ETRUSCANS, or Tuscans, called by the Greeks Tyrrhenians or Tyrsenians, and by themselves Pasena, were the people who inhabited ancient Etruria, and who, at a period when the rest of Europe was immerged in ignorance and barbarism, had attained to a high degree of civil and social refinement.
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The origin of this interesting race, from whom have descended some monuments of the earliest humanity, appears to have puzzled the ancients as much as it has perplexed the moderns; and, notwithstanding all that has been written on the subject, particularly by the Italian antiquaries, it is still beset with difficulties and involved in obscurity. The question chiefly agitated amongst the ancients was whether the Etruscans were Pelasgi from Greece, Lydians from Asia Minor, or an indigenous and aboriginal race in Italy; and the moderns have added more than an equal number to the hypotheses of the ancients. Herodotus represents them as a colony of Lydians, who, having been compelled by famine to emigrate from Asia, arrived, after various wanderings, in Umbria, where they settled and called themselves Tyrrhenians, from Tyrrhenus, son of their king Atys, the conductor of the emigration. This tradition, whencesoever derived, has been almost implicitly followed by the ancient writers; indeed Cicero, Strabo, Velleius Paterculus, Seneca, Pliny, and Plutarch, all agree in repeating the assertion that the Etruscans originally came from Lydia.

But the moderns have not in general evinced the same deference for the authority of Herodotus in this particular, and have advanced a variety of hypotheses, some of them, perhaps, not much more tenable nor better founded than the story told by the father of history. Dempster, who may be said to have laid the foundation of an accurate knowledge of Etruscan history and antiquities, is of opinion that there existed an original nucleus of inhabitants in Etruria, which was successively augmented by the Lydian immigration, and by Pelasgic colonies from Thessaly and Arcadia. Bochart coincides pretty nearly with Dempster, but maintains that there must have existed a direct intercourse between the Etruscans and Phoenicians, as many of the fables, superstitions, customs, and monuments of the former were, according to him, of oriental origin. Winckelman and the Count de Caylus, admitting an ancient communication with the East by means of the Mediterranean, substitute Egypt for Phoenicia; and to the supposed intercourse between Etruria and the land of the Pharaohs the former ascribes the remarkable progress made by the Etruscans in the sciences and liberal arts; whilst the latter is of opinion that this people borrowed every thing from Egypt, and that the origin of science and art in Etruria is coeval with the commencement of their commercial connection with that country. Improving upon these views, some writers have advanced a step further, and maintained that the Etruscans not merely carried on an intercourse with Egypt, but were actually of Egyptian descent, in fact a colony or branch of the great nation established in the Delta and valley of the Nile. This opinion has been adopted by Buonarotti, Gorius, Mazzochi, Maffei, Guarnacci, and Lord Monboddo; but it has been strenuously opposed by a number of the most learned Italian, French, and German archaeologists, particularly by Bardetti, Pelloutier, Fréret, Funccius, Adelung, and Heyne, who, though differing from one another in some points, have generally contended for the northern and Celtic origin of the Etruscans. Lanzi, without pretending to investigate the origin of this remarkable people (who, he nevertheless seems to think, were Lydians, augmented at different times by the accession of Pelasgic tribes), endeavours to prove that, whatever may have been their descent, the language, religion, learning, and arts of the Etruscans, were of Greek origin; that the period of their greatest perfection in the arts of design was posterior to the subjugation of Etruria by the Romans, when the intercourse with Greece had rendered them familiar with the beautiful models of that country; and that, even admitting all languages to have been originally derived from the East, and many Greek words to have sprung from Hebrew or Phoenician roots, still there exist in the Etruscan such evident traces of Hellenic descent, particularly in the names of gods and heroes, as to render it almost impossible to derive their origin from any other source. Further, in support of this theory, the learned Italian attempts to show from the inscriptions on the Eugubine tables, that the Etruscan was Aeolic Greek, without either the monosyllabic characteristics of the northern dialects, or the prefixes and affixes peculiar to most of the oriental languages. Humboldt, again, supposes this people to have been a connecting link between the Iberians and Latins, or a sort of transplanted offset from the great Celtic stem. But the learned and ingenious Müller adopts an intermediate opinion. Admitting a primitive population of Etruria, as to whose origin he does not venture to decide, he conceives that there are nevertheless grounds for assuming that they became intermingled with Pelasgic colonists from the coast of Lydia, where the latter had for a time settled, and acquired the name which they afterwards rendered notorious by their piracies in the Aegean Sea. It would be hopeless to endeavour to reconcile these conflicting hypotheses, and endless to examine their respective merits in detail.

