Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

Although there was, therefore, but little development in the greater arts of literature and architecture among the Etruscans, it is evident enough that there was much desire to possess the products of the lesser arts, such as sculpture, jewelry and household ornaments. But here too the study has been made difficult by the failure to distinguish between native and imported products. Before studying the objects themselves it is well to recall the legendary character of Etruscan chronology as reckoned in _saecula_. Helbig[26] showed that we cannot consider any of the traditional dates as being accurate until about 644 B.C., the beginning, that is, of the fifth _saeculum_. This is probably about one hundred years after the introduction of the Chalcidian (Ionic) alphabet into the country. One of the earliest examples of the use of it is on a vase found in the Regulini-Galassi tomb. In considering the trade of the country it has been pointed out that its chief political connexions were with Carthage, but the artistic sense of Carthaginians or other Phoenicians was not more developed than that of the Etruscans. They were traders, and doubtless brought the Etruscans some of the Egyptian and Eastern objects which have been found in their tombs, articles that date from the 7th and 6th centuries B.C. But beside the Phoenicians the Ionian Greeks from the 9th century had been trading and colonizing in Sicily and Italy. Herodotus (i. 163) tells how the Phocaeans were the first of the Greeks to take long voyages, and that they discovered the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian seas and Iberia. Thucydides (vi. 3. 1) says that it was Chalcidians from Euboea who first settled in Sicily. Pliny (_Hist. Nat._ xxxv. 12. 43) writes in the same sense, for he tells of Demaratus who came from Corinth with the artists Eucheir, Diopus, Eugrammus, about 650 B.C., and first started sculpture in Italy. These traditions of the coming of Ionian Greeks to Italy are completely borne out by the archaeological remains found in Ionian lands and in Etruria, and it is agreed that a great part of what has hitherto been considered Etruscan is no more Etruscan than the Moorish plates of the 15th century found in Italy are Florentine. The best works in most of the smaller arts are almost without exception Greek, the earlier Ionian, the later Attic; the remainder are made with the distinct intention of imitating Greek models, and so should be considered as Greek, inasmuch as they do not show a natural, original expression of feeling on the part of the Etruscan workman. The Etruscans were dull artists in all lines. They were skilful copyists, nothing more, as is absolutely proved by the simple fact that we know of no Etruscan artist by name. If one takes the articles which are of obviously local manufacture, such as the burial urns[27] or the ordinary bronze mirrors, or the pottery, it would be hard to find a similar quantity of work by any other race so lacking in originality of conception or high excellence of technique.

In the study of the monuments a division must be made distinguishing between the obviously Greek works, the works done with a desire to copy Greek models and the work of native artists. To separate the objects in the way suggested required a very considerable familiarity with Greek art, and though in many cases the result may be doubtful, still so much must be taken from the Etruscans that they are shown to have little more artistic feeling than the Romans. In the earlier centuries a strong eastern influence appears in the copying of sphinxes and similar eastern motives, but this soon gave way to the stronger Greek influence, as was natural, for the intercourse with the Phoenicians was spasmodic whereas that with the Greeks was constant. But even with the Greeks to kindle their imaginations, the Etruscans produced no school of art; no steady progression is traceable. In various towns there were various fashions of pottery or jewelry, but good, bad and indifferent constantly occur together in a way possible only among a people who possessed no natural artistic capacities and had no widespread standards of cultivated taste. The Ionians have been mentioned as having strongly affected the arts in Etruria, and, though in the later centuries Athens undoubtedly exported heavy consignments to Italy, the taste of the Etruscans seems generally to have preferred the rather heavy loose style of the Ionians, even when direct contact with them was lost and its place taken by direct relations with Athens and her colonies.

Pottery.

Pottery[28] practised enormously by the Etruscans shows as clearly as possible their essential strength and weakness as artists. Even the black ware called _bucchero_ is now known to have been manufactured in other lands and not to be an exclusively Etruscan style. In the earlier tombs this ware is present in greater numbers than any other, and the vases exhibit considerable dexterity of manufacture so far as form goes. But it is evident from comparisons with early Ionian vases that the better proportioned of the shapes are direct copies of the Ionian. The decoration of the _bucchero_ is either engraved, in which case it is almost always extremely rude, or formed by figures modelled or pressed by a mould on to the body of the vase. In these two last cases the figures are often suggestive of the farther East (Egyptian and Mesopotamia), but still more frequently they are taken from Greek originals, and the natural tendency of the Etruscan artist to be a copyist is very marked. Whence the moulds for these vases came is not known, but analogy with other classes of work makes it practically certain that some were imported and some made by the imitating workmen. There are other classes of vases which at first sight look as though they were imported from Greece, but by the nature of their clay are recognized to be Etruscan imitations of Greek originals. The imitation is often very skilful, for the Etruscan artist rivalled his Grecian master in deftness of hand, if not in imagination. Such, for instance, are the large amphoras decorated with bands of animals in the Corinthian style. Besides these native Vases the tombs have yielded great quantities of others which used to be called Etruscan, but are now known to have been imported from Greece. Until the 6th century B.C. these vases are mostly Ionian, but at that time the trade of the Phocaeans was waning before that of Athens, and henceforward the Athenian ware is the commonest. Intercourse with Athens, however, came to an end about 480, when the Sicilian Greeks mastered the trade of the western Mediterranean, so that in the Etruscan tombs later than this date we find fewer and fewer imported vases, and more and more native imitations. It is generally taken for granted that these Attic vases were brought to Etruria by Greek traders, but considering how little the Greek historians, even Herodotus, knew of that country, this is unlikely. Then, too, the chief products Etruria had to give Greece were metals, so it is more likely that it was the Etruscan traders who, having carried metal to Greece (where Etruscan bronze was famous[29]), brought back the vases.

Scarabs.

