Etruscan religion

Overview

Etruscan religion was the belief system of the Etruscan city-states, the leading civilization of pre-Roman Italy. Romans saw the Etruscans as unusually devoted to religion, and almost no Etruscan literature survives, so belief is reconstructed mainly from tombs, temples, inscriptions and later Greek and Roman accounts. Its central conviction was that the gods revealed their will through nature and human-made objects, making divination, especially haruspicy, the reading of a sacrificed animal's liver, central to public and private life. This lore, the Etrusca disciplina, was said to have been revealed by a child-prophet, Tages. Many Etruscan rituals, and haruspicy itself, passed into Roman religion and were practised long after Rome absorbed the last Etruscan cities.^{[1–4, 7–8]}

History

The leading power of early Italy c. 800–500 BCE

Etruscan city-states built the first urban civilization of pre-Roman Italy and, from about 616 to 509 BCE, even ruled Rome itself through the kings later remembered as the Tarquins. Writing centuries later, the Roman historian Livy judged the Etruscans "the people most dedicated to matters of religion." Yet Etruscan literature has not survived, and the language is still only partly understood, so most of what is known about Etruscan belief comes from excavated tombs and temples, scattered inscriptions, and the testimony of Greek and Roman writers rather than from Etruscan religious texts themselves.^[1–3]

A revealed science of divination c. 700–200 BCE

At the heart of Etruscan religion was the conviction that the gods expressed their will through every feature of nature and through human-made things, making divination essential to both state and private decisions. This revealed knowledge, the Etrusca disciplina, was traced to the miraculous child-prophet Tages, said to have sprung newborn from a freshly plowed field at Tarquinia, spoken at once, taught the religious science to the astonished farmers present, and then vanished. Haruspicy, divination by examining a sacrificed animal's liver, became the discipline's most distinctive art: a bronze model liver found near Piacenza in 1877, inscribed in sixteen sections with gods' names, was used to train diviners, its two halves mapping benevolent heavenly gods against darker ones, mirroring how Etruscan cosmology divided the sky into sixteen regions.^{[4–5, 7, 9]}

Gods, tombs and an afterlife that darkened c. 600–1 BCE

Etruscan religious art names dozens of gods, among them the sky-god Tin or Tinia, equated with Zeus and Jupiter and master of the thunderbolt, yet himself bound by a destiny greater than his own will; other gods, such as Menrva, differed sharply from their Greek or Roman counterparts. Painted tombs at Tarquinia and the house-shaped tombs of Cerveteri's Banditaccia necropolis, the richest evidence for Etruscan belief, show the afterlife darkening over time, from an early, paradise-like vision to grim underworld scenes ruled by the Hades-like Aita and demons such as the hammer-wielding Charun and the winged Vanth. Etruscan rituals, including founding a city by plowing its boundary with a white bull and cow, passed into Roman practice, and haruspicy survived the fall of the last Etruscan cities to become recognized in Roman state religion.^{[6, 8, 10–11]}

Places

Etruscan Necropolises of Cerveteri and Tarquinia

ITA · UNESCO World Heritage, 2004

The great cemeteries of two Etruscan city-states: Cerveteri's Banditaccia, with thousands of rock-cut tombs laid out like a city of the dead, and Tarquinia's Monterozzi, famed for about 200 painted tomb chambers, the earliest from the 7th century BCE. Together they are the main surviving evidence for Etruscan belief about death and the afterlife.^[10]

Art & objects

Public-domain objects from museum collections. Select one to see it at the museum.

Architectural Relief Depicting the Gigantomachy (Battle Between Gods and Giants)Etruria, 3rd-2nd century BCEVotive (Gift) in the Shape of a Woman's HeadVeio, about 500 BCEStatuette of HeraklesEtruria, 3rd-2nd century BCEStatuette of a PriestEtruria, 3rd century BCEStatuette of Tinia (Zeus)Etruscan, c. 500 BCE, perhaps with modern patinaSleep and Death Cista HandleEtruscan, 400–375 BCEPatera Support: LasaEtruscan, 300–175 BCEMirror with Engraved Scene: Thesan and Memnun (Eos and Memnon)Etruscan, c. 470–460 BCEIncense BurnerEtruscan, 100s BCEAlabaster cinerary urnEtruscan, Hellenistic, 3rd century BCETerracotta head of a womanEtruscan, Late Classical, 4th century BCETerracotta votive statuette of two draped femalesEtruscan, Classical, 4th–3rd century BCEBronze votive statuette of a standing humanEtruscan, Geometric, 8th century BCE

How we know

A religion known mainly from the dead

Because Etruscan literature has not survived and the Etruscan language is only partly understood even in its two longest surviving texts, almost everything known about Etruscan belief is inferred from archaeology: temple foundations, votive inscriptions naming a god but little else, painted and sculpted tombs, and the sometimes hostile accounts of Greek and Roman writers who saw the Etruscans' intense religiosity, especially their skill at divination, as their defining trait.^[2–3]

Common misconceptions

Glossary

Etrusca disciplina

The Etruscans' revealed religious science of divination and ritual, traced to the prophet Tages, later studied and partly adopted by the Romans.^{[4, 7]}

Haruspicy

Divination by examining the liver of a sacrificed animal; the Etruscans' most distinctive and influential divinatory art.^[5]

Tages

A miraculous child-prophet said to have sprung from a plowed field at Tarquinia, spoken at birth, and revealed the Etrusca disciplina before vanishing.^[7]

Tin (Tinia)

The Etruscan sky-god and master of the thunderbolt, equated with the Greek Zeus and Roman Jupiter, yet himself subject to a destiny beyond his control.^[6]

Liver of Piacenza

A bronze model of a sheep's liver, found near Piacenza in 1877 and inscribed with divine names in sixteen sections, used to train haruspices in reading real livers.^{[5, 9]}