Ad Infinitum: A Biography of Latin

(#litres_trial_promo) It was also a persistent theme of ancient folklore that some Trojans at least had escaped from the destruction of their city and headed west. Virgil, Rome’s national poet, of course employed this as the basis for his Aeneid, with Aeneas leading a party of escaped Trojans ultimately to settle in Latium, there allying with the native Latini (specifically against the Etruscans) to found the race of Romans. And in the previous generation Julius Caesar himself had liked to trace his family’s ancestry back to Aeneas’ son Iulus: during his dictatorship he struck a coin that showed Venus on the front and Aeneas leaving Troy on the reverse.

But it is clear from votive statues found in the city of Veii (dated to 515–490 BC), and a score of vases (525–470) found farther north, especially in Vulci, all depicting Aeneas dutifully carrying his father to safety, that Aeneas the heroic Trojan survivor was already a cult figure, and a putative founding father, among the Etruscans themselves before the Romans appropriated him.

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Pursuing the origins of the Etruscans any further would not enhance an understanding of their impact on Latin. But the mystery remains, if anything, deeper today than ever before. Suffice it to say that trails of evidence lead in two apparently incompatible directions: one to the island of Lemnos, not far from Troy, where an epitaph from the late sixth century BC in a language closely related to Etruscan has been found, and even read; but the other to the eastern reaches of the Alps, where another language, clearly but more distantly related to Etruscan, and known as Rhaetic, survives in inscriptions from 500 to 50 BC. Clearly Etruscan had some link with the eastern Mediterranean; but rather than being an import from Asia Minor, the language may have been a remnant from Europe’s pre-Indo-European past.

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The Etruscans left abundant evidence of how luxurious a life their aristocrats were able to lead—and perhaps hoped to continue in the afterlife. Some of their tombs were decorated with exquisite, brightly coloured wall paintings, which show much feasting, juggling, lyre and flute music and dancing, wrestling and game playing, enjoyment of gardens, hunting, and fishing. The coffins themselves were often elaborate statues, showing the deceased reclining as in life, occasionally as devoted couples lying down to dinner. Pottery and the engravings on the backs of mirrors show much of the same, but add more sober themes: sacrifice of animals, consultation of entrails, soldiers with crested helmets, warships, battle elephants, sea creatures including seals and octopuses.

The only work to match them at the time came from Greece or the Near East, and this again underlines how advanced the Etruscans were in the Italy of the sixth century BC. The city that was to become modern Bologna began as an Etruscan foundation of this period, Felsina. They had by then expanded beyond their cities in Etruria to control the full extent of the Po’s drainage in northeastern Italy and were also influential along the southwestern coast of Italy, well to the south of Rome. How was it that this political and cultural advantage did not translate into a permanent empire? And if this had happened, is there a chance that Etruscan might have supplanted all the Italic languages, 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.

(#litres_trial_promo) 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)

(#litres_trial_promo) conquered Rome and imposed disarmament on her, in the aftermath of the expulsion of Tarquinius Superbus.

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So Rome must have been dominated by Etruscan aristocrats or kings for at least a century. Whatever the precise political arrangement,

(#litres_trial_promo) 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.

(#litres_trial_promo) 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.

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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.

(#litres_trial_promo) 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,

(#litres_trial_promo) 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’.

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Much Roman shipping terminology is Etruscan, showing from whom these Italian farmers first learned to plough the waves (saburra ‘ballast’, sentīna ‘bilge water’, carīna ‘keel’), but once again most of it seems to have come originally from Greek, showing who were the original naval tutors in this part of the world (ancora ‘anchor’, antemna ‘yardarm’, aplustra ‘stern figurehead’, guberna ‘steering oars’, guberniō ‘helmsman’, prōra/prōris ‘prow’).