Though most collections make no distinction between Greek and Etruscan scarabs the differences, though slight, are quite certain, and consist in the greater elaboration of the borders, edges and backs of the Etruscan examples. The commonest material for these gems is red carnelian, and agate frequently occurs. The beetle shape is undoubtedly due to the Phoenicians, who familiarized the Etruscans with the Egyptian scarab and with its signification as an amulet; while in technique they are more Greek, in use they are more Egyptian, for they were used not only as seals but as ornaments--as in the decoration of necklaces.[30] What we learn from them merely serves to strengthen what we learn from the pottery--that the Etruscans depended on the Greek world for their artistic conceptions. Though many Phoenician gems (in fact, scarcely any other kind) have been found in Sardinia, these are comparatively rare in Etruria, where the earliest gems occur about 650 B.C. Some of these earliest show the Ionian influence, which is also shown in certain gold rings, but most of them represent the Attic style as seen on the black-figured vases of Athens. To understand them one has but to know Attic sculpture, the complete history of which is repeated in these small and beautifully worked stones. At first one finds the single figures, awkward in form and modelling, but full of life in composition--one finds the same mistakes in anatomy (i.e. the muscles of the stomach); and then come the figures beautifully worked and accurately observed, but with the slight hardness and rigidity that belongs to all pre-Raphaelite work; and finally one sees the figures carved with the easy assurance of the master, sometimes single, sometimes in groups, but always Attic in their unrivalled representation of the beauties of the human figure, and in the innumerable lovely scenes taken from everyday life. Not infrequently inscriptions are cut in the gem, but these are not as on Greek gems the name of the carver or the owner, but the name of the Greek hero represented. In regard to technique one point is specially noteworthy. Many of the gems are carved with the round drill, and the disks made by this are not modelled into any real semblance of a figure. This is not a sign of the antiquity of the gem, for there are examples in which together with this method will be seen a figure finished with the greatest care; it is thus evident that the gem-cutter left the marks of his round drill because of their decorative value. This they undoubtedly possess, and it is one of the few cases in which the Etruscans showed any art sense.

Bronze.

Bronze was used extensively. Weapons of course were fashioned of it, but these are simple in shape and decoration; no such examples as those from Mycenae occur. Objects of large size, as the bronze doors of Veii,[31] the chariots of Perugia in the New York museum, or large tripods or shields, show that the artisans had large quantities of the material at their disposal. As with the vases or gems, so in these metal objects the distinction must be drawn between pure Etruscan work and the work that was done by Greek workmen or by artisans copying the Greek style. As Etruscan art has been wrongly estimated through forgetfulness of the Greek influence, so Greek bronzes have possibly received credit that does not belong to them. Etruscan candelabra and vases were famous among the Greeks (Ath. i. 28. 6; xv. 700 c). The chariots above mentioned and the tripods in the Harvard museum are plainly Greek; the round shields with ornament in bands are native. Antefixes of tombs were of bronze, and in some cases the eyes of the figures were inlaid with glass paste. The best-known articles of bronze are the mirrors,[32] which are very dependent on Greece for their models, though the poor style in which the scenes that decorate them are in most cases carved shows that these articles of common use were produced, as was natural, mainly by ordinary workmen. In rare cases the figures are not engraved but are given in low relief. These mirrors seem to have been mainly intended for women, and the scenes on them in large numbers of cases are of such a character as to bear out this idea; for instead of scenes of battle such as occur on the gems, scenes with satyrs and maenads are commoner, or the story of Helen or the labours of Hercules. So far as development goes they pass through the same stages as the gems, though owing to their larger surface they are more generally decorated with groups of figures.[33] Another well-known class of work is the _cistae_ or cylindrical bronze boxes found mostly at Praeneste, where they seem to have been especially popular. The engraved figures on them are of the same character as those on the mirrors, and it is noteworthy that these figures are often better in style than the figures modelled in the round that serve as handles, or than the legs which also are modelled. This, taken together with the fact that the same figures are repeated in several cases on more than one gem or mirror, makes it probable that the workmen, like the later potters of Arezzo, had a stock of models brought from Greece, which they repeated and combined to suit their fancy.

Gold and silver.

The paintings and contents of the tombs have made it plain that the wealth of the Etruscans was very considerable, and that they spent much on jewelry, gold and silver.[34] Their extravagance in this regard was well known,[35] and the rings, the necklaces, the diadems, the bracelets and the earrings show that there was a large class of well-to-do people. The eastern and Greek influences are clearly marked in the figures used in decoration, and in certain shapes of rings, but in one technical matter the Etruscans seem to have made a discovery: it was in the use of granulated ornament, that is, ornament made by soldering on to the gold object infinitely small globules of the same metal laid in various designs and patterns, each globule soldered by itself. Though this style of ornament occurs in Egypt, Cyprus, Rhodes and Magna Graecia, nowhere is it accomplished with such extraordinary minuteness as in Etruria. That they should do this was natural. The difficulty of it seems to have pleased them, for it is commoner than the earlier filigree work made of wire soldered on to the gold base. Reference has been made to the scarabs set as ornament in the gold necklaces, and similarly we find amber used and, in the later work, precious stones and pearls.

Sculpture.

As in Greece the Etruscans first carved their figures out of wood,[36] but what these figures were like we can only imagine. The earliest known figures in the round are even less successful than the contemporary Greek work. An early attempt at a female bust[37] is made not by casting but by riveting plates of bronze together. A half life size bust in the Tyszkiewicz collection[38] made probably about 600 B.C. is cast solid. Later they learned the art of hollow-casting, but their attempts to reproduce figures in the round are generally lacking in skill. One reason for this was the lack of good marble, the quarries at Carrara not having been used till Roman times. Terra-cotta was the material most commonly used, and their skill in modelling and colouring this was great. The earlier statues of large size have perished; but there are three famous sarcophagi which show the work of Ionian Etruscan artists;[39] one is in the British Museum, one in the Louvre and one in the Villa di Papa Giulio at Rome. The elaborate detail and careful work, the types of the figures and the style of their dress all point to the same Ionic origin as that of the bronze chariots already mentioned. The type of sarcophagus illustrated by these examples became very common, and in the figures that decorate the covers can be traced the various influences that affected the whole of Etruscan art. In an example from Volci[40] the later Attic influence is strongly marked. Such work shows little power of origination, but much of the interest taken by careful workmen by copying carefully, and the tendency that such workmen almost invariably display of overloading the subject with too much ornament and detail. The small ash-urns, either of stone or terra-cotta, are in certain ways more interesting than the more elaborate sarcophagi, for on these urns the heads of the figures reclining on one elbow which form the usual decoration of the covers are often obvious attempts at portraiture. Single busts[41] show this same desire for accurate likeness of the person represented, and in this one line of art the Etruscans showed a new feeling, one that found its finest expression in the hands of the later Roman portraitists. The main difference between such portraits and the Greek ones is that the Greek artist thought of his subject as illustrating character that showed itself in ways of repose and thought--the essential, lasting individuality. The Etruscan and Roman portraitist thought, on the other hand, of his subject as illustrating character in ways of action; hence pure Etruscan and Roman portraits are much more tense in line, and the expression of the eye is not dreamy but distinctly focussed. They are different, but, as art, one is as fine as the other. The scenes on the sides of these urns are, as in the case of the gems and mirrors, very frequently taken from Greek story, and often are scenes of battle.[42] Work in relief for the friezes and the other decorations of temples was very common, and shows remarkable skill in the mere processes of modelling and baking the slabs of terra-cotta that were fastened by nails to the beams. So far as the figures themselves are concerned, they seem to have but little meaning in connexion with the building they decorate. Satyrs and maenads, chariot-races and such scenes taken over from Greek models are perhaps the commonest. In none of the obviously native work is there any more instinctive feeling for the greater qualities of sculpture than in the gems. Little is original, almost everything dependent on earlier masters. There is no absorption of the artist by his work which produces great work, great because the beholder thinks rather of the work produced than of the artist who produces it. For this reason such figures as the bronze chimaera or the bronze Athena in the Florence museum are presumably not Etruscan but Greek.

