Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/661

Rh highly reputed. As regards time, they reckoned by lunar mouths, and appear to have had some principle of intercalation, to equalize the solar and the lunar year. The lapse of each year was recorded by driving a nail into the door of the temple of Nortia at Volsinii, a habit which passed ovur to Home. The month was divided into weeks of eight days, the eighth being set apart for marketing and house affairs ; the day began at noon. Next to years they counted by specula, each representing the longest life of the time, and reaching in some cases to 123 years, but with an average apparently of about 100 years. The Etruscan nation was to endure ten saecula. The beginning of the 10th was announced in the year 4-i B.C. The festivity of the Etruscans was accompanied by excess in personal ornaments and in dress; the toga picta, tunica pal- mata, the pr&amp;lt;etexta, the corona Etrusca, and the rich sandals which figured in Rome as insignia of office, had been introduced from Etruria, where also no doubt they served to mark the }&amp;gt;rincipes or luciimones as distinct from the mass of the people to who-;e lot it is in the highest degree improbable that such luxury as has been spoken of could have fallen. Their food was pulse, which may have been sweeter at Volsinii from being ground iu curiously contrived mills (molx Versailles) of basalt (Pliny, xxxvi. 18, 29). Clientship, developed to the fall in Rome, had first been proved practicable in Etruria, as was also the employment of slaves. The division of the people into three tribus and twelve curiix at Mantua has been taken as representing the general principle of division, and this would seem to be confirmed by the tradition of the three names of Ramnes, Tities, and Luceres having been adopted for the Roman tribus from Etruria. To the books of discipline, by which public and private affairs were regulated, reference has already been made. There appears to have been also a fourth section of these books, libri fa-tales, dealing with common incidents. The interpretation of all these books and the conduct of such ceremonies as they prescribed belonged exclusively to the noble families, some of which had hereditary rights to the priesthood. In each state were always ten boys of such families undergoing instruction for this purpose. But besides the regular societies or colleges of Harus pices to which the Romans sent for ai&amp;gt;l when perplexed by serious portents, there were apparently others who obtained a vicarious living by ministering to the all-pervading superstition of the people. Instead of an oracle common to the whole nation as the Greeks had at Delphi, each state or city of Etruria had its own com plicated machinery for discovering the will of the gods. (See AUGURS.) Certain deities revealed their will by lightning, others otherwise. The gods (cesar) were of two classes, the Dii Conseutes, who directly managed the affairs of the world, and certain nameless deities above and controlling them in such a way as Fate is above Zeus in the Iliad. At the head of the former was Jupiter (called Tinia in Etruscan), with whom were associated Juno (Uni) and Minerva (Menrfa), forming a supremacy of three for the protection of states, as may ba inferred from the legend of Tarquinius having adopted them as the three chief deities of Rome. Their functions, however, were in each case different from those of the corresponding divinities of Rome and Greece, Jupiter being at once ruler of all in peace, god of war, and source of fertility in the earth, while Juno similarly was worshipped as &quot; regina &quot; in Veii, as curitis, an armed goddess, at Falerii, and as associated with Vulcan at Perusia, thus taking the place of the Greek Aphrodite and representing fertility. Minerva, again, was winged besides being armed, had the functions of Fortuna or Fate, and from her symbol of the serpent was a deity of the powers of the earth. The Etruscan name of Venus w,as Ttiran, 637 of Vulcan, Set/dans, of Bacchus, Phuphluns, of Mercury, Turms. Besides the other Greek deities who were in one way or another adopted into the Etruscan system, such as Apollo, Helios, Ares, Poseidon, Heracles, and the Dioscuri, a number of names have been handed down, some of which obviously designate gods of Latin or Sabine origin, while others may be synonyms of one and the same deity obtaining in different localities. The list includes Janus, Silvanus, Jnuus, Saturnus, Summanus, Vejovis, Soranus, Mautus, Pales, Nortia, Feronia, Voltumna, Mania, Eilei- thyia, Horta, Ancharia, Fortuna, Ceres, and others. To these were attached numerous genii of various powers and functions. As ruler of the lower world was the grim god Mautus with his hammer, and his associates Mania, Charun, and the Furue. Among the Lares Familiares were included the shades of deceased persons. The Penates watched over household plenty and prosperity. A goddess of Fate who occurs frequently on the monuments is Lasa, probably a feminine derivative from Lar, ruler, as in Lars Porsena. From what combination of early races, or from what promiscuous habit of adopting foreign deities, this complicated system arose cannot now be decided. For these gods temples were necessary, but in no case Architeo- have they survived. Yet from records it would seem that ture - they differed from those of Greece in no essential particular except in the ground plan, which, instead of being much greater in length than in breadth, was nearly square, to be iu conformity with the templum or arbitrary division of the heavens prescribed by the sacred books. The theatres have been more fortunate, as at Fiesole, where the massive ruins still show how in this form of construction also the Etruscans had been indebted to the Greeks. Of amphi theatres or circi there are no remains. There is, however, one form of construction in which they are allowed to have been first, that is the arch, as seen among other places best of all in the Cloaca of Rome, the building of which tradition regularly assigned to the Etruscans in the time of the lloman kings. How the perfect arch was developed may be seen from the apparent vaulting in the Regulini-Galassi tomb at Cervetri and elsewhere, a system of masonry which the Etruscans had in com mon with the builders of the so-called Tomb of Aga memnon at Mycenae. The earliest tombs seem to be those in the form of a well, sunk in the ground and lined with stones, containing a vase with the ashes and burnt remains of the dress and ornaments of the deceased. In this early period cremation appears to have been the rule, if, indeed, it was not always more or less a favourite form of sepulture. Next we have two classes of tombs. First the tumuli, consisting of chambers encircled by a massive wall, and covered with a mound of earth corresponding to the tumulus of Alyattes in Lydia and other parts of Asia Minor, as well as to the Nuraghe of Sardinia. Of this general type doubtless was the tomb of Porsena at Clusium, in spite of the probably fantastic description of it already referred to. Its labyrinthine chambers have been identi fied. The tumulus of Cucumella at Vulci has also been mentioned Then we have tombs hewn in the rock, sometimes including several chambers connected with each other, and frequently adorned, like those of Lycia, with architectural fronts as of small temples. In these chambers were placed the sarcophagi and urns, for the most part richly sculptured, in general with subjects of design adapted from the Greeks, and having frequently on the lids reclin ing figures intended either as portraits or in some other way to represent the deceased, whose name and descent are painted on the front. In many cases the walls of those chambers are richly decorated with paintings, not exclusively but mostly reproducing scenes of festivity. The dead were accompanied in their resting-place by numerous