Etruscan Boundaries and Prophecy
Larissa Bonfante

The settlement and development of Rome cannot be understood without understanding something about the Etruscan presence and power. But Etruscan rituals and their system of beliefs are of interest on their own, aside from any influence they might have had on the better-known Romans. About these rituals and beliefs archaeology provides a good deal of evidence in spite of the loss of their literature. The Etruscans were distinguished by the importance of boundaries in their life and in their religion: boundaries between properties, boundaries between life and death and between gods and men. One of the few words we are sure of in the Etruscan language (only two hundred or so can be understood) is TULAR, "boundary". Etruscan inscriptions and art reflect this aristocratic society's concern to maintain the stability of their world and the harmony between men and the gods in the cosmos. The doctrine of the saecula set forth the ages that had been established as allotted to the Etruscan people. A bronze model liver bore incised on its surface the areas ruled by the various gods: this microcosm reflected the macrocosm and allowed the priest to read the gods'messages. Etruscan religion was a revealed religion. Its prophets included the child-like, earth-born Tages, and the nymph Vegoia, whose prophecy warned against upsetting boundary stones. The Romans admired the skill of their priests, valued the Etrusca disciplina, and preserved Etruscan traditions, rituals and techniques: Rome's sacred boundaries were laid out by Romulus according to Etruscan ritual, and the form of the triumph, the most central of Roman symbols, was of Etruscan origin.

Larissa Bonfante is Professor of Classics at New York University. She has degrees from Barnard College, the University of Cincinnati, and Columbia University: her teachers included Massimo Pallottino and Otto Brendel. A foreign member of the German Archaeological Institute and the Istituto di Studi Etuschi, she is a past Visiting member of the Institute for Advanced Study, and is on the advisory board of several journals, including the American Journal of Archaeology, the American Journal of Ancient History, and Etruscan Studies. Her publications include Etruscan Dress, The Etruscan Language: An Introduction, with Giuliano Bonfante, Out of Etruria, Etruscan Life and Afterlife: A Handbook of Etruscan Studies (ed.), Etruscan Mirrors, and articles on the Roman Triumph, Roman costume, and Nudity as a Costume in Classical Art. She is currently working (with Helen Nagy) on the publication of the antiquities collection of the American Academy in Rome, and, with Vassos Karageorghis, organizing a Symposium on Italy and Cyprus in Antiquity: 1500-450 BCE for November 2000 in New York.