1. By "Etruscan" is meant the language spoken by the people called
Etrusci (more commonly Tusci) by the Romans, Turskum numen (i.e. _Tuscum
nomen_) by their neighbours the Umbrians of Iguvium (q.v.), and [Greek:
Tursenoi] (later, e.g. in Strabo's time, [Greek: Turrenoi]) by the
Greeks. Their own name for themselves was _Rasenna_ (or _Rasena_),
according to Dionysius Halic. (i. 30), but it seems now to be fairly
probable that this was no more than the name of a leading house
(represented later on in Pisa and elsewhere) dominant at some fairly
early date in some one locality (see below). Niebuhr attempted on
slender grounds (_Rom. Hist._, ed. 3 [Eng. trans.], i. p. 41) to
distinguish between the [Greek: Turrenoi] and the Tusci in order to
accept the strongly supported tradition of a Lydian origin for the
"Tyrrhenes" (see below), while rejecting it for the "Tuscans," but no
one has since attempted to maintain the distinction (Dittenberger,
_Hermes_, 1906, p. 85, footnote, regards the form [Greek: -enoi] as a
"Graecized form of a local name" equivalent to _Tusci_), and we now know
enough of the morphology of Etruscan names to recognize _Tur-s-co-_ and
_Tur-s-eno-_ as closely parallel Etrusco-Latin stems, cf. _Venu-c-ius:
Venu-senus_ both from Etr. _venu_ (Schulze, _Lat. Eigennamen_, p. 405)
and _Ras-ena: Ras-c-anius_ (ibid. p. 92); or _Voluscus, Volscus:
Volusenus_ (where the formative suffixes in each word are Etrusco-Latin
whether the root be the same or not). But the analysis of the names
cannot be entirely satisfactory until the first syllable of Etrusci--in
Greek writers sometimes [Greek: Etrouskoi], e.g. in _Strabo_--ed.
Meineke--has been explained.
2. The extent of territory over which this language was spoken varied
considerably at different epochs, but we have only a few fixed points of
chronology. From two separate sources, both traditional and probably
sound (Dion. Hal. i. 26, and Plutarch, _Sulla_, 7; cf. Varro, quoted by
Censorinus c. 17. 6), we should ascribe the first appearance of the
Etruscans in Italy to the 12th century B.C. The intimate connexion in
form between the names _Roma, Romulus_ and the Etruscan gentes rumate,
rumulna (_Romatia, Romilia_, &c.), and the fact that many of the early
names in Rome (e.g. _Ratumenna, Capena, Tities, Luceres, Ramnes_) are
characteristically Etruscan, justifies the conclusion that the
foundation of the city, in the sense at least of its earliest
fortification, was due to Etruscans (Schulze, p. 580). The most likely
interpretation of Cato's date for the Etruscan "foundation" of Capua is
598 B.C. (Conway, Italic Dialects, pp. 99 and 83). In 524 B.C. (Dion.
Hal. vii. 2) the Etruscans were defeated by Aristodemus of Cumae, and in
474 by Hiero of Syracuse in a great naval battle off Cumae. Between 445
and 425 (_It. Dial._ l.c.) they were driven out of Capua by the
Samnites, but they lingered in parts of Campania (as far south as
Salernum) till at least the next century, as inscriptions show (ib. pp.
94 ff., 53), as at Praeneste and Tusculum (ib. p. 310 ff.) till the 3rd
century or later. In Etruria itself the oldest inscriptions (on the
stelae of Faesulae and Volaterrae) can hardly be later than the 6th
century B.C. (C. Pauli, _Altital. Forsch._ ii. part 2, 24 ff.); the
Romans had become dominant early in the 3rd century (C.I.L. xi. 1
_passim_), but the bulk of the Etruscan inscriptions show later forms
than those found in the old town of Volsinii destroyed by the Romans in
280 B.C. (C. Pauli, ib. i. 127). In the north of Italy we find Etruscan
written in two alphabets (of Sondrio and Bozen) between 300 and 150 B.C.