Of all those, however, who have laboured to resolve this quoestio vexata in the archaeology of history, Niebuhr has, we think, been, upon the whole, the most successful. The origin of the erroneous opinions as to the extraction of the Etruscans, he traces to two assumptions, which he shows to be equally fallacious: first, that the Pelasgians could only be derived from Greece, a supposition which probably gave rise to the story of the migration from Thessaly; and, secondly, that because the Maeonians were Tyrrhenians, these Tyrrhenians, like those of Lemnos, were of the same stock with the ancient inhabitants of Agylla and Tarquinii, whence arose the story of the Lydian emigration of the ancient Tyrrhenians, as told by Herodotus. But, on the authority of Xanthus, Dionysius proves that the account of Herodotus was not founded upon a Lydian tradition; and, from the complete difference of the two nations in language, usages, and religion, he justly contends that it would deserve no credit, even if there had been a tradition to the effect stated. He asserts that the Etruscans spoke a language which bore no affinity to any other known form of speech; and this assertion would deserve full credit, even if we had only the evidence of Dionysius, inasmuch as Etruscan was then, and for a considerable time afterwards, a living language, in which, as we gather from Lucretius,^[1. Non Tyrrhena retro volventem carmina frustra Indicia occultae Divûm percurrere mentis. ] books were written and read. It is further confirmed by the inscriptions still extant, in which every resource of etymology has failed to detect any analogy between the Etruscan and the Greek language or the kindred branch of the Latin; and these singular monuments, which have thus resisted the utmost eι∙ forts of modern scholarship and ingenuity, will to all appearance remain for ever a dead treasure, unless a key shall accidentally be furnished for their interpretation, by the discovery of a bilingual inscription. In opposition to the unanimous evidence of the ancients, who distinguish the Etruscan from the Sabine and Oscan, it has indeed been maintained that all the nations of Italy, remains or whose language occur in inscriptions, spoke only dialects of the [7:9:385]same radical form of speech; but this opinion, which has chiefly prevailed amongst the Italian scholars, is at variance with the results of unbiassed investigation; and it appears to have been completely established that the Etruscan language, being wholly original and peculiar, bore as little affinity to the Sabine and Oscan as to the Latin aŋd Greek, with which fanciful etymologists have vainly sought to connect it.^[2. The names of Tuscan and Etruscans were as foreign to this people as that of Tyrrhenians. They called themselves Rasena, as already stated; and the other appellations applied to them were evidently arbitrary, accidental, or hypothetical. The ancient Homan terms were Etruria for the country, and Tusci for the people; that of Etruscus did not come into use till after Cato’s time, though subsequently it became the more usual in the language of books. But the old name must have continued prevalent in the mouth of the people; for under the later emperors the name of Tuscia, which had never before been used in writing, was applied to the country, and in the middle ages passed into Toscana, whence Toscani. (Niebuhr, History of Rome, p. 90, Cambridge, 1828.) Professor Müller thus sums up his researches into the origin of the Etruscans: “It remains that we regard the Tuscan nation as an original and peculiar people of Italy; their language is widely different from the Greek; the names of their gods are not those which we find among the earliest Greeks, whom we call Pelasgi, and which passed from them to the Hellenes; there is much too in the doctrine of their priests entirely foreign to the Greek theology. But it appears to have been the fate of this nation, which never displayed any independent civilization, but only adopted that of the Greeks, to have been indebted for its first impulse towards improvement to a Greek, or at best half Greek tribe. The Tuscans themselves, in their native legends, referred their polity and civilization to the maritime town of Tarquinii and the hero Tarchon, both probably only variations of the Tyrrheni. Here it was that the much-dreaded Pelasgians of Lydia landed and settled, bringing with them the arts which they had acquired at home, or on their way. For the first time, the barbarous land saw men covered with brass array themselves for battle to the sound of the trumpet; here first they heard the loud sound of the Lydo-Phrygian flute accompanying the sacrifice, and perhaps witnessed for the first time the rapid c >urse of the fifty-oared ship. As the legend, in its propagation from mouth to mouth, swells beyond all bounds, the whole glory of the Tuscan name, even that which did not properly belong to the colonists, attached itself to the name of Tarchon, the disciple of ⅛es, as the author of a new and better era in the history of Etruria. The neighbouring Umbrians and Latins named the nation, which from this time began to increase and diffuse itself, not from the primitive inhabitants, but from these new settlers. For since, in the Ēugubine tables, Tursce occurs along with Tu scorn and Tuscer, it is impossible not to conclude, that from the root TUR have been formed Tursicus, Turscus, Tuscus; as from the root OP, Opscus and Oscus; so that Υt ppwoι, or Υe 1<rnvoi, and Tusci, are only the Asiatic and Italian forms of one and the same name.” [Die Etrusker, vol. i. p∙ 100.) ]

