Up hill and down dale in ancient Etruria

Preface

It was to the abandoned sites of Etruria, rather than to those still occupied, that the writer directed his ^attention in this tour. Perugia', Corneto-Tarquinia, Cortona, and Arezzo, and other much-visited and often-describied cities have not therefore been included. That Orvieto and Viterbo — well-known cities also — have befen brought in, is to be explained by both cities being centres of Etruscan districts rather than being distinctly Etruscan themselves.

"At last we all in turn declare We know not who the Cyclops were. But the Pelasgians ! those are true ? I know as much of them as you."

W. Savage Landor.

Part I Chapter Page

I. THEORIES UPON THE ORIGIN OF THE ETRUSCANS . II

II. HISTORY OF THE ETRUSCANS ... 28

III. ETRUSCAN RELIGION . . . .55

IV. THE ARTS OF THE ETRUSCANS ... 62

V. THE ETRUSCAN LANGUAGE . . . '73

Part II

I. VOLTERRA ...... 82

II. VOLTERRA . . . . . .88

III. THE MUSEUM AT VOLTERRA . . .95

IV. THE NECROPOLIS AND THE TOMBS OF VOLTERRA . I05

V. ROMAN, MEDIiEVALj AND MODERN VOLTERRA . Ill

VI. THE BAPTISTERY AND THE VESCOVADO AT

VOLTERRA . . . . . . I18

VII. THE PALAZZO DEI PRIORI (MUNICIPIO), THE PALAZZO

PRETORIO, THE PIAZZA MAGGIORE AT VOLTERRA 121 7

8 CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

VIII. NOTES ON THE HISTORY OF VOLTERRA AFTER THE

ROMAN PERIOD ..... I33

IX. GROSSETO FOR RUSELL^ — RUSELLiE DESCRIBED I42

X. VETULONIA ...... 153

XI. POPULONIA ..... 168

XIV. C^RE (CERVETERl) OR AGYLLA . . . 2o6

XVI. ORVIETO ...... 258

XVII. VITERBO ...... 286

XVIII. VITERBO AND ENVIRONS — TOSCANELLA . . 295

ILLUSTRATIONS

ARCHAIC STELE OF ETRUSCAN WARRIOR . . Frontispiece

(From Pomerance, in Archceological Museum at Florence.

Tomb — Portal)

FACING PAGE

VETULONIA. ETRUSCAN WALLS OF THE ARX . . 29

VOLTERRA. REMAINS OF ETRUSCAN WALLS WITHOUT THE

RUSELL^. PART OF ETRUSCAN WALLS . . . I46

TOMBA BELLA PIETRERA, ENTRANCE. VETULONIA . 1 64

PELASGIAN WALLS. HARBOUR OF ORBETELLO . . 179

COSA (ANSEDONIA). ETRUSCAN WALLS . . . 180

INTERIOR OF THE GROTTA DEI RILIEVE, CERVETERI , 219

RECUMBENT STATUE OF LARTHIA SEIANTI . . . 254

(Florence Archceological Museum)