Painting.

There is no evidence that the Etruscans had easel-paintings like the Greeks, but their skill in painting is well illustrated by the pictures with which they frequently covered the inner walls of their tombs. The wall was prepared with a coating of fine white stucco on which the figures were painted with a large variety of tints. The best of them have been found at Tarquinii, Chiusi, Volci, Caere, Veii.[43] The paintings exhibit the usual Greek influences. They show a certain ponderous realism, but as works of art they are of little value. As pictures of the life and customs of the people they are of great importance.

Coins.

As works of art their coins[44] are the worst efforts of the Etruscans. Gold, silver and bronze were used, but no examples can be dated earlier than the beginning of the 5th century B.C. The coins are struck according to four different standards of weight, due perhaps to different trade-connexions. The bronze coinage shows a distinct scale of reduction in weight due to the increasing use of the precious metals. Many examples show a design only on one side. The designs of the majority of the types are taken from Greek models, but strangely enough the die-cutters show no such skill as that of the makers of gems.

_Arms and Armour_.--In the early periods the chief weapons (besides bows and arrows which bore flint or bronze heads) were few and simple, and were of bronze. Iron ones have been found, and their rarity is doubtless partly due to their having rusted away. Spears of very various weights were common and also swords and daggers. These latter had straight two-edged blades with the handle either of the same piece or of some other material fastened on with rivets. The blades of the daggers are generally engraved with lines and zigzags. Shields were of circular and oval shape. These two were of bronze, the round ones decorated in Homeric fashion with concentric circles of ornament, the motives being geometric patterns or an animal repeated endlessly. Breastplates with overlapping shoulder-straps and belts, broader in front than behind, with decoration of the same kind as the bucchero vases, are not uncommon. Greaves and helmets completed their equipment. The former seem to have been less ornate than those the Greeks wore; the latter were of various shapes, the commonest being round caps with a knob on the top, or a deeper shape with a crest from front to back. Some are shown with side-pieces raised like wings, but these are perhaps merely cheek-pieces raised on hinges. In later times they had trumpets and axes, and their arms became practically the same as the Roman, as one sees from the representations in the tombs. (R. N.)

LANGUAGE

1. By "Etruscan" is meant the language spoken by the people called Etrusci (more commonly Tusci) by the Romans, Turskum numen (i.e. _Tuscum nomen_) by their neighbours the Umbrians of Iguvium (q.v.), and [Greek: Tursenoi] (later, e.g. in Strabo's time, [Greek: Turrenoi]) by the Greeks. Their own name for themselves was _Rasenna_ (or _Rasena_), according to Dionysius Halic. (i. 30), but it seems now to be fairly probable that this was no more than the name of a leading house (represented later on in Pisa and elsewhere) dominant at some fairly early date in some one locality (see below). Niebuhr attempted on slender grounds (_Rom. Hist._, ed. 3 [Eng. trans.], i. p. 41) to distinguish between the [Greek: Turrenoi] and the Tusci in order to accept the strongly supported tradition of a Lydian origin for the "Tyrrhenes" (see below), while rejecting it for the "Tuscans," but no one has since attempted to maintain the distinction (Dittenberger, _Hermes_, 1906, p. 85, footnote, regards the form [Greek: -enoi] as a "Graecized form of a local name" equivalent to _Tusci_), and we now know enough of the morphology of Etruscan names to recognize _Tur-s-co-_ and _Tur-s-eno-_ as closely parallel Etrusco-Latin stems, cf. _Venu-c-ius: Venu-senus_ both from Etr. _venu_ (Schulze, _Lat. Eigennamen_, p. 405) and _Ras-ena: Ras-c-anius_ (ibid. p. 92); or _Voluscus, Volscus: Volusenus_ (where the formative suffixes in each word are Etrusco-Latin whether the root be the same or not). But the analysis of the names cannot be entirely satisfactory until the first syllable of Etrusci--in Greek writers sometimes [Greek: Etrouskoi], e.g. in _Strabo_--ed. Meineke--has been explained.

2. The extent of territory over which this language was spoken varied considerably at different epochs, but we have only a few fixed points of chronology. From two separate sources, both traditional and probably sound (Dion. Hal. i. 26, and Plutarch, _Sulla_, 7; cf. Varro, quoted by Censorinus c. 17. 6), we should ascribe the first appearance of the Etruscans in Italy to the 12th century B.C. The intimate connexion in form between the names _Roma, Romulus_ and the Etruscan gentes rumate, rumulna (_Romatia, Romilia_, &c.), and the fact that many of the early names in Rome (e.g. _Ratumenna, Capena, Tities, Luceres, Ramnes_) are characteristically Etruscan, justifies the conclusion that the foundation of the city, in the sense at least of its earliest fortification, was due to Etruscans (Schulze, p. 580). The most likely interpretation of Cato's date for the Etruscan "foundation" of Capua is 598 B.C. (Conway, Italic Dialects, pp. 99 and 83). In 524 B.C. (Dion. Hal. vii. 2) the Etruscans were defeated by Aristodemus of Cumae, and in 474 by Hiero of Syracuse in a great naval battle off Cumae. Between 445 and 425 (_It. Dial._ l.c.) they were driven out of Capua by the Samnites, but they lingered in parts of Campania (as far south as Salernum) till at least the next century, as inscriptions show (ib. pp. 94 ff., 53), as at Praeneste and Tusculum (ib. p. 310 ff.) till the 3rd century or later. In Etruria itself the oldest inscriptions (on the stelae of Faesulae and Volaterrae) can hardly be later than the 6th century B.C. (C. Pauli, _Altital. Forsch._ ii. part 2, 24 ff.); the Romans had become dominant early in the 3rd century (C.I.L. xi. 1 _passim_), but the bulk of the Etruscan inscriptions show later forms than those found in the old town of Volsinii destroyed by the Romans in 280 B.C. (C. Pauli, ib. i. 127). In the north of Italy we find Etruscan written in two alphabets (of Sondrio and Bozen) between 300 and 150 B.C. (id. ib. pp. 63 and 126). The evidence of an Etruscan linen book wrapped round a mummy (see below) seems to suggest that there was some Etruscan colony at Alexandria in the period of the Ptolemies. At least one Etruscan suffix has passed into the Romance languages, _-i[t]a_ or _-ita_ in Etr. _lautni[t]a_ (from _lautni_ "familiaris," or "libertus"), and Etr.-Lat. _Iulitta_, which became Ital. _-etta_, Fr.-Eng. _-ette_.

