We now turn to the inscription above the bearded man on the same couch; his name is Arnth Leinies, son of Larth, and descendant of Vel; his official titles follow, and the inscription ends: ‘ru[va] l[ecates velus] amce,’ i. e., was brother of Vel Lecates. Thus we have two brothers reclining on the same couch, and the inscription makes it probable that the other symposiasts, too, are not chance revellers, but members of the same family, united in the picture as they were in life and in the grave.
In the same tomb, to the left of this scene, we see a table, bearing several metal vessels, a thymiaterion, and an ivory box for incense, and flanked by two candelabra with lighted candles stuck into birds’ beaks ([fig. 32]). The Etruscans were considered inventors of the art of candlemaking and taught the Romans to manufacture different kinds of candles, from big wax candles—candelae and cerei—to cheap dips—sebaceae. The Italic peoples used candles and candlesticks until Roman Imperial times, though in the last centuries they also had oil lamps, the manufacture and use of which they had learned from the Greeks; the oldest clay lamps found in the northern part of Italy date from about 300 B.C.[67] To the left of the table is seen a naked slave with a jug and a dish; to the right a young man in a light-coloured, sleeved chiton, who has been conjectured to be another servant. But again the inscription affords positive information: ‘Vel leinies larthial ruva arnthialum clan velusum prumaths avils semphs lupuce’; i.e. ‘Vel Leinies, Larth’s brother, son of Arnth and descendant of Vel; he died (lupuce) at the age of 7.’[68] So the boy is son of the hindmost man on the banqueting-couch and belongs to the noble family interred in the tomb.
XII
Corresponding to the lassoing of the horse in the Tomba del Morente, as a preparation for the chariot race, we find in the Tomba Golini pictures of the preparations for the banquet which is celebrated in the pictures mentioned above. In one of the pictures we see cattle, venison, and poultry hanging in the larder, in another the cooking in the kitchen itself ([fig. 33]); like everything else in Etruria, it is accompanied by the flute. To the left of the flute-player a woman is struggling with a sideboard piled with food; to the right a naked slave with a loin-cloth is working at a small table, using two small implements rather like plummets. Various interpretations have been advanced: that he is kneading dough, or grinding colours; the latter explanation, however, is improbable in a kitchen scene. Besides these Dennis proposes a third possibility—that he is chopping vegetables, but he dares not commit himself to a decision. The table itself, at which the slave is standing, seems to have a raised edge, and thereby recalls the elder Cato’s recipe for the preparation of cheese cakes and puffs[69]: ‘Take a clean table, a foot broad, surround it with an edge (balteus), and then mix honey and cheese on it.’ For puffs, directions are given to belabour the dough with two sticks or staves (rudes). After all the procedure here is somewhat similar, only that the dough is kneaded with pieces of metal and not with staves.
Fig. 33. KITCHEN INTERIOR IN THE TOMBA GOLINI
