es, and roofs of the Etruscan temples were once decorated, as
their still extant ruins show, and by the trade which can be shown to
have existed in such articles from Etruria to Latium. Casting in
copper occupied no inferior place. Etruscan artists ventured to make
colossal statues of bronze fifty feet in height, and Volsinii, the
Etruscan Delphi, was said to have possessed about the year 489 two
thousand bronze statues. Sculpture in stone, again, began in Etruria,
as probably everywhere, at a far later date, and was prevented from
development not only by internal causes, but also by the want of
suitable material; the marble quarries of Luna (Carrara) were not yet
opened. Any one who has seen the rich and elegant gold decorations
of the south-Etruscan tombs, will have no difficulty in believing the
statement that Tyrrhene gold cups were valued even in Attica.
Gem-engraving also, although more recent, was in various forms
practised in Etruria. Equally dependent on the Greeks, but otherwise
quite on a level with the workers in the plastic arts, were the
Etruscan designers and painters, who manifested extraordinary activity
both in outline-drawing on metal and in monochromatic fresco-painting.

Campanian and Sabellian

On comparing with this the domain of the Italians proper, it appears
at first, contrasted with the Etruscan riches, almost poor in art.
But on a closer view we cannot fail to perceive that both the
Sabellian and the Latin nations must have had far more capacity
and aptitude for art than the Etruscans. It is true that in the proper
Sabellian territory, in Sabina, in the Abruzzi, in Samnium, there are
hardly found any works of art at all, and even coins are wanting.
But those Sabellian stocks, which reached the coasts of the Tyrrhene
or Ionic seas, not only appropriated Hellenic art externally, like
the Etruscans, but more or less completely acclimatized it. Even in
Velitrae, where probably alone in the former land of the Volsci their
language and peculiar character were afterwards maintained, painted
terra-cottas have been found, displaying vigorous and characteristic
treatment. In Lower Italy Lucania was to a less degree influenced
by Hellenic art; but in Campania and in the land of the Bruttii,
Sabellians and Hellenes became completely intermingled not only in
language and nationality, but also and especially in art, and the
Campanian and Bruttian coins in particular stand so entirely in point
of