Chapter XVIII: Sidenote: ETRUSCAN DEMONS

[Sidenote: TOMBA DEL TIFONE]

But the benevolent genii and Lasas are absolutely in the minority in the paintings and plastic art of Etruria, and become rarer as time goes on. The mood rises from sinister gloom to wild terror. Two pictures will illustrate this climax. In the Tomba del Tifone at Corneto, which was discovered in 1832 and which is one of the grandest of the family vaults of Etruria, there is preserved, besides the serpent-legged demons from which the tomb has derived its name, a large wall-painting representing the journey of a young man to the realm of the dead (fig. 45). To the left is seen an altar towards which the procession of mantle-clad youths moves; they are led by a young demon with snakes in his hair, and a torch and a snake in his hands. The procession advances to the sound of a lituus-trumpet, and the young men carry staves and seem to be the clients of the central figure. The central figure is made conspicuous by walking without any attributes in the centre of the procession right in the front, but over his right shoulder we see Charun’s clawlike hand, and Charun advances behind him like a black shadow, characterized by pointed asses’ ears, snakes in his hair, and his terrible hammer. The high rank of the young man is made apparent by the inscription over his head: ‘Laris Pumpus Arnthal clan cechase,’ i. e. Laris Pumpus, son of Arnth, priest (_sacerdos_). Here, then, we have another of the priestly aristocrats of Etruria. After him come two more companions with staffs, and a trumpeter,[114] as well as two young men without any attributes, and the scene is terminated by some dim figures, one of which seems to be a woman with a snake in her hair and another to be of negroid type; possibly these are the rulers of the underworld according to a later local Etruscan conception. One thing, at any rate, is plain, that the dead youth, in spite of his splendid following, goes to meet a sorrowful fate. What can the sound of the instruments avail when Charun’s claw is laid on his shoulder!

[Sidenote: TOMBA DEL CARDINALE]

This tomb dates, as far as can be judged by the style of the painting, from the first half of the fourth century B.C.[115] From the beginning of the next century dates the Tomba del Cardinale at Corneto, which was discovered shortly after 1760,[116] then forgotten and filled in again, and finally reopened in 1786[117] by Cardinal Garambi, bishop of Corneto. It has suffered much by exposure to wind and weather and to tourists for more than a hundred and fifty years. It has a narrow frieze with battle scenes, doubtless mythological, but the interest is centred in the long narrow frieze of pictures under the ceiling. The subject of this is the march of the shades towards the other side (fig. 46). A woman is drawn on a two-wheeled cart by two winged demons, one light and the other blue-black, both wearing the traditional garb of the genii of death, familiar from the contemporary sarcophagi and cinerary urns: a shirt with braces, and high top boots. This is perhaps the young woman who is mentioned in the inscription of the tomb: ‘Ramtha, daughter of Vel and Vestrcni, who was wife (_puia_) of Larth Lartha, and who lived (_valce_ instead of _svalce_) nineteen years.’ A young man follows in a long cloak: he turns round to a black, winged demon carrying a hammer (fig. 47). Beyond the gateway of the underworld behind him a devil of the same type is seated, and then comes a crowd of young people driven along by two devils, one of whom threatens them with his hammer.[118] A woman, who looks back moaning, is being brutally dragged along by two male demons, and at the end of the procession two winged devils are seen hastening forward, slender of limb and agile of movement, like poisonous insects. In a fragment of a frieze, which is now badly damaged, the Charun devil was once more seen in the act of crushing a skull with his hammer.[119]

[Sidenote: CONCEPTION OF THE HEREAFTER]

This picture has a quality which reminds one of the frescoes in the Campo Santo at Pisa, but which is much more terrible because no hope of paradise atones for the horror. The reliefs on contemporary cinerary urns tell the same tale. To be sure, the dead reclines fat and finely bedecked on the lid of these cinerary urns, holding a drinking-bowl, or, if female, a fan. This is only tradition and has nothing to do with actual feeling. It is clear enough that the old confident conception of the hereafter as an eternal symposium has been exploded. To this the reliefs on the urns bear witness. These reliefs, if they do not directly evade the problem by choosing neutral scenes from Greek mythology, reveal a demoniac possession of appalling intensity. We need no literature in order to realize that the Etruscans under the pressure of disaster became another people, pessimistic, in terror of death, and devoid of any resiliency which would allow them to indulge in the pleasures of life. If this spiritual incubus descended upon the masses of the Roman people we can better understand how it is that the poet Lucretius can feel enthusiasm, and can arouse it in others, when he preaches the gospel of godlessness and the annihilation of the soul in death.[120] For of the Etruscan people, at any rate, the words of Lucretius[121] hold good:

Omnia perfunctus vitai praemia marces.

All that life had to give, thou hast enjoyed,
And now thou fadest.

FOOTNOTES:

[114] Trumpets at Roman funeral processions are known from reliefs on sarcophagi. _Röm. Mitt._ xxxiii. 1908, pl. iv (pp. 18-25), and Cagnat and Chabot, _Manuel d’Archéol. Romaine_, p. 586, fig. 315. Notice in the second relief from Amiternum, _Röm. Mitt._ 1908, pl. iv, at the bottom, how the banquet with the members of the family reclining on festive couches is also preserved in early Rome (second to first century B.C.).

[115] Contemporary and akin in subject is the Tomba Bruschi at Corneto. _Monumenti_, viii, pl. 36. Stryk, _Kammergräber_, p. 101. The processions here have quite a festive look; a woman finds time to look at herself in a glass, but the devils, who appear in the crowds or lurk in the corners, show that the occasion is a serious one.

[116] Caylus, _Recueil d’antiquités_ iv. (Paris, 1761), 112 f.

[117] Tiraboschi, _Storia della lett. ital._, Venezia, 1795, i. 13 ff. footnote.

[118] Similar motives on tombstones and Etruscan gems. Cp. Grenier, _Bologna villanovienne et étrusque_, p. 447. Ducati, _Monumenti dei Lincei_ xx. pp. 607-12. Beazley, _Lewes House Collection of Ancient Gems_, p. 33, no. 36 (pl. 3).

[119] Badly illustrated in Inghirami, _Monumenti etruschi_ iv. pl. xxvii.

[120] _De rerum natura_ iii. 912 ff.

[121] iii. 956.

INDEX

The * indicates that the citation is in the notes.

A

Achilles, 9, 52.

Acrobats, 28.

Aeschylus, 19*, 54*.

Agamemnon, 51, 52.

Ajax, 52.

Altars, 55.

Amphitheatres, 25.

Apollodorus, 36*.

Apollonius Rhodius, 27*.

Appian, 15.

Aristophanes, 26.

Aristotle, 15, 29*, 33, 44.

Athenaeus, 13, 15*, 33*, 34*, 37*.

Attic influence, 20, 22.

Auguri, Tomba degli, 10 f., 41.

Augustus, 48.

B

Bacchanti, Tomba dei, 36.

Ballerina, la bella, 3, 17.

Ballot-balls, 32.

Barone, Tomba del, 1, 2, 20 f., 29.

Barracco Collection, 55.

Bells, 17, 37.

Bighe, Tomba delle, 1, 2, 22 ff., 28 ff., 46.

Black vessels, 23*.

Bolsters, 30.

Boxers, _see_ Pugilists.

Brass circles, 8.

British Museum, 14, 44.

Bruschi, Tomba, 57*.