3. Finally must be mentioned the remarkable pre-Hellenic epitaph discovered on the island of Lemnos in 1885 (Pauli, _Altital. Forsch._ ii. 1 and 2), the language of which offers remarkable resemblances to Etruscan, especially in the phrase _sial[ch]veiz aviz_ (? = "fifty years old"); cf. Etr. _ceal[ch]us avils_ (? "twenty years old"); and the pair of endings _-ezi, -ale_ in consecutive words; cf. Etr. _lar[t]iale hul[ch]niesi_; the style of the sculptural figure has also parallels in the oldest type of Etruscan monuments. The alphabet of this inscription is identical (Kirchhoff, _Stud. Griech. Alphab._, 4th ed., p. 54) with that of the older group of Phrygian inscriptions, which mention King Midas and are therefore older than 620 B.C. With this should be combined the fact that a marked peculiarity of the South-Etruscan alphabet ([up arrow] = f, but earlier = the Greek _digamma_) has demonstrably arisen out of [glyph] = q on Phrygian soil, see _Class. Rev._ xii., 1898, p. 462. Despite the reasonable but not unanswerable difficulty of Kretschmer (_Einleitung in d. Geschichte d. griech. Sprache_, 1896, p. 240), the weight of the evidence appears to be distinctly in favour of the Etruscan character of the language, and Pauli's view is now generally accepted by students of Etruscan; hence the inclusion of the inscription in the _Corpus Inscc. Etruscarum_.

4. The first attempt to interpret Etruscan inscriptions was made by Phil. Buonarroti (_Explic. et conject. ad monum._ &c., Florence, 1726), who, as was almost inevitable at that epoch, tried to explain the language as a dialect of Latin. But no real study was possible before the determination of the alphabet by Lepsius (_Inscc. Umbr. et Oscae_, Leipzig, 1841), and his discovery that five of the Tables of Iguvium (q.v.), though written in Etruscan alphabet, contained a language akin to Latin but totally different from Etruscan, though some of the non-Italic peculiarities of Etruscan had been already pointed out by Ottfried Mueller (_Die Etrusker_, Breslau, 1828). The earliest inscriptions, e.g. the terra-cotta stele of Capua of the 5th century B.C., are written in "serpentine boustrophedon," but in its common form of the 3rd century B.C. the alphabet is retrograde, and has the following nineteen letters:--

[19 glyphs here are aligned with the letters below]
a, c, e, v, z, h, [theta], i, l, m, n, p, s', r, s, t, u, [chi], f

On older monuments [glyph] = k occurs as an archaic form of c; [glyph] = q; [glyph], a sibilant of some kind; and [glyph] = [glyph], this last mostly in foreign words. In the earlier monuments the cross-bars of e and v and h have a more decidedly oblique inclination, and s is often angular ([glyph]). The mediae b, g, d, though they often occur in words handed down by writers as Etruscan, are never found in the Etruscan inscriptions, though the presence of the mediae in the Umbrian and Oscan alphabets and in the abecedaria shows that they existed in the earliest form of the Etruscan alphabet, O is very rare. The form [glyph] (earlier [two glyphs] ) = f in south Etruscan and Faliscan inscriptions should also be mentioned. Its combination with [glyph] h shows that it had once served to denote the sound of digamma just as Latin F. The varieties of the alphabet in use between the Apennines and the Alps were first examined by Mommsen (_Inschriften nord-etruskischen Alphabets_, 1853), and have since been discussed by Pauli (_Altitalische Forschungen_, 1885-1894, esp. vol. iii., _Die Veneter_, p. 218, where other references will be found, see also VENETI).

5. The determination of the alphabet was followed by a large number of different attempts to explain the Etruscan forms from words in some other language to which it was supposed that Etruscan might be akin; Scandinavian and Basque and Semitic have been tried among the rest. These attempts, however ingenious, have all proved fruitless; even the latest and least fanciful (_Remarques sur le parente de la langue etrusque_, Copenhagen, 1899; _Bulletin de l'Academie Royale des Sciences et des Lettres de Danemark_, 1899, p. 373), in which features of some living dialects of the Caucasus are cautiously compared by Prof. V. Thomsen (as independently by Pauli, see Sec. 12), is at the best premature, and as to the numerals probably misleading. Worst of all was the effort of W. Corssen (_Die Sprache der Etrusker_, 1875), in whom learning and enthusiasm were combined with loose methods of both epigraphy and grammar, to revive the view of Buonarroti. The only solid achievement in the period of Corssen's influence (1860-1880) was the description of the works of art (tombs, vases, mirrors and the like) from the different centres of Etruscan population; Dennis's _Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria_ (1st ed., 1848; 2nd, 1878) contributes something even to the study of the language, because many of the figures in the scenes sculptured or engraved bear names in Etruscan form (e.g. _usils_, "sun"; or "of the sun," on the _templum_ of Placentia; _fufluns_;, "Bacchus"; _tu[ch]ul[ch]a_, a demon or fury; see Dennis, _Cities_, 2nd ed., frontispiece, and p. 354).