ETRUSCAN TOMBS ON NORTH SIDE OF THE CITY OF

AN ETRUSCAN SARCOPHAGUS RECENTLY DISCOVERED AT

TOSCANELLA . . . . . . 295

NECROPOLIS OF NORCHIA, NEAR VITERBO . . 304

Up Hill and Down Dale in Ancient Etruria

PART I

Chapter I Theories Upon The Origin Of The Etruscans

Some fifty years ago when the great treasures of Art

throughout the ancient Land of Etruria were being

disinterred, — the minds of archaeologists were greatly

exercised as to the provenance of that mysterious

Etruscan Race, which had once possessed itself of the

greater portion of the Italian Continent. Although

certain ancient writers had spoken of the Etruscans

and their supposed origin, from the Father of History,

— Herodotus, — down to the times of Dionysius of Hali-

carnassus, Strabo, Cicero, Pliny, Livy, Plutarch, and

others — they had pronounced vaguely and unexhaus-

tively ; and in flat contradiction of each other the

two Writers of Halicarnassus had spoken. It seemed

then to tnost of our modern authors difficult to accept

the pronouncements of the earliest writers upon the

origin of the Etruscan Race. As was only to ;be

expected, the modern writers also differed widely

u amongst themselves. Almost every inquirer, into the subject produced his awn theory. Niebuhr and Bunsen were strongly in favour of an origin fromj the North ; Rhaetia was the precise spat of Etruscan birth. At all events Rhaetia was conveniently near to the Land where the Etruscan dran^a was played out. And " Rasena " having been noted as an Etruscan leader, what more probable origin for his name than that of Rhaetia? It will be unnecessary for the writer, and perhaps tedious for the reader, to discuss at this point the extremely various and often ingenious theories and views that were started upon the subject. It may be sufficient to state that to find a solution of the burning question alniost every Race under heaven was evoked, Pelasgi, Egyptians, Phoenicians, Hittites, Babylonians, Lydians, Ligurians, Celts, Basques, Finns, (I think even Irish,) were called upon to furnish the key to the great enigma.

The Language was also declared to be of an agglutinative nature of a Turanian type. However, after some of the hottest and most prolonged debates ever known to the children of men, — no common ground of investigation having been agreed upon, — and no satisfactory solution either upon the origin of the race or of the language seeming possible, every one laid down his arms and admitted himself to be, — if not defeated, — hors de combat.

Since those stirring days of barren contest, exhausted Archaeologists have turned their baffled energies into other and less thorny fields, and the Etruscan Sphinx has been allowed comparative slumber. I think that the truce that was called was chiefly owing to the progress of the science of Ethnology. That science is in a state of flux. The Aryan theory especially. Not many years ago, (it was chiefly under the aegis of the late Professor Max Miiller) we had decided that the fair Aryan Race had poured down from the Roof of the World, had peopled India, and then had flooded half Europe. Now that theory has been shaken. We are reversing our footsteps, — and are near to pronouncing the contrary, and are intending to repeople the East by a Teutonic or Sclavic flood from Europe.

Perhaps we shall never get our Etruscan Dilemma extricated until we finally make up our minds whether our Etruscans are to be Aryan or Non -Aryan. And further, as to the Pelasgic Race, hitherto conceived of as the immediate precursors of the Etruscans in Italy, conquered by them and in a great measure expelled. Did this Pelasgic Race pr did they not commence thteir " peculiar civilisation," (in the building-Art especially, ) in the Peleponnesus or in Italy?'

But I am straying away from the Etruscans and their presumted origin. It will be as well to state upon the threshold of the subject what have been the chief theories about them. Thus the reader, — unless he may have already formed his own theory, — may adopt that which he believes to have the greatest probabilities in its favour.

1st Theory. — The well-known pronouncement of Herodotus in favour of a Lydian Immigration into Etruria, which may be given here in his own words :

" During the reign of Atys, son of Manfes, King of Lydia, a great scarcity of corn pervaded all Lydia. For some time thfe Lydians supported it with constancy, but when they saw thfe evil still continuing they sought for remiedies ; and some devised one thing, and some another ; and at that time the game

' Vide a paper by Mr. W. J. Stillman contributed to the British - American Archaeological Society of Rome, March 6, 1888.

