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Image and Society in Archaic Etruria*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Bruno D'Agostino
Bruno D'Agostino
Affiliation:
Istituto UniversitarioOrientale, Napoli
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Extract

There are no direct visual representations of the city in Etruscan art, any more than there are in Attic art. Indeed the civic aspect of the Etruscan world is in general particularly elusive; even in inscriptions, references to political and social structures are rare and brief. In the case of Athens, the study of the imagery of Attic vase-painting as a unified and structured system of representations has revealed hitherto unsuspected significations. It is true that the basic places and occasions of social, institutional, political and religious life are not themselves portrayed; yet the social categories and essential functions of the city are displayed, through the medium of a kind of anthropological description.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 79 , November 1989 , pp. 1 - 10
Copyright
Copyright © Bruno D'Agostino 1989. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 Lissarrague, F., Schnapp, A., ‘Imagerie des Grecs ou Grèce des imagiers’, Les temps de la réflexion (1981), 275–97Google Scholar; La cité des images—Religion et société en Grèce antique (1984).

2 On the interpretation of Etruscan imagery there is a lively debate, for which see E. Simon, JdI 88 (1973), 27 n. 2; Krauskopf, I., Der thebanische Sagenkreis und andere griechische Sagen in der etruskischen Kunst (1974)Google Scholar. In this field there have also appeared recent researches inspired by an ‘iconological’ approach: see most recently Cerchiai, L., ‘Sulle tombe “del Tuffatore” e “della Caccia e della pesca”. Proposte di lettura iconologica’, Dialoghi di Archeologia (1987), 1.2, 113–23.Google Scholar

3 On Etruscan tomb painting see in general the repertory of Steingräber. For a first attempt at iconological interpretation of the Tarquinia paintings, see Cerchiai, L., ‘La machaira di Achille: alcune osservazioni a proposito della tomba dei Tori’, AION. ArchStAnt 2 (1980), 25–39Google Scholar; d'Agostino 1983. On the Chiusi reliefs see the monograph of Jannot.

4 See on these problems, La mort, les morts: Mortality and Immortality; the Anthropology and Archaeology of Death, ed. Humphreys, S. C., King, H. (1982)Google Scholar; Garland, R., The Greek Way of Death (1985)Google Scholar.

5 Useful methodological suggestions for a contextual interpretation of ancient imagery may be found in Pontrandolfo, A., Rouveret, A., ‘Ideologia e società a Poseidonia nel IV sec.a.C.’, in La mort, les morts, 299–317Google Scholar.

6 Herod, 1. 167. This interpretation has recently been upheld by Thuillier, 419 ff.

7 Cf. d'Agostino 1983.

8 Jannot.

9 The cases in which it is possible to identify the sex of the deceased, according to the data given by Jannot, are 15 out of 28 representations of prothesis. In 14 of these the deceased is a woman.

10 Jannot, A1 2, p. 15, fig. 80.

11 Jannot, D II 12, pp. 164 ff., figs 561–3.

12 Jannot, A1 3, pp. 15 ff., figs 84–7.

13 Jannot, D II 10, pp. 162 ff., figs 554–7.

14 Jannot, D I 7, pp. 146 ff., figs 502–4.

15 The Louvre sarcophagus, Jannot B I 5, pp. 23 ff., figs 105–7, seems to be a monument of extreme interest for clarifying this difference between the two conceptions. On the main face a human symposium is opposed to a remarkable symposium of Sileni; these themes are further developed on the shorter sides, one of which represents an orgy of Sileni, the other a sacrifice to the gods. But the three sides do not seem to belong to the same monument; and strong doubt has been cast on the authenticity of the main face (inv. no. 3610) and the side face with the orgy (inv. no. 3603): cf. Briguet, M. F., ‘La sculpture en pierre fétide de Chiusi au Musée du Louvre’, part I in MEFRA 84 (1972), 847 ff.Google Scholar; part II in Briguet, M. F., Mélanges P. Boyancé (1974), 103 ffGoogle Scholar. Only a dismantling of the monument with a view to a new restoration can establish definitively its real composition.

16 I refer to scenes like that on the left wall of the Cardarelli Tomb at Tarquinia; cf. Moretti, M., Nuovi monumenti della pittura etrusca (1970), 96–7Google Scholar, fig. a.

17 Cf. n. 5; for the development of these investigations see Rouveret, A., Pontrandolfo, G., ‘Pittura funeraria in Lucania e Campania—Puntualizzazioni cronologiche e proposte di lettura’, Dialoghi di Archeologia (1983), 2, 91–130Google Scholar.

