorities for Feciales : — Miiller ; Niebuhr in Loco ; Cicero ; Varro ; Livy i. 24, ix. ; Plut. in Numa ; Dionys. i. ; Serv. vii. ; Virg. JEn. x. 14 ; vii.; viii. 641 ; ix. 53. t Dempster, de Etru. Reg. TARCIIUN AND HIS INSTITUTIONS. 207 of women in the early clays of Italy. But whether they ever fought or not, they never voted in the senate, nor had any voice in making the laws, nor any influence in the general elections, and they never came forward as a public body. Oue superior female mind may be found in every large society at all times, equally fit for self-government, and the government of others. There are few men of exten- sive acquaintance who could not name, and perhaps even agree upon one such woman, in whom they could repose confidence, and to whom they could render admii-ation. But an assembly of such women, firm in character and wise in council, a democracy, or an aristocracy, or even an oligarchy of such women, is a phenomenon which the world has yet to witness, and which has never been fabled even amongst the Amazons, nor tried even amongst the Radicals. 208 B. C. CENT. XII. CHPTER X. TARCHUN AND HIS INSTITUTIONS, Division of the Land, and Classes of the People. " The laws of Tages, promulgated by Tarchun,* treated of the division of the people into tribes — Curise and Decurise, the apportionment of the land, and the constitution of the army." It is surely in- teresting to have some clear idea of the form of go- vernment which Tarchun established over Etruria, and of the manner in which he settled the twelve tribes of his people in their new land, along with its former possessors, and this prompts us to ask, by what rule, or if by any, he divided amongst them the conquered country? We shall say upon this point, and upon all other subjects of civil polity, as much as we think necessary for the perfect comprehension of the subsequent history, and no more ; as each article must be treated of in detail, when we come to the chapter upon the manners and customs of the Etruscans. " The Rasena were divided into tribes," and a tribe in all cases of colonizing amongst the later * Cicero de Div. TARCIIUN AND HIS INSTITUTIONS. 209 Italians was represented by one thousand men, this tliousand being- again represented in the Senate by a hundred. The number of the tribes when the Rasena landed, was probably twelve. But as on their location inEtraria,each of these twelve occupied only one state, and we know that the Senate in each state consisted of more than one tribe, and that the Etruscans incorporated with themselves the Unibri, the Pelasgi, and in some places the Siculi also ; so in each state, the senate probably was composed, as we find it afterwards in Rome, Fidene, Mantua, and in other places, of the hundred families of the Rasena? who represented the thousands of their tribe, and of an equal number of Umbri, Pelasgi, or whatever other nation they associated with themselves. Each body of senators was again represented by ten chiefs — the L.ch.mes or Lucumoes of the Etruscans, and the Decuriones of the Latins; and the tribes com- posing the senate were so far not equal, that the votes of the first in order, were always taken first, and those of the second next, and the majority of votes decided; so that, when these two agreed in opinion, the acquiescence of the third was of no con- sequence, and excepting for form's sake, their votes need not have been asked. This, however, was not the case upon the election of a king, when all the tribes must be agreed. Every city of the Rasena, esta- blished by Tarchun, or between his time and that of Romulus, when submitted to criticism,* has been found to consist of three different elements, viz. (1) * See the remarks of Miiller, Niebuhr, Arnold, Gell, and 210 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. Etruscan, (2) Umbrian, or Sabine, and (3) Pelasgic, Latin, or Sikelian, i. e. of any other native tribe of Italy ; and as the Romans took their laws and reli- gion,* (which we shall afterwards more fully prove,) their forms and ceremonies from the Etruscans, so we must suppose what we find in Rome of later days, to have been only a copy of that which previously, and from the beginning, was practised in Etruria. If Tages gave rules for tribes, then the tribes were an ordinance of Tarchun, and indeed that they were so, is further proved, because all the land through- out civilized Italy was divided with a special re- ference to the tribes, and all authors and critics are agreed, that the Italian division of land was derived from Etruria. The senate, composed of three tribes, agrees with all the ordinances and superstitions of the Etruscans, and with the three great gods, the three holy gates, the three classes of priests, warriors, and people, with masters, vassals, and slaves, and even with chiefs, clans, and strangers, which made up the whole population. In each Tarchunian city, the tribe was represented in the senate by one hundred peers: each peer standing for ten registered houses, of which he was captain, or DnV, L.ch.m. These captains were again divided into ten each, forming a curia, and over every curia was a prince, called in Latin a Decu- rion, commanding one hundred warriors. Hence the ten Decurions of the chief tribe were the princes Micali, upon any of the towns in the vicinity of Rome with which Romulus and TuUus HostUius were at war. * See Dionysius, Livy, Festus, Servius. TAUCllUN AND HIS INSTITUTIONS. "2 1 1 of the Senate, wliosc votes were upon all occasions taken first, and it is not unlikely, that as each of" these princes voted, so the nine under them would consider themselves bound to vote, and as the sove- reign would probably belong to them, and vote with them, and the majority of votes decided, if ever a senate consisted of two tribes only, these ten first would virtually rule. All throughout Italian history, we find these " first ten," these princes of the Senate, distinguished beyond their co-senators.* It is also very likely that, provided the Decurion or great Lucumo was in his place, the presence of the other members of the curia might not be thought indis- pensable, and their absence might be little regarded. This is probable, because the senators voted in curia, and therefore every ten counted only one vote, and was represented by the Decurion, though the majority decided the sense of the whole. We presume then that each nation which sub- mitted itself to the constitutions of Tages, was really represented in the senate by ten of its chiefs or De- curions, though the actual number of men was one hundred, and the proportion of influence which each bore in the original government would be like the pro- portion between Normans, Saxons, and Celts, under William the Conqueror. One hundred and twenty Etruscan Lucumoes in twelve different Senates, might possibly represent one hundred and twenty thousand, or any lesser number of souls, whilst a hundred and twenty Umbrian or Pelasgic chiefs would represent many millions. The votes of the Umbri would not * Niebuhr on ten Princes of Italian Senates, 212 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. be taken until after those of the Tuscans, and those of the third class, that of the Pelasgi or Sikeli, would have little chance of any weight, excepting when the other two disagreed, or when the caprice and favour of the king, for which there was small room, raised to undue influence some chosen indi- vidual. The justice and equality of the Etruscan rule, whatever it might be, are demonstrated by the perpetual fidelity of the Umbri, whilst, nevertheless, Tuscany did not become a part of Umbria, but Um- bria, says Cato, " pars Tusciae." And the inferior weight of the Pelasgi to either of the others is de- monstrated, in that we know of no chief and no laws bearing their name, nor indeed of anything relating to them, excepting that their descendants continued to dwell undisturbed and contented in several towns of the Umbri and Turrheni down to the days of Augustus. Our ideas of this composition of the Senate are derived partly from the reasonings of Niebuhr upon the Latin states ; but chiefly because all the senates of which we have any detailed ac- counts were actually so composed. That of Ardea consisted of Latins, Siculi, and Tuscans ; that of Cere of Tuscans, Pelasgi, and Siculi ; that of Tusculum, of Tuscans, Latins, and Siculi ; that of Fidene, of Tuscans, Sabines, and Latins, and so on. We may doubt whether in the towns which the Umbri had previously conquered from the Pelasgi, this last race retained any shadow of rule or not, but it is most consonant with Etruscan policy that they should have done so, and we therefore believe the TARCIIUN AND IIIS INSTITUTIONS. 213 senates of Penig-ia, Cortona, Pisa, Falleria,* &c. to have consisted, like the others, of three tribes. The word tribe everywhere throughout Italian liistory, denotes a nation, or the distinct people of some small district. A tribe was represented in towns by congeries of tens, and in the Senate by curiae and decurise. In the state, i. e. throughout the coun- try, these tribes were divided into centuries or hundreds, the names denoting things rather than numbers, even as our land division in England of a hundred has long ceased to signify a numerical dis- trict or relation. That reckonings in round numbers were of this loose sort amongst the easterns, we may learn from observing, first, that the men of a certain age only were reckoned, not including women, children, or followers ; and, secondly, from many examples in the Scriptures. For instance, in numbering the children of Israel in Exod. xii. 37, 600,000 are put for 603,000, and in Exod. xxxviii. 26, and again in Numb. i. where this enumeration is repeated, it is expressly said not to include the Levites, who, with their male children, amounted to 22,000 more, (JNumb. iii. 39,) doubtless leaving out odd numbers. In Exodus and Galatians the sojourning of the children of Israel in Egypt is said to have continued 430 years, (Exod. xii. 40, Galat. iii.) ; and in Gen. xv. and in Acts vii. it is called 400 years ; and so we find of almost all the symbolical and round numbers when subjected to criticism. Thousands and centuries, therefore, * The senate and curia are described by Plut. and Dion. Hal. 214 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. amongst the Etruscans, were conventional, and not real numbers. The centuries were districts of land which were di- vided between the chiefs, the clients, and the Plebs or natives, this last being an order of which we have not yet spoken , and of wliich we do not know the Etruscan name. The Plebs were natives, or subjects, either so born, or so made by agreement or by conquest, who were amenable to the laws, and claimed the protection of the state, but none of whom were peers, and conse quently none of whom, of whatever rank, had any share in the public offices, nor any seat in the senate of the country. Miiller* says that patron, client, and plebs, tribe and curia, were all Etruscan institu- tions, and that either the names or the things or both, were derived from Etruria to Rome. King Servius the Etruscan, separated the Roman centuries into tribes, i. e. into the different nations of which they were composed, and it is probable that he only in- troduced into his new kingdom, the customs long established in his native land. The centuries had votes as well as the curiae, but of immeasurably less weight, and the proportion between them was most aptly expressed by the body of the child to the head of the man, at the same time that the possession of even a portion of a vote, satisfied with some notion of dignity, the Urabrian or Sabine noble, numbered amongst the Plebs, who submitted to the Etruscans. The centuries chose the magistrates, had a voice in questions of war, and confirmed the laws which were accepted by the Senate, and proposed by the king.f * Miiller ii. on Vulci. f Ancient Hist. vol. xi. TARCIIUN AND HIS INSTITUTIONS. 215 According- to Niebubr,* every government, by bouses or cbiefs of cUms must necessarily bave Plebs, tbat is, free and native subjects, wbo are not witbin tbe pale of tbe cbiefs and tbeir prescriptive rigbts. Tbcy served in war, inberited lands, bad tbeir own privileges and rigbts, and took part in tbe common laws ; but tbey could never sit in tbe Senate, except- ing by adoption into one of tbe original bouses, or by tbe gift of a peerage from tbe king: a rigbt, tbe exercise of wbicb was always viewed with tbe utmost jealousy, and wbicb in later times was probably never exercised. Eacb peer, or senator, or member of a curia, bad of course his bouse and establisbment in tbe metro- polis of tbe state, and Dionysiusf tells us tbat (ac- cording to the laws of Tages) each curia had one hundred portions of land allotted to it, each man's portion being two jugeraj or four vorsi, which be was bound to cultivate ; one jugera for corn, and one for orchard, besides tbe common pasture. Hence each curia possessed four hundred vorsi of land, called its " Fundus," and each Senator was answer- able for tbe cultivation of the forty vorsi, and for the conduct of the ten soldiers' houses which be repre- sented. In the country centuries, each soldier's por- tion was reckoned by tbe same measure, and half this portion was given to the plebeians. Miiller calls tbe curiae by the admirable name of town parishes, so that we may say each city tribe was divided into ten parishes, or Curiae, and eacb parish into ten magis- * Nieb. vol. i. 442, ii, 506. f Dion. ii. 7, p. 82. X Plut. in Rom. •216 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. trades, or senators' jurisdictions, and every magis- trate was bound to furnish ten men to the militia or national guard of his country,* Each Curia or parish had its own priest and tem- ple, and most probably this office appertained to the Decurion who was priest amongst his brethren, for his and their retainers; and when the house of any Decurion became extinct, another house would be elected to take the priority in its place. In this view, the ten princes of a tribe would also be the ten priests, to take auspices and offer sacrifices, to register births, deaths, and marriages, to see that military discipline was preserved, and to exercise in- spection over the conduct of the others.-f Many of the curule magistrates, perhaps most of them, had large possessions in the country, besides their sena- torial property in the towns, and they might be chiefs of the centuries, as well as holding, under a light tax, a large portion of the common land, which they gradually came to consider as their own. The country proprietors and the peasantry first located in the centurial districts, may have consisted of one * All this will be found admirably explained in Arnold's his- tory of early Rome, from Livy, Varro, and Cicero ; and we need only to bear in mind that not only the first Roman, but the first Italian institutions, were all Etruscan. Dionysius, who wrote the Etruscan history, now lost, is the author who gives us the fullest account of the tribes, curiae, and centuries, though they had ceased to exist in Rome two hundred years before he wrote, and he says that they were all Etruscan in their origin. t Miiller says the Decurion was priest, captain, and magis- trate of the curia. TARCIIUN AND HIS INSTITUTIONS. 217 luiiulred families, or of an unlimited number of fa- milies under one hundred names, upon one hundred portions of that district ; the portions being deter- mined by varying circumstances, as in the case of the Latins afterwards, whose land was divided ac- cording to the limits of their conquests, and there- fore in some districts the portions would be much larger than in others.* This land, once inscribed in the Agrimensoral books as " a century," continued ever after to constitute it in the eye of the law, and some of these old Etruscan, and perhaps Tarchunian, centurial fundi, can be recognised at this day. Niebuhrf names two close toFerentinum, " Roiana and Ceponia," now called " La Roana, and La Cipol- lara.":j: No doubt, Italians themselves are acquainted with many more. These districts are ascertained from old records, old inscriptions, and the Pandects. The land of the centuries might be sold or be- queathed ; but however often it might change hands, the proprietor was always reckoned as belonging to the same century with the land. § The century, in its original, certainly referred to persons, as one hundred families, or one hundred soldiers, with their kindred ; and the measured por- tion of land assigned to each century was called * Niebnhr. f vol. ii. p. 708, X Lands took the names of tlie tribes. (Plin. xviii. 3.) § All this account of the centuries is taken from Niebuhr. The centuries, according to Livy, were patricians, clients, and plebs, altogether. They had ceased, long before his day, in Latium. 218 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. " Fundus." The curia or hundred warriors' houses, in the town, doubtless imaged the century or hundred warriors' houses in the country; and in counting a house, it is possible that the establishments, or the cabins of one man's father and grandfather, and of another man's seven sons, may have been reckoned as one only, he being the effective head, and there- fore standing in the militia roll for one house. For an instance of how families and households were calculated in eastern reckonings, see Joshua vii. 17, where Achan is drawn by lot from the tribe of Judah, compared with 1 Chron. ii. "Joshua brought the family of Judah, and the Lord took the family of the Zarhites : and he brought the family of the Zarhites, man by man : and Zabdi was taken. And he brought his household, man by man: and Achan, the son ofCarmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, was taken." Achan is made the grandson of Zabdi, and Zabdi the grandson of Judah. Four generations are given as the result of 470 years, for Judah himself was an elderly man, when he went down into Egypt. The tribe of Judah at this time, numbered 76,500 fighting men in round numbers, all above the age of twenty, and these in Chronicles, where we have the numbers most in detail, are ranged in three branches, under sixteen households. Again, we have an example of households in Josh. xxii. 13 and 14, when the two and a half tribes send Phineas the prince of Levi, and ten princes with him, as a sort of Feciales to their bre- thren, " of each chief house a prince, each one, head TAIiCllUN AND HIS INSTITUTIONS. 219 of a hmse^ among the thousands of Israel ;" or, as we might say, " each one a Sar and L.ch.ra among the hundreds of thousands, of the children of Jacob. When new laws were made, the Senators an- nounced these laws to the people assembled in cen- turies, and these centuries were entitled to meet every ninth or market-day,* though, in fact, they probably only met when desired to do so, or when it was important for them to know the great feasts or periods which occurred in the month, such as the time to reap, or to sow ; or the new ordinances agreed upon after some council at Voltumna. The clans- men (clients or gens) could only vote in curia, that is, as belonging to the city parishes of their patrons. Besides the portion of each citizen senator, for vine and corn land, each city had a district assigned to it upon its foundation, called " Agger," which was never afterwards enlarged, and in which were built the suburbs. All the measured land beyond, was pasturage, and belonged to the Senators only, for the use of them and of their clans. This land was limited, and its boundaries were carefully marked, and placed under the perpetual care of twelve nobles, representing the twelve Etruscan tribes, all Arus- pices, and called Arvales, or by the Latins " Fratres Arvales," when the same establishment was intro- duced into the Latin cities. The Arvales were men who placed the boundary stones whicb were held sacred, and it was their duty, * Miiller. l2 220 HISTORY OP ETRURIA. once every year, to keep a feast, with hymns and processions, pacing round the boundaries, to see that they were preserved uninjured. The word " Arvales" is probably Etruscan from its great like- ness to " urvare or arvare," which Festus and Varro tell us was the Tuscan for " surround, inclose." The processions of the Arvales were called Arvalia and Ambarvalia, (ab ambiendis arvis,) and the sacrifices offei'ed at them were a pig, a sheep and a bnlL all purely Etruscan. The brethren walked three times round the boundaries, crowned with oak, the " corona Etrusca." These men decided all con- troversies with respect to boundaries and divisions of land ; they held their dignity for life, and they took care of all public funerals, and of the monuments to illustrious patriots. As Romulus * was one of this order, we presume that the prince of the people was often, if not always, at their head ; and as they are by some authors called Augurs, it is likely that the Augurs also, by right, belonged to their body ; but Latin authors so constantly confuse together Augurs and Haruspices, that we cannot trust their use of the word, without collateral evidence. Pliny f tells us that the Arvales were crowned with corn in honour of Ceres, which cannot refer to processions round the agger, since it was wholly pastoral ; but to Ambarvalia in the agricultural centuries, throughout Etruria and those parts of Italy which adopted Etruscan civilization. As Rome introduced the Arvales from Laurentum,the Latin states are proved * Plut. t Plin. lib. xviii. 2. TAKCIIUN AND HIS INSTITUTIONS. t22 1 to have adopted tlieni before Romulus ; and as tlie first Arvalian funeral honours in Rome were pei-- formed for Tatius, the Sabine king, the Sabines are proved to have adopted them also. The first Sodales in Rome, i. e. Arvales in a funeral capacity, were the " Sodales Titii." * Terminus was the god of boundaries, and therefore we cannot but suppose that sacrifices were offered to him, and that hymns were sung in his praise, as well as in that of the patron saint, which last would vary in each place. The Roman Carmen Arvale which has come down to us in honour of Mars, seems strangely incongruous for a procession of peace, and so does the Sabine Carmen, mentioned in Latin authors in honour of Ceres, were it ever used, to celebrate the limits of what was strictly reserved for pasture land. None but the Senate had any right in this land ; and therefore no stranger, however noble, and no merchant, however rich, though both might be na- turalized, could have any portion in it. It was the state or government property, and therefore no man could have any share in it unless he formed part of the government.t The great NiebuhrJ says that the Agrimensoi'es or land measurers, under whatever name we may find them, or with whatever dignity their office might be combined, were undoubtedly as to origin, Etruscan, and that by this, we may trace the Etrus- * Authorities for Arvales : Virg. Geor. i. v. 339, 345 ; Tib. 2, el. i. V. 19 ; Cato de R. R. c, 141 ; Varro de L. L. 4. t See Niebuhr on Agger. % lb. ii. p. 698. 222 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. can settlements throughout Italy. Indeed he, Sir Wm. Gell, and other modern writers, have in this manner of late years discovered the introduction of Etruscan institutions into the Greek colonies in Campania and South Italy, where it had not before been even suspected. " The agrimensoral or arvalian measurement," says Niebuhr,* " was older than the foundation of Rome, and it survived the empire for five hundred years. The elements of it were Etruscan mathematics, applied to Etruscan astro- nomy." Its grand work was the templum of square measurement, with cardo and decumanus, and we need no more repeat that wherever we find the templum, there we trace the Etruscan augury, and that the first Etruscan Augur was the Ludin Prince " Tarchun of the Rasena." He commanded the division of the land according to the tribes of the people, as part of the laws of Tages, and we learn the sacred nature of the landmarks from a fragment of the Lib. VegoJ8e,t now in the Vatican, and from the refusal of Terminus to move his bounds even for Tina, when the multitude desired to extend beyond them his metropolitan temple.;]: As the Etruscan land, in the first instance, was all conquered, and, in the second, all colonized, so we must believe it to have followed the laws which Tages laid down for conquered lands and colonies in general: whether his people originated these laws by their example, or whether in their conduct, * ii. p. 697. t Ap. rei agr. p. 258. X Plut. in Pub. TARCIIUN AND HIS INSTITUTIONS. 223 only they acted according to previously known and written jjrecepts. By the law of conquest in Etruria Proper, the whole of the land belonged to the conquerors, so that all dwelling upon it were reckoned Etruscans henceforward, whatever they might have been before, and one-third of this land was restored to its old possessors, subject to a tax of one-tenth of the pro- duce, to government.* The remainder was again divided into three, of which one part was appor- tioned to the army, one to the priesthood, i. e. was reserved for religious and public purposes, and one- third was for the crov^n or senatorial government, but it does not appear that these divisions were equal. The land for the army was portioned off in centuries, each taking the name of the Centurial chief, and the allotment was two jugera per man for the Etruscan or Curial soldier, and one for the Plebian or non-curial soldier. An Etruscan lot in the century, according to Niebuhr, f whether in Etrurian Umbria, or in the colonies of Campania and of North Italy, measured ten rods of ten feet each, making one vorsus, and one of these lots was the legal award of each inde- pendent or Plebeian soldier, four of them being the due of each Patrician. Each vorsus, therefore, con- tained one hundred square feet, and each full J cen- tury ten thousand, being one hundred feet every way. * Niebuhr. f ii. p. 705. ;J: "We have already stated that many of the centuries were not full measure. 224 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. All the centuries, whether in town or country, were limited, that is, were measured oif by the Augurs in this manner _L_ , and within the cardo and decu- manus, auguries might be taken. This land was as sacred to the century, whether patrician or militial, as the gates and walls were to tlie city. The limits were drawn round it by the plough, according to the old Phoenician custom recorded of Carthage, with ridges ; and the corners were marked by boundary stones, which were numbered with the letters of the old Ogham alphabet, i. e. with Etruscan numerals. Cicero says,*' when a colony had once been settled in this manner, its lands throughout Italy were holy, and could never be resumed, neither could any- other colony ever be settled in its place. As the Arvales divided the land, and appear to have con- secrated it, which last was the office of the Augur alone, we infer that the Augurs or some of them, ne- cessarily formed a part of the Arvalian College. The Latin measurement of these portions was larger than the Etruscan, being one hundred and twenty feet square,t instead of one hundred ; hence we learn that the size of the lot was decided by some considera- tion external to it, such as a difference of sacred num- bers amongst the people, or certain numbers being sacred to certain gods. Niebuhr says that twelve Etruscan rods made ten Roman. The Roman portion in the century, therefore, was measured like the Etruscan, ten rods square, and the difference of size would result from the rod of the one being longer than * See Nieb. p. 701. t Varro de R. R. i. 10. TAUCIIUN AND HIS INSTITUTIONS. 'SZO the rod of the Other, whilst both were sui)posetl to lepreseiit one measure. As, for instance, the Scotch pint is double the English, but an Englishman giving a receipt to a Scotchman, and not aware of this, would cause him to use wrong proportions. A Scotch acre is larger than an English, which would cause a mistake to Englishmen in the sale and value of lands; and if Scotland iKlopted as a military rule from England, that each soldier's portion should be one acre, the Scotchman's portion would be larger than the Englishman's, though both were supposed to express the same, and though the former nation took its rule from the latter.