6. The reaction against Corssen's method was led first by W. Deecke, _Corssen und die Sprache der Etrusker_ (1876), _Etruskische Forschungen_ (1875-1880), and continued by Carl Pauli at first jointly with Deecke and afterwards singly with greater power (_Etruskische Studien_, 1873), _Etr. Forschungen u. Studien_ (Goettingen-Stuttgart, 1881-1884), _Altitalische Studien_ (Hanover, 1883-1887); _Altitalische Forschungen_ (Leipzig, 1885-1894). Of the work achieved during the last generation by him and the few but distinguished scholars associated with him (Danielsson, Schaefer, Skutsch and Torp) it may perhaps be said that, though the positive knowledge yet reaped is scanty, so much has been done in other ways that the prospect is full of promise. In the first place, the only sound method of dealing with an unknown language, that of interpreting the records of the language by their own internal evidence in the first instance (not by the use of imaginary parallels in better known languages whose kinship with the problematic language is merely assumed), has been finally established and is now followed even by scholars like Elia Lattes, who still retain some affection for the older point of view. By this means enough certainty has been obtained on many characteristic features of the language to bring about a general recognition of the fact that Etruscan, if we put aside its borrowings from the neighbouring dialects of Italy, is in no sense an Indo-European language. In the second place, the great undertaking of the _Corpus Inscriptionum Etruscarum_, founded by Carl Pauli, with the support of the Berlin Academy, conducted by him from 1893 till his death in 1901, and continued by Danielsson, Herbig and Torp, for the first time provided a sound basis for the study in a text of the inscriptions, edited with care and arranged according to their provenance. The first volume contains over four thousand inscriptions from the northern half of Etruria. Thirdly, the discoveries of recent years have richly increased the available material, especially by two documents each of some length. (1) The 5th-century stele of terra-cotta from S. Maria di Capua already cited, published by Buecheler in _Rhein. Museum_, (lv., 1900, p. 1) and now in the Royal Museum at Berlin, is the longest Etruscan inscription yet found. Its best preserved part contains some two hundred words of continuous text, and is divided into paragraphs, of which the third may be cited in the reading approved by Danielsson and Torp, and with the division of words adopted by Torp (in his _Bemerkungen zur etrusk. Inschr. von S. Maria di Capua_, Christiania, 1905), to which the student may be referred. "isvei tule ilucve, an pris laruns ilucu[t]u[ch], nun: ti[t]uaial [ch]ues [ch]a[t]c(e) anulis mulu rizile, ziz riin puiian acasri, ti-m an tule, le[t]am sul; ilucu-per pris an ti, ar vus; ta aius, nun[t]eri." (2) The linen wrappings of an Egyptian mummy (of the Ptolemaic period) preserved in the Agram museum were observed to show on their inner surface some writing, which proved to be Etruscan and to contain more than a thousand words of largely continuous text (Krall, "Die etruskischen Mumienbinden des Agramer. Museums," _Denkschr. d. k. Akad. d. Wissenschaften_, 41, Vienna, 1892). The writing has probably nothing to do with the mummy as it is on the inner surface of the bands, and these are torn fragments of the original book. The alphabet is of about the 3rd century B.C.

7. From the recurrence of a number of particular formulae with
frequent numerals at intervals, the book seems to be a liturgical
document. Torp has pointed out that the two documents have some forty
words in common, and, with Lattes ("Primi Apprenti sulla grande
iscriz. Etrusca," &c., in _Rendic. d. Reale Inst. Lomb._, serie ii.
vol. xxxviii., 1900, p. 345 ff.), has shown that both contain lists of
offerings made to certain gods (among them Suri, Le[t]am, and Calu);
and Skutsch (_Rhein. Mus._ 56, 1901, p. 639) has added a plausible
conjecture as to the occasions of the offerings, based on the phrase
"fler[ch]va ne[t]unsl" "Neptuni statua" (or "statuae pars"); Torp has
made it very probable that the words _vacl_ (or _vacil_) and _nun_,
which recur at regular intervals in both, mean "address," "recite,"
"pray," or the like, preceding or following spoken parts of the
ritual.

8. Along with the growth of the material, some positive increase in
knowledge of the language has been attained. Independently of the work
done upon particular inscriptions, such as that which has just been
described, a considerable addition has come from the elaborate study
of Latin proper names already mentioned by Prof. W. Schulze of Berlin
(_Zur Geschichte lateinischer Eigennamen_, Berlin, 1904), which has
incidentally embodied and somewhat extended the points of Etruscan
nomenclature previously observed. The chief results for our purpose
may be briefly stated. It will be convenient to use the following
terms:--

(1) _praenomen_ = personal name of the individual.

e.g. _Vel_ or _Lar_ of a man, _Lar[t]i_ or _[t]ana_ of a woman.

(2) _nomen_ = family name.

e.g. _Tite_ or _Vipi_ or _Tetna_, of men.
_Titi_ or _Vipinei_ or _Tetinei_, of women.

(3) _cognomen_ = additional family name.

e.g. _Faru_ or _Petru_ of men, _Farui, Vetui_ of women.

(4) _agnomen_ = special cognomen derived from the cognomen of the
father.

e.g. _Hanusa_ (in Latin spelling _Hannossa_) or _Pultusa_ (also
_Pultus_) of a man; _Hanunia_ of a woman.

All these are commonly in the "nominative" (as the examples just
quoted from Schulze, pp. 316-327) in sepulchral inscriptions.

Besides these, we have certain other descriptions used in forms which
may be called a "genitive-dative" case, or a "derivative possessive"
Adjective. These may be entitled:--

(5) _paternum_ (a) = praenomen of father, used generally after the
_nomen_ of son or daughter.

e.g. _arn[t]al_ "of _Arn[t]_." more commonly simply _ar_, so _ls_
for _Laris-al_, to which _clan_ "son," often abbreviated _c_, and
_se[ch]_ or _sec_ (abbrev. _s_) "daughter," are sometimes added.

_paternum (b) = nomen_ of father, used only after the _praenomen_ of a
daughter (e.g. _[t]ana vel[t]urnas_, "Thana daughter of Velthurna"),
to which _se[ch]_ "daughter," often abbreviated _s_, is sometimes
added.

(6) _maternum_ (a) = nomen of mother.

e.g. _pumpunial_, "of Pumpuni" (in Lat. form _Pomponia_); _alfnal_
"of Alfnei" (Lat. _Alfia_); _hetarias_, "of Hetaria."

_maternum_ (b) = cognomen of mother.

e.g. _vetnal_, "of Vetui," or "of Vetonia," _hesual_, "of Hesui."

