Chapter IX: Part 9

POSIDONIA or PAESTUM was the most powerful among the Greek cities on that coast. The place still has the most beautiful Greek ruins in all Italy, and three ancient temples are preserved there in tolerable completeness; before the first half of the eighteenth century, they were not known at all, for they were not discovered till 1730. The cause of this may have been the circumstance, that they are situated in a very pestilential and deserted district; but at present they are known to everybody. The ruins belong to the ancient Greek period, when Posidonia was still powerful. There have also been found great numbers of coins of a very ancient style, resembling those of Sybaris, which are at least as old as the sixtieth Olympiad, and perhaps even older. Posidonia was conquered by the Lucanians, though it is unknown at what time, and it remained under their dominion until the war of Pyrrhus, when the Romans established a colony there under the name of Paestum. The fact, that previously the Lucanians had a colony there, is clear from the account of Aristoxenus, in Athenaeus, about an annual festival which the inhabitants celebrated quite in the ancient Greek fashion, and at which they, among other things, complained of their losing their Greek character and peculiarities, and of their becoming barbarians in consequence of their being ruled over by barbarians. Athenaeus indeed mentions the Romans as their rulers, but he is either mistaken in the name, or the book which he quotes was not by Aristoxenus, but a _pseudepigraphon_, which is certainly possible. It is interesting on this occasion to become acquainted with the nature of the colonies, and with the manner in which a new ruling class of men establish themselves among the people, introducing their language and manners to such an extent as to cause the nationality of the ancient inhabitants to disappear. The most striking example of this phenomenon is the diffusion of the language and manners of the Arabs over the East and Africa: all the languages which were previously spoken there, Greek, Latin, Egyptian, and Syriac, having given way to the Arabic. In like manner, the Turkish language has become predominant in Armenia and Hyrcania. This accounts for the fact, that, although the Arab immigration into Spain was not very numerous in comparison with the ancient inhabitants, yet when in the thirteenth century Andalusia was re-conquered by the Christians, the people spoke nothing but Arabic. The Ommayad khalifs had introduced the Arabic language by putting to death any one refusing to adopt it. The term colony, therefore, is very vague: we generally imagine that the colonists constitute the real body of the people; but this is not so, for the colony only furnishes the form. I very well remember, that about thirty-five years ago, when I read that account of Aristoxenus, the matter appeared to me strange; but the mixture of the two nationalities clears up everything.

ETRURIA.

Etruria is in every respect a highly important and interesting country, and in ancient history it is at the same time great and powerful; it derives a particular interest from the fact of its being the mother country of the modern Tuscans, a people on whom all the honour of Italy, in regard to intellectual and artistic greatness, rested during the middle ages no less than in modern times, just as the honour of Greece rested on Athens. In the whole range of modern history there is not a people, which is so strongly marked with the antique character as the Florentines; they possess all the great qualities of the Athenians, without their light-headedness. They also have been too severely judged of; I do not, indeed, mean to say that they are faultless, but they are, in spite of any faults, deserving of the highest respect. A man who is familiar with the old Italian literature and history, cannot but feel the greatest affection and attachment to Tuscany, and this affection and attachment are unconsciously transferred to the ancestors of the modern Tuscans. But the great renown enjoyed by the ancient Etruscans is not owing to this, but rather to the irresistible charm with which man is drawn towards that which is mysterious and enigmatical. We can, indeed, see that the Etruscans were a very remarkable people, and that in regard to the fine arts, they occupy, next to the Greeks, the highest rank in antiquity; yet so many monuments and inscriptions of this same people are perfect mysteries to us; inscriptions exist in great numbers, but are altogether inexplicable. All the statements of the ancients about the Etruscans are full of contradiction. The difficulties have been increased by the opinion which has been established for a long time, that the Romans derived the greater part of their institutions and character from the Etruscans, an opinion which formerly I also entertained. But I have given it up, and in the second edition of my Roman History I have honestly stated my reasons. The cause of the great confusion among the ancients about them is the supposition that the Etruscans and Tyrrhenians were the same people. I have shown in my history that the Greeks, who are here our only authorities, as we have no other statements, called the Tyrrhenians Pelasgians, and Tyrrhenians existed not only on the coasts of Etruria, but occupied the whole coast of Italy down to the Oenotrian frontier, before the Ausonians subdued those districts. Being Pelasgians, the Tyrrhenians, according to the views of the Greeks, were of the same race as the ancient Meonians in Lydia, as the inhabitants of Lemnos and the islands near the Hellespont, and as the occupants of the neighbouring coasts. Hence also the tradition about the connection between the two. These original inhabitants of Etruria, from Luna as far as the Tiber, were then overpowered by a nation invading Italy from northern Europe, just as we have seen in the case of the Illyrians; Greek historians afterwards called the conquerors Tyrrhenians, partly because a large proportion of the population of Etruria actually was Tyrrhenian, and partly because the whole country bore the name Tyrrhenia. In like manner the English are called Britons, and the Spaniards in Mexico and Peru Mexicans and Peruvians; and in the same way the Greeks applied the name Oscans to the Sabellians inhabiting Lucania and Samnium, although the Oscans were the subjects and the Sabellians the ruling people. As the conquerors have often entirely changed the language of the conquered people (the coins of Posidonia, when in the end it had become Roman, have Latin inscriptions in Latin characters), so the language of the Tyrrhenians, under the dominion of the Etruscans, gave way to the language of the rulers; and hence we cannot be surprised at finding on Etruscan monuments none but the mysterious Etruscan language. I mentioned before the Mexicans as an illustration: the Spaniards who conquered Mexico amounted only to a few thousands, while the country they subdued contained many millions of inhabitants. The latter, it is true, were extirpated by inhuman cruelty, epidemics, and the like; but still the fact of the Spanish language having become quite universal there remains a remarkable phenomenon. The Spanish colonists had scarcely any women with them, and accordingly took native Mexican women for their wives, whence we might expect to find the Spanish language would have disappeared all the more naturally and easily. It is a foolish opinion to believe that the depopulation of Spain was the consequence of the emigration to the provinces in America; for the number of emigrants to the new world was on the whole but small. Granting that in the course of time a few hundred thousand emigrated, the men who arrived there entirely without families, exercised such an influence upon the language of millions, that at present not a man in the city of Mexico speaks Mexican, and the native language exists only in the remotest districts; the commonest Indian speaks Spanish. There are even large provinces in New Spain where the ancient language has entirely disappeared, without its being possible to show that any considerable immigrations ever took place. In the Baltic provinces of Mecklenburg and Pomerania, where the ruling families have always remained the same, where the nobility consists for the most part of Wendish families, and where the Germans have never appeared as conquerors, the Wendish language is entirely lost, merely because the introduction of Christianity from Germany was in the course of a few centuries followed by the German language. The ancient Tyrrhenian language may, even before the conquest, have become unsettled and shifting, as the Umbrians occupied the interior of the country while the Tyrrhenians inhabited the coasts.