* Our knowledge of the exact sizes of these allot- ments enables us in Italy to trace, concerning certain centuries or aggers, whether they were laid off by Romans or Etruscans, Miiller names some tables lately found at Heraclea in Calabria, which give the * The pound Scot also differs from the pound English, the former reckoning 20c?. and the latter 20^, Ignorance of this difference, by English lawyers, once occasioned a curious piece of good fortune to a Scotch family. James VI. owed a sum, say 5,000 pounds Scots, to a man of the name of Callender, which being iinpaid when he ascended the English throne, the maft sued for it in London ; the king accordingly ordered his debt to be paid, and the Exchequer delivered to him £5,000 English, with which he bought the estate of Craig Forth, now enjoyed by his family. It is evident that 20 weights, in its origin, represented a lb., and the lb. Scot being much heavier than the English, consisting frequently of 20 oz., it is likely that 20 copper pieces in the one country were equivalent to the same nominal weight with the 20 silver in the other, and were imagined to be the same thing. L 5 226 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. division of the temple land after the Etruscan fashion. The cardines are called Automai, and show that Etruscan fashions were also adopted by the Greeks according- to the testimony of Plato de legibus, v. The profound Niebuhr* says that the Sabellian sacred number is four, and the Latin, three and ten ; and that twelve in Rome, expresses the union of three multiplied by four, i. e. of the Latin and Sa- bine tribes. The Etruscan number, he says, is ten, which, if it means to limit Etruscan sacred ness to that number, we can by no means understand, since it is certain that three and twelve were equally sacred in the Etruscan kalender. Three great gods, three holy gates, three classes of people ; twelve tribes, twelve fasces, twelve lictors, &cc. &c., twelve, and three, and four, in their numismatic system, as well as ten in the number of their seculse, and in the division of their people. We are, therefore, in- clined to attribute the introduction of all these num- bers amongst the native Italians to the Rasena, even as we must attribute to them the numeral characters by which they are noted. The fact of each of these different numbers being sacred, united with the fun- damental rule of Etruscan theology, " to take away the worship of no native god," would admit of a di- versity of measures amongst the different tribes, though all might be governed by one and the same grand ruling principle. We know, from the history of the Jews, the Egyptians, and the Hindoos, that these numbers of four and twelve, three and ten, * Nieb. vol. ii. p. 95. TARCriUN AND HIS INSTITUTIONS. 227 were prevalent and sacred in that part of tlie woi-ld which was the centre of primitive civilization ;* therefore we are again inclined to trace back even the holy numbers of the Etruscans to an Assyrian origin. Need we here allude to the Eastern origin of land- marks? to their necessity in Egypt, where all the land was every year overflowed, and where without landmarks, no man could have reclaimed his own when the waters retired, or to the many laws and precepts concerning them scattered throughout the Scrif>tures ? Need we mention the measure of the Hebrew pontifical agger of two thousand cubits,t which is prescribed to the priestly cities in Israel, or the reference which is made to it, as a universal cus- tom of Ludin in the days of ancient Job ? " Some remove the landmarks, (from the pastoral lands, per- haps a patrician agger,) and they violently take away the flocks." The Etruscan Curial agger with its landmarks, was pastoral, whilst all the rural cen- turies were agricultural, being measured out for corn, which was cultivated in Italy before all history, and found there by the Rasena, and for the vine, which their first king is said to have introduced, as we shall see hereafter. * The twelve tribes of the Hebrews, from the time of Moses down to the Babylonish captivity, were divided into tens, and fifties, and hundreds, and thousands. The ancient Hindus were divided into governments of one town, ten towns, twenty towns, one hundred towns, and one thousand towns. — See Sir W. Jones. t Numb. XXXV. 228 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. Moses, the Egyptian Hebrew, who came out of the Avaris, the Assyrian part of Eg-ypt, either sup- poses that land-measuring and landmarks were cus- toms that must have obtained amongst all civilized nations, or he knew that it was the order of the coun- try throughout the wealthy and populous Palestine. In Deut. xix. 14, he says to the Israelites, giving them laws for their future settlement, " Thou shalt not remove thy neighbour's landmark, which they of old time have set." (The old time is mentioned before the new time had commenced. Moses quotes antiquity !) " Which thou shalt inherit in the land that the Lord thy God giveth thee, to possess it." The landmarks amongst the Hebrews were sacred ; and as if the Arvalian College of twelve men had also been an institution of Egypt, or of the patri- archal times, with some significant meaning, Moses commands that one prince out of every tribe should divide the land by inheritance.* Both with the Hebrews and the Rasena, the land of the tribe and of the century was divided by lot ;t because the extent of a single portion was the same, whether the land were good or bad, and the person to whom the lot fell, in both cases, referred the event to his god. Amongst the Etruscans, all was re- fei»red to Tina, or to Nortia, the Goddess of Fortune, or to the patron saint, they being sought by sacrifice ; and amongst the Hebrews we all remember the wise * Num. xxxiv. 18. t Lots : Numb. xxvi. 55; xxxiii. 54; xxxiv. 13; Josh. xv. TARCnUN AND IIIS INSTITUTIONS. 229 king's sentence, "The lot is cast into the lap, but tlic whole disposing- tliereof is from the Lord/' * When the century was measured off and divided into one hundred parts, these were numbered, and one hundred tickets,t also numbered, were put into an urn. As each man drew out his number, his name was inscribed against it, in the public land register, and it became his possession. The remainder of the land was common or crown land, and a large portion was sometimes bestowed upon individuals for eminent services, but more com- monly, it was given only for life. Limited, i. e. measured-off portions were let to the people for pas- turage, and the unlimited belonged to the Lucu- moes, subject to a tax of one-tenth, until reclaimed by the state at the death of an individual, and then given away upon the same terras to his heir. The pasture lands were relet every five years, i. e. every lustrum. This constitution had for ages obtained all over Asia and Egypt,;]: and being once introduced by the Rasena, it became common to every people in Italy. Will any man say that the Rasena from Ludin learnt this system from the barbarous Italians, or semi-barbarous Pelasgi ? If they did not originate it, from whom did they adopt it, and how came the elements of it in Italy to be always theirs ? The conquered people who did not belong to the * Prov. xvi. 33. See further on this subject, Levit. xxv. 10, 23, 25 ; Prov. xxii. 28, xxiii. 10. t Niebuhr. X See Josepbus ; Herod, ii. 168 ; Nieb, ii. p. 152 ; Gen. xlvii. 230 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. chiefs, with seats in the senate, and land in the agger, were, as we have said, called plebs, or ple- beians, such, at least, is the word in a Latin form, which, according to Miiller, represents a caste amongst the Etruscans. The plebs* comprehended all, whether noble or simple, whether great or small, who were neither senators, nor the clansmen of sena- tors ; they were conquered subjects and naturalized strangers, only connected with the senatorial houses politically. They had property and votes in the centuries, municipal rights, commercial liberty, state protection, and domestic privileges ; they shared the public burdens, paid taxes, and fought in the army, but they could not marry with the senators' houses, and hence the misalliance of a Lucumo's daughter with the Greek chief, Demaratus ; they belonged to no city tribe, or curia ; they had no Etruscan peer- age, and therefore they could have no share in the government, nor in the state property .f So devoted were the Kasena to order and discipline amongst all classes of the people, that in the cities, the non-noble of this class, were divided into corporate trades and colleges of art. Niebuhr conceives the nine cor- porations ofServius to have been Plebeian. * The Plelas ought never to be confounded with the populus or people of which they were only a class. ■\- The land was allotted to the plebs in centuries, and the plebeian soldier had half the share of his officer. In all divi- sions, limits were kept for the highways. Each tribe, or sepa- rate people in centuries, had its chief and temple, its arable and its common or pasture land, and the pasture alone of the ple- beians was taxed. Neibuhr ; Miiller ; Plin. xxiii. TARCIIUN AND III3 INSTITUTIONS. 231 When new lands were conquered and tlie natives received one-third back as their own, they were sub- jected to a tribute of what Niebuhr calls the Etruscan sacred number, of one-tenth to government; and if they were allowed to retain their own lands altogether upon submission, (which, beyond the bounds of Etruria Proper, seems always to have been the case during the dominion of the Rasena,) then they held them in use only; the state being, as in many Euro- pean countries, perpetual lord paramount of the soil, and in legal fiction entitled to resume it, or portion it out for colonies, whenever it chose. The pasture land at all times paid the sacred tax to government, i. e. the tithe, of the young, of wool, and of cheese. This tithe was doubtless a sacred tribute with the early patriarchs, and amongst all the first great Asiatic nations, for Jacob* vows the tenth of his substance to the Almighty. Abraham gives Melchisedec f the tenth of his spoils, and the curse of heaven was said to have fallen upon the Phoenician tribes when they were obliged to wander, because they withheld the tenths from their gods. That part of the lands which belonged to the go- vernment, or which, in the case of conquest, was neither appropriated to colonists, nor yet returned to the old possessors, was let out to the senators, and cultivated by their clansmen. Honours were conferred upon the clever husbandman, and a lazy cultivator was considered a defrauder of the state, and disgraced by his name being struck off the land * Gen. xxvi. 22 ; B. c, 1760. f Gen. xiv. 20; b. c. 1913, 232 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. roll, SO that he lost his place, and all his landed rights in the tribe of his fathers.* All these lands paid tithes, therefore if not fully and properly managed, the state received less than was fairly due; and as these tithes in kind were often commuted for a sum of money, the state was clearly defrauded when they were sold at so much per modus of pro- duce. The rent of the agger, wholly patrician and lucumonal, the Romans called "fructus," and this fructus was always sold every year at a very low valuation. In the portion of land, appropriated to religious purposes and public buildings, the Vestals, the Augurs, and the Colleges, had all fixed allotments assigned to them, the fruits of which they might sell for a lustrum, or for a longer period, and which were paid at a fixed rate, termed "Vectigal." Vec- tigales have therefore a religious import.f * Dionys. ix. f Niebuhr, ii. 311. 233 CHAPTER XL TARCHUN AND HIS INSTITUTIONS. Army— Seculum— Political Relations. We now come to the relation which the sub- b. c. CENT. XII. jects, of which we have just been treating, viz. the division of the land, the arrangement of the various classes in the cities, and the decimating of the whole population, bore to the army. Tarchun's colony must by necessity have all been military, and the chiefs were evidently warrior, priest, and magis- trate all in one. Their followers, the clansmen, were, and in every country must be, soldiers, and the Rasena only differed from other clansmen in this, that they were well armed and regularly disciplined, when they first accompanied their lords from the east into Ausonia. It is almost superfluous to re- peat, that the discipline and military tactics of Egypt and Assyria, (or Ludin,) consequently showed themselves forth in them, and in all their warlike arrangements ; so much land being bound to arm and to furnish so many men. 234 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. We learn from Plutarch that Rome was founded upon the ritual of Etruria, according to the code of Tages; and these laws limited the pomaerium, as well as the enclosed city, by the plough. In the pomeerium, two jugera, or a double measure, was allotted to each soldier-citizen, one for vines, and one for corn, each jugera containing two vorsi, and each curia had one hundred of these allotments, forming the patrician century enclosed in Etruscan limits.* Every house of each curia gave one man to the legion, i. e. one hundred per curia, and each curia gave ten men to the cavalry, or one man per decuria. Every member of the curia, dying without heirs, left his estate to the curia in general, for the land being sacred as apatrician century,would never be alienated, and each curia was always obliged to furnish the same number of men to serve the state, and to be obe- dient to the officers of the state, besides the private forces of the clients, which each chief might raise according to his pleasure. All the land, in Tar- chun's days, throughout Etruria, and afterwards throughout the nations of Italy, was held by feudal tenure and military service. The first legion of Rome answered to the city tribe of ten curiae, and consisted of one thousand foot and one hundred horse, and such must have been the Etruscan legion, because Tarchun's whole colony was divided into companies of tens, one thousand of which, according to early eastern nations, was considered the band of a L.ch.m. or Lucumo. This we find from * Varro, i. 10. TARCriUN AND IITS INSTITUTIONS. 235 the Hebrews upon their quitting Egypt ;* and in tracing out the constitutions of Etruria, we are justified in quoting examples from Rome, tested by the practices of the Phoenician and Egyptian colo- nies or tribes, because it is the testimony of ancient authors, corroborated by the criticisms of Miiller and Niebuhr, that the Roman and all the primeval Italian military discipline was derived from the Etruscans. This division into tens, was observed by Moses, the ancient Egyptian general, as long as he held the command of the Hebrews. His officers were over tens, and hundreds, and thousands,^ nor were they ever reckoned after any other order ; and we have a curious proof of this being the genuine Egyptian discipline, from a tomb of the 18th or 19tli dynasty, visited by Rosellini at Gurnah, where in one chamber, nine men are following their cor- poral, and in another, nine are enrolling themselves with their captain or prefect. It was also the division in the land of Canaan. In 1 Sam. xxix. 2, the lords of the Philistines make their men pass on by hundreds and by thousands ; in xvii. 18, David is sent to the captain of his brother's thousand ; and xviii. 13, David is himself made captain over a thousand by Saul. The Etruscan infantry was divided into three ranks, which have come down to us as " Principes" J: or first men, " Hastati," or spear bearers, " Triarii," or third rank, and which were differently armed. * Numb. X. 4. t Deut, i. 15. X Liv. viii. 8. 236 HISTORY OF ETRURIA, The first row, Muller says, was too few in number to consist of clients, and too many to be composed of nobles, therefore he judges them to have been the burgers or free peasants, and all paid. Every one of these men gained new land or booty upon victory over external foes. Besides these three ranks they had the Velites, a body of light armed troops, so called by the Latins, because their first regiment of these men came from Velites, a town in Etruria. The light iron spear which distin- guished them, the " Hasta Velitaris," was called by the Greeks an Etruscan invention, because de- rived from "Velites,"* or " Veles," an Etruscan city. The Etruscans we believe also to have had Celeres, or the body-guard of the prince, i. e. the cavalry raised in the metropolis, which was afterwards called " Celeres" in Rome, because the first captain wasf " Celer the Tuscan.":}: We can- not now decide whether these Latin names were Etruscan also, as the English militia is Latin, or whether they were only Roman denominations for Etruscan things ; but the three ranks,§ with the velites and the cavalry, make five classes of troops, which is the number Livy attributes to Servius the Etruscan, who introduced his own military disci- pline into Rome. The cavalry was divided into * Muller on Army. Origen, xviii. 54. Isidorus. f Plut. X Ancient Hist. vol. xi. says, that the Celeres were the king's body guard, all horesmen, and that each curia gave ten, § Liv. i. 43. TARCHUN AND HIS INSTITUTIONS. 237 bands or turmro, ten in each row ; and as every senatorial tribe must contribute an equal number of men, the legions of the Rasena would probably con- sist of three thousand foot, and three hundred horse, for every ruling city which reckoned three tribes ; and the same number would be imposed upon every corresponding district in the country ; i. e. every rustic century answering to the curia, would be bound to contribute one hundred men to the in- fantry, and ten to the cavalry, when called out. Each ally must furnish the same proportion ; and for this reason, when Rome took the place of Etruria in her dominion over Italy, v^^henever her citizen force was three thousand, her allies, supposing they were ten in number, would be obliged to support her with thirty thousand, and theirs would be the loss and the bi*unt of the battle. From the Roman history we conceive one hundred of these men (in Latin a Manipulus) to have been under a captain, and one thousand under a prince, or chief, or L.ch.m. Each regiment had its own standard, and each manipulus the same repeated, as we see in Rosellini's pictures of Egyptian warfare, and as we find in the description of the encampment and marchings of the children of Israel under Moses.* It is probable that the whole arrangement of the Roman armies, previous to the time of Camillus, was derived from the Etruscan, because it was settled by Etruscan sovereigns, Mastarna divided the Roman conquered country into tribes, and all the tribes * Numb, ii. 238 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. were plebs only. A tribe in this sense was a town and its district, such as Crustumerium, Sec, which did not admit a Roman colony. Each of these tribes furnished only one man to each division of the legion, which occasioned the numbers in a divison to vary much and often. When Rome had thirty plebeian tribes, each division of the legion contained thirty men ; and when she had only twenty tribes, as after the war with Porsenna, each division of the legion had only twenty men. No doubt this was the regu- lation of the Etruscans with regard to their plebs, and it must have occasioned a permanent diminu- tion of their army, after the fall of Veii.* A freed slave might become a citizen, but never a member of one of these tribes. Varro says that both the plebs and the libertini were Etruscan constitu- tions. The cavalry usually was stationed on the wings of the infantry, and the whole army consisted of centuries of horse and foot in legions, the numbers in which, varied with different epochs, but always according to some fixed rule; and the phalanx was tbe whole body in compact order ready for battlcf The^ century of horse or foot means the number which was furnished by a century, and does not express a hundred men, but the men which each hundred was bound to furnish. The model of the phalanx, i. e. compact bodies of serried warriors * Niebuhr on Army. t Phalanx Etruscan, Nicias ap. Athen. Deip. vi. Dempster iii. c. 44. TARCIIUN AND HIS INSTITUTIONS. 239 niarcliiiig in buttle array, may be seen in Rosc;llini''s Egy|)tian j)lates of the 18th dynasty, where we may find all the Italian forms of armour ; the helmet and cuirass, shield and spear, sword and battle- axe, bow and arrow, javelin and sling.* The difference Avhich strikes us is, that the cavalry of the Rasena answer to the chariots of the Egyp- tians, a change which was forced upon them by the necessities of things, for they could command horses before they could have time to make chariots, and horses would be infinitely more convenient than chariots, in their first warfare through the roadless and mountainous Italy. The Tuscan cavalry were all noble, and answered to the decurige, and each trooper had a mounted slave provided by the state to attend upon him. The idea doubtless was derived from the notion that each cavalier represented the Egyptian or Assyrian noble driving his chariot, where every man must be accompanied by his charioteer. The infantry was attended by the light-armed sol- diers called the velites, a body of reserve, a band of carpenters who were held in high esteem, a baggage * See Dempster de E. R. The Galen, Cassis, Plumes, and gemmed armour, were all taken by the Romans from the Etruscans, or as Dempster terms it, were " invented" by them, i. 6. were introduced by them into Italy. Livy names as theirs the brass aspis, shield, and scentum. Dionys. Lx. 19, ascribes to them the Roman lances, short spears, arrows and slings. The vehtes, and the back ranks of the phalanx, Livy says, used sickles and "gaesa," and these and most other arms were made inArezzo. Livy xxviii. ap. Mliller. All these arms were hkewise used by the Sj'^rians and the Israelites. Vide 2 Chron. xxvi. 14. 240 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. train, and a number of musicians ; and these, with the cavahy, composed the legion, which Niebuhr says, was an order and institution purely Italian, and in no ways derived from the Greeks, The original of the Eoman phalanx, all authors attribute to Etruria, and the phalanx consisted of the legions drawn up for battle.* The soldiers, even in the first instance, when Tarchun had to defend himself against the Umbri, and much more when he had settled his people, and given them the Tagetic laws, were not all the men of his colony, but only a cer- tain proportion. When the Hebrews left Egypt, no man was reckoned fit for war, or counted in the nambering of the people, who was under twenty years of age •,-\ and amongst the Rasena no one was counted under seventeen complete, i. e. having en- tered his eighteenth year, nor was he obliged to go out to war beyond the age of 45. % This through the Umbri passed as a law to the Latins, and then to the whole of Italy. Upon this point, Tarchun delivered to the Lu- cumoes several precepts of the laws of Tages, con- cerning the limits of human life, and the various duties allotted to its several ages. He taught that the life of man, as originally bestowed by Tina, lasted for 120 years. Surely this is the patriarchal tradition, as we find it in Genesis, and it points to a time when men were already declining from that * Athen. Deip. vi. ; Isidorus 18; Dempster iii, 44, Ant. Hist xvi. 6a t See Numb, i. 3, + Miiller and Niebuhr. TAUCIIUN AND IlIS INSTITUTIONS. 241 giant vigour which distinguished the early fatlicrs of the human race. " Now," says Tages, " in these degenerate days, fate has abridged man's life to three periods of thirty years each, (i. e. to the sacred num- bers three and ten of the Rasena,) which fortune is continually making less. The half of the first thirty, or fifteen, is the period of childhood, when the noble youth shall wear the Bulla against the evil eye, because he cannot defend himself, and the prte- texta shall be his distinctive dress. Upon entering his sixteenth year, (i. e. at fifteen com])lete,)* let him assume the toga, and begin to practise military exer- cises, which he shall follow for two full years. At seventeen, he shall be eligible for the army, and to vote at elections ; and at twenty-five, but not earlier, he shall be capable of magistracies and offices of trust. Until the half has run of his second period, or until forty-five, he is bound to go forth with the host, when they fight against an enemy, and until his second pe- riod is closed, he must bear arms in the service of the state; but the latter half of his second period, i. e. from forty-five to sixty, let him stay and fight within the city, and defend his own frontiers and his father's home." Ulpian tells us that for twenty-eight years of life, the state laid claim to the military service, and to the mental and corporeal powers of all its members ; but at forty-five, the citizen was rated as " senior," and was liable to bear arms, only in defence of his * In the laws of Menu, childhood always ceases at fifteen years complete, and the property of an orphan until that age, was under the guardianship of the king. 242 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. own town or territory, but not to go forth to war. At sixty, he became " senex," and during his last triad, all his cares and duties were supposed to cease, excepting in the case of princes and commanders, and of the equestrian order in general, who were never held to be past the service of their country.* From this it appears that the regular armies were composed of young men between seventeen and forty-five for the field, and between forty-five and sixty for home service and garrison duty. The foot soldiers were chosen first, out of the whole body of liable men in each Century, and the arms which they used in the legion may be seen in the pictures, vases, and bronzes of Italian museums, or in the Etruscan tombs. They wore magnificent helmets of different shapes, cuirasses, greaves, buck- lers of many various forms, bows and arrows, spears, javelins, long broadswords, short swords, and dag- gers ; (specimens of these will be given hereafter ;) and Arretium was the state most famed for their manufacture.f According to Miiller, the Tuscan Mastarna introduced these military laws into Latium, which lasted till the time of Camillus, and he formed the Roman ranks from his own. The rich and well- armed were placed in front, and the poorer and less armed formed the second and third ranks, and strengthened the first. AthenodorusJ says that the Romans (that is, the Italians) learnt from the Tuscans * Niebuhr, Ulpian, Ser. ad Mn. iv. 653 ; Liv. xliii. 14, Muller on Army, Athenodorus vi, 273. t Miiller. Pliny. t vi. 273. TARCIIUN AND HIS INSTITUTIONS. 243 to figlit with lances in closed ranks. Diodorus, in a fragment, tells us that the Romans at first had four- cornered shields, but when they saw the Tuscans with brass aspides, they adopted them. The Aspis is the Clypeus of Servius''s first class.* Balteus, the girdle, Varro tells us, is a Tuscan word, so also is Cassis, the helmet, so are the Scuta and the Galea, spoken of by Livy, and so also are Phalerae,t a horse ornament, and Tuba, the military trumpet. This last is ascribed by Pliny and Dionysius to the Etruscans, as a most useful invention, though, in fact, it had been used in many a well-fought field, by the troops of all the Menephthahs, and of all the Ramseses, ages before Tarchun was born. Brazen and silver trumpets for the host, were in use also among the Israelites under Moses. The helmet with its ostrich plume, the thigh pieces, the coats of mail, and the scale armour intro- duced by the Rasena into Etruria, may all be seen in the Egyptian paintings or sculptures of the wars between the Egyptians and the people of Ludin, three centuries earlier than the sera of the Etruscans. The soldiers, during the time they were in the field, or on service in garrison, always received pay, and this was provided for by a regular tax, to which all orders of citizens were subject. The lands which belonged to the government were let out ; and they paid, when arable, one-tenth of the corn, and two- tenths of the wine and oil, for the army : and every man from seventeen to sixty, paid a poll-tax. The widows * Lby, i. 43. t Festus, 1, 5. M 2 244 HISTORY OP ETRURIA. and heiresses made up the knights' pay of their own Century or Curia, at so much per head, and not more, the deficiency being supplied by the state. The pasture lands everywhere paid one-tenth, and the iErarii or fundholders throughout the country, made up whatever more might be wanting for the pay- ment of the troops. The heavy-armed soldiers were taken from among the rich, and as they received more booty than the others, so they were expected to be at more expense, and were required to arm themselves, receiving how- ever pay, whilst on service ; and as the taxes would be levied upon the centuries, and not upon indivi- duals, so Niebuhr conjectures, that many poor per- sons would join together to pay one soldier. Plutarch says that Romulus introduced the poll-tax into Rome, and made both rich and poor pay the same sum. MUller says that Etruscan Servius reformed this mistaken law according to the rules of his own host, and limited the tax to men of a certain amount of property, whilst Niebuhr* adds, that the second Tarquin regulated the proportions of pay between the horse and foot soldiers, his model being taken from his own land of Tarchunia. The first class of Servius was always fully armed, and composed half the legion. The common soldier received 100 asses per month; the trooper 200 per month, and a knight with his own norse 300 per month ; the generals re- ceived also 300 per month, and the booty was divided amongst them exactly in this proportion of one, two * ii. 97, iii. 76. TAUCIIUN AND HIS INSTITUTIONS. 