ian
stocks. The religion of the Tuscans in particular, presenting a
gloomy fantastic character and delighting in the mystical handling
of numbers and in wild and horrible speculations and practices,
is equally remote from the clear rationalism of the Romans and the
genial image-worship of the Hellenes. The conclusion which these
facts suggest is confirmed by the most important and authoritative
evidence of nationality, the evidence of language. The remains
of the Etruscan tongue which have reached us, numerous as they are
and presenting as they do various data to aid in deciphering it,
occupy a position of isolation so complete, that not only has no
one hitherto succeeded in interpreting these remains, but no one
has been able even to determine precisely the place of Etruscan in
the classification of languages. Two periods in the development
of the language may be clearly distinguished. In the older period
the vocalization of the language was completely carried out,
and the collision of two consonants was almost without exception
avoided.(2) By throwing off the vocal and consonantal terminations,
and by the weakening or rejection of the vowels, this soft and
melodious language was gradually changed in character, and became
intolerably harsh and rugged.(3) They changed for example -ramu*af-
into -ram*a-, Tarquinius into -Tarchnaf-, Minerva into -Menrva-,
Menelaos, Polydeukes, Alexandros, into -Menle-, -Pultuke-, -Elchsentre-.
The indistinct and rugged nature of their pronunciation is shown
most clearly by the fact that at a very early period the Etruscans
made no distinction of -o from -u, -b from -p, -c from -g, -d
from -t. At the same time the accent was, as in Latin and in the
more rugged Greek dialects, uniformly thrown back upon the initial
syllable. The aspirate consonants were treated in a similar
fashion; while the Italians rejected them with the exception of
the aspirated -b or the -f, and the Greeks, reversing the case,
rejected this sound and retained the others --theta, --phi, --chi,
the Etruscans allowed the softest and most pleasing of them, the
--phi, to drop entirely except in words borrowed from other languages,
but made use of the other three to an extraordinary extent, even
where they had no proper place; Thetis for example became -Thethis-,
Telephus -Thelaphe-, Odysseus -Utuze- or -Uthuze-. Of the few
terminations and words, whose meaning has been ascertained, the
greater part are far remot