The Etruscans, during the most prosperous period of their history, inhabited Etruria proper, and the country about the Po, besides distant colonies. The Raetians and other Alpine tribes were also of Etruscan origin; and so were the Lepontians and Camunians, perhaps also the Etr°∙aneans, who inhabited Venetia before the founding of Patavium. It has been suggested by Niebuhr that the language spoken by the people of Groeden in the Tyrol, a language which seems to stand alone in its peculiar roots, may have some claims to be considered as a relic of the ancient E⅜ruscan.^[3. Hormayr, Geschichte von Tyrol, p. 139. This suggestion is eminently deserving of attention and verification. Foras the Etruscan alphabet is known, the determination of a few roots would serve as a fulcrum, by means of which the great lever of tentative interpretation might be applied. ] The Brenner formed the northern boundary of the Raetians, and consequently of the Etruscan race, who in the time of their greatness had probably occupied the mountains as a bulwark against irruptions from the north. Some, however, are of opinion that Raetia was the original home whence the Etruscan people issued, and spread first in Upper Italy, and afterwards across the Apennines; and the harshness of the Etruscan language, which seems still to survive in the Florentine pronunciation, has been adduced as an argument for the Alpine origin of the people.

In the ancient history of the Umbrians it was related that the Etruscans had conquered three hundred towns of their nation. The Umbrians, therefore, must have once occupied the greater part of the countries, including Tuscany, which the Etruscans possessed in the zenith of their power. According to the tradition of the Lydian migration, Pisa, and the whole country to the rocky summits of the Alps, were wrested from the Umbrians by the Tyrrhenians; and Pliny considers the Umbrians as the ancient inhabitants of Etruria who were expelled by the Pelasgians. Without entering into the question whether Cortona was Etruscan or not, still Caere, Graviseae, Alsium, and Saturnia, were certainly occupied by the Etruscans as conquerors, after expelling the people called in Italy Sicu-hans, and in Greece Pelasgians and Tyrrhenians. The Pelasgians were also in possession of Tarquinii before the Etruscans; Populonia was called a colony of the Volater-rans, who had driven the Corsicans from the coast; and Pisa is mentioned by Dionysius amongst the places which the Etruscans had wrested from the Pelasgians. But all statements, however probable or well attested, were at length forced to give way to the story of a Lydian extraction, which of necessity placed the first settlement of the immigrants on the lower sea, and thus involved the whole question in perplexity. What the native annals of the Etruscans related as to their origin we know only negatively; in them the Lydian legend which has created so much embarrassment had no place.^[4. “It is evident,” says a late writer, “that the Etruscans themselves believed that they sprung from the Lydians, and that they 'nnkateà this belief on others" (Dunlop, Hist, of Rom. Literature, vol. ii. p. 7) î and he grounds this assertion on a circumstance mentioned by Tacitus {Annal, lib. iv. c. 55). Eleven cities of Asia contended, it would appear, for the infamous honour of erecting an utar to Tiberius; and this ridiculous and humiliating question was argued in presence of the tyrant, before that degraded senate t'h ° m ⅛ had publicly taunted with their abject servility. On this occasion the Sardians, one of the contending parties, insisted on t eir affinity to the Etruscans; in proof of which they produced a decree of that people, repeating the tale told by Herodotus, and t course attesting the original confraternity of the Sardians with the ancient inhabitants of Etruria. This is the statement of Taci- ' us ' k at dθ" re θ of credit may be due to a document founded upon a vague tradition, flattering to popular vanity, produced in such cause before such judges, and as to the authenticity of which the historian is silent, our readers will not, perhaps, find it difficult to ermine. The only thing surprising is, that in such a competition of servility and adulation, a grave historian should have sought materials to support an hypothesis, improbable in itself, and at variance with the best authorities on the subject. ] According to this view, then, there appear to have been two consecutive conquests: that of the Umbrians by the Pelasgians; and that of the Pelasgians by the Etruscans, who, as it were, absorbed all the others, and ultimately became the dominant people. The principal stock of the nation, however, seems to have been formed out of that great Pelasgian race which at one time extended from the rivers Po and Arno in Italy to the Phyndacus in Asia, but which, even when intermingled by conquest with other tribes, never succeeded in spreading itself over the whole of Northern Italy. The Etruscans, indeed, at no period of their history possessed the whole of Cisalpine Gaul. On the westward their territory extended only to the Ticinus, where dwelt the Ligurians, who were afterwards driven back by the Gauls; and the land to the south of the Po was also [7:9:386]either occupied by the latter, or rendered uninhabitable by swamps. When the Gauls made their irruption the Umbrians were still masters of the country now called Romagna; but between the Veneti and the Gauls, Etruscan settlements maintained themselves until the time of the Romans.