(id. ib. pp. 63 and 126). The evidence of an Etruscan linen book wrapped
round a mummy (see below) seems to suggest that there was some Etruscan
colony at Alexandria in the period of the Ptolemies. At least one
Etruscan suffix has passed into the Romance languages, _-i[t]a_ or
_-ita_ in Etr. _lautni[t]a_ (from _lautni_ "familiaris," or "libertus"),
and Etr.-Lat. _Iulitta_, which became Ital. _-etta_, Fr.-Eng. _-ette_.
3. Finally must be mentioned the remarkable pre-Hellenic epitaph
discovered on the island of Lemnos in 1885 (Pauli, _Altital. Forsch._
ii. 1 and 2), the language of which offers remarkable resemblances to
Etruscan, especially in the phrase _sial[ch]veiz aviz_ (? = "fifty years
old"); cf. Etr. _ceal[ch]us avils_ (? "twenty years old"); and the pair
of endings _-ezi, -ale_ in consecutive words; cf. Etr. _lar[t]iale
hul[ch]niesi_; the style of the sculptural figure has also parallels in
the oldest type of Etruscan monuments. The alphabet of this inscription
is identical (Kirchhoff, _Stud. Griech. Alphab._, 4th ed., p. 54) with
that of the older group of Phrygian inscriptions, which mention King
Midas and are therefore older than 620 B.C. With this should be combined
the fact that a marked peculiarity of the South-Etruscan alphabet ([up
arrow] = f, but earlier = the Greek _digamma_) has demonstrably arisen
out of [glyph] = q on Phrygian soil, see _Class. Rev._ xii., 1898, p.
462. Despite the reasonable but not unanswerable difficulty of
Kretschmer (_Einleitung in d. Geschichte d. griech. Sprache_, 1896, p.
240), the weight of the evidence appears to be distinctly in favour of
the Etruscan character of the language, and Pauli's view is now
generally accepted by students of Etruscan; hence the inclusion of the
inscription in the _Corpus Inscc. Etruscarum_.
4. The first attempt to interpret Etruscan inscriptions was made by
Phil. Buonarroti (_Explic. et conject. ad monum._ &c., Florence, 1726),
who, as was almost inevitable at that epoch, tried to explain the
language as a dialect of Latin. But no real study was possible before
the determination of the alphabet by Lepsius (_Inscc. Umbr. et Oscae_,
Leipzig, 1841), and his discovery that five of the Tables of Iguvium
(q.v.), though written in Etruscan alphabet, contained a language akin
to Latin but totally different from Etruscan, though some of the
non-Italic peculiarities of Etruscan had been already pointed out by
Ottfried Mueller (_Die Etrusker_, Breslau, 1828). The earliest
inscriptions, e.g. the terra-cotta stele of Capua of the 5th century
B.C., are written in "serpentine boustrophedon," but in its common form
of the 3rd century B.C. the alphabet is retrograde, and has the
following nineteen letters:--
[19 glyphs here are aligned with the letters below]
a, c, e, v, z, h, [theta], i, l, m, n, p, s', r, s, t, u, [chi], f
On older monuments [glyph] = k occurs as an archaic form of c; [glyph] =
q; [glyph], a sibilant of some kind; and [glyph] = [glyph], this last
mostly in foreign words. In the earlier monuments the cross-bars of e
and v and h have a more decidedly oblique inclination, and s is often
angular ([glyph]). The mediae b, g, d, though they often occur in words
handed down by writers as Etruscan, are never found in the Etruscan
inscriptions, though the presence of the mediae in the Umbrian and Oscan
alphabets and in the abecedaria shows that they existed in the earliest
form of the Etruscan alphabet, O is very rare. The form [glyph] (earlier
[two glyphs] ) = f in south Etruscan and Faliscan inscriptions should
also be mentioned. Its combination with [glyph] h shows that it had once
served to denote the sound of digamma just as Latin F. The varieties of
the alphabet in use between the Apennines and the Alps were first
examined by Mommsen (_Inschriften nord-etruskischen Alphabets_, 1853),
and have since been discussed by Pauli (_Altitalische Forschungen_,
1885-1894, esp. vol. iii., _Die Veneter_, p. 218, where other references
will be found, see also VENETI).
5. The determination of the alphabet was followed by a large number of
different attempts to explain the Etruscan forms from words in some
other language to which it was supposed that Etruscan might be akin;
Scandinavian and Basque and Semitic have been tried among the rest.
