The Etruscan World (Routledge Worlds)

• chapter 47: Health and medicine in Etruria –

Figure 47.3 Elongated bronze votive fi gurine of a haruspex, third century bc, Museo Etrusco di Villa

Giulia, Rome 24478 (formerly Collezione Kircheriana). Sketch after Pfi ffi g 1975: 119, Fig. 50.

shown thin and attenuated but with healthy faces (Terrosi Zanco 1961; Cristofani 1985:
passim; Santuari d’Etruria 1985: 92–94, 113–115; Turfa 2012: 182), and a number of
terracotta statues or partial fi gures are rather thin and elongated, for instance, torsos
from the Caeretan Manganello sanctuary (Nagy 2011: 123, Fig. 19); and Veii Comunità
deposit (Bartoloni and Benedettini 2011: pl. 79).

MEDICINE: CAN WE DETECT ANY EVIDENCE

OF DELIBERATE MEDICAL INTERVENTION

FOR DISEASE OR INJURY?

We know of some religious aspects of healing cults because of votive religion (see
Chapter 59), yet the so-called healing sanctuaries do not offer evidence of hospitals or
other medical aspects except for the imported cult of Aesculapius at Rome, Fregellae and
perhaps Antium.
Once the Aesculapius cult was installed in Rome (293–291 bc) it received the same,
rather inaccurate anatomical votive models as all the other shrines, yet it established a
hospital and must have been strongly infl uenced by Hippokratic institutions (Turfa 2006).

Diagnosis

In diagnosis, although there was always a religious cast to the statements, it appears that
divination provided some links between environmental conditions and health or disease.
The text of the Etruscan Brontoscopic Calendar predicts, following the phenomenon of
thunder, the occurrence of various diseases or related issues such as famine (see Turfa