XVIII
ETRUSCAN DEMONS
TOMBA DEL TIFONE
But the benevolent genii and Lasas are absolutely in the minority in the paintings and plastic art of Etruria, and become rarer as time goes on. The mood rises from sinister gloom to wild terror. Two pictures will illustrate this climax. In the Tomba del Tifone at Corneto, which was discovered in 1832 and which is one of the grandest of the family vaults of Etruria, there is preserved, besides the serpent-legged demons from which the tomb has derived its name, a large wall-painting representing the journey of a young man to the realm of the dead (fig. 45). To the left is seen an altar towards which the procession of mantle-clad youths moves; they are led by a young demon with snakes in his hair, and a torch and a snake in his hands. The procession advances to the sound of a lituus-trumpet, and the young men carry staves and seem to be the clients of the central figure. The central figure is made conspicuous by walking without any attributes in the centre of the procession right in the front, but over his right shoulder we see Charun’s clawlike hand, and Charun advances behind him like a black shadow, characterized by pointed asses’ ears, snakes in his hair, and his terrible hammer. The high rank of the young man is made apparent by the inscription over his head: ‘Laris Pumpus Arnthal clan cechase,’ i. e. Laris Pumpus, son of Arnth, priest (sacerdos). Here, then, we have another of the priestly aristocrats of Etruria. After him come two more companions with staffs, and a trumpeter,114 as well as two young men without any attributes, and the scene is terminated by some dim figures, one of which seems to be a woman with a snake in her hair and another to be of negroid type; possibly these are the rulers of the underworld according to a later local Etruscan conception. One thing, at any rate, is plain, that the dead youth, in spite of his splendid following, goes to meet a sorrowful fate. What can the sound of the instruments avail when Charun’s claw is laid on his shoulder!
TOMBA DEL CARDINALE
This tomb dates, as far as can be judged by the style of the painting, from the first half of the fourth century B.C.115 From the beginning of the next century dates the Tomba del Cardinale at Corneto, which was discovered shortly after 1760,116 then forgotten and filled in again, and finally reopened in 1786117 by Cardinal Garambi, bishop of Corneto. It has suffered much by exposure to wind and weather and to tourists for more than a hundred and fifty years. It has a narrow frieze with battle scenes, doubtless mythological, but the interest is centred in the long narrow frieze of pictures under the ceiling. The subject of this is the march of the shades towards the other side (fig. 46). A woman is drawn on a two-wheeled cart by two winged demons, one light and the other blue-black, both wearing the traditional garb of the genii of death, familiar from the contemporary sarcophagi and cinerary urns: a shirt with braces, and high top boots. This is perhaps the young woman who is mentioned in the inscription of the tomb: ‘Ramtha, daughter of Vel and Vestrcni, who was wife (puia) of Larth Lartha, and who lived (valce instead of svalce) nineteen years.’ A young man follows in a long cloak: he turns round to a black, winged demon carrying a hammer (fig. 47). Beyond the gateway of the underworld behind him a devil of the same type is seated, and then comes a crowd of young people driven along by two devils, one of whom threatens them with his hammer.118 A woman, who looks back moaning, is being brutally dragged along by two male demons, and at the end of the procession two winged devils are seen hastening forward, slender of limb and agile of movement, like poisonous insects. In a fragment of a frieze, which is now badly damaged, the Charun devil was once more seen in the act of crushing a skull with his hammer.119
CONCEPTION OF THE HEREAFTER
This picture has a quality which reminds one of the frescoes in the Campo Santo at Pisa, but which is much more terrible because no hope of paradise atones for the horror. The reliefs on contemporary cinerary urns tell the same tale. To be sure, the dead reclines fat and finely bedecked on the lid of these cinerary urns, holding a drinking-bowl, or, if female, a fan. This is only tradition and has nothing to do with actual feeling. It is clear enough that the old confident conception of the hereafter as an eternal symposium has been exploded. To this the reliefs on the urns bear witness. These reliefs, if they do not directly evade the problem by choosing neutral scenes from Greek mythology, reveal a demoniac possession of appalling intensity. We need no literature in order to realize that the Etruscans under the pressure of disaster became another people, pessimistic, in terror of death, and devoid of any resiliency which would allow them to indulge in the pleasures of life. If this spiritual incubus descended upon the masses of the Roman people we can better understand how it is that the poet Lucretius can feel enthusiasm, and can arouse it in others, when he preaches the gospel of godlessness and the annihilation of the soul in death.120 For of the Etruscan people, at any rate, the words of Lucretius121 hold good:
Omnia perfunctus vitai praemia marces.
