- chapter 45: Etruscan spectacles: theater and sport –
celebrate gymnastic and equestrian games each year after the Battle of Alalia, to atone for
the sacrilege committed by their city after the naval victory.
As for the deceased himself, he may fi nd solace in the paintings that extend in some
way the effectiveness of ritual games, and he can rejoice in this vision, if one believes
that he will see a more leisurely life in the Afterlife. The violent and dangerous nature of
some Etruscan sports that readily shed blood is evident for example, in the boxing scenes
(Tomb of the Olympics, Tomb of the Funeral Bed) where one of the boxers loses abundant
blood, perhaps this is meant to revitalize the deceased, to give him a supplement of life
(Jannot 1998: 67). Note however, that the bloody violence of fi st fi ghts or chariot crashes,
possibly fatal to the driver, are not the sole preserve of Etruria: these motifs also exist in
Greece (and Rome) and it is likely that it is these episodes, sports details, in a way quite
realistic, that animate and give spice to the spectacle and its representation.
Livy again concludes by offering us essential information on the religious and social
aspects of Etruscan shows. In book 5.1, the Latin historian returns to the siege of Veii in
the early fourth century bce that resulted in the sack of the city by the Romans who took
advantage of the disunity of the cities of the Dodecapolis (a league of “Twelve Cities”). The
Veientines sparked the ire of their Etruscan neighbors not only because they had restored
the monarchical system at home, but especially because of the personality of the king:
Earlier, he had become unbearable to the nation for his pride, that of a wealthy man,
in committing the impiety of ruining games by a sudden interruption: that day, in
fact, a setback had irritated him, a vote of the Twelve Peoples who had elevated to
the priesthood another than him, and as the artists were almost all his slaves, in the
middle of the performance he had suddenly withdrawn them.Although Livy does not feel the need to clarify, this sacrilege, rightly known as “the most
religious of all,” which had struck the Etruscans, must have occurred during the ludi at
the Fanum Voltumnae, that is to say during Pan-Etruscan games organized annually by
the League of XII Nations in honor of Voltumna, an epiklēsis (additional name) of the
god Tin(ia), celebrated here as the patron deity of the Etruscan confederation (Thuillier
1985: 480–482; see Chapter 31). These shows must have comprised, with the sacrifi ces,
various religious ceremonies and a market fair, the main link between cities that never
had a shared political system or defense policy. Thus the Etruscans held federated games
that were evocative of those of Delphi and Olympia for the Greeks. If these are the same
games that we fi nd mentioned in the Rescript of Spello (CIL XI, 5265), probably in 337
ad during the reign of Constantine, centuries after the end of Etruscan independence, we
fi nd that the program always included ludi scaenici alongside gladiatorial combats that
were probably introduced later (Gascou 1967).
But unlike the participants in Greek contests, Etruscan artifi ces (professional
performers) were slaves: these “artists” are actually all professional performers of the
ludicrum, the spectacle, and the term must also denote the athletes, riders, charioteers
involved in spectator sport, as well as the actors, dancers, acrobats of all kinds involved in
the stage show. Let us pass over the term servi used by Livy, since that does not prove that
the Etruscans knew a classic system of slavery: Livy indicates that there are “dependents”
attached to a lord, and although we cannot identify exactly their status, they clearly did
not enjoy full legal freedom. The epigraphic analysis leads to similar conclusions since
we fi nd that Etruscan athletes have only a single, individual name where citizens would