EARLY ITALY AND THE ETRUSCANS

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Early Italy

• mixture of different people: Celts, Villanovans, Etruscans
• good agricultural land in western lowlands, where Rome is
  • Rome vulnerable to attack, but well placed for communications
• Villanovan culture: 12-7 cy. B.C.
  • related to Urnfield culture north of the Alps
    • dead cremated and buried in urns
    • grey-black pottery, sometimes with applied decoration
    • settled agricultural towns
    • first bronze, then iron was the predominant metal used

Etruscan culture

Origins obscure; emerge in 7th cy. B.C. in central Italy, between Arno and Tiber Rivers

• Herodotus (5th century B.C. Greek historian) claimed they were from Lydia (southern Turkey)
• Dionysius of Halikarnassos said they evolved from Villanovans: this is more likely
  • Villanovans once thought North Italian, Etruscans South, but Villanovan sites now known in Southern Italy too

Language not fully deciphered

• no literature, just short inscriptions; we can read some but can't go on to decipher the rest of the language
  • bilingual inscriptions recently found: with Greek, at Delphi; with Punic (Carthaginian), at Pyrgi in Italy
  • names like Hercle (Herakles, Hercules), Menrva (Minerva) are recognizable
• loan-words come in to English via Latin: antenna, ceremony?, person (Etruscan phersu, 'mask', Latin persona, 'actor's mask, character portrayed by an actor')

Religion

• gods modelled on Greek, but usually compared with Roman names
  • Tin (= Roman Jupiter), Uni (= Roman Juno), Menrva (= Roman Minerva)
• sacred books
• divination by bird, thunder/lightning, animal entrails--the Piacenza liver is a diagram of divination
  • haruspex (seer) wielded a lot of power; signs observed before every major event
• city marked out as sacred space; surrounded by magic ploughed circle

Political and economic organization

• federation of 12 cities, by tradition, but more large settlement sites known
• government
  • king: religious, legal and political leader until 5th cy. B.C.
  • praetor replaced king in 5th cy., with college of magistrates; both offices annually elected
• society: aristocratic clans, serfs&emdash;no middle class
• wealth from mining&emdash;iron and other ores), agriculture, trade with Greeks and Phoenicians
• alliance with Carthage, in competition with Greeks: Greeks defeat them at Cumae in 474 B.C.
• land empire--expand Southward into Campania, later North to Po river valley
  • last kings of Rome were Etruscan; in 509 B.C. it gained independence and became a Republic
• major cities: Veii, Cerveteri (Caere), Tarquinia, Vulci

Art and architecture

• town planning well carried out&emdash;Spina, Marzabotto: boundaries, grids
  • main N-S street, main E-W street, business center at the intersection
  • houses built around atrium (central courtyard)
  • surrounding wall with gates, towers
• temples: built on high platform (podium), at rear of a sacred enclosure&emdash;axial position (centered, opposite entrance to enclosure)
  • unlike freestanding Greek temples you could walk around
  • columns only in front
  • made of mud-brick and wood, with painted terra-cotta (clay) decorations
• tombs: tumuli (burial mounds) replace Villanovan cremation urnfields
  • cemeteries with elaborate underground stone tombs, built to resemble houses
    • brightly painted; see below
    • offerings include imitation Greek vases
  • tripartite plan for tombs at Cerveteri, temples at Veii, Rome
  • terra-cotta cinerary urns used early on for cremated remains; then stone sarcophagi
    • sarcophagus lid shows dead person/couple reclining or lying down
• Archaic sculpture (6th cy. B.C.) shows some Greek influence
  • Apollo from Temple of Apollo at Veii&emdash;terra-cotta roof decoration
  • Etruscan sarcophagus, Cerveteri, c. 520, with reclining couple on lid
  • bronze Capitoline wolf, c. 500-480 (babies added by Romans)
  • small ivory of Aeneas and Anchises from Veii, early 5th cy.
    • this and other evidence proves that the legend of Aeneas fleeing from Troy to Italy was already known
• later sculpture influenced by Rome as well as Greece
  • Etruscan sarcophagus, Vulci, 4 cy., with lying-down couple on lid
  • bronze Mars of Todi, early 4th cy.
  • bronze of Roman official Aulus Metellus, early 1st cy.
    • looks very Roman, but labelled in Etruscan (Aule Metele), showing sculptor was an Etruscan commissioned to do this portrait
• bronze work and jewelry highly prized&emdash;mirrors, lamp stands, etc. beautifully designed, engraved
• painting--seen in tombs
  • Tomb of the Augurs--religion
  • Tomb of the Leopards, Tarquinia, c. 480-470--Etruscan banquet, dancers
  • Tomb of Hunting and Fishing, Tarquinia, c. 530-520
    • influence from Asia Minor Greeks; man and nature shown together
• Gradual takeover by Rome, with Greek influence in painting, architecture
  • François Tomb--paintings relate to early Roman history
  • Ficoroni cista from Praeneste (Palestrina), late 4th cy. shows cultural mix:
    • made in Rome by a Roman artist
    • decorated with scene from Greek mythology--Jason and the Argonauts
    • deposited in tomb by Etruscan noblewoman
  • sculpture continues, but with a difference (see above)

Legacy to Rome

• town planning
  • grids with main N-S and E-W streets
  • houses built around atrium
  • magic boundary circle: in Rome called the pomerium
• temples centered at rear of enclosed space--sometimes on platform
  • NB Nagle p. 260: unlike Greeks, for whom "man was the measure of all things", Romans subordinated even people to orderly and symmetrical arrangements: belief that everything and everybody had a preordained place in the overall scheme of the world
• magistrates (no longer haruspex) take the auspices (signs)