These attempts, however ingenious, have all proved fruitless; even the
latest and least fanciful (_Remarques sur le parente de la langue
etrusque_, Copenhagen, 1899; _Bulletin de l'Academie Royale des Sciences
et des Lettres de Danemark_, 1899, p. 373), in which features of some
living dialects of the Caucasus are cautiously compared by Prof. V.
Thomsen (as independently by Pauli, see Sec. 12), is at the best premature,
and as to the numerals probably misleading. Worst of all was the effort
of W. Corssen (_Die Sprache der Etrusker_, 1875), in whom learning and
enthusiasm were combined with loose methods of both epigraphy and
grammar, to revive the view of Buonarroti. The only solid achievement in
the period of Corssen's influence (1860-1880) was the description of the
works of art (tombs, vases, mirrors and the like) from the different
centres of Etruscan population; Dennis's _Cities and Cemeteries of
Etruria_ (1st ed., 1848; 2nd, 1878) contributes something even to the
study of the language, because many of the figures in the scenes
sculptured or engraved bear names in Etruscan form (e.g. _usils_, "sun";
or "of the sun," on the _templum_ of Placentia; _fufluns_;, "Bacchus";
_tu[ch]ul[ch]a_, a demon or fury; see Dennis, _Cities_, 2nd ed.,
frontispiece, and p. 354).
6. The reaction against Corssen's method was led first by W. Deecke,
_Corssen und die Sprache der Etrusker_ (1876), _Etruskische Forschungen_
(1875-1880), and continued by Carl Pauli at first jointly with Deecke
and afterwards singly with greater power (_Etruskische Studien_, 1873),
_Etr. Forschungen u. Studien_ (Goettingen-Stuttgart, 1881-1884),
_Altitalische Studien_ (Hanover, 1883-1887); _Altitalische Forschungen_
(Leipzig, 1885-1894). Of the work achieved during the last generation by
him and the few but distinguished scholars associated with him
(Danielsson, Schaefer, Skutsch and Torp) it may perhaps be said that,
though the positive knowledge yet reaped is scanty, so much has been
done in other ways that the prospect is full of promise. In the first
place, the only sound method of dealing with an unknown language, that
of interpreting the records of the language by their own internal
evidence in the first instance (not by the use of imaginary parallels in
better known languages whose kinship with the problematic language is
merely assumed), has been finally established and is now followed even
by scholars like Elia Lattes, who still retain some affection for the
older point of view. By this means enough certainty has been obtained on
many characteristic features of the language to bring about a general
recognition of the fact that Etruscan, if we put aside its borrowings
from the neighbouring dialects of Italy, is in no sense an Indo-European
language. In the second place, the great undertaking of the _Corpus
Inscriptionum Etruscarum_, founded by Carl Pauli, with the support of
the Berlin Academy, conducted by him from 1893 till his death in 1901,
and continued by Danielsson, Herbig and Torp, for the first time
provided a sound basis for the study in a text of the inscriptions,
edited with care and arranged according to their provenance. The first
volume contains over four thousand inscriptions from the northern half
of Etruria. Thirdly, the discoveries of recent years have richly
increased the available material, especially by two documents each of
some length. (1) The 5th-century stele of terra-cotta from S. Maria di
Capua already cited, published by Buecheler in _Rhein. Museum_, (lv.,
1900, p. 1) and now in the Royal Museum at Berlin, is the longest
Etruscan inscription yet found. Its best preserved part contains some
two hundred words of continuous text, and is divided into paragraphs, of
which the third may be cited in the reading approved by Danielsson and
Torp, and with the division of words adopted by Torp (in his
_Bemerkungen zur etrusk. Inschr. von S. Maria di Capua_, Christiania,
1905), to which the student may be referred. "isvei tule ilucve, an pris
laruns ilucu[t]u[ch], nun: ti[t]uaial [ch]ues [ch]a[t]c(e) anulis mulu
rizile, ziz riin puiian acasri, ti-m an tule, le[t]am sul; ilucu-per
pris an ti, ar vus; ta aius, nun[t]eri." (2) The linen wrappings of an
Egyptian mummy (of the Ptolemaic period) preserved in the Agram museum
were observed to show on their inner surface some writing, which proved
to be Etruscan and to contain more than a thousand words of largely
continuous text (Krall, "Die etruskischen Mumienbinden des Agramer.
