ETRUSCANS, RELIGION OF THE. — The religion, and in particular the religious thought, of the Etruscan people — which flourished in central Italy during the first millennium B.C. — is unfortunately known in an extremely uncertain and fragmentary manner, owing to the scarcity and one-sidedness of the sources. The original documents in Etruscan are limited to a few ritual texts, including only one lengthy manuscript on linen (that of the wrappings of the Zagreb mummy), largely of uncertain interpretation, and to a certain number of dedicatory formulae on statues, vases and other votive objects. The Greek and Latin literary sources supply, albeit imperfectly, mostly indirect and fragmentary information about the deities, myths, forms of worship, religious customs and sacred writings of the Etruscans. The most reliable evidence available, though limited by its very nature, consists of archaeological remains: namely, the ruins of sacred sites (temples, altars, etc.) and their furnishings, as well as depictions of deities, legends and sacred ceremonies found in funerary painting, sculpture, urns and engraved mirrors.
Despite these difficulties, it is possible to recognize or at least discern some fundamental aspects of the religious world and various details of the beliefs and cults of a people whom ancient tradition, with general agreement, considered most religious, to the point of deriving their name, through a naive etymological explanation, from the very act of sacrificing (*Tusci* from *θύω*, *bouzō*).
The Etruscan religion cannot be historically separated, in its entirety, from that of the other pagan peoples of the classical world with which the Etruscans came into contact and shared cultural developments; nor, least of all, from the religion of the Italic peoples, and especially the Romans, who inherited and transmitted its spiritual legacy. Nevertheless, there are indications to suggest that Etruscan religiosity preserves primitive traits, likely linked to the prehistoric Mediterranean world, and that beliefs and forms of worship spread from the Near East also took root there. The prevalence of certain irrational tendencies in the relationship between the human and divine spheres, the obscurity of the supernatural forces that continuously influence human life, the importance of the variety of divinatory practices, and the frequent representation of monstrous demons and hybrids set the religious attitude of the Etruscans, in its most intimate and original core, somewhat apart from the rational and mythologically determined forms of Greek belief. However, the cultural influence of the Hellenic world was so strong in Italy from the earliest historical times that it imposed its own personal cults, its vine imagery and Greek myths upon Etruria as well; so that it can be affirmed that within Etruscan religion, various, complementary, and even contradictory elements coexisted. It is likely that an attempt to systematize and codify Etruscan religious thought and practice took place only in the Hellenistic age, when Etruria was already under Roman sovereignty, through the efforts of priestly oligarchies entrusted with interpreting Etruscan theology and ritual. These priesthoods were responsible for the sacred books (*“Arauspicini,” “Fulgurali,”* and *“Rituali”*), mentioned in classical literature but unfortunately now lost.
The Etruscan pantheon reflects the variety of traditions and influences already noted. We know that divine entities were venerated in relation to phenomena, places, time cycles, generative forces, family groups, and especially the obscure and superior powers of fate. These latter, the *“dei involuti”* or *“operanti”* (hidden or active gods), of whose names, number and functions we have no knowledge, were conceived as true collegia of deities and were regarded as the highest and most formidable. Public and private cult, however, was directed above all toward personal deities, similar in conception, ritual acts and often even in name to the gods of Greek and Roman religion. Among these, we may cite Tins or Tinia (Zeus, Jupiter), Uni (Hera, Juno), Menrva (Athena, Minerva), Turan (Aphrodite, Venus), Sethlans (Hephaestus, Vulcan), Fufluns (Dionysus, Liber), Turms (Hermes, Mercury), Selvans or Selans (Silvanus), Maris (Mars), Nethuns (Neptune), Apul (Apollo), Artimi or Artumes (Artemis), Hercle (Heracles), Aita or Mantus (Hades), Phersipnai or Mania (Persephone), etc. In other cases, the correspondence is less evident, as with astral or celestial deities (Usil and Cautha or Catha, the sun; Tiv, the moon; Thesan, the dawn), local deities incorporated into the national pantheon (Veltha or Veltina, in Latin Volturnus, whose sanctuary became the federal center of Etruria; Nortia, goddess of fate at Volsinii, compared to Fortuna, etc.), and finally deities of war and death (Letha, Laran, Culu, Suri, Vanth, Culsans, etc.). Notable is the belief in deified dead, called *“dei animales”* or *“anime divine”* (divine souls), akin to the Manes of the Latin world. Among the demigods are the female genii, the so-called *“lasa,”* depicted as beautiful maidens who appear in the retinue of Turan in many mythological scenes; the infantile genii; the Furies and underworld demons, among which Charun (Charon) and Tuchulcha are depicted in monstrous form.
