“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 lid 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.