Detente, Wheat Deals, and the Death of Etruscan Civilization

Transcription

1 Detente, Wheat Deals, and the Death of Etruscan Civilization ROBERT H. BROPHY THIS ESSAY recounts the story of a wealthy, powerful civilization, with high technical expertise and culture, which allowed a much weaker, more backward nation to expand continuously, encroaching on the sources of that wealth and power, not only without effective resistance, but even feeding and supplying that nation, and underwriting its struggle to expand. By the time the greater civilization awoke to the danger, it was too late. Scattered and unorganized resistance, in places suicidally brave and in others half-hearted, and eagerness to accept a satellite condition in return for continued existence never stopped the expansion of that single-minded power which looked at first glance to be utterly incapable and unworthy of world dominion. I am speaking, of course, of the rise of early Rome and the collapse of the great but in some ways still-mysterious Etruscans. The reader may think of another barbaric power, whose continual aggressive expansion is ignored, or even supported, by more cultured, more sophisticated opponents. He is free to draw any analogies he likes, and also any conclusions he feels valid, as to the folly of wheat deals with barbaric power. For I do not want to renew the controversy as to whether accurate historical analogy is possible. It strikes me as strange, though, that a fellow classicist should deny that possibility. It has always been the view of many people that analogy is the heart of history, as metaphor is of poetry, and that both arise from the universal desire to find the same in the different. Moreover, this view was most strongly held by the Greeks and Romans, the peoples we ve chosen to study. For them history and biography are most valuable in providing useful parallels for contemporary man. SO Plutarch wrote his Parallel Lives, and so Livy, Tacitus and Sallust wrote their histories of Rome. This can rightly be called the classical view of history and biography. Yet a professional classicist rejects it totally. Tied in with that, I wonder why he studies the classics so diligently, if they provide no useful insight into life today? Is it merely a relatively higher form of the urge to know everything about a particular subject, no matter how trivial? Some people in my old neighborhood knew every statistic printed on every baseball card in the nineteen-fifties, or tried to. But enough on that debated point. I will freely admit that the situation we face in regard to the Soviet Union is vastly different from that the Etruscan cities faced, confronting an aggressively expanding Rome. I will emphasize some of those differences, but only after I give what 1 11 just call a significant parallel course of events, right down to the detail of using wheat to buy the very temporary good will of an aggressor who couldn t feed her own people. From before 700 to after 400 BC, the Etruscans were the most culturally, intellectually and artistically advanced people of Italy, the richest and most powerful militarily, with the most advanced technology. Many Roman inventions we speak of, concrete and cement, the arch and the vault, Roman roads and aqueducts, the Latin alphabet and Roman numerals, were actually borrowed from the Etruscans, or first brought into Rome by Etruscan craftsmen. At the height of their power, the Etruscan League of the Twelve Cities ruled Italy from the Po valley and the Alps south past Etruria proper, past Rome, to Campania and the Bay of Naples, from the Apennine Mountains westward to the sea. They held the mines of Elba, and dom- Modern Age 293

2 inated the north and west Mediterranean from the Riviera south past Corsica and Sardinia, allying with Carthage to keep the Greeks out of the western Mediterranean. Etruscan pirates, like Elizabethan English warships, were the scourge of enemy shipping (Le., any vessel viewed as unfriendly and easily taken) all over the ancient world. But perhaps I should say individual Etruscan cities, dynasties and heroes did all this. The Rasenna, as the Etruscans called themselves, had no unity save their common culture, language and religion. The Concilium Etruriae, the original League of the Twelve Cities, centered on Volsinii, a second one which grew up in the Po valley, and a third centered around the Bay of Naples, were all solely religious unions of fiercely independent city-states. They carried out religious rituals for the entire people, not united political, military or economic policies. As in medieval Christendom, this religious unity left the cities free to war on one another, or to ally with any alien power agaiiisi ea-l- GI1 ULIIcl..zl--- na A - u - --:--- llllllvi --A yair VI -5 +I.