Dennis, George: The cities and cemeteries of Etruria: in two volumes (Band 1) (London, 1848)

374 TARQUINII.—The City. [chap. xix.

this is evidently fable,8 yet through the mists of tradition
we can catch a glimpse of substantial forms; we canperceive
the high antiquity of the city of Tarquinii, dating from the
very foundation of the Etruscan state—its importance, in
the derivation of its name from the mythical hero of the
land, the founder of the Twelve Cities; and as the spot
selected for the divine revelation of the national system of
polity. That it was one of the Twelve, none can doubt.
Nay, it can urge claims to metropolitan supremacy ; and,
if not the political head, it must at least be regarded as
the ecclesiastical metropolis of the land, the city peculiarly
honoured by the gods, the spot where the religious
system and the peculiar civilisation of the Etruscans took
their rise.9

Of the early history of Tarquinii we are utterly ignorant;
as we find no mention of it from the time of Tarchon till
the close of the first century of Rome, when Demaratus, a

s Cicero (de Diy. II. 23) so regarded einl. 2, 1, 2), that " the Etruscans

it, and laughed to scorn any who shonld themselves regarded Tarquinii as the

credit it. Miiller considers these tradi- metropolis of their Twelve Cities." And

tions of Tarchon and Tages as local and again (einl. 2, 16)—" Tarquinii is that

genuinely Etruscan (Etrusk. einl. 2, 1, particular spot of Etruria, to which are

and 8 ; IV. 4, 2). Cluver (Ital. Ant. attached all traces of a permanent unity

II. p. 520) suggests that the legend of and a close connexion of the Etruscan

Tages was a mere version of the crea- citiesunderonehead." Cluver(II.p.S20)

tion of Adam, who first taught his chil- also thinks the metropolitan supremacy

dren and children's children the prac- of Tarquinii is clearly implied. If this

tice, not of divination, but of all divine he so, it must, a fortiori, have been one

worship and sacred rites, which he had of the Twelve, and no proof of this is

received from God himself. requisite. Yet I may add that Dionysius

9 It is nowhere expressly stated that (III. p. 184) calls it "a great and

Tarquinii was the chief city of the Con- flourishing city " in the time of Dema-

federation, yet it is implied in the fact ratus, which is confirmed by Cicero,

of its being the spot where the civil Repub. II. 19. That its eminence is

and religious polity of the Etruscans strongly implied by its conduct in the

had their origin, and of its eponymus war with Servius Tullius (Dion. Hal.

Tarchon being the traditional founder IV. p. 231), and again in the war of

of the Twelve Cities. The metropolis, 398, when Tarquinii and Falerii took

in the primary sense of the term, it un- the lead of all the Etruscan states (Liv.

doubtedly was. Miiller remarks (Etrusk. VII. 17).