Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 2.djvu/125

 866 ETBURIA. by the Tuacans Anrinia), is also attested by Roman writers, boo the Etruscan names of these deities are unknown to us. Besides these names of individual divinities, a few more general notices of the Etruscan mytholo^ have been preserved to us, which bear more (ystinctlj the stamp of its peculiar national character. Such is the statement, that, in addition to the supreme deity ,Tinia or Jupiter, there were twelve other divinities, six male and six female, whose proper names were unknown, but who were termed collectively the Dii Consentes, and formed the counsellors of Tinia; they were regarded as presiding over the powers of nature, and not eternal, but destined to perish at some future time with the natural order of things over which they presided. Notwithstanding the statement that their real names were unknown, the more powerful of the divinities above enumerated seem to have been generally ranked among the Consentes. (Amob. adv. I^at. iii. 40; Varr. R,R.ll; MUllei-, £ir. vol. il pp. 81— 86 ; Gerhard, I. c. pp. 22, 23.) But superior to these, and to Tinia himself, were certain mysterious deities, called the Dii Inroluti, apparently somewhat analogous to the Fates, who were suj^poeed to exer- cise an irresistible ccmtroUing power over the gods themselves, while their own names and attributes re- mained unknown. (Amob. L c; Seneca, Nat. Qhl iL 41.) Another class of divinities which is ex- ]>ressly referred to the Etruscan rehgion are the Dii Novensiles, the nine deities to whom alone the power of hurling the thunderbolts was conceded; this clas- sification appears to have had no reference to that of the Consentes, but must have included many of the same gods. (Plin. ii. 53; Amob. iii. 38.) Of purely Etruscan origin also was the doctrine of the Genii, of such frequent occurrence in the Roman religion, though the Etruscan mjrd corresponding to the Latin Genius is unknown. As the Genius was the tutelary or presiding spirit of every individual man, so were the Lares those of the house or family; the word Lar is unquestionably Etruscan, and the Lasa or Lara, a kind of fortune or attendant genius (often represented on works of art under the form of a winged female figure), appears to be connected with the same notion. This idea of a class of intermediate beings, inferior to the true gods, but the immediate agents through which the afmirs of mankind were controlled (imperfectly developed in the Greek Dae- mones), appears to have pervaded the whole Etruscan system of religions fidth. It reappears in their con- ceptions of the infernal powers, where we find, besides the gloomy Mantus (the Pluto of their mythology), and the corresponding female ddty. Mania, the nu- merous class of the Dii Manes, — " tlie good gods " as they were called by a natural euphemism, — ^who are aptly compared with the Lares ud Genii of the upper world. (Serv. adAen. iii. 63, vi. 743 ; Gerhard, I. c. pp. 13 — 16.) The name of these is probably Latin, but the worship of them certidnly prevailed in Etruria. Etruscan works of art abound in repre- sentations of mferaal spirits or furies, sometimes as female figures, winged and armed with serpents, at others under forms the most hideous and horrible; one of these, characterised by his commonly bearing a great hammer, and apparently representing the messenger of death, bears in several instances the Greek name of Charon (XAP YN), a clear proof how much the mythologies of the two nations have be- come intermingled on extant works of art. On the other hand, we find on these the genuine Etruscan names of Ldnth^ Mean, Snena^ Nathum, and ETBUIUA. JffiNitikfci, all applied to deities of unknown power, but apparently goddesses of fate or destiny. (For fuller details oonceraing the religions system of the Etruscans, see Mtiller, £trusker, vol. ii. book S, ch. 3, 4; Gerhard, Die GotthtitenderEtrMekerj Beriin, 1847.) The Etmscan religion was especially chine- tensed by the number and minuteness of its ritosl observances, and particularly by those which had reference to the different mocks of divination. Hence Etraria is called by Amobius ^'genitrix et mater superstitionis." (Amob. viL 26.) To interpret the divine will, and to avert the divine wrath, were ifae objects which they proposed to themselves in their various religious ceremonies, and the modes of doini; this constituted what was teraied by the Romans the "discipUna Etmsca." This system had, se- cording to the native tradition, been first revealed by a miraculous youth named Tages, who sprang <at of the earth in the tenritonr of Tarqninii, and hid from thence been, diffused throughout tlw twchc states of Etruria, where it was preserved and tnns- mitted by the fkmilies of the Lucnmones or chief nobles. (Cic de Div. ii. 23; Censorin. 4. § 13; Fest. T. Tagte; Lncan. i. 636.) Many of its nki were (in later tiroes at least) oonunitted to writii^, but much was still preserved by oral tnditioB; sod the exclusive possession of these precepts, without which no political or public affiurs eould be tnos- acted, was one of the great engines of power in the hands of the sacerdotal aristocracy of Etruria. Uenos the young nobles were trained up by a long conne of study to the possession of this hereditary knov- ledge; and even alter Etruria had fiUlcn into de- pend«ice upon Rome, it was thought neoessaiy to provide by special rqpilations for its perpetoalML (Cic. de Div, i. 41, de Legg, iL 9, od Fam, vl 6; Tac. Amn. xi. 15.) The modes of divination were principally three: 1. By augniy, or observation of the flight of birds, a practice commtm to all the early nations of Italy, as well as in a less d^^ree to the most ancient Gneks. 2. By inspection of the entrails of victims, a mode also fiuniliar to the Greeks, and practised by other Italian nations, but which appears to have been re- duced to a more systematic form and r^ular body of rules by the Etruscans than by any other people. On this account we find the Romans throughout all periods of their history consulting the Etruscan Hamspioes. (Liv. v. 15, xxv. 16, xxvii. 37; Ci& Cat iiL 8, de Div. iL 4 ; Lucan, L 684.) But though the name of these functionaries appears to be certainly connected with this peculiar branch of divmation (Miiller, Etr. vol. ii. p^ 12), they did not confine themselves to it, but undertook to interpiet portents and prodigies of all descriptions. 3. The divination fmn thunder and lightning was more peculiarly Etmscan than either of the two preceding modes. Its principles were embodied in certain books called lAri fulguiralee and Umitrualee^ which appear to have been still extant in the time of Cicero (Cic. de Div. i. 33; Lucret vi 380); and some of the numerous distinctions whidi th^ established between the different kkids of thunderbolts (of which there were eleven in all) have beoi preserved to os. (Plin. ii. 52, 53.) But this doctrine, like roost othere of the same kind, appears to have contained much that was secret and abstruse, and this formed part of the Disciplina Etmsca which was trans- mitted by oral, and often hereditary, tradition. Even under the Roman empire the art rf the Hamspioes