prodding them before the God of Love from the torrid banks
of fiery lakes; furies with snaky heads are directing their
punishments; Minos and AEacus are superintending their tasks; and, in
the centre of all, a huge Moloch demon is devouring them bodily in his
fiery jaws, with hideous tusks as of a Japanese monster.

It would be a curious question to inquire how far these old and
ingrained Etruscan ideas may have helped to modify and colour the
gentler conceptions of primitive Christianity. Certainly, one must
never for a moment forget that Rome was at bottom nearly one-half
Etruscan in character; that during the imperial period it became, in
fact, the capital of Etruria; that myriads of Etruscans flocked to
Rome; and that many of them, like Sejanus, had much to do with moulding
and building up the imperial system. I do not doubt, myself, that
Etruscan notions large interwove themselves, from the very outset, with
Roman Christianity; and whenever in the churches or galleries of Italy
I see St. Lawrence frying on his gridiron, or St. Sebastian pierced
through with many arrows, or the Innocents being massacred in
unpleasant detail, or hell being represented with Dantesque minuteness
and particularity of delineation, I say to myself, with an internal
smile, 'Etruscan influence.'

How interesting it is, too, to observe the constant outcrop, under all
forms and faiths, of this strange, underlying, non-Aryan type! The
Etruscans are and always were remarkable for their intellect, their
ingenuity, their artistic faculty; and even to this day, after so many
vicissitudes, they stand out as a wholly superior people to the rough
Genoese and the indolent Neapolitans. They have had many crosses of
blood meanwhile, of course; and it seems probable that the crosses have
done them good: for in ancient times it was Rome, the Etrurianised
border city of the Latins, that rose to greatness, not Etruria itself;
and at a later date, it was after the Germans had mingled their race
with Italy that Florence almost took the place of Rome. Nay, it is
known as a fact that under Otto the Great a large Teutonic colony
settled in Florence, thus adding to the native Etrurian race
(especially to the nobility) that other element which the Tuscan seems
to need in order that he may be spurred to the realisation of his best
characteristics. But allow as we may for foreign admixture, two points
are abundantly clear to the impartial observer of Tuscan history