All that life had to give, thou hast enjoyed,
And now thou fadest.
Footnotes
1 Jahrbuch des deutschen archäologischen Instituts, xxxi. 1916, p. 106 ff.
2 Cities and Cemeteries, p. 119.
3 The same is true of the second edition of Luigi Dasti’s Notizie di Tarquinia-Corneto, 1910.
4 Cp. Fr. Poulsen, Der Orient and die frühgriechische Kunst, p. 128, where I tried to prove that the pictures of the tomb are influenced by the art and style of decoration of the island of Cyprus. Rumpf (op. cit. 50) was nearer the mark in perceiving the connexion with the decorative art of Crete and the Cyclades in the seventh century B.C. The horsemen, in particular, recall the frieze from Prinia in Crete, Bollettino d’Arte, 1908, p. 457 ff.
5 Shields were also common mural decorations with the early Greeks, cp. Poulsen, Orient, p. 77, and Alcaeus, fragm. 15 (Bergk).
6 See the summary account in Rumpf, op. cit. 61 ff.
7 II, Tafel 41, and Hilfstafel 1-8.
8 Poulsen, Orient, p. 67.
9 I am greatly indebted to Professor O. A. Danielsson of Upsala for information about this as well as about other inscriptions, and for numerous linguistic suggestions on the general subject of my treatise.
10 Παίειν τὰ μέτωπα, Dionys. Halicarn. x. 9; ‘frontem ferire’, Cicero, Epist. ad Attic. i. 1; for other instances see Sittl, Gebärden der Griechen and Römer, p. 21.
11 Isocrates ix. 1.
12 With reference to phersu, which is supposed to be synonymous with and the origin of the Latin persona, see Pauly-Wissowa, vi. 775, and S.P. Cortsen, Vocabulorum Etruscorum interpretatio in Nord. Tidsskr. for Filologi, 1917, p. 174.
13 iv. 153 f.
14 Tertullian, Ad nation. i. 10.
15 Pauly-Wissowa, iii. 2178.
16 B 630. Figured in Terra-cotta Sarcophagi in British Museum, pl. ix-xi.
17 Kestner, Annali i (1829), p. 101 ff.
18 Athenaeus iv. 154a.
19 Livy ix. 30. 5-10. Plutarch, Aetia Romana, 55.
20 Dionys. Halicarn. vii. 72-3.
21 Livy i. 35. 9.
22 Hesych. s. v. The word is not mentioned in S.P. Cortsen’s Vocabulorum Etruscorum interpretatio in Nordisk Tidsskr. for Filologi, 1917; no doubt because he considers Hesychius’s statement insufficiently authoritative. Cp. Skutsch, Pauly-Wissowa, vi. 775.
23 Helbig’s letters of June 21 and December 10, 1895.
24 Thus the facsimile at this point gives more than I at any rate could see: on the other hand, less as far as brow and nose are concerned.
25 Plutarch, Aetia Romana 98.
26 Plautus, Truculentus 290, 294, Mostellaria 259 ff. In Greece also, women used white lead as paint: Lysias i. 14 and 17.
27 Quotation from Aeschylus by Theophrastus (who endorses the opinion): History of Plants ix. 15. 1.
28 Hellenica iii. 2. 5.
29 Cp. Tacitus, Histor. iv. 53, on the inauguration of the rebuilt Capitolium: ’spatium omne quod templo dicabatur evinctum vittis coronisque; ingressi milites, quis fausta nomina, felicibus ramis.’