of dice, hucklebones, ball, and all other kinds of games were invented, excepting draughts, (for the Lydians do not claim the invention of this last ; ) and having made these inventions to alleviate the famine, they employed them" (the games?) "as follows: they used to play one whole day that they might not be in want of food ; and on the next day they eat " (ate?) "and abstained from' play ; thus they passed eighteen years; but when the evil did not abate," (famine not to be appeased by gaming !) "but on the contrary became still more virulent, their King divided the whole people into two parts, and cast lots which should remain and which quit the country, and ov^r that part whose lot it should be to stay he appointed himself King ; and over that part which was to emigrate he appointed his own son, whose name was Tyrrhenus. Those to whose lot it fell to leave their country went down to Smyrna, built ships, and having put all their movables which were of use on board, set sail in search of food and land, till having passed by many nations, they reached the Ombrici " (I presume the Umbrians) " reached the Coast," (that looks as though the Umbrian territory stretched to the Adriatic?) "where they built towns and dwell to this day. From being called Lydians, they changed their name to one after the King's son who led them out ; from him they received the appellation of Tyrrhenians." '

Whatever faith the reader may place in the denouement of this ingenuous drama, — i.e., in the Lydian emigration itself, — and there are many writers who still regard it with a kind of benevolent confidence, — surely the prologue thereof may be pronounced to be one of the most childish romances ever fathered by a responsible historian. That for eighteen years

■ Translated by Henry Carey, M.A., from the Text of Baehr.

a sore famine could be held at bay by a starving nation by the artless expedient of incessant gambling, or by such prophylactics to hunger as the blowing of trumpets, dancing, and leapings could afford, forms a tissue of fables that cannot be accepted as rational narrative by reasonable men, much less by those who have suffered from insufficient food. Nor would* any number of primeval Monte Carlos convince us to the contrary.

Could ever an Enterprise of great pith and moment such as this Lydian emigration have developed out of such a Midsummer Night's Dream !

Yet Herodotus tells us this fairy-tale as though it were history, and makes no comments of his own. "They say," stood for history in his estimation. Some one said there were poets before historians ; and afterwards also, it seems. Yet it is amazing that such a farrago of fantasies should have been accepted, — at all events was not questioned — by the grave and reverend historians of ancient Rome. Cicero, Pliny, Livy, Strabo, and others have not dissented at least from the dictum of Herodotus. Nor was it ever shaken, — (dispelled it never has been,) until another historian, also of Halicarnassus, took upon himself to dissolve some of the cobwebs woven by his fellow -citizen of some six hundred years previously.

That the civilisation, the arts, the pursuits, the luxury even, of the Etruscans were derived from an Eastern source, — and probably from some portion of Asia Minor, cannot be doubted. An Oriental character prevails throughout. Yet the points of resemblance between the Lydians and the Etruscans do not suffice to establish the theory of Herodotus, li he had gone to Caria, or to Mysia, or to Phrygia even, for his emigration, he would have been on less debatable grounds. In Troy, for example, he would have found much closer analogies to Etruria. And finally, it might be asked as to the huge flotilla which must have been required for the embarkation of half a nation at the port of Smyrna ; what were the resources of Lydia, or of any known country at that early epoch of the world's history, to compass such a vast naval enterprise? Strabo gives a date of 470 years before the foundation of Rome to the invasion of Italy by the Tyrrhenes. Possibly therefore before the " Fall of Troy." No country in the world at that time could have possessed a fleet, — or could have had a knowledge of navigation commensurate with such a formidable undertaking. The very idea that the Argonauts under Jason had been able to accomplish a voyage from Thrace to the Chersonese (perhaps not wholly a fable) had been sufficient to evoke a thrill of wonder at such a feat of navigation throughout the ancient world. If the host under the command of Tyrrhenus had got as far as Thessaly, we might have wondered also, but, that half -famished hordes upon galleys manned by hungry mariners should have been able to battle with the winds and waves as far as the Adriatic or even the Tyrrhenian Sea, makes a greater demand upon the imaginative powers than even the fabled wanderings of Ulysses or ^neas." That there is even a probability that at some time or other, there was a considerable emigration from some portion of Asia Minor into Italy, and that some Lydians, together with other races may have been swept into the ranks of Thessalians or Pelasgians who led the invasion may be admitted. But there is an inherent impossibility that that invasion could have been brought about in the fantastic fashion

' "The Tyrrhenians who had come from Thessaly into Lydia, and from thence into Italy" (Plutarch's "Romulus").

