Post by Julia Gaia on Dec 31, 2007 16:44:25 GMT -5
The Etruscan Empire
History
The mining and commerce of metal, especially copper and iron, led to an enrichment of the Etruscans and to the expansion of their influence in the Italian peninsula and the western Mediterranean sea. Here their interests collided with those of the Greeks, especially in the sixth century BC, when Phoceans of Italy founded colonies along the coast of France, Catalonia and Corsica. This led the Etruscans to ally themselves with the Carthaginians, whose interests also collided with the Greeks.
Around 540 BC, the Battle of Alalia led to a new distribution of power in the western Mediterranean Sea. Though the battle had no clear winner, Carthage managed to expand its sphere of influence at the expense of both the Etruscans and the Greeks, and Etruria saw itself relegated to the northern Tyrrhenian Sea.
From the first half of the fifth century, the new international political situation meant the beginning of the Etruscan decline. In 480 BC, Etruria's ally Carthage was defeated by a coalition of Magna Graecia cities led by Syracuse. A few years later, in 474, Syracuse's tyrant Hiero defeated the Etruscans at the Battle of Cumae. Etruria's influence over the cities of Latium and Campania weakened, and it was taken over mostly by the Romans.
Mythology and Believes
The Etruscan system of belief was an immanent polytheism; that is, all visible phenomena were considered to be a manifestation of divine power and that power was subdivided into deities that acted continually on the world of man and could be dissuaded or persuaded in favor of human affairs. Three layers are evident in the extensive Etruscan art motifs. One appears to be divinities of an indigenous nature: Catha and Usil, the sun, Tivr, the moon, Selvans, a civil god, Turan, the goddess of love, Laran, the god of war, Leinth, the goddess of death, Maris, Thalna, Turms and the ever-popular Fufluns, whose name is related in some unknown way to the city of Populonia and the populus Romanus. Perhaps he was the god of the people.
Ruling over this pantheon of lesser deities were higher ones that seem to reflect the Indo-European system: Tin or Tinia, the sky, Uni his wife (Juno), and Cel, the earth goddess. In addition the Greek gods were taken into the Etruscan system: Aritimi (Artemis), Menrva (Minerva), Pacha (Bacchus). The Greek heroes taken from Homer also appear extensively in art motifs.
The Etruscans believed in intimate contact with divinity. They did nothing without proper consultation with the gods and signs from them. These practices, which we would view as superstition, were taken over in total by the Romans. A god was called an ais (later eis) which in the plural is aisar. Where they were was a fanu or luth, a sacred place, such as a favi, a grave or temple. There one would need to make a fler (plural flerchva) "offering".
Like the Egyptians, the Etruscans believed in eternal life, but prosperity there was linked to funereal prosperity here. The tombs in many cases were better than many houses, with spacious chambers, wall frescoes and grave furniture.
Like the Egyptians, the Etruscans believed in eternal life, but prosperity there was linked to funereal prosperity here. The tombs in many cases were better than many houses, with spacious chambers, wall frescoes and grave furniture.
Society in Etrusca
The Etruscan name of the family was lautn. At the center of the lautn was the married couple, tusurthir. The Etruscans were a monogamous society that emphasized pairing. The lids of large numbers of sarcophagi (for example, the "Sarcophagus of the Spouses") are adorned with sculpted couples, smiling, in the prime of life (even if the remains were of persons advanced in age), reclining next to each other or with arms around each other. The bond was obviously a close one by social preference.
Some practices, such as homosexuality and prostitution, exist within every society. Similarly the behavior of some wealthy women (or others neither wealthy nor publicised) is not uniquely Etruscan. The apparent promiscuous revelry has a spiritual explanation. Swaddling and Bonfante (among others) explain that depictions of the nude embrace, or symplegma, "had the power to ward off evil", as did baring the breast, which was adopted by western civilization as an apotropaic device, appearing finally on the figureheads of sailing ships as a nude female upper torso.
Kinship is defined with relation to the ego, or "I". I then may state whatever "I" am or you are to me. Females could state that they were the daughter of a father, sec or sech, and the wife of a husband, puia. Conversely, a man was never described as a husband of a woman. Etruscan society therefore was patrilineal and probably egalitarian.