245 and tlirec, the last representing the spolia opima, which, as we may learn from the Egyptian plates of Rosellini, and from the Scriptures, it was the Eastern custom for conquerors to offer to their gods. We find in Rosellini, tlie Thutmeses, and Menephthahs and Amcnophs and Ramseses of Egypt, bringing their jirisoners and their booty to Amon-Re; and we find the Philistines* hanging up the armour of Saul, as a dedicated trophy, in the house of Ashtaroth their god. The taxes for the ai-my were therefore of three kinds. First, a poll-tax upon all ranks of the peo- ple ;t secondly, a tenth of the state lands; and, thirdly, an imposition upon widows, heiresses, and iErarii. Besides this, the array on active service had a right to the booty, in the proportions of one, two and three, for chiefs, officers and soldiers, and to new centuries of land in the conquered country. The government had always at their command for the payment of their servants, a fund called Manubise, which consisted of the sale of booty, the profit of lands, and the rent received from individuals for the Usufruct. The same arguments which have sa- tisfied Niebuhr and Miiller that the troops of Celes Vibenna and of Pursena must needs have been paid men, will apply with tenfold force to Tarchun, who must long have maintained regular garrisons in all his fortified towns, and who derived the custom from Janias and Archies, the Ludin kings, who reigned in Lower Egypt, and who used to visit the Avaris yearly, for the purpose of paying their troops. f * 1 Sam. xxxi. 10. f Plut. in Rom. 246 HISTOEY OF ETEURIA. From the warlike array of Rome being a counter- part of that of Etruria until the time of Camillus, we conclude the knights to have been an order of rank from birth, and not from office ; and though they usually served on horseback, even like our own young nobility, and first-class commoners, yet they were oc- casionally found on foot ; as, for instance, L. Tar- quitius, a knight, who served on foot at the siege of Veii. Tarquitius,* Miillert says, is the Tuscan name "Tarchise," also translated "Tarquin." The knights were the same as the continental noble class of the Cavallieri, and all their children had the same rank as themselves, A knight's horse was different from a common trooper's, and valued in Rome at 10,000 asses, or from £80 to £100, including in the valuation, the knight's slave, and the slave's horse ; but this must also have been the same in Etruscan valuation, for Rome was so close to Etruria, that any difference of price would have been immediately equalized, and as the Etruscans were famous for their horses, and very particular in their breeds, in all probability, the best of the Roman cavalry would be brought from them. The government frequently rewarded merit by the present to a gallant soldier of a knight's horse, and this was neither heritable nor saleable.! After describing the composition of the legion, * Authorities for Army : Nieb. ii. 97, iii. 76, ii. 498 ; Polyb. vi. 39 ; Festus ; Plut. t Tarquitius, a noble, who served on foot, was made master of the horse by the Dictator Cincinnatus, Vide Livy, hb. iii. 27. X Nieb. vol. i. p. 459. TARCIIUN AND HIS INSTITUTIONS. 247 and the laws for forming, recruiting, and main- taining the army, we must mention the camp of Tarcliun, and the rules he prescribed for its con- struction, rules of which we have practical examples still remaining, in many parts of our own island, because they were afterwards observed and adopted by the Romans. The first spot that Tarchun occupied must have been a camp; and some notion of its probably strong fortifications and military form, we may derive from Rosellini's Egyptian Plates. Some idea we may also deduce, from the regular squares observed in the Hebrew encampments under Moses.* We find, accordingly, that in all camps, the Augur, and in this instance Tarchun, the original Augur, marked out first, the holy temple ground 200 feet square, in the centre of which was planted the standard ; and divided it by Cardo and Decumanus. The Cardo was the Latin " Via principalis," and the Decumanus was the broad street which crossed it at right angles. The Templum was the sacred Prsetorium, within which stood the tribunal for judgment, and the altar for divination and sacrifice. Around this, the ground was measured off" on every side in squares, according to the divisions of the people, and afterwards of the troops. The Praetorian gate was upon the eastern side, the quarter whence favour- able answers to prayer were given ; and the Porta Decumana was on the western, or unpropitious side; the dwelling of the Dii Manes and infernal gods, through which gate the criminals and the dead were * Numb. ii. 248 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. led out or carried forth. On one side of the Prseto- riura was the coinuiissariat, and on the other side, the forum or market-place. Thus the camp was only the mimic and temporary representation of the Tarchunian cities, the first of which was Tarquinia ; as in both the dwelling- of the Lar, the fortress, the temple, the seat of judgment, and the forum, were all close together. The Etruscan camp was the model of the Roman, always of a square, or at least of a quadrangular form, inclosed in ridges two or three deep, and was considered holy ground. There is a verse of Propertius which preserves a tradition of the Romans : " Prima galeritus posuit preetoria Lucmo," or, in other words, the Lucumo who helped Romulus, was the first who taught the Romans how to form a Prsetorium. The whole of this is taken from Mliller.* The Augur who was with the host, must either choose the ground for encampment, or he must ap- prove of and sanction it ; as the Prsetorium, the heart of the camp, could have no existence without him. If therefore, at any time, an Augur had chosen ineligi- ble ground, any other Augur with a better military head, could change it, by declaring that he had received stronger auguries, which marked out for it some better position. Thus the credit of augury itself was kept up, as far as the faculties of men could devise for its support, by an endeavour at all times, to unite the highest power with the largest * Vide Miiller, vol. ii. p. 130. TAnCIIUN AND HIS INSTITUTIONS. 249 capacity ; and by instilling tlie warmest patriotism into the breasts of a class of men, whose first and longest lesson it was to govern themselves, and to live in constant obedience to laws, which had been imposed upon them, by i)0wers above themselves, just and upright, pure and holy, immutable, impeccable and eternal. The divine Fallibilities of Greece and Rome were, in Tarchun's days, "things undreamt of and unknown." When the camp was raised, and the army with- drawn from a hostile neighbour, because of a truce or treaty of peace which had been entered into, such truce or treaty was only understood to last during the lifetime of the princes between whom it was made ; and the death of either set the other free, unless the agreement were renewed ; even though a term of years had been previously specified. We find con- stant traces of this oriental practice in the Jewish history ; also of the ten-month year, as the time for military service ; for the Hebrews as well as the Etruscans, kept the field only from March to the end of December; and we find the regular cessation of hostilities and recommencing of operations, mark- ed in the Scriptures by the expression, "At the time w^hen the kings went out to war."* We may be accused, in many parts of this account, of giving the Roman military constitution, and call- ing it Etruscan, and of quoting Polybius, Festus, and Plutarch, and calling their descriptions the laws of Tages, which we refer back to the days of * 2 Sam. xi. 1, &c. 1 Chron. xx., &c. . M 5 260 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. Tarchnn. To this we answer, did not Tarchun deliver the laws of Tages ? Did not the laws of Tag-es, according to Cicero and Festus, treat of the constitution of the army? And is there anything in their great antiquity which presents a valid impe- diment to their being known to us through the works of later writers ? May we not, from a Scotch statute law book of a. d. 1840, gather the prin- ciples of Roman law, as compiled by Justinian? May we not, from a child's catechism, published in 1842, supposing all our Bibles were burnt, know what were the words spoken by the mouth, and engraved by the finger of Deity 3300 years ago, upon two tables ofstone, and delivered to Moses at Mount Sinai ? It is not high antiquity which can e^er present a bar to our knowing what has happened in past ages, upon this young planet of ours ; but rather, it is a childish credulity in the progressive advancement of the human intellect, which we have no facts to establish, and an unrea- sonable estimation of the originality of great minds in various ages ; attributing to them, as inventions, things which were merely combinations, or im- provements of objects already long familiar. It is this, combined with an ignorance of Scripture, which makes us consider the maxim of Solomon as an old wife's fancy, when he tells us in the words of inspi- ration, "The thing that is, and the thing that shall be," is only that which " hath been^ and there is nothing new under the sun."* * Eccles. i. 9. TARCIIUN AND illS INSTITUTIONH. 251 The most acute, and the most profound of modem critics, have determined, that the Roman kin<^s intro- duced amongst their sokliers nothing- more tlian the military rules, pay and discipline, which had prevail- ed in Italy before their day, and that they introduced them from Etruria; and again, when we come to in»- quire who invented these rules in Etruria, we find them referred back to Tages, or Thoth, as altered and modified by the great leader of the Etruscans, the Ludin Prince Tarchun. Besides the nobles, with their Clans, and the Plebs, there were three classes who paid taxes to the state and served in the army, known to us as Mrar'n, Municipia, and Isopolites ; all fully de- scribed in Niebuhr's Roman History. The iErarii were not landholders, and therefore -^rari: were not members of centuries or tribes, and had none of the rights or consequence which are at- tached in every country to land. They were free, and might be the richest subjects of the government, rich burghers, merchants, peasants, and strangers, but they were not Rasena, nor proprietors of the soil. They paid taxes to the army, and served in the field, but they had no share in the booty or common land, and no benefit from war. They swelled the ranks, in return for the protection afforded them by the state, in their commerce and in security of life and goods. All the guilds were --Erarii, and so was every man, however illustrious, who was not enrolled in a land tribe or century. For this cause, one of the severest punishments to a lazy client, or an offensive 252 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. citizen, or a turbulent noble, was to erase his name from his tribe, as it immediately deprived him of his personal weight and interest in the country. The JEtvarii were enrolled in the census, and reckoned citizens, and had votes, but only in common with the multitude. The Isopolites were the foreign neighbours or allies, with whom Tarchun made such treaties of peace, as were in his day the common fashion of the Eastern nations. Isopolity* meant, a community be- tween independent states, of all things divine and human, so long as the subjects of either, dwelt in the towns of the other; and as they conceded to each other this right of interchanging countries, the mere act of residence constituted them burghers, preserving, in their new homes, the same rank which they had held at home.f They might enter the Senate to attend the debates, and be seated there in the place of honour; they might inherit or purchase land, join in the national sacrifices and feasts, marry with the people on an equal footing, claim a native's ex- emption from toll and excise, fill offices of dignity and trust, (head the army, for instance, as Coriolanus headed the Volsci,) bring causes for judgment in their own name, and enjoy every legal and civil right; but they could not be Senators. There was an impassable gulf between them and the peers of the realm, and they could never share in the govern- * Dionys. iv. 225 j viii. 538, 542, 544. Nieb. ii. /I ; ii. 56, 57, 84. t Nieb. ii. 72. TARCHUN AND HIS INSTITUTIONS. ment of that country in which they were Isopolites. This will at once explain to us the situation of De- raaratus, the father of Tarquinius Priscus ; as well as many other difficult passages in the Italian history. Isopolity was an inter-national law and privilege between free and independent states, and constituted " the Italian right of exile," by which a man, when banished from his own country, had yet several others to which he might retire; and he might consider him- self the lawful subject and citizen of whatever state he chose to settle in, which stood in this interchange of common rights with his own. A foreigner, who was not an Isopolite, that is, who came from any country not thus united to Etruria by treaty, though the mere act of settlement made him a citizen, and placed him in the condition of an iErarian, must choose a patron, with whom he be- came as it were incorporated, and through whom alone he could bring any cause for judgment. With the Isopolites, the state itself was patron, and if they were not its children, they were its honored guests. Little was required from them ; and, ex- cepting the peerage and its inalienable rights, all was permitted. They were welcome to serve in the army, but not obliged. The Municipium was a state of alliance instituted Muni- by Tarchun, and the condition of Municipia was pe- "^'^' culiarly according to the genius of the Tagetic faith, which desired each people to preserve its own gods, The Municipia are exemplified by the treaty which the Basena made with the Umbrians and the Pelasgi. 254 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. They had the Isopolity and the right of exile ; but, more than this, whilst subject to Etruscan dominion, as the Scotch and Irish are to the English, each muni- cipal people kept its own laws, being simply bound to serve in the army, and to pay the pasture and crown land tithes. The Municipia had their allotted num- bers as regiments, and their equal share in the booty, and in the right of colonization ; and they had a court of justice of their own, in or near the Forum, where causes were tried by their own of- ficers, and according to their own laws. As the na- tives of the Municipia could not be peers of the realm, they also had no vote in the Senate, no share in mak- ing the laws, and no right to the supreme dignity. This condition of the Municipia was called, in Rome, the " Jus Ceriti," sufficiently denoting whence it was derived to the Latin colony of Ro- mulus.* Native citizens, who were degraded from their own class and lost their right of voting, were enrolled in Rome, and probably all over Italy, with the allied Municipia. Colo- The law of colonies was also an Etruscan institu- "^^®- tion, derived from the immemorial customs of the East, and, we are inclined to think, originating in the first great Assyrian dispersion of mankind, when the bond of kindred was so severed by the confusion of tongues, that each family or tribe was forced to take up its own ground entirely inde- * The JExaxii, Isopolites, and Municipia, are from Mliller and Niebuhr. TARCIIUN AND HIS INSTITUTIONS. 255 pendent of all home recollections and former ties. Modern colonies are considered as parts of our- selves, and are subject to the mother country as children to a parent ; but, with the ancients, a colony once gone forth, acknowledged subjection to its parent no more. It became self-existent, with no previous history, but it was the stock of its adopted country, and the origin of its own new race. Such as the Rasena were, from the moment of their settlement in Italy, such was every colony that proceeded from them ; and such, taught by their laws and customs, became every after colony of the Italians. Whether sent out by a Sacred Spring, and the Augur going with them, or whether violently settled in their new quarters, as the reward of mili- tary valour, the offset had no connexion, from that moment, with the parent stem. The colony was everywhere free and independent, making peace and war where it pleased, and ordering, without reference to any superior, its own internal govern- ment. An open commerce between the old and new states, seems to have been regarded as the only bond of union which remained between them, as a matter of course ; and in the case of colonies by con- quest, Dionysius* tells us, that only the third part of the lands was assigned tathe colonizers, which implies that a large portion was always left for the ancient inhabitants, as we mentioned on the founding of the Etruscan cities. Niebuhr thinks that the colonizers did not allow of Connubium and Coinmercium be- * Dionys. ii. 103. 256 HISTORY OF ETRURIA.. tween themselves and the natives until later times.* When they joined the mother state in war, they sup- plied their own quota of troops ; and, like all other allies, they shared in the booty, and in the new lands set apart for fresh military colonization, exactly ac- cording to the proportion they had furnished. We have now enumerated the component parts of Tarchun's government, and the chief classes of his subjects : his Lucumoes, with their Senates and Clans ; the Plebs, who lived amongst them and with them ; the iErarii, or landless, amongst that denomination ; the allied Municipia, the Isopolites, and the Colonies. But there was another class of beings, not enu- merated amongst any of these, and yet attached to them all — the slaves. These unfortunate men, who were not few in number, had no protection from mutual interest or public law, no representation in the government, no recognised position in society, no rank or rights to gain, and no character to lose. They found their safety in being the slaves of an Eastern, and not of a Northern people, who, under every form of government, excepting that of the Clans, seem to have had their hearts frozen, in pro- portion as their heads grew clear. In the East, domestic slavery is compatible with every enjoy- ment excepting the consciousness of liberty ; and it is the loss of freedom, rather than the obligation to labour, or the endurance of suffering. Niebuhr * See Niebuhr on Colonies, where all the Latin authorities are quoted. TARCIIUN AND III8 INSTITUTIONS. 257 does, indeed, refer all the great and lasting monu- ments of Etruria to her slaves ; but we think we have shown that this opinion is not tenable, and derives not a shadow of suj)port from history or tradition. Whilst the Pyramids of Egypt were to her peo- ple the object of groans and execrations, and the memory of their founders was loaded with oppro- brium, the walls and drains of Etruria were ever her glory and her pride, and were referred to the might and wisdom of her greatest hero, acting under the inspiration of her demi-god. The na- tions whom she supplanted and subdued, the Umbri and Pelasgi, are numbered by succeed- ing historians, Greek and Roman, amongst the children of her people, and not a whisper has come down to us, that her wondrous tunnels were sacri- fices to Manto, or that her gigantic walls were cemented by the blood of men. The same works, carried forward into Rome, and accomplished with the same instruments, when she was under Etruscan dominion, have not branded the memory of the first Tarquin, nor tarnished the fame of the good king Servius, nor diminished, even by the shadow of a stain, the reverence and affection with which the poor and oppressed ever regarded him, as their friend and protector. Indeed Niebuhr himself proves that the Etruscan kings and Etruscan laws, obliged the rich to contribute their full share to every monument of national strength and glory. After the very first victory, near the heights of 258 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. Corneto, the Etruscans must have had slaves, and Strabo (v.) says, that one of the reasons of their fight- ing was to obtain them ; and in all cases, the slaves consisted either of captives taken in war, or of men who were sold for debt, either from amongst their own peasantry, or from the neighbouring states. The slaves became domestic servants in the great fami- lies, who vied with each other in having them handsome in person, richly dressed, delicately fed, and trained to graceful and athletic exercises.* The slaves were incapable of entering the army, which, for that very reason, was more honoured and respected in the eyes of the soldiery and people. They were degraded as a caste, but might be freed and placed amongst the clients, in which case they could vote in the census, and serve in their lord's own regiment, and exercise all the rights of a clans- man. The first-made slave, whether captive by war, or captive by debt, might also be ransomed, and then he resumed his original rank. But, as slaves, Tarchun could not, and did not, legislate for them. He left them to public opinion and common custom, and to that humanity which is engendered by clans- ship, when every man is educated to extend his afiections and sympathies over so wide a field of ideal connexion, that he naturally cares for all, whatever their rank and condition, who in any way belong to him, and seeks their welfare from daily unconscious habit, as long as they dwell within his sphere. * Posidonius. Diod. v. 40. Atheneeus, iv. 153. TARCIIUN AND III8 INSTITUTIONS. 259 The slaves had often much education, especially Pea- in what was ornamental, but the Etruscan peasan- '*'"'*^''" try were uneducated ; for Tages had somewhat of the spirit of the English government, and would not so far abridge the liberty of his subjects, as to command that his peasants should read and write. These accomplishments were by no means forbid- den ; they were merely left to their own good sense and discretion ; and the peasantry of happy Etruria, like the peasantry of happy England, saved them- selves the trouble, having, unlike our peasantry, the means of gaining a great deal of instruction without any mental exertion or intellectual fatigue. Tages fixed the sacred times of his people, which Kalen- Lar, Lucumo, and Velthur, every prince, governor, and magistrate, was obliged to learn ; and which on each market day he must proclaim to those who as- sembledat the place of meeting.* Tages instituted one great year, which he called a secle ; hence our word " cycle ;"t and it was to consist of one hundred and ten minor years, divided into twenty-two Lustrums, or twenty-two periods of five solar years each. A Lustrum was the period for which the state lands were let. The minor years were either civil or sacred. The civil began in March, and consisted of 365 days, divided into ten months and two inter- calaries; and the sacred began in September, ac- cording to the manner of the Egyptians and the nations of Ludin ; and it also consisted of ten months only. The ten months of these years were divided * See Muller on the Kalendar. f Nieb. on the Cycle. 260 HISTORY OF ETRURIA, into thirty-four weeks, each week containing eight days, which, like the Jewish days, were probably named in numerical order. The Jewish week used to be counted " One of the Sabbath," "Two of the Sabbath," &c.;* and the Tuscans probably called theirs " One of the Feast," " Two of the Feast," &c. ; at least, such is the idea we gather from Varrof and Macrobius.J Three of their names have been preserved to us, as Ides, Nones, and Kalends. " Ides" is an Etruscan word, meaning to divide. It was the full moon, and marked each grand lunar division of the year, divid- ing the month into half. The other two words are just as likely to be Etruscan, and to have been adopted by the Latins. *' Nones," means each ninth day, counting from the Ides, " Kalends" was the division of the month, after which it was counted backwards, to the full moon again. This ten-month year was the term of mourning for near relations, of paying portions left by will, of credit for debt, of sale on yearly profits, of all money transactions and interest upon capital, and of all truces, treaties, and engagements relating to war or military affairs. As this ten-month year was adopted by the Latins, we have traces of it in our kalendar now ; for we call our final months September, October, November, and December, because the Romans called theirs so, after the example of the Etrus- cans, 2500 years ago. * See Horne on Jewish Time. t v. 52, 53. X i. 15. TARCHUN AND HIS INSTITUTIONS. 261 The peasantry of Etruria k.ej)t themselves in ignorance and subjection, because the uneducated do not seek for education, and do not desire a know- ledge which implies trouble, and the value of which tliey are unable to appreciate. 262 CHAPTER XII. TARCHUN AND HIS INSTITUTIONS. Written laws — Religious basis— Fate — Education of the Lucu- moes — Castes — Coins and Monetary System — Commerce — Roads — Hydraulic operations. In contradistinction to the peasantry, and their liberty of non-instruction, come the Lucumoes and the whole class of the nobles, who were obliged to a strict and a highly scientific education. Tages was resolved, that if the body of his people should repre- sent a child, the rulers of his people should have the heads of men. Accordingly, as they were the princes, and senators, the generals and judges, the augurs and haruspices, the land measurers and astronomical calculators of their day, they were forced, not only to know the laws of Tages inti- mately themselves, and to teach them to their chil- dren, but they were obliged to acquire all that know- ledge, and to pursue all those studies which were needful to make the laws practical and efiectual. In this respect, indeed, Tages was as much opposed to TARCHUN AND HIS INSTITUTIONS. 263 the genius of England as in the case of the peasantry ho had been like-minded. Amongst his nobles, no one was permitted to ad- minister the laws, who did not understand them ; and no one might presume to teach who had not himself first learned. He who could not obey might not command ; and he who had no religion was regarded as a monster unfit for power. Idle, undisciplined, useless nobles ; and chattering, self- conceited, ignorant senators, are phenomena which can never have been seen, nor even thought credi- ble, (though but merely in speculation,) during the first ages of Etruria. The young Lucumoes were educated in colleges, the names of some of which we occasionally read in history; and they were not only obliged to read, write, and cypher, but to possess some competent knowledge of astronomy and mathematics, some tolerable acquaintance with agriculture and hydraulics, some settled state principles, and some instruction in political eco- nomy. They were also required to be so thoroughly masters of their religion as to know the laws of Ta- ges by heart, or, in the words of scripture, " to write them in their memories, and to engrave them upon the palms* of their hands."f The most sceptical of modern inquirers will not maintain that the command from Deuteronomy, just * Deut. vi. 8. t Festus and Censorinus say, tliat the Lucumoes kept and taught the discipline of Etruria, and that the laws of Tages were transcribed by them. See Miiller and Dempster de Etrur. Reg. 264 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. quoted, was given to the children of Israel, because they could not read or write. They had all been taught to do so, ages earlier than the days of Tar- chun ; and in the same sense as Moses commanded the chiefs of his people, so Tarchun commanded his LucumoeSjto teach diligently their children, and their children's children. Niebuhr hints that the laws of Tages, as delivered by Tarchun, were probably not written in his day, but only sung and committed to oral tradition. But as the minds and memories of men are in all ages the same, we cannot admit of such a theory. How, if this had been the case, could they have been known and preserved in purity throughout all the cities of Etruria ? So far from a unity of disci- pline amongst the twelve states, we should have had different versions of these laws, and curious additions to them in various places. In some they would have remained a mere tradition, destitute of all observance ; and in others, the most opposite customs would have been founded upon the same ideal commands. But nothing of this sort ever happened. The laws of Tages were uniform wherever the religion of Tages prevailed ; and this could only have followed upon their being written, and upon the writing hav- ing been held as sacred. They must have been read as well as written, studied as well as read, known to all the rulers, received by all the people, and believed to be divine, and therefore unalterable. The Etrus- cans had, in the course of time, other books and TARCIIUN AND HIS INSTITUTIONS. 