Etruscan religion influence on Rome

Keywords: Rjabchikov, archaeoastronomy, writing, solar eclipses, Pythagoras, Greek, Etruscan, Etruria, Egypt, Italy

This paper was first read by the author on the scientific session of the Sergei Rjabchikov Foundation – Research Centre for Studies of Ancient Civilisations and Cultures, January 13, 2014, Krasnodar, Russia.

Funde, Eigennamen und Schriftzeichen beweisen Roms lange Zugehörigkeit zur etruskischen Kultur. Die historisch faßbaren Anfänge des Etruskertums in Italien fallen mit der mythischen  Gründungzeit Roms (datiert auf 753 v. Chr.) zusammen. Die Sage berichtet vom korinthisch-etruskischen Ursprung der letzten römische Könige und von Einfällen der Etrusker unter dem König von Clusium Lars Porsenna nach dem Sturz der Tarquinier.  Die zwei römischen Gründungsmythen, die Äneas- und die Romulus-Sage, bezeugen die enge Verbindung Roms mit den etruskischen Nachbarn. Von den sieben sagenhaften Königen Roms, von Romulus bis Tarquinius Superbus, waren vier etruskischer Herkunft. Romulus ist der mythische Ahnherr der *Ruma, eines aus lat. Roma erschlossenen Geschlechternamens. Die erschlossene etruskische Form von Romulus lautet *Rumle. Von ihm leiten sich auch die Gentilizien Romulius bzw. Romilius ab. Auf die Romulii oder Romilii ist auch die erste der  sechzehn ältesten römischen Landtribus, die Romulia zurückzuführen. Remus gilt als der Ahnherr der Remmii, eines Geschlechts, das es wohl im ältesten Rom gegeben haben muß. Dem Gentilnamen liegt der etruskische Name  Rem-ne oder Rem-ni zugrunde. Von diesem Gentilizium leiten sich in und um Rom die Toponyme Rem-ona und Rem-oria her. Tyrrhener  und Römer wurden von den Griechen häufig synonym benutzt: Tyrrhenoì  è Rhomaîoi („Tyrrhener oder Römer“), ebenso wie Tyrrhenía è Italía. Einige Sprachelemente seien zusätzlich genannt: Im Etruskischen lauten die Namensbezeichnungen für Rom Ruma, für Römer Rumach, für Troja Truia, für Trojaner Truial. In der Frühzeit herrschte ein Priesterkönig (lauchme oder lochume, lat. lucumo) in jeder etruskischen Stadt, ein Titel, der möglicherweise auf die Heilskönige und Richter der nordostgeorgischen Bergstämme verweist, die häufig den Namen Luchumi trugen.

Das etruskische Erbe Roms gelangte erst Jahrhunderte später, während des Humanismus und in der Renaissance wieder zum Vorschein. Bei der Hinwendung zur Antike in der Rinascita spielte in der Toskana und in Latium, vor allem in Florenz und Viterbo, die Etruscheria, die Begeisterung für die Etrusker, eine besondere Rolle. Das Etruskertum diente als Modell gesellschaftlicher Erneuerung und fand Eingang in die kulturellen Programme der Renaissancefürsten, nicht zuletzt  der Medici. Der römische Baumeister Vitruv hatte  in seinem Augustus gewidmeten Werk De architectura  die tuskische Säulenordnung beschrieben. Diese Schrift regte die Renaissancearchitekten Andrea Palladio und Giorgio Vasari an. Der Palladianismus bildet zwei Jahrhunderte später eine der wichtigsten Stilrichtungen des Klassizismus. Durch die Lektüre von Palladio inspiriert, errichtete Thomas Jefferson sein Haus „Monticello“ mit toskanischem Portikus – die  erste toskanische Villa in der Neuen Welt.  Den Etruskern verdankt das  abendländischen Denken  schließlich  eine zentrale Kategorie – die Person.