-:. CUUI struggles for power, a dynasty of Etruscan warlords, the Tarquins, ruled Rome for a century or more, according to Livy ( BC).* This Etruscan rule turned Rome from a collection of hill-top villages into an urban civilization, a city with stone houses and temples, paved streets and aqueducts. The Etruscans used Rome as a base to dominate her Latin-speaking relatives and neighbors in Latium. But around 500 BC the Romans drove out their Etruscan rulers (509 BC), and managed to hang on to the dominance of the Latin League of cities and towns (494 BC). In the name of the whole Latin League (with herself as a COequal partner), Rome even made a mutual non-aggression treaty with Carthage (508 BC), looking at Etruria as the common foe. But Rome was a poorer, weaker place after the Etruscans left. No Etruscan viewed her as a threat, their only interest being in how easy reconquest might be (Lars Porsenna in BC). In the global politics of the fifth century BC, Carthage and the Greeks of south Italy and Sicily were the major nautical rivals to the Etruscans, the Gauls the only danger on land (in the north). Over the next two centuries, however, Rome rose to dominate all peninsular Italy (by 266 BC), completely crushing all independent cities and tribes, Etruscan, Greek and Italic, destroying some outright, reducing most to satellite status, as the price for continued existence. I am not interested in how Rome did it, what combination of courage, skill, ruthlessness and luck enabled her eventually to conquer the entire known world. Many Greek and Roman historians have left us accounts of the old Roman virtues needed. I find much more relevant the question: how did the Etruscans allow it to happen? What did they do (or fail to do) to enable a former subject to crush them? The why has been lost to us, as have the motives of most conquered peoples. The victors write the history books, the losers (at least in Roman history) contribute only the name of the and &en cep& tc exist n nonnlo r-vr-9 save in that name of a Roman victory. But since what happened in Etruria-how a weaker power was able to borrow or be granted outright the wealth, the technology, even the food and grain of, superior but supine powers, in order to crush them-has close parallels in our recent history, the reader may make a good guess as to the motives and rationale of some Etruscans at least. (Save that there were no ideological commitments, in our sense, in the ancient world.) This is what d6tente and wheat deals brought to Etruria: In 492 BC, despite some previous border clashes, and the Etruscan yoke of the previous century, crop failure in Rome forced her to purchase grain from nearby Etruscan cities. The Etruscans were more than willing to sell their surplus grain to Rome and welcome her as a new market, which they feared to lose to their Greek rivals in south Italy and Sicily. For at that time they could rest assured of their dominance over Italy, but not of economic 294 Summer 1978

3 and nautical supremacy. (Though in 40 BC one great rival, Hiero, the Greek tyrant of Syracuse in Sicily, defeated the other, Carthage, in a major naval battle.) From BC, Veii, the Etruscan city closest to Rome (less than twenty miles away), had border clashes with her, raids and counterraids on each other s farmlands, but even in the Romans history books, Veii came off well. But in 474 a joint naval operation launched from several Etruscan cities was nearly annihilated by Hiero s Greek fleet. So in the same year Veii made a deal with Rome, promising and delivering grain and money in return for a fortyyear truce ( BC). Rome honored the truce, which gave her time to move into the territory of the Italic Aequi and Volsci, and plant colonies there. In 440 BC, 433 and 411 (and possibly back in 456 and 453), large sales of Etruscan wheat averted famine at Rome. But in the late 430 s Rome and Veii were again at war. Fidenae, a Roman colony, revolted (437 or 430 BC), and Lars Tolumnius, king of Veii, dared receive it into alliance. The Romans sent ambassadors to demand the rebels surrender, and reparations from Veii. They were murdered (437 or 429), and in the following year (436 or 428) the Roman commander Cossus killed Tolumnius in hand-tohand combat, and routed the allied army. Veii begged for