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Very many of Burton's books, pamphlets and articles in the journals of the learned societies appeal solely to archaeologists, as, for example Etruscan Bologna, an account of the Etrurian people, their sharp bottomed wells, the pebble tombs of the poor and the elegant mausoleums of the wealthy with their figures of musicians and dancing girls "in garments of the most graceful form, finest texture and brilliant hues;" reminding us of the days when Veii fell, and its goddess, who "was light and easily removed, as though she followed willingly," as Livy, with his tongue in his cheek, says, was conveyed to Rome; and of the later days when "Lars Porsena of Clusium" poured southward his serried host, only, according to the Roman historians, to meet with defeat and discomfiture.
The legends say Horatius Cocles defended a bridge, single-handed, against the whole Etrurian army—that Mamillus, the ruler of Tuscalum, fought a battle at Lake Regillus, in which the cause of Tarquin was lost—the subject of the most beautiful of Macaulay’s lays—and that Mutius Scævola attempted to assassinate Porsenna, and, as a proof of his fortitude, held his hand in the fire until it was consumed, which act converted Porsenna into a friend.
Afar in the Latian plains, the infant state of Rome was silently and obscurely struggling into strength against the neighbouring and petty states in which the old Etrurian civilization was rapidly passing to decay. The genius of Gaul and Germany, yet unredeemed from barbarism, lay scarce known, save where colonized by Greeks, in the gloom of its woods and wastes.
We dined in Grossetto at an inn of the Larthian period, a cold inn and a damp, which seemed never to have been swept since the broom dropped from the grasp of the last Etrurian chambermaid, and we ate with the two-pronged iron forks of an extinct civilization.
Saturn, no doubt, combining with Mars will reduce that so disturbed world into a chaos of confusion. Mercury then would be no more subjected to the other planets; he would scorn to be any longer their Camillus, as he was of old termed in the Etrurian tongue. For it is to be imagined that he is no way a debtor to them. Venus will be no more venerable, because she shall have lent nothing.
Nothing was so wretched among the productions of art, that he could not impose upon the world as a capital performance; and so fascinated were the eyes of his admirers, he could easily have persuaded them that a barber's bason was an Etrurian patera, and the cover of a copper pot no other than the shield of Ancus Martius.
With these words they persuaded King Porsenna, who judging it well for the Etrurians that there should be a king at Rome, and that king an Etrurian by birth, gathered together a great army and came up against Rome. But when men heard of his coming, so mighty a city was Clusium in those days, and so great the fame of King Porsenna, there was such fear as had never been before.
"Here," exclaimed Byron, in a rapture, as he looked down from a neighboring mountain upon this earthly paradise "here " the Etrurian Athens claims and keeps A softer feeling for her fairy halls. Girt by her theatre of bills she reaps Her corn and wine, and oil, and plenty leaps To laughing life from her redundant horn"
The city was likewise fortified with stone walls, and the cloacæ, or common sewers, constructed by the munificence of this prince. The history of the elder Tarquin presents insuperable difficulties. We are told that his original name was Lu'cumo; but that, as has been mentioned in the Introduction, was the Etrurian designation of a chief magistrate.
If there were wars at the present day, such as the Etrurian for instance, when Porsenna took the Janiculum, such as the Gallic war lately, when, except the Capitol and citadel, all these places were in possession of the enemy; and should Lucius Sextius stand candidate for the consulate with Marcus Furius or any other of the patricians: could ye endure that Sextius should be consul without any risk; that Camillus should run the risk of a repulse?
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