Kinship among the Etruscans was vertical, or generational. They kept track of six generations. In addition to the mi (“I”) an individual recognized a clan (“son”) or a sec (“daughter”), a neftú (“grandson”), and a prumaths (“great-grandson”). Every self had an apa and ati (“father” and “mother”) and relatives older than they.
A division of relatives as maternal or paternal seems to have existed: the apa nachna and the ati nachna, the grandfather’s and grandmother’s relatives. On the level of the self, the lack of any words for aunt, uncle or cousins is notable. Very likely, apa was a generational word: it meant father or any of father’s male relatives. Similarly, ati would have meant any female relative of mother’s age or generation. Ruva (“brother”) is recognized, but no sister. It's possible, though hard to determine, that ruva had a broader meaning of "any related male of the self’s generation".
This horizontal telescoping of relatives applies indirectly to the self as well. The telals are the grand offspring, either male or female, of the grandmother, and the papals of the grandfather. It's difficult to determine whether neftú means "grandson" or "nephew" although there could be cross-cultural contamination here with Latin nepôs (< IE *nepôts) which derives from a kinship system of the Omaha type. In the Omaha type, the same word is used for both nephew and grandson but this kinship type does not typically exhibit terminology used for "kin of a particular generation" as suspected in Etruscan kinship terms.
The Etruscans were careful also to distinguish status within the family. There was a step-daughter and step-son, sech farthana and clan thuncultha (although this may in fact mean "first son" based on the root thun- "one"), as well as a step-mother, ativu (literally "little mother"), an adopted son, clanti, and the universal mother-in-law, netei. Other terms were not as high or democratic in status. The system was like that of the Roman. The etera were slaves, or more precisely, foreign slaves. When they had been freed they were lautni (male) or lautnitha (female), freed men or women, who were closely connected to the family and were clients of it in return for service and respect.
Of the several formal kinship classifications, the Etruscan is most like the Hawaiian, which distinguishes sex and generation, but otherwise lumps persons in those classes together. The lack of a sister does not fit; however, the Etruscan dictionary is still in progress. Perhaps one will turn up.
Kinship is defined with relation to the ego, or "I". I then may state whatever "I" am or you are to me. Females could state that they were the daughter of a father, sec or sech, and the wife of a husband, puia. Conversely, a man was never described as a husband of a woman. Etruscan society therefore was patrilineal and probably egalitarian.
Kinship among the Etruscans was vertical, or generational. They kept track of six generations. In addition to the mi (“I”) an individual recognized a clan (“son”) or a sec (“daughter”), a neftú (“grandson”), and a prumaths (“great-grandson”). Every self had an apa and ati (“father” and “mother”) and relatives older than they.
A division of relatives as maternal or paternal seems to have existed: the apa nachna and the ati nachna, the grandfather’s and grandmother’s relatives. On the level of the self, the lack of any words for aunt, uncle or cousins is notable. Very likely, apa was a generational word: it meant father or any of father’s male relatives. Similarly, ati would have meant any female relative of mother’s age or generation. Ruva (“brother”) is recognized, but no sister. It's possible, though hard to determine, that ruva had a broader meaning of "any related male of the self’s generation".
This horizontal telescoping of relatives applies indirectly to the self as well. The telals are the grand offspring, either male or female, of the grandmother, and the papals of the grandfather. It's difficult to determine whether neftú means "grandson" or "nephew" although there could be cross-cultural contamination here with Latin nepôs (< IE *nepôts) which derives from a kinship system of the Omaha type. In the Omaha type, the same word is used for both nephew and grandson but this kinship type does not typically exhibit terminology used for "kin of a particular generation" as suspected in Etruscan kinship terms.
The Etruscans were careful also to distinguish status within the family. There was a step-daughter and step-son, sech farthana and clan thuncultha (although this may in fact mean "first son" based on the root thun- "one"), as well as a step-mother, ativu (literally "little mother"), an adopted son, clanti, and the universal mother-in-law, netei. Other terms were not as high or democratic in status. The system was like that of the Roman. The etera were slaves, or more precisely, foreign slaves. When they had been freed they were lautni (male) or lautnitha (female), freed men or women, who were closely connected to the family and were clients of it in return for service and respect.