and obtained a one-year truce, which left Rome free to reconquer Fidenae, and execute all the rebels (434 or 427). Fearful of facing the same fate as the ally she had abandoned, Veii repeatedly appealed to the Etruscan League, and the other eleven cities, for a joint effort against Rome ( or ). Perhaps fearful of losing Rome as a good market for their surplus grain, the other Etruscan cities refused official support, but allowed ccvolunteers to join Veii in an assault on Rome (426 BC). This is the first of the constant attempt of those Etruscan cities not directly threatened by Roman attack to have it both ways in their foreign policy: to pursue an official course of strict neutrality (which amounted to tacit encour- agement of Roman aggression) and be on favorable trading terms with Rome, but combine that with effective resistance to her relentless advance. Then as now, such a policy and its adherents are ultimately doomed by its inherent self-contradiction. The attack on Rome in 426 nearly succeeded, however, for she was still numerically much weaker than her opponents. But a ruthless Roman counteroffensive drove off the private Etruscan warbands, and forced Veii to request a twentyyear truce (426 or 425). Veii was still not committed to the sort of total war and scorched-earth policy that Rome pursued, and that defeating Rome required. The minute the truce expired, or before, Rome began the final ten-year siege of Veii (406 BC). This siege, and Rome itself, a united Etruscan League could easily have broken (and the Romans expected such a move), but resentment at the arrogance and ambition of Veii s king (her last now), and envy of Veii s former prosperity again prevented any organized military effort. Total refusal of official aid or intervention met appeals by Veiientan ambassadors (403 BC), and proposals by the Etruscan towns of Capena and Falerii, not much further (to the northeast) from Rome than Veii (and so next in line ), that the siege be broken (397). The north Etruscan cities regarded the Gallic tribes overrunning the Po valley as far more dangerous than Rome. Most Etruscans still saw Rome as easily accommodated or easily ignored. The League again allowed private volunteers to intervene, if they wished. The only tangible result was a number of plundering raids on Roman territory by war-bands from Tarquinii (397). In 396 the Roman commander Camillus broke into the city, levelled it to the ground, and sold the survivors into slavery. Veii ceased to exist. The Romans even took over her gods, and ritually cursed the city-site: no one could settle on it without facing divine and Roman wrath. This galvanized the surviving eleven cities of the League into a great deal more talk, but no action. Caere, a city of the Modern Age 295

4 League closer to Rome than to her nearest Etruscan neighbor, seems now to have chosen a permanent policy of strict (pro- Roman) neutrality, leading later to open alliance with the Roman forces overrunning Etruria. But Roman expansion into the heartland of Etruria was blocked by a natural defensive line running west-to-east from Tarquinii near the Mediterranean, through the Etruscan towns of Sutrium and Nepete to Capena, near the Tiber, north of Rome, and Falerii, further north, up the Tiber. In the very next year (395 BC), Rome moved on Capena, and the devastation of her farmlands made her sue for peace. In the next (394), an assault on Falerii ended only when that city bought peace by reparations : paying all Rome s military expenses, particularly the legions food and salaries, for that year. In 391 Volsinii was attacked in retaliation for unprovoked assaults on Roman territory; she bought a twenty-year truce by returning all the Roman possessions she had stolen, making up the grain losses she had caused, and paying the Roman army s expenses for that year. Aggression was showing a high net profit for Rome. From now on, caught between the devastating but occasional raids of the Gauls and the relentless pressure of Roman total war, each Etruscan city made its own separate choice of the lesser of the two evils. Thus, in that same year (391), the northeast Etruscan city of Clusium appealed to Rome for protection from the Gallic horde under Brennus, and his demand for half their land for his people. The Roman ambassadors seemed to have tried to dictate terms to both sides, favored Clusium in them, and then fought with her army before the truce for negotiations expired. Enraged, Brennus marched his horde right to Rome (390), defeated her army, burned