Information about the Etruscan sites in the text is not duplicated in these notes. DHL uses the lower case initial letter for the adjectival form.
The Etruscans … Rome The Etruscans settled c. 900 BC between the Arno and the Tiber, reaching a peak of expansion and civilisation in the sixth and fifth centuries BC and declining in power from the fourth century BC until their final military subjection c. 280 BC and subsequent absorption by the Romans.
Latin writers Among Greek and Latin writers supplying information about the Etruscans, whose writing survives only in inscriptions, are Herodotus, Thucydides, Virgil, Livy, Horace, Ovid and Seneca.
museum at Perugia Housing one of the main Etruscan collections, it was visited by DHL on 25 March 1926.
Mommsen The German historian Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903), famed for his Römische Geschichte (1854–6, 1885), translated as The History of Rome (revised 1894), in which the Etruscans’ social and religious customs are alleged to show ‘deep degeneracy’ (II.iv.436).
A la bonne heure That’s right! (French idiom; ironic).
Messalina and Heliogabalus Roman exemplars of depravity: Messalina (c. 22–48), third wife of the emperor Claudius; Heliogabalus (204–22), emperor from 218.
Quand … tait When the master speaks, everyone is silent (French).
To the Puritan … impure The ‘somebody’ who made this witticism (cf. Titus i.15: ‘Unto the pure all things are pure’) may be DHL himself.
April morning DHL and his friend the American painter and Buddhist Earl Brewster (1878–1957) – ‘B.’ in the text (e.g. here) – left Rome for Cerveteri on 6 April 1927.
Rome … black bonnet Humorously suggesting the ‘eternal city’ is now an old woman.
post omnibus Bus carrying mail as well as passengers.
Ladispoli Village (c. 1830) on the coast near Palo (one of the ports of Cerveteri), and a seaside resort (see here).
building The sixteenth-century Orsini (later Ruspoli) castle.
Vini e Cucina Indicating a cheap informal eating place.
faun In Roman mythology, a lustful rural deity, part man, part goat, related to the Greek satyr and Pan.
cotton together Get on well together.
arx … ark The citadel (Latin arx) links with another place of safety, the ark (see also here and note), both from the Latin arcere, to protect.
Ionia Ancient Greek coastal region of western Asia Minor.
Vestal Virgins Priestesses of Vesta, who took refuge at Cerveteri during the invasion of Rome by the Gauls, a Celtic people from what is now France, in 387 BC.
Banditaccia Cerveteri’s main necropolis, with thousands of tombs.
Absit omen May the omen not happen (Latin).
Teotihuacán and Cholula, and Mitla DHL visited the first two, near Mexico City, in April 1923, and Mitla, near Oaxaca, c. 30 November 1924.
Lucumones (Latin, plural of Lucumo: here) Etruscan priest-princes.
Tarquins … Rome The fifth and seventh kings of Rome, in the sixth century BC, were Tarquins: Tarquinius Priscus and Tarquinius Superbus, the latter reputedly exiled to Cerveteri after being deposed in 509 BC.
east-central Presumably a slip for ‘west-central’.
Grotta Bella Beautiful Cave (Italian); also known as the Tomb of the Stuccoes or of the Reliefs.
Shiva lingam at Benares Phallic stone or lingam worshipped as a symbol of the Hindu god of procreation, Shiva, at the holy city of Benares in north-east India.
cippus—cippi Latin (singular, plural) for post(s), pillar(s), etc.: applied particularly to ancient gravestones.
Noah’s Ark … mysteries For Noah’s Ark, see Genesis vi.9–vii.24; on the ark of the covenant, see, e.g., Numbers x.33: chest (Latin arca) made by Moses and containing the Ten Commandments on stone tablets. DHL sees these arks and the arx (see note here) as womb-like: female symbols to balance the phallic ones, manna: the miraculous heavenly bread given to the Israelites in the desert (Exodus xvi.14–15). ‘mysteries’ can also be sacraments, as in the elements of bread and wine in the Eucharist.
double flute Considered to have been the Etruscan national instrument.
Delenda est Cartago Carthage must be destroyed (Latin); Marcus Porcius Cato the Elder (234–149 BC) is said to have ended every speech thus to the Roman Senate in his last years; Rome’s rival was defeated by 146 BC.
Cività Vecchia See note here.
