1847. 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



303 



determine that of the Roinans, for notwithstanding all that has been written, 

 this latter question is by no means set at rest. 



If we avail ourselves of the comparison of facts in other countries, we 

 shall first have to learn the events affectins the Celts, for that these were 

 settlers before the Pelasgians appears, from the names of the rivers and 

 mountains, and from other such signs, very certain. It is moreover much 

 more likely that the Pelasgians and Etruscans should drive the Celts back, 

 as the Germani d' I on the Rhine, and the Belgians in Britain, than that 

 the Celts should drive the Pelasgians from Cisalpine Gaul. Although we 

 have very strong assertions of this latter event, we have every reason for 

 not admitting them in their fall bearing. Gauls might have passed the 

 Alps, and settled in a Celtic country, weakened perhaps by war with the 

 Etruscans ; and this will satisfy to the full the declarations of the Roman 

 historians, while it will be in accordance with historic science. 



The spread of the Pelasgian tribes would cause the withdrawal of the 

 Celts ; and we can then conceive, in accordance with what took place in 

 Greece, that the new settlements would receive the elements of civilization 

 from the busy spirits of Phoenicia and the centres of the arts, who sought, 

 among ruder people, the field of distinction which at home was already 

 too crowded. 



If we allow for a Celtic action in Italy, we ought likewise to be prepared 

 for a Germanic influence. This alone will account for some of the pheno- 

 mena affecting the Romans, for which Pelasgic or Greek causes are in- 

 competent. Allowing to the full for the indirect action of Greek civiliza- 

 tion through Etruria, Rome certainly owed little to the Greek spirit. 



That Etruria had a very close fellowship with Greece is certain, and 

 her sea trade would help this, but we are not therefore to admit that 

 Etrurian civilization is purely a Greek derivative. The people repre- 

 sented to us in the Museum, particularly those in the paintings from the 

 tomb at Vulci, found in 1832, have so little of a European cast, and so 

 much greater likeness to the Indo- Persic and Syriac types, that we can 

 hardly refuse to acknowledge some eastern infiuence. It might be said 

 that the Etruscan artists adopted an artificial or cooventiooal type, as the 

 Greeks for instance did with regard to the form of the eye. Those, how- 

 ever, who will take the trouble to compare, will find that there is every 

 difference between the grim outlines of early Greek art, and the paintings 

 of the Etruscans. In the several specimens we have of the latter, the 

 same portraiture is not observed throughout, and there is difference enough 

 between the personages of Vulci and those of Tarquinii to enable us to deter- 

 mine that the paintings are in portraiture of a people, and not in simple con- 

 formity with a conventional type. The paintings from Vulci present us with 

 an eye, nose, and profile belonging to those people who now and then lived 

 in the west of Asia, and the features in the Vulci paintings are as strongly 

 marked as the features of Arabs, in some of the Egyptian paintings of 

 Rameses II. or Seti-Menephtha, in the adjoining rooms. It may perhaps 

 be said that the representations of the Etruscan Charon in the Bronze 

 Room are conventional, but these are more strongly marked— the nose is a 

 large aquiline nose, like that of the Syrian or Arab race. The countenances 

 rep°resented in the Tarquinian paintings approach nearer to a Pelasgic 

 type, but are peculiar in their formation. 



From what we know of the Etruscans, it is by no means incompatible 

 with facts, that they may have received a civilization independent from 

 that of the Greeks. The Phoenicians we know ranged the Iberian seas, 

 as well as the Ionian, and it was quite competent for a Cadmus to carry 

 Phoenician letters to Etruria as to Thebes. It is much more satisfactory 

 to suppose that the Etruscans and Greeks drew from a common spring, 

 than to suppose that the Etruscans drew only through the Greeks. There 

 was an intercourse between the Phoenicians and Etruscans as between the 

 Phoenicians and Greeks- -for anything we know, a greater intercourse be- 

 tween the former, while the Etruscans were susceptible enough of cultiva- 

 tion, that they were hardly likely to have been unimpressed with their first 

 visitors, the Phoenicians, and to have waited for the Greeks before they 

 took the seeds of civilization. There was no sympathy of language to cause 

 a greater favour for the Greeks, for the Eiruscans were decidedly not 

 Greeks, whatever kindred they bore to the Pelasgic family. Commerce 

 with the Phoenicians would account .for the likenesses between the Etrus- 

 cans and Greeks, as well as for the differences. The Etruscans would 

 draw from the same springs of letters, arts, laws, manners, and belief, as 

 the Greeks did, and it is as easy to picture the growth of Etruria, as of 

 Athens, Corinth, or Thebes ; while after-intercourse with Greece would 



fashion a greater likeness between Etruria and Greece, as intercourse be- 

 tween the cities of Greece brought them to one common form of civiliza- 

 tion. There could have been no large Greek settlement in Etruria, or we 

 should have had results equivalent to those of Magna Grecia or Massilia, 

 instead ot being able to trace only general proofs of Greek intercourse and 

 influence. 



