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The Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria

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The Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Tirol The cities and cemeteries of Etruria Dennis, George 1883 Chapter XXVII Tarquinii - The City urn:nbn:at:at-ubi:2-12107 HALF -BURIED GATEWAY IN THE WALLS OF TARQUINII. CHAPTER XXVII. TARQUINII—The City. Griacel’alta Cartago ; appena i segni Delle alte sue ruine il lido serba. Muojono le citth, muojono i regni ; Copre i fasti e le pompe arena ed erba.—Tasso. That castle was the strength of all that state, Untill that state by strength was pulled downe; And that same citie , so now ruinate, Had bene the keye of all that kingdomes crowne.—Spenser. After beholding the wonders of the Montarozzi , the attention is naturally directed to the city from which these tombs were peopled. “ If such were its sepulchres,” we may exclaim with Lanzi, “ what must have been its palaces ! ” Its antiquity, power, and magnificence are naturally inferred,—what was its history ? The origin of Tarquinii is wrapt in the mists of fable. The story told by the ancients, is this :—Soon after the Trojan War, Tyrrhenus, son of Atys, king of Lydia, being compelled by famine to quit his native land, brought a colony to this part of Italy , and built the Twelve Cities of Etruria , appointing to that work his relative Tarclion, from whom the city of Tarquinii, one VOL. I. EE 418 TARQUINII.—The City. [chap , xxyii. of the Twelve, received its name.1 From this tradition there is one dissentient voice, that of Justin, who says that Tarquinii was built by the Thessali and Spinambri,2 or, in other words, by the Pelasgi .3 This Tarchon was a man of such wonderful wisdom, which he had displayed even from his childhood, that he was traditionally said to have been born with a hoary head.4 He it is who is introduced b}r Virgil as leading his forces to the assist¬ ance of iEneas, against Tumus and Mezentius.5 Here, in the neighbourhood of Tarquinii, and about the period in question, it came to pass, said the Etruscan tradition recorded in the sacred books of the nation, that as a certain peasant was ploughing the land, and chanced to make a furrow deeper than usual, up sprang a wondrous being, a boy in appearance, but a patriarch in wisdom, Tages by name, the son of a Genius, and grandson of Jove.6 The peasant, amazed at this apparition, uttered a loud cry ; a crowd gathered round ; and, “ in a short time,” says Cicero, who relates the story, “ all Etruria was 1 Strab. Y. p. 219 ; Herod. T. 94 ; Yell. fixes the date of this emigrationabout the Paterc. I. 1. Strabo calls tlie cityTctprewta, year 290 before the foundation of Rome, Stephanus Tapx^vioy; Dionysius(III. p. or 1044 B.C., which he considers the com¬ 184) TapKvvioi. So also Strabo, elsewhere mencement of the Etruscan Era (einl. 2,2 ). (p. 220). From the Tomb of the Tarquins Gerhard (Ann. Inst. 1831, p. 203) also we may conclude that its Etruscan name thinks Tarquinii was Pelasgic. Strab ■was Tarchna. Whether Tarchon was the 4 . loc. cit. son or brother of Tyrrhenus ancient writers 6 iEneid. YIII . 606 ; X. 153. Joannes are not agreed (Serv. ad Ain. X. 198 ; Cato, Lydus (de Ostent. III . ) speaks of two Tar- ap. Serv. ad Ain. X. 179; Lycoph. 1246 ; chons—one, the founder of the Etruscan but Muller (einh 2, 8 ; IV. 4, 2) regards state ; the other, the ally of iEneas—and them as identical—as respectively the distinguishes them as the elder and the Etruscan and Greek names of the same in¬ younger. dividual. Muller’s theory is this :—A 6 Festus , v. Tages. The Etruscans, how¬ Tyrrhene is a man of Tyrrha, the Lydian ever, regarded Tages as the son of Hercules Torrha ; the vowel was pronounced short, and Minerva, as we learn from an Etruscan and therefore obscurely; the Etruscans as¬ mirror, confirmed by other monuments.— pirated strongly ; what was more natural, Ann. Inst. 1841, p. 94—Braun. An argu¬ then, than that a Tyrrhene should be called ment confirmatory of the Pelasgic origin of by them Tarchun ? That the Tyrrheni Tarquinii may be drawn from this very were Pelasgi from Tyrrha in the interior of name. Tagus was the title of the chief¬ Lydia, says Grote (History of Greece, III. tain of the confederate cities of Thessaly p. 239), “ is a point on which we have not (Xenoph. Hist. Graec. YI. 1 ; Pollux, I. c. sufficient evidence to advance beyond con¬ 10), whence Tarquinii, according to Justin, jecture ;” and the evidence on which Muller derived her origin; and the word Thessali built “ seems unusually slender.” was used as a synonym with Pelasgi(Strab. 