Sicily … tyrants Greek ‘tyrants’ (not a pejorative term originally) ruled in Syracuse, with intervals, between the fifth and third centuries BC.
Lydia … Hittites Lydia is a region in Anatolia, now in Turkey, anciently part of (and later successor to) the empire of the Hittites, who were Indo-Europeans and invaded and occupied Asia Minor from c. 1200 BC. Hittite memorial stones and other artworks feature ‘hair curled in a roll behind’.
Mycenae Greek city that dominated the Aegean c. 1500–c. 1100 BC.
Prince Charlie’s day I.e. the time of Bonnie Prince Charlie or the Young Pretender, Charles Edward Stuart (1720–88).
Pelasgian … Carian Pelasgian: of the people thought to have inhabited the Aegean region before the Greeks. Minoan: of the civilisation on the island of Crete that dominated the Aegean in the third millennium BC. Carian: of the ancient indigenous people of Caria, a region now in south-west Turkey.
Villanovans Named after Villanova, near Bologna, where in 1853–5 the earliest evidence of the use of iron was found; Villanovan culture (c. 1100–c. 700 BC) spread south to much of central Italy.
league … Chalcidians of Cumae The Etruscan league, or the League of Twelve, consisted of twelve cities: Tarquinii (or Tarquinia), Vulci (Volci), Vetulonia, Cerveteri (Caere), Arezzo, Chiusi, Roselle, Volterra, Cortona, Perugia, Volsini and (after Veii or Veio was destroyed in 396 BC) Populonia. Chalcidians of Cumae were originally from the Greek port of Chalcis, on the island of Euboea; they founded Cumae (among other colonies) in the eighth century BC.
Solomon … Abraham Solomon: third king of Israel (reigned c. 970–c. 930), son of David and Bathsheba, renowned for his wisdom. Abraham: see note here.
Phoenicians Ancient maritime people, from the coastal strip including their chief cities of Tyre and Sidon (here) and now in Lebanon and Syria, who established settlements, at their peak c. 1000–800 BC, all over the Mediterranean.
Hellas … Magna Graecia Hellas: see note here. Magna Graecia: name given to the Greek colonies founded in the eighth to sixth centuries BC in mainland Italy and Sicily, coming under Roman rule in the third century BC.
sea-battles … Syracuse Etruscan rivalry with the Phoenicians preceded their alliance in the naval victory of 540 BC over the Phocaeans; in the sea-battle of 474 BC the Etruscans were defeated by Hiero I, tyrant of Syracuse.
sea-side Ostia North of Rome, called Ostia Lido or beach (Italian) to distinguish it from Ostia Antica, the ancient town nearby.
the present régime The Fascists under Benito Mussolini (1883–1945).
soft … wrath Proverbs XV.I: ‘A soft answer turneth away wrath’.
Teh … Ecco Hey! … Yes! … Hurry up! … It’s ready! … See! (Italian).
Michelangelo See note here.
quick I.e. with the quality of being ‘alive’, paradoxically linked rather than contrasted to ‘dead’. Cf. note here.
alla Romana … all’etrusca In Roman style … in Etruscan style (Italian). DHL deduces the latter salute from the painted gesture he describes as ‘with the right hand curved over’ (here), whereas in the former the right hand and arm are kept straight.
dead-pits … highway Mass graves for slaves and paupers on the Esquiline Hill, by the Via Labicana, leading south-east out of Rome.
in the beginning was not a Word Contradicting John i.1 (see note here).
patera … mundum patera: ritual clay or metal saucer-like dish (Latin, from patere, to lie open). mundum: world (Latin; usually nominative mundus, as at here).
quick Central, sensitive, vital or most important part. Cf. note here.
lotus Water-lily of Egypt and Asia.
Sarcophagus … scroll Sarcophagus of Laris Pulena, c. 180 BC, with the scroll, one of the longest Etruscan inscriptions known, listing his ancestors’ offices.
bucchero The national pottery of Etruria: shiny black, often with moulded figures, it was first made in the seventh century BC.
sigilla Tyrrhena Sigilla are small images (Latin), and the Etruscans were also known as Tyrrhenians, hence this adjective for Etruscan (Latin).
“still … quietness,” From the first line of ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ (1820) by John Keats (1795–1821): ‘Thou still unravish’d bridge of quietness’. See also here and note.
Viterbo City c. 20 miles north-east of Tarquinia.