and looted the entire city except the Capitoline hill, and besieged the survivors for seven months, before accepting a hugh ransom in gold to depart for the Alps (389). Many Romans had taken refuge in Caere, which welcomed them. All the Etruscan cities showed great freedom from vindictiveness and narrow self-interest, never moving to crush a weakened, humiliated Rome, though some in the League talked 01 this. In fact, Capena and Sutrium spontaneously came over to friendship and alliance with Rome, eagerly welcoming the Roman garrisons which came to them to protect them from their fellow-etruscans aggression (389). In 388, former citizens of Veii, Capena and Falerii who had worked for Rome s success were rewarded with Roman citizenship and land grants. In 386 huge Roman forces came to Sutrium, and to Nepete, to rescue them from renewed Etruscan aggression. Both towns received an even larger Roman garrison to protect them from any further threat to their peaceful coexistence with Rome. The Romans took peaceful coexistence quite literally: for breaking the peace the city would cease to exist. Those Nepesini who had treacherously appealed to their fellow- Etruscans to break Rome s peaceful hold were all executed. In 383, to further ensure peace, a Roman colony was planted in Nepete. Over the next twenty years ( BC), the Etruscans showed a surprisingly modern devotion to nonintervention in Rome s internal affairs, never assisting revolts of her Latin allies, nor new Gallic hordes marching on Rome. In 364 BC occurred a sure sign of peaceful coexistence, a cultural exchange program. (It was, of course, a one-way exchange: Rome had little to offer Etruria except domination.) Etruscan actors, acrobats, musicians and dancers came to Rome for the first time, and stayed to perform at yearly popular and religious festivals thereafter. This peace, which allowed Rome to consolidate her hold on Latin, Aequian and Volscian territory, was finally broken by Tarquinii, which resumed unprovoked aggression by again plundering Roman territory. When Tarquinii refused to see the justice of Rome s demands for reparations, the peace-loving Roman people were forced 296 Summer 1978

5 to declare war (359 BC). In 358 the Tarquinians badly defeated the Roman consul Fabius. A terrible example of Etruscan rage and resentment followed: three hundred and seven Roman captives were executed as human sacrifices at Tarquinii. In 357 the Faliscans revolted; the Romans had charged Falerii with harboring Roman deserters from last year s defeat, and with allowing its young men to join the Tarquinian side. Fighting was inconclusive in , but in 354 the Romans stepped up the policy of devastating everything they could in both cities territory. In 353 the Tarquinian army was defeated; the Romans took revenge in kind for the savagery and humiliation of five years ago: three hundred fifty-eight noble Tarquinian captives were tortured to death in the Forum. The consul Titus Manlius Torquatus then led his legions against Caere, charging her with open rebellion because some plunderers of Roman territory had gone back there. The Caeretans pleaded that forces from Tarquinii and Falerii had merely marched through their territory, invited the Romans to do the same, and begged them to remember Caere s timely help in 390, when Rome had nearly been destroyed. The Romans granted them a hundred-year truce ( ), then continued to devastate Tarquinian and Faliscan territory ( ). Tarquinii and Falerii both begged for and got a forty-year truce ( ). Out of regard for the agricultural losses they had caused, the Romans may not have demanded any wheat, money or other reparations from either city. (Some modern historians think they did.) Rome used the forty years to attack and subdue Samnium (First Samnite War, BC; Second, BC) and to put down a revolt of her Latin allies ( BC). Just before the truce ran out (in 312 BC), the Romans prepared for renewed war in Etruria. In there was fierce fighting around Sutrium, as the Etruscans tried to restore their old defensive line. The consul Fabius broke past that line into the Etruscan heartland, however, by invading the Ciminian Mountains (310). The cities of Perusia, Cortona and Arretium united to repel the invaders, but their hastily-organized resistance was broken. Sixty thousand warriors, and much gold, silver, and other booty, were lost. The three cities were granted a thirty-year truce by the Roman Senate ( BC). All the Etruscan cities were now officially neutral, or allied to Rome. Clusium promised