DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.785#0023
introduction.] MONUMENTAL CHRONICLES. xxili
reclining luxuriously amid the strains of music, and the time-
heating feet of dancers—at their favourite games and sports,
encountering the wild-boar, or looking on at the race, at the
•wrestling-match, or other palsestric exercises,—we behold them
stretched on the death-bed—the last rites performed by mourning
relatives—the funeral procession—their bodies laid in the tomb—
and the solemn festivals held in their honour. Nor even here
do we lose sight of them, but follow their souls to the unseen
world—perceive them in the hands of good or evil spirits—con-
ducted to the judgment-seat, and in the enjoyment of bliss, or
suffering the punishment of the damned.
We are indebted for most of this knowledge, not to musty
records drawn from the oblivion of centuries, but to monumental
remains—purer founts of historical truth—landmarks which,
even when few and far between, are the surest guides across
the expanse of distant ages—to the monuments which are still
extant on the sites of the ancient Cities of Etruria, or have been
drawn from their Cemeteries, and are stored in the museums of
Italy and of Europe.
The internal history of Etruria is written on the mighty walls
of her cities, and on other architectural monuments, on her
roads, her sewers, her tunnels, but above all in her sepulchres >
it is to be read on graven rocks, and on the painted walls of
tombs; but its chief chronicles are inscribed on sarcophagi and
cinerary urns, on vases and goblets, on mirrors and other
articles in bronze, and a thousand et cetera of personal adorn-
ment, and of domestic and warlike furniture—all found within
the tombs of a people long passed away, and whose existence
was till of late remembered by few but the traveller or the
student of classical lore. It was the great reverence for the
dead, which the Etruscans possessed in common with the other
nations of antiquity, that prompted them—fortunately for us of
the nineteenth century—to store their tombs with these rich
and varied sepulchral treasures, which unveil to us the arcana of
their inner life, almost as fully as though a second Pompeii had
been disinterred in the heart of Etruria; going far to compen-
sate us for the loss of the native annals of the country/ of the
» Varro, ap. Censorin. de Die Natali, XVII.
reclining luxuriously amid the strains of music, and the time-
heating feet of dancers—at their favourite games and sports,
encountering the wild-boar, or looking on at the race, at the
•wrestling-match, or other palsestric exercises,—we behold them
stretched on the death-bed—the last rites performed by mourning
relatives—the funeral procession—their bodies laid in the tomb—
and the solemn festivals held in their honour. Nor even here
do we lose sight of them, but follow their souls to the unseen
world—perceive them in the hands of good or evil spirits—con-
ducted to the judgment-seat, and in the enjoyment of bliss, or
suffering the punishment of the damned.
We are indebted for most of this knowledge, not to musty
records drawn from the oblivion of centuries, but to monumental
remains—purer founts of historical truth—landmarks which,
even when few and far between, are the surest guides across
the expanse of distant ages—to the monuments which are still
extant on the sites of the ancient Cities of Etruria, or have been
drawn from their Cemeteries, and are stored in the museums of
Italy and of Europe.
The internal history of Etruria is written on the mighty walls
of her cities, and on other architectural monuments, on her
roads, her sewers, her tunnels, but above all in her sepulchres >
it is to be read on graven rocks, and on the painted walls of
tombs; but its chief chronicles are inscribed on sarcophagi and
cinerary urns, on vases and goblets, on mirrors and other
articles in bronze, and a thousand et cetera of personal adorn-
ment, and of domestic and warlike furniture—all found within
the tombs of a people long passed away, and whose existence
was till of late remembered by few but the traveller or the
student of classical lore. It was the great reverence for the
dead, which the Etruscans possessed in common with the other
nations of antiquity, that prompted them—fortunately for us of
the nineteenth century—to store their tombs with these rich
and varied sepulchral treasures, which unveil to us the arcana of
their inner life, almost as fully as though a second Pompeii had
been disinterred in the heart of Etruria; going far to compen-
sate us for the loss of the native annals of the country/ of the
» Varro, ap. Censorin. de Die Natali, XVII.