The Etruscans: The Painted Tombs of Italy: Rome and the Western Mediterranean

Part 1 of Rome and the Western Mediterranean: before Rome ruled Italy, the Etruscans did. They built rich cities, painted their tombs with feasts and dancers, let their women sit at banquets with men, and read the will of the gods in the livers of sheep. Then Rome swallowed them, and their language was forgotten. Seem to and appear to, with the perfect infinitive, with Philo, Sophia, Marcos and Demetria.

Before you read

Etruria, central Italy, about 900–100 BCE

The Etruscans lived in Etruria, the land between the rivers Arno and Tiber in central Italy. From about 700 BCE they built rich city-states, such as Tarquinia, Cerveteri, Veii and Volterra, which traded iron, copper and wine across the Mediterranean.

Their language was not related to Latin, Greek or any language we know. They wrote it with an alphabet borrowed from the Greeks, so we can pronounce it, but we understand only part of it: names, numbers, gods, family words and some formulas.

Roman tradition says that the last three kings of Rome were Etruscans. From the 4th century BCE, Rome conquered the Etruscan cities one by one; by the time of Philo, the Etruscans had become Romans, and their language was dying.

A great people who appear to have vanished into Rome.

The story

Retold for this lesson from the tombs of Etruria, Greek and Roman writers, and modern research.

The Etruscans buried their dead in tombs carved out of the rock and shaped like houses, with beds, chairs and painted walls. In the tombs of Tarquinia, the paintings show banquets, musicians, dancers, wrestlers, hunters and fishermen, in bright colours. The dead seem to have wanted to enjoy the next life as they had enjoyed this one.

In the paintings, husbands and wives lie side by side at the banquet, as equals. Etruscan inscriptions often name a person’s mother as well as their father. Greek writers were shocked: one claimed that Etruscan women drank wine, exercised naked and did not know who the fathers of their children were. He appears to have been repeating gossip; but Etruscan women do seem to have had more freedom in public than Greek women.

Etruscan priests called haruspices read the will of the gods in the livers of sacrificed sheep. A bronze model of a liver, divided into sections with the names of gods, shows how they did it. The Romans believed so strongly in this skill that they still consulted Etruscan haruspices in Philo’s time.

The longest Etruscan text that survives is a religious calendar written on a linen book. Things to come: it will be found in Egypt, because someone cut the old book into strips and used them to wrap a mummy. It will end up in a museum far to the north, still around its mummy. Where the Etruscans came from was argued about even in antiquity: Herodotus said from Lydia in Anatolia, another Greek writer said they had always been in Italy. Modern studies of ancient DNA seem to support the second view.

DEMETRIA

The dead seem to have wanted to enjoy the next life. The writer appears to have been repeating gossip. The Etruscans seem to have come from Italy itself.

SOPHIA

seem / appear + to have + past participle for the past: They seem to have come from Italy = it seems that they came from Italy. Also: It seems that…, It appears that….

Claim	Label	Why
The Etruscan language is unrelated to Latin and Greek.	Consensus	It has been studied for centuries.
We can read Etruscan perfectly.	Consensus: no	We can pronounce it and understand only part of it.
The last kings of Rome were Etruscans.	Debated	Roman tradition says so; the details are legend.
Etruscan women had more freedom than Greek women.	Consensus	Paintings and inscriptions suggest so; Greek gossip exaggerated it.
The Etruscans came from Lydia.	Debated	Ancient writers disagreed; ancient DNA points to an Italian origin.
The longest Etruscan text was found wrapped around an Egyptian mummy.	Consensus	The linen book still survives.

SOPHIA

Greeks often wrote about the Etruscans as pirates and pleasure-lovers. But the Etruscans were the Greeks’ best customers: many of the finest painted Athenian vases that survive today will be found in Etruscan tombs, not in Greece.

DEMETRIA

So the Greeks sold them pots and then called them barbarians.

SOPHIA

And the Etruscans bought Greek pots, borrowed Greek letters and Greek gods, and made them their own. Their Hercle is Heracles; their Aplu is Apollo.

PHILO

A people who borrowed the alphabet, then were borrowed from in turn by Rome, and then were forgotten. I hope someone remembers the Jews of Alexandria better.

Words and forms	Use	Example
seem / appear + to-infinitive	what the evidence suggests now	Their women appear to be free.
seem / appear + to have + past participle	what the evidence suggests about the past	They seem to have come from Italy.
doesn’t seem to / seems not to	negative	It doesn’t seem to be related to Latin.
It seems that… / It appears that…	alternative form	It appears that he was repeating gossip.
tomb, fresco, banquet, inscription	archaeology	The walls were painted with banquets.
omen, interpret, decipher	reading signs	Priests interpreted omens.

Talk and write

Discussion and writing

Detectives. Look at a photo of an Etruscan tomb painting. What seems to be happening? What do the people appear to feel? What do the painters seem to have believed?

Discuss. 1. Why do some peoples disappear into others? 2. Is it fair to judge the Etruscans by what Greek writers said? 3. What would you put in your tomb to show who you were?

Write (120–150 words). A painted tomb. Describe an Etruscan tomb and what it seems to tell us. Use seem to, appear to and the perfect infinitive.

The Etruscans: The Painted Tombs of Italy

Before you read

The story

Practice

A · The story

B · Grammar and vocabulary

C · Right or wrong?

Talk and write