30 Cp. Fr. Poulsen, Delphi, fig. 44.
31 Daremberg-Saglio, s. v. Tutulus. Fr. Poulsen, Der Orient und die frühgriech. Kunst, p. 97, fig. 99, and p. 107. Martha, L’art étrusque, p. 306, fig. 206 (Cyprus). Antike Denkmäler iii, pl. 1.
32 In the same manner the Roman priests used flint knives in their cult, and their razors had to be of copper, and, as late as Roman imperial times, they used black vessels (nigrum catinum), corresponding to the Etruscan bucchero vases, at sacrifices. Livy i. 24. 9: Juvenal vi. 343. Cp. Müller-Deecke, Die Etrusker ii. p. 275.
33 The Latin name of the head-cloth is struppus, and from that a festival at Falerii, struppearia, derived its name. It comes from Ionia, and is mentioned in the poems of Sappho (χειρόμακτρον).
34 Fr. Poulsen, Delphi, fig. 44.
35 Cp. Daremberg-Saglio and Pauly-Wissowa, s. v. Amphitheatrum.
36 Museo archeol. di Firenze, p. 303.
37 Livy xxix. 14. 13.
38 Cicero, In Verrem iv. 46. See also Karl Wigand, Thymiateria.
39 For instance in Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica ii. 68.
40 Cicero, Tusculanae disputationes ii. 56.
41 Aristotle, fragm. 519 R. Scholia to Homer’s Iliad xxiii. 130. A similar dancer or armed runner appears in the Tomba Casuccini at Chiusi; both remind us in posture of the Tübingen armed runner (Bulle, Der schöne Mensch, pl. 89).
42 The large frieze with dancing scenes on the left main wall was already badly damaged in 1827. A copy of it, now in the Vatican, is mere fiction, and has unfortunately served as basis for the large facsimile in the Glyptotek. On the other hand, its damaged state is correctly represented in the small drawing of the tomb in the Glyptotek.
43 Blümner, Römische Privataltertümer, p. 118.
44 On Etruscan cinerary urns and terracotta sarcophagi the covers are as a rule strongly scalloped. These are presumably the tonsilia tappetia referred to by Plautus (Pseudolus 145 ff.). They usually came from Alexandria and were decorated with pictures of wild beasts, whereas the bed coverlets proper came from Campania.
45 These cheetahs were brought alive to Italy, if not actually used for hunting by the princes of the Renaissance. For among Pisanello’s drawings in the Codex Vallardi in the Louvre is a fine study of one of these animals from the life; it wears a collar round its neck, showing that it was led on a leash. I owe this reference to Mr. G. F. Hill.
46 Dennis and Stryk are mistaken in speaking of a youth and a girl on the left couch; the error is due to the damaged condition of the colouring.
47 Cp. Juvenal, Satires v. 82, where eggs are referred to as a common course at funerals.
48 Cato, De re rustica 26. In the Greek pictures of symposia also the slave boy carries a strainer, ἡθμός.
49 Athenaeus i. 23 d. On the Etruscan custom of reclining at table, like the Greeks, and unlike the men of the Homeric age and later the Macedonians, who sat, see Athenaeus i. 17 f, 18 a.
50 Athenaeus xii. 517d. Cp. Dionys. Halic. ix. 16.
51 Isaeus iii. 14.
52 Athenaeus iv. 153 d. (= Timaeus, fragm. 18 in Müller, Fragmenta histor. Graecorum).
53 Friedländer, Sittengeschichte Roms i. 472, 478, 493 f.
54 Corpus inscriptionum Etruscarum, 3858, 3860.
55 The Etruscan character for immorality is chiefly due to Theopompus (fragm. 222 in Müller, Fragm. hist. Graec. i. p. 315), but he gives similar descriptions of the Thessalians, and seems to have specialized in chroniques scandaleuses. Of equal value is his information that the Sybarites loved the Etruscans because of their luxuriousness (Athenaeus xii. 519 b). It is regrettable that Theophrastus’ work on the Etruscans is lost; it would have provided information of quite a different character. (Cp. the Scholia to Pindar, Pythia ii. 3.)