Of the several formal kinship classifications, the Etruscan is most like the Hawaiian, which distinguishes sex and generation, but otherwise lumps persons in those classes together. The lack of a sister does not fit; however, the Etruscan dictionary is still in progress. Perhaps one will turn up.
Names
Everyone at all times had a praenomen, or first name, which was a simple descendant of an ancient name, or a compound comprising a meaningful expression. They were marked for gender: aule/aulia, larth/lartha, arnth/arntia. There is no evidence that girls were named for males, as in Roman society; that is, a girl did not take her father's or husband's name. Some names were entirely female.
The nomen gentile, or family name, dates to the orientalizing period. Recorded names are minimally binomial: Vethur Hathisna, Avile Repesuna, Fasti Aneina. Patronyms and other further specifications are added after it: Arnth Velimna Aules, "Arnth Velimna son of Aule." In those contexts double patronymics can be used, naming the father and grandfather: Arnth Velimna Aules clan Larthalisla, "Arnth Velimna son of Aule son of Larth."
The nomen gentile was formed in a number of ways, most often with a -na suffix, -nas in south Etruscan (possibly the genitive case). The suffixed nomen might refer to an individual of the family: Arnth/Arnth-na, spure/spuri-na; or it might be a mythological figure: usil/usel-na; or a geographic location: Velch/Vels-na.
The nomen gentile was an adjective and could be used alone as a noun, the name in this case, as though it were a praenomen. In that case male and female forms appear, perhaps the closest linguistic feature to agreement of gender: a male would be in the vipina family, named after a previous individual, Vipi, but a female in the Vipinei, or a male in the Velthina, named after Vel, and a female in the Veliana. The male and female names refer to the same family.
Probably in deference to Italic, the nomen gentile could also be formed with -ie for males or -i and -a for females, perhaps from Italic -ios or its later form -ius, which can be made feminine: -ia. Typically of Etruscan both suffices can be used together: -na-ie.
Etruscan Cities and Villages
The first Etruscan villages were built from four-sided huts, either rectangular or round, with a very sloping roof (generally in straw or clay). Etruscan towns were different from other Italic settlements in that they were not arranged at random, but followed a precise economical or strategic logic. For example, some towns were sited atop hills, giving strategic control over a large area of land and/or sea. Other towns, like Veii and Tarquinius, arose in especially fertile agricultural territory. Unlike the first Etruscan towns, formed in order to progressively subsume the neighboring villages, settlements begun after 500 BC were carefully chosen not only by strategic and military leaders, but also by the priests who blessed them.
Etruscan towns were mapped out, first tracing with a plough two main perpendicular axes, called the cardo (north-south) and decumanus (east-west), then dividing the four areas thus obtained into insulae using roads running parallel to the cardo and decumanus. This precise city planning is still to be seen today in some towns of ancient Etruria, though it is not unique to Etruria - the idea of a town based on two perpendicular roads was commonly used in Greece and was taken up again in later periods by Rome for its military camps and town (for example, Augusta Praetoria and Augusta Taurinorum, the present-day Aosta and Turin).
The towns were enclosed by thick walls, which (with graves and temples) provide the only evidence for Etruscan stone architecture. Other materials used were clay, tufa and limestone; marble was all but unknown. Towns were entered through gates, of which there were usually seven or four (though some towns had five), with the main ones being at the ends of the decumanus and cardo. At first they were simple lintels, but from the 5th century BC they began to assume the form of artists, built with dry-stone joints between enormous blocks of tufa. Late Etruscan gates, such as the arch of Volterra, were further decorated with friezes and bas-reliefs on their main sections (the keystone and the upper levels). With the growth of Rome's military power, the Etruscan town was progressively assimililated into the Roman world and mentality. In a disadvantageous position (economically, socially, militarily and politically), Etruscan towns were reduced from the beating heart of Mediterranean commerce itself to merely settlement centres directed by an Etrusco-Roman elite which brought an end to an independent Etruscan architectural and artistic tradition.
