TARQUINII
(Tanquinia, formerly Corneto) Italy.
By repute the oldest city of the Etruscans in Italy,
founded by Tarchon the brother of Tyrsenos, who led
the Etruscans from Lydia to the W shortly after the fall
of Troy (
Hdt. 1.94). It was, so far as we know, the
earliest settlement in Etruria of the Villanovans, who
came to Italy by sea early in the Iron Age bringing a
culture of mingled Danubian, Western European, and
Aegean elements. The date of their arrival is not inconsistent with Herodotos' date for the Etruscan migration.
The city lies 5 km from the sea on the left bank of
the Marta, the emissary of Lake Bolsena, whose tributaries drain Tarquinii's territory. The site is a plateau
bounded N by Fosso degli Albucci and S by Fosso San
Savino. The Villanovan settlement was on the same site
as the Etruscan and its biggest tomb-field, Monterozzi,
a long ridge parallel to the city across Fosso San Savino,
became the Etruscan necropolis, a fact which speaks
strongly for the identity of Villanovans and Etruscans at
Tarquinii. The Villanovan burials are rich in bronze:
helmets of European type, shields and swords recalling
Aegean forms, bridle-bits, horse trappings, and fittings
for chariots as well as hammered bronze vessels and cast
bronze ornaments; Etruscan Tarquinii had no such
wealth of metal. Possibly the metal-rich mountains of
La Tolfa to the S belonged to Villanovan Tarquinii although in Etruscan times they belonged to Caere.
Tarquinii's early and continuing importance is attested
by the many stories told about the city. It was in her
fields that the child Tages sprang from the plowed furrow
and dictated to the Lucumones the books of the Etruscan
Discipline (Cic.
Div. 2.50). It was there that Demaratos
of Corinth settled when the expulsion of the Bacchiads
drove him into exile; he brought with him Greek craftsmen who taught the art of clay modeling to the Etruscans (Pliny
HN 35.152). Tarquinii gave Rome her Etruscan dynasty, the Tarquins, and the insignia of rank that
became the symbols of the Roman state: curule chair,
fasces, the triumphal and consular robes, trumpets “and
all music used publicly” (
Livy 1.34.1-3;
Strab. 5.220).
In Roman history Tarquinii first appears as an enemy
in 397 B.C. during the siege of Veii (
Livy 5.13), and the
city spent most of the 4th c. at war with Rome. The city
walls presumably date from this time. The early wars
ended with a 40 years' truce in 351. At the end of it
a great Etruscan alliance against Rome involved Tarquinii again, but in 308 she made a separate peace. About
287 a Roman colony was founded at Castrum Novum
on land taken from Tarquinii and in 181 another at
Graviscae. These were coastal towns on the Via Aurelia,
Castrum Novum between Pyrgi and Centumcellae, Graviscae between Centumcellae and Cosa. Thereafter
Tarquinii fades from history. We know only that as an
ally of Rome in 205 she furnished sails for Scipio's fleet
(
Livy 28.45) and that under the Empire she was the
center of a semi-official Roman priesthood of 60 haruspices.
Tarquinii's painted tombs are her finest remains. They
range from the third quarter of the 6th to early 1st c.
B.C. and are scattered along the whole length of Monterozzi. The tomb chambers are rock-cut, approached by
steep dromi and originally covered by tumuli. The earlier
tombs (6th c. and first half of 5th) are small, usually a
single rectangular room with a gabled roof and broad
rooftree brightly painted in geometric designs. Often a
kingpost fills the center of the tympanum and is flanked
by heraldic animals like the gables of some Lydian temple tombs. In the Tomb of the Lionesses slender Doric
columns are painted at the corners and in the center
of each long wall. Clearly the architecture depicted here
is of wood, light and open, a cloth-roofed pavilion rather
than a house, set up to house the funeral banquet that
is the subject of the wall paintings. Canonically (Tombs
of the Triclinium, Leopards, Ship, and Black Sow) the
banquet is painted on the wall opposite the door; the
banqueters, men and women, recline on couches, served
by young boys and entertained by flute and lyre, while
their numerous and heterogeneous pets lurk under the
tables. On the side walls are painted men and women
dancing among trees, or athletes engaged in the various
contests that compose the games to honor the dead.
The later tombs are larger, and their walls are often
peopled with winged demons, some hideous and armed
with axe or serpents, some young and handsome. There
are still banquet scenes but they take place in dark surroundings and the games and dancers have disappeared.
Only in the recently discovered Tomb of the Warrior
does a winged figure appear hovering above a racing chariot.
Many tombs of the 4th and 3d c. contained tufa sarcophagi, the chest carved with reliefs, a reclining figure
on the lid. The earliest show animal combat and winged
spirits; the figure on the lid is supine, with closed eyes.
Later effigies recline on the left elbow, a drinking cup
in the right hand; the funeral bed has become a banquet
couch. The chest reliefs are now often mythological and
usually violent; some, however, represent an important
personage's journey to the underworld. He rides in a
chariot, led by demons but attended by trumpeters and
lictors, the ancient insignia of power. These must be
magistrates' sarcophagi.
The Pian di Cività, the site of the ancient city, still has
stretches of the city walls, of rectangular tufa blocks,
without towers, a circuit of 8 km. But the chief ruin is
the temple called Ara della Regina at the E end of the
plateau. A massive platform (77.15 x 35.55 m) of large
rectangular tufa blocks is approached on the E by a
flight of steps between parotids trimmed with heavy
moldings. The temple itself is set back and the terrace
projects beyond it on both sides and behind. It had a
single cella with alae and two rows of columns in the
pronaos; the columns were of tufa, unfluted, with Tuscan
capitals. The walls of the temple must have been of sun-dried brick; the gable and roof were decorated with terracottas. A fine pair of winged horses once yoked to a chariot is perhaps part of the plaque that covered the
columen. The temple dates from the 3d c.
Although material from Tarquinii is widely scattered,
the best concentration of it is at Tarquinia in the Museo
Nazionale Tarquiniese (Palazzo Vitelleschi).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
M. Pallottino, “Tanquinia,”
MonAnt 36
(1937); id.,
Etruscan Painting (1952); P. Romanelli,
NSc (1948) 193-270; R. Herbig,
Die jüngeretruskischen
Steinsarcophage (1952) 51-70; M. Moretti,
Nuovi monumenti della pittura etrusca (1966); H. Hencken,
Tarquinia, Villanovans and Early Etruscans (American School of Prehistoric Research, Peabody Museum Bulletin no.
23; 1968); id.,
Tarquinia and Etruscan Origins (Ancient
Peoples and Places, vol. 62; 1968)
MPI; L. Banti,
The
Etruscan Cities and their Culture (1973) 70-84.
E. RICHARDSON