by Mika Waltari
I did not attempt to make friends, but as I walked in the streets and the market places I enjoyed the composure of the people and the beauty of the city and began to feel that, compared to its neighbor, Rome was a barbaric place. Presumably the residents of Veii thought likewise although I did not hear them speak unkindly of Rome. They lived as though Rome did not exist, having signed a twenty-year pact of non-aggression with it. But there was something sad in the faces and smiles of the people of Veii.
On the first morning when I was content only to breathe the air of Veii, which was like medicine after the Roman swamps, I found myself in a small market place and sat down on a worn stone bench. I saw the shadows of people hastening by. I saw a donkey with its neat forelock and its basket of vegetables. I saw that a country woman had placed cheeses on display on a clean cloth.
With a catch of my breath I realized in a sudden flash of perception that once again I had previously lived that same moment of happiness. As in a dream I rose and turned a familiar corner. Before me rose a temple whose pillared front I recognized.
The mysteriously splendid and deep-hued statues on the temple roof represented Artemis defending her deer against Herakles while the other gods watched the scene with smiles on their divine faces. I ascended the steps and entered the gate behind which a sleepy temple servant sprinkled holy water over me with his whisk. I became increasingly certain that I had once before lived that moment.
Against the dimness of the walls, in light that streamed down from an opening in the roof, stood the divinely beautiful goddess of Veii on her pedestal, a dreamy smile on her lips. A child was in her arms and at her feet was a goose with arched neck. Nor did I have to inquire to know that her name was Uni. I knew it and recognized her by her face, the child and the goose, but how I knew it I cannot explain. My hand rose to my forehead and I raised my right arm in sacred greeting, bowing my head. Something in me knew that the image was sacred and that the spot on which I stood had been holy even before the temple and the city had been built.
No priest was visible but the servant guessed from my attire that I was a stranger and rose from his seat to describe the votive offerings and sacred objects along the walls. My devotion was so deep that I motioned him away, for I did not wish to look at anything in the temple save Uni, the divine personification of womanly tenderness and goodness.
Only afterward did I remember that I had seen that vision in the goddess’s dream at the temple of Eryx. In itself it was not unusual, for a person frequently dreams that which happens only later, but I wondered why my dream in the temple of Aphrodite had led me to the sacred house of compassionate love and maternal happiness unless it was merely the goddess’s mockery at my expense.
On the threshold of summer, news came to Veii that the Volscian army under Coriolanus was marching on Rome to avenge, as they said, the insult suffered by the Volscians at the circus. But the Roman forces did not advance to meet the enemy in open battle as they usually did. From that it was surmised that Rome would be in a state of siege, as unbelievable as it seemed.
By walking briskly I could have reached Rome in a day, but instead I turned away from it, first northward to see the lake of Veii and from there over the mountains westward along shepherds’ trails to the city of Caere, which was near the sea. For the first time in my life I saw the limpidity and red glow of a large lake at sunset. I do not know what so inexpressibly stirred me at the sight of that lake surrounded by mountains, but the mere rustle of the reeds and the smell of the water, so different from the stench of brine, made my breath quicken. I myself thought that I was only a traveler who wished to see something new, but my heart knew better.
In the city of Caere I suspected for the first time the true mightiness of the twelve Etruscan states when I saw the immense necropolis that rose, beyond a deep valley. On either side of its sacred way was a series of circular burial mounds heaped on stone bases within which were entombed the city’s ancient rulers surrounded by their sacrificial gifts.
Life in Caere was noisier than in noble Veii. From morning to night one heard the clink and clank of artisans in innumerable workshops, and sailors from all countries wandered through the streets glancing about in search of their customary diversion on land. Although the port of Caere was far away at the mouth of the river, the fame of the Etruscan cities’ splendor and gaiety had traveled so far that alien sailors willingly climbed the steep road to the city.