265 Other laws. Pontifical ordinances, kingly institu- tions, historical records, the sweet songs of the princess Caniese, and the holy maxims of the priestess Bygoe. But none of these were ever held in equal reverence, or ever placed upon a level in antiquity or sanctity, with the books of Tages. And why ? Because the laws of Tages were written by him who framed and promulgated them. They were a standard and engz'aved code, which could be known and referred to by all parties, and they were what Miiller calls them, the same as their sacred predecessors and cotemporaries amongst the other races of Ludin, the same as the Vedas to the Hindus, and Leviticus to the Jews. It would be a monstrous absurdity to believe that the Rasena alone, of all the civilized nations of the East, carefully educated their nobles, and yet had no written laws. All the ancient legislators rested their systems upon a religious sanction, and strove to found the institutions of time upon the basis of eternity. Hence they inculcated all the natural and civil obligations of social life as emanations of the divine will ; and as such they held to be every sentiment of patriotism, and every exhibition of public courage. The state ritual taught each man his rights and duties, and the prescribed line of his public and private conduct, as that which was pointed out for him by the gods. No one was suflPered by Tages to separate the interests of his country, the inspira- tions of human genius, or the purposes of human rectitude, from the divine guidance or divine will. 266 HISTORY OP ETRURIA. No one was allowed to consider tliis world as the ultimate object of his hopes and desires ; and far less was he permitted to regard the applause of his fellow creatures, or his own self-interest, as the measure of his actions or the ruling principle of his understanding. The will of the gods was, from early education, everything to the Lucumo, and ever present to his imagination.* He consulted that will by sacrifice, when first he took his seat in the senate, and when he delivered his opinion there ; when he married, when he went forth to battle, when he put out to sea, when he sowed and when he reaped, when he planted and when he gathered in, when he increased his estate and when he diminished it. He sacrificed, when he desired to atone for his offences, or to satiate his vengeance, to endure manfully loss and disappointments, or to triumph over his foes. He sacrificed and took auspices as a bounden duty, to moderate his exultation in prosperity, to alleviate his sufferings in adversity, to guide his active career, and to cheer his dissolution. The Etruscan noble not only consulted this will upon all occasions, but he met it, when he knew it to be adverse, most sin- gularly, for a child of the East. He met it, not as a fatalist, but as a man. His, was a persevering and unimaginative temperament, tenacious of all which custom had rendered familiar to him, whe- ther from without or from within. His courage was indomitable, his fortitude enduring, his hope * See Miiller on the Religion of the Etruscans. TARCnUN AND HIS INSTITUTIONS. 2G7 unquenchable ; and yet we regard with surprise, the grasp of his solid understanding-, and wonder to see Oriental beings so manly in their sentiments, and so sober-minded in their views. The Etruscan be- lieved in the decrees of heaven concerning human aftairs, and that they were predetermined before they came to pass: and his faith taught him that it was vain for man to resist those decrees, when they had once gone forth. Yet he also held that it was sinful to give way to despair and apathy, and that enlightened submission, virtuous, persevering conduct, and continued prayer, might delay, and even sometimes avert, the purposes of fate. He reminds us of the patriarchal faith exhibited by Abraham, when God revealed to him the doom of Sodom. Abraham heard the decree, and he knew by whom it was pronounced, and yet he says, " If there shall be found mitigating circumstances, (fifty righteous, or ten righteous,) wilt thou not reverse the sentence of destruction? And the Lord an- swered Abraham, If these mitigations be found, I will. " If there be found ten righteous, I will spare all the city for their sakes."-!- The nobles alone of Etruria were compulsorily educated, because to them alone belonged all the political authority in church and state. The Augurs and Haruspices, who declared the will of the gods, * See Miiller on the Haruspex. t It is almost equally remarkable that the Augurs taught the impossibility of prolonging human life, after man's last hour was decreed. N 2 268 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. must needs have known how to ascertain that will. The Generals who commanded the army, must have understood the maxims of war. The Senators who were to maintain the existing laws, must have been acquainted with their theory ; and they who were assembled to oppose or to support such alterations or improvements as the king- wished to introduce, according to the spirit of the times, must necessa- rily have interested themselves in the state of their country. The calculators of the new moons and feasts, the keepers of the annals, the regulators of the kalendar, and the measurers of land, must necessa- rily have been versed in astronomy and numbers ; and Niebuhr, no mean judge, esteems their early knowledge to have been much more deep and pro- found than that of their later days. We have said that, amongst the Senators, each Decurial Lucumo was the Priest of his Curia ; and as the Lucumo was an hereditary rank, so would be the Decurion, and so also the priesthood attached to that dignity. The priests were not a separate class, though the service of particular gods was here- ditary in particular families. As, for instance, the priesthood of Talna or Juno* at Veii, and that which was handed down in the families of the Potizii and Pinarii in Latium,f who boasted a right to administer the sacrifices of Hercules, the Turrhenean god. The priestly Lucumoes remind us of the Brah- min caste in India, because they were in no way distinguished from their noble fellow-countrymen, ex- * Livy. t Micali, Italia, a. d. R. TARCnUN AND ITIS INSTITUTIONS. 260 cepting by an hereditary priesthood ; and wlien the Assyrians first entered Hindostan, their social re- lations woukl appear to have been the same with those of the Rasena. They also probably consisted of " the man's head and the child's body ;" of one class, educated, whose privilege it was to command and to protect, and of the other, uneducated, whose duty it was to defend and to obey. They all reckoned themselves the children of one and the same parent ; the priestly warrior, and the warrior who was not a priest, being each required to read and write, to sacrifice and to give alms. It is evident that the Hindoo priest would neither have obtained nor have preserved the influence of caste, which for so many ages, distinguished him amongst his fellows,* had not his dignity first arisen from some such office as that of Decurion of his Curia, the holiest and the wisest of the warriors. And it is owing to a difference in the temper and surrounding circum- stances of the brother tribes of Ludin, dwelling in Italy and in India, that both did not, in the same manner, divide themselves into castes, distinguished by impassable bounds, which became, through the corruptions of time, and the influence of imagina- tion, the case in Hindostan. Those who are best versed in Eastern history, are most aware that every reformer amongst the Hin- doos has endeavoured to abolish the distinction of castes, and to prove, from their oldest records and most ancient statutes, that all the educated were * Vide Sir William Jones. 270 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. equal to each other. In all countries where the priests have not been also military, the army has held a higher rank than the church, and the union of both offices, in the Rasena, and in the Assyrian Hindoos, is simply a continuation of the patriarchal polity, which had for its cradle the land of Shinar. The four castes of the early Hindoos are thus classified by Sir W. Jones : — 1. The priests, all noble, and capable of every employment and occupation. Necessitated to read, write, and teach. They also measured land, and regulated the calendar ; being possessed of very deep and curious mathematical knowlege, the results of which only are known to their successors. These men might exercise both tillage and traffic. 2. The military ; who were not priests, but all noble ; and who must all read, and be able to sacri- fice and to fight. 3. The merchants ; who traded, lent at interest, were fundholders, and had herds and flocks. 4. The people ; who were the vassals of the two first classes, and might serve the third. The Rasena, though not distributed into castes so strictly marked, because they had amongst them more of the spirit of liberty, and less imagination, to raise every slight difference into an important distinction, may thus be paralleled with them. 1. The highest class of Lucumoes or Decurions, warrior priests ; all noble, all capable of any em- ployment ; obliged to extensive general knowledge, and allowed tillage and traffic. TARCIIUN AND UIS INSTITUTIONS. 271 2. Their brethren of the Curia ; who were also all noble, and all military ; and all educated, and all capable of offering sacrifices. 3. The fundholders and merchants ; whether ^rarii, Plebs, Municipiales, or Isopolites. 4. The vassals and followers of the noble houses, The Lar in Etruria, we have already said, was Pontifex Maxiraus in each state, a dignity which was hereditary to the ofHce, and not to the man. It was his duty to take charge of the public annals, which were not history, but an enumeration of the leading events in each year, written in the fewest words and in the driest manner possible, upon a whited table, which always* remained in his palace, and whence calculations were made, and the annals and histories of the country compiled. This custom the Etruscans of course introduced into Rome, and all Livy's tenth book is written ftom one of these his- torical tables, which were not the less authentic, for being exceedingly brief. The Romans never used them after the days of the Gracchi ; and the Etrus- cans doubtless abandoned them after the fated period, the day which Tina had given them, had been shown by these monuments to have run its course. The most extraordinary invention which Tarchun Coin- left to his people, and the most useful and im- ^®®' portant which can be left to any people, was the art of coining, of which the Etruscans possessed a pecu- liar method in reference to w^eights and measures, * Cicero de Leg. i, 2. 272 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. and to the value of articles of exchange. The Etruscan copper coinage is the oldest in Europe, and the only one of which we have any knowledge, prior to the foundation of Rome. The Jesuits'* Museum in that city has examples of no less than forty different mints used by the Italian nations, before the days of Romulus, each one stamped with the head of their patron deity, or with whatever other device they conceived to be the most characteristic. This coinage is, in its origin, Etruscan, and is altoge- ther peculiar to that people, and to those with whom they trafficked, whether amongst their own colonies and the Italian tribes, from the Rhoetian Alps to the straights of Sicily ; or whether amongst their more distant allies in Sicily and Greece, and amongst the various colonies of Egypt and of Carthage. Through- out the peninsula, and in every different state, this coinage is marked with Etruscan letters, and is of the same value. Its measure is the bronze As or jEs; the pound Turrhenoi, or as we now pronounce it, the pound Troy, which still preserves its old division into twelve ounces, as delivered to us by the Romans, and by which we measure those things which they most valued, viz, wine and strengthening liquors, healing medicines, and the precious metals. The oldest device upon the As, as far as we can ascertain, is the double head of Janus upon one side, and the prow of a ship upon the other, both types of the Etruscan people. The prow denotes a maritime and com- mercial nation, and it was with peculiar propriety assumed by the Etruscans, who, Pliny says, invented TARCIIUN AND HIS INSTITUTIONS. 273 the prow; that is to say, they were the first who used it in Italy, having crossed the Mediterranean sea in vessels of burden, that bore most probably, some image or ornament upon their prows, as we see on the Egyptian vessels of Sethos, in the plates of Rosellini, and as we know to have been the Car- thaginian custom with their Patffici, in imitation of the Tyrians. The largest vessels of the Pharaohs were always stationed in the Mediterranean, and it is not unlikely that the Avaris-Rasena had usually composed the best part of their crews. In any view, the prow was a most appropriate emblem of the Rasena, but in conjunction with the head of Janus, it becomes an historical record, and it is very likely that in this hieroglyphical but most significant form, it first took a place in Tarchun's pontifical tables. It expresses that the coin so stauiped is the authorized medium of exchange among the children of Janus, who have come to Italy in prow-built ships. Ovid* says, that the head of Janus on the one side, is in memory of the first civilizer of the Italians, and the prow on the other side, is in memory of the Tuscan vessel in which he landed. Janus, or Janias, the Assyrian shepherd king, we believe to have been the antitype of this coin. He was a double-headed hero, that is, he not only ruled over but he united two people ; being the Assyrian monarch of Lower Egypt, and af- terwards a demi-god of the Rasena, whose spirit and deeds reappeared in Tarchun, and in whose form he * Fast. i. 228, &c. n5 274 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. was again the double-headed, uniting the Assyrians and the Italians. Janus of the Rasena was double, in that he looked forward to the dominion of his tribe in their new land, and backward to the times of his government in the land from which they had de- parted. Janus was an ever-present remembrance to the Rasena, of how completely man's existence is divided between the past and the future. " II presente e un baleno Che cadde da nulla in seno Onde la vita e appunto Una memoria, una speranza, un Punto !" The king who succeeded Janus in Egypt was As or Assith,'* and the connexion between Janus and As, gives us the idea of a coin bearing the king's name, as a Jacobus, a Carolus, a Napoleon, or a Louis. If not too ridiculous, we might instance the Scotch bawbee, so called from the baby King James VI,, under whom it was introduced, f " As" may have been the king who first struck the coin, and stamped it with the head of his prede- cessor " Janus," or this may be a later thought of Tarchun's. And though we do not know that this coin was ever used in Egypt or in the Avaris, we have no reason to imagine that it may not have been, and we are moreover sure that the double head is the idea of an eastern people. The Etruscan coinage must have been known in Egypt, through a long suc- * Coins : see Pliny, xviii. 3 ; xxxiii. 3. Varro de Re Rus. ii. 1. t Eusebivxs, Africanus, and Manetho. TARCIIUN AND HIS INSTITUTIONS. 275 cession of ages, during the time that ]i^truria carried on an active coininerce with the ports of Lybia and of the Delta; and therefore we can prove nothing from the absence of such coins in the Egyptian remains. Coins of various metals and various devices were used in Egypt many ages before Tarchun, and therefore we cannot doubt that he introduced into Italy, in imitation of Egypt, that indispensable method of exchange, to which he had always been accustomed, whatever devices he may at first have assumed ; though anything more appropriate than the head of Janus, the hero of his race, and of the prow by which the subjects of Janus's successors were brought into their new country, cannot be conceived. In one of the painted tombs at Beni Hassan, of the age of Osortasen the Second, that of Me- noth.p.h, Rosellini* has found different weights of coin, expressed by different stamps. These are an ox, a gazelle, and a frog, in the proportions of one, two, and three to each other; and these stamps and proportions, he has found repeated in other paintings, without any variation. In this same tomb gold and silver are weighed in the ba- lances, which are represented of this form, and gold is in small round lumps of equal size, like buttons, neither wrought nor stamped. The objects marked for coin in Menoth.p.h's tomb are rings of silver and gold, but there must also have been a lower coinage of copper, or clay, or of some inferior substance, for the * Vol. iv. p. 287. 276 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. use of the common people, and for the every-day pur- poses of life. Now if the Egyptians had a coinage so early as 1700 e.g., their neighbours, the Lybians, Nu- bians, Phoenicians, Assyrians, and all the nations of Ludin, who traded with them, must have had it also, and we have the express testimony of Scrip- ture, that money, " even current money of the mer- chant," in small pieces of marked and ascertained weight, was used in the land of Canaan in the time of Abraham. When this patriarch bought the cave of Macpelah,* he did not cut off so much of a wedge of gold or silver, but he paid " four hundred pieces of money current with the merchants." When Jacob arrived at Shalem of the Hivites, he paid for his field " one hundred pieces of money," supposed to have been stamped with a lamb. When Joseph's brethren sold him, it was for twenty pieces of silver, paid by the Midianites, who were then on their way to trade in Egypt, and who would doubtless carry with them, the coin that was exchangeable in that country. Every man who reflects, must acknowledge the necessity which exists, the moment nations begin to trade with each other, of some common iiiedium of exchange, in a small and ascertained weight, coined in those metals which do not lose, in passing from hand to hand. The possessor of a wedge of gold might require to cut it into twenty pieces, and the acquirer of each of these twenty pieces might be obliged to divide them into fifty, in order to pro- cure what he wished to purchase, and then the * Gen. xxiii. 10 TARCnUN AND niS INSTITUTIONS. 277 filings must have been lost, and the awkward- ness and the difficulty of such an exchange is too apparent to require any argument. Indeed, the testimony of Scripture, the evidence of the Beni Hassan tombs, and the corroborating circumstance of the laws of Menu, which treat of coin, of debt, and of the rate of interest, render argument quite super- fluous. The Egyptians used stamped rings for coin, and so did probably all the eastern people, and all the Phoenician tribes in their earliest days ; for when Csesar landed in Britain he found that the Druids had introduced into our island, rings of brass and iron for money,* The Britons had also small round coins of gold and silver, with strange rude devices npon them, whence it appears that they knew both the flat and the annular forms of money. Both must have been known in Egypt, and both were probably used in Etruria, gold and silver rings being exchanged for things of great price, and the copper or bronze As, with the head of Janus, or with the Egyptian ox, hence called " Pecunia," being current for the com- mon purposes of life. It is very evident that the man who could invent the stamped ring, could also invent the flat small coin ; and though we trace back the original idea of coinage from Etruria to Egypt and Ludin, we are not surprised to see a different expression of the thought given to it by the colony of Tarchun, from w^hat it presented in the climes of the East. In every colony which settles at a distance from * Bel. Gal. v. 12. 278 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. the mother country, we must expect to find, not only the civilization it brings along with it, but also its own peculiar development, and the modifying in- fluence which every man receives, when he is placed in an entirely new sphere. As the Madeira grape has a different flavour in Madeira, at the Cape of Good Hope, and at Bourdeaux, so the child of Assyria will exhibit a different development in his father land, in Hindustan, and in Etruria. The Ludin colony of Tarchun were distinguished for their veneration and their love of truth. Their hearts ever yearned upon their aods, their ances- tors, and their kings ; and hence we see that the coin of their own devising, bore upon it the heads of Janus and Archies, two of their former kings, of Jupiter and Minerva, the Egyptian male and female Ammon, and of Mercury, who was the same with Thoth,* the messenger of the gods, their Tages or the genius of Etruria. The coinage of Tarchun, like every other eastern coinage, expressed weight, and the As or pound Turrhenoi was divided into six parts, each marked with as many dots as expressed its division, and translated by the Latins, as one half, one-third, one-fourth, one sixth, and one ounce, — Semis, Tei-- tiens, Quadrans, Sextans, and Uncia. We do not know the Etruscan names, but this is their mean- ing. The shekel and the talent of the Jews, though coins, were also weights. Jupiter or Tina^ which we believe to be a corrup- * Vide Rosellini. TARCnUN AND 1118 INSTITUTIONS. 279 tion of Atina, or yVdonai, the Hebrew for lord, was tlie same Being with the Egyptian Ammon, and Ammon was tlie Amen of the Hebrew people, and the one true God common to the Egyptians, the Arabians, the Canaanites, and all the she))herd tribes until the death of Joseph. The great Amen, corrupted into Ammon, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, was equally known in those days, to the Pharaoh of the land of Ham, to the Assyrian Laban, the Ara- bian Job, the Philistine Abiinelech, and probably to the Hindostanee Menu. Egyptian scholars are well aware that this Ammon, in Hebrew "Amen," was the one supreme and eternal God, worshipped in Egypt throughout all generations, even from the days of Abraham, when the Lord visited the Pharoah in visions of the night, to the days of St. Paul, when the Almighty had given them up to their own inventions, and when they had forgotten that all other gods were merely names for his attributes. The only modern idea with which Tarchun im- pressed his coins was the prow, in commemoration of the means by which he gained a footing in Italy ; if, indeed the prow was a new idea, and if it be not highly probable that even in Egypt, the Rasena may have been the first to use it. It must, however, strike every considerate person as very extraor- dinary, that neither Tarchun their leader, nor Tages their lawgiver, should in their own proper fomns, have ever been impressed upon the coins. And this is one reason why we assign the choice of the emblems to Tarchun himself, and not to any of his successors ; because all the forms were older than his day, and 280 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. being- once fixed and settled, could not be altered in order to do him honour, after he and Tages were numbered among the demi-gods. Herodotus* says that the Lydians were the first people who coined, and if, as is most likely, he means the Ludin, what he says is highly probable. Homer values Glaucus's armour at one hundred oxen, and Diomed's at ten, meaning apparently the golden ox, the ring coin of Egypt ; and scholars still doubt whether this ox or the double-headed Janus was the first stamp of Italy. The learned in general ascribe the first stamped money to Egina, because Strabof says that gold was stamped there in the reign of Phaedon, king ofArgos, and that he invented weights and mea- sures. What change or improvement could be meant by this so called " invention," so long after weights and measures must have been introduced into Greece, both by Danaus and Cadmus, and so very many ages after they had been common to every nation of Asia, we shall not pretend to deter- mine. But money may have been first stamped at Egina in the reign of Phsedon, 895 b. c, if the word stamped is used in opposition to "cast or fused ;" for the money of Etruria, and probably of Egypt, was all cast, and received its impression in a state of fusion. It is almost needless to add, that the coinage of the Rasena was quickly adopted by all the tribes of Italy, and that no other was known, until the year 480 of Rome, when, according to Pliny, in imitation of the southern Greeks, the Ro- mans began to coin silver. * i. i)4. t via. p. 376. TARCIIUN AND HIS INSTITUTIONS. 281 No act performed by Tarchun, which proclaims the wise and educated man, ought to excite astonish- ment in our minds, when we remember the race from which he sprang, and the land in which he was brought up. Yet, though we read without any amazement of Moses, three hundred years earlier, giving rules to the Israelites, concerning the weights and measures, the money and the interest of money, with which they had been conversant in Egypt, we cannot prevent a feeling of incredulity stealing over us, when we read of similar wise financial measures on the part of Tarchun. That he fixed the circulating medium of his country, its die, and its value; and not only this, but that he divided his standard into twelve parts, with reference to his twelve states, and deter- mined the rate of interest at which it might be lent, in that proportion which it continues to bear at this day, throughout the whole civilized world, viz. at from five to ten per cent, per annum. This has been most ably proved by Niebuhr,* and will be detailed when we come to the last part of this work. It stag- gers our belief, only because we cannot comprehend that man in all ages, has been the same creature, with the same powers of mind, the same mathema- tical abilities, the same acuteness, the same wants and the same resources. " The thing that hath been, is that which shall be, and the thing which shall be, is that which hath been, and there is no new thing under the sun," — So says inspiration, and so echoes * Vide Niebuhr on the Uncialzinsfuss. 282 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. the voice of antiquity, and so repeats the page of his- tory, but man will not believe. We need not apologise for attributing to Tarchun many things, concerning the epoch of which, the re- cords of Etruria are silent. Those records have long- since perished in the flames kindled by Sylla. But we have this evidence, that the Etruscan coinage was used all over Italy before the foundation of Rome, and must have been invented or introduced, by some native of the Etruscan race. We, therefore, only in- crease the wonder, if we refer it to any successor of Tarchun, who had no models to work from. The least extraordinary, and the most reasonable and probable origin which we can give to the coinage, is to refer it to the early hero Tarchun ; for the educated man who founds and settles a colony from a civilized country, will in all cases, be the one, to establish its letters and numerals, its weights and its measures, its kalendar and its financial system. We have slightly to notice three other most im- portant institutions characteristic of civilization, introduced by Tarchun into Italy, before we bid adieu to him and his wonder-working life. We allude to the external commerce, the internal com- munications, and the extraordinary hydraulic works of ancient Etruria. We have no date for the commencement of the commerce of the Etruscans, but we find them in the time of Homer, masters of the Italian seas, which were known to other nations only by their name, and which were occupied only by their ships ; TAHCiniN AND IMS INSTITUTIONS. 