Part 17 (1/2)
Etruria was a country at once warm and humid; the atmosphere hung heavily over the inhabitants. The region on the sh.o.r.e of the sea where the Etruscans had most of their cities is the famous Maremma, a wonderfully fertile area, covered with beautiful forests, but where the water having no outlet forms marshes that poison the air. ”In the Maremma,” says an Italian proverb, ”one gets rich in a year, but dies in six months.”
=The Etruscan People.=--The Etruscans were for the ancients, and are still for us, a mysterious people. They had no resemblance to their neighbor's, and doubtless they came from a distance--from Germany, Asia, or from Egypt; all these opinions have been maintained, but no one of them is demonstrated.
We are ignorant even of the language that they spoke. Their alphabet resembles that of the Greeks, but the Etruscan inscriptions present only proper names, and these are too short to furnish a key to the language.
The Etruscans established twelve cities in Tuscany, united in a confederation, each with its own fortress, its king, and its government. They had colonies on both coasts, twelve in Campania in the vicinity of Naples, and twelve more in the valley of the Po.
=Etruscan Tombs.=--There remain to us from the Etruscans only city walls and tombs.
When an Etruscan tomb is opened, one perceives a porch supported by columns and behind this chambers with couches, and bodies laid on these. Round about are ornaments of gold, ivory, and amber; purple cloths, utensils, and especially large painted vases. On the walls are paintings of combats, games, banquets, and fantastic scenes.
=Industry and Commerce.=--The Etruscans knew how to turn their fertile soil to some account, but they were for the most part mariners and traders. Like the Phnicians they made long journeys to seek the ivory of India, amber from the Baltic, tin, the Phnician purple, Egyptian jewels adorned with hieroglyphics, and even ostrich eggs. All these objects are found in their tombs. Their navies sailed to the south as far as Sicily. The Greeks hated them and called them ”savage Tyrrhenians” or ”Etruscan pirates.” At this time every mariner on occasion was a pirate, and the Etruscans were especially interested to exclude the Greeks so that they might keep for themselves the trade of the west coast of Italy.
The famous Etruscan vases, which have been taken from the tombs by the thousand to enrich our museums, were imitations of Greek vases, but manufactured by the Etruscans. They represent scenes from Greek mythology, especially the combats about Troy; the human figures are in red on a black ground.
=Religion.=--The Etruscans were a sombre people. Their G.o.ds were stern, often malevolent. The two most exalted G.o.ds were ”the veiled deities,” of whom we know nothing. Below these were the G.o.ds who hurled the lightning and these form a council of twelve G.o.ds. Under the earth, in the abode of the dead, were G.o.ds of evil omen. These are represented on the Etruscan vases. The king of the lower world, Mantus, a winged genius, sits with crown on his head and torch in his hand. Other demons armed with sword or club with serpents in their hands receive the souls of the dead; the princ.i.p.al of these under the name Charun (the Charon of the Greeks), an old man of hideous form, bears a heavy mallet to strike his victims. The souls of the dead (the Manes) issue from the lower world three days in the year, wandering about the earth, terrifying the living and doing them evil. Human victims are offered to appease their l.u.s.t for blood. The famous gladiatorial combats which the Romans adopted had their origin in b.l.o.o.d.y sacrifices in honor of the dead.
=The Augurs.=--The Etruscans used to say that a little evil spirit named Tages issued one day from a furrow and revealed to the people a.s.sembled the secrets of divination. The Etruscan priests who called themselves haruspices or augurs had rules for predicting the future.
They observed the entrails of victims, the thunderbolt, but especially the flight of birds (whence their name ”augurs”). The augur at first with face turned to the north, holding a crooked staff in his hand, describes a line which cuts the heavens in two sections; the part to the right is favorable, to the left unfavorable. A second line cutting the first at right angles, and others parallel to these form in the heavens a square which was called the Temple. The augur regarded the birds that flew in this square: some like the eagle have a lucky significance; others like the owl presage evil.
The Etruscans predicted the future destiny of their own people. They are the only people of antiquity who did not expect that they were to persist forever. Etruria, they said, was to endure ten centuries.
These centuries were not of exactly one hundred years each, but certain signs marked the end of each period. In the year 44, the year of the death of Caesar, a comet appeared; an Etruscan haruspex stated to the Romans in an a.s.sembly of the people that this comet announced the end of the ninth century and the beginning of the tenth, the last of the Etruscan people.
=Influence of the Etruscans.=--The Romans, a semi-barbarous people, always imitated their more civilized neighbors, the Etruscans. They drew from them especially the forms of their religion: the costume of the priests and of the magistrates, the religious rites, and the art of divining the future from birds (the auspices). When the Romans found a city, they observe the Etruscan rites: the founder traces a square enclosure with a plough with share of bronze, drawn by a white bull and a white heifer. Men follow the founder and carefully cast the clods of earth from the side of the furrow. The whole ditch left by the plough is sacred and is not to be crossed. To allow entrance to the enclosure, it is necessary that the founder break the ditch at certain points, and he does this by lifting the plough and carrying it an instant; the interval made in this manner remains profane and it becomes the gate by which one enters. Rome itself was founded according to these rites. It was called Roma Quadrata, and it was said that the founder had killed his brother to punish him for crossing the sacred furrow. Later the limits of Roman colonies and of camps, and even the bounds of domains were always traced in conformity with religious rules and with geometrical lines.
