including the then rather insignificant Latin?
Urn of the Spouses. This funerary image, now in the Museo Guarnacci, shows an ideal picture of Etruscan marital harmony.
Rome was the immediate neighbour to the south of their northern domains, which they seem to have dominated for a time, but then lost. The direct evidence that they controlled Rome was the Etruscan name (properly spelled Tarchunies) that was borne by two of Rome’s latter kings, Tarquinius Priscus (‘the Ancient’) and Tarquinius Superbus (‘the Proud’). The emperor Claudius (himself a serious Etruscologist, but writing six centuries after the events) added that according to Etruscan sources the intervening king Servius Tullius had also been an Etruscan, whose name in that language was Mastarna.11 Yet a fourth example of an Etruscan ruler of Rome exists in the person of Lars Porsena of Clusium, who (according to a poorly kept secret)* conquered Rome and imposed disarmament on her, in the aftermath of the expulsion of Tarquinius Superbus.*
So Rome must have been dominated by Etruscan aristocrats or kings for at least a century. Whatever the precise political arrangement,† it was from Etruscans that they derived their tradition that kings, and hence magistrates, should wear purple. And from Etruscans came the symbol of their authority, the fascēs, a bundle of rods surrounding an ax, showing the right to give out corporal, and capital, punishment. Beyond politics, it is quite clear that the Etruscan language too had considerable influence on Latin.
Etymology and lexicography were not skills that flourished in the ancient world, so there is no full statement by Romans of the Latin vocabulary’s debt to Etruscan. Nevertheless, it is possible to use modern methods on ancient materials. If we class together all the words that Roman authors tell us are of Etruscan origin, adding others whose origin is clear from their use in Etruscan inscriptions, a family resemblance emerges among them. Then, with an idea of what it is about a word that makes it look Etruscan, we can look for other such words.12 The outcome is a substantial harvest, and we can see that the effect of Etruscan on Latin was quite comparable to the effects on medieval English of French after the Norman conquest of 1066—a major cultural infusion, essentially of an early urban culture on a more countrified society.‡
One first linguistic point of note—which has implications for the cultural history of the period—is that the words borrowed are overwhelmingly nouns. The only verbs we can find are, in fact, derived from nouns, and this is why they are all stems ending in ā-, referring to actions performed with some newfangled Etruscan item: gubernāre ‘to steer’ (a ship), from guberna ‘steering oars’; iduāre ‘to divide’, from idūs ‘the Ides, halfway through a month’, laniāre ‘to butcher’ (meat), from lanius ‘butcher’, triumphāre ‘to celebrate victory’, from the Etruscan victory shout triumphe, and fascināre ‘to charm’, originally using a strange phallic object, the fascinus. This preference for nouns suggests that Etruscan words came in as names for unfamiliar objects; it does not show (as later, when Greek words flooded into Latin) that an important segment of the population was bilingual.* These are not the signs of a Roman elite who spoke (or thought) in Etruscan, but of Romans coming to terms with Etruscan practices, and (to some extent) Etruscan institutions.
The keynote is above all urban. It shows Etruscans leading the way in the architecture (atrium ‘forecourt’, columna, fenestra ‘window’, fornix ‘arch’, grunda ‘gutter’, turris ‘tower’, mundus ‘crypt’), particularly temple architecture with attendant waterworks (favisa ‘tank’, cisterna). Domestic conveniences were often named from this source: lanterna ‘lantern’, catēna ‘bracket’ or ‘chain’, verna, a slave not bought but born and bred in the family. City trades tended to have Etruscan names: the word for a shop or tavern is taberna, the original currency unit was as, the people you dealt with caupō ‘landlord, shopkeeper’, cociō ‘dealer’, mangō ‘slaver’.
Urban also meant urbane: Etruscans set fashions in clothing, including Greek-style palla for women and pallium for men,† as well as the warmer laena (from Greek khlaina). They even provided the light and practical lacerna cloak, which was to become so popular in Augustus’ time that he tried to restrict its use: it seemed too informal. They provided the accessories, a belt (balteus) and cap (cappa), a cord (cimussis) to draw the cloak together, and a pair of stout shoes (calcei) on the feet. An early style of toga, the tebenna, is Etruscan. Even tunica itself, the standard Roman tunic, may be an Etruscan deformation of Greek khitōn, which is essentially the same garment. Etruscan also provided the dry-cleaning experts (fullō, nacca) to keep the clothes in good order. Cosmetics were naturally an Etruscan thing: cērussa ‘white lead’, purpurissum ‘purple’, mundus ‘toiletries’. Even the word pulcher ‘beautiful’ may be an Etruscan loan.
The kind of urbanite who would wear this stuff was termed by an Etruscan word too, scurra. The characteristic Roman attitude to such people can still be felt in the derived adjective scurrilous: in Latin they were a byword for tasteless—because disrespectful—humour. Insults to another’s intelligence evidently tripped off the tongue in Etruscan: they could call an idiot barginna, bargus, buccō, or barō (and the last of these has become the standard word for a male in Spanish, varón, and a hereditary nobleman, a baron, in English). In general, the Etruscan type for the Roman was one who enjoyed the soft and easy things of life to excess: likely to be an aleō ‘gambler’, ganeō ‘glutton’, helluō ‘splurger’, lurchō ‘guzzler’, or levenna ‘wimp’, consorting with lenōnēs ‘pimps’ and lenae ‘madams’, carisae ‘foxy ladies’ and paelicēs ‘tarts’, in the lustra ‘brothels’ of Rome, and probably resorting to calumnia ‘name-calling’ and the services of a pettifogging rabula ‘shyster’ if ever you should cross him. At least his self-indulgent madulsa ‘binge’ would be likely to leave him suffering the torments of crāpula ‘hangover’ in the morning.
The only good thing about the type, Roman traditionalists might have felt, was that special virtues correlated with their vices: their mastery in the arts of the culīna ‘kitchen’ was second to none, with a heavy emphasis on meat from the laniēna ‘butcher’s’, arvīna ‘lard’, botulus ‘black pudding’, sagīna ‘fattening’, and judicious addition of mantisa ‘sauce’ or ‘trimmings’. Lucuns ‘sweetmeat’, amurca ‘olive juice’, and even puls ‘porridge’ were Greek words (glukous, amorge, poltos) deformed on the Etruscan tongue. Cooking utensils too tended to have Etruscan names, such as calpar ‘wine jar’, clarnus ‘platter’, cortīna ‘cauldron’, crēterra ‘mixing bowl’, lagēna ‘bottle’, lepista ‘large cup’, orca ‘vessel with narrow neck’, situlus ‘bucket’, sporta ‘basket’, tīna/tīnium ‘wine jar’, urceus ‘pitcher’, urna ‘urn’.*
Much Roman shipping terminology is Etruscan, showing from whom these Italian farmers first learned to plough the waves (saburra ‘ballast’, sentīna