History
The mining and commerce of metal, especially copper and iron, led to an enrichment of the Etruscans and to the expansion of their influence in the Italian peninsula and the western Mediterranean sea. Here their interests collided with those of the Greeks, especially in the sixth century BC, when Phoceans of Italy founded colonies along the coast of France, Catalonia and Corsica. This led the Etruscans to ally themselves with the Carthaginians, whose interests also collided with the Greeks.
Around 540 BC, the Battle of Alalia led to a new distribution of power in the western Mediterranean Sea. Though the battle had no clear winner, Carthage managed to expand its sphere of influence at the expense of both the Etruscans and the Greeks, and Etruria saw itself relegated to the northern Tyrrhenian Sea.
From the first half of the fifth century, the new international political situation meant the beginning of the Etruscan decline. In 480 BC, Etruria's ally Carthage was defeated by a coalition of Magna Graecia cities led by Syracuse. A few years later, in 474, Syracuse's tyrant Hiero defeated the Etruscans at the Battle of Cumae. Etruria's influence over the cities of Latium and Campania weakened, and it was taken over mostly by the Romans.
Mythology and Believes
The Etruscan system of belief was an immanent polytheism; that is, all visible phenomena were considered to be a manifestation of divine power and that power was subdivided into deities that acted continually on the world of man and could be dissuaded or persuaded in favor of human affairs. Three layers are evident in the extensive Etruscan art motifs. One appears to be divinities of an indigenous nature: Catha and Usil, the sun, Tivr, the moon, Selvans, a civil god, Turan, the goddess of love, Laran, the god of war, Leinth, the goddess of death, Maris, Thalna, Turms and the ever-popular Fufluns, whose name is related in some unknown way to the city of Populonia and the populus Romanus. Perhaps he was the god of the people.
Ruling over this pantheon of lesser deities were higher ones that seem to reflect the Indo-European system: Tin or Tinia, the sky, Uni his wife (Juno), and Cel, the earth goddess. In addition the Greek gods were taken into the Etruscan system: Aritimi (Artemis), Menrva (Minerva), Pacha (Bacchus). The Greek heroes taken from Homer also appear extensively in art motifs.
The Etruscans believed in intimate contact with divinity. They did nothing without proper consultation with the gods and signs from them. These practices, which we would view as superstition, were taken over in total by the Romans. A god was called an ais (later eis) which in the plural is aisar. Where they were was a fanu or luth, a sacred place, such as a favi, a grave or temple. There one would need to make a fler (plural flerchva) "offering".
Like the Egyptians, the Etruscans believed in eternal life, but prosperity there was linked to funereal prosperity here. The tombs in many cases were better than many houses, with spacious chambers, wall frescoes and grave furniture.
Like the Egyptians, the Etruscans believed in eternal life, but prosperity there was linked to funereal prosperity here. The tombs in many cases were better than many houses, with spacious chambers, wall frescoes and grave furniture.
Society in Etrusca
The Etruscan name of the family was lautn. At the center of the lautn was the married couple, tusurthir. The Etruscans were a monogamous society that emphasized pairing. The lids of large numbers of sarcophagi (for example, the "Sarcophagus of the Spouses") are adorned with sculpted couples, smiling, in the prime of life (even if the remains were of persons advanced in age), reclining next to each other or with arms around each other. The bond was obviously a close one by social preference.
Some practices, such as homosexuality and prostitution, exist within every society. Similarly the behavior of some wealthy women (or others neither wealthy nor publicised) is not uniquely Etruscan. The apparent promiscuous revelry has a spiritual explanation. Swaddling and Bonfante (among others) explain that depictions of the nude embrace, or symplegma, "had the power to ward off evil", as did baring the breast, which was adopted by western civilization as an apotropaic device, appearing finally on the figureheads of sailing ships as a nude female upper torso.
Kinship is defined with relation to the ego, or "I". I then may state whatever "I" am or you are to me. Females could state that they were the daughter of a father, sec or sech, and the wife of a husband, puia. Conversely, a man was never described as a husband of a woman. Etruscan society therefore was patrilineal and probably egalitarian.
