The Rise of Rome: The Making of the World's Greatest Empire (7 page)

The embassy then crossed the frontier and the
pater patratus
repeated the formula to the first (presumably somewhat startled) person he met, and again at the state’s city gates, and one final time in the marketplace. If his demands were not conceded within thirty days, he proceeded to a formal declaration of war, calling on not only the leader of the gods but on the god of gates and doorways, of beginnings and endings: “Hear, Jupiter; hear, Janus Quirinus; hear, all you gods in heaven, on the earth and under the earth: I call you to witness that the people of So-and-So are unjust and refuse reparation. But concerning these things we will consult the elders of our country, how we may obtain our due.”

If their complaint was not accepted, the envoys returned home and discussed the position with the Senate. Each member was asked his view and, typically, replied, “I hold that these things be sought by means of just and righteous war. Thus I give my vote and my consent.” If a majority agreed, then one of the
fetiales
returned to
the enemy frontier and formally declared war. He flung a spear across the frontier as a sign that hostilities had begun.

In later years, with the enlargement of Rome’s territory this procedure became increasingly difficult to apply. A piece of land was therefore acquired in the city which was symbolically designated as hostile soil and into which the spear could be thrown. A specially appointed senator replaced the
fetiales
. But the principle of ensuring that a war was just remained obligatory, at least in theory.

Ancus Marcius was also responsible for enlarging the city by bringing two hills inside its boundary, the Aventine and the Caelian. He founded the port of Ostia, at the mouth of the Tiber, a clear sign that Rome was developing trade.

The tiny settlement on the Palatine Hill was beginning to find its feet.

3

Expulsion

N
ORTH OF ROME LIVED A MYSTERIOUS AND HIGHLY
cultivated race. These were the Etruscans and their homeland, Etruria, occupied, roughly speaking, modern Tuscany. They first appeared on the scene between 900 and 800
B.C
. Their language used a form of Greek script, but it was not an Indo-European tongue, as in most Mediterranean and Middle Eastern societies, and has not yet been fully deciphered. To this day, its origin is unknown.

In fact, it is still not altogether clear whence the Etruscans themselves originated. Some said they came from Lydia, a kingdom on the Turkish coast (where later, in the sixth century, Croesus ruled, a byword for enormous wealth), and were led by the king’s son, Tyrrhenus. The Greek for Etruscan is Tyrrhenian. This account is perfectly plausible; for hundreds of years, the Italian peninsula was an archaic America, a new world open to successive waves of colonists. Enterprising Phoenician and Greek traders patrolled the seas looking for business. Aristocrats saw themselves as an international class and networked with one another across state borders. There is no particular reason that a force of Lydians (or, more generally, Asiatics) should not have invaded Italy—in much the same way that Duke William and his handful of Norman knights expropriated Anglo-Saxon England.

It is tempting to envisage a melting pot in which the native population was enriched by Greek and Phoenician aesthetic styles, new techniques in metalworking, and a sophisticated knowledge of town planning. However, modern scholars have been more skeptical, supposing the slow indigenous development of a community of villages into a loose federation of small city-states. Others have thrown up their hands and walked away from the debate, seeing the question as being
on a par with the name of Hecuba’s mother—“neither capable of being known nor worth knowing.”

One way or another, by the eighth century the Etruscans had graduated from being simple farmers into an urban society of merchants and craftspeople. They were organized as a federation and each of their city-states was ruled by a king, or
lauchme
, who governed with much pomp, donning a purple robe and a gold crown. He was attended by servants, who carried
fasces
, bundles of rods tied around a one-headed ax. The Etruscans were militarily active and built up a sizable empire in central and northern Italy that reached Bononia (today’s Bologna) in the north and parts of Campania in the south. Rome seems to have retained its independence, however, although much influenced by Etruscan art and architecture, and, above all, by its religious practices.

According to Livy, Etruscans, “
deeply learned as they were in sacred lore of all kinds, were more concerned than any other nation with religious matters.” Their doctrines were set out in a series of books much used by their disciples at Rome, called
Etrusca disciplina
(
The Etruscan System
); these covered such topics as the scrutiny of the entrails of animals, the interpretation of thunder and lightning, and “
rules concerning the founding of cities, the consecration of altars and temples, the inviolability of ramparts, the laws relating to city gates, the division into tribes,
curiae
and
centuriae
, and all other things of this nature concerning war and peace.”

Inside every ordinary object or event lay a secret and sacred meaning. It followed that the world was a forest of symbols. The
most innocent animals or plants concealed unexpected threats or promises. So, for instance, some kinds of tree were ill-wishing and flourished under the protection of the underworld powers. The eglantine, the fern, the wild pear, the black fig, and any bush that produced black fruits or berries had to be rooted out and destroyed as soon as they were seen to sprout. By contrast, the laurel brought good fortune. The dreams of pregnant women could foretell triumph or disaster, as could eccentricities in the internal organs of sacrificed animals. A model bronze liver has been found divided into forty-four areas, marked with the names of the gods, showing the place allotted to each god in the Etruscan cosmos. Celestial phenomena required particular attention. Storms, rain (especially if of an unusual color or consistency), comets, and the flights of birds and bees all called for careful study and required expert interpretation. Etruscan nobles were trained as
haruspices
, or diviners, and were much in demand in Rome throughout most of its history.