The Etruscans also had some effect even on Roman military language. Some of the central terms appear to be Etruscan: mīles ‘soldier’, vēles ‘light infantryman’, satelles ‘bodyguard’, clipeus ‘round shield’, tīrō ‘raw recruit’. But there are also loans for other realities of military life: cācula ‘batman’, lixa ‘camp follower’. The gruma too (an Etruscan deformation of the Greek word gnōmōn) was the key tool for Roman surveyors, for roads and other developments.

The Etruscans were great purveyors of entertainment, whether onstage (scaena) or in the arēna. The Romans derived their taste both for comic theatre and the spectacle of gladiatorial shows from them, though no doubt they took them to new heights, or depths.

(#litres_trial_promo) Certainly many of the stock characters (dossennus ‘hunchback’, miriō ‘ugly man’, mōriō ‘dolt’) and some styles of gladiator (murmillō ‘fish-crested’) had Etruscan names; musicians too (subulō ‘flautist’) were typical of their arts.

The Etruscan roots of Rome’s performing arts were recognized by the doyens of Roman literature. Livy, the historian of the city’s early years, who wrote in the first century BC, recalled the story that stage peformances were first introduced around 365 BC, which would place them a century after the height of Etruscan influence. A pestilence was then racking the city, and one might have imagined the innovation would have been intended as a diversion. But no: according to Livy, they were introduced as CAELESTIS IRAE PLACAMINA ‘appeasements of heaven’s wrath’. Livy observed:

They are said to have introduced stage plays [LVDI SCENICI], something of a revolution for this warlike people; before that, they had known only the spectacle of the circus.

(#litres_trial_promo) But the plays were small, as is usual when something is new, and were in fact of foreign origin. Players who performed without songs or actions to mime them were called in from Etruria: they danced to the strains of a piper and performed quite decorously in the Etruscan manner. Later young people began to copy them, putting in funny business in rough verse; and their gestures were no better than the words suggested. So the practice was taken up and grew through frequent repetition. The country artistes were given the name histriōnes, because ister was the Tuscan word for ‘player’ [Latin ludiō]. They did not, as before, swap rough and ready Fescennine verses, but whole medleys [saturae] set to flute music, with movements timed to match.

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This even suggests an Etruscan source for the one known Latin literary form with no Greek model, namely the satire. But indeed early satires are called sermōnes ‘talks’, and some have suggested that this is the meaning of the Etruscan word satri. Their scurrilous content would certainly befit an Etruscan cultural import.

Another aspect of Etruscan culture showing them to be city folk was their names.

The Indo-European system, found all over from Iceland to India, but notably retained by the Greeks despite their highly urban lifestyle, allotted each person an individual name, made more specific if necessary by referring to the name of the father: Snorri Sturluson, Rāmo Dāśarathis ‘Rama son of Dasharatha’, Aineiās Ankhīsiadēs ‘Aeneas son of Anchises’. Powerful clans distinguished themselves from time to time, perhaps as royal or tyrannical dynasties such as the Greek Atreidai and Peisistratidai, but there were never enough of them—existing in parallel in the one society—nor did they last long enough, to become reflected in a naming system.

The Etruscan system, by contrast, gave an individual a first name (Latin praenōmen ‘forename’), but added a distinct ‘gentile’ name (nōmen ‘name’ or gentilicium) for the clan to which he or she belonged: Vel Tlesna, Thefarie Veliana, Marce Caliathe; or in Latin, Gaius Marius, Marcus Antonius.

(#litres_trial_promo) To this could be added a third, more specific name, referring to a family within a clan: Aule Titi Nurziu, Vel Tutna Tumu; or in Latin, Marcus Tullius Cicerō. The Romans called this last the cognōmen, translatable as ‘eke-name’ or ‘nickname’. Both these latter names were soon inherited by birth, like a modern surname. Overall, this was a system designed for higher urban densities, where there were just too many people to distinguish by the traditional name and patronymic.