283 the trade of tlie Pelas<>i, and of every other peojjle, being- carried on by their sufferance, and, if not in their vessels, at least under their flag. We must therefore carry back this trade to its only probable couinienceuient, the days of Tarchun, when the Mediterranean had been crossed* and explored by him for his new home, when his whole colony were maritime, when the ports of Egypt and of Lybia were familiarly known to his people, and when, by means of the widely spread, and not much differing dialects of Ludin, he could make himself under- stood, wherever colonies from the north of Egypt, or the west of Asia, had made a settlement. Tarchun had, doubtless, no knowledge of Greece, and no communication with it ; the earliest settle- ment of the Greeks in Italy being more than one hundred years after the time of his death. Cuma is the oldest Greek colony ; and, according to Niebuhr, it was settled by some natives of Chalcis, about 1060 B. c, and for a long time, was a small obscure place without any trade. Thucydides says, that the first colonies of the Greeks cannot be traced earlier than eighty years after the Trojan war ; and Diod. Sic. affirms that they were little known to the Italians before the time of Xerxes. Tarchun's commerce must have been with the Phoenician colonies of Africa ; and his successors would renew their inter- course with Egypt ; whence the ships of Tarchun or Tyrsen, not improbably sometimes confounded with those of Tarshish, would sail in Company to Argos * Herodotus i. 94. 284 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. and to the Ionian Seas, and thus they would begin that trade which they afterwards carried on so briskly with Corinth. It is an extraordinary fact, that we have no tradition of any trade at any period, between Etruria and Phoenicia, but with Eg-ypt and Carthage and with all their colonies, which we look upon as a certain proof that the Etruscans under Tarchun, came from the south, and not from the east of the Mediterranean. The Etruscans were, from time immemorial, a commercial nation ; and, for many ages, they were the only commercial and maritime people amongst the Italians. Virgil, in the iEneid, represents them as having an active navy at their command, immediately after the fall of Troy, and seems to intimate that, in their early days, their communication by sea was easier and readier than travelling by land ; as he brings the troops of Clu- sium and other inland states in ships, to join the hosts of Tarchun. The foreign articles in which they traded will be treated of hereafter. Roads. We must not, however, omit to notice the internal communication which Tarchun established throughout the land of Etruria. He who laid out his camps, his cities, and his temj)les, by the rule of straight lines; he who could measure off and enclose ground to build and plant, who could have a variety of gates to all his towns, and streets of various but fixed breadths, leading from one urban barrier to the other; he who was acquainted with the highways,* the canals, and, * That highways were general over the East, we learn from the journeyings of the children of Israel, when they asked per- TAUCIIUN AND IIIS INSTITUTIONS. 285 it may be, even with the railroads* of J^gypt ; he who could render practicable a yearly meeting-, from every state of his dominions, to be held at the Fane of Voltiimna, — such a man could not possibly be at any loss to construct roads fit for his horses and his chariots, his waggons and his caravans, to travel upon, and which should lead in whatever direction he was pleased to appoint. The hilly nature of the ground in Italy could present no difficulties to him, for he knew how to tunnel through hills, to quarry stones of every size, to turn i-ivers, and to drain lakes. Wherever there are no roads, the land has little commerce, the people know nothing of each other ; and this want of intercourse soon converts them, as in the case of the old Highland clans, and the mo- dern Arabian desert tribes, into strangers, and from strangers, into enemies. But Tarchun studiously avoided the interruption of brotherhood amongst his people, and strove to make them not only well known to each other, by constant markets, fairs and meetings, but to the nations in their vicinity, who were welcomed to their feasts. The tribes of Italy, learned road-making, as they did all other civilized arts, from the Rasena ; and the Ragena imported it from the still more anciently civilized continent of Ludin. It was possibly to necessitate mission to pass through Moab, &c., and promised to keep the highways. Numb. xx. 17; xxi. 22. Deut. ii. 27. * Many writers assert that Sesostris began a railroad from the NUe to the Red Sea. 286 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. inland travelling-, that Tarclmn fixed upon the very heart of his territory, as the place of his annual meeting; where it was unapproachable by water, and most difficult of access to the inland states of Cliisium, Perugia, Cortona, and Arretium, His roads were all paved, and many specimens of them remain ; the most generally accessible to tourists, being the Via Sacra at Rome, and the streets of Pompei. These are doubtless of much later date than Tarchun, but they were made after his models, and may as fairly be given as specimens of his style, as any of the Roman roads in England may be given to exemplify the style of Julius Caesar. The oldest method of making roads was to dig them two feet deep, and then to lay a quantity of silaria, or a composition of earth and stone, ground to paste, upon beams of burnt wood. Over this was placed a layer of basalt, and the road was com- pleted. This is the construction of the Via Sacra. Another method was to make a furrow two feet deep, on each side of the line intended, and then to lay upon it, a nucleus of terra cotta and broken stones ; over this, a quantity of rough stones ; and lastly, a layer of hewn stone, smooth and durable.* Probably the government made and kept up the roads by military labour, as in some parts of the continent, at this present time. Hydrau- The last work of Tarchun's, which we shall enu- rations!" Hierate, is the extraordinary drains, tunnels and chan- * Both these accounts are from the Archaeological Lectures of Dr. Meyer in 183S. TARCIIUN AND HIS INSTITUTIONS. 2H7 nels for irrigation, wliicli he spread from one end of Etruria to the other ; and whicli , coeval with the Etrns- can influence, extended themselves over Italy. Be- fore the land was drained by the Etruscans, we are told by geologists, that the plains of Italy were little better than so many vast swamps, the heights upon which the Rasena built, alone being healthy and fit for habitation. But Tina gave the land to those who knew how to redeem it, and to whom deluges of water presented no idea but that of fertility, and of an incentive to industry and watchfulness. The Rasena had seen the Nile every year, spread itself above their grounds, and had hailed and blessed the overflow. In Italy they introduced that system of irrigation to which they had long been accustomed, and which enabled them to defy alike, the evils of a scorching sun and of an arid soil. And when they found that Italy, unlike Egypt, had abundance of rain, and a superabundance of desolating rivers and overflowing lakes, they cut tunnels through the rocky mountains, to make drains for the water, even as they built cloacse in all their towns, to make drains for the land, and to provide for the health and cleanliness of the dense populations. Many of these cloacae may still be seen ; the models of the Cloaca Maxima in Rome, and the imitation, in all probability, of the same, on a greater scale, at Memphis, Ramses, and Zoan. It was the tradition in Etruria, that these mountain tunnels were first cut, to purify the air, or, in other words, to drain the marshes : and where they have been neglected, the malaria now depopu- 288 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. lates the country, and has done so for a long succes- sion of ages — even ever since wars and desolations caused those labours to cease, and the science which guided them, to be neglected and discouraged. As drainers of the ground, and as managers of the power of water, the Etruscans excelled every other people in the world, excepting only the Egyptians, or Assyrian Egyptians, who were their masters.* They carried off the water where it was superfluous, and increased it by irri- gation, where the natural supply fell short. They regulated the quantity as a mai'ketable article, ex- actly according to their necessities, and managed it in a manner that never would have entered into the minds of men, upon whom it had not been forced by a previous necessity ; even by such a one as the an- nual overflowings of the Nile in Egypt amongst the ancients, or, as the annual threatenings of the ocean in Holland, amongst the moderns. From Bo- chartt and, from the Ancient History, we learn that the Tigris, upon which R.S.N was situated, annually overflowed its banks, and had to be regulated in a way, not unlike to that which was observed upon the Nile. The Rasena, therefore, if, as we believe, they came from Resen, would continue to carry on in the Delta, the same water operations to which they had always been accustomed in the land of their origin, and would naturally again transplant their habits of scientific * Ancient Hist. vol. ii. , from Plut. and Diod., says that Her- cules', i. e. Assyrian, skill and strength drained the waters of Egypt. f In loco. TAUCnUN AND IIIS INSTITUTIONS. 289 and productive industry from the Delta, into their new country. Tliey knew liow water could be ma- naged so as to increase the riches and value of their possessions, and how also it could be so employed as to fertilize that land, which before them, no man had ever cultivated. They knew how to multiply the product of what had already been made ara- ble ; as well as how to convert the pestilent lurking places of reptiles, into the garden and granary of North and Central Italy. We do not think that the Rasena first commenced executing these great hydraulic operations, after they settled in Italy, but, on the contrary, that a very- high degree of refinement, and long established and uninterrupted habits of previous industry were re- quisite, in order to make them sensible of the utility of such works anywhere. We are persuaded of this, from considering both the apathy of those who preceded, and of those who followed them ; and also because such wonderful operations have ever been, in other lands, the fruit of dire necessity, and not the spontaneous effort of human will, to improve the scanty bounties of nature. Had the Rasena of Tarchun's days not known how to drain and how to tunnel, before they came into Italy, they would have conquered more land, to supply themselves with food and pasture, rather than have laboriously redeemed the marshy swamps of Western Umbria. In Italy, though prudence and foresight recom- mend such works; which skill and science alone can execute, and though health and plenty reward 290 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. them, yet no absolute necem^t/ there, compels man to their exercise. Accordingly, we find that ever since Etruria sunk under the Roman dominion, and ceased to be cultivated by her native lords, the industrious policy of Tages has fled from her coun- cils ; and these plains, with their villages, vineyards and corn fields, have been suffered to fall into neglect, becoming in their desolate extent and poisonous at- mosphere, a pest, where they once were a blessing. Besides the purifying of all the towns and the draining of all the marshes, there are few lakes in Etruria, or in the states bordering upon it, which have not had their waters lowered ; and few rivers which have not had their channels deepened, straightened, and regulated, by this extraordinary people. Though the only two grand works exten- sively known, are the Cloaca Maxima at Rome, and the Emissarium, through the Hill of Albano, Italians are constantly finding them in places where they have never before been suspected ; and engineers, who alone are capable of appreciating their merits and their diflficulties, may trace them now towards Chiusi, at Fiesole, and in the Lakes of Nemi, and Galano. The Lake of Nemi has two emissarj, which have only lately come to light ; and a very magnificent one was discovered at Galano, in 1838, by Prince Borghese, in an attempt to drain that sheet of water. Niebuhr was the first who investigated the old under-ground channels at Fiesole, in 1820. He* says, that the site of Florence was formerly * Niebuhr, i. 138. TARCIIUN AND HIS INSTITUTIONS. 291 a lake, and tliat the land on each side the Arno was a marsh, frequently deluged and flooded, because the Gonfalina rock shut up the valley and im- peded the flow of the river. The Tuscans cut it through, and the water kept within its banks. At L'ancisa is another tunnel, which formerly con- ducted water into the Clanis, and diminished the volume of the Tiber. The brook Clanis, the Tuscans turned into a river, draining into it the marshes of the Chiana. In the state of Perugia, and in other parts of Tuscany, many emissarj still remain, by which land was formerly gained, and which continue to do their office at this day, owing to the consummate skill with which they have been constructed, though for ages, they have been utterly neglected. We need scarcely observe, that the people who Mines, could tunnel, could also work in mines, and, accord- ingly, it is probable that the mines of Italy were first opened under Tarchun, as their rich ores certainly first became an article of commerce in the hands of the early Rasena. They were wrought by the government; probably by forced, if not by slave labour, and when let, they paid a royalty to the state of one-tenth. Tarchun is said to have been the first who intro- Vine. duced the vine, and he had learnt the cultivation of it in Egypt ; for notwithstanding what Herodotus and Plutarch say, that there was no wine in Lower Egypt, wine always constituted part of the sacred offerings. The Pharaoh who lived at Memphis, in the days of Joseph, had an officer appointed to press the grapes into his cup, and the tombs of Beni Has- o 2 292 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. sail give us the whole process of the culture of the vine, according to that method which was afterwards followed in Etruria. Diodorus Siculus (i.) tells us, that Hermes, i. e. Thoth, in Egypt, invented the use of the olive, i. e, improved its culture. We are therefore authorized to ascribe to Tages, or Tarchun, the extensive planting and cultivation of the olive in Italy. 293 CHAPTER XIII. TARCHUn's death HERCULES SATURN JANUS. Tarchun may well be considered as one of the xn. greatest heroes whom this world has ever seen, and ^^^'^• ® . B.C. as one of the most wonderful instruments of moral and social improvement, who ever emigrated from one clime to another. Through him, the civilization of Asia, and the arts and sciences of the eastern world flowed easily and naturally into Europe. To him, ancient Italy owed her commerce, her coinage, her weights and measures, the rules of her architecture, her skill in naval science, and the discipline of her army ; her roads, the improvement of her agriculture, the introduction of the vine, the working of her mines, the instruction in literature and science, of all her upper classes, the doctrines of her faith, and the gorgeous ceremonials of her religious worship. He brought his Assyrian-Egyptian colony from the Delta, or from Libya, into Umbria, and settling them there, partly by conquest and partly by treaty, he left them as models, to all the tribes around ; — " that little but active leaven which leaveneth the whole lump." He consecrated their great tem- ple, 1187 B.C., and divided them into XII. states, 294 HISTORY OF ETRUKIA. each oue, like the States of America, independent within itself, but yet bound to the other, as part of an indissoluble whole. The interests of each yielded in subservience to those of the great body, whilst the body, on the other hand, was bound to consider and protect the separate interests of each individual member. Tarchun's people had one common place of annual meeting at Voltumna, where they sacrificed one com- mon sacrifice under one great high priest. They were obliged to obey in common, all the laws of that solemn council ; they had one faith in Tina, Talna, and Minerfa, and they were bound to make war under one common general. They had one language and literature, and they were united together by one peculiar and national law. Tarchun, though a suc- cessful warrior, had no love for war, and conferred upon his people, as his highest boon, the wise consti- tutions of Tages ; being more anxious that the Ra- sena should cultivate the healing and beneficent arts of peace, than that they should be known to pos- terity, as the blood stained conquerors, and haughty exterminators of the hitherto barbarous Europeans. To him we must ascribe the first triumph ever celebrated in Italy, for Appian says, that the king of the Tuscans triumphed one thousand years before the Romans, which means that their first king was the first Italian who observed this pomp. We may therefore imagine Tarchun, after his great, and in- violably kept treaty with the Umbri, going up to the temple of Tina Tarquiniensis in his robes of state, tarciiun's death. 295 himself dedicating the first Spolia Opima, and mak- ing the first rich offerings to his patron gods, in the new land now placed under their protection. He from that time nded in peace, and civilized the country between the Gulf of Spezzia and the Tiber, making covenants with the former inhabitants of the land ; with the Umbri, and with the Pelasgi their subjects, according to the fashion of all the eastern nations. He called them to his sacrifices and sacred feasts, and he went to theirs. He did not break their altars, nor cut down their groves ; but he took their daughters for his sons, and he gave his sons to their daughters ; and it is this style of covenant which the Israelites would naturally have made with the Phoenician nations three hundred years before Tar- ciiun's days, if they had not been expressly forbidden by Moses.* The Rasena once settled, made one peo- ple with the old inhabitants of the land, and merely maintained themselves as the dominant race. Tarchun foretold for his people, one day of rule in Etruria to consist of 1100 years, which period, ac- cording to historians, was actually granted to them, and after he had so ordered and settled his affairs as to establish his nation in tranquil security, he went down to the tomb in the ripeness of his glory, hal- lowed in their affections and shrined in their hearts. We presume him to have been at least five and twenty years old, when he landed in Italy, because he was an augur, and his own laws forbade any man to assume the office of augur before that age. It is probable that he died old and full of days, and that * Ex. xxxiv. 12. 296 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. he was gathered to his grave in peace ; for had he been cut off in his prime, or had any remarkable cir- cumstances attended his death, we should have had some legend of the tale, and probably some yearly Memo- commemoration of so great a national misfortune. Etruria, which kept so strictly and with such lavish honours, the feasts and commemorations of the dead, would have had sacred elegies for Tarchun, and a public mourning, like the weeping for Tham- muz, by the women of Syria and Egypt. He must have died so naturally as to have created no national shock, and to have occasioned no national confusion, and his death would undoubtedly be at- tended by that honour and regret, which in every age and country, follow to their last resting place, the great and the good of the human race. To us, who are accustomed to Greek myths, and Roman legends, in sickening abundance, it seems passing strange, that Tarchun in his own name, should never have been deified, and that we do not find his acts, or his wars, or his original institutions, either painted upon the vases, or sculptured on the tombs. But the Etruscans behaved towards their great founder, as the Egyptians acted towards Joseph, their preserver, and as the Hebrews, towards Moses their leader and their prince. " They taught their children to rise up and call him blessed, and they let his own works praise him in the gates." His name was ever on their lips, whilst his institutions were in their hearts, and formed, as it were, the very atmosphere in which they lived, and moved, and had their being. He needed, therefore, " no tarciiun's death. 297 storied urn or animated bust" to perpetuate liis i-e- nown. He was buried, after tlie manner of his peo- ple, in some rock sepulchre, or in some lofty tumulus at Tarquinia, near the first fortress he had )>uilt, and the first temple he had dedicated ; and whilst his unburnt, but richly clothed corpse, crumbled to dust beneath its cerements of gold, his spirit for more than 1100 years continued to rule over the land, which his wisdom had settled, and his sword had won. We may derive a tolerable idea of the manner of Tarchun's burial, from the discoveries which have been made at Tarquinia, in our own day. In the year 1826, Carlo Avolta of Corneto, had a most un- expected glimpse of a Tarquinian Lucumo. On removing a few stones from the upper part of a sepulchre, he looked through the aperture to dis- cover the contents, and behold, extended in state, before him lay one of the mighty men of old. He saw him crowned with gold and clothed in armour. His shield, spear, and arrows were by his side, and the warriors sleep seemed rather to be of yesterday, than to have endured well nigh thirty centuries. But a sudden change came over the scene, and startled Avolta from his astonished contemplation. A slight tremor, like that of sand in an hour glass, seemed to agitate the figure, and in a few minutes it vanished into air and disappeared. When he en- tered the tomb, the golden crown, some fragments of arms, and a few handfuls of dust, were all that marked the last resting place of this Tarquinian chief. o 5 298 HISTORY OF ETRURTA. According to the fashion of the oldest Etruscan tombs, whether under a tumulus or quarried in the rock, Tarchun's was probably a Fane, where yearly offerings were long made, and where auguries could always be taken. Near his bier might possibly stand an image of himself in a Curule chair, as has been found long prior to his date* in the sepulchres of Egypt, and stretching from his bier towards the altar, would be rows of Lares, in memory of his Ludin forefathers. Near him, would be also ranged vases of an Egyptian form, and with Egyptian lines and figures on them, filled with wine, corn and oil, the fruits of his land.^ Above him, would be hung his sword and shield, beside him his bow and plenished quiver, and upon his head, the double crown of Augur and of King. The sacred ring or Scarabaeus on his finger, would probably bear upon it the figures of Egyptian gods, as has usually been the case with those Scarabsei which have been found in the most ancient Etruscan tombs; and we must suppose pomps and Palsestric exercises to have honoured his funeral, as he was famous for the in- troduction of innumerable games of all kinds into Italy. Indeed, the Etruscans taught the Latins all the Circensian shows, and all manner of scenic and pantomimic diversions, but especially every species of solemn and commemorative Ceremonial and Fes- tive entertainment. We may therefore believe, that on this occasion, the circus of Tarquinia would turn out her chariots and her horsemen, and that all the * Rosellini. tarciiun's dkatii. 299 Senators, and the Vestals, and the rich, and tlie ho- nourahle, would assemble, and would look upon the boxing, the wrestling, and the racing, which were exhibited in his honour, whilst they joined in the deep and loud lamentation occasioned by his loss. These games all had their original in Egypt, and are represented in the Egyptian tombs, many cen- turies before the Rasena colonized from the Delta to the shores of Italy. The great antiquity of ceremonial entertainments, whether consisting of horse and chariot races, or of athletic exercises, may be judged of, by the enormous Hippodrome, which a king of the 18th dynasty con- structed at Thebes,* and by the court attached to the house or temple of Dagon, built by the Philistines, on purpose for these scenes, where Samson met his death 1120 years before the christian era. Three thousand men and women were assembled upon the roof of this temple, besides the nobles who were inside. The slaves and captives, who were exhibited for their diversion, were in the inclosed court in front, which directly communicated with the great hall. " It is worthy of remark," says Mliller, " that the " Etruscan men of rank never condescended to min- " gle in the Palsestric games, excepting as spectators, " and that they employed in them their clients, their " handsomest slaves, and hired strangers ; but they " would have thought it a degradation to enter the " arena themselves. If, as in later ages sometimes " happened, a man of family loved athletic sports and * Rosellini. 300 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. " desired to prove his skill in them, he was obliged " to go for that purpose, into Greece, in order that, " while he gratified his taste, he might still preserve " his caste, for there he could carry off the crown of " victory from his own equals, which in Etruria would " have been impossible." This will explain the in- scription rovaSeveflej^aeXov, occasionally found on sepul- chral prize vases, which had probably been gained by their possessors in Greece, and which were after- wards deposited in their tombs. It is not here indeed asserted that such is the origin of all the vases found in Etruria with this inscription, for some may have been imported from Athens for sale, and the greater part were certainly made in Italy, and were probably imitated from the Greeks, by the Etruscans. The acts of Tarchun were rehearsed at his inter- ment, and there his praises were sung after the man- ner of Egypt; and his highest eulogy in the funeral song must have been, that he had been found worthy of converse with the Genius of Etruria, and that he had conferred upon the Rasena the laws and institu- tions of Tages, and entitled them to the love and vene- ration of those whom they conquered only to improve. We will now inquire what were the names by which Italy was known in the days of Tarchun, or in those ages immediately succeeding him, which may be called " his tiiues;" because no other name besides his, during that long period found an echo through the land. "Tarchun" is said to have found- ed Etruria Nova. "Tarchun" is said to have planted the colonies of the south, ages after the eastern hero HERCULES. 301 had mouldered in the sei)ulchre. Tarcliun to the Rasena, was the same as Israel to the Hebrews. lie, the head, stood for his people. Italy, in the earliest times, was called, according to Niebuhr, and the authors he quotes, Uitellia, or Sikellia; Heraclea, and Saturnia; also Hesperia, or the land of the West ; and Ausonia, or the land of the South ; whence by corruption or contraction, or variety of pronunciation in different dialects, Au- runcia, Oscania, and Opica. The land of the South, and the land of the West, need no explanation, and Sikellia, we have already said, upon Niebuhr's authority, is only another version of Uitellia or Vitellia, a goddess of the centre of Italy, who has gradually spread her name, though we can trace nothing of her worship, over the inhabitants, and over the country. The Vitellia of Tarchun is the Italia of our times. There was anciently a small city of Vitellia, now Valmontone^ near Palestrina. It is mentioned by Livy,* and by Pliny ,t and its site lias been recognised from the numerous se- pulchral excavations in the rocks close to it, after the fashion of the Etruscans, from whom this style was adopted by the bordering tribes. What are the derivations of Heraclea and Saturnia, the two oldest names of Italy ? Are they not from Her- cules and Saturn? And whence come Hercules and Saturn? Are they not gods of the Phoenicians? And were they ever heard of in Italy, until introduced by the Ludin-Rasena? Hercules was a demi-god, a dei- * ii. 39. * iii. 5. 