by Jon Trace
Tom’s many writings enabled me to fix accurately the backdrop for Atmanta, a beautiful landscape of dense forests with crops grown in small fields or gardens around settlements with the odd pig, goat or sheep being the main livestock. This was an age of elaborate rituals, ceremonies and superstitions that ran throughout society from childbirth to burial and into the afterlife, or underworld, as it is often called. The rituals performed by Teucer are a mix of what little was known of accepted practices of a netsvis and total fabrication to fit the storyline (as a general rule, you can put any deviations from what historians deem to be accurate down to my interpretations rather than to any errors on Tom’s part).
Just for a moment, let me share with you some of the many things Tom had to put me right on. In doing so, hopefully you’ll get a further fascinating glimpse of Etruscan life and also the literary difficulties in incorporating such history into a thriller. Libation altars were sited outside Etruscan temples, not (as one of my early drafts suggested) inside them. Gold - my original choice of precious metal - wasn’t mined in Italy during Etruscan times but silver was (this helped as silver is the chosen metal of Satanists, who reject gold because of its long link with Christianity). Mamarce (the silversmith) is accepted as a real Etruscan name, but not Mamercus, the name I first gave him - this, apparently, was Roman (stupid, ignorant me). The list goes on - and on - and on. I think Tom used up several felt markers red-lining all the inaccuracies, and I’ll be for ever grateful for the knowledge he’s given me.
The internet has a good smattering of sites that comment generally on the rise and fall of the Etruscans, their way of life and their gods and rituals, but sadly they’re not all reliable. Many of them are inaccurate, contradictory and sometimes just speculative. If you only read one book on this incredible civilisation, read Tom Rasmussen and Graeme Barker’s The Etruscans, published by Blackwell - it gives you an enchantingly easy-to-read introduction to the facts and fiction behind this mysterious race. But while you read it, please don’t forget Teucer and Tetia. I hope their spirits live on in your imagination for many years to come.