Kinship among the Etruscans was vertical, or generational. They kept track of six generations. In addition to the mi (“I”) an individual recognized a clan (“son”) or a sec (“daughter”), a neftú (“grandson”), and a prumaths (“great-grandson”). Every self had an apa and ati (“father” and “mother”) and relatives older than they.
A division of relatives as maternal or paternal seems to have existed: the apa nachna and the ati nachna, the grandfather’s and grandmother’s relatives. On the level of the self, the lack of any words for aunt, uncle or cousins is notable. Very likely, apa was a generational word: it meant father or any of father’s male relatives. Similarly, ati would have meant any female relative of mother’s age or generation. Ruva (“brother”) is recognized, but no sister. It's possible, though hard to determine, that ruva had a broader meaning of "any related male of the self’s generation".
This horizontal telescoping of relatives applies indirectly to the self as well. The telals are the grand offspring, either male or female, of the grandmother, and the papals of the grandfather. It's difficult to determine whether neftú means "grandson" or "nephew" although there could be cross-cultural contamination here with Latin nepôs (< IE *nepôts) which derives from a kinship system of the Omaha type. In the Omaha type, the same word is used for both nephew and grandson but this kinship type does not typically exhibit terminology used for "kin of a particular generation" as suspected in Etruscan kinship terms.
The Etruscans were careful also to distinguish status within the family. There was a step-daughter and step-son, sech farthana and clan thuncultha (although this may in fact mean "first son" based on the root thun- "one"), as well as a step-mother, ativu (literally "little mother"), an adopted son, clanti, and the universal mother-in-law, netei. Other terms were not as high or democratic in status. The system was like that of the Roman. The etera were slaves, or more precisely, foreign slaves. When they had been freed they were lautni (male) or lautnitha (female), freed men or women, who were closely connected to the family and were clients of it in return for service and respect.
Of the several formal kinship classifications, the Etruscan is most like the Hawaiian, which distinguishes sex and generation, but otherwise lumps persons in those classes together. The lack of a sister does not fit; however, the Etruscan dictionary is still in progress. Perhaps one will turn up.
Kinship is defined with relation to the ego, or "I". I then may state whatever "I" am or you are to me. Females could state that they were the daughter of a father, sec or sech, and the wife of a husband, puia. Conversely, a man was never described as a husband of a woman. Etruscan society therefore was patrilineal and probably egalitarian.
Kinship among the Etruscans was vertical, or generational. They kept track of six generations. In addition to the mi (“I”) an individual recognized a clan (“son”) or a sec (“daughter”), a neftú (“grandson”), and a prumaths (“great-grandson”). Every self had an apa and ati (“father” and “mother”) and relatives older than they.
A division of relatives as maternal or paternal seems to have existed: the apa nachna and the ati nachna, the grandfather’s and grandmother’s relatives. On the level of the self, the lack of any words for aunt, uncle or cousins is notable. Very likely, apa was a generational word: it meant father or any of father’s male relatives. Similarly, ati would have meant any female relative of mother’s age or generation. Ruva (“brother”) is recognized, but no sister. It's possible, though hard to determine, that ruva had a broader meaning of "any related male of the self’s generation".
This horizontal telescoping of relatives applies indirectly to the self as well. The telals are the grand offspring, either male or female, of the grandmother, and the papals of the grandfather. It's difficult to determine whether neftú means "grandson" or "nephew" although there could be cross-cultural contamination here with Latin nepôs (< IE *nepôts) which derives from a kinship system of the Omaha type. In the Omaha type, the same word is used for both nephew and grandson but this kinship type does not typically exhibit terminology used for "kin of a particular generation" as suspected in Etruscan kinship terms.
The Etruscans were careful also to distinguish status within the family. There was a step-daughter and step-son, sech farthana and clan thuncultha (although this may in fact mean "first son" based on the root thun- "one"), as well as a step-mother, ativu (literally "little mother"), an adopted son, clanti, and the universal mother-in-law, netei. Other terms were not as high or democratic in status. The system was like that of the Roman. The etera were slaves, or more precisely, foreign slaves. When they had been freed they were lautni (male) or lautnitha (female), freed men or women, who were closely connected to the family and were clients of it in return for service and respect.
