- chapter 8: A long twilight –
Figure 8.9 From the beginning of the Hellenistic period, with the Roman conquest, the loss of
economic power by the Etruscan aristocracies led them to substitute in their tombs high-quality ceramic
replicas, not usable in daily life, for the vases in bronze of the sort that had been deposited in earlier
times: kalyx krater in ceramica argentata (“silvered ceramic”) from Bolsena, fi rst half of the third century.
(Florence, Museo archeologico 191.1; Torelli 2000, p. 153).
Figure 8.10 At Perugia, the hypogeum of the Velimna, probably of the last third of the third
century, is the Etruscan tomb that most faithfully reproduces the canonical plan of the aristocratic house
developed three centuries earlier, undoubtedly at Caere, and widely taken up later by the Romans. The
lower portion has a central hall dedicated to the family and its heritage, while the two side rooms were
probably reserved for women on the right, and for men on the left.