to supply the Roman army for one month, if it penetrated as far as her territory, and Caere sent men to serve in the invasion force. But resistance was called up by the priests of the Concilium Emuriae from the whole League. Noble families and private individuals from each city responded, bringing what followers they had. They easily outnumbered the Romans, and fought with suicidal bravery, at the First Battle of Lake Vadimon (309 BC). But they had no official organization, and nowhere to go, if they lost: they could not appeal to their neutral home cities. Their losses were incredibly high. Nor did the neutral cities fare any better. Fabius rushed to assault Perusia, calling the presence of Perusian warriors at the Vadimon battle a serious violation of the truce. In a humiliating twist, after she surrendered, Perusia had not only to accept but even to beg the Roman Senate for a Roman garrison to ensure her continued existence. Rome granted both requests. In 308 the consul Decius forced Tarquinii to supply grain for his legions in return for a new forty-year truce ( ), the last wheat deal she would have to make as an independent city. He then led his well-fed troops to the capture of several Volsinian strongholds, and the devastation of all unfriendly Etruria. The entire free League begged for a thirtyyear peace treaty, but were only granted a one-year truce, in return for which they provided the Roman army with a year s pay and two tunics for every soldier ( BC). But peace lasted a good bit longer, unofficially ( BC), for Rome needed the time to break the Um- Modern Age 297

6 brians, Samnites and Aequi. In 302 this peace was broken, because of the same factor that had contributed greatly to the Etruscan inability to combine and fight Rome as single-mindedly as she fought. Lower-class Etruscans hatred for the aristocratic oligarchies ruling and suppressing them was greater than their fear of Rome. And the families whose hereditary positions of power and influence were threatened, chose collaboration with Rome, and the betrayal of their city to Roman occupation troops, in order to retain their hereditary position, now protected by Rome. Armed revolt threw the Cilnius family out of power, and out of Arretium completely, then spread through northwest Etruria, a region which was the latest to feel Rome s power, and had always been very rich in its mines and precious metals. The priests of the Etruscan League may again have organized this resistance. The Roman commander Valerius was ambushed and badly defeated. But the Romans drafted all their fighting men, and such -1l;ae ronvn With tho=,= m:nfnvr-nmnnt. UIIA UY...I *.I..&*VU - A.A , Valerius met and nearly annihilated this Etruscan army at Rusellae (302). All hostile Etruria had to promise a year s pay, and two months grain supply, for the entire Roman army, in return for the right to beg the Roman Senate for a peace treaty. Instead, the League, in particular the northwest cities of Vetulonia, Populonia and Volaterrae, got a two-year truce ( BC). Arretium got its ruling clique of the Cilnii back, as well (302), and a Roman garrison to keep them in power. The northwest cities now (299 BC) tried to turn one enemy threat against another. They invited the Gauls, who had destroyed the North Etruscan League, and were moving from the Po valley south against them, to make an unresisted but non-destructive march through Etruria, and join in an attack on Rome. The Gauls accepted the large sums of money offered, but returned to the Po valley, saying they would leave both Etruria and Rome in peace, unless a share of Etruscan land became theirs in return for joining the march on Rome. This aggressive intent provoked the Romans to return to the attack in north. west Etruria (298 BC). The old Etruscan line of defense was by now Rome s secure base for further expansion. The consul Manlius, and Valerius his successor (after his accidental death), marched at will through enemy territory, devastating au but their walled cities and towns. The succeeding consul, Scipio, only met organized resistance near Volaterrae, the northernmost of these cities. After a fierce but inconclusive battle both sides withdrew, but Scipio returned from Falerii to renew the unresisted destruction. The revolt of Samnium (Third Samnite War, BC), gave the Etruscans a new opportunity. But in 297 they used their old defenses in a new, humbled way. Embassies from Sutrium, Nepete and Falerii were the intermediaries as all Etruria begged off a war with Rome, urging her to use her