18 Jannot, D I 5, pp. 142 ff., figs 492–6.

19 Jannot, C I 8, pp. 49 f., figs 171–3.

20 On these points see Colonna, G., ‘Scriba cum rege sedens’, Mélanges J. Heurgon II (1976), 187–92Google Scholar; Thuillier, 440 ff.

21 Thuillier, 622 ff., fig. 66; Steingräber, 295 ff., no. 47.

22 Steingräber, 333 ff., no. 92.

23 Steingräber, 325 ff., no. 82; 330 ff., nos 88–9.

24 Steingräber, 272 ff., nos 14–27.

25 On these problems see d'Agostino 1983.

26 Steingräber, 289, no. 42.

27 On these plaques cf. Small, J. P., ‘The Banquet Frieze from Poggio Civitate (Murlo)’, Studi Etruschi 38 (1971), 25Google Scholar ff.; A. Andren, ‘Osservazioni sulle terrecotte architettoniche etrusco-italiche’, Lectiones Boethianae, Op.Rom. 8 (1974), 2 ff., pl. XIX. 42–3; Cristofani, M., ‘Riflessioni sulla decorazione architettonica di prima fase in Etruria e a Roma’, Gli Etruschi e Roma (1981), 189–98Google Scholar; Case e palazzi d'Etruria (Exh. cat. Siena), ed. S. Stopponi (1985), 122 ff.; nn. 404–36.

28 On these problems see Torelli, M., ‘Polis e “Palazzo”–Architettura, ideologia e artigianato greco in Etruria tra VII e VI sec.a.C’, Architecture et société (Actes Colloque Rome 1980), (1983), 471–99Google Scholar. On the development of the Etruscan economy in the course of the sixth century, cf. Colonna, G., ‘Basi conoscitive per una storia economica dell'Etruria’, Atti Ist. Ital.Numism. 1976, 3–29Google Scholar.

29 Steingräber, 299 ff., no. 50.

30 Steingräber, 357 ff., no. 123.

31 Steingräber, 292 f., no. 45.

32 Steingräber, 322, no. 77. For the comparison with Karaburun, cf. A. Akerstrom, ‘Etruscan Tomb Painting—An Art of Many Faces’, Op.Rom. 13 (1981), 7 ff. (13 ff.).

33 Below the niche there is a miniature symposium scene; cf. C. Weber-Lehmann, ‘Spätarchaische Gelagebilder in Tarquinia’, Rom.Mitt. 92 (1985), 38 f., pl. 24. 2.

34 Steingräber, 333 f., no. 89.

35 Weege, pls 84–5; Steingräber, 295 ff., no. 47.

36 Weege, figs 83–5; Steingräber, 306, no. 57.

37 Tomba Cardarelli: Steingräber, 302 f., no. 53; T. Fustigazioni: 312 f., no. 67.

38 Jannot, B II 4, pp. 28 ff., fig. 119.

39 On these problems see d'Agostino 1983.

40 Cf. Colonna, G., ‘L'Etruria meridionale interna dal Villanoviano alle tombe rupestri’, Studi Etruschi 1967, 23 ff.Google Scholar, 69; Prayon, F., Frühetruskische Grab- und Hau-sarchitektur, 22 Ergh. Röm.Mitt. (1975), 148Google Scholar.

41 Cristofani, M., L'arte degli Etruschi–produzione e consumo (1978), 91Google Scholar.

42 Thuillier, 611 ff.

43 Jannot, B II 1, pp. 26 f., figs 108–10.

44 As Jannot saw, the mythological scene cannot represent Achilles and Penthesilea; it may rather be Achilles and Troilus, following the iconography already known on a Pontic amphora: CVA Reading 1, pls 36–7, pp. 35 f. This does not mean to deny that the assembly scene in contrast is typically Etruscan in its antiquarian detail.

45 On this question see d'Agostino (forthcoming).

46 On the pyrrhicist in Etruria cf. Camporeale, G., ‘La danza armata in Etruria’, MEFRA 99 (1987), 11–42;Google Scholar N. Spivey, ‘The Armed Dance on Etruscan Vases’, in Acts of the Symposium at Copenhagen (forthcoming). See also van der Meer, L. Bouke, ‘Greek and Local Elements in a Sporting Scene by the Micali Painter’, Italian Iron Age Artifacts in the British Museum, ed. Swaddling, J. (1984), 439–46.Google Scholar

47 Jannot, D II 16, pp. 167 ff., figs 570–3.

48 This is group A in Jannot: A 1–7, pp. 7 ff., figs 62–75.

49 On these problems see d'Agostino (forthcoming).