The Etruscans laid out their cemeteries as well as their towns in orderly grids. In their heyday, the tombs of the rich were reconstructions of the houses they lived in when alive, containing corridors and rooms. All kinds of household objects were stored in them. In the burial chamber of one great lady, archaeologists found

gold ornaments, little toilet vases for oil and perfumes,
pyxides
[round boxes with separate lids] imitating wooden coffers for keeping small objects in: all things which could only have been dedicated to a woman for a life beyond the tomb. But together with these objects were indispensable kitchen utensils: andirons [metal supports for fire logs] and spits, a cauldron with a tripod to support it; finally a whole dinner service, the very one which had been used for the funeral feast in honor of the deceased: jugs, amphorae [two-handled jars for storing wine or oil], vases for drawing water or for mixing liquids, drinking cups and dinner plates.

Bright-colored frescoes on tomb walls illustrate the daily life of the Etruscans. Although these sometimes depict frightening demons of the underworld, they mostly evoke with beguiling joie de vivre all manner of humane fun—banquets, young men dancing and making music, horse racing, fishing, wrestling, and other athletics.

One of the most widely read and influential historians of the ancient world,
Theopompus, has left a frank, if overly graphic, description of sexual intercourse Etruscan style. Apparently, women took gymnastic exercise naked. They were very good-looking, he wrote, but drank too much wine. Children were brought up by a woman’s family, whoever their father was. Men waxed and shaved themselves at establishments that were as common as barbershops.

And they are so far from regarding sex as shameful that when the master of the house is engaged in making love and someone asks for him, they say: “He is fucking so-and-so,” referring to the act by its name without any embarrassment. When family or friends hold a party, this is how they carry on: first of all, when they have finished drinking and are ready for bed and while the torches are still alight, the servants bring in call-girls, handsome boys, or their own wives. When they have taken their pleasure of the women or the men, they make strapping young fellows sleep with the latter. They make love and pursue their pleasures in full view of everyone, but usually surround their couches with small frames of woven branches over which they drape their cloaks. They often have sex with women, but they always enjoy themselves better with boys and young men.

There is evidence that women were respected members of Etruscan society. They were given personal as well as family names, unlike their Roman counterparts. Tomb frescoes show wives attending dinner parties, something that would shock a Greek, and depict apparently happy marriages. This is not necessarily inconsistent
with general licentiousness and, in its way, Theopompus’s X-rated account does tend to confirm women’s relative independence.

IT WAS FROM
this sophisticated, culturally somewhat overwhelming society that a complete stranger arrived in Rome and won the throne. The surprising thing was that he was not even of Etruscan descent but the son of an aristocratic Greek exile from Corinth, a powerful and famous city in Greece.

Greece was a snake pit of tiny, fiercely competitive states, of which Corinth was the wealthiest at the time. Standing on the narrow isthmus connecting mainland Greece and the Peloponnese, it was ideally situated as an international entrepôt and its merchants traded eastward with Asia Minor and westward with Italy. Corinthian pottery and perfumes were famous throughout the Mediterranean and much sought after among the Etruscan upper classes.

The city was governed by a ruling clan, the Bacchiads, but
between about 620 and 610 they were overthrown by a dissident member. This was Cypselus, who set himself up as a popular leader: he was a tyrant, or
turannos
, who opposed the aristocracy and ruled in the interest of the lower classes, especially small farmers. He confiscated the wealth of his opponents and extended the civil rights of the masses.

The Bacchiads bitterly resisted their expulsion, and many of them were executed. One of those who escaped the bloodbath was Demaratus, a rich merchant-noble who had sailed to Etruria, where he had commercial contacts. He arrived with a treasure chest and a large entourage, including a famous painter and some ceramic artists. He began producing fine pottery in the Corinthian manner and established himself in the major Etruscan city of Tarquinii (today’s Tarquinia), or possibly neighboring Caere. He received a warm welcome, and
the geographer Strabo even claims that he became the city’s ruler.

This international career was not as astonishing as might be
imagined. Inscriptions have revealed the presence in Etruria of high-ranking individuals of Greek, Latin, and Italic origin. A man’s wealth and family tree were more important than loyalty to a particular community, city, or homeland.

Demaratus married a local woman, of noble birth but poor, with whom he had two sons, Aruns and Lucumo (this latter name may be a mistake, for it is close to Lauchme, or “king”). He taught his boys all the arts according to the Greek system. When he grew up, Lucumo decided to emigrate to Rome, where he fancied that a man of energy, like himself, might find more opportunities to better himself than were possible in his hometown. He changed his name to Lucius Tarquinius (or, in English, Tarquin); he was later given the additional title of Priscus, or the Elder, to distinguish him from the next king but one, another Tarquinius. For Cicero, his arrival was a historic turning point, for it introduced Hellenic ideas and artifacts into a provincial backwater—everything from an inexhaustible curiosity about the world to political theory, from beautiful pottery to the poetry of Homer, whose epics, the
Iliad
and the
Odyssey
, were regarded as authoritative guides to the good and courageous life. Above all, they glowed with what seemed to Romans the glamour of a higher civilization. Cicero remarked, “
It was indeed no little rivulet that flowed from Greece into our city, but a mighty river of culture and learning.”

Lucius’s move to Rome met with the warm approval of his highborn Etruscan wife, Tanaquil. She resented snobbish disdain of her marriage to an exile and a foreigner. She felt that in Rome, a new foundation where there were no old families, she would receive the respect she deserved.

Her optimism received a boost when the couple, en route from Tarquinii, were traveling in a covered wagon on the Janiculum Hill on the far side of the Tiber from Rome, not far from the new bridge. An eagle hovered above them, then dived down and plucked off Lucius’s cap. The bird soared into the sky, then swooped again and
deftly replaced the cap on its owner’s head. Tanaquil, who, like most Etruscans, was an expert interpreter of portents and prodigies, saw this as a sign of imminent greatness.