The inquiries into the Etruscan language have hitherto yielded no results at all; all the alleged explanations by Mazzochi, Passeri, and Lanzi are mere delusions. I must direct your particular attention to the incredibly small compass of what is commonly called learning. Common sense has often been most disgracefully trampled under foot, and intuitive truth has been overlooked and disregarded; and this has been the case more particularly in the inquiries about the ancient Italian languages. People have been extremely anxious to discover the Etruscan language, and who should not be so? I would readily give a considerable part of my property as a prize to any one who should discover it; an entirely new light would thereby be thrown upon the character of the nations of Italy. But desirable as this object is, it does not follow that it is attainable; it is deplorable, however, if people assume it to be attainable without examining as to whether the method they adopt be the correct one. Passeri and Lanzi enjoy quite an undeserved reputation; they have treated the ancient Italian languages of the Etruscans and Umbrians in quite a disgraceful manner; and I have many years ago expressed my indignation at the absurdity with which the inquiry is pursued. Lanzi assumes that Etruscans and Tyrrhenians are the same,—a fact which has never been doubted—that Tyrrhenians are Pelasgians, and that Pelasgians are ancient Greeks: he then proceeds, without having any general principle to guide him, to interpret words merely according to some remote resemblance in sound to Greek or Latin words, and by this process he elicits a sense which is no better than if it had been his object to make the whole inquiry ridiculous. Any one who has a taste for Greek must reject such trash with the greatest indignation. There are only a very few words the meaning of which can be guessed: on all the tomb-stones we read _avil ril_ followed by a number (the Etruscan and Roman numbers are the same), whence we may suppose these two words to mean _vixit annos_; sometimes we find _ril_ alone, which may accordingly mean “year.” It is possible that the word is indeclinable, and it may even be imagined that all nouns in Etruscan, as in many eastern languages, are indeclinable. Now Lanzi, not being able to find a similar word in Greek or Latin, objects to the interpretation of these words which alone are known; and he connects _avil_, which probably signifies _vixit_, with the Greek αἰών, though he would prefer a word with a stronger resemblance. On several works of art we find the word _turce_ added to a name, which he interprets ἐποίει, and I will let this pass; but he adds that _turce_ is nothing but the contracted τὸ ἔρξε, that is, τοὖρξε. Such things have found admirers, and even in Germany! I feel no inclination to speculate where I do not stand on firm ground; but it certainly is much more probable, that _ce_ is the termination of the noun, like _us_ in Latin; and accordingly I say “_turce_ may be the same as _Tuscus_, for _r_ and _s_ are very often interchanged.” In the fifteenth century, a number of bronze tables were found at Gubbio in Umbria, with inscriptions partly in Etruscan and partly in Latin characters, but in an unknown language: who knows what these tables contain! A man with the faculty of divination possessed by Champollion might perhaps be able to explain the language, but it requires a full consciousness of the analogy of languages; this is the only way in which it might be made out, but it is impossible to explain it by itself. The Italians, like Passeri, have proceeded on the supposition that the Etruscans were _haruspices_, interpreters of lightning, and the like, and that consequently their monuments contain all kinds of _fulguratio_: on such premises they then attempted to translate the inscriptions with a truly revolting impertinence: you can scarcely form an idea of this kind of nonsense. I say this because I have been described as wanting in modesty by people who no doubt may have been extremely modest all their lives; and the remark has been added, that I had not read the productions of those inquirers. But I have read Lanzi’s work, and deliberately declare that it is thoroughly bad. Lanzi was a man of talent and acuteness, but completely ignorant of Greek literature, and he had but a poor knowledge of Latin. He was an encyclopaedist, who undertook much, but finished only half of what he undertook. I have here expressed my conviction with the fullest confidence, that it is not only my conviction, but the pure truth. It is possible that a resemblance may be discovered between the Etruscan and the Ligurian language.