This people appear to have had twelve cities to the north of the Apennines, and an equal number to the south of that range. Amongst the former, of which we can give but a very indistinct account, may be classed Verona, which is denominated a Raetian city by Pliny, and Mantua, which is called Tuscan both by him and by Virgil. Hatria, Melpum, and Felsina were also included in the twelve cities north of the Apennines. Hatria, once a place of great commerce, gave its name to the upper sea; Melpum, to the north of the Po, was destroyed by the Boii, Senones, and Insubres, on the same day that Camillus took Veii (in the year of Rome 358); and Bononia, under the name of Fcl-sina, was once the capital of Etruria. The twelve cities south of the Apennines, which were leagued together as the chief places of their respective districts, are nowhere enumerated by name; but Livy incidentally mentions eight of them, namely, Caere, Tarquinii, Populonia, Volaterra, Arretium, Perusia, Clusium, and Rusellae, as having contributed to forward Scipio’s preparations. Cortona was also accounted one of the chief places in Etruria, and both Veii and Vulsinii were probably included in the original number. But whether Capena, or Cossa, or Faesulae, completed the twelve, it is now impossible to decide. The changes produced by time and by conquest have involved this part of the subject in impenetrable obscurity.

The territory belonging to each of these capitals had several provincial towns, some of them dependent colonies, and others inhabited by subjects, the descendants of the old population who had been subdued. But as the Etruscan state was founded on conquest, the government naturally assumed the character of an aristocratical oligarchy. It was not by popular assemblies, nor even by the deliberations of a numerous senate, but by meetings of the chiefs or magnates of the land (^principes Etruriae), that the general affairs of the nation were decided on. The assemblies held at the temple of Voltumna were of this exclusive kind, and hence in no degree corresponded with the institutions of really free nations, such as the Latins and the Samnites. These Etrurian chiefs were the persons from whom the Roman youth received instruction in the sacred sciences of divination; they were at once a warlike and sacerdotal caste, the Lucumones whose ancestors had committed to writing the revelations of Tages. But they were patricians, not kings, as has been commonly supposed. Lucumo of Clusium, Lucumo who succoured Romulus, and Lucumo who removed from Tarquinii to Rome, were only powerful men in their respective cities; the Cilnii and Caecinae were Lucumoncs in Etruria, just as the Claudii and Valerii were patricians in Rome, and were not less noblc in birth than the latter, though, as Romans, reckoned only amongst the commons. But these ruling houses were exposed to the violent revolutions which everywhere threaten an oligarchy, even in the midst of its own body, when it is not upheld by some powerful protection from without. The chiefs expelled each other by force of arms, or were driven into exile by the combinations of intrigue; and it was in the spirit of these feuds for the refugees to be restored by the dangerous mediation of the common enemy, the Romans. Even so late as the second Punic war, the government of the Etruscan cities remained exclusively vested in the senators, or nobility; the latter were, what Louis XIV. called himself, the state; and, when a ferment began in Etruria, it was entirely suppressed by securing the submission of⅛ e senate at Arretium. The people, who had no political existence as such, were out of the question. A free and respectable commonalty was never formed amongst the Etruscans; on the contrary, the species of feudal system anciently established by conquest, was obstinately maintained and extended; the mass of the population were mere serfs; and hence arose the remarkable weakness of the great Etruscan cities in their contests with Rome, when the victory was to be determined by a numerous, brave and steady infantry. National impotence ever follows the degradation of the people. What the Etruscans might have been if, some centuries earlier, they had had a country, is evinced by the effect of the Roman franchise conferred upon them at the conclusion of Sylla’s war. In this contest the part taken by the chiefs was taken by all; and every free man, however excluded or restricted by the old but now expiring constitutions of his own country, obtained the privileges of Roman citizenship; nor was the boon either undeserved or misapplied.