_maternum_ (c) = agnomen of mother.

e.g. _cumerunias_, "of Cumerunia," i.e. "of a daughter of the
_cumeru_-family."

(7) _maritale_--(i.) _nomen_, or (ii.) _cognomen_, or (iii.) _agnomen_
of husband, used directly after the _nomen_ of the wife, the word
_puia_, "wife," being often added.

e.g. (i.) _lar[t]i cencui larcnasa_, "Larthia Cenconia, wife of a
Largena"; (ii.) _lar[t]ia pulfnei spaspusa_, "Larthia Pulfennia,
wife of a Spaspo"; this form being the same as that used for the
_agnomen_ of a man (see above)--(iii.) _hastia cainei leusla_,
"Hastia Caia, wife of a son of a Leo"; and with a longer and
possibly not synonymous form of suffix, _[t]ania titi latinial sec
hanuslisa_, "Thania Titia, daughter of Latinia, wife of a
Hanusa"--these secondary derivatives in _-sla_, &c., being an
example of what is called _genetivus genetivi_, a characteristic
Etruscan formation, not confined to this feminine use.

These examples will probably enable the reader to interpret the great
mass of the names on Etruscan tombs. It should be added (1) that no
clear distinction can be drawn between the use of the _cognomina_ and
the _nomina_, though it is probable that in origin the _cognomen_ came
from some family connected with the gens by marriage; and (2) that the
_praenomen_ generally comes first, but sometimes second (especially
when both _nomen_ and _praenomen_ are added in the genitive to the
name of a son or daughter).

9. The examples given illustrate also the few principles of inflexion
and word-formation that are reasonably certain, for example, the
various "genitival" endings. Those in _-s_ and _-l_ are also found in
dedications where in Latin a dative would be used:--e.g. (_mi_)
_[t]upl[t]as alpan turce_ "(hoc) deae Thupelthae donum dedit," where
_turce_ shows the only verbal inflection yet certainly known; cf.
_amce_, "was," _arce_, "made," _zilacnuce_, "held the office of a
_Zila[ch]_," _lupuce_, "passed away." More important are the formative
principles which the proper names display. Endings _-a, -u, -e_ and
_-na_ are common in the "Nominative"--and in Etruscan there appears to
be no distinction between this case and the Accusative--of men's
names; the endings _-i, -ei, -nei, -nia_ and _-unia_ are among the
commonest for women's names. But no trace of gender has yet been
observed in common nouns or adjectives. Nor is it always easy to
distinguish a "Case" from a noun-stem. The women's names corresponding
to the men's names in _-u_ are sometimes _-ui_, sometimes _-nei_,
sometimes longer forms (_ves-acnei_, beside _ves-u, hanunia_ from
_hanu_). And the so-called Genitives can themselves be inflected, as
we have seen. The form _ne[t]unsl_ "of Neptune," may even have
swallowed up the nominatival _-s_ of the Italic _Neptunus_.

10. In view of the protracted discussion as to the numerals and the
dice on which the first six are written, it should be added that only
the following points are certain: (1) that _ma[ch]_ = one; (2) that
the next five numbers are somehow represented by _ci, [t]u, hu[t], sa_
and _zal_; (3) and the next three somehow by _cezp-, sem[ph]-_ and
_muv_; (4) that the suffix _-al[ch]-_ denotes the tens, or some of
them, e.g. _ceal[ch]-_ beside _ci_ (? 50 and 5); (5) that the suffix
_-z_ or _-s_ is multiplicative (_es(a)ls_ from _zal_). It is almost
certain that _zal_ must mean either 2 or 6, and of these a stronger
case can, perhaps, be made for the latter meaning. _Zathrum_ appears
to be the corresponding ten (? 60). Skutsch's article in _Indogerm.
Forschungen_, v. p. 256, remains the best account.

In close connexion with the numerals on sepulchral inscriptions appear
the words _ril_, "old, aged," _avils_, "annorum," or "aetatis," and
_tivr_, "month" (from _tiv_, "moon").

11. Schulze has shown (e.g., p. 410) that a large number of familiar
endings (e.g. those which when Latinized become _-acius, -alius,
-annius, -arius, -asius, -atius, -avus, -avius, -ax_, and a similar
series with _-o-, -ocius_, &c.), and further those with the elements,
_-lno-_, _-lino-, -enna, -eno-, -tern-, -turn-, -tric-_, &c., exhibit
different methods by which _nomina_ were built up from _praenomina_ in
Etruscan. Finally it is of considerable historical importance to
observe that a great mass of the _praenomina_ used for this purpose
are clearly of Italic origin, e.g. _Helva, Barba, Vespa, Nero, Pedo_,
from all of which (and many more) there are derivatives which at one
stage or other were certainly or probably Etruscan. It is this
incorporation of Italic elements into the Etruscan
nomenclature--itself a familiar and inevitable feature of the
pirate-type of conquest and settlement, under which many women who
bear and nurse and first name the children belong to the conquered
race--that has entrapped so many scholars into the delusion that the
language itself was Indo-European.

12. So far the language has been discussed without any reference to ethnology. But the facts stated above in regard to the extension of the language in space and time are clearly adverse to the hypothesis that it came into Italy from the north, and fully bear out Livy's account (v. 33. 11) that the Etruscans of the Alpine valleys had been driven into that isolation by the invasion of the Gauls (beginning about 400 B.C.). And the accumulating evidence of a connexion with Asia Minor (see e.g. above Sec. 3) justifies confidence in the unbroken testimony of every Roman writer, which cannot but represent the traditions of the Etruscans themselves, and the evidence of similar traditions from the Asiatic side given by Herodotus (i. 97) to the effect that they came to Italy by sea from Lydia. Against this there has never been anything to set but the silence of "the Lydian historian Xanthus" (Dion. Hal. i. 28; cf. 30) who may have had many excellent reasons for it other than a disbelief of the tradition, and of whom in any case we know nothing save the vague commendation of Dionysius. And it is not merely the miscellanies of Athenaeus (e.g. xii. 519) but the unimpeachable testimony of the Umbrian Plautus (_Cistellaria_, 2. 3. 19), singularly neglected since Dennis's day, that convicts the Etruscans of an institution practised by the Lydians and other non-Indo-European peoples of Asia Minor, but totally repugnant to all the peoples among whom the Etruscans moved in their western settlement. The reader may be referred to Dennis's introductory chapter for a very serviceable collection of the other ancient testimony as to their origin. In the present state of our knowledge of the language it is best to disregard its apparent or alleged resemblances to various features of various Caucasian dialects pointed out by Thomsen (see above) and Pauli (_Altit. Forsch._ ii. 2, p. 147 ff.), and to acquiesce in Kretschmer's (_op. cit._ p. 408) _non liquet_ as to the particular people of Asia Minor from whom the Etruscans sprang. But meanwhile it is clear that such evidence as has been obtained by epigraphic and linguistic research is not in any sense hostile but distinctly favourable to the tradition of their origin which they themselves must have maintained.