The ancients were far less concerned about the Etruscans than the moderns; they took indeed an interest in them, but did not enter deeply into the inquiry about them; and it may be that they were prevented by their utter ignorance of the Etruscan language. Herodotus relates that the Etruscans were a Lydian colony, a statement which has been correctly refuted even by Dionysius, who says that Xanthus the Lydian did not say anything about it; that the Lydians did not bear the slightest resemblance to the Etruscans in language, customs, manners, or religion; and that there existed no traditions about such a colony either among the Lydians or among the Etruscans. Herodotus had heard, that Tyrrhenians existed in Italy as well as in Lydia (where, however, the Meonians, and not the entirely foreign Lydians, were Tyrrhenians); his idea of a colony was a mere inference from his knowledge that the Tyrrhenians and Meonians were nations of the same race. But Tyrrheni and Tusci are the same words, and so are Tyrrheni, Turini, Turni; Tusculum is nothing but the town of the Tyrrheni; Etrusci and Tusci, however, are different, and the name Tusci was afterwards transferred to the Etrusci. The native name of the Etruscans was Rasena. Previously to the Gallic conquest, the same Etruscan nation was also established in the plains of Lombardy; and, according to Livy, all the tribes about the river Padus, such as the Raeti and others belonged to it. It is, moreover, quite in accordance with all analogy to suppose that the nation had come down from the Alps in consequence of commotions in the north. Here we must also bear in mind the other tradition which states that, before the time of the Etruscans, the Umbrians dwelt in Etruria, and that 300 Umbrian towns were destroyed by the invading Etruscans. No importance can be attached to the number 300, which is only a multiple of 3; 3, 30, 300, and 600, all signify only “very many,” and in other circumstances the same might be expressed by 4, 16, 64, etc. I am persuaded that the time is not far distant (it may have arrived already), when no man will think of quoting the statement of Herodotus about the Lydian origin of the Tyrrhenians as an authority against other opinions. Everything which, after the lapse of hundreds or thousands of years, has to be made out by reason and argument meets with opposition, and this is in accordance with nature; nay, it is good that it is so, as it imposes upon us the duty to give to our doctrines the greatest possible distinctness, and to expound them so clearly as to make them intelligible to all.

It is well-known that Etruria, south of the Apennines, contained twelve ruling towns, to which the others were subject. We must not, however, suppose that there existed no more than twelve places deserving the name of towns, but they were twelve sovereign cities, and all the others were dependent upon them. This fact is certain and beyond all doubt. They were all situated within the district from the Apennines about Luna and the Tiber. But which of the Etruscan towns they were, is quite a different question; some of them are certain, others can be named only with probability, while others, again, can only be guessed. Descending from the north, we find the following towns, which Livy, in his account of the second Punic war, distinctly affirms, were ruling cities: Volaterrae, Populonia, Rusellae, and Tarquinii; and in the interior, Arretium, Perusia, Caere and Clusium. Four accordingly are wanting, either because they had perished, or because they had ceased to belong to the Etruscan nation. Veii and Vulsinii had been destroyed, and Capena had become a Roman municipium. But whether Capena ever was one of the sovereign cities, may seem doubtful. All these relations belong to so remote a period, and the notices we have of them in the ancient authors are so vague, that we must be extremely cautious. The case of Cortona is particularly doubtful. Livy, near the close of the first decad,[57] mentions it as an Etruscan town; but at the time of the second Punic war he does not name it among those which distinguished themselves by the support they gave to Scipio. Herodotus, in speaking of his own time, says that Cortona[58] was inhabited by Pelasgians who were foreign to the Tyrrhenians, that is, to the Etruscans and Ombricans. This is a great mystery, which it is impossible to solve with any degree of certainty. Had Cortona become Etruscan in the middle of the fifth century, while during the first half of the fourth it was still Tyrrhenian? or did Herodotus transfer to his own time that which was correctly applicable only to an earlier period? Different conjectures may be entertained as to why it is not mentioned in the second Punic war: Livy either forgot it, or the town had, perhaps, not been included in the general peace which the Etruscans concluded with the Romans at the time of the war with Pyrrhus; it is possible also that it may have concluded a separate peace, or that it had been conquered. For the books of Livy and Dionysius, containing the account of that period, are lost, and the brief extracts furnish no satisfactory information. We may, therefore, have recourse to several modes of explanation, but we must be cautious and not regard as certain what is merely possible.

One or two places at the least, therefore, are still wanting. On the coast we find Cossa, a large town, the walls of which still exist, and show that the place was strongly fortified. But it is called Cossa Volcientium, whence it is probable that it was no more Etruscan than Falerii, which, geographically speaking, likewise belonged to Etruria. We may, however, take it almost for certain that Faesulae, situated beyond Florence, was one of the twelve towns. It is not indeed mentioned in the history of the wars with the Romans, that is, in the ninth and tenth books of Livy; but we can draw no inference from this, as the eleventh and twelfth books are wanting. From these last we should have learned, whether at that period it was one of the Etruscan towns or not.