OBIGIN OF THE ETRUSCANS 17

related by Hferodotiis. And that impossibility, it appears to m^, disposes of the entire legend. Thus much for the Theory according to Herodotus.

2nd Theory. — Let us turn now to that held by Dionysius. It is curious that the Theory promulgated by the older historian of Halicamassus should have been set ^.side by the younger, some six hundred years later. He declared himself in favour of an " autochthons " or indigenous origin of the Etruscan People. He starts on the assumption that had the alleged Emigration of the Lydian People ever taken place, the Lydian historian, Xanthus, would have ma,de some reference to the point. Instead of that Xanthus maintains an absolute silence. Xanthus has nothing to say upon a subject on which he could easily have informed himself. It may be observed that Xanthus wrote a few years previously to Herodotus himself. And Dionysius of Halicamassus in pursuance of his assertions proceeds further to declare that he foimd no resemblance whatever between the Lydians and the Etruscans ; neither in religious customs, nor social habits, — nor in language. I think that it jn^y be assumed that an acute and learned historian such as Dionysius was, would not have made such statements without mature deliberation. He would have put several questions to himself before committing himself to a final verdict. Was, for instance, the rteligious system' of the Etruscans to be found am;ongst the Lydians? >Wiere the Etruscan Deities with their cacophonous names such as Thalna, Sethlans, Phuphlans, &c., enveloped, too, in such a mist of weird and fantastic beings known to thfe Lydians and worshipped by them:?

2. Those Lucumones and Lartes — had they counterparts in the political system' of the' Lydians?

-2)' Those weird pothooks and hajig^ers which form; the Etruscan language (but won't form' words), were they current in Lydia — or anywhere else?

Dionysius then, finding such questions, and others similar to them, meeting with a direct negative, came to the conclusion that all were evolved from the country where they were found, and that the Etruscans were an indigenous Race,

Now, it is curious that the theory of Dionysius, to whom so; many sources of information — denied to his predecessors — must have been available, should never have been accepted, and, certainly, quite put aside by the moderns, whilst the legend narrated by Herodotus is still considered trustworthy. It might well be, mioreover, that Dionysius may have read the oft -mentioned but long ago vanished History of the Etruscans by the Emperor Claudius. It is certainly useless now to hazard any conjecture as to what line Claudius may have taken up as to the Etruscan Race.»

Claudius was, as history tells us, not remarkable for his intelligence, but as the subject of the Etruscans seemed greatly to have exercised his mind, in ithe compilation of his history he was probably wise enough to avail himself of the wisdom of others .

I venture, therefore, to express an opinion that Dionysius may have also got his " indigenous " theory from the history of this very Claudius. One immediate objection that lies in the pronouncement of Dionysius is the obvious one — How does Dionysius account for the art -proclivities of the Etruscans without the contact of some superior Race from without? He does not remark upon that aspect of the question

' A bronze table found at Lyons hands down a fragment of a speech made by Claudius about Vibenna Caeles and Mastarna. That Claudius discoursed, as well as wrote, upon the subject proves him enthusiastic upon the subject at all. It must be remembered that in his day, most of those branches of Art in which we consider the Etruscans to have excelled were not visible. The Romans respected the Tombs, — perhaps in many parts of Etruria even ignored their existence. Certainly in the time of Dionysius they were ignorant of the Art -treasures contained in them. Yet the really strong position which Dionysius took up upon the Etruscan Question has been strangely overlooked and even dismissed without comment. It is quite erroneous, ^nd even misleading upon the part of some writers, to urge that the views of Dionysius, being founded upon a negation, — |[the silence of Xanthus) have therefore little weight. It is the belief of Dionysius in a certain ** Rasena " arid in ; a Race called after him and upon which Dionysius built up an " autochthons " origin for the Etruscan People that forms the pith and kernel of his theory.' I will quote Niebuhr's words as to the statement made by. Dionysius on the subject : " That the Etruscans looked upon themselves as an original people called Rasena and owing their descent to no other Race, and that they knew nothing of the names Tyrrhenian or Etruscan or of any Grecian traditions respecting themselves." 2