AUTHORITIES.--Beside those mentioned in the text, see Professor F.
Skutsch's article "Etruskisch," in the new current (1908) edition of
Pauly-Wissowa's _Encyclopaedia_; A. Torp's _Etruskische Beitraege_, and
other shorter writings; E. Lattes's _Correzioni, giunte, postille al
C. I. Etrusc._ (Florence, 1904), and his most valuable _Iscriz.
paleolatine di provenienza Etrusca_ (1895); Schaefer's articles in
Pauli's _Altitalische Studien_ (see above), and, with caution,
Deecke's revision of Mueller's _Etrusker_ (Stuttgart, 1877). Some
account of the relations of Etruscans with different Italic
communities will be found in the relevant chapters of R.S. Conway's
edition of the remains of _The Italic Dialects_ (1897). Newly
discovered Etruscan inscriptions are regularly published in the
_Notizie degli scavi di antichita_, the official Italian journal of
excavations (published by the _Reale Accad. dei Lincei_, but
procurable separately). Fabretti's _Corpus Inscc. Italicarum_ with its
supplements was formerly useful, but in any doubtful reading its
authority is worth little, and its commentary and glossary represent
the epoch of Corssen. The regular contributions of Prof. Skutsch
(under the general heading "Lateinische Sprache") to Vollmer's
_Jahresbericht f. d. Fortschritte der romanischen Sprachwissenschaft_;
and of Prof. Herbig to Bursian's _Jahresbericht ueber die Fortschritte
der classischen Altertumswissenschaft_ will both be of service. The
present writer is indebted to both Professor Skutsch and Professor
Torp for valuable guidance and instruction. (R. S. C.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] For Barnabei's excavations see Fausto Benedetti, _Gli Scavi di
Narce ed il Museo di Villa Giulia_ (1900).

[2] For a further discussion see _ad fin._, section _Language_.

[3] See Pauli, _Altitalische Forschungen_, vol. i.; also sect.
_Language_ (below).

[4] Cf. the contents of the graves found by Boni in the Roman Forum
(_Notizie degli Scavi_, 1902, 1903, 1905) with the objects
represented in the plates of Montelius, _La Civilisation primitive en
Italie_, pt. i. For the cemeteries at Novilara cf. Brizio, _Monumenti
antichi_, vol. v.

[5] [Greek: ten te Rhomen auten ton suggrapheon Tyrrenida polin einai
hupelabon], Dion. Hal. i. 29; but see sect. _Language_ for meaning of
[Greek: Tyrrenia].

[6] For the wars of the Greeks against the Carthaginians and the
Etruscans see Busolt, _Griechische Geschichte_, ii. 218 ff.

[7] Pliny (_H.N._ xxxvii. 11). He says that amber was brought by the
Germans down the valley of the Po. Thence the trade-route crossed the
Apennines to Pisa (Scylax in _Geographi minores_, ed. Didot, i. p.
25). In the consideration of problems suggested by amber it is too
often forgotten that a very beautiful dark amber is found in Sicily.

[8] Montelius, _Civilization primitive en Italie_, ii. pl. 265; cf.
Petrie. _Naukratis_, i. pl. 20, fig. 15, and Perrot-Chipiez,
_Histoire de l'art_, iii.

[9] _Monumenti dell' Inst. Arch. Rom._ x. pl. 31; _Museo Etrusco
Vaticano_, i. pl. 63-69; cf. _Annali dell' Inst. Arch._, 1896, p. 199
ff.

[10] Vase with hieroglyphs found at Santa Marinella, _Bollettino
dell' Inst. Arch._, 1841, p. 111; _Mon. antichi_, viii. p. 88.

[11] G. Dennis, _Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria_.

[12] Varro _ap._ Serv. _ad Aen._ viii. 526; see Helbig, _Bull. dell'
Inst. Arch._ (1876), 227.

[13] Censorinus, _De Die Nat._ 17.

[14] See Preller, _Roem. Myth._ s.v. "Volcanus." Opposed to this see
Wissowa, _Religion u. Kultus der Roemer_, who seems to misinterpret
the evidence.

[15] Strabo v. 2. 39; cf. Livy i. 30; Dion. Hal. iii. 32.

[16] Nigidius Figulus _ap._ Arnob. _adv._ Nat. iii. 40; cf. _Nig.
Fig. reliquiae_, ed. Ant. Swoboda (1888), p. 83.

[17] Montelius, _Civ. Prim. en Italie_.

[18] For an illustration of the Corneto tomb see ARCHITECTURE, vol.
ii. p. 559.

[19] Appian viii. 66; Tertullian, _De spect._ 5; Plutarch, _Qu. Rom._
107.

[20] Dion. Hal. vii. 72.

[21] Montelius, _Civ. Prim._ ii. pl. 172.

[22] Ib. pl. 333; cf. 343.

[23] Ib. pl. 166.

[24] Ib. pl. 173.

[25] _Monum. Ant_. xv. p. 151; _Bull. d. Com. Arch. di Roma_, 1898,
p. 111.

[26] _Annali dell' Inst. Arch._, 1876, 230.

[27] Gerhard, _Etruskische Spiegel_; Koerte, _Rilievi delle urne
Etrusche_.

[28] See Pottier, _Catalogue des vases antiques, II. L'Ecole
Ionienne_, Boehlau, _Aus ionischen und italischen Nekropolen_; Karo,
_De arte vascularia antiquissima_; Endt, _Ionische Vasenmalerei_. See
further CERAMICS, Sec. Etruscan.

[29] Athen. i. 28.

[30] Martha, _L'Art etrusque_, pl. I, 4; _Bull. dell' Inst._ (1837)
p. 46.

[31] Plutarch, _Camillus_, 12.

[32] Gerhard, _Etr. Spiegel_ (continued by Klugmann and Koerte).

[33] Mirrors of Greek style, Gerhard, 111, 112, 116, 240, 305, 352;
Klugmann-Koerte, 107, 131, 160.