In a physical point of view, Etruria may be divided into three parts. The central portion is formed by the main stock of the Apennines, both those in the neighbourhood of Siena and those in the north of the river Arno, for they belong together, having been separated only by the hand of man to make an opening for letting the Arno pass through. This part comprises the whole of the Apennines, which now separate Tuscany from Bologna and Romagna, together with the interior from the neighbourhood of Siena to the Roman towns of Aquapendente and Viterbo. This range of mountains contains indeed many beautiful valleys, but in some parts there are none, and on the frontiers of Tuscany and Bologna the country consists of rough, wild and inhospitable mountains, which at present have scarcely any wood at all; in ancient times it was different, for thick forests appear to have existed at least on the frontiers of Etruria and the country of the Gauls. The second part comprises the whole territory extending below Volterra, the so-called Maremma, or hilly coast land. It embraced the whole of _Suburbicaria Tuscia_, the modern Patrimonio di. S. Pietro, a district formerly containing the towns of Vulsinii and Saturnia, and at present Tuscanella and others, and extending to the very gates of Rome. The geological character of this part is quite different from that of the Apennines; it is of a volcanic nature, the lakes of Vulsinii, Bacanae, and all the others in that district are decayed craters, and volcanic stones and productions of every kind are found there in all directions as on the opposite side of the Tiber. The country is at present extremely unhealthy, and was in all probability never quite healthy on account of the bad quality of the water; there seem to be really poisonous exhalations. In ancient times, however, important towns existed there notwithstanding, and there was no doubt a corresponding degree of agriculture; at the time when Florence and Siena were flourishing republics, the state of the country was likewise better than it is now. It was ruined by the princes of the house of Medici, who made the towns responsible for the whole amount of taxes, as is the custom in the East; when one place was decayed, the others had to make up the sum among themselves. In some parts this system was carried so far, that during the second half of the seventeenth century, under Cosmo III., whole villages were ruined; and it was the greatest misfortune for the country that this Cosmo reigned for a period of half a century. In this manner the country became desolate by fiscal extortions. Wherever the population has once become extinct, it rarely re-appears; the emperor Leopold II. did every thing in his power to mend matters, but it was of little avail. The third part comprising the marshy country from the Arno as far as the Gonfalina, is a large and low district with many marshes and lakes, extending as far as Luna and Pescia; it has quite the appearance of the countries in the Netherlands. In the time of Hannibal, it was one continuous marsh, but he made his way through it, and deceived the Romans, who thought it impossible for him to advance through that morass, and accordingly considered themselves quite safe. We may say in general that the manner, in which the Romans at that time carried on the war, was beneath all criticism. The upper Arno was formerly a lake, and near Faesulae, too, there was a lake, but they have been drained by making a passage for the waters through the Gonfalina and La’ncisa.

I shall now proceed to give you an account of the separate towns, mentioning at once the things for which they were remarkable at different periods, for our time is too short accurately to separate the geography of the different periods.

LUCA. The northern part about Luca was afterwards in the hands of the Ligurians, and nothing is known about it in regard to the Etruscan period. Soon after the Hannibalian war, the town was taken by the Romans who established a colony there, for the purpose of securing the possession of the country. Throughout the middle ages, Luca was a place of considerable importance.

LUNA, situated on the sea-coast, in the neighbourhood of the modern Carrara, was anciently likewise Etruscan, and of importance to Rome on account of its excellent harbour. The whole coast of Etruria has but few harbours, and there is only one other at Populonia; but that of Luna had the advantage of being at once the nearest and very good. Before the Romans had formed a communication with Spain by land, the military communication with that country was kept up by means of the port of Luna; and the Romans had long been masters of the greater part of Spain, before the communication through Gaul was opened. Luna was also important on account of its quarries of white marble, called _marmor Lunense_. The Romans did not commence to work in marble till a very late period: before the time of Augustus it was not very extensively used, and he first erected buildings of native marble. During Cicero’s youth the Romans began to employ Carystian and Numidian (yellow) marble in private houses, no doubt, for small pillars; and in the time of Pompey, the use of foreign marble became a little more common. But in the reign of Augustus it became very general, whence marbles of every kind are found in the ruins; Carrara marble was employed in vast quantities, the white Pentelian was less common. After the time of Augustus, it was customary to use bricks for the internal parts of walls, and to cover or incrustate, as the Italians say, the outside with slabs of marble. At a later period of the empire this custom extended so far, that it became an indispensable luxury to cover the walls even of private houses with most costly kinds of marble. The temple of Apollo on the Palatine seems to have been constructed of solid Carrara marble. When the Romans advanced as far as Luna, the Etruscans were, probably, no longer masters of the place, but it seems to have belonged to the Ligurians. In the middle ages it was destroyed by the Saracens.

