- Tom B. Rasmussen –
(Johnston 1991: 216–18; Rasmussen 2008). Second-hand trade is still diffi cult to prove,
but is the best explanation for many of the prize Panathenaic amphoras found in Etruscan
tombs (Rystedt 2006: 503). As equally important as how they were traded is whether any
thought was given to their appropriateness for burial use. What, for example, were two
Attic cups with erotic scenes doing in a Tarquinian tomb? Both are by the same artist
(attributed to the Triptolemos painter) and must have been collected as a pair (Boardman
and La Rocca 1978: 114; Beazley 1963: 367, nos. 93, 94). Moreover, there are many
hundreds of such scenes, both homoerotic and heterosexual, on similar imported red-
fi gure vessels, and the great bulk of those with known provenances come from Etruscan
tombs (Kilmer 1993: 205). Although they are rare on Etruscan pots and other objects,
it so happens that it is at Tarquinia that tomb painting sometimes features erotic groups
(Tombs of: the Bulls, the Whipping, the Chariots), which are usually explained in a
symbol ic way – protecting the tomb occupants, or energizing them for renewed life. So,
rather than being placed in the tomb as erotica for its own sake, the Greek vases may have
been chosen to perform this “secondary” symbolic function.
A more common subject for the painted walls of Etruscan tombs is sports and games,
which are usually thought to signify the games staged at funerals. A number of Athenian
pots with similar decoration are also found in the tombs, and this is perhaps where the
mythological wrestling of the Oltos cup fi ts in. Some of them belong to the black-fi gure
Perizoma Group, which gets its name from the very un-Greek loincloth which athletes
are shown wearing. These pots actually copy vessel shapes that originated in Etruria, as
well showing, in addition, scenes of banqueting – itself perhaps the most popular of all
the themes of Etruscan tomb decoration. Moreover, there are two aspects of these scenes
that follow local Etruscan customs: the banqueting is directly on the ground, rather
than on couches, and is in Etruscan mixed-gender fashion where males and females are
portrayed as of equal status. It seems that this particular Athenian workshop was in some
way aware of the specifi c iconographic needs of Etruscan funerary practice (Spivey 1991:
144; Shapiro 2000).
Some sports shown on Athenian pots seem to involve a bloody outcome: in London
there is a black-fi gure amphora painted with a scene of boxers where blood pours from
their noses; it was produced in the Nikosthenes workshop (Tosto 1999: no. 135), which
was very fond of showing boxers and which exported almost its entire output to Etruria,
but this pot seems to have been diverted to Sicily (Agrigento). Sports depicted on
Etruscan tomb walls could also result in maiming or even perhaps death, as is apparent
from the spills depicted in chariot racing scenes (Tomb of the Olympic Games), and in
the “Phersu game” of the Tomb of the Augurs where the “sport” consists of a hooded man
trying to beat off a vicious dog (Steingräber 1986: pl. 20; see Fig. 45.3). One detail of this
tomb was already badly damaged when it was discovered and is best seen in a published
drawing (Becatti and Magi 1955: Fig. 9; Fig. 33.2). It shows, on the entrance wall either
side of the door, a tug-of-war, but this is hardly a comic scene or one of light relief as
suggested by Thuiller (1985: 592): if the restored drawing is correct, the rope passes
around the waist of one contestant and around the neck of the other – who would be in
danger of losing his life. It has also been suggested that the vicious dog in the Phersu
sequence may in fact be a wolf-like creature from the Underworld (Elliot 1995) which
may also be recognized in monstrous fi gures emerging from wells carved on late ash-urns
and in the chained beast on a well known seventh century bc bronze urn from a tomb at
Bisenzio (De Grummond 2006: 13–15; see also Chapter 25). If that should be the case,