Etruscan Chimaera (10469 bytes)

 

orilogo.gif (3142 byte)

The origins of no other people of the antiquity were so debated by modern historiography as in the case of the Etruscans. The reasons of this situation deserve some words of explanation. In the first place we have to mention the interest awaked in ancient Greek historiographers by this nation which, although hellenized,  remained so "different". In the second place the undeniable ethnic, cultural and linguistic dissimilarity of the Etruscans from the other Indoeuropean peoples of Iron Age Italy attracted the attention of the historiographers in the early 19th century. Moreover, the problem of the origins of this people often mingled with the problems of classification and hermeneutics of their language. These are the reasons that gave birth to the myth of the "Etruscan mistery", a sort of devil's kitchen or magician's shop suited for testing all kinds of irrational theories and hypotheses concerning history and linguistics. We have therefore to clear the decks and go back to the real terms of the problem.

Classical historiography is unable to offer any evidence but the mention -- made by Varro -- of a work named Tuscae Historiae, that could have offered a key for a better comprehension of the origins of this people. Unfortunately the Etruscan literature, however great might its value have been, went completely lost in the very moment when the Etruscan language dwindled away and people terminated to copy and to hand down to posterity the works written in a dead language. In the so-called "Tomb of the Reliefs" in Cerveteri, the locus sepulturae of the man is marked with the tokens of masculine role, like the symposiac cup and a large chest locked with a key. On the chest there is a liber linteus, that is a linen book. The linen book is the symbol of both sacerdotal wisdom  and authority of the founder of a family. Only one example of such linen books has been preserved (see under Materials). We have therefore to rely on other sources.

aplveio.jpg (10KB) Apollo of Veio
(detail of the head),


A masterpiece
of the Etruscan art of
archaic age (end of
the VI century B.C.)

(Roma, Museo di
Villa Giulia)

According to the mentality of ancient Greeks, the origins of a polis were seen as the result of a ktisis (=foundation) made by a mythic ecizer (=colonizer) as in the case of Theseus for Athens or Cadmus for Thebes. Much in the same way, they imagined that the origins of the single peoples were due to the migration of an archegétes, i.e. a mythic chieftain.

According to Herodotus (I,94), the Etruscans migrated from Lydia under the leadership of the eponymic king Thyrsenos or Thyrrenos:

"The Lydians have very nearly the same customs as the Greeks, with the exception that these last do not bring up their girls in the same way. So far as we have any knowledge, they were the first nation to introduce the use of gold and silver coin, and the first who sold goods by retail. They claim also the invention of all the games which are common to them with the Greeks. These they declare that they invented about the time when they colonised Tyrrhenia, an event of which they give the following account. In the days of Atys, the son of Manes, there was great scarcity through the whole land of Lydia. For some time the Lydians bore the affliction patiently, but finding that it did not pass away, they set to work to devise remedies for the evil. Various expedients were discovered by various persons; dice, and huckle-bones, and ball, and all such games were invented, except tables, the invention of which they do not claim as theirs. The plan adopted against the famine was to engage in games one day so entirely as not to feel any craving for food, and the next day to eat and abstain from games. In this way they passed eighteen years. Still the affliction continued and even became more grievous. So the king determined to divide the nation in half, and to make the two portions draw lots, the one to stay, the other to leave the land. He would continue to reign over those whose lot it should be to remain behind; the emigrants should have his son Tyrrhenus for their leader. The lot was cast, and they who had to emigrate went down to Smyrna, and built themselves ships, in which, after they had put on board all needful stores, they sailed away in search of new homes and better sustenance. After sailing past many countries they came to Umbria, where they built cities for themselves, and fixed their residence. Their former name of Lydians they laid aside, and called themselves after the name of the king's son, who led the colony, Tyrrhenians."

According to Hellanikos though (apud Dion. Hal. I,28) the Etrurian Thyrrenoí should be identified with the Pelasgians, the mysterious migrating people that, after wandering in the Aegean sea, settled in Etruria.

In the view of Anticlides (apud Strab. V, 2, 4) the Etruscans who arrived in Italy under the leadership of Thyrrenos were Pelasgians and they belonged to the same strain that colonized the Aegean isles of Lemnos and Imbros as well as several sites on the Anatolic seaside. This thesis is reported also in some Rhodian documents going back to the third century BC, thus partially supporting the assumption that the Etruscans might have been one of the Peoples of the Sea (the TRSH) mentioned in the Egyptian sources.

As a matter of fact, the Egyptian inscriptions of Ramses III (1197-1165 BC) relate of the so-called "Peoples of the Sea", i.e. a set of peoples who came from land and sea to invade Egypt. Some of these peoples were known under the same name a couple of centuries before, since they were mentioned among the peoples that supplied mercenary troops to the Pharaoh during the rule of Amenophis III and Merneptah (1413-1220 BC). Some of the "Peoples of the Sea" can be easily identified, as in the case of the Achaei -- called Jqjwsh.w in the inscriptions -- or the Philistines -- called Prst.w. The identification of other peoples is debated, as in the case of the Siculians (Shqrsh.w) and the Sardinians (Shrdn.w). Other peoples can be identified only in a highly hypothetical way. Among the latter ones we find the Trsh.w, to be possibly identified with the Thyrsenoi mentioned by later Greek sources. These hypothetical identifications are questionable, and the question is further complicated by the forms these names assumed in the Egyptian language, thus making the identification even more complex.  For example, the Egyptian name of  the Siculians, i.e. Shqrsh.w, was formerly related both to the Anatolian place-name of Sagalassos and to the name of a misterious Palestinian people named Sikalayu. Even the ethnonym Trsh.w, that is the would-be name of the Etruscans in the Egyptian sources, some researchers related it to the Anatolian place-names of Tarsus and Torrebos. As we see, in the Egyptian sources there is not much to go by.

Common consensus of the ancient historiographers had it that the Etruscans migrated from the Orient, the only disagreement being in the connection with the Lydians or Pelasgians. Dionysius of Halicarnassus represented an exception. He came to Rome in 30 BC and remained there to study the ancient Roman history for twenty-two years. From him we know that the self-denomination of the Etruscans was Rasenna (see the cippus of Cortona, where this name appears as Rashna). This confirms that the denomination by which the Etruscans are known in the Greek sources, that is Thyrsenoí ~ Thyrsanoí or Thyrrhenoi ~ Thyrranoí, is either a translated ethnonym or a name invented by the Greeks. The suffix -eno- is a typical ethnic suffix of the Aegean-Anatolic area.  Dionysius, after examining the opinions expressed by other writers (Dion. Hal. I, 25-30), concludes by stating that the Etruscans are an autochthonous people of Italy. According to Dionysius, this is what the Etruscans themselves told him.

The opinions expresses by the ancient historiographers influenced modern commentators. The ones base their theories on alleged "migratory waves", the others on the "autochthony" of the Etruscans.

The supporters of the eastern origins suppose that the Etruscans came from east in connection with the "oriental" phase of their culture (VII century BC). This hypothesis is untenable from an archaeological point of view, owing to the fact that the "oriental" cultural influx affected both Greece and Etruria in the seventh century. The transition was gradual and diversified from area to area, thus excluding the process of sudden change that would be expected in the case of a migration. Moreover, all the ancient sources univocally confirm that the Etruscans lived in Italy before the historical age.

Another migrationist hypothesis assumes that the Etruscans arrived from the north; this is mainly based on the fact reported by Livius (V, 33, 11), according to whom the Rhaetic population in central and eastern Alps are the relict of an Etruscan people. Yet, Livius talks of a non-migratory relict and namely he mentions the fact that the Rhaetians were separated from the Etruscans as a consequence of the arrival of the Celts.  The archaeological sources, although showing a strict connection between the Etrurian iron culture and Central Europe, do not legitimate the theory of a migration from the north from the very point of view that other Italic and Mediterranean cultures entertained a more or less strict cultural relationship with Central Europe during the Iron Age.

The old autochthonous hypothesis of Dionysius finds an echo in the modern theories of those scholars who think that the Etruscans are a relict of a neolitic Mediterranean people that lived in peace up to the Bronze Age, while the Italic peoples --- who spoke an Indo-European language and used cremation --- should be identified with the proto-Villanova and Villanova culture. This cannot be true though as  the area where the Villanova culture developed overlaps almost perfectly the historical borders of Etruria.

In contradiction with so many theories, there are very few facts. Archaeology shows that there was a cultural continuity from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age. The sudden and spectacular changes that could mark the arrival of a migrating people are lacking. On the other hand, the most ancient literary sources -- as in the case of Dionysius --  do stress the peculiar relationship tying the Etruscans together with Aegean peoples (= Pelasgians) or Anatolian peoples (=Lydians) and relate them to the prae-Greek inhabitants of Lemnos and Imbros. The inscriptions of Lemnos, going back to the period antecedent the Athenian conquest (510 BC) seem to confirm that Lemnian is very similar to Etruscan. 

The Lemnian inscriptions raised once again the entire problem of Etruscan origins. One of the best represented tendencies in Etruscan research is to adopt the most economical thesis: the Etruscans were a non-Indo-European people native to Italy who adopted many items and styles of east Mediterranean provenience by way of trade. Yet, the similarity between Etruscan and the Lemnian inscriptions must be acknowledged and is admittedly difficult to explain. As a consequence of this, another thesis sees both Etruscan and Lemnian as remnants of a continuum of non-Indo-European "Mediterranean" languages which spanned the eastern and central Mediterranean before the intrusion of Indo-European speakers.

There is no easy solution since the evidence is extremely self-contradictory. In my eyes, though, the similarity between Etruscan and Lemnian is too great to be explained by anything else but a more direct and immediate historical connection. It follows from this that Etruscan cannot be considered any more an "isolated" language in the Mediterranean.

 

 

 

THE STELE OF LEMNOS

 

An upright gravestone with inscriptions was found in 1885 at Kaminia, on the island of Lemnos, in the Aegean Sea. This stele, which is dated as having been made in the 6th century B.C., is now in the National Museum in Athens, Greece. The inscription on the tomb-stone has 198 letters forming 33 words and is decorated with the profile of a warrior. The inscription is written in a western Greek runic alphabet phonetically adapted so as to match the same peculiarities of the Etruscan alphabet, the only difference being that the letter o is preserved.

Stele from Lemnos

According to Herodotos, the pre-Greek inhabitants of the island of Lemnos island were Pelasgians while, according to Thucydides, they were Tyrrhenians. In the Greek sources, the name "Tyrrhenoi" was used both for the Etruscans who lived in Middle Italy (in the area from river Macra to river Tiberis) as well as for the Pelasgian inhabitants of the Greek peninsula of Akte, i.e. the founders of the city of Athens who were expelled and moved to Thrakia.

Some scholars assume that Lemnic and Etruscan are genetically or at least typologically related. As a matter of fact, the language of the inscription on this stele shows some morphologic and semantic similarity with Etruscan. This is particularly evident in the numerals and formulas indicating the deceased person's age: compare the Lemnic expression sialxveis avis "aged 40", as it appears on the stele, with the Etruscan expression avils maxs shealxlsc "aged 45".

lemnos2.jpg (48KB)

 

H. H. Scullard wrote:

"[...] the tomb-stone (stele) of a warrior was discovered in 1885, not dissimilar from that of Avele Feluske of Vetulonia in Etruria [...] It not only shows his head in profile, but also bears two inscriptions in an alphabet which closely resembles that of old Phrygian inscriptions of the seventh century. The language has some analogies with the tongues of Asia Minor, but philologists are in general agreement that both in its morphology and vocabulary it has many similarities with Etruscan. When this document stood alone, it might have been dismissed as the epitaph of a foreigner who was buried in Lemnos, but more recently other short inscriptions have been found on vases, and these show that this was in fact the language spoken on the island before its conquest by the Athenian Miltiades (c. 500 BC). Thus we have a very important document, pointing both to Asia Minor and to Etruria, and it comes from the very island where Thucydides placed the Tyrrhenoi. Though it does not afford conclusive proof that 'Lemnian' and Etruscan were the same, or even dialects of the same language, it provides a valuable link for those who accept an eastern origin and suggests that some Etruscans from Asia Minor may have settled in this Aegean island instead of continuing further west. Those who reject an eastern origin have to explain away the similarities of language as due to survival from a hypothetical widespread pre-Indo-European linguistic unit which once occupied a vast area in Italy and the Aegean until it was broken up by the advance of Indo-Europeans: in Italy it was confined to Etruria, while in the Aegean, relics of it were left in Lemnos." (from: Scullard, H. H.: The Etruscan Cities and Rome. Thames & Hudson. 1967)

 

 

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