2 Justin. XX. 1. V. p. 220), the latter people having one of 3 Niebuhr, I. pp. 36, 116. Muller their principal seats in that land. Grote (Etrusk. einl. 2, 7) also regards Tarquinii (Hist. Greece, II . p. 373) shows that the as of Pelasgic origin, but thinks that this title Tagus was once applied by a Roman Pelasgic colony came from the Lydian coast, consul to the chief magistrate of the thus reconciling the two traditions. He several cities of Thessaly. chap , xxvii .] LEGENDS OE TARCHON AND TAGES. 419 assembled on tlie spot.” Tlie mysterious boy then made known to them the practice of divination by the inspection of entrails and the flight of birds ; they treasured up all he had said or sung , and committed it to wanting; and these records formed the code of the sacred Discipline of the Etruscans , which regulated their entire polity , civil and religious , and was by them trans¬ mitted to the Romans.7 Though all this is evidently fable,8 yet through the mists of tradition we catch a glimpse of substantial forms ; we can perceive the high antiquity of the city of Tarquinii, dating from the very foundation of the Etruscan state—its im¬ portance, in the derivation of its name from the mythical hero of the land, the founder of the Twelve Cities ; and as the spot selected for the divine revelation of the national system of polity. That it was one of the Twelve, none can doubt. Nay , it can urge claims to metropolitan supremacy ; and, if not the political head, it must at least be regarded as the ecclesiastical metropolis of the land, the city peculiarly honoured by the gods, the spot where the religious system and the peculiar civilisation of the Etruscans took their rise.9 7 Cic. de Divin. II . 23, 39 ; Ovid. Tarquinii was the chief city of the Con¬ Metam. XV. 553—9 ; Censorin. de die federation, yet it is implied in the fact of Nat . IV. ; Serv. ad Ain. VIII . 398 ; its being the spot where the civil and Lucan. I. 636 ; Amm. Marcell. XXI. religious polity of the Etruscans had their 1, 10 ; Arnob. II . 69 ; Isid. Orig. VIII . 9; origin, and of its eponymus Tarchon being Mart. Capella de Nupt. II . p. 27 ; VI . p. the traditional founder of the Twelve Cities. 134 ; Joan. Lydus de Ostentis, II . III. The metropolis, in the primary sense of the Muller credits tbe version of tbe last term, it undoubtedly was. Muller remarks named writer , that the husbandman who (Etrusk . einl. 2, 1, 2), that “ the Etrus¬ ploughed up the oracular child was no cans themselves regarded Tarquinii as the ■other than Tarchon himself (Etrusk . III. metropolis of their Twelve Cities.” And 2, 3). Elsewhere (III. 2, n. 14) he says, again (einl. 2, 16)—“ Tarquinii is that in reference to Tarchon’s hoary head, “ It particular spot of Etruria , to which are is very clear that Tarchon and Tages were attached all traces of a permanent unity personages of the same legend, who might and a close connection of the Etruscan cities be easily confounded.” Cluver (II . p. under one head.” Cluver (II . p. 520) also 519) seems to regard them as identical. thinks the metropolitan supremacy of Tar- 8 Cicero(de Div. II . 23) so regarded it, quinii is clearly implied. If this be so, it and laughed to scorn any who should credit must, a fortiori, have been one of the it . Muller considers these traditions of Twelve, and no proof of this is requisite. Tarchon and Tages as local and genuinely Yet I may add that Dionysius(III . p. 184) Etruscan (Etrusk. einl. 2, 1, and 8 ; IV. calls it “ a great and flourishing city ” in 4, 2). Cluver (Ital . Ant. II . p. 520) the time of Demaratus, which is confirmed suggests that the legend of Tages was a by Cicero, Repub. II . 19. Its eminence is mere version of the creation of Adam, who also strongly implied by its conduct in the dirst taught his children and children’s war with Servius Tullius (Dion. Hal. IV. children the practice, not of divination, p. 231), and again in the war of 398, when but of all divine worship and sacred rites, Tarquinii and Falerii took the lead of all which he had received from God himself. the Etruscan states (Liv. VII . 17). 9 It is nowhere expressly stated that u2 420 TAEQUINIL— The City. [chap . XXVII. Of the early history of Tarquinii we are utterly ignorant ; as we find no mention of it from the time of Tarchon till the close of the first century of Rome, when Demaratus, a wealthy mer¬ chant of Corinth, being compelled to fly from his native city on the usurpation of Cypselus and the expulsion of the Bacchiads, migrated to Etruria , with which he had long been in the habit of commercial intercourse, and settled at Tarquinii.
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