Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Tirol The cities and cemeteries of Etruria Dennis, George 1883 Chapter VIII Falleri - Falerii (Novi) urn:nbn:at:at-ubi:2-12107 O.I)',,*,,. ^ PORTA DI GIOVE, PALLERI. CHAPTER VIII. EALLERI .—FALERII ( NOVI ). Ebbi improvviso un gran sepolcro scorto, . , E in brevi note altrni vi si sponea II nomee la virtu del guerrier morto. Io non sapea da tal vista levarmi, Mirando ora le lettre, ed orai marmi. —Tasso. Gaudent Italise sublimibus oppida muris.—Claudian. The road from Ponte Terrano leads to Santa Maria di Fallen, or Falari , a ruined convent on another ancient site, about four miles from Civita Castellana. After two or three miles over the heath , you reach the Fosso de’ Tre Camini, and where you cross the stream are traces of an ancient bridge. Just before coming in sight of Fallen , you reach a tomb, which, as you come suddenly upon it , cannot fail to strike you with admiration . A wide recess in the cliff is occupied by a spacious portico of three large arches, hewn out of the rock, and with a bold cornice of masonry above, VOL. I . H 98 FALLEEI. [CHAP. VIITi of massive tufo blocks, now somewhat dislocated , and concealed by the overhanging foliage. A door in the inner wall of the portico , of the usual Etruscan form, slightly narrowing upwards, opens into the sepulchre . Sepulchre ! to an unpractised eye the structure looks far more like a habitation ; and in truth it is an imitation of an ancient abode. The portico is surrounded hy PORTICOED TOMB WITH CORNICE OF MASONRY, FALLERI. an elegant cornice, carved in the rock ; the door, to which you ascend by steps, is ornamented with mouldings in relief. Within it, is a small antechamber , with the usual chimney or funnel in its ceiling ; and then you enter a spacious, gloomy sepulchre . Its flat ceiling is supported in the midst by a massive square pillar, in the face of which are three long, shallow niches , one over the other ; and in the walls of the tomb are smaller niches for urns or votive offerings. Under the portico the rock is cut into benches for sarcophagi , and long holes are sunk in the ground for the reception of bodies , which, with the exception of being covered over with tiles , must have been exposed to the passers- by, as the arches of the portico could hardly have been closed. chap , viii .] ETEUSCAN TOMB WITH A POETICO. 99 The cornice around the portico and the mouldings of the door are almost Roman in character ; yet in form and arrangement the tomb is too nearly allied to the Etruscan tombs of this district to be of Roman construction. It is probable that the Romans appropriated it to their own dead; and possible that they added these decorations; but, though an architectural adornment be proved to have been used by that people, it by no means follows that they originated it. Had not history in¬ formed us that the Corinthian capital was of Greek origin, the frequency of it in the ancient buildings of Rome and Italy, and its rarity in Greece, might have led us to a different conclusion. Now, we know almost nothing of Etruscan architecture from written records ; and therefore when we find, in a position which favours an Etruscan origin, architectural decorations analogous to those used by the Romans, it were illogical to pronounce them necessarily to be the work of the latter. On the contrary, it were quite as reasonable to regard them as Etruscan , knowing that, before the time of the Empire at least, the Romans were mere imitators of the Etruscans and Greeks in the arts, servile enough in that respect —imitator es, serumn pecas!—however they may have taken the lead of the world in arms. Nevertheless, whether Etruscan or Roman, the tomb is probably of a late period. This is the only instance known of an Etruscan tomb with a cornice of masonry, and it was thought to be unique also as regards its portico ; but I was fortunate enough to discover a group of tombs of similar charcter, very near this, which were before unknown.1 Among them is one which seems also to have had a portico, but the cliff out of which it was hewn is broken away. What now forms its front, has been the inner wall, if not of a portico, of an antechamber or outer tomb, and on it, to my astonishment, I found a Latin inscription, in very neatty formed letters, about four or five inches high, graven deep in the tufo. L. VECILIO . VI . F . E PO . AE . ABELES. LECTV . I . DATV . VECILIO . L. F . ET . PLENESTE . ECTV . I . AMPLIVS . NIHIL INVITEIS . L . C. LEVIEIS . L. F. ET . QVEI . EOS . PARENTAEET NE . ANTEPONAT 1 One has