PISA also appears to have been Etruscan, but it never was a sovereign city. It is regarded as a colony of Pisa in Elis (whence _Pisae Alpheae_ in Virgil); but this is a groundless fancy, and it is an undoubted fact that Pisa was an ancient Tyrrhenian place. In the Hannibalian war, it was an important military station to the Romans, who succeeded in remaining masters of it. Afterwards it became a military colony. The great importance of the place is manifest from the number of ruins and remains of every description, although the town is not often spoken of. In the middle ages it rose rapidly and became great at once, just as the gods in the Aeneid step forth from the clouds, without any one having anticipated them. In the eleventh century, when the Pisans constructed their cathedral with its baptistery and tower, Pisa must have been a city of gigantic power and greatness. Its inhabitants possessed a wonderful taste for the arts even during the darkest periods of the middle ages, when at Venice (I will not mention Rome which was quite barbarous) not the slightest trace of such a taste was perceptible. The Venetians, as late as the thirteenth century, melted down all the Greek works of art in bronze which they could carry away; the preservation of the colossal horses from Chios, in the Piazza S. Marco, is almost a mere accident: the strange deliberation as to whether they should be melted down or not, is well known. For half a century afterwards the horses stood neglected in some shed, until civilisation advanced, and they were set up in their present place. At Pisa, on the other hand, the taste for the arts was so far developed that, as early as the eleventh century, the city employed an architect, probably from the south of France (his name is Bruschetti, as is stated in the excellent inscriptions), to build a church, which is as magnificent as any structure belonging to the period of the emperors of declining Rome, or of the Byzantine rulers. The Pisans, moreover, carefully collected during their expeditions, especially at Rome, columns and other antiquities, and obtained similar treasures as presents from the emperors. During the twelfth century they collected fragments of ancient architecture, sculptures, and especially sarcophagi which they put together in their cemetery (Campo Santo); they then surrounded the cemetery with a wall and a portico, and thus affectionately preserved the remains of antiquity. The bodies of men of rank were buried in these sarcophagi. Such was the spirit in which Nicolo Pisano, a gigantic genius of the middle of the thirteenth century, made bas-reliefs more beautiful than any that were produced at Rome during the third century of our era; not only does he show great genius in invention, but also in the beauty of his sculptures. The civic laws of the Pisans were based upon remnants of the Roman law, nay, edicts of praetors, which had not been introduced into the Justinianean Code, were preserved there; so that Pisa, at a later period, remained an essentially Roman city, though it was governed by a Lombard nobility. The vicissitudes of Pisa were terrible and deplorable. The Genoese overpowered and cruelly destroyed it: the more bravely and valiantly the city resisted, the more fearful was its destruction. Afterwards it was subdued by the Florentines. No republic ever carried the persecution of its subjects so far as Florence carried that of the Pisans. The Florentines distrusted them so much, that the Pisans were not only excluded from all honourable offices, but were not allowed even within their own city to practise certain professions or engage in certain trades; they were not allowed, e.g., to embrace the professions of physicians and lawyers, or to carry on a wholesale mercantile business, but they were limited to the small and common trades. The consequence of this was an insurrection, but the Pisans were subdued, and of the 100,000 inhabitants which Pisa had had during the middle ages, not more than 8,000 remained at the time when Cosmo de Medici entered upon the government. Athens was in a similar state of decay during the period from Alexander to the last Philip of Macedonia.

VOLATERRAE, no doubt one of the ancient sovereign cities, was situated at some distance from the coast. In the history of the Roman wars, it acted a very prominent part; and from the vigorous manner in which it supported Scipio, we see what a powerful place it must have been; but it distinguished itself more especially by the resistance it offered to Sulla. When the fate of the whole Marian party was already decided, Volaterrae still sustained a war for two years, and did not surrender until it was compelled by want of provisions. We do not know what was the fate of the town, but we do know the character of the conqueror, and may therefore presume that it was a most fearful one. Sulla established a military colony there, and deprived the inhabitants of the franchise. The ancient circumference of the city can still be distinctly traced: it occupied all the surface of a very considerable hill, which rises above the lower hills of an almost level and beautiful country. The wall clearly shows the difference between the Pelasgo-Cyclopean and the more artistic Etruscan mode of fortification. The Etruscan fortifications were constructed along the upper edge of a hill as real walls, and the sides of the hill below the walls were not cut precipitous; the Pelasgian places, on the other hand, have no walls on the edge of the hills, but the sides of the rock are cut down so as to be precipitous, and are provided with substructions. Another difference consists in the fact, that the Etruscan walls are built of regular square blocks, forming parallelograms one perpendicularly above the other. The blocks are very large, and generally put together without cement, their edges being cut very sharp. The fortifications of Volaterrae are among the most perfect. After the time of Sulla, or at least after that of Augustus, Volaterrae was a military colony. It was the birth-place of the poet Persius, who for this reason more than once alludes to the circumstances of his native place, and can be understood only by those who are acquainted with them. The hill on which Volaterrae stood, consists of alabaster, in consequence of which many works in that material were executed there; hence the sarcophagi of Volaterrae with Etruscan inscriptions, are made of alabaster. During the middle ages the town was still very considerable; but it has decayed, especially through the greatness of Florence.

