Etruscan Places

by D. H. Lawrence

Overview

The Etruscans, as everyone knows, were the people who occupied the middle
of Italy in early Roman days and whom the Romans, in their usual
neighbourly fashion, wiped out entirely in order to make room for Rome
with a very big R. They couldn't have wiped them all out, there were too
many of them. But they did wipe out the Etruscan existence as a nation
and a people. However, this seems to be the inevitable result of
expansion with a big E, which is the sole _raison d'étre_ of people
like the Romans.

Now, we know nothing about the Etruscans except what we find in their
tombs. There are references to them in Latin writers. But of first-hand
knowledge we have nothing except what the tombs offer.

So to the tombs we must go: or to the museums containing the things that
have been rifled from the tombs.

Myself, the first time I consciously saw Etruscan things, in the museum
at Perugia, I was instinctively attracted to them. And it seems to be
that way. Either there is instant sympathy, or instant contempt and
indifference. Most people despise everything B.C. that isn't Greek, for
the good reason that it ought to be Greek if it isn't. So Etruscan things
are put down as a feeble Greco-Roman imitation. And a great scientific
historian like Mommsen hardly allows that the Etruscans existed at all.
Their existence was antipathetic to him. The Prussian in him was
enthralled by the Prussian in the all-conquering Romans. So being a great
scientific historian, he almost denies the very existence of the Etruscan
people. He didn't like the idea of them. That was enough for a great
scientific historian.

Besides, the Etruscans were vicious. We know it, because their enemies
and exterminators said so. Just as we knew the unspeakable depths of our
enemies in the late war. Who isn't vicious to his enemy? To my detractors
I am a very effigy of vice. À la bonne heure!

However, those pure, clean-living, sweet-souled Romans, who smashed
nation after nation and crushed the free soul in people after people, and
were ruled by Messalina and Heliogabalus and such-like snowdrops, they
said the Etruscans were vicious. _So basta! Quand le mâitre parle, tout
le monde se tait_. The Etruscans were vicious! The only vicious people
on the face of the earth presumably. You and I, dear reader, we are two
unsullied snowflakes, aren't we? We have every right to judge.

Myself, however, if the Etruscans were vicious, I'm glad they were. To
the Puritan all things are impure, as somebody says. And those naughty
neighbours of the Romans at least escaped being Puritans.

But to the tombs, to the tombs! On a sunny April morning we set out for
the tombs. From Rome, the eternal city, now in a black bonnet. It was not
far to go--about twenty miles over the Campagna towards the sea, on the
line to Pisa.

The Campagna, with its great green spread of growing wheat, is almost
human again. But still there are damp empty tracts, where now the little
narcissus stands in clumps, or covers whole fields. And there are places
green and foam-white, all with camomile, on a sunny morning in early
April.

We are going to Cerveteri, which was the ancient Caere, or Cere, and
which had a Greek name too, Agylla. It was a gay and gaudy Etruscan city
when Rome put up her first few hovels: probably. Anyhow, there are tombs'
there now.

The inestimable big Italian railway-guide says the station is Palo, and
Cerveteri is eight and a half kilometres away: about five miles. But
there is a post-omnibus.

We arrive at Palo, a station in nowhere, and ask if there is a bus to
Cerveteri. No! An ancient sort of wagon with an ancient white horse
stands outside. Where does that go? To Ladispoli. We know we don't want
to go to Ladispoli, so we stare at the landscape. Could we get a carriage
of any sort? It would be difficult. That is what they always say:
difficult! Meaning impossible. At least they won't lift a finger to help.
Is there an hotel at Cerveteri? They don't know. They have none of them
ever been, though it is only five miles away, and there are tombs. Well,
we will leave our two bags at the station. But they cannot accept them.
Because they are not locked. But when did a hold-all ever lock?
Difficult! Well then, let us leave them, and steal if you want to.
Impossible! Such a moral responsibility! Impossible to leave an unlocked
small hold-all at the station. So much for the officials!

Product Details

BN ID:	2940013755239
Publisher:	WDS Publishing
Publication date:	01/11/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	118 KB

About the Author

D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930), English novelist, storywriter, critic, poet and painter, one of the greatest figures in 20th-century English literature. Among his works, Sons and Lovers appeared in 1913, The Rainbow in 1915, Women In Love in 1920, and many others.

Date of Birth:

September 11, 1885

Date of Death:

March 2, 1930

Place of Birth:

Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, England

Place of Death:

Vence, France

Education:

Nottingham University College, teacher training certificate, 1908