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It is true that among these the art of gem-engraving so diligently prosecuted in luxurious Etruria is entirely wanting, and we find no indication that the Latin workshops were, like those of the Etruscan goldsmiths and clay-workers, occupied in supplying a foreign demand.
At Chiusi we visited several Etruscan tombs, and saw their red and black scrawled pictures. One of the sepulchres was a well-jointed vault of stone with no wall-paintings. The rest had been scooped out of the living tufa. This was the excuse for some pleasant hours spent in walking and driving through the country.
Looking more carefully and closely about him, he perceived on a projecting shelf of rock, a small antique lamp, Etruscan in shape, made of iron and wrought with curious letters. There was oil in it, and a half-burnt wick; it had evidently been recently used.
The next port we touched at was Civita Vecchia, one of the most dreary places that can be imagined, though at one time an Etruscan city, and afterwards the port of Trajan. I did not land, as there were some difficulties in the way of passports. We steamed on; and next morning when I awoke we were passing the coast of Ischia.
There may have been in the neighbourhood a rumour of Etruscan tombs; the neighbourhood, however, was vast, and that possibility not to be verified, in the conditions, save after due refreshment.
I. Change of the Constitution Limitation of the Power of the Magistrate II. The Tribunate of the Plebs and the Decemvirate III. The Equalization of the Orders, and the New Aristocracy IV. Fall of the Etruscan Power the Celts V. Subjugation of the Latins and Campanians by Rome VI. Struggle of the Italians against Rome VII. Struggle Between Pyrrhus and Rome, and Union of Italy
Their fathers were so grateful that they made peace at once, and about the same time the Æqui were also conquered; and the commons and open lands belonging to Veii being divided, so that each Roman freeman had six acres, the plebeians were contented for the time. The truth seems to have been that these Etruscan nations were weakened by a great new nation coming on them from the North.
The most southern Etruscan cities, Veii, Caere, and Tarquinii, were accounted in Roman tradition the primitive and chief seats of Etruscan art; the most northerly town, Volaterrae, with the largest territory of all the Etruscan communities, stood most of all aloof from art While a Greek semi-culture prevailed in South Etruria, Northern Etruria was much more marked by an absence of all culture.
So it is fair to say that Etruscan art and early Roman art were essentially Greek art. The earliest artists who are known to have painted in Rome had Greek names, such as Ekphantos, Damophilos, and Gargasos. He lived in the time of Augustus, and Pliny said of him: "Ludius, too, who lived in the age of the divine Augustus, must not be cheated of his fame.
I was much interested, too, in the original little wax model, two feet high, of Benvenuto Cellini's Perseus. The wax seems to be laid over a wooden framework, and is but roughly finished off. . . . In an adjoining room are innumerable specimens of Roman and Etruscan bronzes, great and small.
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