[34] See plates in Martha and in _Monumenti dell' Inst._, also _Mon.
Ant._ iv. and Milani's _Studie materiali_.

[35] Juvenal v. 164; Ovid, _Am._ iii. 13. 25 ff.

[36] Pliny, _H.N._ xiv. 9; xvi. 216.

[37] From the Polledrara tomb at Vulci, Martha fig. 335.

[38] _Coll. Tyszkiewicz_, pl. 13.

[39] _Mon. dell' Inst._ vi. pl. 59, cf. _Annali_ (1861), p. 402;
_Mon. Ant._ viii. pl. xiii.-xiv.

[40] _Mon. dell' Inst._ viii. pl. 20; Martha p. 347.

[41] Martha pp. 333, 348.

[42] See Koerte, _Rilievi delle urne Etrusche_.

[43] See _Mon. dell' Inst._ i. pl. 32-33, v. 16, 17, 33, 34, vi.
30-32, 79, viii. 36, ix. 13-15; Micali, _Mon. Ined._ pl. 58. Cf.
Helbig, _Annali_ (1863) p. 336, (1870) pp. 5-74; Brunn, ib. (1866),
p. 442.

[44] Mommsen, _Roem. Muenzwesen_; G.F. Hill, _Handbook of Greek and
Roman Coins_; Deecke, _Etruskische Forschungen_; also article
NUMISMATICS.

ETTENHEIM, a town of Germany, in the grand-duchy of Baden, pleasantly situated on the Ettenbach, under the western slope of the Black Forest, 7 m. E. from the Rhine by rail. Pop. (1900) 3106. It has a handsome Roman Catholic church, with ceiling frescoes, and containing the tomb of Cardinal Rohan, the last prince bishop of Strassburg, who resided here from 1790 till 1803; a Protestant church and a medieval town-hall. Its industries include the manufacture of tobacco, soap and leather, and there is a considerable trade in wine and agricultural produce. Founded in the 8th century by Eddo, bishop of Strassburg, Ettenheim remained attached to that see until 1802, when it passed to Baden. Louis Antoine Henri de Bourbon-Conde, duke of Enghien (1772-1804), who had taken refuge here in 1801, was arrested in Ettenheim on the 15th of March 1804 and conveyed to Paris, where he was shot on the 20th of March following. The Benedictine abbey of Ettenheimmuenster, which was founded in the 8th century and which was dissolved in 1803, occupied a site south of the town.

ETTINGSHAUSEN, CONSTANTIN, BARON VON (1826-1897), Austrian geologist and botanist, was born in Vienna on the 16th of June 1826. He graduated as a doctor of medicine in Vienna, and became in 1854 professor of botany and natural history at the medical and surgical military academy in that city. In 1871 he was chosen professor of botany at Graz, a position which he occupied until the close of his life. He was distinguished for his researches on the Tertiary floras of various parts of Europe, and on the fossil floras of Australia and New Zealand. He died at Graz on the 1st of February 1897.

PUBLICATIONS.--_Die Farnkraeuter der Jetztwelt zur Untersuchung und
Bestimmung der in den Formationen der Erdrinde eingeschlossenen
Ueberreste von vorweltlichen Arten dieser Ordnung nach dem
Flaechen-Skelet bearbeitet_ (1865); _Physiographie der
Medicinal-Pflanzen_ (1862); _A Monograph of the British Eocene Flora_
(with J. Starkie Gardner), Palaeontograph. Soc. vol. i. (Filices,
1879-1882).

ETTLINGEN, a town of Germany, in the grand-duchy of Baden, on the Alb, and the railway Mannheim-Basel, 41/2 m. S. of Karlsruhe. Pop. (1905) 8040. It is still surrounded by old walls and ditches, and presents a medieval and picturesque appearance. Among its more striking edifices are an old princely residence, with extensive grounds, an Evangelical and two Roman Catholic churches, and the buildings of a former monastery. There are also many Roman remains, notable among them the "Neptune" sculpture, now embedded in the wall of the town-hall. Its chief manufactures are paper-making, spinning, weaving and machine building. The cultivation of wine and fruit is also largely carried on, and in these products considerable trade is done.

The first notice of Ettlingen dates from the 8th century. It became a town in 1227 and was presented by the emperor Frederick II. to the margrave of Baden. In 1689 it was pillaged by the French, and near the town Moreau defeated the archduke Charles on the 9th and 10th of July 1796.

See Schwarz, _Geschichte der Stadt Ettlingen_ (Carlsruhe, 1900).

ETTMUeLLER, ERNST MORITZ LUDWIG (1802-1877), German philologist, was born at Gersdorf near Loebau, in Saxony, on the 5th of October 1802. He was privately educated by his father, the Protestant pastor of the village, entered the gymnasium at Zittau in 1816 and studied from 1823 to 1826 at the university of Leipzig. After a period of about two years during which he was partly abroad and partly at Gersdorf, he proceeded to Jena, where in 1830 he delivered, under the auspices of the university, a course of lectures on the old Norse poets. Three years later he was called to occupy the mastership of German language and literature at the Zuerich gymnasium; and in 1863 he left the gymnasium for the university, with which he had been partially connected twenty years before. He died at Zuerich in April 1877. To the study of English Ettmueller contributed by an alliterative translation of Beowulf (1840), an Anglo-Saxon chrestomathy entitled _Engla and Seaxna scopas and boceras_ (1850), and a well-known _Lexicon Anglo-Saxonicum_ (1851), in which the explanations and comments are given in Latin, but the words unfortunately are arranged according to their etymological affinity, and the letters according to phonetic relations. He edited a large number of High and Low German texts, and to the study of the Scandinavian literatures he contributed an edition of the _Voeluspa_ (1831), a translation of the _Lieder der Edda von den Nibelungen_ (1837) and an old Norse reading book and vocabulary. He was also the author of a _Handbuch der deutschen Literaturgeschichte_ (1847), which includes the treatment of the Anglo-Saxon, the Old Scandinavian, and the Low German branches; and he popularized a great deal of literary information in his _Herbstabende und Winternaechte: Gespraeche ueber Dichtungen und Dichter_ (1865-1867). The alliterative versification which he admired in the old German poems he himself employed in his _Deutsche Stammkoenige_ (1844) and _Das verhaengnissvolle Zahnweh, oder Karl der Grosse und der Heilige Goar_ (1852).