The Romans, or at least those who came from more distinguished families, adopted this system in the seventh century BC. Its bourgeois convenience was perhaps less significant than the snobbish implications that it made possible. As well as serving as a more discriminating name-pattern, the possession of a gentile name showed that an individual belonged to a free family of Roman citizens. (Slaves and provincials, such as Greeks, would have just one individual name.) And the possession of tria nōmina ‘the three names’ was in the early days a badge of coming from a clan that had been distinguished long enough for different branches to have been singled out.

Curiously, but presumably for reasons that made sense at the time, this system never applied to women of good family, each of whom had as her official name just the gentile nōmen, marked with the feminine ending -a. By this token, all women in a clan were interchangeable. Evidently this was impractical for everyday life, so pet names abounded. But these had no more status as badges of identity than the arbitrary name given to a slave.

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Romans adopted more than just the system. For praenōmina, they adopted pretty much the whole set of Etruscan names: in the table, we see the list of Etruscan forenames with their Roman equivalents. Most made no sense in Latin, but Tiberius clearly referred to the local river, and Marcus probably honoured the god Mars.

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As the table on the next page shows, many other names too were of Etruscan origin, often of the most famous individuals in Roman history. But whereas anyone could be given an Etruscan praenōmen, the possession of an Etruscan-derived nōmen or cognōmen must actually have said something about the remote lineage of the man who bore it. The name Caesar, for example, suggests that some remote ancestor (possibly Lucius Julius, who fought in the First Punic War around 250 BC) had had a significant link with the Etruscan city of Caere (called in Etruscan Caisr-).

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The only surviving Roman praenomen for a woman was Gaia. Quintilian says that the abbreviation for it was ɔ, C reversed (Inst., i.7.28). It was only used at weddings, where the newlyweds were hailed as GAIVS ET GAIA. But GAIVSQVE LVCIVSQVE was the Latin equivalent of ‘Tom, Dick, and Harry’ (e.g., Martial, v.14.5).

This system was to die out in later antiquity, as social hierarchies changed. The ancient families lost power and influence (and their gentile names became widely diffused after AD 212 when all provincials became citizens). Praenōmina and nōmina were increasingly dropped for practical purposes: there were too few of them, so people too often had the same name. By contrast, cognōmina were more and more used as distinguishers, assigned to individuals and no longer inherited. The upending of the social order in the German invasions of the fifth century AD would reinstate the prestige of the old Indo-European system, which the Germans had never lost, as well as break up the social world into smaller units. And by then the general scatter of cognōmina among individuals meant that there was little left of the traditional system.

Surnames (the equivalent of Roman nōmina) would only make their reappearance across Europe gradually from the tenth century (starting, as it happened, in northern Italy), as the growing fluidity of population in urban centres, and trade links among them, made unworkable the system of simple name and father’s name, even when reinforced with a place of origin. But the fact that Latin had adopted, and sustained for a millennium, a form of the surname system fifteen hundred years ahead of its time speaks for the large-scale civic stability of Roman society from the seventh century BC to the third century AD, though—admittedly—no less for its conservatism and class consciousness.

But Etruria’s most important influence on Latin, ultimately, lay in having shown the Romans how to make Latin a written language. This is amply attested in the technical vocabulary for writing that became established in Latin. Scrībere ‘write’ itself seems to be a native word originally meaning ‘scratch’ or ‘incise’ (cf Russian skrebú, Lithuanian skrabu, Old English sćeorpan ‘scrape’), and legere ‘read’ originally meant just ‘pick up’; but much of the rest has come through Etruscan. Titulus ‘label’, hence ‘title’ and elementum ‘letter’ (apparently derived from L-M-N) seem to be Etruscan innovations. Most often the ultimate source is (unsurprisingly) in Greek. The key word littera ‘letter’ seems to be a reworking of the Greek diphthera ‘leather, parchment’. In cēra ‘wax’, the material on which many messages were scratched, the change of gender shows that the word was not borrowed directly from Greek kēros; an Etruscan intermediary is likely. Likewise, stilus, the implement for scratching, has no etymology and has also been proposed as a loan from Etruscan.

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