forces to break Samnium once and for A!. In 296 the pr%ence nf 2 Smoih army in Etruria, plundering pro-roman territory, roused some Etruscan rebels, but a combined operation by both Roman consuls and all the legions broke the dlied army, killing or capturing ten thousand Etruscans and Samnites. In 295 an alliance of Etruscans, Samnites, Gauls and Umbrians renewed the threat to Rome itself, and the Sennonian Gauls assaulted CIusium, and the Roman legion camped there. But these Gauls were driven back out of Etruria, with heavy Roman losses, and the allied force was driven east into the Apennines near Sentinum. Clusinian deserters revealed their combined plans to the Romans, who utterly devastated the Etruscans territory, to draw them back to Etruria, and out of the allied enemy forces. The latter were badly defeated by the Romans, and so were the Clusinian and Perusian rebels in Etruria. This Etruscan rebellion was widespread, but not firm and unshakable. It was marred, even ruined, by the same inter- 298 Summer 1978

7 and intra-city hatred and envy that ruined all Etruria s eftorts against Rome. In 294 the consul Postumius devastated Volsinian territory, drove the city s defenders back within their walls, captured and plundered Rusellae, and received the submission of Volsinii, Perusia and Arretium. All three provided grain and clothing for his troops, just to be allowed to send ambassadors to Rome. They received a forty-year truce ( BC), but were each fined an amount worth half a million pounds of copper, due at once. In 293 those cities still holding out in rebellion plundered their CL pro-roman neighbors, who appealed to Rome. She promised help, but did nothing, placing all her efforts in breaking the Samnites. Then Falerii too revolted, exasperated or encouraged by Roman inaction. With one of Rome s main bases about to be lost, the consul Carvilius marched his legions up from Campania to Etruria. He captured five rebel strongholds and the town of Troilum, literally sold to him by four hundred seventy of its wealthiest (presumably ruling) citizens. Falerii immediately surrendered to him, seeking peace but receiving a one-year truce ( ) in return for a hundred thousand pounds of copper and a full year s pay for his legions. Over the next few years ( BC), the last of the rebels, including the lower classes of Volsinii, who rejected and resented the humiliating peace with Rome, were put down. An unwanted peace, a ruling clique of collaborators to guarantee it, and a Roman garrison to protect both, came to every surviving Etruscan city. But not total submission, not yet. A Gallic invasion in 283 BC was quite welcome to the Etruscan common people and lower classes, and to the priestly caste, for the Cilnii still holding power in Arretium appealed desperately to Rome for help against both the Gauls and their fellowcitizens, and a march by the Gallic Boii tribe on Rome was joined by a powerful, if unofficial, Etruscan coalition. The threat to Rome was removed when the entire allied force was nearly annihilated at the Second Battle of Lake Vadimon (283). Finally, the religious heart of the Etruscan League, the city of Volsinii, and its neighbor and age-old ally, Vulci, revolted in 280 BC. The consul Tiberius Coruncanius crushed both cities forces. In order to wage this war, and command in it, the privileged aristocratic families of Volsinii had allowed their fellow-citizens in the lower classes greater freedom and power than ever before. Now, after defeat, they expected the old ways to return, or Rome to restore them. This drove the ordinary Volsinians into open, bloody civil war ( ).3 The Romans put a stop to hereditary privilege, radical change, and civil strife by starving the rebels into surrender, exterminating them, and razing the city to the ground. All those who had survived by conspicuous loyalty to Rome were rewarded by resettlement miles away. Their home city, the home city of the Etruscan League and religion, no longer existed. This was the final outcome of all the generous wheat deals, the accommodations for the sake of detente, or peaceful coexistence, with Rome. As an aftereffect, the Etruscan religion, language and culture disappeared as rapidly as Etruscan independence. In a little over two centuries (by the time of Augustus, 31 BC-27 AD), few men who could understand Etruscan were to be found. It had taken just over two centuries ( BC) for Rome to go from a humble former vassal, begging for a favorable deal on wheat, to the lord of all Etruria. It is ironic that much of that time was passed in peace and friendship between the two peoples. Peace, and the prosperity they enjoyed, were actually more ruinous to the Etruscans than war, and peace, was one of Rome s greatest aids in total conquest. Veii spent more than half of the last century of her existence ( BC) at peace with Rome ( , 427, ). Tarquinii spent nearly all her last century and a half as an independent power at peace with Rome ( , , BC), and few years fighting to keep that independence (397, 359- Modem Age 299

