Languages of Iron-Age Italy

In our reading of Ovid we had touched upon the ecosystem of languages of Italy before Rome made Latin "the" language. This video offers some recent interesting research on the subject. A link to a site with further info is below.

More from the same researchers here. Via rogueclassicism.

A few more Etruscan motifs

Haruspicy

Liver of Piacenza

The Etruscans were well known for the practice of divining by the entrails of sheep. A bronze sculpture of a liver known as the "Liver of Piacenza", dating to around 100 BC, was discovered in 1877 near the town of Piacenza in northern Italy. It is marked with the name of regions assigned to various deities of Etruscan religion. 

The art of haruspicy was taught in the Libri Tagetici, a collection of texts attributed to Tages, a childlike being who figures in Etruscan mythology, and who was discovered in an open field by Tarchon; the Libri Tagetici were translated into Latin and employed in reading omens.

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Tages

The Etruscans believed their religion had been revealed to them by seers,[4] the two main ones being Tages, a childlike figure born from tilled land who was immediately gifted with prescience, and Vegoia, a female figure. 

The Etruscans believed in intimate contact with divinity.[5] They did nothing without proper consultation with the gods and signs from them.[6] These practices were taken over in total by the Romans.

Tages is also described as a boy with the wisdom of an old man.

Tages

Vegoia authoress

The revelations of the prophetess Vegoia are designated as the Libri Vegoici, which included the Libri Fulgurales and part of the Libri Rituales, especially the Libri Fatales.

She is barely designated as a “nymph”, as the actual writer of the Libri Fulgurales,[4] which give the keys to interpreting the meaning of lightning strokes sent by the deities (using a cartography of the sky, which, as a sort of property division, was attributed to Vegoia;[5] this assignment of sectors of the horizon to various deities is paralleled in the microcosm that is the liver of a sacrificed animal. The sacred divisions seem also to have a correspondence in the measurement and division of land, which since the very dawn of Etruscan history obeyed religious rules[6]), as teaching the correct methods of measuring space [7] in the Libri Rituales, and as lording over their observation under threat of some dire woe or malediction,[8] thus establishing her as a power presiding over land property and land property rights, laws and contracts (as distinct of commercial contracts laws). 

She is also indicated as having revealed the laws relative to hydraulic works,[9] thus having a special relationship to "tamed" water.

Divination

The Etruscans accepted the inscrutability of their gods' wills. They did not attempt to rationalize or explain divine actions or formulate any doctrines of the gods' intentions. As answer to the problem of ascertaining the divine will, they developed an elaborate system of divination; that is, they believed the gods offer a perpetual stream of signs in the phenomena of daily life, which if read rightly can direct man's affairs. These revelations may not be otherwise understandable and may not be pleasant or easy, but are perilous to doubt.

Theocracy

The Etruscan state government was essentially a theocracy. The government was viewed as being a central authority, over all tribal and clan organizations. It retained the power of life and death; in fact, the gorgon, an ancient symbol of that power, appears as a motif in Etruscan decoration. The adherents to this state power were united by a common religion. Political unity in Etruscan society was the city-state, which was probably the referent of methlum, “district”. Etruscan texts name quite a number of magistrates, without much of a hint as to their function: the camthi, the parnich, the purth, thetamera, the macstrev, and so on. The people were the mech. The chief ruler of a methlum was perhaps a zilach.

Etruscan Necropolises

Some 6,000 tombs, 200 of which include wall paintings. The main site is the Necropolis of Monterozzi, with a large number of tumulus tombs with chambers carved in the rock. The scenes painted include erotic and magic depictions, landscapes, dances and music. There are also carved sarcophagi, some dating to the Hellenistic period. Main tombs included the Tomba della Fustigazione and the Tomb of the Leopards.

Tomb of the Leopards

Meaning and Being 

Long after the assimilation of the Etruscans, Seneca the Younger said[1] that the difference between the Romans and the Etruscans was:

Whereas we believe lightning to be released as a result of the collision of clouds, they believe that the clouds collide so as to release lightning: for as they attribute all to deity, they are led to believe not that things have a meaning insofar as they occur, but rather that they occur because they must have a meaning.

Civita di Bagnoregio

Etruscan shoes and early Roman Kings

The question came up about the mode of succession of the early Roman kings. These seven kings held enormous civil and religious powers, as this Wikipedia article makes clear. Interestingly, the office of rex apparently was not hereditary:

The kings after Romulus were not known to be dynasts and no reference is made to the hereditary principle until after the fifth king Tarquinius Priscus. Consequently, some have assumed that the Tarquins and their attempt to institute a hereditary monarchy over this conjectured earlier elective monarchy resulted in the formation of the republic.. . . 

. . . Whenever a Roman king died, Rome entered a period of interregnum (literally: between kings). Supreme power in the state would devolve to the Senate, which had the task of finding a new king. The Senate would assemble and appoint one of its own members as the interrex to serve for a period of five days with the sole purpose of nominating the next king of Rome. After the five-day period, the interrex would appoint (with the Senate's consent) another Senator for another five-day term. This process would continue until the election of a new king. Once the interrex found a suitable nominee for the kingship, he would bring the nominee before the Senate and the Senate would review him.[citation needed] If the Senate passed the nominee, the interrex would convene the Curiate Assembly and preside as its president during the election of the King. 

Once a candidate was proposed to the Curiate Assembly, the people of Rome could either accept or reject the candidate-king.

The insignia of the king was twelve lictors wielding the fasces, a throne of a Curule chair, the purple Toga Picta, red shoes, and a white diadem around the head. Only the king could wear a purple toga.

About those shoes - there's an Etruscan link: Why the Pope Wears Red Shoes. from the New York Review of Books:

A few more odds and ends:

A review of Robert Knapp's Invisible Romans (thanks, Jutta!).

The first eight chapters of Peter D'Epiro's Sprezzatura: Fifty Ways Italian Genius Shaped the World offer a range of views of Roman life and culture.

The first chapter of D'Epiro's The Book of Firsts: 150 World-Changing People and Events from Caesar Augustus to the Internet is about Augustus Caesar. The second is about Ovid's Metamorphoses.

(Disclaimer: I have essays in the two latter books but all cited here are by Peter D'Epiro).

Finally, on his latest album, Bob Dylan sings of the early Roman kings.

Latin in the 6th century BC

Following up on the Etruscan Chimaera d'Arezzo, we note that it's the Etruscans whom Aeneas has to defeat in order to establish his people in Latium.

Here's a map offering a view of the chief languages of Italy in the Iron Age. Notice the relatively diminutive size of Latin.

Source