custom of
employing mercenaries for fighting occurs among the Etruscans at
a very early period. The oldest constitution of the communities
must in its general outlines have resembled that of Rome. Kings or
Lucumones ruled, possessing similar insignia and probably therefore
a similar plenitude of power with the Roman kings. A strict line
of demarcation separated the nobles from the common people. The
resemblance in the clan-organization is attested by the analogy
of the system of names; only, among the Etruscans, descent on the
mother's side received much more consideration than in Roman law.
The constitution of their league appears to have been very lax. It
did not embrace the whole nation; the northern and the Campanian
Etruscans were associated in confederacies of their own, just
in the same way as the communities of Etruria proper. Each of
these leagues consisted of twelve communities, which recognized a
metropolis, especially for purposes of worship, and a federal head
or rather a high priest, but appear to have been substantially equal
in respect of rights; while some of them at least were so powerful
that neither could a hegemony establish itself, nor could the
central authority attain consolidation. In Etruria proper Volsinii
was the metropolis; of the rest of its twelve towns we know by
trustworthy tradition only Perusia, Vetulonium, Volci, and Tarquinii.
It was, however, quite as unusual for the Etruscans really to act
in concert, as it was for the Latin confederacy to do otherwise.
Wars were ordinarily carried on by a single community, which
endeavoured to interest in its cause such of its neighbours as
it could; and when an exceptional case occurred in which war was
resolved on by the league, individual towns very frequently kept
aloof from it. The Etruscan confederations appear to have been
from the first--still more than the other Italian leagues formed
on a similar basis of national affinity--deficient in a firm and
paramount central authority.

Notes for Book I Chapter IX

1. -Ras-ennac-, with the gentile termination mentioned below.

2. To this period belong e. g. inscriptions on the clay vases of

umaramlisia(--"id:theta")ipurenaie(--"id:theta")eeraisieepanamine
(--"id:theta")unastavhelefu- or -mi ramu(--"id:theta")af kaiufinaia-.

3. We may form some idea of the sound which the language now had
from the commencement of the great inscription of Perusia; -eulat
tanna lares