in domestic services, and sometimes even in war. Their labor, as well as their punishment, was regulated by music; and, although in the eye of the law they were things, not men, yet their lot seems to have been comparatively easy. 21. The earliest intelligible records of nations are contained in their mythology. It is here, that we find the first traces of their advancement, and the dim and shadowy outlines of those great characters, who first dared to claim for themselves the obedience and the veneration of mankind. This epoch is too often stained with bloody rites; and man's first impulse seems to lead him to invest the deity with his own dark and relentless passions. Time, and a community of interests and of exertions, gradually modify these ideas, and prepare the way for the developement of the kindlier feelings of our nature. Italian mythology seems, in the beginning, to have been purely rural. The unvarying round of the seasons, seedtime and harvest, with all the various events and epochs of agricultural life, were naturally distinguished by a particular display of gratitude towards that being, of whose power they served so peculiarly to awaken the remembrance. The golden age of Saturn, the teachings of Janus, the innumerable traditions of the immediate presence of the deity upon earth, are but so many records of the early progress of agriculture, and, through this, of the advancement of the nation towards a more perfect civilization. The first deities were inhabitants of woods and founts; and it is a fact of no small importance to one who would study candidly the real character of the Italians, that their own religion consisted in pure and simple allegories, addressed to the understanding and to the feelings of the people, and thus calculated to exercise a permanent and healthy influence upon their lives and their character. The mysterious and complicated symbols, with which these same deities were subsequently invested, were the inventions of men skilled in the lore of the East, and more particularly in that of Egypt, the cradle of superstition. An entire change then took place in the theory of the divine nature. Janus, who had been worshipped by the primitive Italians, as their lawgiver and the institutor of their civil society, became the most high God, the sole and just father, the God of gods, the first to be invoked; a being, in short, who had VOL. XLVIII. -No. 102. 5 been rendered almost unintelligible by the multitude and the comprehensiveness of his attributes. The same natural process from the simple to the complex, from particular facts to general ideas, transformed Saturn from the planter of the vine and teacher of agriculture, bearing, by a plain and intelligible allegory, a sickle in his right hand, into the all-sufficient Deity, the universal vivifying principle, the high God, from whom time had its beginning. It was but one step more to give a foreign origin to all these native deities, and represent them as springing from the land whence their new attributes had been derived. This too was accomplished; and, although enough of their original character has been preserved to enable us to fix the true origin of their mythology, not one of the original deities of Italy has escaped this transforma tion. But it is more particularly in the religious system of the Etruscans, that we find evident marks of Oriental influence. The doctrine of duality, and that which relates to the state of the soul after death, are plainly sculptured upon all their monuments. The predominant idea of Etruscan theology and cosmogony was comprised in the dogma of a Supreme Being, who was endued with infinite power, and was reproduced in all created things. Thus, wherever the Tuscan went, he was in the presence of his God. The earth and the air, all that live and all that supply life, reminded him of this supreme and beneficent being. The first emanation of this Demiurgus was Jove or Time. The noblest and most imposing attributes were united in his person. He alone exercised supreme control, and hurled his thunderbolts at will upon the earth. Twelve assistant deities composed the celestial senate, and had a voice in the councils of Jove. Nor could he, all powerful as he was, avoid calling in their aid in all affairs of moment. Each of these deities had two distinct characters; the one, general, formed according to the mystical conception of his nature; the other special, and derived from the functions attributed to him in the general system of polytheism. We again find a confirmation of what we have already observed concerning the political bearing of Italian theology. The Etruscan league was composed of twelve great cities. The Etruscan mythology taught, that the celestial senate was formed of twelve powerful deities. What mortal could dare to claim obedience to his single word, when even the supreme arbiter of Olympus could not decide upon the weightier concerns of his government without the aid and advice of his counsellors? Nor was the lesson confined to these principles of remoter application. It was brought home to every breast by addressing itself more directly to all the immediate cares and interests of civil life. 