302 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. fied man ; in poetry, one of the old giants, and the first of a series of five and forty Hercules* who came, in the course of ages, to be renowned in song amongst the Greeks, with as many different adventures. The first and original Herculesf was the strong and vali- ant Prince who founded Tyre, and who surrounded it with a wall one hundred and fifty feet high. This man had a temple built to his memory, and altars erected to his name, but without any graven image; for, like Moses and Tarchun,he had an image which sufficed, being graven in the memories of his cotem- poraries, and in the idealism and creative fancies of his successors. He was worshipped in Tyre as Melek- karta, king of the city, KJllp "f^Q, and as E.R.K.L, Erkol, bpl^, or the strong. HerodotusJ says that he, this Hercules, was of the same age with Tyre, and Cicero de Nat. Deo. calls him " the Father of Carthage," where he was represented with a bow in one hand, and a club in the other. His image had four wings, and Etruria is the only land in Europe where these four-winged images have been found. He had an oracle in Egypt, and temples amongst all the Phoenician tribes, wherever scattered. He was worshipped in Tartary as the introducer of agricul- ture, and he was one of the gods of India. Tarchun brought his worship and name into Italy, and hence the Turrhenian Hercules, or the strength and power of the Turrheni, of whom Tarchun was * Ancient Universal History, xviii. p. 282. t Ancient Universal History in loco. X ii. 43, 44. 303 the head. Through the Turrhcni, he was naturally introduced into Latiuin ; and Dionysius of ITalicar- nassus,* finding- that he was not indigenous, hut brought thither by some strangers, gives that honour to Eleans and Arcadians, whom for that, and for other historical conveniences, he sometimes carries across the sea to the Italian peninsula. There is no image so common as that of Hercules or Erkle, on the Etrus- can terra cotta and bronzes ; and in Etruscan mytho- logy, he was the husband of Minerva, giving us to understand that absolute perfection, short of supreme deity, was, according to their ideas, the union of wis- dom with strength. The Etruscans were the first peo- ple of Hercules that ever set foot in Italy ; they spread his name across the country, they called after him two of their towns, Erkle or Nortia, and Erkle or Her- culaneum; they engraved his image upon their Sca- rabaei, they stamped his head upon their coins, and we believe that through them the name "Heraclea" was given to Italy in general, as well as to the most southern of their settlements, the town of Heraclea, which they shared with the Greeks in Campania. But whence had Italy the name of Saturnia? who was Saturn, and what were his feasts, or the Saturnalia, which still have their continuation and image in the Italian carnivals ? The Saturnalia, Macrobus tells us, were feasts kept in honour of Saturn, of his times, and of his ad- mirably civilizing institutions, which changed the face of the peninsula, and the first condition of the original Italians. It is remarkable that Italy does not * Lib. i. 9, 23, 25. 304 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. begin with her age of gold, and then sink to an age of iron. The Saturnalia, on the contrary, were feasts kept in memory of some great reformer and benefactor, who came into the land from some other country, and who was a father and instructor to the people he found, of the same sort as Manco Capac to the native Peruvians. Saturn was not Tina or Jupiter ; he had not his seat in the heavens, but he did good amongst men upon earth. His feasts, Macrobius says, were kept, long prior to Rome ; and he arrived in Italy by water, for Tertullian* says that he found on his arrival Janus established as king of the Italians, and that he reigned along with him. Diodorus Siculus (xx.) tells us, that Saturn was the same with Kronus, the god of Carthage, and he adds that human victims, sometimes children, and sometimes slaves, were sacri- ficed to him. For these victims the Rasena afterwards substituted figures of clay and of wax ; in the same spirit of rational sobriety and quiet wisdom, which suggested that prayer and unshaken courage might in times of adversity, defer the decrees of fate. There was an image of this dreadful Demon in Carthage, into which children were thrown and burnt, and the Scripture continually reproves the Canaanites for making their children to pass through the fire to him. From this, arose the tradition of Saturn devouring his own children, which the elegant fancy of the Greeks emblemized into a personification of Time, the destroyer of all men. Saturn was a Phoenician or Assyrian god, brought into Italy by Tarchun, and the same with the * Apol. X. 305 Moloch or Bel of Canaan, and the other ])arts of Ludin, all his names having the same signification of king or crowned one, ]1p, KRN or Lord. "The better life" commemorated in the Saturnalia, was the substituting of plenty, by the introduction of scientific agriculture, which multi[)lics and secures the fruits of the earth ; instead of the frequent famines which used before this time, to desolate Italy. It commemorated also the gift of the vine, brought by Tarchun, and the equality which he granted to those conquered enemies, who used before, to be the slaves of their conquerors, and the victims of their pride and cruelty. Previous to the time of Tarchun, the Sikeli had no quarter, and the Pelasgi are reported to have been all enslaved or exterminated. Before him, there was no principle amongst the Italians, of incorporating the vanquished with the victors, of actually conquering and ruling for the benefit of all, and of turning enemies into friends. It is the prac- tice of wild men, in every age and country, to kill or drive away those whom they subdue; and the refinements of municipal rights, Isopolitisra, equal alliance and protection, and equal law for the incor- porated Plebs, were all Tarchunian or Saturnian, and might well fill those who benefited by them with admiration, gratitude, and joy. Some ancient authors tell us, that Saturn was the priest of the double-headed Etruscan Janus, and the feasts of the Saturnalia, we believe to have been kept in honour of Tarchun himself, to whom alone the praise was due of all the great changes 306 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. which they commemorated. Saturn was the name of a Ludin god, and Janus of a Ludin king. But the feasts of Italy, though they went by their name, were in honour neither of the one nor of the other, but of him, even Tarchun, who very possibly called himself their son, and who was indeed their priest. The Saturnalia were observed for seven days, which we find from the Scriptures, was the usual time of an Eastern feast, whether of the Hebrews or of other nations.* INiebuhrf says that the Latins " held Janus to be the author of a better way of living in Italy ; the teacher of agriculture, and of settled homes." And who is this but Tarchun, who drained the ground, intro- duced the Egyptian plough, made deep the furrows, measured offiixed portions of land for agriculture, and first fortified and consecrated the Italian cities ? " Janus was the most ancient king who civilized the Italians, :|: and his temple always stood open in war, for mutual assistance." And who but Tarchun was the first civilizing sovereign, who made mutual as- sistance a sacred and sworn obligation, both from his own twelve Dynasties to each other, and also from all their allies ? The old treaty says, " Neither shall suffer the other to be attacked." According to Arnobius, Janus presided over gates, roads, and rituals. And who but Tarchun consecrated gates, made the roads, and prescribed the rituals, and who but him first made known the names and attributes * Esther, &c. f Nieb. in loco. X An. Hist. xvi. 62. 307 of Janus and Saturn to the wondering and ever teach- able Italians ? There is a passage in Ovid's Fastoruni,* which seems almost as if it had been expressly written to illustrate the views here advanced. " Tell me," says the poet to Janus, " why is a ship re- presented on one side of our coins, and a double head on the other ? The double head, rejoins Janus, represents me. My temple stood upon the hill, now called Janiculum, and I brought into cultivation, the sandy wastes of Latium, and the land which lies upon the left bank of the Tiber. To the inhabitants, I was known as the god of peace, keeping their gates and ways, armed only with the sceptre of dominion, and not with the weapons of war. The ship denotes the Tuscan vessel, in which I came to these shores, before the scythe-bearing god had wandered over the earth." (Meaning, perhaps, I arrived before the reckoning of time, the epoch of the Etruscans, b. c. 1187, had begun. Tarchun was some years in Italy before his dedica- tion could have taken place.) " I remember Saturn being received in this land, when Jove drove him from heaven. Hence it is called Saturnia, and a grateful posterity have placed a prow on the reverse of my image, in memory of the arrival of Saturn as our guest. I introduced his worship into Italy, and I cultivated all the left bank of the Tiber, (i. e. Etruria Proper,) and had a temple erected to me upon the Mount Janiculum. My land was fertile * Lib. i. 229. 308 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. and arable, when the hills of Rome were pasture for cattle." Might we not suppose the whole of this passage to have been written by Tarchun himself? Placidis ita rursus, ut ante, Clavigerum verbis alloquor ipse Deum. Multa quidem didici : sed cur navalis in cere. Altera signata est, altera forma biceps ? Noscere me duplici posses in imagine dixit Ni vetus ipsa dies extenuasset opus. Causa ratis superest ; Tuscam rate venit ad amnem. Ante pererrato falcifer orbe Deus. Hac ego Saturnum memini tellure receptum : Caelitibus regnis ab Jove pulsus erat. Inde diu genti mansit Saturnia nomen : Dicta quoque est Latium, terra latente Deo. At bona posteritas puppim formavit in sere Hospitis adventum testificata Dei. Ipse solum colui cujus placidissima Isevum Radit arenosi Tibridis unda latus Hie ubi nunc Roma est, tunc ardua sylva virebat : Tantaque res paucis pascua bubus erat, Arx mea coUis erat quam vulgus nomine nostro Nuncupat, haec aetas Janiculumque vocat. Tunc ego regnabam patiens quum terra Deorum. Esset et humanis numina mista locis Nondum justitiam facinus mortale fugarat. Ultima de superis ilia reliquit humvim, Proque metu populum sine ni pudor ipse regebat : Nullus erat justis reddere jura labor. Nil mihi cum bello, pacem postesque tuebar, Et clavem ostendens, heec ait arma gero. Ovid Fastorum, lib. i. Janus was represented in statues, as a young man. And did not Tarchun come over young, and present to 309 Italy, Tag-cs new born, with the body of a child ? The Ancient History says that Janus fixed monarchical government in Etriiria,* and that he was the author of religion, agriculture, and wine,f Macrobius says that he first raised temples and instituted sacred rites. PlinyJ that he introduced the crown of triumph, and Athenaeus that he brought in corn, which means a better method of cultivation, and that he came to Italy in a ship from Asia, i. e. Ludin. Ma- crobius§ and Servius || say that he was an Etruscan, and introduced from Faleria into Rome. Servius^I says that Janus or Eanus was the same as Mars the God of War to the Romans, because he v\^as the author of their military tactics. Now, if we were asked to whom all these acts are to be attributed, and in whom alone they can be said most truly to unite, should we not answer Tarchun ? We believe that Tarchun of the house of Janus, and who intro- duced into Etruria feasts in honour of Janus, and in remembrance of his mother-country, came himself in the course of time, to be worshipped, and kept in honour, under the name of Janus, and that Janus and Saturn, and Hercules, and Turrhenus, and Tyrsenus, as known to the Latins, all meant one and the same person, whose spirit breathed through all their various forms, and that this person was Tarchun. May not Saturniabe possibly only a cor- rupted pronunciation of Tursenia, and may not the Tursene god have become in the mouths of the Italians, Saturn ? * Vide Amobius. f Vide Plut. X xxxiii. 1. § Lib. i. II vii. 607. IF Mn. vii. 310 B.C. CHAPTEE XIV. iENEAS AND TUSCAN HEROES. DiONYSius of Halicarnassus* tells us that about CENT, sixty years before the Trojan war, Evander, an Arca- dian, left his native country, that he took ship, coasted Italy, and sailing up the Tiber, established himself upon one of the small heights which crown its banks. That he was well received by the inhabitants, to whom he brought literal characters, agriculture, and music ; and that soon after, Hercules also left Greece, and came with a colony of Arcadians and Eleans, to join the settlement of Evander, and to share his popularity and his newly-acquired power. After the death of Evander, Hercules had a tem- ple erected to him on the hill, now called Jani- culum, and near this games, were kept in his honour, and in remembrance of the many benefits of peace, cultivation, and good order, which his arrival had conferred upon Italy. Now this is merely a Greek * Lib. i. 20, 2], .T:NEAS and TUSCAN HEROES. 311 version of Ovitrs Latin story, that Hercules, the club-bearing god, and Janus were one ; that Janus received Saturn, who arrived in a Tuscan vessel, that he reig-ned with him upon the Janiculum, and that his reign was an era of peace and unmixed good to the Latin tribes. Ovid's story again, is only a Latin version of the Tuscan tradition, as related by Herodotus, that a foreign colony arrived in Western L^mbria, afterwards Etruria, near the mouth of the Tibei*, under an enlightened and wise king, about sixty years before the Trojan war ; that they intro- duced the worship of foreign gods; that they settled the peace of the land by good government, rather than by force; and that they introduced musical in- struments, religious feasts, and an improved system of agriculture. From this, it appears that, according to Latin and Greek belief, Italy, and especially Latium, vras civilized by foreigners from Tuscan vessels, at a time when the Greeks had no vessels. This we infer, be- cause these events happened coeval with the Argonau- tic expedition, when, according to their own testimony, the Greeks had but one vessel ; and the Eastern strangers introduced vritb them the worship of Sa- turn, a Ludin god not known in Greece. The Latins, according to this account, were like the Umbri and Pelasgi, enrolled amongst the Municipia, of the Ra- sena, and the small Tuscan town, or fort upon the Janiculum, was Isopolitan with Latium. The height of Saturnia near it, afterwards the Mons Capitolinus, was probably the spot where the Turrhenian or 312 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. Tarchunian games of Saturn were celebrated every year. The Janiculum, being within the Tiber, was a possession of Etruria Proper, and was conceived to belong to the Rasena, as the gift of Jove ; but the Tuscans soon pushed forward a colony into Latium, and settled in that part of the Alban hills, called Tusculum, where they were independent of the mother state, and where probably their Senate con- sisted of Latins and Tuscans, in equal proportions, and upon perfectly equal terms. During the latter years of the life of Tarchun, Virgil brings ^Eneas into Italy, a Phrygian prince, who, escaping through the flames of the burning Troy, carried his father upon his shoulders to a ves- sel in the harbour, and there being joined by his son and a few followers, he contrived to stow away his household gods, and set sail with one hun- dred men and a single vessel, to seek his fortunes in another country. As he had no mortal mother, we need not wonder at the marvellous adventures of this extraordinary man. He landed at Carthage three hundred years before it was founded, and was most kindly welcomed by Queen Dido, whom he caused to die of a broken heart, three hundred years before she was born. The goddess, his mother, desired him not to waste his time in Africa, and he accordingly sailed on to Italy, six centuries before Greek vessels dared to navigate the Tyrrhene sea. He landed at Laurentum, where he was hospitably received by King Latinus, and married to his daugh- ter Lavinia, though she had been promised to the JO /RNEAS AND TUSCAN IIHKOKS. 313 king- of the Itutuli, a small Latin tribe close to Laurentiim, the whole of whose country now be- longs to the Duke Cesarini Sforza. As ^Eneas had been driven into exile by the Greeks, who had just slain all his kindred, and wasted his native home, he could not have been much de- lighted to find himself close to a nest of these foreigners, who, consisting of Eleans and Arcadians,* had in some marvellous and unexplained manner, transported themselves to the Palatine hill in Rome. They, however, spoke peaceably and comfortably to him ; told him that they had heard much of his va- lour, and that they sympathized in his misfortunes, and would help him against the mighty Rutuli, and against all other who ventured to attack him. Tar- chun, the wise and the brave, was so penetrated with the merits of this new stranger, that he brought his polished bands to help him, and called out in his behalf all the forces of all his twelve dynasties. He ordered troops from Mantua, before a Tuscan had ever crossed the Po, and from Volturnus, or Capua, before this city had had one stone laid upon another. He exerted all his talents in the service of vEneas, suspended his patriotic improvements, and involved Italy in a general war, to do him pleasure. He chastised such of his own people as refused him submission, and finally offered to acknowledge him as sovereign of the Turseni, and to resign to him his own Etrurian crown. vEneas, the goddess-born, with the magna- nimity of one, who knew of higher things than the * Dion. i. 314 HISTORY OF ETEURTA. crowns and sceptres of this world, refused his offer, bade him keep his little day of dominion to himself, and disappeared in the NumicLis, no doubt gliding down its stream into the arms of his sea-formed mother. It was not until a hundred years after the arrival of ^Eneas, that he and the Laurentini, according to Livy, founded Lavinium, a city which always continued to be considered as the colony, or daughter, of Lauren- tum of the Latins. Laurentum is now Terra Paterno. Again, thirty years after the foundation of Lavinium now Pratica, this city sent out a colony and founded Alba, on Mount Albanus, above the beautiful Alban lake, where vestiges of it may be still seen.* Those who believe the story of iEneas, ascribe the foundation of Alba to his son Ascanius, whilst those whose ima- ginations are more material, believe that it was found- ed by Sylvius, captain of the colony from Lavinium, because they find that it was governed by a dynasty of Sylvii, for some generations, and these Sylvii are descended from, or connected with, Latinus, Sabinus, Faunus, and Picus, all names indigenous to the Italian soil. Virgil did not invent the fable of iEneas, but only embellished what was so fixed in the belief, and so agreeable to the fancies of the Romans, that it would have been vain for him to have investigated the truth. * Rome was founded b, c. 753. Alba 300 years before Rome, or b. c. 1053. Lavinium 30 years previous to Alba, or 1083, and Troy fell b. c. 1184. ^neas is therefore made to land in 1180, and not to found Laurentum until 1083 b. c. ;1';neas and Tuscan heroes. 315 jEiicas was a personage almost unknown to Homer, and thoroughly untlistingniished throughout the Tro- jan war, but his name comes forward in some old histories, as a connexion of the royal family of Priam, and as having- made his escape when Troy was con- sumed. Cephalon, in his history of Troy, quotes an author who wrote in the 330 of Rome, and who says that ^neas founded iEnea in Thrace from his own name, and that he died at Pallene, being- succeeded by his sons, one of whom reigned in Thrace after him. Another ancient author, quoted by Niebuhr, says, that he collected the remnant of the Trojans, after the death of Priam, and ruled over them, near the site of old Troy. Stersichorus says, that he sailed for Hesperia, and the writers who followed him, consequently landed jEneas in the country, towards which they supposed him to have sailed. Sophocles makes him wander about in the neigh- bourhood of Troy, and the less correct and later Greeks say, that the Palladium, which ^neas bore away with him, was taken to Siris in vEnotria, an inconsiderable town of South Italy. The story of iEneas being- the ancestor of Romu- lus, and the founder, by himself or his son, of Alba, was first worked out in Lycophron's Cassandra, about the year of Rome 500, and it was from this time for- ward, adopted, and more and more adorned, by every succeeding writer, until it blazed forth in the poem of Virgil, and received the stamp of immortality. When the Greeks first became acquainted with the Iliad, their very delight in it made them sorry p 2 316 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. that it was finished, and they naturally inquired what had become of the heroes who had survived the war, and where were their children ? They were glad to answer their own question, by the in- vention that Dionied had led one colony, and Glau- cus another, and Antenor a third,* into Hesperia, or the country to the west ; and they were still better pleased, when they could give to this country "a local habitation and a name," and declare that Hesperia meant Italia, though the only portion of it known to their forefathers, was that governed by the Tur- seni. The Romans, on the other hand, were very much delighted with the legend, which made them from their earliest original, as good as the refined and imaginative Greeks. They were flattered that Homer should have sung of their ancestors, and proud to find that they were equally the adversaries of Greece before Troy, and the conquerors of Greece afterwards. Even the Etruscans were seduced into adopting and patronizing the fable, which brought Dardanus from Cory tus in their own territories, and which therefore still kept to them the praise of being the civilizers of Italy. They henceforward could consider all the heroes of the painted vases, and all the episodes of the Iliad, as having reference to themselves ; and the Greeks took care not to alarm their vanity, for they exempted them from the charge of barbarism, which they brought against the other nations of Italy ; and they styled them the lovers of * Plato ridicules tliem for this vanity, by the mouth of the Egyptian priests. /ENEAS AND TUSCAN HEROES. ''i\7 art, the i\uTeKi'oi^ fi-oin whom, according to Plato, Aristotle, and Theophrastus, they acknowledged with gratitude, that they themselves, had learned and adopted many religious ceremonies and useful arts. Athenaeus, speaking of them, says "'wi^ orrujy Homer states iEneas to have remained in Phry- gia, under the protection of Neptune ; and Strabo* adopts the same account, and says that the sons of Hector and ^Eneas reigned long afterwards in the Troad, and were always distinguished amongst their countrymen. Festus, quoting Agathocles, tells us that ^neas was buried in Berecynthia, near Troy ; and Nicolaus Damascenus and Stephanus of Byzan- tium say that Ascania, in Phrygia, was built by the son of jEneas, and therefore bore his name. All these accounts have on their side, antiquity and pro- bability, and agree with the known facts of the Greeks and Trojans having had no ships equal to long voyages, and of no Greek colony having ar- rived by sea, in any part of Italy or Sicily, earlier than eighty or a hundred years subsequent to the destruction of Troy. The Pelasgi either coasted, or entered by land from Illyria. The navy of the Greeks at the siege of Troy, had to be drawn upon the shore every night, and the inventions of the an- chor, and of the prow, are ascribed by all the ancients, to the Etruscans. iEneas therefore, as Virgil wisely observes, could only come to Italy by the immediate help of the gods, and when he disappeared in the * lib. xiii. 318 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. Numicus, he seems to have i-eturned to the Troad, for the purpose of heing buried in his native soil * Ascanius, with similar heroic sentiments of mag- nanimity and patriotism, according to Latin authors, leaves Alba to the Lavinian family of the Sylvii, and their half Etruscan descendants, and returns to Phrygia, where he builds Ascania, and where he reigns and dies, leaving this little kingdom to his son, and showing the Peloponesian Greeks, that though they had overthrown the city, they had not annihilated the dynasty of Priam. Ascanius appears to have taken all his gods back with him also, for when Alba was destroyed, and her temples were spared by Tullus Hostilius,t they are enumerated as those of Janus, Minerfa, Maurs, Vesta, and Carna, three of them Etruscan, and one of them a Latin deity. Besides these, we only know of the great temple of Jupiter Latialis, which belonged to Latium in genera], rather than to Alba in particular, and which is said by antiquarians, to be in form and struc- ture, an Etruscan work. Dionysius of Halicarnassus tells us that Ascanius was drowned, and that Alba w^as founded, thirty years after his death, i. e. one hundred and twenty years after the date at which Virgil brings iEneas and his grown-up son to Laurentum. After the criticisms of Niebuhr and Miiller, we have no occasion to prove, that ^neas never landed in Italy, and that Evander and his Arcadians are a creation of those, who required their assistance to make up a story. Nevertheless, Virgil in his epic * See Ancient History, vol. iv. p. 499- t Strabo v. iENEAS AND TUSCAN IIKKOES. 319 tale, works up old Italian traditions, and these at least are worth examining. Virgil informs us that in the days of Tarchun, that is, during the time of his supremacy in Italy, between the settlement of Etru- ria and the foundation of Rome, the Tuscans had many brave chiefs, whose names old songs or old annals had preserved to his day. Virgil, in order to give life and reality to his poem, takes the oldest names of all the ruling families in Italy, and brings them to the aid, either of ^neas or of his rival Turnus,just as our supposed author of the poem of Arthur, might bring Ina of Wessex, and OfFa of Mercia, to fight against King Arthur, whilst he invited Fingal and Ossian from Scotland, to come to his hero's assistance. Virgil gives us Abas of Volterra, who leads the troops of Populonia and Ilva.* Massicus of Vulci, who brings a thousand warriorsf and their followers from Alsium and Cosa. Osinius of Clusium;}: with a third band, who, like the chiefs of the maritime states, sends his troops by sea, though his shortest road would have been by Voltumna; and Messapus of Falescii, the son of Neptune, i. e. king of the peo- ple of Falescii, or Halesus, the naval hero of Etru- ria, who is always called the son of Neptune. Mes- sapus brings his men, from the lake Ciminus near Voltumna, and from Feronia, near the fort of Veii. And old Halesus, himself, is made to extend forward his existence and dominion, and to come from Vul- turnum in Campania with the Sidicini, the Auruncii, and the Massici,intimating that Vulturnum or Capua, * Lib. X. f X. X X. 320 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. was colonized from Falescii, and that it ruled over those tribes, which Halesus is said to have brought with him. Halesus, the founder of Alsium and Falisci, and the son of Neptune, was the last of a princely fa- mily, and a very favourite hero with the Etrus- cans.* We hear often of him, because Falisci bor- dered upon both the Latin tribes, of the Romans and of the Rutuli. Astur, the first Etruscan prince of Cere, com- mands the troops of Agylla, Pyrgi, and Gravisca. Ocnus is a hero who comes with his men from Virgil's own Mantua, because Ocnus of Perugia, was said to have colonized Mantua. Auletes, a Cortonian or Perugian, who also colonized across the Po, the brother chief, and rival of Ocnus, is, for the same reason, said to have headed the troops of the Benacus and the Mincio, or the Lago di Guarda. The territory of Auletes must not only have been wealthy and populous, but he must have been pos- sessed of some port on the Turrhene sea, as he is made to bring with him one hundred ships. Asylas, the renowned chief and Augur from Pisa, is made to come with a Lucumo's band of one thousand men. It is not impossible that Romulus may have dedicated his place of refuge to the Asylean god, with reference to this Asylas, though we cannot fix his date, and know so few particulars concerning him. Most learned men consider the Asylean god to have been Jupiter, because Dionysius says that in his day, the Roman asylum was consecrated to Jove ; and as asylums were old religious institutions * Dempster. .ENEAS AND TUSCAN HEROES. 