Museums," _Denkschr. d. k. Akad. d. Wissenschaften_, 41, Vienna, 1892).
The writing has probably nothing to do with the mummy as it is on the
inner surface of the bands, and these are torn fragments of the original
book. The alphabet is of about the 3rd century B.C.
7. From the recurrence of a number of particular formulae with
frequent numerals at intervals, the book seems to be a liturgical
document. Torp has pointed out that the two documents have some forty
words in common, and, with Lattes ("Primi Apprenti sulla grande
iscriz. Etrusca," &c., in _Rendic. d. Reale Inst. Lomb._, serie ii.
vol. xxxviii., 1900, p. 345 ff.), has shown that both contain lists of
offerings made to certain gods (among them Suri, Le[t]am, and Calu);
and Skutsch (_Rhein. Mus._ 56, 1901, p. 639) has added a plausible
conjecture as to the occasions of the offerings, based on the phrase
"fler[ch]va ne[t]unsl" "Neptuni statua" (or "statuae pars"); Torp has
made it very probable that the words _vacl_ (or _vacil_) and _nun_,
which recur at regular intervals in both, mean "address," "recite,"
"pray," or the like, preceding or following spoken parts of the
ritual.
8. Along with the growth of the material, some positive increase in
knowledge of the language has been attained. Independently of the work
done upon particular inscriptions, such as that which has just been
described, a considerable addition has come from the elaborate study
of Latin proper names already mentioned by Prof. W. Schulze of Berlin
(_Zur Geschichte lateinischer Eigennamen_, Berlin, 1904), which has
incidentally embodied and somewhat extended the points of Etruscan
nomenclature previously observed. The chief results for our purpose
may be briefly stated. It will be convenient to use the following
terms:--
(1) _praenomen_ = personal name of the individual.
e.g. _Vel_ or _Lar_ of a man, _Lar[t]i_ or _[t]ana_ of a woman.
(2) _nomen_ = family name.
e.g. _Tite_ or _Vipi_ or _Tetna_, of men.
_Titi_ or _Vipinei_ or _Tetinei_, of women.
(3) _cognomen_ = additional family name.
e.g. _Faru_ or _Petru_ of men, _Farui, Vetui_ of women.
(4) _agnomen_ = special cognomen derived from the cognomen of the
father.
e.g. _Hanusa_ (in Latin spelling _Hannossa_) or _Pultusa_ (also
_Pultus_) of a man; _Hanunia_ of a woman.
All these are commonly in the "nominative" (as the examples just
quoted from Schulze, pp. 316-327) in sepulchral inscriptions.
Besides these, we have certain other descriptions used in forms which
may be called a "genitive-dative" case, or a "derivative possessive"
Adjective. These may be entitled:--
(5) _paternum_ (a) = praenomen of father, used generally after the
_nomen_ of son or daughter.
e.g. _arn[t]al_ "of _Arn[t]_." more commonly simply _ar_, so _ls_
for _Laris-al_, to which _clan_ "son," often abbreviated _c_, and
_se[ch]_ or _sec_ (abbrev. _s_) "daughter," are sometimes added.
_paternum (b) = nomen_ of father, used only after the _praenomen_ of a
daughter (e.g. _[t]ana vel[t]urnas_, "Thana daughter of Velthurna"),
to which _se[ch]_ "daughter," often abbreviated _s_, is sometimes
added.
(6) _maternum_ (a) = nomen of mother.
e.g. _pumpunial_, "of Pumpuni" (in Lat. form _Pomponia_); _alfnal_
"of Alfnei" (Lat. _Alfia_); _hetarias_, "of Hetaria."
_maternum_ (b) = cognomen of mother.
e.g. _vetnal_, "of Vetui," or "of Vetonia," _hesual_, "of Hesui."
_maternum_ (c) = agnomen of mother.
e.g. _cumerunias_, "of Cumerunia," i.e. "of a daughter of the
_cumeru_-family."
