Fig. 29. HEAD OF ARNTH VELCHAS’ WIFE FROM THE TOMBA DELL’ ORCO
Fig. 30. BACK WALL IN THE TOMBA DEL VECCHIO
Generally speaking, what has made doubt or error possible in the matter is the fact that the pictures, as we have already said, in form suggest Greek pictures of hetaerae; symposia of any other kind between men and women were unknown in Hellas. And to what extent the influence of Greek art has prevailed is shown by the picture of a momentary phase of emotion in the Tomba Querciola, where a couple reclining on the couch are kissing each other, a motive as suitable to a Greek hetaera picture as it is incongruous in a picture representing family life after death.[60] Another source of error is the pronounced sensualism of these pictures; in a sepulchral painting as early as the sixth century, the main picture of the Tomba del Vecchio, we see on a banqueting-couch, under the wreaths and chaplets with bells hanging on the wall, a hoary old roué in vivacious conversation with his beautiful young wife who holds a garland, a hypothymis, under his nose ([fig. 30]).[61] This picture is typically Etruscan in its combination of wine and love. ‘As soon as we had eaten,’ sings the Greek poet Dromon,[62] ‘the slave girl removed the tables; one brought us water for washing, and we washed ourselves; then we seized again the wreaths of violets and bound our brows with garlands.’ The Etruscans seem to have followed the Greek rules minutely, but like the Egyptians they let the free-born women partake of the festivity of the symposium itself.
XI
SYMPOSIA
But we can go still further and establish beyond the possibility of doubt that where men alone are gathered at the symposium of eternity, the pictures represent the heads of the families who ordered the tombs and had them decorated. To be sure, the pictures of the sixth and the beginning of the fifth centuries do not give us any information as to this—even the symposium in the Tomba delle Bighe is without inscription; but in this respect also the sepulchral paintings become more communicative after the middle of the fifth century. In the Tomba Golini at Orvieto, discovered in 1863 and called after its discoverer, and, to judge from its style, contemporary with the Tomba degli Scudi and the front chamber of the Tomba dell’Orco, we see in the symposium on the back wall ([fig. 31]) two men on the same couch drinking to the accompaniment of the two familiar musicians. Beneath the couch we can make out dimly a servant, and a hunting leopard, probably feeding; both have their names attached: that of the animal is Kankru. In Egyptian reliefs also, dating from the Fifth Dynasty, we occasionally find names attached to the domestic animals depicted, for instance ducks and pigeons.