Perhaps a large fusion of Phoenician blood determined the formation of 

 the Etrurian people, though we must not expect to find an equal influence 

 throughout Etruria. The prevalence of so many large commonwealths 

 shows that Etruria rose, as Greece did, from the gradual development of 

 separate settlements, which would each possess a distinctive character. 

 Hence we are able, even in the few remains we have in the Museum, to 

 trace great dilferences between the works of Tarquinii and those of Vulci. 

 A Phoenician settlement would account for the Etruscan taste for shipping 

 and sea trade, and perhaps for other characteristics. If we allow of such 

 a settlement, yet we need not suppose that it would permanently influence 

 the language or national features; for a small body of settlers among a 

 larger people would be absorbed, as the Longbeards were in the north of 

 Italy, and the Northmen were in the south. This is a simple explanation 

 of a common historical phenomenon ; but where the foreign population is 

 concentrated, as the Jews in the Ghetti, and the Greeks in South Naples, 

 national characteristics may he long preserved even among a small com- 

 munity. 



The study of Etruscan antiquities is likely to have a special value as 

 illustrating the early history of Rome, which is now hidden in mist. The 

 Etruscans were a highly-polished people when Rome was a nest of robbers; 

 and from Etruria was derived much of the laws, learning, manners, and 

 belief of the Romans. It is an interesting historical investigation to deter- 

 mine how Rome, of late growth, succeeded in undermining and upsetting 

 Etruria, though we can acknowledge that it was effected as much by the 

 greater moral vigour of the former, as by any other circumstances. 



The Etruscan collections in the British Museum comprise several stone 

 tombs, a vast number of vases, and copies of large paintings from the inside 

 of tombs. In these latter we have represented, with all the vigour of life, 

 the domestic manners and public games of the Etruscans, and there is not 

 in the Museum any collection which is in this respect so complete or so 

 interesting. The paintings and bas-reliefs relating to the Egyptians, 

 Greeks, or Persians, are fragmentary, except the frieze from the Parthe- 

 non, a work wonderful in itself, but teaching us little of the Athenians as 

 a people. In the tombs from Tarquinii we have however banquets and 

 public games, wherein men and women are represented in all the bright- 

 ness and distinctness of colour. We have the dresses, the furniture, the 

 vessels, the animals, the instruments, and these, as well as the persons, 

 drawn so naturally, as to leave nothing to be desired for our well-under- 

 standing of the home life of this long-lost people. Subjects so varied offer 

 of course many illustrations of the habits of the people, and on one of the 

 Tarquinian tombs we have all the public games in which the people in- 

 dulged. Although the representations from the Egyptian tombs are painted, 

 and often enable us to distinguish portraits, national characteristics, and 

 details of dress, yet their conventional execution wants the charm of the 

 Etruscan designs. Seti-Menephtha, of a colossal size, occupies the greater 

 part of a picture, and attacks a chief of the Tahennu, who again overtops 

 the people, who in diminutive shape are scattered in the corners of the 

 panel. The Egyptians, moreover, want life, even if in any degree they 

 comply with the requisites of a likeness to the human form. They are 

 curious, but are not pleasing ; whereas the works of the Etruscans have 

 both qualities, and are the expression of a very agreeable type of civiliza- 

 tion. 



The Etruscan collection in the British Museum was chiefly formed by 

 Signor S. Campanari, who explored many tombs in Etruria, and made 

 copies of the paintings. The whole of these were exhibited for some time 

 in London and other towns, under the name of the Etruscan Tombs, as will 

 be remembered by those who saw them some few years ago. The Trustees 

 of the British Museum showed a very laudable exercise of judgment ia 

 purchasing this collection from Signor Campanari, and securing it for 

 England. Besides the Campanari collection there are great numbers of 

 vases of various dates and styles, purchased or received by the Trustees, 

 and which include many Etruscan specimens. 



The collection may be considered as forming three parts. 1st. The 

 paintings from the tombs. 2nd. The sculptured tombs. 3rd. The vasej 

 and terracottas. It is to the paintings we shall direct our attention cbieSy 

 on the present occasion. 



