464 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION G. 



3,— THE NUMERALS IN THE ETRUSCAN LANGUAGE. 



By John Eraser, B.A., LL.D., Secretary of the Section. 



The Etruscans are still the unsolved problem of Ethnology. "Who 

 they were ; when, how, and whence they came into Italy ; to what 

 family of mankind they belonged, are questions to which no one has 

 been able to give an answer such as to secure general assent. 

 And yet the subject is of deep interest ; for, in the confederacy 

 of the Etruscan States, there existed a high civilisation a thou- 

 sand years, it may be, before our era, certainly long before Rome 

 was founded ; the Romans themselves were indebted to the 

 Etruscans for the models of their religious observances, social 

 institutions, government, and laws ; two of the Kings of Rome, the 

 Tarquins, wei'e of Etruscan origin ; the stoxy of ' Lars Porsena of 

 Clusium ' is one of the choicest legends in the early Roman annals ; 

 many of the high Etruscan families* passed into the Roman 

 peerage after their country was conquered by the Romans ; and, 

 even in our OAvn times, the discovery of the rock-hewn tombs of 

 the Etruscan chiefs, so sumptuously furnished, and so magnifi- 

 cently adorned with vessels of gold, silver, and bronze, and so 

 enriched with jewels — all this has given to the Etruscan name a 

 romantic attractiveness which makes us eager to know who they 

 were, and how they came to be a great and wealthy people at so 

 early a period, when most of the rest of Europe must have been 

 only in its first stages of civilisation. Many modern writers have 

 tried to throw light on the Etruscan mystery ; but it is no disparage- 

 ment to their learned labours to say, that, although a few well 

 ascertained portions of the truth are now known, yet the whole 

 truth is nearly as far from our grasp as ever. Among the best of 

 these writers are the late Dr. Donaldson, Lord Lindsay, Dr. Isaac 

 Taylor, Mr. Ellis, Dr. W. Corssen, Dr. W. Deecke, and Professor 

 Campbell of Montreal, besides several French and Italian savants. 

 The majority of these claim the Etruscans for some one or other 

 branch of the Aryan family, but a few make them Turanians. 

 No one thinks that they were Shemites. To almost every ancient 

 branch of the great Aryan family has been ascribed the honour 

 of the parentage of the Etruscans ; but it is obvious that only those 

 nations can compete for that honour, which were located in Europe 

 early enough to cast themselves, or a portion of themselves, into 

 Northern Italy. The Greek and Roman chroniclers had a tale 

 that the Etruscans came by sea from Lydia to Italy under the 

 leadership of one of their chiefs, Tyrrhenus; but that is not history. 



*c/. " Maecenas, atavis edite regibus." 