The next place after Volaterrae in the south is POPULONIA, POPULONII or POPULONIUM, for all these forms occur. On Etruscan coins it is called _Puplana_, for the Etruscan alphabet has no _o_ nor any short vowels. There is a statement which seems quite credible that Populonia was a colony of Volaterrae. In later times it was one of the more important Etruscan towns, and acted a prominent part in the wars against Rome, of which an account is given in the tenth book of Livy. It had the sovereignty of the neighbouring island of _Ilva_ or _Aethalia_, a Greek name suggestive of its Pelasgian origin. The mountain of this island consists of large masses of iron, which by the Catalanian method can easily be transformed into the most excellent steel. The west of Europe was, to a great extent, provided with iron from Elba, as it was imported into the eastern parts from the Black Sea. The working of the mines of Elba, however, seems to be of a more recent date than the composition of the Odyssey, for in this poem the south of Italy is provided with iron from Temese. The ancients notice it as a singular phenomenon, that the iron could not be smelted in Elba, and that it was necessary to do this on the continent; but this is a Greek absurdity, and an inability to comprehend things connected with ordinary life, which we not unfrequently meet with in the ancients. It was reported in Greece, that it was necessary to transport the iron to Populonia, and the imagination of the Greeks immediately invented a reason. The truth is simply this: in later times there was a want of wood in Elba, and it was found cheaper to convey the iron to Populonia, than to import wood into Elba, for Populonia possessed smelting establishments. In like manner, the copper ore found in Cornwall is conveyed to Wales and smelted there. Populonia was a wealthy maritime town until it was destroyed by Sulla; and from that time it has been a heap of ruins, which were seen by Strabo. The town was never restored.

The moderns who have written on ancient geography are tolerably unanimous in their opinions, that VETULONIUM was situated in the neighbourhood of Populonia. Dionysius mentions it as a large city, which carried on war against Rome, while Livy does not notice it either in the first decad, where he describes the great Etruscan war, or in his account of the Hannibalian war, or in any other place. It must accordingly have disappeared at a time of which we know nothing. There exist coins with Etruscan inscriptions, which unquestionably belong to Vetulonium. In a forest near Populonia large ruins are found, which have been assigned to Vetulonium, but this is a mere conjecture, and nothing can be said with any degree of certainty about the situation of the place. I have often thought, that it might possibly be Orviedo which was called _Urbs vetus_ as early as the eighth century. However, the place has entirely disappeared, and all that is said about it rests on mere conjecture.

There now follow RUSELLAE and COSSA, the latter of which, as I have already observed, was probably not an Etruscan town; at a later time it received a Latin colony.

TARQUINII appears in our histories as an Etruscan town, but that in the most ancient times it was a real Tyrrhenian place, is attested by the tradition of its having been founded by Thessalians; the name Tarchon, which is mentioned as archegetes and is connected with Telephus, points in the same direction. At the time when Tarquinii is drawn into the traditions about Rome, and connected with Tarquinius Priscus, it probably is still a Tyrrhenian town. In the war with Pyrrhus, Tarquinii, like nearly all the Etruscan towns, formed an alliance with Rome in a general peace, of which I shall speak in the third volume of my History of Rome. By this peace the Etruscan towns were placed in a relation to Rome quite different from that of the other towns of Italy, because the Romans were anxious to gratify their wishes in order to prevent their forming connections with Pyrrhus. This is one of the occurrences where Providence directly interferes in the affairs of the world for the purpose of saving a state from destruction. Such also was the peace between Russia and Turkey in 1812, whereby the French army was prevented from retreating to Turkey, and was thus left to its fate. In like manner, Soltikoff, after the battle of Kunersdorf, ordered his troops to stand still. The determination of the Etruscan towns to accept the peace of the Romans forms a similar turning point in ancient history. After this, Tarquinii remained faithful to Rome, until it disappeared in the time of the Roman emperors. In the age of Cicero it still existed; in the war of Sulla it was probably not destroyed, though severe sufferings may have been inflicted upon it. The site which it once occupied, the modern Corneto, is remarkable for the monuments which are discovered there, and are more numerous than in any other place of Etruria. They are made of clay, and are of a very peculiar character, approaching the Grecian style, while those found in the interior of Etruria are altogether different in workmanship from Greek monuments. The decay of Tarquinii must perhaps be ascribed to the choking up of its good harbour, and to the rise of _Centumcellae_, one of the few places in Italy the origin of which belongs to a late period. Until the time of Trajan no town existed there; it was only a summer palace of the emperor with a mineral spring, for that volcanic region contains many hot springs. Trajan, who in general did much to promote the navigation of the Italians, built a harbour there, and constructed the _molo_ which still forms the harbour of Civita Vecchia; and near it arose the town which received its name of Centumcellae from the imperial palace. The town continued to increase in importance, especially during the period of the decay of the empire, when the Portus of Rome became more and more filled up, while that of Centumcellae was capable of receiving larger ships. The Saracens took the place, but the inhabitants withdrew, and built in the interior of the country the town of _Leopolis_, named after pope Leo IV. When, in consequence of the victory of Ostia, the danger of the Saracens was removed, the inhabitants of Centumcellae returned, and from that time the town has been called _Civita Vecchia_. It is, therefore, not an Etruscan, but a Roman town.