The Roman religion was half Etruscan. The Fathers of the church were right, therefore, in calling Etruria the ”Mother of Superst.i.tions.”
THE ITALIAN PEOPLE
=Umbrians and Oscans.=--In the rugged mountains of the Apennines, to the east and south of the Roman plain, resided numerous tribes. These peoples did not bear the same name and did not const.i.tute a single nation. They were Umbrians, Sabines, Volscians, aequians, Hernicans, Marsians, and Samnites. But all spoke almost the same language, wors.h.i.+pped the same G.o.ds, and had similar customs. Like the Persians, Hindoos, and Greeks, they were of Aryan race; secluded in their mountains, remote from strangers, they remained like the Aryans of the ancient period; they lived in groups with their herds scattered in the plains; they had no villages nor cities. Fortresses erected on the mountains defended them in time of war. They were brave martial people, of simple and substantial manners. They later const.i.tuted the strength of the Roman armies. A proverb ran: ”Who could vanquish the Marsians without the Marsians?”
=The Sacred Spring.=--In the midst of a pressing danger, the Sabines, according to a legend, believing their G.o.ds to be angry, decided to appease their displeasure by sacrificing to the G.o.d of war and of death everything that was born during a certain spring. This sacrifice was called a ”Sacred Spring.” All the children born in this year belonged to the G.o.d. Arrived at the age of manhood, they left the country and journeyed abroad. These exiles formed several groups, each taking for guide one of the sacred animals of Italy, a woodp.e.c.k.e.r, a wolf, or a bull, and followed it as a messenger of the G.o.d. Where the animal halted the band settled itself. Many peoples of Italy, it was said, had originated in these colonies of emigrants and still preserved the name of the animal which had led their ancestors. Such were, the Hirpines (people of the wolf), the Picentines (people of the woodp.e.c.k.e.r), and the Samnites whose capital was named Bovianum (city of the ox).
=The Samnites.=--The Samnites were the most powerful of all. Settled in the Abruzzi, a paradise for brigands, they descended into the fertile plains of Naples and of Apulia and put Etruscan and Greek towns to ransom.
The Samnites fought against the Romans for two centuries; although always beaten because they had no central administration and no discipline they yet reopened the war. Their last fight was heroic. An old man brought to the chiefs of the army a sacred book written on linen. They formed in the interior of the camp a wall of linen, raised an altar in the midst of it, and around this stood soldiers with unsheathed swords. One by one the bravest of the warriors entered the precinct. They swore not to flee before the enemy and to kill the fugitives. Those who took the oath, to the number of 16,000, donned linen garments. This was the ”linen legion”; it engaged in battle, and was slaughtered to the last man.
=The Greeks of Italy.=--All south Italy was covered with Greek colonies, some, like Sybaris, Croton, and Tarentum, very populous and powerful. But the Greeks did not venture on the Roman coast for fear of the Etruscans. Except the city of c.u.mae the Greek colonies down to the third century had almost no relations with the Romans.
=The Latins.=--The Latins dwelt in the country of hills and ravines to the south of the Tiber, called today the Roman Campagna. They were a small people, their territory comprising no more than one hundred square miles. They were of the same race as the other Italians, similar to them in language, religion, and manners, but slightly more advanced in civilization. They cultivated the soil and built strong cities. They separated themselves into little independent peoples.
Each people had its little territory, its city, and its government.
This miniature state was called a city. Thirty Latin cities had formed among themselves a religious a.s.sociation a.n.a.logous to the Greek amphictyonies. Every year they celebrated a common festival, when their delegates, a.s.sembled at Alba, sacrificed a bull in honor of their common G.o.d, the Latin Jupiter.
=Rome.=--On the frontier of Latium, on the borders of Etruria, in the marshy plain studded with hills that followed the Tiber, rose the city of Rome, the centre of the Roman people scattered in the plain. The land was malarial and dreary; but the situation was good. The Tiber served as a barrier against the enemy from Etruria, the hills were fortresses. The sea was but six leagues away, far enough to escape fear of pirates, and near enough to permit the transportation of merchandise. The port of Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber was a suburb of Rome, as Piraeus was of Athens. The locality was therefore agreeable to a people of soldiers and merchants.
=Roma Quadrata and the Capitol.=--Of the first centuries of Rome we know only some legends, and the Romans knew no more than we. Rome, they said, was a little square town, limited to the Palatine Hill. The founder whom they called Romulus had according to the Etruscan forms traced the circuit with the plough. Every year, on the 21st of April, the Romans celebrated the anniversary of these ceremonies: a procession marched about the primitive enclosure and a priest fixed a nail in a temple in commemoration of it. It was calculated that the founding had occurred in the year 754[108] B.C.