Lucca … Ferrara Cities in north-west and north-east Italy respectively.
chlamys … subulo chlamys: short cloak or mantle (Greek). subulo: flautist (Latin).
leopards … Bacchus Bacchus (see note here) is often depicted with leopards or panthers (another name for leopards, especially with black fur) or wearing their skins, as when he went down to the underworld to fetch his mother, Semele.
tempera Water-soluble paint mixture, used especially on walls.
bacchic Or Dionysic: see note here.
old dictum … gods Taken further at here. The ‘anima’ – vital principle, soul, or mind (Latin) – was sometimes anciently regarded as inhabiting parts of the body. See also note here.
minium Cinnabar (Latin), especially as a red pigment.
ivy … Bacchus Another emblem associated with Bacchus: see note here.
Etruskische Malerei Etruscan Painting (German); first published 1920.
Flaxmanised In the Greek-influenced style of the artist John Flaxman (1755–1826): see also here and note.
key pattern Or meander: a running geometric motif, used as a border ornament on walls, pottery, furniture, etc.
pagan old writer … gods Unidentified. Cf. the different wording of the same idea on 368:12–13. DHL may not be quoting exactly, but similar animistic ideas (as in much of the remainder of the present volume) inform the work of several philosophers represented in John Burnet’s Early Greek Philosophy (2nd edn., A. & C. Black, 1908), which DHL read more than once: e.g. Thales (c. 624–c. 547 BC) is reported as believing ‘All things are full of gods’ (here).
pinking Cf. the dialect word ‘prinking’, i.e. walking jauntily or daintily.
Belshazzar … personal god Belshazzar is the biblical name for the last king of Babylon in Mesopotamia, killed in 538 BC. Ashurbanipal is the Assyrian king (reigned c. 669–c. 626 BC) who conquered Babylon. David … personal god: part of a development of DHL’s ideas in his play David (1926), with the old universal animist religion set against belief in a personal relationship with God. For David, see note here.
Nineveh Capital of ancient Assyria, flourishing in the seventh century BC.
A little … dangerous thing Pope, An Essay on Criticism (1711), l. 215 (‘A little learning is a dang’rous thing’).
priest-work of Egypt I.e. religious vision imposed by ‘priest-rule’ (here) in ancient Egypt.
Socrates The Greek philosopher (469–399 BC) is often taken as the first thoroughgoing proponent of ‘scepticism’.
goose that saved Rome The cackling of geese is said to have saved Rome from a night attack by the Gauls in 390 BC.
Jesus … as a fish A traditional explanation is that the letters of icthus (Greek for ‘fish’) form an acrostic for ‘Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour’; also, at the time of Christ the sun entered the sign of the Fish, Pisces (Latin).
haruspex An Etruscan or Roman soothsayer who made prophecies by inspecting the entrails, especially the liver, of sacrificial victims.
Livy … the Republic In his History of Rome, Livy (59 BC–AD 17) tells how, e.g., augury decided that Romulus and not Remus should be first ruler of Rome (i. 7); for ‘auguries … were held in such honour that nothing was undertaken in peace or war without their sanction’ (i. 36).
“impious pagan duality.” In an essay, ‘The Two Principles’, DHL phrases this as ‘what Christianity has called “the impious doctrine of the two principles” ’: see Studies in Classic American Literature, ed. Ezra Greenspan, Lindeth Vasey and John Worthen (Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 266, and the note citing St Augustine’s attack on the ‘doctrine of two principles’.
key-picture Not related to the ‘key pattern’ (here), but meaning the picture that holds the key or is central.
Jesus is the lamb As in John i.29, 36.
wolf … first Romans By tradition, Romulus and his brother Remus were suckled by a she-wolf, sacred emblem, of ancient Rome.
prolific Blake saw a similar necessary opposition of the ‘prolific’ and their destroyers in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (c. 1790–93), plates 16–17.
Sargent John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), American painter of technically brilliant ‘society’ portraits.
beard … oriental style I.e. a pointed beard, curving up at its end.
New Jerusalem See note here.
sinned against … to drink sinned … sins: cf. Shakespeare, King Lear III.ii.60: ‘More sinn’d against than sinning’ vinegar … to drink: cf. Matthew xxvii.48.
mehr Schrei wie wert … nicht viel Wert More show than substance (literally ‘more cry than worth’) … not worth much (German).
un po’ di pornografico A touch of pornography (Italian). DHL refers in succeeding paragraphs to two sexual scenes, one depicting two men and the other two men and a woman.
a charming painting It portrays the ambush of Troilus by Achilles in the Trojan war.
a sentence … in etruscan It names the family entombed here.
