CHAPTER TWENTY

MOTHERS AND CHILDREN

Larissa Bonfante

INTRODUCTION

S

ome of the most powerful human images and symbols are those related to male and

female, sex and marriage, and the nursing mother. It is in just these areas that Etruscan

life and ideals differed most radically from those of the Greeks and Romans.

In contrast to the sources available for the history and habits of Greece and Rome,

whose rich tradition of historical and literary texts can tell us what these classical people

said and thought about the subjects of gender, families, women and children, the evidence

available for Etruscan customs is archaeological and visual. Unfortunately, no literary texts

by the Etruscans have come down to us – no epic, drama or lyric poetry. We only have half

a dozen religious inscriptions – dedications, contracts, liturgies, religious calendars – and

some 9,000 very brief epitaphs (see Chapter 22). There is, however, a great deal of art and

material culture from which we can learn about Etruscan daily life, as Jacques Heurgon

showed in his 1964 book.^1 This chapter will focus on what we know of the situation of

women and children in the world of the Etruscans and how it differs from the reality and

the ideals of the classical Greek world with which we are so much more familiar.

Their art and material culture illustrate Etruscan customs, beliefs and ideals, but these

must be translated – just as Greek and Latin texts must be translated – in order for us to

properly understand them. Just as the Etruscans used the Greek alphabet to write in their

peculiar language, Etruscan artists and craftsmen used the vocabulary of Classical Greek art

to express their particular rituals, customs and beliefs, and to represent the world around

them – a world in which the status of women was very different from other classical societies.

ETRUSCAN WOMEN

There is not much about the Etruscans in Greek and Latin literature. The longest single

literary passage, however, an account by the fourth-century historian Theopompus, quoted

in Athenaeus’ later scandal-mongering compilation, Deipnosophistae, Sophists at Dinner,

deals with Etruscan sexual customs, and emphasizes the role of women in Etruscan social

life. The Greek author has much to say about the shocking behavior of the Etruscans.