56 De oratore iii. 197.
57 Livy v. 22. 5.
58 The most famous of all the Etruscan women versed in divination is the wise but guileful Tanaquil, who played a political part in Rome: Livy i. 34.
59 Τὴν κιθαράν στρέψας, like Apollo in the contest with Marsyas (Apollodorus, Bibliotheca i. 4. 2).
60 In the same picture we also find a representation of a true Greek motive, kottabos. Another momentary motive appears in the Tomba d’Orfeo e d’Euridice at Corneto (Monumenti v. pl. 17), a slave pulling off his master’s slippers.
61 Hypothymides were first used ‘by the Aeolians and Ionians who wore them round their necks, as we learn from the poems of Anacreon and Alcaeus’ (Athenaeus xv. 678 d); Cp. Plutarch, Quaest. conviv. iii. probl. 1, 3. In Ionia the women perfumed their bosoms and wore wreaths of flowers round their ‘delicate necks’, as Sappho says (Athenaeus xv. 674 c-d).
62 Athenaeus ix. 409 e.
63 Athenaeus i. 28 b.
64 Corpus inscr. Etrusc. 5093-4. I am indebted to my friend, Dr. S. P. Cortsen, for help in the interpretation of this and other Etruscan inscriptions. These are for the greater part incorrectly copied in the Ny Carlsberg facsimiles.
65 That ruva means brother seems to be unanimously accepted, though it only appears in the two inscriptions of this tomb.
66 The name Pursna or Pursena has, however, never been found in any Etruscan inscription. The Etruscan Lar or Larth has nothing to do with the Roman Las or Lar. Cp. Schulze, Zur Geschichte latein. Eigennamen, 85. 1; Pauli, Altital. Studien, iv. 64 ff.
67 With reference to the use of tapers at the bier in antiquity see Rushforth, Journal of Roman Studies, v. 1915, p. 149 ff.
68 Cp. Vilh. Thomsen, Remarques sur la parenté de la langue étrusque, Bulletin de l’Académie royale de Danemark, 1899, no. 4, p. 391.
69 De agricultura 76 and 86.
70 Cp. Plautus, Pseudolus 158 ‘te cum securi caudicali praeficio provinciae.’
71 Cp. Seneca, Epist. 114. 26 ‘adspice culinas nostras et concursantis inter tot ignes coquos.’
72 Footstools were also used in Rome for mounting the high couches. Varro, De lingua Latina v. 168.
73 i. e. slaves made free by his will, and entitled to wear the cap of liberty.
74 Strabo vi. p. 410 (= Ephorus, fragm. 2 in Müller, Fragmenta historic. graec. i. p. 246). The ingenious etymologist Philochorus even derived the word ‘tyrant’ from Tyrrhenians (Philoch. fragm. 5 in Müller, op. cit.).
75 Dittenberger, Sylloge inscriptionum Graecarum,3 305, with note 1.
76 Polybius ii. 17. Livy v. 33. 7-8.
77 Origines 62.
78 Dionys. Halic. i. 12.
79 Thucydides vi. 88, and vii. 54-5.
80 Dionys. Halic. v. 26, 35, 39.
81 Schulze, Zur Geschichte latein. Eigennamen, p. 95 f., 262 ff.
82 Dionys. Halic. iii. 45, 47 ff.
83 Varro, De lingua Latina v. 5; Livy i. 13. 8.
84 Cp. E. Kornemann, Klio xiv. 1914-15, p. 190.
85 Livy i. 8. 3.
86 Dionys. Halic. iii. 61-2.
87 Wilhelm Schulze, Zur Geschichte lateinischer Eigennamen. Abh. der kgl. Gesellsch. der Wissensch. zu Göttingen, Phil.-hist. Kl., Neue Folge, Bd. 5, No. 5, p. 62 ff.