Reviews:
Journal of Roman Archaeology 31.2 (2018) 563–567 [N. De Grummond]; Etruscan Studies 20.1 (2017) 100–107 [I. Edlund-Berry]; Opuscula Romana 10 (2017) 190–91 [F. Tobin]; American Journal of Archaeology [online] 122.3 (2018) [L. Taylor]; Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2018.04.41 [V. Riedemann Lorca].

Thanks to the increasing multidisciplinary approach to the analysis of votive contexts, a meaningful amount of information about both archaeological finds and associated faunal remains is available, giving way to interpretations about cults and sacrificial practices. This paper deals with the filling of different categories of “cavities” included in Etruscan sacred areas: the deep ones providing a connection with the underworld (mainly holding a primary hydraulic function); the wide ditches and the artificially delimited hollow spaces. In spite of the uneven quality of published data, this paper attempts to discuss and highlight their possible meaning and common distinctive features, taking into account their stratification, the sequence of operations involved and the evidence of specific rituals performed during the definitive land filling.

Updated attached exel file only, 3.09.2024. Updated to include corrections of mirrors. One mirror carries the name TIRANAII (Tyrhenni).  It is the oldest extant document containing the name Herodotus referred to and may predate Herodotus' "Histories." The Etruscan Glossary A spreadsheet presents 2,800 individual words from the major extant Etruscan texts. The texts contain a total word count of 6,000+ words, about 4,000 of which are repetitious. The Etruscan Glossary also sheds light on Etruscan declension and conjugation patterns that are similar to Latin, French & Italian. The glossary accounts for all of the 6,000+ words in the texts, including  the Zagreb Mummy wrapping and important grammatical and mythological data contained in Etruscan mirrors. Each word in the glossary has alphanumeric locators showing exactly where they are used in the cited texts.

The study of the urban alignment of the settlement of Pyrgi and of the arrangement of the sacred areas was favoured by its abandonment after the phase of Romanization and by the possibility of performing large-scale research over its territory. The harbour and the sanctuary of Pyrgi were a fundamental pole of attraction for foreign haunters as the outpost of the metropolis of Caere. Their development was strictly linked to Pyrgi’s favourable geographical position along the Tyrrhenian maritime routes and to the presence of a water spring. The settlement
was founded at the end of the 7th century BC, and was connected to Caere by means of a large road. The excavations conducted since 1957 by the Sapienza University of Rome next to the terminal section of the Caere-Pyrgi road brought to light a large sacred district.
The new excavation area (2009-2016) is located in the district between the sanctuary and the settlement. It includes different buildings datable to 600 BC-4th century BC erected along a pebbled road that departs from Caere-Pyrgi and leads towards the harbour. The buildings, together with votive deposits and a fire-altar, outline a residential quarter that was perhaps attended by a priesthood, where ceremonial practices were also performed. The new evidence can be related to the sanctuary itself and sheds light on its overall organisation. The results of recent fieldwork have also contributed to a better understanding of Pyrgi’s urban alignment, possible defensive systems (suggested by the Greek name Pyrgoi) and the topographic relationship with the later Roman maritime colony. Thanks to the involvement of scholars from different disciplinary fields, wide-range research is being carried out to reconstruct the original
landscape and the evolution of the coastline, with an aim to determining the morphology of the coast and the harbour in the Etruscan period.