^ It may be inferred from the remarks made by Dionysius that he had conversed with one of the Etruscan people at least. He was told, he says, that that people claimed descent from a "Rasena." That they were not Tyrrheni, or Etrusci, nor Pelasgi. A little pressing upon the part of Dionysius might have elicited some definite information as to who "Rasena" was. Did he derive from Italy, or from some other region ? This hiatus in the remarks made by Dionysius is most regrettable. May it not be inferred from Dionysius' expressed opinion as to the autochthons origin, that the Etruscans spoke or wrote one of the ancient dialects of Italy ? His silence also upon that point is suggestive.

' Lecture V. on History of Rome, 3rd English edition, 1852.

20 m ANCIENT ETRURIA

Other traditions respecting the Rasena, or Raseni, there are none, and thence probably the very scanty allusions to " Rasena " in subsequent times. Yet it peems strange when we consider how eagerly the slightest clue has been snatched at, that Rasena should have been buried in oblivion.

The Greeks, says Niebuhr, had another tradition about the Tyrrhenians ; (or Etruscans) that of Hellenicus. He stated that Pelasgians from Thessaly had settled at Spina at the mouth of the Po, whence they proceeded across the mountains into Etruria. This very valuable suggestion was taken notice of by Dionysius, but he transfers this immigration to the Aborigines {i.e., Pelasgi?) Niebuhr continues : " The Italian antiquaries, on the other hand, have either clung to the Lydian tradition or referred this Pelasgian Immigration, from Thessaly, to the Etruscans."

Further on we shall, I think, find some German scholars (also amongst the Italians as to the Thessalian invasion. W<e do not hear that the opinions of Dionysius were laken up by any writer. The subject apparently did not interest the Romans of his. own or of any subsequent period. The thoughts of the literary class were directed to subjects quite other than those of ethnology ; the question was allowed to go to sleep. It may be said, that practically there was no Etruscan subject until recent times. When it did revive we find Niebuhr, and other scholars in his train, starting quite a new origin for the Etruscan Race. It may. be called the third theory.

Niebuhr held that the Etruscans were invaders from the Rhastian Alps. '- One of the northern tribes pushed southwards by the presence of those early migrations of nations which are as well established in history as the later ones." »

One of Niebuhr's " points " as to the Rhastian origin jof that Race and of the name Rasena was that the term suggested Rhaetiai. Another point was that there Were remains of a fortification or building iri Alsace precisely of the Etruscan style of masonry. And further, that somewhere in the Tyrol, cinerary urns, articles of bronze, and even inscriptions had been found similar to those familiar to us in Etruria.2

I imagine that Niebuhr chiefly based these remarks upon a p1;atement made by Micali. Micali said " that in July, 1813, the remains of a Temple to Mercury and an ancieirit inscription in Etruscan characters were dis;oovered not far from Trent. At Dos di Trento."3

The opinions of so considerable an Authority did not lack supporters amongst the German School at least. Professor Muller, e.g., endorsed this Rhsetian Theory, with this difference ; that he placed the Rhaeti much sooner in Etruria and made the Tyrrhene-Pelasgi the later invaders. Professor Mommsen, too (notwithstanding his Phoenician pro-

^ " Issuing from the passes of the Rhastian Alps, they fell upon, and overcame the Tyrrheni, the Pelasgi, i.e., whom they found possessed of Umbria, and the adjacent territories."

"These were the Tyrrhenians that gave their name to the Western Coast of Italy, and to the T3n:rhenian Sea, and whom the Romans called Tusci. Both names were afterwards transferred to the Rasena who descended as conquerors from the Alps."

Niebuhr's Lecture on the History of Rome, delivered in the years 1826-1828. Lecture V,, English edition of 1852.