(7) _maritale_--(i.) _nomen_, or (ii.) _cognomen_, or (iii.) _agnomen_
of husband, used directly after the _nomen_ of the wife, the word
_puia_, "wife," being often added.
e.g. (i.) _lar[t]i cencui larcnasa_, "Larthia Cenconia, wife of a
Largena"; (ii.) _lar[t]ia pulfnei spaspusa_, "Larthia Pulfennia,
wife of a Spaspo"; this form being the same as that used for the
_agnomen_ of a man (see above)--(iii.) _hastia cainei leusla_,
"Hastia Caia, wife of a son of a Leo"; and with a longer and
possibly not synonymous form of suffix, _[t]ania titi latinial sec
hanuslisa_, "Thania Titia, daughter of Latinia, wife of a
Hanusa"--these secondary derivatives in _-sla_, &c., being an
example of what is called _genetivus genetivi_, a characteristic
Etruscan formation, not confined to this feminine use.
These examples will probably enable the reader to interpret the great
mass of the names on Etruscan tombs. It should be added (1) that no
clear distinction can be drawn between the use of the _cognomina_ and
the _nomina_, though it is probable that in origin the _cognomen_ came
from some family connected with the gens by marriage; and (2) that the
_praenomen_ generally comes first, but sometimes second (especially
when both _nomen_ and _praenomen_ are added in the genitive to the
name of a son or daughter).
9. The examples given illustrate also the few principles of inflexion
and word-formation that are reasonably certain, for example, the
various "genitival" endings. Those in _-s_ and _-l_ are also found in
dedications where in Latin a dative would be used:--e.g. (_mi_)
_[t]upl[t]as alpan turce_ "(hoc) deae Thupelthae donum dedit," where
_turce_ shows the only verbal inflection yet certainly known; cf.
_amce_, "was," _arce_, "made," _zilacnuce_, "held the office of a
_Zila[ch]_," _lupuce_, "passed away." More important are the formative
principles which the proper names display. Endings _-a, -u, -e_ and
_-na_ are common in the "Nominative"--and in Etruscan there appears to
be no distinction between this case and the Accusative--of men's
names; the endings _-i, -ei, -nei, -nia_ and _-unia_ are among the
commonest for women's names. But no trace of gender has yet been
observed in common nouns or adjectives. Nor is it always easy to
distinguish a "Case" from a noun-stem. The women's names corresponding
to the men's names in _-u_ are sometimes _-ui_, sometimes _-nei_,
sometimes longer forms (_ves-acnei_, beside _ves-u, hanunia_ from
_hanu_). And the so-called Genitives can themselves be inflected, as
we have seen. The form _ne[t]unsl_ "of Neptune," may even have
swallowed up the nominatival _-s_ of the Italic _Neptunus_.
10. In view of the protracted discussion as to the numerals and the
dice on which the first six are written, it should be added that only
the following points are certain: (1) that _ma[ch]_ = one; (2) that
the next five numbers are somehow represented by _ci, [t]u, hu[t], sa_
and _zal_; (3) and the next three somehow by _cezp-, sem[ph]-_ and
_muv_; (4) that the suffix _-al[ch]-_ denotes the tens, or some of
them, e.g. _ceal[ch]-_ beside _ci_ (? 50 and 5); (5) that the suffix
_-z_ or _-s_ is multiplicative (_es(a)ls_ from _zal_). It is almost
certain that _zal_ must mean either 2 or 6, and of these a stronger
case can, perhaps, be made for the latter meaning. _Zathrum_ appears
to be the corresponding ten (? 60). Skutsch's article in _Indogerm.
Forschungen_, v. p. 256, remains the best account.
In close connexion with the numerals on sepulchral inscriptions appear
the words _ril_, "old, aged," _avils_, "annorum," or "aetatis," and
_tivr_, "month" (from _tiv_, "moon").
11. Schulze has shown (e.g., p. 410) that a large number of familiar
endings (e.g. those which when Latinized become _-acius, -alius,
-annius, -arius, -asius, -atius, -avus, -avius, -ax_, and a similar
series with _-o-, -ocius_, &c.), and further those with the elements,
_-lno-_, _-lino-, -enna, -eno-, -tern-, -turn-, -tric-_, &c., exhibit
different methods by which _nomina_ were built up from _praenomina_ in
Etruscan. Finally it is of considerable historical importance to
observe that a great mass of the _praenomina_ used for this purpose
are clearly of Italic origin, e.g. _Helva, Barba, Vespa, Nero, Pedo_,
from all of which (and many more) there are derivatives which at one
stage or other were certainly or probably Etruscan. It is this
incorporation of Italic elements into the Etruscan
nomenclature--itself a familiar and inevitable feature of the
pirate-type of conquest and settlement, under which many women who
bear and nurse and first name the children belong to the conquered
race--that has entrapped so many scholars into the delusion that the
language itself was Indo-European.