of which are reconciled to one another. This latest work is based upon Etruscan GlossaryA.pdf developed from our Indo-European Table 1. General note: The scripts on this page are short texts found on Etruscan mirrors selected from texts on Etruscan Phrases website, incorporated in Etruscan Phrases GlossaryA.xls. The mirrors shown here are the more interesting, from the standpoint of story-telling, as well as in the context of the confirmation of grammatical patterns. Some images are poor and will be improved when possible. The most dominant theme of Etruscan mirrors is the story of Helen of Troy (Homer's Iliad) and what happened to the heroes in and after the Trojan War. The story-line often diverges from that of the Greco-Roman version, remembered from the Etruscan point of view, as opposed to the Greek. Their point of view no doubt relates to the tradition recorded by Herodotus (Herodotus, I.94) that they are descended from a King in Lydia named Atys whose son, Tyrsenus, was selected to lead a group of immigrants to a new home among the Ombrici of southern and central Italy. He led his half of the nation abroad because of a long drought after the Trojan War. Strabo (Strabo 5.2.2) repeats this story. The people Tyrsenus led out of Lydia to Italy were known as the Tyrrheni, and the Tyrrhenian Sea off the coast of northwestern Italy is called after them. They were known as a powerful nation and some of the most feared pirates of their day. And their antiquity is recorded in the ancient myth of Dionysus: The Etruscans are a key to understanding the history that has been passed down to us. They had (no doubt long-standing) trade relationships with Phoenicia and Egypt, as well as Western European Celts and Iberians. They became a center in mining and trading iron and may very well have acquired iron smelting technology from Anatolia. They also were known for their

L'abondance d'ex-voto anatomiques de terre cuite, particulièrement d'ex-voto sexuels, dans les dépôts votifs hellénistiques d'Etrurie a souvent été comprise comme la conséquence du succès du culte d'Esculape à Rome. Pourtant, les attestations du culte de ce dieu sont si rares en Etrurie que cette explication paraît insuffisante pour cette zone géographique. Un autre dieu, Apollon, dont le culte était très populaire en Etrurie et qui possédait des compétences en médecine, pourrait justifier la floraison de corps démembrés de terre cuite en Etrurie.

This work here summarized exposes and documents in multiple cases how preformated Gods organized in two distinct and very precisely typed sets of triads were created at will in archaic Etrusco-Tiberine Italy by/for every social entity of any type and size, from individuals to the most organized State level. Such dual sets of religious figures were systematically devised and set-up in order to symbolically define and delimit how the said social entities integrated into the global social framework. The first triadic set, which we call ‘’ territory-control masculine triad’’, has for typical example* the so-called Roman archaïc triad, three male gods forming a group related to territory control by the said social entity where each one is gifted with differentiated properties associated to a partition of the territory in layers (or concentric circles, see schematic of topological correspondences) from the outer fringe to the most intimate inside, whether ‘’territory’’ is actually of geographical, economic, social, ethnic, or of any other nature. The second triadic set, which we call ‘’populus triadic set’’, has for typical example* the so-called Roman Capitoline triad, one male deity and two female deities, forming a group with collective properties related to the development of the population of the said social entity (the ‘’populus’’) where these deities each exercize specific roles linked in a symbolic logical chain mimicking human biological impregnation. Religious authorities governing the social institutions in Rome continuously adapted the cult framework to new situations created by internal social evolution or as need arose from critical circumstances. They case by case transposed territorial existence problematics and community development dynamics concerns of any level into customized collective metaphysics by creating as needed n-plicate avatars of a unique religious representation of mankind’s condition. This methodology was applied with systematic care to any type of social entity, from single individuals and straight nuclear families up to the entire community federated as the global political body. Hence the social, but as well political, military, civilian organization history, as well as family house-keeping traditions of Rome, can be seen and reinterpreted as threaded with such religious innovations, which can from now on be analysed as structured steps with precise purposes moved by social lobbies or ethnic communities within the Roman society. Clear hints in Etruria and Iguvium indicate that similar socio-religious logics were applied in an Italian scope that went way beyond the sole range of the Roman society, thus raising the question of where the system originates. These two triads are in addition associated to a time-presiding divinity, in charge of the saecula of the entity and supervising the relationship with the divine world, through augury, sortes, or any type of divination. While the triads occupy the city and the equivalent of the capitolium, in a more or less explicitly coupled way depending on the context, the time divinity is clearly separated and placed at the arx (or the closest functional equivalent).