88 Dionys. Halic. ii. 8, 10.
89 Livy iv. 18. 8. Cp. ix. 29. 2, where the Etruscans are described as the most dangerous enemies of the Romans.
90 Livy iv. 37. 1-2.
91 Livy v. 22. 8.
92 Livy xxvii. 21. 6; 38. 6.
93 Livy xxviii. 45. 14-18.
94 Plutarch, Tiberius Gracchus 8.
95 As a punishment because the country had joined the party of Marius. Plutarch, Marius 41.
96 Cicero, Pro Milone 26, 74, 87.
97 ii. 1. 29. The later authors speak of nothing but the corpulency and imbecility of the Etruscans. Catullus, Carm. 39. 21. Virgil, Georg. ii. 193; Aen. xi. 732. Diodorus v. 40.
98 Thulin, Pauly-Wissowa, vii. 2434.
99 The best summary view of the Etruscan civilization is still to be found in Ottfried Müller, Die Etrusker, in the second edition by Deecke.
100 Cp. for the well-appointed table Plautus’s description of a liberal host (Menaechmi 102): ‘tantas struices concinnat patinarias.’
101 Walther Riezler, Weissgründige attische Lekythen, pl. 70.
102 It is to be observed that the Etruscans thrust with the sword; this also the Romans inherited; whereas the Gauls cut and the Iberians thrust as well as cut. Polybius ii. 33. 6, and iii. 114.
103 Cp. Beazley, Lewes House Collection of Gems, p. 38, 74 f.
104 Herodotus i. 167.
105 Livy vii. 15. 10; 19. 3.
106 Plutarch, Themistocles 13.
107 Körte, Jahrbuch des archäol. Instit. xii. 1897, p. 58 ff.
108 Livy vii. 17. 3-5. Cp. iv. 33. 2.
109 Pausanias x. 28. 7-8.
110 Sophocles, Ajax 17. Aeschylus, Eumenides 567. Euripides, Rhesus 988.
111 Cicero, De divinatione i. 30. Plutarch, Camillus 32.
112 An Etruscan gem shows the dead Ajax and a winged genius in the act of placing the cerecloth over him. Beazley, The Lewes House Collection of Ancient Gems, p. 34., no. 37.
113 Plutarch, Aetia romana 26 and 14.
114 Trumpets at Roman funeral processions are known from reliefs on sarcophagi. Röm. Mitt. xxxiii. 1908, pl. iv (pp. 18-25), and Cagnat and Chabot, Manuel d’Archéol. Romaine, p. 586, fig. 315. Notice in the second relief from Amiternum, Röm. Mitt. 1908, pl. iv, at the bottom, how the banquet with the members of the family reclining on festive couches is also preserved in early Rome (second to first century B.C.).
115 Contemporary and akin in subject is the Tomba Bruschi at Corneto. Monumenti, viii, pl. 36. Stryk, Kammergräber, p. 101. The processions here have quite a festive look; a woman finds time to look at herself in a glass, but the devils, who appear in the crowds or lurk in the corners, show that the occasion is a serious one.
116 Caylus, Recueil d’antiquités iv. (Paris, 1761), 112 f.
117 Tiraboschi, Storia della lett. ital., Venezia, 1795, i. 13 ff. footnote.
118 Similar motives on tombstones and Etruscan gems. Cp. Grenier, Bologna villanovienne et étrusque, p. 447. Ducati, Monumenti dei Lincei xx. pp. 607-12. Beazley, Lewes House Collection of Ancient Gems, p. 33, no. 36 (pl. 3).
119 Badly illustrated in Inghirami, Monumenti etruschi iv. pl. xxvii.
120 De rerum natura iii. 912 ff.
121 iii. 956.