Instead of walking in the restless streets, I preferred to breathe the air of the holy mountain and the fragrance of mint and laurel shrubs in the city of tombs. The guard explained that the sacred roundness of the tombs had its origin in ancient times when the Etruscans had still lived in hive-shaped huts, and because of that the oldest temples, such as the temple of Vesta in Rome, were also round. He spoke of Lucumones instead of kings and I asked him to explain what he meant.
He spread his hands in a manner that he had learned from Greek visitors and said, “It is difficult to explain to a stranger. A Lucumo is that which is.”
When I did not understand he shook his head and tried again. “A Lucumo is a holy king.”
Still I did not understand. Then he pointed to several gigantic mounds and said that they were the tombs of Lucumones. But when I indicated the most recently built tomb on which the grass had not yet had time to grow, he made a negative gesture and explained as though to a barbarian, “Not a Lucumo’s tomb. Only a ruler’s tomb.”
My insistence made him impatient because he found it difficult to explain what seemed apparent. “A Lucumo is a ruler chosen by the gods,” he explained crossly. “He is found. He is recognized. He is the high priest, the supreme judge, the supreme lawgiver. An ordinary ruler can be dethroned or his power can be inherited, but no one can deprive a Lucumo of his power because the power is his.”
“How is he found, how is he recognized?” I asked in bewilderment. “Is not a Lucumo’s son a Lucumo?” I gave the guard a piece of silver to pacify him. ^
But he could not explain how a Lucumo is recognized and what distinguishes him from an ordinary person. Instead he said, “A Lucumo’s son is not usually a Lucumo although he may be. Very old, very divine families have given birth to Lucumones successively. But we are living in corrupt times. Lucumones are born but rarely these days.”
He pointed to a majestic tomb that we were passing. Before it was a white stone pillar topped by a round, instead of a peaked, headdress.
“A queen’s tomb,” he explained with a smile, and said that Caere was one of the few Etruscan cities which had been ruled by a queen. The reign of the famous queen was remembered by the people of Caere as a golden age, for the city had prospered more than at any other time. The guard declared that she had reigned in Caere for sixty years, but I suspected that he had learned the art of exaggeration from Greek visitors.
“But how can a woman rule a city?” I asked in amazement.
“She was a Lucumo,” explained the guard.
“Can even a woman be a Lucumo?” I asked.
“Of course,” he said impatiently. “It happens rarely, but through a whim of the gods a Lucumo can be born a woman. That is what happened at Caere.”
I listened and did not understand because I listened with prosaic ears and had bound myself to lead an ordinary life among people. But many times I traversed the difficult road and returned to the giant tombs that exuded an air of mysterious power.
In the city itself I saw another sight that moved me strangely. Beside the wall was a row of potters’ stalls, most of them selling cheap red funerary urns to the poor. In Caere the deceased were not buried as they were in Rome but were cremated and their ashes buried in a round urn which could be of expensive bronze decorated with beautiful designs or of plain red clay such as the poor used. Only the lid had some clumsy image as a handle.
I happened to be looking at the red urns when a poor country couple, hand in hand, came to select a resting place for their deceased daughter. They chose an urn with a li
d bearing a crowing cock. When they saw it they smiled with joy and the man immediately pulled out a stamped copper ingot from his pouch. He did not haggle over the price.
“Why isn’t he bargaining?” I asked the potter in surprise.
The man shook his head. “One does not bargain over sacred things, you stranger.”
“But that vessel is not sacred,” I insisted. “It is merely clay.”
Patiently the man explained, “It is not sacred when it leaves the potter’s kiln. Nor is it sacred here on this table. But when the ashes of that poor couple’s daughter have been placed in it and the lid has been closed, it is sacred. That is why the price is modest and unconditional.”
Such a manner of selling was un-Greek and new to me. Indicating the crowing cock on the lid of the urn, I asked the couple, “Why did you choose just a cock? Would not it be more appropriate for a wedding?”
They stared at me in astonishment, pointed to the cock and said in unison, “But it is crowing.”
“Why is it crowing?” I asked.