Teckentydare som bad, tänkte och beskådade olika sorters ting för att efter ett bestämt mönster eller på en ingivelse komma fram till vad gudarna ville folket, var det trovärdigt, kunde det vara något att bry sig om, eller sågs de bara som en lustig detalj i samhällsbilden? Det är knappast troligt, för romarna ansåg att etruskerna var det mest religiösa folket av alla. De trodde att de etruskiska prästerna hade förmågor utöver det normala att de genom total koncentration och uppriktig religiös energi kunde få reda på vad som bekymrade gudarna och hur det skulle åtgärdas. Om detta verkligen var fallet, borde varje styrande makt ha önskat deras hjälp, och romarna bör ha skattat sig lyckliga som hade deras förtroende. Men hur kom det sig att ett närbeläget fientligt folk fick tillträde i den romerska religionen, en religion vars främsta uppgift var att beskydda den romerska staten och dess invånare? Vad var det den etruskiska religionen, Etrusca disciplina, innehöll som lockade romarna att bjuda in etruskiska präster, haruspices, att tolka järtecken  åt den romerska senaten?

These texts appear to be of a military nature, with the "soldier's bulla," Script BE, being of particular significance, since it contains the name of a king Merlum whose name also appears in the Zagreb Mummy (Script Z). They are a continuation of our Work Notes on the Etruscan Language at academia.edu.

Il contributo muove dallo studio delle scene figurate del cratere a figure rosse della tomba 6C di Spina: su un lato una serie di Divinità in un contesto delfico e dall'altro una scena pertinente a un tema noto tanto al mito quanto alla tragedia, da identificare con la vicenda di Oreste che uccide sua madre Clitemnestra. Le immagini veicolano un sistema di valori propriamente attico e lo trapiantano su suolo etrusco a Spina.

Etruscan cities facing the sea-Caere, Tarquinia, Vulci, Populonia, and Pisa-as well as those located farther inland, such as Roselle, Vetulonia, and Volterra, rose, except for Populonia, on raised mounds or spurs at a certain distance from the sea, with which they were connected by watercourses. Along the coast of southern Etruria, harbors exploited the presence of lagoons and other natural basins connected with the sea. Rivers mouths provided good shelter for ships and boats; rivers also penetrate inland and thus are useful as navigation channels. Settlements at river mouths developed from the seventh century BCE onward, following the main stream of urbanism. Trading posts were thus located outside the biggest urban centers but dependent on them, so that a binomial relationship was created between inland "powers" and specialized places on the coast, called “ports of trade” or emporia. The concept ofharbor is denoted in Greek sources with terms like limen (harbor environment), or hormos and epineion (anchorage, inner harbor). Technical literature in Latin oflater periods, especially portolans (pilot's books including nautical maps) and Itineraria, distinguishes between portus (an artificially protected area with installations easing ships’ access; cf. Vitr. 5.12.1), and statio or positio navium (minor landing site) and refilgium (small berthing place). According to literary sources of the Roman period, along the Etruscan Tyrrhenian coast there were twenty-eight landing sites at regular distances of around four to eight kilometers from Porta to the mouth of the Fiora River. The problem of identifying the named sites is not completely solved, because of coastal variation, the dearth of archaeological evidence, and frequent errors in the transcription of distances. It is not simple to distinguish archaeologically between landing sites and constructed harbors, although we know that ancient seafaring did not need specially built berths or docks. It seems certain that harbor settlements that already existed in the sixth century BCE, such as Pyrgi, Castrum Novum, Gravisca, Regae, Orbetello, Talamone, Populonia, and Pisa, differed in importance from the sites at the mouths of rivers that were natural berthing places. One may identify some recurrent elements. First of all, the choice of site, which was almost always the mouth of a river or a lagoon in the absence of a bay. In comparison with other areas of the ancient world, major Etruscan cities did not rise on the coast, although each had its own port(s) to which it was connected by a highway. Another remarkable element is the frequent close relationship between such epineia and extra-urban sanctuaries, both of which are direct expressions of the power of the city with respect to the external world.

