However that may be, the Etruscans, the acerrimi Tusci of Virgil, were a people of high culture, to whose inventive and progressive genius Rome owed her early steps in arts and arms.[636] A flood of light has been thrown upon this page of proto-historic lore by the extensive excavations of late years in the Emilian country about Bologna, the Felsina or Velsina of Tyrrhenia. My late friend, the learned and lamented Prof. G. G. Bianconi, forwarded to me the accompanying sketch (fig. 202) of an exceptional iron blade found in the ruins of Marzabotto.[637] It is described as follows (p. 3) in a work, printed but not published, by the learned archæologist Count Gozzadini of Bologna, ‘Di ulteriori scoperte nell’ antica necropoli di Marzabotto nel Bolognese’[638]:—
‘Within a cell only thirty centimètres deep, and disposed two mètres distant from one another, lay three skeletons whose heads fronted eastwards. On each was an iron Sword-blade, sixty-two centimètres long by four and a half broad near the tang (spina), and fining off to an olive-leaf point; all have the mid-rib or longitudinal spine. Partly attached by oxidation to one blade is a remnant of the iron scabbard, slightly convex posteriorly and showing in the upper part a rectangular projection, perhaps to carry the hook attached to the balteus. The sheath-front has a mid-rib like the blade, and the wavy mouth is adapted to the Sword-shoulders. On this face only are two buttons (borchie) in high relief, connected by a band (listello). The tang, twelve centimètres long, shows the length of the hilt, which, being made of more perishable material, has altogether disappeared.’
The long narrow rapier-blade with the mid-rib is first seen in the Egyptian bronzes;[639] the step was easy to the harder metal. That the iron form was common in Etruria as its bronze congener at Mycenæ, is proved by the discovery of three in a single tomb; moreover, as has been said, a fourth has been preserved for years in the Marzabotto collection. All are similar in form, which is highly civilised. The number of the blades also suggests that they are of native make, not left by the Boians and the Ligaunians, who, according to the late Prof. Conestabile, may have buried in the Marzabotto cemetery. The date of the latter is somewhat uncertain; but it cannot be much more recent than the burial-ground of Villanova, where Count Gozzadini found an æs rude, and which he dates from the days of Numa, b.c. 700. He is followed by Dr. Schliemann (‘Troy,’ p. 40), and opposed by that learned and practical anthropologist M. Gabrielle de Mortillet (‘Le Signe de la Croix,’ &c. pp. 88–89), who would assign a far earlier epoch.
Count Gozzadini[640] gives a valuable description of a fifth Etruscan Sword lately discovered at the ‘Palazzino’ farm, parish of Ceretolo and commune of Casalecchio, some ten kilomètres south-west of ‘Etruscan Bologna.’ In an isolated tomb, carefully excavated by the proprietor (Marchese Tommaso Boschi), was found a skeleton, the feet fronting southwards. On its left, extending higher than the head, was an iron lance-point,[641] and on the corresponding shoulder a thick armilla of bronze; other objects, including an Etruscan Œnochoe, two knives wholly iron, and a chisel of the same metal, lay scattered about the grave which was not stone-revetted. Close to the right side was an iron Sword in a sheath of the same metal and wanting the heft: the general belief was that the weapon had been buried with the wielder.
Count Gozzadini (pp. 19, 20) describes the Sword as follows: ‘Slightly bi-convex and two-edged, it measures 0·625 mètre from the tang (codolo) to the end of the scabbard; the tang, not including the part forming the grip, was 0·11 mètre. The breadth is 0·47 mètre at the shoulders, narrowing to a point, as is proved by the scabbard diminishing to 0·27 mètre at the end. The handle showed no sign of cross-bars or guard, which would also have been of iron; and it is evident that the haft was of some destructible substance which has wholly disappeared. The probability is that the grip was shaped like those of the preceding Bronze Age—that is, bulging out behind the blade for easier hold. The sheath was somewhat more bi-convex than the Sword; an iron-plate about one millimètre thick, had been turned over horizontally to unite the edges, which, near one of the sides, formed a narrow and gradual line of superposition. This scabbard ended in an ovoid crampet or ferule; and a fragment of plate iron with a short broad hook, like that generally used for attachment to the belt, probably belonged to it.’