The regal office, which was not hereditary in a single family, as in Greece, but elective for life, as at Rome, continued at Veii until its fall. At Arretium, however, the king may perhaps have been chosen from amongst the Cilnii, a family of high distinction. The twelve federal cities nominated a common high priest, who presided at the national festivals. In common enterprises the supreme command was generally committed to one of the twelve Lucumones, who received a lictor from each city. Even For-senna, highly as he is celebrated in the old legends, is in Roman history only king or chief of Clusium; yet he had influence sufficient to set the whole power of the nation in action. In like manner all the twelve cities paid homage to Lucumo Tarquin; and in the earlier times a closer union seems occasionally to have been effected by the power of a supreme chief, as Mezentius or Coeles Vibenna. But such union appears to have been the exception rather than the rule, and to have depended on accident rather than on organization; nor have we been able to discover satisfactory evidence of the existence of a distinct federal constitution, such as some writers have rather gratuitously imagined. Yet loose as was the federal bond in Etruria, it seems to have had the effect of preventing wars between the cities, of which no trace is to be found in history. Such, then, being the nature of their association, it is probable that the islands subject to the Etruscans were not under the dominion of the whole nation, but under that of the adjacent maritime cities; and, accordingly, it seems as if the Caerites stood alone when, leagued with the Carthaginians, they attacked the Phocaeans of Alalia, which happened in the year of Rome 220. The principal insular dependency of the Etruscan states was Corsica, which paid them a tribute; but it is not improbable that they had also settlements in the island of Sardinia.

The maritime cities of Etruria having early engaged in navigation, were stigmatised and hated on account of the piracies they committed in the western seas, which, anterior to the founding of the Grecian colonies in Sicily, were thus rendered impassable to peaceful navigators. *ae· buhr is, however, inclined to think that this reproach ma; have applied chiefly to the Pelasgian Tyrrhenians, whom the Etruscans afterwards subdued; and indeed all the corsairs of the lower sea seem to have been considered by Greeks as Tyrrhenians. But without entering into any tails respecting their nautical adventures, whether P ιra 1 cal or other, it may be observed, that navigation natura ļ impliesan interchange of commodities; and a fruitful an ∙ rich in internal treasures, supplied abundant materia s ° the commercial spirit in Etruria. From a very early P er 0 ' the Etruscan maritime cities appear to have engaged in co [7:9:387] merce; and in the time of Aristotle, treaties, by which the rights of trade were respectively determined and secured, subsisted between these cities and Carthage. Amongst the subjects of this commerce maybe mentioned the produce of the iron mines of Elba,^[5. Insula inexhaustis chalybum generosa metallis. (Aen. x. 174.) ] and of others upon the mainland of Etruria, which yielded a more abundant supply of a purer kind of metal than any in the ancient world. The same island also furnished copper for their coinage, and for those works in brass or bronze in which they so or eatly excelled. Müller supposes them to have also traded m amber, which substance, he thinks, they received by an inland route, extending from the shores of the Adriatic to those of the Baltic; but as his chief reason for this supposition appears to be, that, in Pliny’s time, amber was conveyed by the same route into Italy, and as no safe conclusion can be drawn respecting the extent of early communications, from those which are found established at a later period, when circumstances had wholly changed, the conjecture in question must, we suspect, be dismissed as untenable. On the subject of Etruscan commerce, however, the information which has reached us is too scanty and imperfect to enable us to deduce any distinct conclusions, either as to the extent to which it was carried on, or the particular channels in which it flowed.

The works constructed by the Etruscans still astonish us even in their ruins, and could scarcely have been executed in small states without taskmasters and bondsmen. The everlasting monuments of Egypt are the products of the direst tyranny acting remorselessly upon the most abject slavery. But the scarcely less durable works of the Etruscans differ from those in the valley of the Nile, in having all of them been directed towards some great ob-ect of public utility. Labour was not uselessly or wan-only expended in the erection of pyramids, obelisks, and emples, to gratify the inordinate vanity of despots, or to ιxtend the empire of superstition; if the people suffered in he hard service imposed on them, it was not for vain or idle imposes; they were employed by their rulers on what- !ver seemed best calculated to promote the defence or aug-nent the wealth of the nation at large. The walls of their ities, constructed of huge blocks of polygonal stones, still ubsist in imperishable solidity, where pains have not been aken to demolish them; the theatre at Fiesole, and a olossal building near it, are on a scale of equal gran-cur; and other monuments might be mentioned which ιave been constructed in the same Cyclopean style. The ich valley of the Arno, anciently a lake and a swamp, vas drained by means of a cut through Mount Gonfalina, vhich blocked up the valley, but which, by means of this peration, was made to afford a passage for the stream owards Pisa; the arms, too, by which the Po discharges tself, were also excavated or directed by the Etruscans; nd its Delta was likewise the fruit of their labours. Anther useful art practised by this people consisted in letI mg off, by means of tunnels, lakes which had been formed i the craters of extinct volcanoes. In the territory of θrugia there are traces of many such lakes, which have ≡en completely dried up, by means of the tunnels, which, 1 ough now unknown and never cleared out, still drain off le water as before.

