and slew the composite beast. As rendered by the
Etruscan sculptor, the chimera, although injured and
bleeding, is far from defeated. Like the earlier she-
wolf statue, the bronze chimera has muscles that are
stretched tightly over its rib cage. The monster pre-
pares to attack, and a ferocious cry emanates from its
open jaws. Some scholars have postulated that the
statue was part of a group that originally included
Bellerophon, but the chimera could just as well have
stood alone. The menacing gaze upward toward an
unseen adversary need not have been answered. In
this respect, too, the chimera is in the tradition of the
Capitoline Wolf.Etruscan Art
and the Rise of Rome
At about the time the Chimera of Arezzo was fash-
ioned, Rome began to appropriate Etruscan territory.
Veii fell to the Romans in 396 BCE, after a terrible 10-
year siege. Peace was concluded with Tarquinia in
351, but by the beginning of the next century, Rome
had annexed Tarquinia too, and in 273 BCEthe Ro-
mans conquered Cerveteri.FICORONI CISTARome’s growing power in
central Italy is indicated indirectly by the engraved
inscription on the Ficoroni Cista (FIG. 9-13). Etruscan artists began
to produce such cistae (cylindrical containers for a woman’s toiletry
articles), made of sheet bronze with cast handles and feet and elabo-
rately engraved bodies, in large numbers in the fourth century BCE.
Along with engraved bronze mirrors, they were popular gifts for
both the living and the dead. The center of the Etruscan bronze cista
industry was Palestrina (ancient Praeneste), where the Ficoroni Cista
was found. The inscription on the handle states that Dindia Macol-
nia, a local noblewoman, gave the bronze container to her daughter
and that the artist was Novios Plautios.According to the inscrip-
tion, his workshop was not in Palestrina but in Rome, which by this
date was becoming an important Italian cultural as well as political
center.
The engraved frieze of the Ficoroni Cista depicts an episode
from the Greek story of the expedition of the Argonauts in search of
the Golden Fleece. Scholars generally agree that the composition is
an adaptation of a lost Greek panel painting, perhaps one then on
display in Rome—additional testimony to the burgeoning wealth
and prestige of the city Etruscan kings once ruled. The Greek source
for Novios Plautios’s engraving is evident in the figures seen entirely232 Chapter 9 THE ETRUSCANS9-13Novios Plautios,Ficoroni Cista,from
Palestrina, Italy, late fourth century bce.Bronze,
2 6 high. Museo Nazionale di Villa Giulia, Rome.
Novios Plautios made this container for a woman’s
toiletry articles in Rome and engraved it with the myth
of the Argonauts. The composition is probably an
adaptation of a Greek painting.1 in.from behind or in three-quarter view, and in the placement of the
protagonists on several levels in the Polygnotan manner (FIG. 5-59).PORTA MARZIA, PERUGIAIn the third century BCE, the
Etruscan city of Perugia (ancient Perusia) formed an alliance with
Rome and was spared the destruction that Veii, Cerveteri, and other
Etruscan towns suffered. Portions of Perugia’s ancient walls are still
standing, as are some of its gates. One of these, the so-called Porta
Marzia (Gate of Mars), was dismantled during the Renaissance, but
the upper part of the gate (FIG. 9-14) is preserved, embedded in a
later wall. The archway is formed by a series of trapezoidal stone
voussoirs held in place by the weight of the blocks pressing against
one another (FIG. 4-17c). Earlier architects built arches in Greece as
well as in Mesopotamia (FIG. 2-24), but in Italy, first under the Etrus-
cans and later under the Romans,arcuated (arch-shaped) gateways
and freestanding (“triumphal”) arches became a major architectural
type.
The use of Hellenic-inspired pilasters(flat columns) to frame
the rounded opening of the Porta Marzia typifies the Etruscan adap-
tation of Greek motifs. Arches bracketed by engaged columns or9-13AChalchas
examining a
liver, ca.
400–375 BCE.