= The discoveries made at Hallstatt in the Grisons would fully account for the articles found in the Tyrol. Possibly the Hallstatttrouvailles were subsequent to Niebuhr's day.

clivities), was inclined to regard the Etruscans as Rhaeti, and that chiefly upon the ground that the earhest inhabitants of Rhsetia spoke Etruscan. One must Hsten with respect to any pronouncement of so eminent an ^.uthority, although one wonders whence the writer drew this sweeping conclusion. The sources of information available to a scholar like Professor Mommsen must naturally be far more extensive |than those open to a casual inquirer into the Etruscan mysteries. Livy, LV. '33, saysi : (I quote again from Micali) *' These mountain - people," (the Rhaeti) ■' in his time, barbarized by their savage environment, retained in their manner of speaking perceptible traces of the antiquity of their origin." Or, to put the quotation in a slightly differing form, as rendered by another translator, ** The Rhsetian Alpine people were ' baud dubie,* of the same origin as Rasena, and spoke the same language in a ruder form."

It was probably this remark of Livy upon which Mommsen founded his statement.

Yet, (to return for a moment to Niebuhr's theory,) none of the remarks made by the older or the more recent Jiistorians cited above seem to make out a Rhaetian origin for the Etruscans. Indeed, some writers have been at pains to pronounce upon the alleged traices of an Etruscan Race in the Rhastian Alps ; that they would prove an emigration from the Plains of the Po Northwards, rather than the reverse. And they have, — in support of such an opinion, — suggested that when the Etruscans were driven out of their possessions in the Valley of the Po by the Gauls in the year 165 A.U.C., a large number of them, under the leadership of a Rhaetus (not fa Rasena), fled into the Alps.

Niebuhr would not accept this suggestion, and even allowed himself, iii ordef to sweep it away altogether,— to hazard the astonishing statement " that no ancient writer had ever asserted that the Etruscans withdrew from the plains into the Alps in consequence of the conquests of the Gauls." Yet this is precisely the very assertion made by Pliny. i

** Rhsetus, leader of the fugitive Etruscans after the Gaulish victory, established his stronghold in the mountains of the Rhsetian Alps, which, as it is said, derive their name from him." It is impossible to reconcile such directly diveiTgent expressions of opinion.

Considering as a whole these views of Niebuhr, I cannot help expressing an opinion that they were too hastily formed. I doubt, moreover, that his views were ever cordially supported. They are certainly not so now. Nor do I think that Niebuhr himself would ,have gone to the stake for them. Yet it cannot be supposed that he saw anything of similarity between the names Rhastia and Rasena. So eminent a man could not have been led astray by the mere jingle of synonyms. Wie know how far a very ^.ncient historian went in that direction when he wanted a derivation for the Tyrrhenes.

A fourth theory is that oi Professor Lepsius.

He rejected the views of Niebuhr. and Miiller as to the Rhastian origin of the Etruscan Race, nor did he favour the Lydian tradition. Yet, he did consider jthat there had been a Rhaetian immigration into the country previous to the Tyrrhene - Pelasgic Invasion, which, according to him, was the Etruscan one. It is not at all clear whether he desires us or not to infer that a Rhsetian language prevailed in Italy before the newcomers brought in their Pelasgic letters. If that was not his desire,

' Pliny, III.

one fails to perceive the object of bringing in the Rhaetians at all. He declared, however, for a Tyrrhene -Pelasgic immigration subsequent to a Rhsetian one. According to him, the Tyrrehene- Pelasgi left Thessaly, (the supposed cradle of the Pelasgic Race) and entered Italy somewhere to the North of the Adriatic Sea. They then proceeded to establish themselves about the mouth of the River Po, and before that they finally crossed the Apennines, had already subdued the Umbrians, from whom they captured three hundred Cities. That the Umbrians, or Pelasgi-Umbrians, did lose three hundred Cities to the Etruscans has been mentioned by more than one ancient writer. Yet it appears difficult to believe that all these Cities could have been upon the northern side of the Apennines. Some of them one supposes to have been " strong places " rather than what we should term Cities.