They looked at each other and smiled mysteriously despite their grief. The man put his arm around his wife’s waist and said to me as to the most stupid of persons, “The cock is announcing the resurrection.”
They left the urn, and I remained staring after them with tears in my eyes. How touchingly and with what strange certainty and insight did the words pierce my heart! That is what I remember about Caere. Nor could I explain the great difference between the Greek and Etruscan worlds more effectively than by remembering that to the Greeks the cock is the symbol of lust, to the Etruscans of resurrection.
I had intended to return to Rome from Caere but word spread of Coriolanus’ liberation of one city after another that had been occupied by the Romans. He had conquered Corioli and even Lavinium which the Romans considered an important city. It seemed only a matter of time before the salt basins at the mouth of the Tiber would fall into the hands of the Volscians. For that reason I preferred to continue northward to see Tarquinia, which was considered the most significant and politically important city in the Etruscan league.
As I journeyed through the freshness of summer I did not know what to admire the most, the security of the roads, the hospitality of the country people, the long-horned cattle in the pastures or the fertile fields that had been created from the swamps by drains. The earth around me was richer and more fruitful than any I had seen before. The draining of the swamps and the clearing of the forests had demanded generations of skill and hard labor. And yet the lonians scornfully called the Tyrrhenians pirates and the Etruscans a tyrant nation which had degenerated through debauchery.
Tarquinia is presumably an eternal city on earth, and so it is not necessary for me to describe it. Many Greeks lived there, because the Etruscans in that advanced and lively city admired a stranger’s skill and were interested in everything new just as women are attracted to alien soldiers because of their odd-plumed helmets. Only in religious matters did the Etruscans know that they were superior to all other nations.
The residents of Tarquinia were eager to learn. Among them I found friends and despite my appearance was invited to banquets at the homes of the nobles when it became known that I had fought in lonia and knew the cities of Sicily. I had to buy new clothes so that I might appear worthy of my companions. Gladly I donned Etruscan clothes of fine linen and thin wool and wore a low, dome-shaped cap. I began anointing my hair once more, carefully shaved my beard and allowed my braid to hang freely to the shoulder. Looking at myself in a mirror I could no longer distinguish myself from a native Etruscan.
At banquets I willingly replied to such questions as were asked, even about Rome and its internal political problems. When the young men noticed that I was not sensitive about my Ionian blood they began to upbraid the Greeks.
“In ancient times the power of the twelve Etruscan cities extended from north to south on the Italian mainland. We had colonies along the shores and islands as far as Iberia, and our ships sailed all the seas to Greece, lonia and Phoenicia. But with the passing of time more and more new hungry nations came from the north. We permitted them to settle on our land and civilized them, although some we destroyed, but still they came from the mountain passes. The worst, however, are the Greeks who have spread their colonies even to Cumae and are sitting on all the shores as thickly as frogs. In the north we are being crushed by the recently arrived Celtic tribes and in the south the Greeks are destroying all reasonable trade.”
Thus we exchanged thoughts while drinking wine, but I myself spoke only when questioned and otherwise kept my mouth closed. By being an understanding listener I won many friends, for the Etruscans in that respect did not differ from other peoples.
Tarquinia was a city of painters just as Veii was the home of sculptors. Not only were there decorators of house walls and painters of wooden chests, but also a guild of tomb painters who were the most respected of all and whose few members had inherited their talent from their fathers and practiced it as a sacred craft.
The burial ground of Tarquinia was on the other side of a valley atop a bluff from which one could look westward over gardens and fields, olive groves and orchards to the sea itself and even beyond. The tumuli, while not so imposing as the tombs of Caere’s rulers, were more numerous, extending as far as eye could see. Before each was an altar for sacrifices and from a door steep stairs descended into the tombs hewn out of the soft rock. For centuries it had been the custom to decorate the walls of the tombs with sacred paintings.
