- Gilda Bartoloni –
armament in a decidedly more recent context appears, then, undoubtedly symbolic and
ritual in character. We must associate the personage buried in the Veii tomb with the
priestly college of the Salii, founded by Numa, but attested in much later eras both in
Latium and Etruria. Strictly associated with the cult of the Salii is also the mace used in
rituals to strike the ancilia, the bilobate shields. There is a telling reference in this burial
to the tomb of Morrius, king of the Veientines, whom Servius in the epitome to Virgil’s
Aeneid likens to Numa Pompilius in his explanation of the founding of the cult of the Salii.
At least twenty years later the same necropolis, tomb 871, also shows exceptional
characteristics, with a very tall crested helmet (Fig. 5.14), a trapezoidal fan, a complete
Figure 5.13 Tomb 1036 of the Veian necropolis of Casal del Fosso (after Etruschi, l’ideale eroico e il vino
lucente, Milano 2012).Figure 5.14 Tomb 871 of the Veian necropolis of Casal del Fosso: crested helmet
(after L. Drago Troccoli, in Dinamiche di sviluppo della città nell’Etruria Meridionale, Veio,
Caere e Vulci, Rome-Pisa 2005).