Of the several formal kinship classifications, the Etruscan is most like the Hawaiian, which distinguishes sex and generation, but otherwise lumps persons in those classes together. The lack of a sister does not fit; however, the Etruscan dictionary is still in progress. Perhaps one will turn up.
Names
Everyone at all times had a praenomen, or first name, which was a simple descendant of an ancient name, or a compound comprising a meaningful expression. They were marked for gender: aule/aulia, larth/lartha, arnth/arntia. There is no evidence that girls were named for males, as in Roman society; that is, a girl did not take her father's or husband's name. Some names were entirely female.
The nomen gentile, or family name, dates to the orientalizing period. Recorded names are minimally binomial: Vethur Hathisna, Avile Repesuna, Fasti Aneina. Patronyms and other further specifications are added after it: Arnth Velimna Aules, "Arnth Velimna son of Aule." In those contexts double patronymics can be used, naming the father and grandfather: Arnth Velimna Aules clan Larthalisla, "Arnth Velimna son of Aule son of Larth."
The nomen gentile was formed in a number of ways, most often with a -na suffix, -nas in south Etruscan (possibly the genitive case). The suffixed nomen might refer to an individual of the family: Arnth/Arnth-na, spure/spuri-na; or it might be a mythological figure: usil/usel-na; or a geographic location: Velch/Vels-na.
The nomen gentile was an adjective and could be used alone as a noun, the name in this case, as though it were a praenomen. In that case male and female forms appear, perhaps the closest linguistic feature to agreement of gender: a male would be in the vipina family, named after a previous individual, Vipi, but a female in the Vipinei, or a male in the Velthina, named after Vel, and a female in the Veliana. The male and female names refer to the same family.
Probably in deference to Italic, the nomen gentile could also be formed with -ie for males or -i and -a for females, perhaps from Italic -ios or its later form -ius, which can be made feminine: -ia. Typically of Etruscan both suffices can be used together: -na-ie.
Etruscan Cities and Villages
The first Etruscan villages were built from four-sided huts, either rectangular or round, with a very sloping roof (generally in straw or clay). Etruscan towns were different from other Italic settlements in that they were not arranged at random, but followed a precise economical or strategic logic. For example, some towns were sited atop hills, giving strategic control over a large area of land and/or sea. Other towns, like Veii and Tarquinius, arose in especially fertile agricultural territory. Unlike the first Etruscan towns, formed in order to progressively subsume the neighboring villages, settlements begun after 500 BC were carefully chosen not only by strategic and military leaders, but also by the priests who blessed them.
Etruscan towns were mapped out, first tracing with a plough two main perpendicular axes, called the cardo (north-south) and decumanus (east-west), then dividing the four areas thus obtained into insulae using roads running parallel to the cardo and decumanus. This precise city planning is still to be seen today in some towns of ancient Etruria, though it is not unique to Etruria - the idea of a town based on two perpendicular roads was commonly used in Greece and was taken up again in later periods by Rome for its military camps and town (for example, Augusta Praetoria and Augusta Taurinorum, the present-day Aosta and Turin).
The towns were enclosed by thick walls, which (with graves and temples) provide the only evidence for Etruscan stone architecture. Other materials used were clay, tufa and limestone; marble was all but unknown. Towns were entered through gates, of which there were usually seven or four (though some towns had five), with the main ones being at the ends of the decumanus and cardo. At first they were simple lintels, but from the 5th century BC they began to assume the form of artists, built with dry-stone joints between enormous blocks of tufa. Late Etruscan gates, such as the arch of Volterra, were further decorated with friezes and bas-reliefs on their main sections (the keystone and the upper levels). With the growth of Rome's military power, the Etruscan town was progressively assimililated into the Roman world and mentality. In a disadvantageous position (economically, socially, militarily and politically), Etruscan towns were reduced from the beating heart of Mediterranean commerce itself to merely settlement centres directed by an Etrusco-Roman elite which brought an end to an independent Etruscan architectural and artistic tradition.