The renown which belongs to a nation that excelled in , le arts has become as it were the inheritance of the 'buscans. But from the peculiar constitution of govern- -‘t and society in ancient Etruria, it has been conjec- lr ed, not without appearance of reason, that the works in 0nze and clay, and the bas-reliefs, attributed to them, were the produce, not of the dominant race, but of their subject bondsmen or serfs; and that in reality the Etruscans, properly so called, were as little given to the arts as the Romans by whom in their turn they were subdued. The striking difference observable between Tarquinii and Arretium in their works of art, seems to correspond with the different origin of the earlier inhabitants of northern and southern Etruria. Volaterra was naturally led, by the stone quarries in its neighbourhood, to engage in the works for which it became celebrated. The two former cities, however, wrought only or chiefly in clay. Arretium made red vases, with elegant figures in relief, in a style altogether peculiar. Those of Tarquinii were painted, and both in colour and design resemble some discovered near Corinth, of which Dodwell has given engravings. Painted vases are found only in the district∙of Tarquinii, and where they occur those of Arretium are never met with; besides, they differ from the Campanian in all those peculiarities for which the Greek works of the same kind are distinguished. The resemblance which is thus found to exist between the vases of Tarquinii and of Corinth irresistibly reminds us of the story of Demaratus, who is said to have been accompanied by the potters Euchir and Eugrammus; a circumstance evidently designed to express that Tarquinii derived from Greece her skill in handling clay, and the elegant drawing with which her vases were adorned.. The earliest Etruscan statues were of clay; but the statues belonging to the first ages of Rome were almost uniformly of bronze, and the master-pieces which shed lustre on Etruscan art are all of the same material. That this art received its refinement from the Greeks cannot, we think, be reasonably questioned. Works of primitive antiquity attest its original rudeness; and to the Greeks alone, improving on Egyptian models by a close study of the finer forms and proportions of nature, belonged that skill which throws life and beauty into the delineation of the human figure. Hence the subjects of many of the most beautiful Etruscan works of art are obviously taken from the Greek mythology, which, in Etruria, was found as well adapted to the purposes of the artist as in the land to which it was native. But the Etruscans, when their taste had once been formed, treated their own conceptions in the spirit of their masters; and, though no doubt inferior in grace and delicacy of execution, they acquired a correctness in drawing which may almost be stated as a national characteristic. In the she-wolf of the Capitol we have an example of the perfection to which Etruscan art had attained about the middle of the fifth century of Rome; nor are the finest gems probably of a much more recent date.

As a national heroic story was wanting to Etruscan art, it sought for subjects in the Greek mythology; and the legends of Thebes and of Ilium must have been familiar to the people. The Greek poems were read in Etruria, and Greek legends, transfused into Etruscan, lived in the speech of the nation, or in compositions in the native tongue. Indeed the works of art are not unfrequently inscribed with the names of the Greek heroes, adapted to the forms of the Etruscan language, of which it is matter of regret that so little is yet known. Varro mentions Tuscan tragedies by one Volnius, who, it appears, lived not long before, and probably intended these as an experimental attempt to introduce a national drama. But be this as it may, the Grecian construction of the theatre at Faesulae is evidence that Greek dramas, either originals or translations, were performed there, as well as at Tusculum and Bovillae in Latium; nor can it be doubted that this [7:9:388]theatre is much earlier than the time of Sylla, since in size and magnificence it far surpasses the scale of a Roman military colony, which, besides, cannot be supposed to have had any taste for the exhibitions peculiar to such a place. The amphitheatre was the only place to which such colonists would have repaired for amusement. It is proper to add, however, that in Etruscan inscriptions we do not find any thing bearing the slightest resemblance to Greek rhythms, which could scarcely have been concealed even in an unintelligible language; and that the place whence the Fescennine musical dialogue received its name was a Faliscan, not an Etruscan town.

