410 Nancy T. de Grummond
became necessary to link oneself with a family group. By around 700BCE, a system of
nomenclature spread widely in Italy, in which each personal name had two components,
for which the Latin terminology is normally used: thepraenomen(first name) andnomen
(family name). Similar to the Romans, the Etruscans had a series ofpraenominathat
recurred. For males, the common names were Arnth (Aranth), Avle (Avele), Cae (Caele),
Laris, Larth, Mamarce, Sethre, Tite, Vel, and Velthur; for females, some of the names
were variants of the male names: Larthi (or Larthia), Sethra, Tita and Velia (Velelia), or
unrelated Hasti (Fasti), Thana (Thania), Thanchvil (the same as Latin Tanaquil), and
Ramtha (Ravnthu).
For thenomina, there was a great deal of variety, as may be seen, for example, in the
instructive corpus of funerary inscriptions from the Orvieto cemeteries of the Crocefisso
del Tufo and the Cannicella, dating to the end of the sixth or beginning of the fifth
centuryBCE(Bizzarri 1962, 1966; Bonamici, Stopponi, and Tamburini 1994;ETVs
1.1–132; 1.134–168). Here, the social context is clarified by the fact that the tombs
are generally built in the same way with a single chamber for two to three burials, con-
structed above ground from cut masonry, on a clear grid system, suggesting that they
were planned at the same time. That is, a group of social equals were buried in these
cemeteries. The inscriptions appear above the door of the tomb or on a stone cippus,
and many have an identical format identifying the owner of the tomb:mi aveles sipanas
(ETVs 1.39);mi mamarces triasnas(ETVs 1.80): “I [am the tomb] of Avele Sipanas,”
“I [am the tomb] of Mamarce Triasnas.” A few inscriptions name the owner as female:
mi velelias hirminaia(ET, Vs 1.85; see also Vs 1.37; 1.66; 1.94; 1.112). Three seem
to refer to someone of Latin extraction (ETVs 1.35; 1.62, 1.81), and one has anomen
of Celtic origin (ETVs 1.165), but for the most part the inscriptions reveal a society of
Etruscan males of an upper echelon, comfortable with their ethnic identity within their
peer group.
Nomenclature became more intricate during the second phase of the writing of the
Etruscan language, often referred to as Neo-Etruscan, beginning around 470BCE.
The most important development was the addition of names that indicated family rela-
tionships, of father, mother, wife (patronymic, metronymic, gamonymic), and brother,
though not of husband. A tufa sarcophagus from Tarquinia, dating to the third century
BCE, gives the patronymic and the metronymic of a young noble:partunus.vel.vel휃urus.
satlnalc.ram휃as.clan.avils XXIIX lupu, “Vel Partunus, of Velthur and of Ramtha Satlnai
the son, died at age 28” (ETTa 1.15; Benelli 2007: 68–9). Another sarcophagus
names a lady as daughter and wife:lar휃i:spantui:larces: spantus se휒:arn휃al partunus
puia,“Larthi Spantui, of Larce Spantus the daughter, of Arnth Partunus the wife”
(ETTa 1.1; Benelli 2007: 69). These sarcophagi belong to members of the upper
class at Tarquinia, comparable to the elite group at Orvieto. But what is different
is that, by this date, the Etruscan city had been at war with Rome and, having lost
battles and territory, must have sought a way to emphasize family relations in order to
maintain identity.
The latest inscription in Etruscan has been dated to around 15–20CE(ETAr 1.8,
from Arezzo; Benelli 1994: 15–16; 2001, 11), at the time when the Etruscans were
absorbed into the multicultural ambient of the early Roman Empire. It gives the name