PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 139 



from the earliest time, made settlements in the eastern part 

 of Africa, and on the coasts immediately opposite their native 

 country ; and the traders to Ophir might have found, in the 

 basin of the Erythreian and Indian Seas, other sources of gold 

 besides India itself. 



Less influential than the Phoenicians in extending the geo- 

 graphical sphere of our views, and early affected by the Greek 

 influence of a band of Pelasgian Tyrrhenians, who invaded 

 their country from the sea, the Etruscans present themselves 

 to our observation as a gloomy and stern race. They carried 

 on no inconsiderable inland trade to distant amber countries, 

 through Northern Italy and across the Alps, where a via 

 sacra* was protected by all the neighboring tribes. The 

 primitive Tuscan race of the Rasense appears to have follow- 

 ed almost the same road on their way from Rhaetia to the 

 Padus, and even further southward. In accordance with our 

 object, which is always to seize on the most general and per- 

 manent features, we would here consider the influence which 

 the general character of the Etruscans exercised on the most 

 ancient political institutions of Rome, and through these on 

 the whole of Roman life. It may be said that the reflex ac- 

 tion of this influence still persists in its secondary and remote 

 political effects, inasmuch as, for ages, Rome stamped her 

 character, with more or less permanence, on the civilization 

 and mental culture of mankind.! 



A peculiar characteristic of the Tuscans, which demands 

 our special notice in the present work, was their inclination 

 for cultivating an intimate connection with certain natural 

 phenomena. Divination, which was the occupation of their 

 equestrian hierarchical caste, gave occasion for a daily observ- 

 ation of the meteorological processes of the atmosphere. The 

 Fulguratores, observers of lightning, occupied themselves in 

 investigating the direction of the lightning, with " drawing it 

 down," and " turning it aside. "| They carefully distinguished 



* Aristot., Mirab. Auscnlt., cap. 86 and 111, p. 175 and 225, Bekk. 



t Die Etrusker, by Otfried MUller, abth. ii., s. 350 ; Niebuhr, Rdmische 

 Geschichte, th. ii., s. 380. 



\ The story formerly current in Germany, and reported on the testi- 

 mony of Father Angelo Cortennvis, that the tomb described by Varro 

 of the hero of Clusium, Lars Porsena, ornamented with a bronze hat 

 and bronze pendant chains, was an apparatus for collecting atmospher- 

 ical electricity, or for conducting lightning (as were also, according to 

 Michaelis, the metal points on Solomon's temple), was related at a time 

 when men were inclined to attribute to the ancients the remains of a 

 supernaturally-revealed primitive knowledge of physics, which was, 

 however, soon again obscured. The most important notice of the rela- 