The music of the Romans was derived from Etruria, whence also they obtained their scenic or histrionic singers. This is the only branch of art in which the ancients attributed to the Etruscans the honour of invention; but here the invention related merely to the instrument; for we do not read of any mood or measure ascribed to the Etruscans. This instrument was the flute, which the Romans regarded as native to Etruria, though modern antiquaries pretend that it is to be considered as of Lydian origin, and even as a proof of the Lydian immigration mentioned by Herodotus. The celebrity which the Etruscans obtained in music, as well as in other accomplishments, was, no doubt, in part owing to their having been the neighbours of a rude and uncultivated people like the Romans, who naturally admired whatever was new or strange, and who, until they became acquainted with the Greeks, derived all that was ornamental in their system of public and private life from Etruria.

The literature of the Etruscans presents the singular phenomenon of an alphabet almost perfectly deciphered, with a language completely unintelligible. A combination so strange has led more than one writer to maintain that the language is Pelasgic or Aeolic Greek, and to appeal in proof of this to the alphabet; but, unfortunately, there is a total want of connection between the premises and the conclusion; and the result of all the investigations yet instituted has been to disprove this notion. The Etruscan characters were formed like the Greek, from that one amongst the various Asiatic alphabets whence all the modes of writing in use throughout Europe appear to have been derived. That Etruria received them directly from the Phoenician would not certainly be proved by the direction of the writing from right to left; but when to this we add the omission of the short vowels, the practice of noting double consonants by a single letter, as in all the Aramaic systems of writing, and the want of the vowel 0, which are peculiarities purely Punic, the presumption in favour of Phoenician origin is considerably increased. From this last circumstance, however, nothing can be decisively determined as to the pronunciation, inasmuch as the Semitic languages are not defective in the vowel, which is wanting to the Etruscan. The Phoenicians also distinguished numbers by letters; but not so the Etruscans. What we denominate the Roman numerals are of Etruscan origin, and occur frequently on their monuments, being probably the abbreviated remnants of a hieroglyphical art of writing t in use before the alphabetical, and, like the Aztecan numerals, representing objects connected with particular numbers. Niebuhr thinks them indigenous to the west. But however this may be, the literal form which these numerals have now assumed cannot mislead any one as to their hieroglyphical origin. With respect to the Etruscan language, which remained harsh in sound and uncouth in its forms, all the labour which has hitherto been bestowed in attempting to interpret it, though valuable for its collateral results, has proved wholly fruitless in reference to its direct object. Lanzi, abandoning the oriental and northern etymology, endeavoured to explain the Etruscan from the Pelasgic; and for many years after the appearance of his Essay, his explanations were acquiesced in, and even made the basis of various etymological hypotheses But when at length credulity gave place to inquiry and examination, it was perceived that his modes of proceeding were much too arbitrary; that he had produced no evι-dence of the existence of the words and forms which he had assumed to be Greek, in order to identify them with the Etruscan; and that other monuments, discovered since his time, could not in any way be explained by his system. In short, his interpretation was purely tentative and conjectural, without even accidental felicities of supposition; and hence, of all the Etruscan words, of which pretended explanations have been given, only two (avil ril, vixit annos, or rather perhaps oetatis annos) seem to have been really interpreted. Professor Müller’s observations on this subject are well deserving of attention, especially in reference to the expectations which appear to be entertained of the enlargement of our historical knowledge by the comparison of languages.

