Fig. 2.8 Etruscan alphabet.
(M. Pallottino, The Etruscans, p. 259)
Fig. 2.9 Tarquinia: Tomb of Orcus, inscription.
(Corpus Inscriptionum Etruscarum, no. 5360)
In the example just cited, light is thrown on Etruscan political organization by the inscriptions on the fresco, and it is in fact to inscriptions in the Etruscan alphabet ([Fig. 2.8]) that we owe most of what we know about Etruscan politics. For, paradoxically, though Etruscan, as a non-Indo-European language, is technically indecipherable (in the sense that the longest inscriptions in it cannot be entirely translated), valid inferences can be made about some of the short ones. For example, one of the inscriptions on the wall of the Tomb of Orcus at Tarquinia, discovered in 1868 ([Fig. 2.9]), reads in part zilath : amce : mechl : rasnal, at first sight a most unlikely combination of letters. Another Tarquinian inscription, this time from a sarcophagus in the local museum (splendidly installed in the fifteenth century Vitelleschi palace) reads in part zilath rasnas. If we extrapolate from the Roman practice of recording on funerary monuments the official career (cursus honorum) of the deceased (beginning with the highest offices held), it appears likely that the term zilath refers to a magistracy. It occurs often, and, when it occurs in a series, it occurs early; this warrants the inference that it refers to an important magistracy. Certain late Latin inscriptions from Etruria refer to a praetor Etruriae. Might not the zilath be the Etruscan official corresponding to the Roman praetor? This is the more likely since the words rasnal, rasnas closely resemble the word Rasenna, which a Greek historian tells us is what the Etruscans called themselves in their own language. There remains the word mechl. A similar word, methlum, occurs next to the word spur in a curious text, the longest we have in Etruscan, written on the cloth of a mummy wrapping now preserved in the museum of Zagreb, in Jugoslavia. The context appears to list the institutions for whose benefit certain religious ceremonies were performed. Several names of offices are accompanied, and probably modified, by the words spureni, spurana. It looks as if the word means “city.” Suppose the other institution, the methlum, mentioned next to the spur, were of larger size. Might it not be the Etruscan for “League”? The Tomb of Orcus inscription, then, might mean, “He was the chief magistrate of the Etruscan League.” It is by inferences like these that we force a language technically indecipherable to tell us something about the political organization of the mysterious people who spoke and wrote it.
Another example comes from a long inscription on a scroll held in the hands of a sculptured figure on another sarcophagus in the Tarquinia museum. It contains the word lucairce. In the text of the Zagreb mummy-wrapping mention is made of ceremonies celebrated lauchumneti, presumably a noun with an ending showing a place relation, and obviously related in root to lucairce. And both seem connected with the word lucumo, used in Latin to refer to Etruscan chiefs or kings. Lucairce contains the ending -ce which we interpreted on the Tomb of Orcus inscription as verbal; it might mean “was king (or chief).” In that case lauchumneti, with its locative ending, might mean “in the (priest)-king’s house” (Latin Regia). Thus by reasoning from the known to the unknown we can find evidence from the Etruscans themselves that at some stage they were ruled by kings. Since the Tarquinia sarcophagus with the scroll is on the evidence of artistic techniques dated late (second century B.C., a date at which the Roman Republic fully controlled Etruria), we must suppose that by that date the lucumo had been reduced to a mere priestly function, much as in Rome itself the priest who in Republican times discharged the sacred duties once performed by Rome’s kings (reges) was still called the rex sacrorum.
A final example. On Etruscan inscriptions occurs a root purth-, with by-forms purthne, purtsvana, eprthne, eprthni, eprthnevc. This looks like the root which occurs in the name of the king of Clusium, transliterated by the Romans Lars Porsenna, he who in the Lays of Ancient Rome swore by the Nine Gods. The same root probably occurs in the Greek prytanis, which means something like “senator.” Clearly another official of importance is referred to here.
In sum, archaeologists looking for evidence of Etruscan political organization have found such outward signs of pomp as fasces, plus evidence for magistrates resembling the later Roman dictator, praetor, priest-king, senator, and for cities probably combined into a league.
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