The Etruscan World (Routledge Worlds)

• chapter 23: Numbers and reckoning –

Divisions of land

From a passage of Festus (358 L.) we gain another piece of information about the Libri
Rituales that told Etruscans which rite (Latin ritus) was to be used to consecrate towns,
altars and temples; which inviolability (sanctitas) to consecrate walls; which law (ius) to
consecrate gates and how to divide tribes, curiae, centuriae, armies and any other things
relating to war or peace.^29
Clearly these books were a true collection of religious and ritual conduct on different
matters, in different situations and for different purposes. From our point of view it is
interesting to see that the so-called Etruscan disciplina also concerned itself with the
foundation of towns and the defi nition of their main parts, which is confi rmed by other
authors (Serv., in Aen., I, 422; Vitr., I, 7, 1), but as a consequence, it was also concerned with
the division of land, which was determined by means of cardinal points, regarded as eternal
and heavenly (Hyg. Grom., Const. lim., 166 Lach.):^30 unchangeable for human purposes.
In fact, this is the core of the Prophecy of Vegoia: the longest and most interesting
fragment of Etruscan literature still surviving in a Latin translation within the writings
of the land surveyors (Gromatici Veteres).^31 Boundaries and landmarks were fi rst established
by Jupiter himself (Etruscan Tinia) and disturbing or simply moving them would cause
terrible punishments and plagues.^32
The literary sources focus special attention on the Etruscan rite for the foundation
of towns, which was also used outside of Etruria above all in Latium and in Rome in
particular.
The disciplina of the Etruscan haruspices required that an imaginary line be drawn in
the sky from north to south and then a second one from east to west:^33 the result was
what was called in Latin the templum caeleste: the sky divided into four quadrants, whose
projection onto the ground became the templum in terris, to be used for divinatory and
consecratory purposes (see below).^34
Excavations in towns of new foundation – or better re-founded in the historical age,
such as Marzabotto near Bologna – show how such astronomical partition was the basis
for the organization and orientation of parts of town and of buildings. Studies on these
practices give evidence for the importance of further ideal lines drawn from south-east
to north-west and from south-west to north-east, relating to solsticial dusk and dawn
points, whose outcome was a division of the sky into eight sectors.^35
Consequently there were many possible orientations of altars, streets, sacred and public
buildings, according to their function.^36
A fair number of cippi, often marked with a cross – a symbol of the division of the
sky – have been found in Etruscan towns, to mark junctions of main streets or outer
boundaries, as a trace of the land surveyors’ work.
Their doctrine was so famous and highly esteemed in ancient Italy, especially by the
Romans, that it was regarded as the origin of Roman land-measuring techniques:^37 the
Latin name of the measuring instrument itself, the groma, was of Etruscan origin, coming
from *cruma, an adaptation from Greek gnomon, literally “ruler” (Fig. 23.4).^38

Divisions of the skies

The Latin poet Martianus Capella (Mart. Cap., nupt. Merc. et Phil., I, 45 ff.) has handed
down to us in poetical form an all but complete list of gods inhabiting the sixteen
partitions of the sky, moving clockwise from north to east, south, west and back to north.^39