321 common in Italy at the time of Romulus,* tliey may, with great probability, have owed their origin to Asylas, who, being an Augur, would give the command to dedicate them, as from Jupiter, and they would throughout Italy henceforward bear his name. Though asylums, as far as we know, first ob- tained amongst the Jews, who had sacred cities set apart for the unfortunate,^ the idea of instituting them would naturally come into the minds of mer- ciful and reflecting men, especially Augurs, wher- ever social hardships, such as slavery for debt, &c., seemed to require them ; and it is a very common thing for pious minds, when any thought unusually wise or great, presents itself to them, to attribute that thought to inspiration, or, in Asylas's language, " to the gods," without any intention to deceive or to impose upon their fellow-creatures. Livy:j: men- tions the asylums of Tibur and Prseneste. Virgil gives us further, amongst the old heroes, the names of Acron, king of Cortona or Corytus; Aulestes, rarquitius, Seculus, Rhoetus, Antaeus, and Aruns, and he represents the Umbrians as faithfully- supporting the Tuscan side.§ Umbro, the priestly warrior, leads to the battle his band of Manubians, from which we might be led to imagine that Manu- bise was an Umbrian word. Rhamnes, (an Etruscan name, according to Varro,) a king and Augur, Virgil represents as against ^Eneas, and so also was Me- zentius the Etruscan rebel and tyrant. Along with * Micali Storia. L. iv. i. 8. f Numb. X Livy xii. § .^Eneid xii.. p 5 322 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. these, he ranges Clausus of the Sabines, the sup- posed ancestor of the Claudian family ; and Camilla queen of the Volsci, with several of her female com- panions, which gives us a curious tradition as to the condition of women amongst the earliest Italians. We think this must be referred to the Etruscans, because there are instances of their women going out with the troops at a later period of their history, and because they pre-eminently, if not alone, amongst the Italian nations seem to have regarded women from the very first, as the partners, friends, and companions of men. Camilla of the Volsci may have been some queen of the Vulci, of whom Virgil records the eccentricity and courage, and she wears the purple mantle, which the Tuscans introduced. But supposing Virgil not to mean the Vulci, but the Volsci proper, they were early and very long- subjects of the Rasena, and during that period, it is even more probable that their kings and queens would have been Etruscan. It is plain that if ^neas never set foot in Italy, Abas, Asinius, and Asylas, could not go forth to meet him ; but it is not therefore plain, that these men had no existence, and that their memories and their deeds of valour, were not familiar in the mouths of their countrymen, and were not inscribed in the annals of their respective states. They may very likely, have been generals of the League, at various periods prior to the foundation of Rome, and they may have figured in the wars of Laurentum, and Lavinium, and Turnus, (which Niebuhr believes to .TiNEAS AND TUSCAN HEROES. 323 liiivc been a town of the Rutuli,) and Ardea ; and they may liave fought botli for and against tlieni, long prior to the time when Alba sent forth her last colony. The songs of Ossian and the Percy Relics, in our own country, show us how the memories of local heroes remain enbalmed in the hearts of the people, though no trace of their fame, and no record of their deeds, are to be found in general history. There is an old song, now in vogue amongst the peasants in Normandy, which proves, notwithstand- ing the desolating ravages of the French Revolution, and its attempts to sweep away all that was monar- chical and time-honoured in the land, how inefface- able are the sacred feelings of natural and national gratitude, in the breasts of the common people, and how enduring and unquenchable are those feelings, when they spring warm from the national heart. " Le bon Roi Dagobert Mettait ses culottes a I'envers, Le bon St. Eloi, lui dit mon bon roi Votre Majeste est mal culotte He bien ! lui dit le Roi Donne moi les tiens, et je les mettrai," &c.* It is a truth, that those who never heard of Louis Seize, and of the miseries which their fathers suffered * The peasant who sang this song, containing a long history of the reign of Dagobert, knew of no revolution excepting 1830, and of the remaining French monarchs, who preceded Napoleon le Grand, he only knew of the existence of Charlemagne, Hugh Capet, Henri Quatre, and Louis XIV. 324 HISTORY OF ETBURIA. before him, and after him, can yet sing of Dagobert, his poverty, his benevolence, and his weakness; and of the counsels of his minister, le bon St. Eloi, all true to history. Those, in like manner, who never heard of Manlius, may have known the acts of Abas, and Osinius, who were not further removed from their times, than Dagobert from the present French. The Etruscan kings, excepting as the founders of cities, or as generals of the League, could be but very little known to Italian history in general, unless it were here and there some Augur, like Asylas, far renowned for wisdom, and therefore requested to visit the other states, either as an umpire or a councillor. Virgil mentions two Etruscan princes who lived at this period and who were cotemporaries, Me- zentius and Astur, the one of whom colonized Ardea of the Rutuli, and the other Agylla of the Pelasgi ; and they probably flourished not many generations after Tarchun. Niebuhr and Miiller agree that they were native heroes, and that Virgil gives the correct Italian tradition respecting them. Mezentius was a Tarquinian who rebelled against Tarchun, i. e, against his laws, being unable to submit his proud and turbulent spirit to their absolute and equal rule. Such a man could not have arisen in the lifetime of Tarchun, or he would have made a house divided against itself; nor was he likely to arise, until the chiefs felt too equal amongst each other, so as to require a strong hand iENEAS AND TUSCAN HEROES. 325 to keep tliem in their ])ropcr places, and a real as well as a nominal head. Mezentius, it would appear, claimed or attemj)ted to nsurp the sovereignty, and was therefore expelled from Tarquinia, upon which, he and his clan retiied to the Isopolitan, independent, and neighbouring state, of Agylla. The town was walled, and the sen- tries were keeping their watches, when Mezentius and his band appeared. Strabo relates* that when he spoke to the soldiers, they answered "Kaire ;" and if they w^ere Greeks, it was a most natural salutation to a body of supposed friends, and it was equally na- tural that they should allow him to enter the city without fear, as he had a right to live in it if he chose. Mezentius, however, most unlike an Etruscan, came not in the spirit of peace, but in the lust of dominion and with an arrogant thirst for power. He seized the government, and forced the Agyllans to fight his battles against the assembled Tuscan forces. In this point of view, he comes down to us as the first of those turbulent and restless spirits who by their pride and lawlessness, brought on the ruin of Etru- ria, and, therefore, in so far as Virgil records tradi- tion truly, he must have lived some generations later than Tarchun. After he had seized Agylla, he allied himself with the Rutuli, the Sabines of Amiternum and Tetrica, and the Falisci ; who, as Messapus their chief is called the nephew of Turn us, may pos- sibly have had many Rutulian families mingled * Strabo v. 326 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. with the first Etruscan colonists, in the Senates of their chief towns. Mezentius had also on his side, the tribe of Rhamnes, which was probably Etruscan from its name (according to Varro,iv.)and the troops of the Vulci. He was personally opposed by Acron, king of Cortona,* whom he is said to have killed, and by Astur,t whom we presume to have been the prince of Gravisca, because we find the men of Gravisca under his command, and afterwards associated with his new subjects in Caere. Mezentius was a bold and daring warrior, and seems to have been the victor in many a well-fought field. Whilst prince of Agylla, he took prisoners, men against whom he burnt with the fiercest indignation, and he tied the living to the dead amongst these miserable captives, a cruelty which the people never forgot and never pardoned. It is probable that he used in this manner, some of the Agyllan Senate, for had he done it to his enemies only, his new subjects would have been little ex- cited about the matter. But as it was, they rose against him, burnt his palace, and drove him, his son Lausus, and all his clan, out of the city, and took as their protector, Astur of Tarquinia, who was in all likelihood lying before the town with his troops. They admitted him, and three hundred Graviscan families into their city, and from this time, joined the Etruscan League, and proclaimed themselves the people of Tarchun. It is indeed very possible that Astur, after expelling Mezentius, may have left * Virgil. t Ibid. iENEAS AND TUSCAN IIEROKS. 327 them no choice as to whether they would remain in- dependent or become Etruscan ; but however that might be, Caere, from this time forward, was united to tlie twelve states, and continued to be so, until the day of the Rasena was closed. Virgil says, that " Agylla was torn by the Lydian, from the Tuscan race ;" but as the Ludin were the Tuscans, and Tyrrhenus the captain of these Ludin was Tarchun, we can attach no weight to this line of poetry. Virgil* in several parts of his poem, calls the Tuscans Lydians. Though at the time of this war, or not long after, Latium, Sabina, and Etruria, were so thickly peopled, that in many districts, there was not more than two miles from one walled town to another, each con- taining many thousands of people, and including several square miles of territory ;t still Mezentius's name might never have been remembered beyond the bounds of Etruria, had he not, when driven from Caere, attacked the Laurentini, and joined Ardea and Turnus in their quarrel against Lavinium.J Mezentius took the command, gave the Laurentini battle, and was victorious, slaying the Latin king ; after which, as the terms of peace, he imposed upon his adversaries a tribute of all the wine of Latium. The young king, whom Virgil calls lulus, was re- * iEneid. vii. &c, t GeU. X As Lavinium was not founded until 100 years after the dedication of Etruria by Tarchun, Mezentius must have been at least by so many years posterior to him. 328 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. solved not to submit to so unjust an imposition, and dedicated the tithe of the wine to Jupiter, sending for answer to Mezentius, that he could not yield, to make peace with man, that which would make him at war with heaven, for that the Latin wine belonged to the Latin gods. Lausus the son of Mezentius, encamped near La- vinium, meaning to attack it, but being surprised by a night sortie,* he was routed and slain. Mezen- tius, who does not appear to have been an Augur, was perhaps terrified at this, and may have been afraid of lightning striking him, if he persisted in his demand, and therefore he granted more reasonable terms, and concluded a peace, which fixed the Tiber as the bounds of Latium towards the east. This boundary we find remaining in the days of Romulus, and all historians agree that it marked to a much later epoch, the limits of the Tuscan territories, though Virgil says, it was fixed by a rebel who had deserted from them. Mezentius, according to the custom of the Tuscans, changed the name of Agylla, and called it Caere, the C sounding hard, and the authors of the Ancient History think that in Etrus- can, it may have meant the same as Keri, HD a city, by way of eminence. Mezentiusf after this, retired with his followers, * Dionysius. t Cato (in Macrob. Satur.) says that Mezentius was impious because be demanded the tribute of the wine. The story of Mezentius is taken from Livy, Virgil, Dion. Hal., and the An- cient History. ;KNEAS and TUSCAN HEROES. 329 called ill round numbers 1000 men, to Ardea, and gave that city the strong Etruscan character which marked its refinements, and its peculiarities. From Virgil's poem we judge that Ardea was frequently the ally of the Falisci, Ceriti, Tarquinii, and Vulcii ; from Pliny* we know that it was renowned for painting and sculpture, before the days of Rome, and from Livy we read of its almost inaccessible fortifications, and immensely strong walls, which are built in parallelograms, after the Tuscan fashion, and where some of the old right-angled streets may still be distinguished. The present town occupies only the ground of the ancient citadel, and is one-sixth of its former extent. Virgilf calls the inhabitants Ar- gives, and again in the same book, speaks of them as Rutuli, Aurunci, and Sicani, whom Gell consi- ders to have been all the same people, i. e. tribes of Latins. No doubt Mezentius died in exile at Ar- dea, where Virgil says, he killed himself. Though his life is marked by not one virtue, yet as it is distinguished by several great events, he has every right to appear before us, as an historical cha- racter. In his day, Agylla changed its name, and was added to the Tuscan League. Ardea was civil- ized, and settled by a large Etruscan colony. Wine, introduced by the first king of the Tuscans, was abundantly cultivated in Latium. Lavinium was founded, and the boundaries of Etruria Proper to the east were fixed, being in truth the boundaries of Falisci and Caere on the side of Latium. * XXXV. t JEnd. vii. 330 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. Though Virgil says that Mezentius changed the name of Agylla to Caere, it is much more probable that Astur was the person who changed it, when he incorporated the town and territory with the other members of the League. The authors of the An- cient History think that the name comes from the Hebrew keri ''"ID, a city, and though we find it mentioned in history by both names, even so late as the Phocian war, yet the Etruscan state never ap- pears in any catalogue of the dynasties of the League, excepting under the name of Keri or Caere. Vir- gil says that Astur was distinguished by his skilful horsemanship and beautiful armour. Both Niebuhr and Muller agree that Mezentius was a real personage, and though his field of action was not large, he has left a name like other men of his stamp, " At which the world grew pale, To point a moral and adorn a tale." He was self-willed and lawless, sacrilegious and cruel. These qualities go together, for those who do not venerate the gods, will not respect the rights of their fellow-men. The Tarquinians, though sub- ject to despotic power, and though he strove to go- vern them by means of armed foreigners, perhaps paid Latins or Pelasgi, would not endure his tyranny, but drove him away and banished him for ever. Men who are governed by law must be essentially free, though their sovereign may be called absolute, just as men who live without law must be slaves, even though their government should be called yP.NEAS AND TUSCAN HEROES. 331 democratic. This has been proved by every revolu- tion, and is in the nature of things. Slavery and degrading- dependence, are submission to arbitrary despotism, not to absolute power, and no man lives in the dignity and security of a rational being, who is not subject to fixed principles, and to known and inflexible laws. The authors of the Ancient History consider Agyllu to be a genuine Etruscan name, as well as Caere, and derive the word from nh^, G.L.A or Gylla, a spring, to which add the Heemantee letter j^ ; or again, from Tw')^, of the same pronunciation, which means " emigration or expulsion," and if to these letters j.^ be prefixed, it gives us " Agylla," the very name in question. Agylla and Caere may as easily have been confounded together by the Greek and Latin historians, as Falisci and Faleria, which is continually done. Cere lies upon the " Aquae Ceri- tanae," or springs of Ceri; and "Emigration," might intimate, that the inhabitants who settled in that place had come to Italy from some distant land. As this state could not have been known to the Greeks, excepting through Tuscan vessels, and after it had become subject to Etruscan dominion, there is rea- son to think that with them, it long continued to bear both names; Agylla, very possibly signifying the territory, and Caere the city ; and the latter name may have gradually taken the place of the former, because the city of Caere comes prominently forward in Latin history, and the " Jus Ceriti" is the name by which its municipal relation with Rome is always 332 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. expressed. In common with Jerusalem and Salem, York and Eboracum, &c. it may for ages have been distinguished by either appellation indif- ferently. Strabo (v.) says that Agylla was first built by the Pelasgi, who were driven out of Greece by the Hel- lenes ; and though this is merely a guess, it is not impossible. It is certain that the ships of Agylla or Caere, had much earlier and more advantageous commerce with Grecia Proper, and with Magna Grecia, than any of the other Tuscan states, which occasioned an amity and alliance between the Agyllans and the Greeks, greater than between the Greeks and any of the more northern maritime states, who probably disliked and despised them, and who therefore seized their vessels, and long baflled all their attempts to penetrate further up the Tur- rhene sea. For this reason, the Greeks describe the Agyllans with peculiar favour, call them more just than their countrymen, and say that they not only abstained from piracy themselves, but repressed it in their neighbours, for they were bound by the laws of Tages to protect their Tillies, and " not to suffer them to be attacked." Doubtless upon this account, the Greeks were glad to associate the Agyllans with themselves in Delphi, and to find out that they were originally of the Thracian stock, even as they afterwards discovered that the Romans were descended from the royal house of Priam, as soon as it became indispensable to regard them as a race worthy of historic celebrity. AENEAS AND TUSCAN HEROES. 333 Tlie Agyllans, Strabo says, luid a treasure at Del- phi before the time of the Phocian war ; and this, Dionysius states to have been a thank-offering for the expulsion of the Siculi, and refers it to the days before the fall of Troy, — a manner of expression with Greek writers, like our own " before the me- mory of man," and which merely means that it antedates written history. The Pelasgi and the Rasena of Agylla were gratified to find a temple, with which they could identify themselves in the land of Greece, and if we presume alliance and Isopolity to have existed between them and any town near Delphi, such as afterwards certainly took place betvreen Tarquinia and Corinth, the Agyllans would naturally join at the shrine of Apollo, or perhaps in those early days, of their own Neptune, and would celebrate along with the natives, the great festivals of the Grecian people. The Pelasgi of Agylla had been so long familiar with Etruscan usages, when they were conquered by Mezentius, that in receiving Astur, and in joining themselves indissolubly to the Etruscan league, they may rather be said to have provided for their future peace, than to have sacrificed their existing freedom. They simply guarded themselves against that con- quest and tyranny, which it was at any time, at the option of Tarquinia to exercise, and they enlarged their power without any balancing infraction of their independence, or diminution of their dignity. They kept their own gods, and their own customs, as before, only superadding to them, those of their 334 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. neighbours; and it is highly probable that Caere was the state through which Etruscan civilization first took deep root in Rome, and that the Cerites owned for sovereigns Janus and Amense, a king and a queen of the Rasena, afterwards numbered amongst the demi-gods of the Latins. Pyrgi, now San Severa, is usually considered to have been the port of Agylla, though Gell doubts if they were not different places, because Strabo (v.) says that the port of Agylla was fifty stadii distant from Pyrgi. This place was towered and fortified, and possessed a harbour crowded with ships, and a castle, on the site of which San Severa now stands, and which in ancient days, protected the rich and holy temple of Eluthya, the Goddess of Victory or Delivery, answering to an Egyptian divinity of the same name, in the Thebaid. Aristotle ascribes the temple of Pyrgi to Leucothoe, and both of the names express Greek versions of Etruscan stories ; either concerning the Rasenan Goddess of Delivery and Victory, or, as is more likely, of the nymph Bygoe, who, Servius says, received and nourished Tages ; or else of the royal muse Camese or Carmenta, the goddess of married women, for the Latins translated Eluthya to mean Bona Dea, Mater Matuta, and Lucina. Bacchus, who was nursed by Leucothoe, was not known in Etruria until after both Eluthya and Pyrgi were in ruins. Indeed Caere itself pe- rished with all that made it powerful or renowned, as soon as it sank under the dominion of Rome, and this is probably the reason why only the translated 335 and not the native names have been j)reservcd to us, of the more ancient, and to Latin writei-s ahnost unknown, temple of Ekithya and town of Pyrgi. From the Agyllan goddess Eluthya being called also Leucothoe and Ino, it is supposed that she was a maritime divinity ; but this does not follow, any more than that the Virgin Mary should be maritime, because churches and shrines are erected to her honour upon the sea shore. It is sufficient for the allegory, that Camese and Bygoe were both prin- cesses of a maritime people. Ino, according to the Greeks, was the daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia, i. e. she Avas descended from an Eastern and Ludin ancestry, and was renowned for her poetical or musi- cal talents, and both of these attributes will apply to Camese and Bygoe of the Tuscans. Both Caere, and Falleria the capital of the next state, were long renown- ed for oracles which delivered their answers in verse. Virgil mentions Messapus, the L.ch.m., Lucumo, or captain of the men of Feronia and Cirainia.* He is said to have given his name to that part of Calabria, filled with Etruscan towns, called Messapia; and this may either mean that Messapus really headed the Fa- liscian colonies, when they settled in Calabria, or that these colonies came from the country and dominions of Messapus, and therefore called their new terri- tory by his name. Virgil deals with Messapus as with Dido, and honours him by making him worthy to measure swords with the intrepid wanderer jJEneas, and the valiant hero Tarchun. * ^n. vi. 691. viii. 6. ix. 27. 6 336 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. Evander, the Arcadian Greek, who welcomed ^neas, appears to have been a Pelasgic Sabine, who wandered with his cattle, from the little town of Pal- lantium,* near Reati, and built a small village on the Palatine Hill, above the Tiber. In the days of Evander, of Messapus, Mezentius and Astur, i. e. in the uncertain but earliest period of the Rasena, we must place Janus, Ca- mese and Bygoe, three noted Etruscan heroic characters of the very olden time. King Janus is said to have been an Etruscan prince, who had a palace, and afterwards a teinple,^ on the Janiculum, which was named from him ; and he is said to have introduced into Latium wine, and the games of the Saturnalia. He was fond of agriculture, and took much charge of the vineyards, oliveyards, and corn- fields, like king Uzziah of Judah,;}; who yet did not belong to a very primitive people. He was much beloved by his subjects, and yet was killed by them in a drunken§ tumult, because, when the wine mounted to their heads, they fancied that their prince, whom Plato calls a benefactor to Italy, had poisoned them. All this may refer to the institutions of Tarchun merely, and may convey in allegory, that wine makes men mad, and that drunkenness and licentiousness render noxious, the otherwise innocent joy of commemorative feasts and public carnivals. But, on the other hand, there is nothing improbable in a Tuscan Lucumo named Janus, having a country * Gell. t Pliny, iii. 5. Ovid. Fast. i. X 2 Chron. xxvi. 10. § Plut. TUSCAN HEROES. 337 scat, or lai'ge farm, upon the Janiculiiiu,*' tlic very outskirts of Etruria, and of his being a benefactor to the Ijatins, the Sabines, and the Pelasgi, in liis immediate neighbourhood. As Janus is said to have been introduced into Rome from Falisci, this Janus, supposing him to have been different from Tar- chun, was either a sovereign of the Faliscii, or some Faliscian prince, who built a temple to Janus upon the hill above the Tiber, which hill was hence called Janiculam ; and it is not unlikely that, on some occasion of the Saturnalia, he may have offered sacrifices here, and have been killed in a drunken frolic, which occurred during the games. Janus, according to the Ancient History ,t mar- ried Venilia, who bore him a son named Fontus,J in honour of whom, yearly feasts were kept amongst the Romans, called Fontinalia. Besides Fontus, he had four daughters. Others say that he was the father of Tiberinus, King of Veil, who was suc- ceeded by Vertumnus or Vadimon, and then by Aunus. Yet Janus's sister Camese, and none of these descendants, ruled ixiimediately after him- self. There can be no doubt that the acts of Janus and of Tarchun have been often confounded together, the one being the first king of Etruria, and the other, perhaps, the first transplanter of Etruscan civilization beyond the Tiber. In popular songs, and traditionary history, the acts of twenty * Stoiy of Janus, given by Cato, Cicero, and Festus ; also Antient History and Pint, t xvi. 64. X Arnob. Q 338 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. different Januses would all be melted into one, and it is vain for us, at tins distance of time, to attempt to distinguish them. Fontus, the son of Janus, may- have been a man, a town, or an institution. The succession of his sister Camese may mean her suc- cession from a sister state. Tiberinus or Deheberis, the king of Veii, and a general of the league, may have been descended from the original Janus, in the sense of being an Etruscan, or from the secondary Janus, in the sense of being a Faliscian. Vertum- nus, the god of orchards, naturally springs from the great improver of Latin horticulture; and Vadimon, from whom the Yadimonian Sea received its name, we find again in the territory of Falisci, and in that sense, he may have been the son of any former Falis- cian prince. We see this figure in the Scriptures, where the king of Judah is always called the son of David. The four daughters of Janus, after the same figure, may mean any four towns colonized by the Faliscians. Anus, or Anius, according to Alexander Polyhis- tor, was the grandfather of Latinus, the king of Laurentum, in whose days Lavinia was founded. Probably Latinus, like Vejo, and other names of that class, means simply a prince of the Latins, of any name or date whatever. Livy, Virgil, and all the writers of their time, give the legendary predecessors of Latinus, as descending from father to son, but the early Italian successions were by election, and not by hereditary right; therefore, in all probability, none of these princes, admitting them to have been TUSCAN IIEROKS. 