Here, then, we have again a perfect rapier. The only question is whether it was Etruscan, or, as supposed by M. G. de Mortillet, Gaulish.[642] Count Gozzadini argues ably to prove the former case.[643] He acknowledges that the invading Boii held the city and country for two centuries (b.c. 358–566), until the Romans expelled them for ever. But he shows that these peoples did not use such fine Swords. When treating of the Kelts ([chapter xiii].), I shall show that the long unmanageable slashing Claidab or Spatha of these peoples had nothing in common with the strong, bi-convex, and thoroughly-civilised rapier of Ceretolo.
Other blades like that of Ceretolo—long, narrow, and pointed—have been found in tombs notably Etruscan. Such, for instance, was that of Cære, now in the Gregorian Museum, Rome. In December 1879 two other blades were produced by a necropolis in Valdichiana, between Chiusi and Arezzo, where a long Etruscan inscription was engraved upon the foot of a tazza. Two similar blades are also portrayed in relief and colour upon the stuccoed wall of a Cære tomb. Des Vergers[644] describes them as follows: ‘La frise supérieure est ornée d’Épées longues à deux tranchants, à la lame large et droite avec garde à la poignée, se rapprochant de celle que les Romains désignaient par le nom de spatha. Les unes sont nues, les autres dans le fourreau.’ Four such Swords were also produced at Pietrabbondante in the district of far-famed Isernia, and are preserved in the National Museum of Naples. Signor Campanari discovered in an Etruscan tomb a Sword-hilt in bronze attached to a blade of iron.[645] Finally, the Benacci property near the Certosa of Bologna also yielded an iron blade and iron chisels like those of Ceretolo.
The late learned Prof. Conestabile truly asserts, ‘Des Épées de même forme et de même dimension ont été trouvées dans d’autres localités étrusques, situées dehors la sphère des invasions Gauloises, notamment en Toscane.’ It is certain that such blades have been discovered on both sides of the Alps. As the Romans adopted the Iberic or Spanish blade; so the Gauls may have substituted for their own imperfect arms the weapons taken from the Italians; in fact, we know from history that they did so. Moreover, the Etruscans extended their commerce, not only over Transalpine regions, but to that vast region extending from Switzerland to Denmark, and from Wallachia to England and Ireland.[646] This has been proved by the investigations of many scholars: in Germany by Lindenschmidt, Von Sacken, Virchow, Kenner, Weihold, Von Conhausen, and Genthe; by the Swiss Morlot, De Rougemont, Desor, and De Bonstetten; by the Dane Worsäae; by Gray, Dennis, Hamilton, and Wyllie in England; by the Belgian Schuermans; and by the Italians Gozzadini, Conestabile, Garrucci, and Gamurrini. Desor, when receiving the drawing of an iron Sword with bronze handle discovered at Sion, and declared by Thioly to resemble exactly those of Hallstadt, declared: ‘De pareilles Épées sont évidemment fabriquées à l’étranger et non dans le pays: elles nous conduisent donc vers ce grand commerce Étrusque qui se faisait pendant la première époque de fer, époque sur laquelle on s’est trompé si souvent.’ Livy,[647] in fact, proves the extent of arms-manufactory in Etruria, when he relates that in b.c. 205, at which time the Boiian occupation of Felsina ended, Arezzo alone could furnish Scipio’s fleet in forty-five days with three thousand helmets, as many Scuta and lances of three different kinds.
But the rapier was not the only form of Etruscan Sword. In Hamilton’s ‘Etruscan Antiquities,’[648] a human figure carries a cutting Sword like a ‘hanger,’ wearing the belt at the bottom of the thorax. The Céramique of Etruria supplies copious illustrations of Swords and other weapons; but the art is somewhat mixed, and our safest information must be derived from actual finds.
We are justified by these finds in concluding that the Etruscans of Italy had from their earliest times a rapier which, for a cut-and-thrust weapon, is well-nigh perfect. The blade is long, but not too long; broad enough to be efficient without overweight, and strengthened to the utmost by the mid-rib which forms a shallow arch. In [chapter xi]. I shall compare the Etrurian Sword with that of Mycenæ; the latter is a marvel of its kind, but it is made of a far inferior metal—bronze.