- Daniele F. Maras –
inner partitions of the Liver of Piacenza, which seem to be partially clustered in the six
boxes of the “wheel” on the left and in a rectangular six-box group on the right, repeating
most of the gods’ names occurring in the outer 16-box border.^46
MEASURES
Length and areaDespite the special care devoted by the Etruscans to the subject of boundaries, testifi ed
by a fair number of cippi, often inscribed, we are unable to form a complete picture of the
Etruscan measuring system and its units. The only name we can confi dently attribute to
a unit of length is naper, which occurs four times on the famous “Cippus of Perugia,” one of
the longest Etruscan inscriptions, and twice on two similar cippi with shorter inscriptions.
The word has been compared with Latin napurae, occurring in a passage of Festus
and meaning a kind of “rope”; thus possibly the Etruscan unit corresponded to the fi xed
measure of a rope: presumably a medium unit of length.^47
From the archaeological evidence we can infer that a shorter unit of measurement was
used in architecture and in everyday life, and by analogy with the Greek and Roman
lexicon it was called “foot.”
There seems to be evidence of a shorter “Italic foot” of about 27 cm versus a longer
“Attic-Roman foot” of 29.6 cm, both of which used in different buildings and contexts
in the Archaic age, for example in Rome^48 and in Latium,^49 while in Marzabotto only the
latter was used, which spread across Italy during the Republican age.^50
The attention paid by the Etruscans to measures in architecture is strongly emphasized
by Vitruvius in describing the so-called Tuscanicae dispositiones, which had been used to
achieve absolutely perfect proportions in the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus in Rome
(incidentally in this sacred building the Attic-Roman foot was used exclusively.)^51
The mathematical nature of such proportions is evident from their relationship with
the golden rectangle, which would have been fi rst theorized and described later in Greek
literature by Euclid, at the beginning of the third century bce.^52
Weight and coinageAdriano Maggiani has dedicated two recent studies to Etruscan weight systems, on the
basis of recent fi nds of metal and stone weights, which provide the data to be considered,
together with the evidence of coinage.^53
Maggiani identifi es a heavy libra of 358.125 grams and a light libra of 286.5 grams
(the latter having a variant of 315.15 grams in Vetulonia, perhaps for trade purposes).
For both units two whole systems were created whose fractions are attested by weights
and multiples with, for example, ratios of 1/25, 1/10, 1/2, 2/1, etc. Both systems seem to
have functioned at least from the^ fi fth to the third century bce.
Clearly, the identifi cation of Etruscan weight systems has the potential to affect our
understanding of the spread of coinage in Etruria and its chronology; but in practice
there are few links between the systems identifi ed by Maggiani and the coinage.^54
The credit for a fi rst intervention in monetary matters is attributed by Pliny to king
Servius Tullius,^55 who is also said to have instituted weights and measures in general, as
well as the classes and centuriae of the Servian “constitution” (de vir. ill. VII, 8).