CAERE with the port towns of _Fregenae_, _Alsium_, and _Pyrgi_, was situated nearer the mouth of the Tiber. Caere was anciently called _Agylla_, and as such it is said to have been Pelasgian or Thessalian: it is, moreover, expressly mentioned that the town was taken by the Etruscans. As later writers believed in the Lydian origin of the Etruscans, this misunderstanding gave rise to the account that Agylla was taken by the Lydians. Agylla existed as a Tyrrhenian town until a very late period. In the account of Herodotus, where the Phocaeans settle in Corsica, and are attacked and expelled by the Carthaginians and Agyllaeans, Agylla does not yet appear as an Etruscan town. When the Agyllaeans, after treating their captives treacherously, had experienced the wrath of heaven, they consulted the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, which no Etruscan town ever did; they, moreover had a _thesaurus_ at Delphi, and the mention of _thesauri_ there does not go farther back than the fortieth Olympiad. It must therefore have been after this time that the Etruscans advanced into those districts. The names of Pyrgi and Alsium also attest their Tyrrhenian origin. It is probable, lastly, that Caere, because of its Tyrrhenian origin, was on such friendly terms with Rome, that during the Gallic calamity the Romans carried their sacred treasures in safety to Caere. Afterwards they were involved in a protracted war with each other; a truce was concluded and renewed from time to time, until Caere gradually entered the general relation in which the Etruscan towns stood to Rome. In this condition, we find Caere in the time of the Hannibalian war. Afterwards it is no longer mentioned, except that we find it entered as a Marian colony in the lists of colonies drawn up by Hyginus and Frontinus.

VEII was situated not quite ten English miles from Rome. Its circumference, according to Dionysius, was like that of Rome under Servius Tullius, and the same as the ancient Attic ἄστυ. However, it is scarcely credible that Dionysius should have possessed such accurate information about a town which had been razed to the ground long before his own time. It is well known, that Veii was destroyed by the Romans even before the Gallic period, because the plebeians had declared that they would emigrate to Veii, if the patricians thought them unworthy of being members of the same state. For this reason, the patricians and the senate systematically destroyed the place. Its site is undoubted, but scarcely any traces of Etruscan remains are found there. In the reign of Tiberius, we find it mentioned as a military colony, but we do not know when or how it was constituted as such. About thirty years ago, excavations were made on the spot, and some beautiful works of art, and among them a very fine statue of Tiberius, were discovered; but most of the things found there are not above mediocrity, and all the inscriptions refer to the restoration of the place by Tiberius. Henceforth, and down to the overthrow of the western empire, Veii remained a small country town in the neighbourhood of the capital. A bishop of Veii occurs as late as the fifth century. It is quite in accordance with the natural course of things, that places which were great before Rome rose to eminence, and for a time her equals, were in the end subdued and perished in the wars with their rival. In places of this kind a new population gradually sprang up, and corporations were formed which were nothing else but military colonies, and could not last long, as most of the men were unmarried. Such a population was generally of the worst kind, consisting of inn-keepers, carters, and the like; the places were in reality suburbs of Rome, though at a considerable distance from it.

CAPENA was about the same distance from Rome as Veii; it is mentioned in the earlier times, but afterwards completely disappears, and its inhabitants, according to all appearances, were removed to Rome after the Punic war. SUTRIUM and NEPET were for a long time the frontier towns of Etruria towards the territory of Rome.

VULSINII, situated on lake Bolsena, was one of the largest Etruscan towns. When after the Gallic war we find Etruria in arms, we must suppose that the Vulsinians were the soul of those undertakings. They were involved in hostilities with Rome even before the Gallic war; afterwards they are, for a time, not mentioned at all, whence their relations with Rome seem to have ceased; the frontier heights between Rome and Etruria were allowed to grow wild and to become covered with an impenetrable forest, as has been the case in modern times in the neighbourhood of Licca, on the frontier between Croatia and Turkish Bosnia. This is the _Ciminian forest_, the description of which in Livy is exaggerated in a ridiculous manner; it often happens that his great imaginative power leads him to make descriptions which would be excellent in a novel, but are ludicrous in a work where truth is the object. The history of Vulsinii is remarkable both for its facts and for its fables. It is a fact that ever since A.U. 440, and for a period of thirty years, Vulsinii offered a resistance to the Romans, which larger Etruscan towns recoiled from, and that at length Rome, in the height of her power, when she was the mistress of Italy, with difficulty conquered and then destroyed it. In later times it re-appears, for Sejanus was a native of Vulsinii. Metrodorus of Scepsis says that the real cause of the destruction of Vulsinii was the circumstance that the Romans wanted to obtain possession of 2000 magnificent statues which existed there. This is a fable, and no doubt the view of a Greek, which he attributed to the Romans. The latter were far from attaching such value to works of art; gold and silver were the things they sought after. The real reason was that Vulsinii, by its thirty years’ resistance, had distinguished itself above all Etruscan tribes; and the Romans, therefore, were determined to take the sap out of the tree, so as to prevent its ever growing again. The ancient inhabitants had called in the Romans against their slaves. These slaves, however, must not be understood to have been domestic slaves, but serfs, or the subdued ancient population, whom elsewhere the Etruscan magnates kept in servitude, while the Vulsinians had given them freedom and the franchise. The commonalty, having thus become free, did not stop short there, but, indignant at the ancient wrong done to them, they attacked their former tyrants; they did not, however, expel, but only weakened them. The latter then applied to Rome, and preferred having their town destroyed to living on a footing of equality with the commonalty. The correct spelling of the name is _Vulsinii_ and not _Volsinii_, for, as I have already mentioned, the Etruscans had no _o_; hence we find _Vulsinii_ in the Capitoline Fasti, though in genuine Roman words it is more correct to write _o_ after _v_, as _volnus_ and not _vulnus_.