two arches in its portico ; seems to have had two more ; and a third another has only one standing , though it is a mere portico of two arches, without 100 FALLERI. [chap . vm. The last line was huriecl in the earth, and having no instru¬ ment at hand, I could not uncover it ; but I communicated the discovery to the ArchaeologicalInstitute 3 of Eome ; and my friend, Dr . Henzen, one of the secretaries, proceeded imme¬ diately to Fallen to inspect the inscription. To him is due the discovery of the last line, which explains the whole. To him also am I indebted for the correction and explanation of the inscription. “ To Lucius Vecilius, son of Yibius and of Polla (or Pollia) Abeles, one bed (sepulchral couch) is given—to ... Vecilius, son of Lucius and of Plenesta, one hed.—Let no one place anything before (i.e., another body in) these beds, save with the permission of Lucius and Caius Levius, sons of Lucius, and (with the permission) of whoever may perform their obsequies (i.e. their heirs).” The beds are the long niches in the walls of the tomb, of which there are eleven. The inscription is curious for its ancient Latinity alone; but most interesting as an evidence of the fact that the Eomans made use of the tombs of the Etruscans, or else constructed sepulchres precisely similar. No one can doubt the- Etruscan character of this particular tomb, and yet it belonged to- the Eoman family of the Levii, who gave it or let it out to the Vecilii, as we know to have been frequently the case with the ollce of Eoman columbaria. The mention of the mother’s name after the father’s is a genuine Etruscanism.3 It is general in Etruscan epitaphs, and was retained even under Eoman domination, for some sarcophagi bear similar epitaphs in Latin, with “ natus ” affixed to the mother s name in the genitive or ablative. But those sarcophagi were found in Etruscan tombs, in the midst of others with Etruscan inscriptions, and are only the coffins of the latest members of the same families, belonging to a period when the native language was being superseded by that of the con¬ querors. This may be the case here also—the Levii may have been an Etruscan family; as indeed seems highly probable. If not, we have here a Eoman usurpation of an Etruscan sepulchre, or it may be an imitation of the Etruscan mode of burial, and an inner chamber, the portico itself being the Lycians always traced their descent, the tomb, as is shown by the rock-benches through the maternal line , to the exclu¬ within it. sion of the paternal— a fact recorded by 2 See Bull . Instit . 1844 , p. 92. Herodotus (1. 173), and verified by 3 This custom the Etruscans must modern researches. Fellows’ Lycia, p. have derived from the East, as it was not 276 . The Etruscans being less purely- practised by th& Greeks or Romans ; but Oriental, made use of both methods. ■CHAP. VIII .] THE CITY-WALLS. 101 also an instance of the adoption of the customs of that people by the Romans.4 Just beyond these tombs the city of Falleri comes into view. And an imposing sight it is—not from its position , for it is on the very level of the plain by which you approach it—hut from THE WALLS OP FALLERI , FROM THE EAST. its lofty walls and numerous towers, stretching away on either hand to a great distance in an almost unbroken line, and only just dilapidated enough to acquire a picturesque effect, which is heightened by overhanging foliage. You approach it from the east, at an angle of the wall where there is an arched gateway on either hand—one still open5, the other almost buried in the earth. 4 Dr . Henzen, who is facile princeps in of the ten differed from the Etruscan in the archaeology of inscriptions, refers this the forms of the A. E. P. R., and in the to a remote period, undoubtedly to the use of the 0, assimilating more to the time of the Republic, and before the Greek. But the language was much more establishment of the Colonia Junonia by akin to the Latin. Copies of these inscrip¬ the Triumvirate, and considers the tomb tions are given in Ann. Inst . 1860, tav. as one of the most ancient on this site. d’Agg. G. H., and they are explained by Bull. Inst . 1844, pp. 129, 161- 8. In the Padre Garrucci (op. cit., pp. 272- 9), who neighbourhood of this tomb Signor Guidi, refers them to the sixth century of Rome. in 1851, opened five others which contained 5 This gate, as will be seen in the a number of inscriptions in a character woodcut, has a tower immediately to the and language neither Etruscan nor Latin, left of him who approaches it, which is and therefore pronounced to be Faliscan.