Aztec Treasure House. Evan S. Connell
the sarcophagus sculpture with mild distrust; maybe these figures, too, were only impersonations of life.
Yet no matter how they were done they do give the sense of being particular people. They are quickly recognizable and somehow appalling, like faces on the society page, and they tell quite a lot.
For instance, toward the end—while Etruscan civilization deteriorates—the sarcophagus men and women grow flabbily plump. They project an air of self-indulgence, of commercial success. And they seem strangely resigned or dissatisfied, as though they could anticipate the falling curtain. Yet if you look back a few centuries, not at these phlegmatic inheritors but at the pioneers who lived seven or six centuries before Christ, you notice a quality of strength or assurance like that found on prehistoric terra cotta statues from India and Thailand and Mexico. It is surprising and alarming to perceive what happens to a nation.
The despair these people felt has been reflected also in the late tomb paintings. Gone are the joyous leaping dolphins, the pipers and dancers. Instead, the hereafter looks grim. Mournful processions of the dead are escorted by gray-green putrescent demons with pointed ears and snakes in their hair. Ghoulish underworld heralds brandish tongs, ropes, and torches; they carry hammers and clubs with which to smash the skulls of the newly deceased. Everything seems to prefigure medieval Christianity.
Perhaps the Libri Fatales were responsible, not the minerals and timber, nor a degenerate religion—though it is true that the Fatales were religious texts. These books concerned the division of time, with limitations on the lives of men and women, and they placed a limit of ten saecula on the life of the Etruscan nation. A saeculum was a variable period, averaging about 100 years, and it was up to the priests to determine when each had ended. During the eighth and ninth saecula, while their city-states gradually were being absorbed by Rome, the people must have realized that the end was near, that nothing could save Etruria from extinction. Thus the prophecy became self-fulfilling.
In 44 B.C. when Julius Caesar was murdered a comet gleamed overhead, sheeted corpses gibbered in the street, and the Etruscan seer Vulcatius proclaimed an end to the ninth saeculum.
Claudius died ninety-eight years later—the last high Roman to understand the Etruscan language. His wife Plautia Urgulanilla was Etruscan, and Claudius had written a twenty-book history of them, Tyrrhenica, which has been lost. At his death, we are told, another brilliant comet appeared and lightning struck his father’s tomb, marking the end of the final saeculum. Archaeologists find no evidence of what might properly be called Etruscan civilization after that date.
These ominous books, the Fatales, were part of a complex prescription covering rules of worship, life beyond the grave, civil and military ordinances, the founding of cities, interpretation of miracles, et cetera. Much of it has vanished, but some was transcribed by Greek, Roman, and Byzantine chroniclers, so we have—along with the Fatales—the Libri Fulgurales and Haruspicini.
Because it derives from the verb “to lighten,” fulgurale, the first of these books naturally had to do with divination from objects hit by lightning. According to the sound and color of the bolt, and by the direction from which it came, a soothsayer would deduce which god had ordered the stroke and what it meant. The next step was to consult the Libri in order to learn what should be done. This was not easy. Any of nine gods might have thrown it, and Jupiter himself could hurl three different kinds of lightning. Etruscan skill at interpretation seems to have impressed the Romans; they themselves could recognize only one bolt from Jupiter’s hand. If the regnant god was enraged he struck, and that was that. Consequently they would call for an Etruscan whenever they wanted a truly subtle reading. It was an Etruscan, Spurinna, who advised Caesar against the Ides of March.
In 1878 near Piacenza in the Po valley a unique object turned up: a bronze model of a sheep liver. The surface was divided into forty compartments enclosing the names of various gods such as Cilens, Ani, Hercle, Thuflthas, Muantras, and Satres. Without a Rosetta stone it has been necessary to proceed inchwise, as Mayan linguists do, but still there has been progress and several of these names have been correlated with familiar Latin gods. Others remain incomprehensible. But the significance of the bronze object is understood. The liver, being the seat of life, was a rich source of information. A priest would examine the liver of a sacrificed animal for blemishes or deformity, and after interpreting what he saw he would consult the Libri Haruspicini for an appropriate ritual. The bronze liver unearthed at Piacenza might have been used to instruct apprentices.
How remote it sounds—interpreting divine will through lightning bolts and sheep livers—like something from Stonehenge or the labyrinths of Crete. Yet as late as the fifth century A.D. these services were ordered in Christian Rome: Pope Innocent I, frightened by the approach of Alaric’s Visigoths, consulted Etruscan fulgiatores and haruspices.
How remote, psychically, is Etruria? Well, my neighbor knocks on wood, millions consult the horoscope, and I myself don’t much care for room 13. Interpret that as you please. Now back to the facts.
This incomplete collection of sacred books is just about all the Etruscan literature we have. Otherwise there are only scraps, threads, allusions, and those brief monotonous remarks on funerary items, on mirrors, weapons, and little boxes:
I BELONG TO LARTHIA.
TARCHUNIES HAD ME MADE.
VEL PARTUNU, SON OF VELTHUR AND RAMTHA SATLNEI, DIED AGED TWENTY-EIGHT.
ASKA MI ELEIVANA, MINI, MULVANIKE MAMARCE VELCHANA, which of course means: “I am an oil bottle donated by Mamarce Velchana.”
A contemporary of Cicero mentions some tragedies written by Velna, or Volnius, but that is all we know, not the titles, not even the century. Indeed, there may not have been much Etruscan literature. If there was, it failed to excite the Romans.
In 1964 three rectangular sheets of gold were discovered near the port of Santa Severa. All were inscribed—one in Phoenician, two in Etruscan—perhaps telling a wonderful story, perhaps describing a voyage from Lydia. So, as you might imagine, there was whooping and dancing among Etruscologists. Unfortunately the Phoenician is not a translation of the Etruscan; linguists are convinced of that. Still, the plates have been helpful because the messages are similar: the king of Caere, Thefarie Velianas, is dedicating a shrine to the Lady Astarte in the month of the Sacrifice of the Sun. This ceremony, which must have been widely proclaimed, occurred about 500 B.C.
Latin inscriptions from the period of Roman hegemony often are found on monuments or on the pedestals of statues. One speaks of a military commander who led an army against “C,” which would mean Caere. He led another force against Sicily, thus becoming the first Etruscan general to cross the water, and when he returned from this punitive expedition he was rewarded with an eagle and a golden crown. Clearly he was a great general. His name, almost obliterated, appears to be “Vel X, son of Lars.”
What seems to resist oblivion, outlasting all other created things, including the greatest plays and the most exquisite poems, outlasting murals, statues, bronze mirrors, and stone sarcophagi, is pottery, the humble craftsman’s daily product. It is just about indestructible. Certain plastics may last until the end of the world—maybe longer, if anybody cares—but pottery shards are practically as durable, which is a bit of luck. They are easily glued together, very often they fit to perfection although the object may have been shattered millennia ago, and the most ordinary scraps reveal quite a lot because, almost from the beginning, potters have decorated their pots. Changes of taste, form, and technique accurately measure the passing years. The examination of pots and cups and plates, therefore, becomes a fundamental discipline of the archaeologist.
Kylix, alabastron, rhyton, hydria—Etruscan potters, often adapting Greek forms, steadily manufactured them, century upon century. Thousands have survived intact, or faintly chipped, and we can only guess how many would be around if grave robbers were more considerate.
For instance, the famous blackware called bucchero. Lawrence described these vases and dishes as opening out “like strange flowers, black flowers with all the softness and the rebellion of life.” Another Englishman, George Dennis—the same Dennis of whom Professor Pallottino disapproves—tells of being