8 351, ). Volsinii went out of existence (278 BC) long before her forty-year truce ( ) did. But there are of course vast differences between Etruria and the modern West, Rome and the Soviet Union. Some of these are striking: First, Rome had no ideology, no implacable commitment to remake the entire world in her imagined image, no compulsion to destroy all peoples traditions, including her own. So her yoke on quiescent subjects lay infinitely lighter, and her borrowings from superior cultures and powers were more pragmatic and much more successful. As a primitive state, Rome had a strong commitment to private property, even the curses of private slavery and private imprisonment for debt. She totally lacked the modern Socialist advance of public slaves doing forced labor in state work camps, had no secret police, no public prisons, and few crimes against the state. (And they the traditional, bourgeois ones: cowardice or disobedience in the army, treason, abuse of citizens rights.) n r urfner, Rome was an aristocratic oiigarchy, not a dictatorship of the proletariat. Family and heredity, not a show of ideological purity, admitted one to the narrow circle of power. Next, it took over two centuries to go from her first favorable wheat deal to her total subjection of Etruria. A similar course of events in this century would take place in a much shorter time-span, as a Solzhenitsyn speech warned that World War IVY will be fought by this generation of Americans. Conversely, in that time-span, Rome s ruling clique gradually shared out power with the middle and lower classes, relaxing nearly every requirement for office and privilege. As documented in the Gulag Archipelago, no hint of such change has appeared in the Soviet Union in sixty years, nor any hint that it will. And Etruria too was different: hers was a strong religious union, with an appeal only Marxism and a secularized Judaism and Islam seem to command in any segment of the modern world. The modern West has NATO and SEATO, the Commonwealth and the Common Market, but religious unity is certainly not a key factor of national and international politics. Whether such unions are any stronger or likelier to last than the Etruscan type, can still be debated, at this point. Tied in with that, the Etruscan religion was a primitive and chauvinistic one. Human sacrifice was not unknown: sacrifices of living captives and subjects were carried out in the cult of the great dead, in order that their personalities live on. It was also an extremely fatalistic religion, finding the key to success or failure in foreordained patterns and omens, much more than in human motivation and determination. Fatalism need not lead to pessimism, but when some form of superior insight or revelation pre6icis the doom oi its own cuiture, the prophecy tends to be self-fulfilling. Let me conclude with an odd fact not now, and I hope never, analogous. Etruscan is the deadest of dead languages: not spoken, not understood, and not worth much, if figured out. To paraphrase one linguistic scholar, finding the key to Etruscan would just unlock an empty mausoleum. Of ten thousand remains of written Etruscan, nearly all are obituary notices, all have a funereal context. Specifically concerned with individual dead Etruscans, they are also a general reflection of the death of that language, culture and civilization. Living Etruscan was completely wiped out. Any analogy to English is clearly unthinkable. See J.F. Johnson, The Leader as Mass All dates are taken from Livy s chronology, Man, National Review 28, No. 9 (3/19/76), without worrying about how exact or approxi at 271; Prof. D.J. Stewart s letter in Nu- mate they are, historically. tional Review 28, No. 13 (4/16/76), ; and The dates in this last paragraph come from F.S. Manor s, in National Review 28, No. 19 the fragments of Livy s history of these years, (5/28/76), 535, 575, on the analogy between the supplemented by Diodorus and Dionysius of Halifall o Rome and contemporary US. history. camassus. 300 Summer 1978