Gray, Elizabeth Caroline: Tour to the sepulchres of Etruria in 1839 (London, 1840)

475

while Lar, or Lars, appears to have been aprenomen
peculiar to him ; and Arnth or Aruns, was appro-
priated to younger branches of the family. Unfor-
tunately our knowledge is very defective as to the
connexion of the great Etruscan families with the
soil, or whether they were permitted to exercise
commerce. We know that in Etruria trade was car-
ried on to a great extent with all parts of the known
world, and that there must have been many exces-
sively rich merchants; but what relation they bore
to the aristocracy, or what was the condition of the
non-noble population, are points which we have as
yet discovered no means of ascertaining. We know
that the great nobles possessed extensive territories
which were cultivated by their serfs; and Niebuhr, in
his Roman history, seems to think that these estates
may have been handed down from time imme-
morial as a species of majorat, without suffering
partition.

The Csecinas of Volterra either gave their name
to a neighbouring river, or derived it from thence,
as was the case with the Perugian family of
Tins, and both had great possessions on the banks
of their native streams. The Csecina was the
noblest family in Volterra, and as we have traces
of it during a longer, and down to a more
recent time than any other in Etruria, I may be for-
given for setting down one or two notices of it; and
the funereal effigy of one of its wives or daughters
shall give to the reader a specimen of one of the
finest sarcophagi in existence. A member of this