252 ROMAN PAVEMENTS. 



positive belief of those who saw it that one day some god, 

 Mithras or another, would crash through the portals of the tomb, 

 would sweep its gloomy caverns with celestial air, would set the 

 captive souls free and bring them back to warmth and light. 

 Such was their creed ; and who are we to say they were 

 wrong ? 



Etruscan Amphora. Etruria or Tyrrhenia extended from the 

 river Macra on the north to the Tiber on the south, and lay 

 between the western or Tyrrhenian sea and the Apennines. The 

 primitive culture of its inhabitants was a branch of the general 

 civilization of the European Bronze Age. The Etruscan 

 Museums of Italy are full of objects taken from tombs. 

 Amongst the vases there found are a great many that certainly 

 had been brought from Greece, and many, too, that had been 

 made in Tyrrhenian colonies of Greek artists. This only shows 

 the good taste of their employers, and indicates, of course, a 

 strong foreign influence upon domestic ceramics. On vases 

 made by Etruscans, the inscriptions are in their own language 

 and alphabet, and illustrate their own mythology. In tone, 

 drawing, and art they differ strongly from anything that has 

 been discovered in Greece. The amphora called Tyrrhenian, 

 though its general form is both ancient and widely diffused, 

 differs from the Greek and Roman in having a thicker body, and 

 a wider mouth. But gadrooning does not appear in the earlier 

 stages of its evolution. 



In looking through my notes of a visit paid, during September, 

 1901, to the Etruscan Museum at Verona, I have found the 

 rough sketch of a bas-relief on a sepulchral chest of limestone 

 said not to be later than the 2nd century B.C. The sculpture 

 shows a gadrooned amphora, supported in Phrygian manner, 

 and no doubt with Phrygian significance, by two horned 

 quadrupeds, each in association with a solar rosette. A local 

 feature makes this group even more remarkable. Each animal 

 possesses four udders which extend in a row, from front to back, 

 along the whole ventral surface (see figure III.). We are at 

 once reminded of the Etruscan Wolf, which usually has six 