“.We might give much ampler satisfaction,” says he, “if, after Lanzi’s method, we sought in the monuments of the Etruscan language for single sounds resembling the Greek and Latin, and, persuaded that similar sounds must have a similar meaning, endeavoured to explain all that could not be brought to agree, by an arbitrary pro-thesis, epenthesis, paragoge, and similar cheap expedients. Without blaming the learned Italian, in whose time the most eminent literati had very confused ideas of the formation of language, we may maintain that his leading principle (that analogy is the character only of cultivated languages, and that the ruder any language is, the greater liberty might be taken in the use of it) is entirely false. This may justify us for having paid so little regard to etymologies, which, as they are arbitrary in themselves, suppose an arbitrary character in the language to which they are applied. If we use only genuine monuments, and require a certain evidence for every explanation of a root or a grammatical form, our apparent knowledge of the Etruscan language shrinks almost to nothing lt is not probable that the application of the still existing remains of the languages of the north and north-west of Europe should have those beneficial results for our knowledge of Etruscan which some appear to anticipate. The Germans and Celts are originally divided in a very marked manner, by their locality, from the nations of the Mediterranean; they only gradually approach these and come into collision with them; and even though the languages of both nations may belong to that great family which from time immemorial has diffused itself throughout Europe and Asia, yet they have distinct peculiarities, which we have no reason to believe are found in those oł Italy-One fundamental and indelible characteristic of the Celtic languages seems to be, that they mark grammatical forms by aspiration and other changes of the initial consonants; a thing not practised in any other European language, but found in all the branches of the Celtic, as the Welsh, Cornish, Gaelic, Irish, and Bas Breton. This mutability oγ' the consonants is a circumstance which must be perceptible even in a small number of written remains, and which could not well have escaped us had t e Etruscan been Celtic. The Iberian family, once wide y diffused on the shores of the Mediterranean, may have dwelt in close vicinity to the Etruscans; but the remains of its language in the Basque are completely dilleren from the rest of Europe; and its grammar shows so hit ≡ affinity with what we know of the Etruscan, as to afford very slight support to the opinion of the affinity of the two na tions. What may have been the relation of the -^ us ^ n ∙ ne the extinct Ligurian, or to the language of those A p [7:9:389]tribes whose names alone are preserved in history, is a question respecting which we have not even a glimmering of knowledge.”^[6. Die Etrusker, vol. i∙ p∙ 64, et seq. ].

Any attempt indeed to interpret the Etruscan, without the aid of bilingual inscriptions, such as those on the Rosetta stone and obelisk of Philae, which afforded a key to the Egyptian phonetic hieroglyphics, will be pure loss of labour. The discovery of such monuments, however, is, in regard to time and manner, an incalculable event; but still it is within the range of probable calculation; and the a σ e which has witnessed the interpretation of Egyptian hieroglyphics by means of such aids should not hastily despair of any thing. If a translation were discovered, not in Latin or Greek, but in Oscan or even Umbrian, the latter have so much affinity to the Latin, that much might be learned from such a version for the explanation of the Etruscan. We repeat, however, that without the aid of bilingual inscriptions, the language of ancient Etruria is likely to remain as great a mystery as the inscriptions of Persepolis, or the arrow-headed legends contained on bricks found amidst the ruins of Babylon.

Of the early history of Etruria we can only collect a few detached facts of little importance, which are to be gleaned from Livy, and from short notices in the Greek historians and poets; and must ever deplore the loss of the works of Aristotle and Theophrastus on the civil institutions of the Tyrrheni, as well as regret that the history of the Emperor Claudius has disappeared. We find this people engaged in a contest with Tarquinius Priscus (about 610 B. c.), but obliged to acknowledge at least a nominal dependence on the power of Rome. They joined the Carthaginians in an attack on the Phocaeans, who having left Asia Minor (about 547 b. c.) to escape the persecutions of Cyrus the elder, had settled in Corsica, and threatened to dispute with them the supremacy of the western seas. For the next two centuries they appear to have enjoyed tranquillity; until, roused to exertion by the ever encroaching spirit of the Romans, they determined to make an united effort to check the power of their dangerous neighbours. The hostile forces met (309 b. c.) near Lake Va-diman, which is still to be seen on the east of Etruria, near the Tiber, below the modern village of Bassano; and the result was, as usual, favourable to the cause of Roman supremacy. The Tuscans were completely defeated; and from this moment were compelled to co-operate in extending and strengthening the power of the conqueror. They now became incorporated with the Roman people, and can no longer be considered as a separate nation.

Fora detailed account of this people, see Micah EItalia avanti il dominio dci Romani, Milan, 1825, with Antiqui Monumenti per servire alľOpera intìtolato L’Italia, &c., Firenze, 1821; L ’ Italie avant la Domination des Romains, with historical notes and illustrations by Μ. Raoul-llochette, Paris, 1824, in 4 tomes; Niebuhr’s Roman History, English trans., Cambridge, 1828, in 2 vols.; Müller, Dx Etrusker, vier bûcher, Breslau, 1828; Inghirami, Monumenti Etruschi, o di Etrusco nome, 1821-1825, in 6 vols. 4to; Heyné, Etrusea Antiqua, Nov. Soc. Gotting. 1766; and Gori, Museum Etruscum. For the ancient language o(Etruria, see Dempster, De Aetruria Regali, Florence, ∏23, in 2 vols. fol.; Lanzi, Saggio di Lingua Etrusea, e li altτβ Antiche d’Italia, 1789, in 3 vols. 8vo; and Müller, Lie Etrusker, above referred to. (a.)