In the centre of Etruria there was no ruling city, nay, no Etruscan place at all. Augustus established there _Sena Julia_ as a military colony, the sixth legion being stationed there. As there was no road through the centre of the country, but only one along the coast, and another through the eastern part, Augustus made the one running by Aquapendente.

The Etruscan towns in the eastern part of the country were Clusium, Perusia, Cortona (though its Etruscan character is doubtful), Arretium, and Faesulae.

The greatness of CLUSIUM belongs to the most ancient times, for in Roman history it is not of any importance; nor do the Romans mention any ruins of Clusium, for all that is related of the buildings of Porsena, belongs to the domain of fable.

PERUSIA was situated east of Clusium. During the period described in the ninth and tenth books of Livy, Perusia acts the same part as the other Etruscan towns; but after having suffered a defeat, it concluded a truce. The Perusines undertook the war in a foolish manner, and the first reverse discouraged them. Here, too, a military colony was afterwards established, probably by Sulla. The town is remarkable in history for the obstinate resistance it offered to Augustus, as in fact the descendants of Sulla’s soldiers in the military colonies were almost everywhere opposed to the party of Caesar. The town was taken and the most illustrious citizens put to death, or rather butchered, at the altar of Julius Caesar. Afterwards a new military colony was sent thither under the name of _Colonia Julia Augusta Perusina_.

CORTONA, also a military colony, probably likewise founded by Sulla, was situated on a very high hill and in a very strong position. Its ancient walls do not appear to have been particularly strong.

ARRETIUM was more important than Cortona, and probably one of the largest cities of Etruria. Its greatness may be inferred from the fact that in the Hannibalian war it furnished arms for 30,000 men of the army of Scipio. We must not, however, conceive these towns to have been confined to their own territories, but as sovereigns of districts of many square miles, whence they were able to do things which seem to us impossible. Arretium was an industrial place, and rich by its manufactures, especially its potteries, like Staffordshire in England; whence Augustus, in a fragment of a letter to Maecenas, calls him a Tuscan potter. Augustus often tried to be witty, but his witticisms were mostly dull. The pottery of Arretium was highly valued even during the middle ages, though otherwise few collections were made. At present such vessels are extremely rare: I have brought with me from Italy a small piece as a relic, for I am not rich enough to purchase an entire Arretine vase. They are not painted, but have figures, leaves, animals, and the like, in relief, and are of exquisite beauty. Arretium completely shared the fate of Etruria itself. There were three different Arretiums, _vetus_, _fidens_ and _Julium_. Sulla destroyed the city, sold its inhabitants as slaves, and founded in the vicinity a new colony for his soldiers, under the name of _Arretium fidens_. Augustus built _Arretium Julium_ in the neighbourhood of the two others. The modern Arezzo occupies the site of Arretium Julium, whence it contains no Etruscan antiquities; but the Roman town was much more important than the present Arezzo. If systematic excavations were made in the neighbourhood, many things might certainly be discovered. I regret not having visited the Grand Duke of Tuscany, an excellent young man, full of taste for, and appreciation of, knowledge, for I might perhaps have induced him to make excavations, especially near Arezzo and Chiusi.

FAESULAE was situated on a hill above Florence. Florentine traditions call it the metropolis of Florence, which would accordingly be a colony of Faesulae; but a statement in Machiavelli and others describes Florence as a colony of Sulla, and this statement must have been derived from some local chronicle. Faesulae was no doubt an ancient Etruscan town, probably one of the twelve. It was taken in the war of Sulla, and was then in the same desperate condition as Arretium and Volaterrae, both of which were deprived by Sulla of their freedom and territory. Hence a Sullanian colony is mentioned by Cicero as existing there in the war of Catiline. My conjecture is, that Sulla not only built a strong fort on the top of the hill of Faesulae, but also the new colony of Florentia below, and gave to it the _ager Faesulanus_. If this be true, the statement before alluded to would be correct, though we cannot trace it to any authentic source. The Etruscans built their towns on inaccessible hills in order to be able to control their subjects; the Romans not being under this necessity, built their towns in convenient and accessible places, to which they could make roads. Faesulae could not be reached, except on foot or on horseback; no vehicle could get up the hill, whereas the Romans employed many vehicles in the intercourse among the towns. But although Florentia was a colony of Sulla, the _agrimensores_ subsequently describe it as a colony of the triumvirs, and it is indeed possible that not one of the twenty-eight military colonies of Sulla may have been kept up until the time of the triumvirs. This subject is in the greatest confusion, and no one has yet attempted to clear it up. First we have the colonies of the republic, then the military colonies of Sulla, then again a second series of military colonies under Caesar, and lastly those of the triumvirs and Augustus. The earlier colonies lost their character through the Lex Julia, and became municipia; then followed the Sullanian and Julian colonies, so that the same place at three different times may have had three different colonies. This view of the matter makes clear that which Cluver and Cellarius, with all their merits, have left in utter confusion.