It seems clear that Professor Lepsius, in the above passage, was referring to the Etruscans — ^not to the original Pelasgic conquerors of Italy. Yet he goes on to say that from this superimposition of a Pelasgic Race upon an Umbrian stock was evolved the Etruscan nation I

Such were Lepsius' views, and although perhaps they would invite some examination for which the present writer certainly has not the requisite knowledge, it may be briefly noted that this theory has been more generally accepted than any other, and is one which chiefly finds favour at the present time.'

Miiller's opinions upon the question seem to differ very little from those of Lepsius.

It is now long since that the Phoenician claims to occupy the vacant throne of the Etruscans were

' Dionysius of Halicarnassus was of the opinion that the Etruscans founded their Empire upon the ruins of the Pelasgic and Umbrian power.

ur^g^ed. There were many advocates, but few of them authoritative, and none at all now. And it would have been strange if a People once so prominent, although almost as mysterious in their origin and ,history as the Etruscans themselves, had been overlooked in the long list of pretenders to that shadowy realm. That the Phoenicians had created a great and long-enduring Colony such as Carthage, so powerful as to have disputed with Rome the sovereignty of the world, certainly seemed to offer good igrounds for belief that they might have laid the foundation of another Empire some three or four hundred years previously. By those who favoured the Lydian immigration, it was said to be a Phoenician -Lydian one ; others supported the theory of a: Phoenician -Egyptian Invasion of Italy. This la,tter school said that Phoenicians had colonised the Egyptian Delta under the Hyksos or Shepherd-Kings. That they had been driven out of Egypt by the subsequent Dynasty, and had thereupon betaken themselves en masse to Italy, and, having overcome there the ruling Race, had called the country Tyrrhenia from their ancestral City of Tyre, and themselves Tyrrhenes. It was a novel suggestion, almost an Herodotean one, but scarcely an ingenious one. For there appeared to be very little to support it except the existence of so many gold ornaments in the country which were declared to be of a" Phoenician -Egyptian character. iWhilst the arguments against a Phoenician origin seemed to be overwhelming. Carthage never alluded to Etruria as a sister-nation. Neither the Etruscan language nor the Etruscan religion had anything in common with the Phoenician. All alphabets with which we are acquainted were based upon the Phoenician.

How ox why the Phoenicians should have abandoned the unique position held by them' in Palaeography, should have forgotten! their own letters, and have substituted the barbarous jargon of the Etruscans, formed enigmas insoluble by the everyday mind ; why, furthermore, they should have cast away their beloved idols, Astarte and Thaumuz, &c., and have embraced the distorted cacophonous deities of the Etruscans such as Sethlans, Turans, Phuphlans, &c., no man offered any explanation. Or if, as was alleged, arriving from Egypt, and having there adopted perhaps the gods and usages of Egyptians, — why did they not import into Etruria something of an Egyptian character? Should we not have expected to discover in Etruria some similarity in customs, in religion, or in the manner of interring the dead? Yet we find no mummies, no ritual of the dead, not even the use of parchment, not a column nor a. frieze that can be pronounced to be of Egyptian style.

But to those who refuse upon such grounds, a Phoenician origin to Etruria, those who urge one come down with their Tyrrhenian Sea, evidently, it is urged, called after the parent-city of Tyre, no matter how often and for what number of years Phoenician prows may have ploughed those waters in pursuit of Commerce, — the Gulf never could have received such a napie from them or theirs. The term would have been Punic or Poenic, — never Tyrrhenian.^ There is, indeed, a small obscure hamlet upon the sea-coast a little north of Coere's old Port of Pyrgi, called Pupicum. Professor Mommsen laid some stress upon this point as having been a Phoeni-