Chimaera In Greek mythology this monster, combining lion, goat and serpent, was killed by the heroic Bellerophon (here).
Benvenuto Cellini Florentine sculptor (1500–71). The statue found at Arezzo, Tuscany, in 1553 is of Etruscan origin.
In the beginning was the Word John i.1.
al fresco … Francesco Giustiniani al fresco: painted on plaster still ‘fresh’ or moist. Properly Francesca Giustiniani, also known as the Tomb of the Two Chariots, fifth century BC.
Pompeian style I.e. in the style of Roman mural paintings preserved at Pompeii after it was buried in ash from Vesuvius in 79.
Latin sense … our sense In Latin, the primary sense of admiratio is ‘wonder’, whereas ‘our’ primary sense involves esteem.
Actaeon Hunter who saw Artemis (see note here) bathing and, turned by the goddess into a stag, was killed by his own dogs.
Rosa Bonheur … Rubens … Velasquez Marie Rosa(lie) Bonheur (1822–99), French artist, often included horses in her paintings, as did the Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) and Velasquez (see note here).
a big tomb I.e. the Tomb of Typhon.
Dennis George Dennis, to whose The Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria (2 vols., J. Murray, 1848, revised 1878) DHL is responding: hereafter ‘Dennis’.
Egypt … Maya Five ancient civilisations led by ‘king-gods’ (here).
Giotto … early sculptors Giotto di Bondone (c. 1267–1337), Florentine painter and architect, early sculptors: e.g. Nicola Pisano (c. 1212-c. 1278); both are cited by Ducati (see note here) as reviving the Etruscan spirit in art.
Theopompus … tales This Greek historian (fourth century BC) alleged in book 43 of his Philippic Histories that an Etruscan law allowed men to share women, who often behaved licentiously.
Norman adventurers, or Barbary pirates The Norman or ‘Northman’ raiders were originally from Scandinavia, and the Barbary or Berber pirates from North Africa.
Pittsburgh ‘Steel City’ in Pennsylvania retains many tall chimneys built for its iron and steel industry.
Ducati Pericle Ducati, in his two-volume Etruria Antica (Turin, 1925): hereafter ‘Ducati’. The reference to the Saracens is at ii. 136.
Vetulonia, Populonia On the Tyrrhenian coast opposite Elba.
Saturday 9 April 1927 and Sunday (here) is 10 April.
randy Unruly or unmanageable (rather than lustful).
Via Aurelia Roman road (c. third century BC) following the Tyrrhenian coast to Ventimiglia, now on the border with France.
Grand-duke Leopold Leopold II of Lorraine (1797–1870) became Grand-Duke of Tuscany in 1824, abdicating in 1859.
Lucien Bonaparte The Emperor’s brother (1775–1840) became famed as a collector.
“Grecian urn.” The recent publication of Keats’s poem (see note here) helped inspire a craze for such vases. DHL makes further references to the poem on 411:3 and 427:28.
cylix A shallow cup with a tall stem.
Coccumella … river tombs The usual Italian names are Cuccumella (‘mound’) and Cuccumelletta (‘little mound’). river tombs: i.e. on the banks of the Fiora.
“Tu pure, no?” And you, eh? (Italian; literally, ‘You too, no?’). DHL’s ‘You haven’t though!’ gives the woman’s actual meaning: as Luigi is thin, she is being ironic.
Dennis thought … Egyptian A misrepresentation: Dennis says the tomb, despite its ‘Egyptian or oriental character’, was for ‘two Etruscan ladies’ (i. 457, 459).
Florentine yoke Volterra was resistantly subject to Florence from 1361 to 1530; see also note here.
imperium Supremacy or imperial power (Latin).
long enough dead Lenin (see note here) had died three years earlier.
Some are … upon them Cf. Shakespeare, Twelfth Night II.v.158: ‘Some men are born great, some achieve greatness, some have greatness thrust upon them.’
piazza … Palazzo Pubblico … cathedral The central Piazza Maggiore or Piazza dei Priori is enclosed by thirteenth-century buildings, including the Palazzo Pubblico or dei Priori, behind which stands the equally old cathedral.