As part of the Roman religion, the prodigies represented an important role closely linked to the fear they caused to be understood as manifestations of gods with negative character. These were understood to be produced only when humans had taken any action for which they were responsible and that had angered some particular deity, must be atoned for as soon as possible based on rituals perfectly set. The Romans suffered defeats at the hands of Hannibal only understood by them as produced by the loss of the favor of the gods, and in their search to confirm there were reports of numerous miracles which were recorded by Livy.

In chapter V 12 of his Attic Nights Aulus Gellius discusses two Old Latin theonyms Diovis (later Iovis) and Vediovis (later Veiovis), explaining the latter deity as a negative variant of the former one. He cites three different functions of the Latin prefix ve- (i.e. the augmentative, the diminutive and the privative one). According to the ancient writer, the Roman god Ve(d)iovis represented a young version of Jove and therefore the diminutive sense of the prefix ve- should be recommended. The present author suggests that the privative meaning (‘not-Jove’) seems more applicable for explaining the noxious character of Vediovis.

Giovedì 14 aprile alle ore 15,30 alla Sapienza presso l'odeion del Museo dell'arte Classica verrà presentato il volume "Le lamine d'oro a cinquant'anni dalla scoperta. Dati archeologici su Pyrgi nell'epoca di Thefarie Velianas e rapporti con altre realtà del Mediterraneo" (Scienze dell'Antichità 21.2, 2015). Il volume raccoglie gli atti di un convegno tenutosi in occasione del cinquantesimo anniversario della eccezionale scoperta – una delle maggiori del XX secolo – avvenuta l’8 luglio 1964 presso il santuario etrusco di Pyrgi nel corso degli scavi dell'Università di Roma condotti da Massimo Pallottino. I testi in etrusco e in fenicio iscritti sulle tre lamine d’oro (fine VI sec. a.C.) celebrano la dedica del santuario alla dea Uni/Astarte da parte del “tiranno” di Caere Thefarie Velianas. Introduce Enzo Lippolis, Direttore del Dipartimento di Scienze dell'Antichità, presentano il volume Giuseppe Sassatelli (Università di Bologna) e Carmine Ampolo (Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa).

The Etruscan diviners known as haruspices, specialised in practices such as the reading of entrails and the interpretation of lightning omens, represent in many ways an anomaly in Republican Roman religion. Markedly ethnically distinct, regarded as reliable by virtue of their Etruscan origin, they were never fully integrated in the official Republican religious system, yet the Senate demonstrated an interest in their recruitment and education, and consulted them officially in times of crisis, not differently from the augures. Depictions of haruspices in Roman literature vary greatly: some authors treat them with respect and deference, others regard them as little more than charlatan, and Cicero appears to adopt either perspective in turn. Roman generals and politicians were followed on campaign by their own haruspices, and the nobility of Etruria celebrated its adherence to their tradition. This paper proposes to take a closer look at the evolution of representations of haruspices in Rome and Etruria in the Republican period, addressing the literature, epigraphy, and archaeology in order to better understand the real role these diviners played, as well as the changing perceptions Romans had of them. It will also address the role Etruscans, or individuals of purported Etruscan origins, had in building the 'official' image of haruspices in Rome, and selecting which elements of their religious tradition were adopted in Roman practice. Through a detailed analysis of the activity of the haruspices in the Middle and Late Republic, it will aim to understand the unique development of a religious body solidly grounded in a non-Roman tradition but profoundly shaped by Roman domination and influence.

La plupart des haruspices connus nommément sont appelés dans les textes anciens haruspices sans précision de leur cadre d'activité. L'auteur propose donc des critères aptes à opérer une distinction entre haruspices publics et privés, tout en précisant qu'ils ne sont pas applicables à toutes les situations. Les frontières entre haruspicines publique et privée s'avèrent plus mouvantes que les témoignages littéraires ne pourraient le faire croire. Abstract Most of the haruspices known by their names are called haruspices in ancient texts without more detail concerning their framework. Therefore the author proposes some suitable criteria to distinguish between private and public haruspices, even if they do not fit every kind of situation. The limits between public and private haruspices appear to be more shifting than one may be led to believe by literary testimonies.