12. So far the language has been discussed without any reference to
ethnology. But the facts stated above in regard to the extension of the
language in space and time are clearly adverse to the hypothesis that it
came into Italy from the north, and fully bear out Livy's account (v.
33. 11) that the Etruscans of the Alpine valleys had been driven into
that isolation by the invasion of the Gauls (beginning about 400 B.C.).
And the accumulating evidence of a connexion with Asia Minor (see e.g.
above Sec. 3) justifies confidence in the unbroken testimony of every Roman
writer, which cannot but represent the traditions of the Etruscans
themselves, and the evidence of similar traditions from the Asiatic side
given by Herodotus (i. 97) to the effect that they came to Italy by sea
from Lydia. Against this there has never been anything to set but the
silence of "the Lydian historian Xanthus" (Dion. Hal. i. 28; cf. 30) who
may have had many excellent reasons for it other than a disbelief of the
tradition, and of whom in any case we know nothing save the vague
commendation of Dionysius. And it is not merely the miscellanies of
Athenaeus (e.g. xii. 519) but the unimpeachable testimony of the Umbrian
Plautus (_Cistellaria_, 2. 3. 19), singularly neglected since Dennis's
day, that convicts the Etruscans of an institution practised by the
Lydians and other non-Indo-European peoples of Asia Minor, but totally
repugnant to all the peoples among whom the Etruscans moved in their
western settlement. The reader may be referred to Dennis's introductory
chapter for a very serviceable collection of the other ancient testimony
as to their origin. In the present state of our knowledge of the
language it is best to disregard its apparent or alleged resemblances to
various features of various Caucasian dialects pointed out by Thomsen
(see above) and Pauli (_Altit. Forsch._ ii. 2, p. 147 ff.), and to
acquiesce in Kretschmer's (_op. cit._ p. 408) _non liquet_ as to the
particular people of Asia Minor from whom the Etruscans sprang. But
meanwhile it is clear that such evidence as has been obtained by
epigraphic and linguistic research is not in any sense hostile but
distinctly favourable to the tradition of their origin which they
themselves must have maintained.
AUTHORITIES.--Beside those mentioned in the text, see Professor F.
Skutsch's article "Etruskisch," in the new current (1908) edition of
Pauly-Wissowa's _Encyclopaedia_; A. Torp's _Etruskische Beitraege_, and
other shorter writings; E. Lattes's _Correzioni, giunte, postille al
C. I. Etrusc._ (Florence, 1904), and his most valuable _Iscriz.
paleolatine di provenienza Etrusca_ (1895); Schaefer's articles in
Pauli's _Altitalische Studien_ (see above), and, with caution,
Deecke's revision of Mueller's _Etrusker_ (Stuttgart, 1877). Some
account of the relations of Etruscans with different Italic
communities will be found in the relevant chapters of R.S. Conway's
edition of the remains of _The Italic Dialects_ (1897). Newly
discovered Etruscan inscriptions are regularly published in the
_Notizie degli scavi di antichita_, the official Italian journal of
excavations (published by the _Reale Accad. dei Lincei_, but
procurable separately). Fabretti's _Corpus Inscc. Italicarum_ with its
supplements was formerly useful, but in any doubtful reading its
authority is worth little, and its commentary and glossary represent
the epoch of Corssen. The regular contributions of Prof. Skutsch
(under the general heading "Lateinische Sprache") to Vollmer's
_Jahresbericht f. d. Fortschritte der romanischen Sprachwissenschaft_;
and of Prof. Herbig to Bursian's _Jahresbericht ueber die Fortschritte
der classischen Altertumswissenschaft_ will both be of service. The
present writer is indebted to both Professor Skutsch and Professor
Torp for valuable guidance and instruction. (R. S. C.)