A special body of doctrine, known to Latin writers as the *“disciplina Etrusca,”* regulated the relationship between gods and men. It consisted of teachings that indigenous traditions presented in the form of
ETRUSCANS RELIGION
736
ominous warnings. Offerings consisted of animals, food, liquids, incense; nor are there lacking testimonies of more or less precious gifts (works of art, vases, various objects) dedicated by private individuals in sanctuaries. Priests officiated, sometimes organized into colleges, some of whose specific titles are known from Etruscan sacred and funerary inscriptions (cepen or cipen, perhaps to be connected with the Sabine *capenus*; eisen, cels, sant, etc.).
It remains to mention the Etruscan doctrines on time and death. The former were expounded in the *“libri fatales,”* the latter in the *“libri acheruntici,”* both of which were part of the *“libri rituales.”* The conception of the fatal end of life applied to men, cities and nations and consisted in the belief in a periodic crisis at the end of certain phases of existence, whose threats could be averted through special ceremonies, and in an absolute limit marking the end of the entire life cycle. The doctrine of the *“saecula”* is closely connected with these conceptions. The problem of beliefs about death and the afterlife is more complex; archaeological evidence, though indirect and sometimes uncertain, sheds some light on II. From the earliest times, Etruria practiced both the funerary rite of cremation and that of inhumation. The custom of protecting the mortal remains of the deceased, constructing tombs in imitation of houses, and placing personal ornaments, weapons, furnishings, food and other funerary offerings within them, adorning the walls with images of life and ceremonies, and finally faithfully representing the features of the deceased (from which portraiture arose) is clear evidence that the ancient Mediterranean belief in the partial vitality of the deceased’s spirit, together with his remains, within the tomb persisted. From funerary paintings, it appears that later the conception of an underworld modeled on the Greek image took hold, but with a literary emphasis on the faith in apotheosis that could be achieved through special sacrifices: an Etruscan ritual text, that of the Capua tile, probably contains a description of such sacrifices.
“Vedi tav. XLVIII.”
ETRUSCANS, RELIGION OF THE - Figure of the Demon Tuchuhah, from the tomb called "of the Ogre" in Tarquinia (4th century B.C.). Florence, Archaeological Museum.
of a true and proper revelation that encompassed the norms of civil life, worship, and divinatory practices. Some of these notions had, according to legend, been provided to men in the remotest times by the divine child Tagete, born from the furrow of a plowed field with hoary locks, and by the nymph Begoe (in Etruscan Lasa Vecuvia). The most notable part of the doctrines collected in the sacred books already mentioned consisted in the art of interpreting the will of the gods and future events through the examination and study of the entrails of animals, especially the liver (haruspicy or hepatoscopy), using procedures partly similar to those employed by the peoples of Asia Minor; and in the interpretation of lightning, considered the greatest and most terrible manifestation of the power of the gods (fulguratory art). Special priests and priestly colleges were dedicated to these practices: the haruspices (in Etruscan netsvis) and the fulgurators (in Etruscan trutnv frantac). Among the Romans, haruspicy and the interpretation of lightning were regarded as specifically Etruscan divinatory techniques; whereas the prediction of the future based on the observation of the flight of birds (auspicy, practiced by augurs) and, in general, the interpretation of prodigies (sestertia) were considered part of the common religious practice of Italy.
The norms of proper worship, that is, of sacrifices and offerings, were also included in the "discipline" and had to be set down in the "ritual books." The few surviving Etruscan ritual texts allow us to recognize the similarities between Etruscan sacrificial ceremonies and those of the Italic and Latin peoples. These rites were performed in sacred places (templa, probably sacni in Etruscan), consisting of enclosures with altars where actual temple buildings also stood. Great importance was attached to orientation in relation to the auspices and the meticulous rules of ritual: the eastern region (left) was considered benign and propitious; the western (right) hostile and
ETRUSCANS, RELIGION OF THE - Bronze model of a liver found in Piacenza. It was used for teaching the divinatory art of fulguratory discipline. It is divided into 16 compartments with the names of as many deities who can hurl lightning from the sky; the three protrusions are seen as symbols of the Earth (cube), the Sun (cone), and the Sky (pyramid) — Piacenza, Civic Museum.