'I'hus while the temples of Jove, of Juno, and of Minerva, were erected within the city and held to be essential to its safety, those of Mars, the instigator of broils, of Vulcan, the principle of fire, and of Venus, whose worship so easily degenerated into lasciviousness, were placed without the walls, as if to teach, by a direct and striking symbol, that whatever endangered the safety of a community, ought studiously to be guarded against and kept at a distance. In addition to these primary deities, there was an infinite variety of inferior ones, who were distinguished by special functions, and charged with the guardianship of particular spots. Fortune was the protector of the Volsinienses; Ancaria of Fiesole. Voltumna had still more to do, and was supposed to keep watch over the whole Etruscan league. The purest moral atmosphere surrounded all these deities; and it is a remark, which has not escaped the ancients themselves, that the gods of the Italians had nothing in common with the sensual and passionate divinities of Greece. Another remarkable point in Etruscan theology, and which may be considered as forming the basis of their belief, was the doctrine of two adverse principles. These were emanations from the supreme divinity; his ministers in the preservation of order, and in the immediate government of the universe. But, throughout the whole of this immense field, they were constantly and directly opposed, one to the other. The desire to account for that mystery of human life, which mere reason can never explain, and which in some shape or other has proved the stumblingblock of every system, the origin of evil, affords a plausible explanation of the origin of this singular theory. According to Etruscan belief, every individual, upon entering on his mortal career, was intrusted to the guidance of two spirits of an opposite nature, the one good, the other evil. These were his guides in life; and, when the probationary duties of this existence had been performed, they followed him to his eternal dwelling-place after death. This constant struggle is pictured upon the monuments of the Etruscans, and especially upon those which were destined for sepulchral rites, in combats between fantastic and hideous beings, and often in strange and unaccountable mixtures of the human form with that of animals. The hold which this belief had taken upon the minds of the people was so strong, that traces of it are found as late as the second and third centuries of our era. So essential is belief to the human mind. So much is it a part of our nature to require some theory, however extravagant and fanciful, which may explain at least a part of the mystery of our being, and throw, if nothing more, a few faint rays, upon the dark question of our destiny. Philosophy may reason from one degree of doubt to another, and glory in the uncertainty which her own efforts have procured. But man, weak and dependent man, oppressed with a sense of his feebleness and of his deficiencies, needs some fixed principle, some settled belief; and, rather than forego this, he will give sensible and tangible forms to the subtile operations of his intellect, and invest the Deity with the contradictory passions of his own frail nature. The monuments from which this imperfect account of Etruscan mythology is derived, afford at the same time a singular proof of the pure Italian origin of these deities. Apollo, as is well known, was one of the chief personages of the Grecian mythology; hardly inferior to any for the variety and the importance of his functions. We are justified, therefore, in concluding, that, if the Italians had derived their system from the Greeks, so important a member of the celestial hierarchy would have become a prominent object of adoration among them. But so far was this from being the case, that he is nowhere mentioned in the early monuments of the country; and, when found on those of a comparatively recent date, is written, in opposition to the invariable custom of the Italians in recording the names of their gods, with a name of evident Greek derivation. But, amid all the revolutions of Italian mythology, it is supposed that the change hardly extended to the current belief of the people. With them, the faith of their ancestors remained unimpaired; and the son confided, without hesita tion or doubt, in the truth of those doctrines which he had received from his father. Still, however, it was impossible for them to escape the influence of the solemn rites, which seemed to surround their ancient and simple tenets with a sublimer and more mysterious sanctity. And this, in fact, was all that the priesthood asked for; for it was the preservation of their own power that they aimed at, not the instruction of the people. Thus, availing themselves of the natural phenomena which abound in the volcanic soil of Italy, they invented that celebrated system of oracular revelation, which, to borrow the energetic language of Machiavelli, bound the vulgar by the fond belief, that the same deity who could foretell the destiny of man, could also mould and change it at will. It was thus that they pretended to predict the issue of any event, by the throwing of dice into the smoking and medicinal waters of Aponus. Hence also the famous Prænestian lots. Here again, we find a striking difference between the usages of the Greeks and those of the Italians; the former admitting of two kinds of oracular communication, while the Italians, no matter how the original prediction had been made, received the annunciation through the medium of special interpreters. Whatever the early character of this institution may have been, and however much it may have been called for by the necessities of the times, it could not but degenerate into a vile and sordid superstition. At the annual festival of their deity, which was celebrated on mount Soracte, the Hirpi kept up the superstitious wonder of the vulgar by walking with naked feet over live coals. "Summe Deûm, sancti custos Soractis Apollo, The science of Augury, one of the strongest weapons of the priesthood, was peculiar to the Italians. Tages † was * En. xi. 785. The first appearance of Tages is thus described by Cicero. Tages quidam dicitur in agro Tarquiniensi, cum terra araretur, et sulcus altius esset impressus, extitisse repente, et eum affatus esse, qui arabat. Is autem Tages, ut in libris est Etruscorum, puerili specie dicitur visus, sed senili fuisse prudentiâ. Ejus adspectu cum obstupuisset bubulus, clamoremque majorem cum admiratione edidisset, concursum esse factum, totamque brevi tempore in eum locum Etruriam convenisse: tum illum plura locutum, |