In the earlier part of her career Rome was an Etruscan city under Etruscan kings and institutions. After she had emancipated herself from their yoke, Etruria long remained her equal and her rival in political power, and her instructress in religion and the arts of peace. This continued so long, and the architectural remains of that people are so numerous, and have been so thoroughly investigated, that we have no difficulty in ascertaining the extent of influence the older nation had on the nascent empire. It is more difficult to ascertain exactly who the Etruscans themselves were, or whence they came. But on the whole there seems every reason to believe they migrated from Asia Minor some twelve or thirteen centuries before the Christian era, and fixed themselves in Italy, most probably among the Umbrians, or some people of cognate race, who had settled there before—so long before, perhaps, as to entitle them to be considered among the aboriginal inhabitants.
It would have been only natural that the expatriated Trojans should have sought refuge among such a kindred people, though we have nothing but the vaguest tradition to warrant a belief that this was the case. They may too from time to time have received other accessions to their strength; but they were a foreign people in a strange land, and scarcely seem ever to have become naturalised in the country of their adoption. But what stood still more in their way was the fact that they were an old Turanian people in presence of a young and ambitious community of Aryan origin, and, as has always been the case when this has happened, they were destined to disappear. Before doing so, however, they left their impress on the institutions and the arts of their conquerors to such an extent as to be still traceable in every form. It may have been that there was as much Pelasgic blood in the veins of the Greeks as there was Etruscan in those of the Romans; but the civilisation of the former had passed away before Greece had developed herself. Etruria, on the other hand, was long contemporary with Rome: in early times her equal, and sometimes her mistress, and consequently in a position to force her arts upon her to an extent that was never effected on the opposite shore of the Adriatic.
Temples.
Nothing can prove more clearly the Turanian origin of the Etruscans than the fact that all we know of them is derived from their tombs. These exist in hundreds—it may almost be said in thousands—at the gates of every city; but no vestige of a temple has come down to our days. Had any Semitic blood flowed in their veins, as has been sometimes suspected, they could not have been so essentially sepulchral as they were, or so fond of contemplating death, as is proved by the fact that a purely Semitic tomb is still a desideratum among antiquaries, not one having as yet been discovered. What we should like to find in Etruria would be a square pyramidal mound with external steps leading to a cella on its summit; but no trace of any such has yet been detected. Their other temples—using the word in the sense in which we usually understand it—were, as might be expected, insignificant and ephemeral. So much so, indeed, that except from one passage in Vitruvius,[[158]] and our being able to detect the influence of the Etruscan style in the buildings of Imperial Rome, we should hardly be aware of their existence. The truth seems to be that the religion of the Etruscans, like that of most of their congeners, was essentially ancestral, and their worship took the form of respect for the remains of the dead and reverence for their memory. Tombs consequently, and not temples, were the objects on which they lavished their architectural resources. They certainly were not idolaters, in the sense in which we usually understand the term. They had no distinct or privileged priesthood, and consequently had no motive for erecting temples which by their magnificence should be pleasing to their gods or tend to the glorification of their kings or priests. Still less were they required for congregational purposes by the people at large.
The only individual temple of Etruscan origin of which we have any knowledge, is that of Capitoline Jupiter at Rome.[[159]] Originally small, it was repaired and rebuilt till it became under the Empire a splendid fane. But not one vestige of it now remains, nor any description from which we could restore its appearance with anything like certainty.
From the chapter of the work of Vitruvius just alluded to, we learn that the Etruscans had two classes of temples: one circular, like their structural tombs, and dedicated to one deity; the other class rectangular, but these, always possessing three cells, were devoted to the worship of three gods.
167. Plan and Elevation of an Etruscan Temple.
The general arrangement of the plan, as described by Vitruvius, was that shown on the plan above (Fig. 1), and is generally assented to by all those who have attempted the restoration. In larger temples in Roman times the number of pillars in front may have been doubled, and they would thus be arranged like those of the portico of the Pantheon, which is essentially an Etruscan arrangement. The restoration of the elevation is more difficult, and the argument too long to be entered upon here;[[160]] but its construction and proportions seem to have been very much like those drawn in the above diagram (Fig. 2). Of course, as wooden structures, they were richly and elaborately carved, and the effect heightened by colours, but it is in vain to attempt to restore them. Without a single example to guide us, and with very little collateral evidence which can at all be depended upon, it is hardly possible that any satisfactory restoration could now be made. Moreover, their importance in the history of art is so insignificant, that the labour such an attempt must involve would hardly be repaid by the result.
The original Etruscan circular temple seems to have been a mere circular cell with a porch. The Romans surrounded it with a peristyle, which probably did not exist in the original style. They magnified it afterwards into the most characteristic and splendid of all their temples, the Pantheon, whose portico is Etruscan in arrangement and design, and whose cell still more distinctly belongs to that order; nor can there be any doubt that the simpler Roman temples of circular form are derived from Etruscan originals.[[161]] It would therefore be of great importance if we could illustrate the later buildings from existing remains of the older: but the fact is that such deductions as we may draw from the copies are our only source of information respecting the originals.