339 real men, and to have followed each other, were of the same family. After Janus we find in ancient history, next in order, the Queen Camese or Camense ; a name which reminds us of the Egyptian sovereign Queen Amese* or Amense. She is said to have been the sister of Janus, and to have succeeded him. It is probable, from the territory about the Janiculum having been called after her name, Camasene, and having been dedicated to her, that she was at the head of the vestal virgins, like the revered Egyptian Queen Nofre-ari. She seems to have been the same as Camsena of the Latins, or Carmenta, or Carmina, the muse of song, the undying Sybil, the oracle of justice, called also Tethys ;t and no doubt her talents for song, and her fame for wisdom and justice, gave to her cotemporaries the impression of inspiration, and therefore both raised her to the throne, and kept her upon it, Romulus is said, by Plutarch, to have consulted the Tuscan oracle, " Tethys or The- mis," which is the same as Carmina or Camsena ; and this could be no other than the oracle of Camese, the sister of Janus. Her shrines were honoured by the Latins, the Sabines, and the Tus- cans ; and, as she is the only sovereign priestess we read of amongst the Rasena, it may have been her tomb which was discovered at Agylla-Csere by General Galassi, and the Arci-Prete Regulini, in A. D. 1838, in which case, she only received the honours which were her unquestionable due. She * Resell, t Plut. in Rom, Q 2 340 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. had pre-eminently a right amongst Etruscan wo- men, to engrave upon her cups " Mi Larthia," for she was gifted with genius and virtue, as well as with exalted birth and talents. Amongst her strong-minded but unimaginative countrymen, Ca- mese had a claim to the golden breastplate and the priestly crown, to the bracelets and the girdle, the silver censers and the heaps of perfume, which were found in that most ancient and most honoured grave, the name and fame of whose inhabitant, her nation vainly fancied, could never — never be for- gotten. It is, indeed, humbling to the pride of man, that the wisest and the greatest, the most revered and the most godlike of our race, must mark his last resting-place with the same care, and in the same manner, as the most insignificant, and the most con- temptible, if he would have it kept in remembrance amongst his fellows. Beauty, wit, genius, talent, knowledge, glory, power, and virtue itself, leave us, and may walk and dazzle in other worlds ; but the dust in which they shone here, the once half-wor- shipped dust, mingles again with its kindred clay, and soon cannot be distinguished from the soil be- neath our feet. Alas ! knowledge shall fade away ; power shall become impotent; genius shall be heard of no more. What then can last ? What can en- dure the^wreck " of elements and crush of worlds ?" Even such fame as finds its record in the hearts of a grateful nation, for those who have been, in their day of power, the consolers and improvers, as well as the commanders of the people. TUSCAN HEROES. 341 Carmenta, the Tuscan goddess, consulted by Ro- mulus, had feasts in her honour called Carnientalia ; she gave oracles in verse, and she became the god- dess of married women, being the chief of matrons, which does not at all niilitate against her, having been the chief of the Vestal virgins previously. Numa, the Sabine, who honoured and adopted the civil and religious institutions of Janus, according to Plutarch, consulted Camene, who could be no other than this same person. Cato (de Origin.) calls Camese the brother of Janus ; but this we take to be a version of the same sort with Alexander Polyhistor, who, when speak- ing of the Hebrews, calls their leader " Moso, a wo- man !" Macrobius, in the Saturnalia, says, Camese was a foreigner, placed upon the throne by Janus. Athenaeus and Servius make her his sister and his wife; i. e. she lived near his time, and was one with his spirit. Next to Camese in feminine renown, comes the priestess and Sybil Bygoe, who was doubtless a princess and a Vestal also, and who wrote a com- mentary in verse* upon the laws of Tages, and a treatise upon the science of lightning. To none but a woman of the highest rank and most com- manding powers, would the Augurs have intrusted a knowledge of this art, and only from such a one ■would a treatise upon religion and a commentary upon civil government have been suffered, much less have been received with respect. She was * Servius vi. 72. 342 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. deeply instructed in natural history, otherwise she could not have written upon lightning ; and she was well versed in the genius of Etruscan rule, or she would not have been said, as Servius affirms, to have received Tages and to have nourished him. We know nothing positive of her beyond these few facts, but it is evident that she lived in the earliest ages of Etruria, and many have supposed her to be the same with Carmenta, because they could not understand how so deeply reverenced a woman should not have had oracles and shrines erected to her honour. She is sometimes represented upon antique gems with Tages in her arms, and has thus, as we have observed already, been confounded with the nymph Leucotho'e, who received Bacchus. If Bygo'e were ever worshipped and semi-deified in Etruria, it was no doubt at the great Etruscan tem- ple of Elythia at Pyrgi, which Aristotle calls the temple of Leucotho'e, the name he would naturally have given to the shrine of the nymph who received and educated Tages. As Bacchus was unknown until nearly the extinction of the Etruscan dominion, we have no occasion to prove that the rich temple of Pyrgi was not that of Leucothoe, The verses of Bygoe were taught in the Etruscan schools, and without question, the fair rhymes and useful maxims of many an after minstrel, came to be incorporated with them, and were ascribed to her, as this has ever been the case with ancient poets of celebrity, and with names preserved in national po- pular songs. Bygoe and Camese were in Rome, TUSCAN HEROES. 343 soon confbiindeJ with the other Sybils, and tlicir verses served to tiugnient the treasnres of the sybil- line books. These books were usually made of the leaves of palm trees,* like those of the Burmese now, or of linen, or of tablets of wood covered with a thin coating of wax, and they were written upon, with a small pointed style of bronze or of iron. No dominion is ever ascribed to Bygoe, but that of mental superiority and sanctified wisdom ; and though she usurped not power, which was more rightfully lodged in the hands of others, tradition says of her, that she once killed an ox by whispering in his earf the name of the Holy One, which proba- bly means, that she awed some strong and stupid, and perhaps brutal Lucumo, a Front de Boeuf of the olden world, by her quiet and unmoved vindi- cation of the superiority and reality of inspired laws and divine superintendence. One ancient hero shines forth like a spectre from the mists of antiquity, to whom the actions of several others have no doubt been attributed. We mean Maloeotus, king of Tarquinia and Cere, called also King of all the Pelasgi in that part of Italy ; a man who carried on commerce and intercourse with Greece, who lived near Gravisca, at the spot after- wards called Regis Villa, J who made a voyage to Athens, and who, as some say, died there. Maloeotus may have been a general of the League, which would occasion his name to be remembered in Italy, or he * Virgil. Symmachus. Livy. t Miiller in loco. X Strabo v. 225, 344 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. may have lived in the days of Homer, and have been heard of in Greece, through ships that came to Argos or Corinth, from Tarquinia or Pyrgi, over one of which states he may have been prince, with a very different name from that, by which alone we can identify him. As general of the League, he would certainly rule all the Turrheni Pelasgi, and as head of any of the maritime states, he would encourage commerce, and may, by his ships, have visited Athens. His name has so few incidents attached to it, that we can but mention him and dismiss the subject, observing that the Pelasgi had no princes, and no commerce, before the arrival of Tarchun, and that after his arrival, Tarquinia and Gravisca owned no rulers but Etruscan. Meleus of Pisa, is a Lar or General mentioned by Virgil and Pliny, who ruled all Turrhenia, and to whom they ascribe the invention of the trumpet, which may perhaps mean its introduction into La- tium. Clusius, whom Virgil calls an Etruscan mo- narch, we are inclined to think, is only a word ex- pressing, in the Latin manner, the imperial general fromClusium, and we believe that it does not desig- nate the name of any particular individual. 345 CHAPTER XV. CIVILIZATION OF CENTRAL AND NORTHERN UMBRIA. u. c. CENT. We must now proceed to give an account of the general colonization and civilization of Italy by the xi. & Etruscans. This they commenced by the founding of certain cities, some particulars of which have come down to us, and we shall take them as far as we can, in chronological order. The first on record is " Aineria of the Umbri," consecrated according to Etruscan rites, and keeping a yearly founder's feast. Its date, according to Pliny and Cato,* is 964 years before the war with Perseus, consequently fifty-three years after the dedication of Tarquinia, 1 134 B. c. ; and in Roman times, it used to boast of its great antiquity, though we are acquainted with no other claim which it could make to distinction. It was probably governed entirely by Umbrians, as it is always called " Ameria of the Umbri." Spo- leto is said to be of the same age, and we may also refer to about this time, Ikuvine or Gubbio, Tutere or Todi, Nocera, Interamna, Nequino, Sarsina, Sen- * Pliny iii. 14. Q 3 346 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. tinu, and Mevania,* all of which are said to have been founded by Tuscan rites, and some of which occasionally come before us, as " Pars Tusciae," though all in Umbria. Sentinu reminds us of the Sentinate, whose sepulchres are now found atChiusi and Tarquinia. In Etruria Proper, Fiesole is the only colony, the date of which we know with any accuracy, and it is said in round numbers, to have been founded 1000 years before Florence, which Sylla built to take its place, and to prevent its ever again rising into con- sequence. This makes the sera of Fiesole 1090 b. c, and the Etruscans prosecuted here the wonderful waterworks which they had first tried with such signal success, farther south. They confined the turbulent Arno within deep straight banks, and made on each side of it, such channels as we now see regulating the waters in Holland, thus enabling the inhabitants either to irrigate and drain their fields, or to lay them all under water. At Fiesole, they lowered the lake which surrounded it, and gra- dually drained it ofi" into the Arno ; and they made for this purpose, tunnels through the hill upon which the town stands, which still exist and which may be visited at this day. Fiesole or Felsole was not im- probably a colony from Fel atria or Volterra, and stands upon an eminence equally inaccessible and striking. Volterra peopled also the great town of Populonia, which was increased at various times, by emigrations or importations from other quarters, * Micali Storia, 1. v. p. 74. CIVILIZATION OF UMBRIA. 347 especially from the mines, as it was the great mart for all the ores from Ilva, or Elba, and Corsica. Volterra must have been the mightiest and most populous town of Etruria, and was continually sending forth colonies, apparently because the cir- cumscribed bounds of her rocky height, did not admit of a sufficient enlargement of her suburbs. Propertius, one of the kings of Volterra, is said by Servius, to have sent forth a colony southwards into the territory of the Faliscii, to the boundary fort of Veii, perhaps then a custom-house and station for waggons, (for Veja in Etruscan means a waggon.) Here, they drew the sacred furrow, and raised the stately walls of Veii, having, as it would seem, a domain ceded to them by the Faliscii, in whose country Veii was originally situated, and bounding themselves on the east by Caere, and on the south and Avest by the Tiber. Veii is said to have been founded by Halesus, as well as by Propertius, be- cause Halesus founded the dynasty of Faliscii, and therefore gave his name to all the works and all the colonies of his people. The city of Veii took for its patron, Talna or Juno, the patron of Faleria, and dedicated a particular family, most likely that of one 'of the original Senators of Faleria, to be her priests. As Virgil makes no mention of Veii amongst the cities that helped jEneas, antiquaries have inferred that it rose into eminence subsequently to Tarquinia, Agylla, and the other states which he does mention, and that it was founded between the death of Me- zentiusand the colonization of Rome. 348 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. As Veil was often engaged in disputes with the Latins and Sabines, we know several particulars of its history above what we know of the other northern states. Its senate and people, like the other Etruscan dynasties, consisted of more than one race, and the population, Mliller thinks, Avas composed of Sikeli and Etruscans. The Sikeli may mean Latins or Sabines, it being- the name of every native tribe. Veii was ruled by a number of wealthy and luxurious sovereigns, all kept in our remembrance by some one remarkable act, but none succeeding each other in the relation of father and son. They were elected from amongst the Lucumoes of the Senate, and had all different names, each being the Head of a different family. This we judge, because all the Etruscan families had theirownsurnames,like the English, descendingfrom father to son, as is proved by their sepulchral in- scriptions; and this enables us to distinguish between the different families. Infragmentsof popular songs or stray quotations, we find mention made of the kings of Veii, Morrio, Vejo, Meralus, and Deheberis or Tiberis. King Morrio was author of the Morris Dancers,* i. e. founder of the Salii, a band of priestly warriors, all noble, who danced a kind of sword dance in proces- sion, in honour of Manors, the god of battles. His altar was on the top of the Monte Musino, surrounded by three terraces which are still visible. The Salii consisted of twelve men, one to represent each * Servius ad JEn. CIVILIZATION OF UMKHIA. 349 Etruscan state, and their order was adopted by Pre- nestc and Tusculiun, in imitation of Vcii. Morrio is called the son of Ilalesus, and therefore probably was a Falliscian. He^' is said by some authors to have founded Alsium, because he is confounded with Halesus, who was the founder both of Alsium and of Faliscii, and in Eastern phraseology, he was the founder also of all the towns that proceeded from the colonies of either. In the days of Morrio, according to Servius from Cato the men of Veii made the vow of a sacred springjt and sent out a colony eightaen years after- wards, with an Augur, to build Capena ; a city upon this account, perfectly independent in jurisdiction, but ever most faithfully and affectionately attached to the fortunes of its mother state. It is now called Civita, and the remains of its walls are in the usual Etrus- can parallelograms, and give us an idea of the im- pregnability which LivyJ attributes to Capena. King Vejo means the king of Veii, when elected chief of the League without any proper name. King Meralus was probably also a chief of the League; and king Deheberis, Latinized intoTibris, may have been a real person, who gave his name to the Tiber, his boundary stream. This river he may very possibly have navigated, and in it he is said to have been drowned. Before Deheberis, the name of the Tiber was Rumon, and to us it is known equally as the Rumon or Roman River, and the Tiber. Tiberis ruled over Alba, therefore must * Vide Dempster. f Niebuhr. i. 127. + v. 24. 350 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. have conquered the Latins, and is called the son of Janus, which means that he was a Tuscan. His time was so remote, that some authors make him cotemporary with the Argonauts, by whom he was killed ;* but if he ruled Alba, he could not have reigned until after Alba was founded, and Silvius its first king was dead. In the government of Veii, lay the Septem Pagi, or the seven villages, so long the object of contention with Rome. It is not easy to account for the great- ness of Veii, as it was situated upon no navigable river, and was near no great lake, but it was pro- bably the medium of communication between Pyrgi and Clusium, through Faleria and Volsinia, and it possessed manufactures of bronze and clay, famed for their superior excellence. It would naturally become warlike from being a frontier city, and it probably established both its territory and its power at the time the Tuscans ruled in Latium. It seems likely that Veii founded Fidene, in the same manner as Capena, for Fidene appears ever to have looked up to Veii, and to have expected suc- cour from her as a mother, whilst at the same time, she alwa.ys returned to her the affectionate support of a daughter. Dionysius calls Fidene an Alban colony, which may have some reference to its foundation in the days of Tiberis, who ruled Alba. Pliny calls it Sabine, which would lead us to believe that Sabines were admitted into its senate. Livyf tells us that it was Etruscan, and that only a portion * Dempster. f i. xv. CIVILIZATION OF UMBRIA. ^351 of tlie inhabitants could speak Latin ; and wlien the Romans wanted a spy upon Fidene,* tliey procured a man from Coere, who understood the Etruscan lan- guage and writing, and who did not feel himself, as the Faliscians and Veientines would have done, betraying his own blood. The site of its ancient citadel is now Castel Giubileo.f One other large town which grew up about this time, was Cosa, the port of Vulci, far more wealthy and better known than the elegant but small me- tropolis of the Vulcientes. It traded, like Tar- quinia, with the ports of the north, and with those of Egypt and Carthage, which may account for the very extraordinary Egyptian relics of high an- tiquity, which continue still to be found in the sepulchres of Vulci. The Tuscans of Etruria Proper, after having fully Coloni- peopled their own country, and the province of of Umbria, which formed its eastern boundary, still ^^"^■ continued to increase in their population, until their numbers became too great for the country to sup- port, and the twelve dynasties agreed, each to send forth a large colony, which should possess and re- deem the Padus country, i. e. the vast tract, after- wards possessed by the Gauls, lying upon each side of the Po, and extending from about the 44th degree of north latitude to the Alps. As all this land, bounded on the East by the Veneti, and on the West by the Ligurians, belonged to the Umbri, ac- cording to Pliny,J we need not wonder that the * ix. t GeU. X iii. 352 HISTORY OF ETRUBIA. Rasena found no difficulty in arranging with them the terms of their settlement, and met with no op- position. The decision of the twelve dynasties must have been concluded at one of the great meet- ings of Voltumna, and it is probable that they colo- nized simultaneously, as their movement is called by the Tuscan historians, Flaccus and Cecina, " Tarchon crossing the Po, and founding Etruria Nova." * The colonies thus planted, were all upon the model of the mother country. Each metropolis was marked out by the plough, and blessed by the Augur ; each had its threefold temple, and its three dedicated gates, and each had its massive walls, its garrisoned citadel, its theatre and amphitheatre. Each had also its Lucumoes and Senate, its Plebs and its slaves, its ruling Prince or Lar, and its patron god ; and all of them without exception, were subject to the laws of Tages, and gloried in being the people of Tarchun, and in considering themselves as twelve members of one whole. From this it follows, that the northern Etruscans, also had their Voltumna, or place of general meeting, and their feast of brotherly union, though whether dedicated to the same god- dess or to another, we have no means of knowing. It is to be presumed that they often sent deputies to Voltumna n Tarquinia, and that the twelve mother states frequently sent deputies to them, but there was no obligation for the one to attend the meetings of the other, nor was there any such bond * Servius Mn. x. CIVILIZATION OF UMBRIA. 353 between them, as to make it needful for tlie one to be acquainted with the councils of the other. Like all the colonies, of all the people of Ludin, " Etruria Nova" was wholly independent of the country whence she sprung; she carried forward with her the domestic manners, the national modes of thought, and the civilization of Etruria Proper, and she was bound to it by lasting ties of gratitude and affection, but never of subjection. She was the friend, but not the servant of Tarchunia ; her child, but a child gone out into the world to seek fortune for itself, and consulting no more the authority of home. As the Rasena who settled in Western Um- bria, called their country Aturia, or Etruria, in me- mory of the land of their forefathers, and Turrhenia or Turchunia, in memory of their great chief, so these second Rasena probably called their part of Northern Umbria, " Rasena," in remembrance of their ancient race. It has come down to us in the corrupted form of Rhoetia,* and is said to have been named from Rhoetus, one of their colonizing kings. We can but go upon probabilities, and faint gleams of light in our researches into Etruria Nova, because its very existence is first made known to us at the period of its downfall. Livy first mentions it in the reign of the Roman king, Tarquin the First, in the year of Tarquinia 560, and we scarcely hear of it again, until the fall of Melpum, one of its largest and greatest cities, which was destroyed at the same time with Veii.f It is certain that all the land * Livy V. 33. Pliny in. 20. .f a. r. 358. 354 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. which remained to these Northern Rasena, after the conquest of the Gauls, was called Rhoetia,* and was divided into upper and lower ; the first extend- ing from the source of the Rhine to the Leek, and the second from the Leek to the Inn, comprehending the country which is now the Tyrol and the Grisons. Their towns in this space were Curia, now Coire, Tridentum now Trent, Belumen, and Feltria. These four were not unlikely spelt Keri or Caere, Tr.t.nte. Vel.m.ne, and Felatri, whence we are in- clined to attribute the founding of Feltria to Vol- terra or Felatri, of Curia to Caere, of Tritente to Tutere of the Umbri, united with the men of Falis- cii ; and of Yelumen or Velumne to some of those Northern States, in which we now find the sepul- chres of the family of Velumne, one of the chief Magnates of Etruria. In after ages, the northern Rasena were confined within the space of Rhoetia Proper, where they lost their commerce and their maritime character, and where they had no neighbours, but the Germans on the one side, and the Gauls on the other ; they then forgot their pristine refinement, and became compa- ratively poor and savage, retaining, as Livyt says, " no traces of their original, except their ancient lan- guage, and even that corrupted." Many Etruscan bronzes and inscriptions have been found within the last fifty years, in this district. * Servius on Georg. ii. Strab. iv. Plin. iii. 20. '^ V, 33. . CIVILIZATION OF UMBRIA. 355 The eight* rich cities conquered by the Gauls, with wliich these four in their happier days, were in full connnunion, were Adria, Spina, Kupra, Fulsinia, Melpuni, Mediolanum, Verona, and Mantua ; and of these, the two last keep their ancient name. Mediolanum is Milan, though under the Tuscans, it must have borne some other de- signation, perhaps Met.lun, Mediolanum being Gal- lic. Melpum was so rich and powerful a city, that its loss caused the ruin of all the others, and it was regarded by the northern Tuscans, in the same light as Veii by the southern. Felsina, called also Bo- nonia, and now Bologna, is described by Pliny as the capital of northern Etruria, and along with Man- tua, it comes prominently forward in Latin history. Felsinius, mentioned by Virgil, was probably the ruler of this city, and general of the northern league. It was in all likelihood founded by Felsune or Volsinia, (the tribe of artists,) which it so much re- sembles in name. Kupra, near the modern Ripra Santone, was the city of the great and universally venerated Etruscan goddess, Juno. It may be a doubt whether Kupra did not signify Juno in the Egyptian or Lybiau form only, in which she was worshipped at Veii, and in which she appeared, when she stood alone as the object of adoration, whilst Talna might be her name as the wife of Jupiter, and as one of the great Triad. * Authorities for these cities, &c. : Livy v. 32 ; xxxix. 55. Strabo V. 214— 218. PUny iii. 15, 1C>, 19. Scylax. 356 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. Both names are given to Juno in the bronze specehj, and the thought is suggested, because the female form of Egyptian Jupiter is " Tamon," which form standing alone is Neith, or Minerva ; and it is not unworthy of remark, that Lanuvian Juno, the only remaining statue which we have, representing the Etruscan Juno, and which Dionysius says is like the Argive Hera, is Juno in a dress which might be mistaken for that of Minerva. This statue is to be seen in the Vatican. Temples to Kupra, the Tuscan warlike Juno, seem to have abounded in all the Tuscan settlements. Adria* and Spinaf were both great commercial towns upon the coast, and the former gave its name to the whole gulf of Venice, called by the ancients, the Adriatic Sea. At Adria or Hatria, the houses were all built with a court, universal to the Tuscans, but called by the Latins from this town, Atria. Varro tells us, " Atrium appellatum est ab Atrialibus Tuscis," i. e. from Hatria. Its name upon the coins is Hathri and Tab. We have already quoted the testimony of Pliny,J as to the whole district of Adrianus having once belonged to the Umbri, who upon first entering Italy, conquered it from the Siculi. Mantua, the birth-place of Virgil, was founded from Perugia, and he relates the tradition that Bianor, the son of Manto, named the city after his mother.^ Antiquarians believe this Manto to have * Adria Tuscan : Plin. iii. Varro, 1. v. t Miiller, 3, 4. :J: iii, 14. § Servius JEnd. x. 198. CIVILIZATION or UMniHA. .357 been simply the God of the sliades, and that Bianor dedicated his town tothe manes of liis mother. As he was a son of Ocniis, in the sense of being a Peru- gian, he is often confounded with Ocnus, one of the reputed founders of Perugia, and Ocnus is conse- quently said to have done that, which the colony of Ocnus achieved under Bianor. He seems to have been one of the greatest of the Etruscan princes. Virgil * says that he was buried between Mantua and the little town of Andes, and that his sepulchre was visible even in his (the poet's) day. Bianor, in the usual eastern phraseology of the Tuscans, is called the son of Tiberis, and of Manto the daughter of Tiresias. In other words, Bianor came from the Tiber, the beautiful river of Perugia ; he was, at the period his tomb was erected, the son of Mantu ; and Mantu was the god of death, or of dis- embodied spirits, to the Tiresians, or Tirsenians. Auletes appears also to have been a very ancient and powerful king of Mantua,t as he is represented heading the troops of the Benacus and the Mincio, and joining his brethren with one hundred ships. Virgil:]: mentions the mixture of races in the Senate of Mantua ; and it is superfluous to dilate upon the necessary and all but obligatory mixture of the Umbri with the Tusci, in all the new cities which were founded in their unconquered land ; and throughout every apportioned district which was measured off in their allied and friendly territory. * Eclogue ix. t ^n. x. 207. X Servius on JEn. x. 201. 358 HISTORY OF ETRURIA. All the north, which had been Umbrian, was hence- forward considered Rasenan or Ehoetian, and the old native rulers must have shared equally with the new governors, and, it may be, were even alternate with the kings ; for where marriage was lawful be- tween the houses, and the laws, religion, and civiliza- tion were wholly Tuscan, we can easily perceive that the name of Umbrian would quickly merge into that of the dominating power. Muller* says, that a great many small towns in Rhoetia, bore the same names as those in Umbria Proper, in Etruria, and in Etruscan Campania ; such as Acerra, Laus Pom- peja, and Vulturnia, all near Cremona, and noticed by Cluverius. Ravennaf was one of the great northern Tuscan cities, which remained to the Rasena and the Umbri, and was not conquered by the Gauls. Pliny says, that all the Padusland, without any exception, as farnorth as the Alps, was Umbrian ; and Livy, that it all be- came Tuscan, excepting a small portion round the head of the sea, belonging to the Veneti, afterwards the republic of Venice. These Veneti may have been, like the Siculi, straggling colonists from Ulyria, who had not strength to push themselves further south- ward ; but Niebuhr thinks that they also were Etrus- cans, or at least, that their country was included in the Etruscan dominion, and that we do not hear of them as united with the others, because they were cut off from the main body by the Gauls. It is most likely that they were Etrusci, Umbri, and * Etrusker Einl. iii. 3. f Miiller Ein. iii. 4. 10 CIVILIZATION OF UMliRIA. -359 Siculi, all mixed toxh4. it 'J W^ \ \[,:j;: