VIII
PALAESTRA LIFE
We will not dwell on all the forms of wrestling contests and boxing matches which appear in the small frieze of the Bighe tomb, but only describe a part of the left main wall, which presents an important and difficult problem ([fig. 22]). To the left of a young man in a himation (not reproduced) we see the lower part of a statue of a deity, who would seem, from the faint traces in Stackelberg’s water-colour, to have wings on his ankles. If so, it is Hermes, the protector of the palaestra, and the black object in front of him is a small altar. On the other side of the altar a boy, accompanied by one of the caretakers of the palaestra, clad in a blue mantle and carrying a knotted stick, is standing with his hand raised. This usually indicates the adorer praying to the divinity for victory in the contest. An absolutely Greek palaestra interior! We have now escaped from the sphere of the customary rude games held at the Etruscan funerals, and the question arises whether the Etruscan knew real palaestra life of the Greek type or not. In the Oscan towns of Lucania and Campania the youths were devoted to Greek sports, and Weege is therefore inclined, in view especially of this picture, to believe the same of the nobles of Etruria at the height of their glory in the sixth and fifth centuries B.C. But this is a dangerous inference. Wherever else we meet with Etruscan athletic types they are rough and lumbering of build and evidently professionals. In the Tomba delle Bighe a Greek artist has been at work; this was already admitted by Stackelberg and Kestner, and the same view is held in our own times. Although the artist has complied with the demands of his patron more fully than the Greek artist in the Tomba del Barone, who only troubled himself to do so as far as dress was concerned, but for the rest painted entirely in the spirit of his native country, Greek influence, nevertheless, has penetrated everywhere. It is seen, for instance, in the incongruities of the picture: the spectators in the corners, suggesting actual athletic games; then this interior from a Greek palaestra, which might be interpreted, however, as part of a public contest; next comes the prize table, as in the Tomba della Scimmia, but on both sides himation-clad boys are seen, loitering like typical figures of the everyday life of the palaestra, who have absolutely nothing to do with the concentrated excitement of the sports in the arena. To the left of the low table we see a little armed dancer, with helmet, shield, and spear, in Greek nudity, not fully dressed like the gladiator in the Tomba della Scimmia; his lance is bent zigzag-wise, apparently an Etruscan peculiarity. With the Greeks also, the armed dance—the pyrrhiche—formed part of the sepulchral festival, especially in Cyprus and Crete, where it was called prylis;[41] and the custom may very well have been adopted by the Etruscans.
IX
TOMBA DELLE BIGHE SYMPOSIUM
Similar incongruities, due to Greek artists, or at any rate Greek art, having set a Greek stamp on the wall-painting of Etruria, meet us in the representations of symposia. Again we can take the Bighe tomb as our starting-point ([fig. 23]).[42] Three festive couches are seen with two young men on each. The youths are naked to the waist, and have sumptuous gold necklaces, red or blue mantles, and chaplets on their heads. Some of them hold flat drinking-bowls, some eggs, and others have branches in their hands—all this, however, we only learn from the old copies: they are reclining on metal couches, whereas the tables in front of them are wooden, as is clearly proved by the colours employed. We may wonder that the couches are of metal, for according to the literary tradition the first metal couches came to Rome as late as 187 B.C. Nevertheless, ivory and golden couches are already mentioned by Plautus; this may, however, be due to the Greek text on which he based his comedy (Stichus 377). The Etruscans, at any rate, knew bronze couches at least three hundred years earlier, and this is corroborated by the find of an actual bronze banqueting-couch in a tomb at Corneto.[43] The couches are covered with many-coloured woven or embroidered bolsters and cushions; these also are mentioned in the Roman comedies as ornaments of couches.[44] Ducks appear beneath the couches, and the guests are attended by three naked lads: a flute-player, a boy holding a branch, and another with a ladle, which are wrongly reproduced in the Ny Carlsberg facsimile as a staff.
The symposium has begun, the tables having been cleared. Only young beardless men are seen feasting together, and nothing informs us who they are or why they are drinking. All that is certain is the luxury and pomp which seem to have characterized Etruscan houses and which are especially manifest in the jingling necklaces and the material and appointment of the festive couch.