Ducati … slain enemies Ducati ii. 91.
lover and his lass Shakespeare, As You Like It V.iii.14.
Lazarus risen As John xi.43–4.
bidden to the feast Common biblical imitation of, e.g., Matthew XX.3: ‘bidden to the marriage feast’.
Ducati … after-life Condensing Ducati’s critical views at ii.110.
“the touches … soul.’ ” Dennis ii. 184–5, ending with Wordsworth, The Excursion (1814), iv. 599–600 (‘… recognises …’).
Flaxman … Pope’s Homer Flaxman (see note here) made notable engravings in 1793 for Pope’s English versions of the Iliad and Odyssey.
the Parthenon frieze In the British Museum, from the acropolis of Athens: often regarded as the apogee of Greek art, hence DHL’s hesitation.
will-to-power A concept central to the philosophy of Nietzsche (see note here), as in the title of his posthumously published Wille zur Macht (1906).
Meleager … Erymanthus Giant boars of Greek myth: one killed by Meleager, whose father, king of Calydon in Aetolia, forgot to sacrifice to Artemis (see note here), who sent the boar as punishment; the other, of Erymanthus, a mountain range in the Peloponnese, captured as one of the twelve labours of Hercules.
Boers … Mormons In 1836 some 6,000 Dutch ‘farmers’ or settlers in South Africa began ‘The Great Trek’ north to colonise land outside British-ruled territory; in 1847, about 149 members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, founded in New York (state) in 1830, likewise ‘trekked’ west to escape persecution.
Helen … Iphigenia A list of Greek subjects: the Dioscuri, the twins Castor and Pollux, rescued their sister Helen from Theseus, King of Athens; Pelops was killed by his father, Tantalus, and fed to the gods, who restored the child to life and punished his father; the half-man, half-bull Minotaur was fed with young Athenians in the Cretan labyrinth before being killed by Theseus; Jason recovered the Golden Fleece with the help of Medea, who fled from Corinth after killing the king’s daughter, whom he wished to marry; the riddle of the Sphinx (‘What goes on four feet, and two, and three?’) was solved by Oedipus, later king of Thebes, as ‘man’ (crawling, walking, and with a stick); Ulysses stopped the ears of his men with wax to foil the spell of the Sirens’ song, to which he listened while tied to the mast of his boat (see note here); Eteocles and Polynices were sons of Oedipus who agreed to reign in Thebes in alternate years; the former, refusing to resign after the first year, was attacked by his brother, and both were killed; at the marriage of Hippodamia and Pirithous, king of the Lapithae or Lapiths of Thessaly, the half-man, half-horse Centaurs attempted to rape the bride and others, but were defeated in the ensuing battle; Iphigenia was sacrificed to (and in some accounts saved by) Artemis, to ensure a safe voyage to Troy for the Greeks, by her father Agamemnon (see here and note here).
Hellas The Greek name for Greece; hence, e.g., ‘Hellenistic’ (here) and ‘Hellenic’ (here), pertaining to the Greeks or Hellenes.
Ligurian Liguria, a coastal region of north-west Italy opposite Corsica, is named from the Ligurians or Ligurii, who settled here in ancient times.
Porta a Selci Gate leading to Siena from the old fortress.
archaeologist Inghirami Francesco Inghirami (1772–1846) wrote a ten-volume work on Etruscan monuments.
Florence gate … castle The gate is the Porta Fiorentina, leading to Florence. The castle is a fourteenth-century fortress grandly extended as a symbol of their rule by the Florentines after their sack of Volterra in 1472.
Augustan … an Umbrian Of the reign (27 BC–AD 14) of Augustus, the first Roman emperor. a Sabine … an Umbrian: ancient peoples of central Italy conquered by the Romans.
“I am a Roman.” Cf. ‘Civis Romanus sum’ (I am a Roman citizen; Latin), as in, e.g., Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BC), In Verrem (Against Verres), II.v.57.
Julius Caesar and 55 B.C. The first Roman invasion of Britain.
Tusci or Tyrrheni Etruscans: from Tuscia, a name given to Etruria in the fourth century BC, and from their mythical leader, Tyrrhenus.
before Homer The Greek poet probably lived between the tenth and ninth centuries BC.
Dahomey A country that was then part of French West Africa.
the salt … savour Adapting Matthew v.13.