Etruscan origin mystery unravelled?

Etruscan sarcophagus from Cerveteri (520-530 BC)

With the help of cattle, and Herodotus was right after all. According to an article in New Scientist, the Etruscans, a culturally distinct civilisation that inhabited central Italy from about 800 BC till 400 BC when they were assimilated into Rome, might have originated in Anatolia (in present day Turkey).

The article reports that a team found that 60 per cent of the mitochondrial DNA in cows in central Tuscany were the same as that of cows in Anatolia and the Middle East, without any genetic convergence in the surrounding regions.

The origins of the Etruscans, with their own non-Indo-European language, have been debated by archaeologists, geneticists and linguists for centuries. Writing in the 5th century BC, the Ancient Greek historian Herodotus claimed that the Etruscans [whom the Greeks called Tyrrhenians] had arrived in Italy from Lydia, now called Anatolia in modern-day Turkey.

Herodotus writes in his Histories (full text here):

“The customs of the Lydians are like those of the Greeks, except that they make prostitutes of their female children. They were the first men whom we know who coined and used gold and silver currency; and they were the first to sell by retail. And, according to what they themselves say, the games now in use among them and the Greeks were invented by the Lydians: these, they say, were invented among them at the time when they colonized Tyrrhenia. This is their story: […] their king divided the people into two groups, and made them draw lots, so that the one group should remain and the other leave the country; he himself was to be the head of those who drew the lot to remain there, and his son, whose name was Tyrrhenus, of those who departed. […] they came to the Ombrici [Umbria in Italy], where they founded cities and have lived ever since. They no longer called themselves Lydians, but Tyrrhenians, after the name of the king’s son who had led them there.”

Greek and Roman historians often commented on the morality of the Etruscans, which was similar to that of the Lydians. According to Theopompus of Chios (4th century BC), sharing of wives was common among them, and that the women were expert drinkers who would often sleep with men other than their husbands.

Also read:
Mysterious Etruscans, a site with numerous photographs of Etruscan art.

The cave of the she wolf

According to a news report I came upon doing the rounds last week, the cave where Romulus and Remus, the twin founders of Rome, were suckled by a she-wolf has been discovered on the Palatine hill in Rome.

Archaeologists say they have unearthed Lupercale—the sacred cave where, according to legend, a she-wolf nursed the twin founders of Rome and where the city itself was born.

The long-lost underground chamber was found beneath the remains of Emperor Augustus’ palace on the Palatine, a 230-foot-tall (70-meter-tall) hill in the center of the city.

Archaeologists from the Department of Cultural Heritage of the Rome Municipality came across the 50-foot-deep (15-meter-deep) cavity while working to restore the decaying palace. (Read more at National Geographic News)

According to Roman legend, Rhea Silvia, the daughter of king Numitor deposed by his brother Amulius, was forced to become a vestal virgin to prevent her from having children. But she became pregnant with sons of the god Mars.

When the infants were discovered, the princess was imprisoned and the babies were set adrift in a basket on the Tiber River.

The twins floated ashore safely and were suckled by a she-wolf in a cave until they were rescued by a swineherd Faustulus, who raised them.

When the children grew, they learned the story of their past, and went and killed the usurper Amulius, restored Numitor to the throne, and set off to found a city on the site where they were taken care of by the wolf.

This is how Roman historian Livy puts the event (Freese, Church and Bodribb translation, 1904, full text here):

The Vestal Rea was ravished by force, and having brought forth twins,
declared Mars to be the father of her illegitimate offspring, either
because she really imagined it to be the case, or because it was less
discreditable to have committed such an offence with a god. But
neither gods nor men protected either her or her offspring from the
king's cruelty. The priestess was bound and cast into prison; the king
ordered the children to be thrown into the flowing river. By some
chance which Providence seemed to direct, the Tiber, having over flown
its banks, thereby forming stagnant pools, could not be approached at
the regular course of its channel; notwithstanding it gave the bearers
of the children hope that they could be drowned in its water however
calm. Accordingly, as if they had executed the king's orders, they
exposed the boys in the nearest land-pool, where now stands the ficus
Ruminalis, which they say was called Romularis.At that time the
country in those parts was a desolate wilderness. The story goes, that
when the shallow water, subsiding, had left the floating trough, in
which the children had been exposed, on dry ground, a thirsty she-wolf
from the mountains around directed her course toward the cries of the
infants, and held down her teats to them with such gentleness, that
the keeper of the king's herd found her licking the boys with her
tongue. They say that his name was Faustulus; and that they were
carried by him to his homestead and given to his wife Larentia to be
brought up. Some are of the opinion that Larentia was called Lupa
among the shepherds from her being a common prostitute, and hence an
opening was afforded for the marvellous story.
(See also Plutarch, Loeb Classical Library
translation 1914, here)

That cave became a sacred site for the ancient Romans. Till AD 494, every yearn on 15 February, a dog and two goats were sacrificed there as part of Lupercalia celebrations and the blood was smeared on the foreheads of two boys from noble families.

It is interesting that news item quotes Andrea Carandini, historian and archaeologist at the University of Rome, La Sapienza, whose views on Rome’s founders are often said to be debatable.

“The tale of the birth of Rome is part myth and part historical truth,” said Andrea Carandini, historian and archaeologist at the University of Rome, La Sapienza.

“The story of the twins reflects the previous tradition of the Lares, the twin deities protecting the area, but there was indeed a historical founder who constituted the Palatine Hill as the sacred heart of the city around 775 B.C.,” he added.

“The archaeological findings are providing more and more evidence that the tale of Rome’s foundation isn’t a later legend but originates from historical facts,” he said.

Carandini had, in 2005, discovered traces of a royal palace at the Roman Forum that might have been the palace of Romulus. The palace was dated back to the time of the legendary founding of Rome at the eighth century BC. Carandini had also claimed to have discovered the hut where the vestal virgins lit the sacred flame. (See the AP story here on CBS). In 1988, the discovery of the Murus Romuli (Walls of Romulus) that encircled Rome in 753 BC, on the north slope of the Palatine hill in Rome led Carandini to conclude that there is some truth in the legend of Romulus and Remus.

Note Vestal virgins: Ancient Roman priestesses of Vesta, the goddess of the hearth. They entered service before puberty and were sworn to celibacy for 30 years, after which they could marry if they wished.