DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.785#0059
introduction.] CHARACTER OF HER CIVILIZATION. lix
free people. It resided in the mass ratter than in the indi-
vidual ; it was the result of a set system, not of personal energy
and excellence^ its tendency was stationary rather than pro-
gressive; its object was to improve the physical condition of
the people, and to minister to luxury, rather than to advance
and elevate the nobler faculties of human nature. In all this
it assimilated to the civilization of the East, or of the Aztecs
and Peruvians. It had not the earnest germ of development,
the intense vitality which existed in Greece; it could never
have produced a Plato, a Demosthenes, a Thucydides, or a
Phidias. Yet while inferior to her illustrious contemporary
in intellectual vigour and eminence, Etruria was in advance of
her in her social condition and in certain respects in physical
civilization, or that state in which the arts and sciences are
made to minister to comfort and luxury. The health and
cleanliness of her towns were insured by a system of sewerage,
vestiges of which may be seen on many Etruscan sites; and the
Cloaca Maxima will be a memorial to all time of the attention
paid by the Etruscans to drainage. Yet this is said to have
been neglected by the Greeks.9 In her internal communication
Etruria also shows her advance in physical civilization. Pew
extant remains of paved ways, it is true, can be pronounced
Etruscan, but in the neighbourhood of most of her cities are
traces of roads cut in the rocks, sometimes flanked with tombs,
or even marked with inscriptions, determining their antiquity;
and generally having water-channels or gutters to keep them
dry and clean.1 The Etruscans were also skilled in controlling
9 Strabo, V. p. 23S. Strabo says that those of Rome. Mure, Tour in Greece,
the Greeks, in founding their cities, II. p. 47. And there are remains of
considered principally the strength and ancient Greek roads, both in Greece
beauty of site, the advantages of ports, and her colonies in Sicily and Asia
and the fertility of the soil; whereas the Minor.
Romans paid most attention to what the ! The Romans are said to be indebted
others neglected—paved roads, aque- to the Carthaginians for their paved
ducts, and common sewers. This dis- roads. Isidor. Orig. XV. 16 ; cf. Serv.
tinction the Romans, in all probability, ad Mn. I. 422. But from the little
owe to the Etruscans. However, it is intercourse the Romans maintained
certain that many vestiges of conduits with that people in early times, it seems
and sewers are extant in the cities of more probable that they derived this
Greece, though inferior, it is said, to art from the Etruscans, who were their
free people. It resided in the mass ratter than in the indi-
vidual ; it was the result of a set system, not of personal energy
and excellence^ its tendency was stationary rather than pro-
gressive; its object was to improve the physical condition of
the people, and to minister to luxury, rather than to advance
and elevate the nobler faculties of human nature. In all this
it assimilated to the civilization of the East, or of the Aztecs
and Peruvians. It had not the earnest germ of development,
the intense vitality which existed in Greece; it could never
have produced a Plato, a Demosthenes, a Thucydides, or a
Phidias. Yet while inferior to her illustrious contemporary
in intellectual vigour and eminence, Etruria was in advance of
her in her social condition and in certain respects in physical
civilization, or that state in which the arts and sciences are
made to minister to comfort and luxury. The health and
cleanliness of her towns were insured by a system of sewerage,
vestiges of which may be seen on many Etruscan sites; and the
Cloaca Maxima will be a memorial to all time of the attention
paid by the Etruscans to drainage. Yet this is said to have
been neglected by the Greeks.9 In her internal communication
Etruria also shows her advance in physical civilization. Pew
extant remains of paved ways, it is true, can be pronounced
Etruscan, but in the neighbourhood of most of her cities are
traces of roads cut in the rocks, sometimes flanked with tombs,
or even marked with inscriptions, determining their antiquity;
and generally having water-channels or gutters to keep them
dry and clean.1 The Etruscans were also skilled in controlling
9 Strabo, V. p. 23S. Strabo says that those of Rome. Mure, Tour in Greece,
the Greeks, in founding their cities, II. p. 47. And there are remains of
considered principally the strength and ancient Greek roads, both in Greece
beauty of site, the advantages of ports, and her colonies in Sicily and Asia
and the fertility of the soil; whereas the Minor.
Romans paid most attention to what the ! The Romans are said to be indebted
others neglected—paved roads, aque- to the Carthaginians for their paved
ducts, and common sewers. This dis- roads. Isidor. Orig. XV. 16 ; cf. Serv.
tinction the Romans, in all probability, ad Mn. I. 422. But from the little
owe to the Etruscans. However, it is intercourse the Romans maintained
certain that many vestiges of conduits with that people in early times, it seems
and sewers are extant in the cities of more probable that they derived this
Greece, though inferior, it is said, to art from the Etruscans, who were their