As I wandered along the holy field I noticed that the temporary wooden door of a recently completed tomb was open. Hearing voices from the depths I called down and inquired whether a stranger might enter to look at the artist’s sacred work. The painter bawled back such a coarse oath as I had not heard from even the lips of a shepherd during my journey, but a moment later his apprentice ran up the stairs with a smokeless torch to light my way.
Cautiously I descended the uneven steps, leaning against the wall, when to my amazement I noticed the outline of a shell etched in the wall as though the goddess were indicating by a secret sign that I was on the right path. In that manner the gods now and then revealed themselves playfully to me in the course of my journey, although I paid little heed to the signs. Probably my heart was on a pilgrimage all the while although I did not realize it and although my body, bound to the earth, wandered with earthly, curious eyes.
The apprentice preceded me with the torch and soon I was in a chamber from whose walls had been carved benches for both the deceased. The artist had commenced his work from the ceiling and the broad central beam was ornamented with circles and capriciously scattered heart-shaped leaves of various colors. Both the slanting sides of the ceiling had been divided into red, blue and black squares as was the custom in Tarquinian houses. The painting on the right wall was already completed. There, reclining side by side on their left elbows on a cushioned couch, were both the future deceased in their festive garments and with wreathed heads. Eternally young, the man and his wife looked into each other’s eyes with hands upraised while dolphins played below them in the eternal waves.
The joy of life that exuded from that fresh painting so gripped me that I remained staring at it before moving on to the discus thrower, the wrestler and the dancers who played their eternal games along the walls. Several torches were burning in the chamber and a sweet fragrance emanated from the high-legged censer to dispel the smell of damp stone and the metallic odor of the paints. After he had granted me sufficient time for looking about, the artist swore again in Greek, thinking perhaps that I understood nothing else.
“Tolerable, perhaps, stranger,” he remarked. “Worse pictures have been painted in tombs, eh? But at the moment I am struggling with a horse which will not assume the shape that I wish. My inspiration is fading, my jug is empty and the dust of the paints is smarting unpleasantly in my throat.”
I looked at him and saw he was not an old man but approximately my own age.
I seemed to recognize his glowing face, oval eyes and swollen mouth.
He looked eagerly at the clay bottle which I carried in its straw sheath, joyously raised his square hand with its blunt fingers and exclaimed, “The gods sent you to me at precisely the right moment, stranger. Fufluns has spoken. Now it is your turn to speak. My name is Aruns in honor of the house of Velthuru which is my patron.”
I kissed my hand respectfully and said with a laugh, “Let my capacious clay bottle speak first. Undoubtedly Fufluns sent me to you, although we Greeks call him Dionysus.”
He took the bottle before I even had time to remove the cord around my neck, and tossed the stopper in the corner as though to indicate that I would no longer need it. With incomparable skill he sprayed the red wine into the right place without wasting a drop, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and sighed in relief.
“Sit, stranger,” he urged me. “You see, the Velthurus were angry at me this morning and accused me of delaying my work. How could nobles understand an artist’s problems? And so they had water thrown over me and had me lifted into a cart with only a jar of Vekunian spring water as provisions. They even said sarcastically that it should provide sufficient inspiration for painting a horse since it had inspired the nymph to recite an eternal incantation for Tarquinia.”
I seated myself on one of the stone benches and he sat beside me with a sigh and wiped a bead of sweat from his brow. From my knapsack I took a thin silver goblet which I carried with me to prove if necessary that I was not a humble man, filled it, splashed a drop onto the floor, drank from it and offered it to him.
He burst into laughter, spat on the floor and said, “Don’t trouble to pretend. A man is known by his face and eyes, not by his clothes or his sacrificial habits. The rich flavor of your wine speaks more for you than the silver goblet. I myself am such a close friend of Fufluns that I would consider the sacrifice of a single drop to him sheer waste.
“So you are a Greek,” he went on without inquiring my name. “We have Greeks in Tarquinia and in Caere they make fairly attractive vases. But it’s best for them not to attempt sacred paintings. Sometimes we compare our designs with such enthusiasm that we break empty dishes over each other’s heads.”
