of the Romans - Etruscans on the north and Greeks on the south. The ancestors of the historic Etruscans were probably Ægean sea-rovers who settled in the Italian peninsula before the begin The Etrus cans ning of the eighth century B.C. The immigrants mingled with the natives and by conquest and colonization founded a strong power in the country to which A GRECO-ETRUSCAN CHARIOT Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York The chariot was discovered in 1903 A.D., in an Etruscan cemetery near Rome. It dates from perhaps 600 B.C. Almost every part of the vehicle is covered with thin plates of bronze, elaborately decorated. The wheels are only two feet in diameter. Since the chariot is too small and delicate for use in warfare, we may believe it to have been intended for ceremonial purposes only. ization they gave their name time the Etruscans appear to have ruled over Campania and also in the Po Valley as far as the Alps. Their colonies occupied the shores of Sardinia and Corsica. Their fleets swept the Tyrrhenian Sea. The Etruscans for several centuries were the leading nation in Italy. These Etruscans, like the Hittites of Asia Minor, are a mysterious race. No one as yet has been able to read their language, which is quite Etruscan civil- unlike any Indo-European tongue. The words, however, are written in an alphabet borrowed from Greek settlers in Italy. Many other civilizing arts besides the alphabet came to the Etruscans from abroad. Babylonia gave to them the principle of the round arch and the practice of divination.2 Etruscan graves contain Egyptian seals adorned with hieroglyphics and beautiful vases bearing designs from Greek mythology. The Etruscans were skillful workers in iron, 1 See page 28. See pages 53, 61. bronze, and gold. They built their cities with massive walls, arched gates, paved streets, and underground drains. In the course of time a great part of this Etruscan civilization was absorbed in that of Rome. As teachers of the Romans the Etruscans were followed by the Greeks. About the middle of the eighth century B.C. Hellenic colonies The Greeks began to occupy the coasts of Sicily and AN ETRUSCAN ARCH southern Italy. The earliest Greek settlement was Cumæ, near the bay of Naples. It was a city as old as Rome itself, and a center from which Greek culture, including the Greek alphabet, spread to Latium. A glance at the map 2 shows that the chief Greek colonies were all on or near the sea, from Campania to the gulf of Tarentum. North of the "heel" of Italy extends an almost harborless coast, where nothing tempted the Greeks to settle. North of Campania, again, they found the good harbors already occupied by the Etruscans. The Greeks, in consequence, were never able to make Italy a completely Hellenic land. Room was left for the native Italian peoples, under the leadership of Rome, to build up their own power in the peninsula. The Italian city of Volterra still preserves in the Porta dell' Arco an interesting relic of Etruscan times. The archway, one of the original gates of the ancient town, is about twenty feet in height and twelve feet in width. On the keystone and imposts are three curious heads, probably rep resenting the guardian deities of the place. The Italians were an Indo-European people who spoke a 1 Naples, the ancient Neapolis, was a colony of Cumæ. See page 89. 2 See the map facing page 50. The Italian highlanders language closely related, on the one side, to Greek and, on the other side, to the Celtic tongues of western Europe. They entered Italy through the Alpine passes, long before the dawn of history, and gradually pushed southward until they occupied the interior > O Ym of the peninsula. At the be- +XA CHARACTERS OF THE ETRUSCAN ALPHABET About eight thousand Etruscan inscriptions are known, almost all being short epitaphs on gravestones. In 1892 A.D. an Etruscan manu script, which had been used to pack an Egyp tian mummy, was published, but the language could not be deciphered. had separated into two main branches. The eastern and central parts of Italy formed. the home of the highlanders, grouped in various tribes. Among them were the Umbrians in the northeast, the Sabines in the upper valley of the Tiber, and the Samnites in the south. Still other Italian peoples occupied the peninsula as far as Magna Græcia. The western Italians were known as Latins. They dwelt in Latium, the "flat land" extending south of the Tiber between the Apennines and the Tyrrhenian Sea. Residence in the lowlands, where they bordered on the Etruscans, helped to make the Latins a civilized people. Their village communities grew into larger settlements, until the whole of Latium became filled with a number of independent city-states. The ties of kinship and the necessity of defense against Etruscan and Sabine foes bound them together. At a very early period they had united in the Latin League, under the headship of Alba Longa. Another city in this league was Rome. The Latins 49. The Romans Rome sprang from a settlement of Latin shepherds, farmers, and traders on the Palatine Mount. This was the central eminence in a group of low hills south of the Tiber, about fifteen 1 The Romans believed that their city was founded in 753 B.C., from which year all Roman dates were reckoned. miles by water from the river's mouth. Opposite the Palatine community there arose on the Quirinal Hill another Founding of settlement, which seems to have been an outpost Rome of the Sabines. After much hard fighting the rival hill towns between the Palatine and Quirinal became the Forum, or common market place, and the steep rock, known as the Capitoline, formed the common citadel.1 The union of the Palatine and Quirinal settlements greatly increased the area and population of the Roman Union of the city. In course of time settlements were made on seven hills the neighboring hills and these, too, cast in their lot with Rome. Then a fortification, the so-called "Wall of Servius," was built to bring them all within the boundaries of the enlarged com 1 See the map, page 293. munity. Rome came into existence as the City of the Seven Hills. Long after the foundation of Rome, when that city had grown rich and powerful, her poets and historians delighted to relate Myths of the many myths which clustered about the earlier early Rome stages of her career. According to these myths Rome began as a colony of Alba Longa, the capital of Latium. The founder of this city was Ascanius, son of the Trojan prince Æneas, who had escaped from Troy on its capture by the Greeks and after long wanderings had reached the coast of Italy. Many generations afterwards, when Numitor sat on the throne of Alba Longa, his younger brother, Amulius, plotted against him and drove him into exile. He had Numitor's son put to death, and forced the daughter, Rhea Silvia, to take the vows of a Vestal Virgin.1 AN EARLY ROMAN COIN Shows the twins, Remus There But Rhea Silvia, beloved by Mars, the god of war, gave birth to twin boys of more than human size and Romulus and beauty. The wicked Amulius ordered the children to be set adrift in a basket on the Tiber. Heaven, however, guarded these offspring of a god; the river cast them ashore near Mount Palatine, and a she-wolf came and nursed them. they were discovered by a shepherd, who reared them in his own household. When the twins, Romulus and Remus, reached manhood, they killed Amulius and restored their grandfather to his kingdom. With other young men from Alba Longa, they then set forth to build a new city on the Palatine, where they had been rescued. As they scanned the sky to learn the will of the gods, six vultures, birds of Jupiter, appeared to Remus; but twelve were seen by Romulus. So Romulus marked out the boundary of the city on the Palatine, and Remus, who in derision leaped over the half-finished wall, he slew in anger. Romulus thus became the sole founder of Romulus and Remus, as infants suckled by a wolf. Rome and its first king. 1 See page 146. |