The External Perspective: Literary Sources and Cultural Paradigms

The study of Etruscan women is greatly complicated by several key problems, perhaps the most important of which is the lack of Etruscan literary sources. While we know the Etruscans produced literature (Becker 2020), no examples have survived. As a result, there are only Greek and Roman perspectives on the Etruscan woman and society. This is particularly problematic given the uneasy relation between Etruscans and Greeks on the one hand, and Etruscans and Romans on the other. Both relations were in part characterized by competition and friction, even if frequent cooperation and peaceful (economic) interactions certainly took place. Because of this, and their often moralistic and self-glorifying tone, these Greek and Roman texts cannot be taken at face value concerning the Etruscans (Izzet 2012).

This becomes especially clear when discussing the status and role of women, a controversial and ideological topic in Greek and Roman societies themselves (Amann 2000: 176). The Greek authors mainly depict the Etruscans as the proverbial ‘other’, used to define the Greeks and their (idealized) morals. This is how we should interpret polemic passages such as the one of Theopompus, preserved in Athenaeus (The Learned Banqueters, 12.517d–518b). Not only was Theopompus’ reliability disputed already in Antiquity (Amann 1999; 2000: 178–179), but he likely did not aim at a correct description of Etruscan society and its women. His goal was to ‘… define the Etruscans as barbarians of the West’ (Amann 2017b: 1112). To achieve this, he sketched Etruscan society as the exact opposite of the Greek one, characterized by polygamous marriages and unknown fatherhood, resulting in children being raised collectively.

This passage is not an accurate description, rather conveying a notion of lawlessness and lack of morality which Theopompus wished to associate with the Etruscans. While this passage has been criticized many times (e.g. Heurgon 1964; Pfiffig 1964; Amann 1999), it is still often assumed that there must be some truth to it, especially regarding the (public) activities of the Etruscan woman. Potentially truthful aspects of the passage may concern, for instance, the participation of women in banquets as well as their role in the outward representation of the household.

Roman sources are much less critical of the Etruscan woman. As Rathje (2007: 19) and Amann (2017b: 1112) point out, the only relevant comments in this regard are those in Livy (1.57–59) — talking about the luxurious and inappropriate behaviour of the Etruscan women as opposed to the virtuous exemplum Lucretia — and the snide remark in Plautus’ Cistellaria (561–563) where it is said that women can earn their dowry ‘… with [their] body, in a manner unworthy of [themselves], in the Tuscan way’. These passages indicate a stereotype of inappropriate sexual and luxurious behavior among the Etruscans, an image seemingly common in Rome.

The Etruscan woman was certainly an instrument for the Greeks to mock the Etruscans with, in the eyes of Greek readers, signalling that, in all likelihood, there was indeed some difference in social practices. This is perhaps best illustrated by the participation of married women in banquets, attested in (early) Hellenistic iconography (e.g. ash chests with reclining couples on the lid and tomb paintings: Amann 2018; Mitterlechner 2020). Roman authors usually describe Etruscan women neutrally or even positively at times. Only Tanaquil and Tullia stand out as powerful women overstepping their gender roles by meddling in politics (Livy, 1.34, 1.39, 1.47). Other than that, there are mainly similarities between Etruscan and Roman women, such as their presence at banquets and public spectacles. This explains the clear differences between Greek and Roman descriptions of Etruscan gender dynamics.

Turning to the modern reception of the Etruscan woman, notions of ‘Romanization’ have played a major part in this tradition. Nowadays, this concept is fiercely contested. The aim of this section is not to discuss this debate and its history at length,² but to show just how much Romanization and ‘Hellenization’ are entangled with each other in the case of ancient Italy. It is also important to emphasize that the role of Rome in these phenomena is far from straightforward. This has crucial implications for how local cultures and communities in Italy developed.

Both Romanization and Hellenization suffer from the same issue: they are explanandum and explanans, leading to circular reasoning. To quote Mattingly (2009: 285–286), ‘What makes Romanization and Hellenization particularly unhelpful constructs is that the terms are being used to describe both process and outcome, so that the terms have become their own explanation’. This line of reasoning is particularly present within Romanization: ‘Romanization’ results in being ‘Romanized’ or ‘Roman’. This creates the illusion of a very simple and easy-to-apply process of ‘Romanizing’ people. With Hellenization, focus is on a looser cultural process, without any forcible application in the case of ancient Italy. However, it still has political dimensions, as it can be used to support claims of superiority, especially in connection with Romanization.

Just as Hellenism does not necessarily indicate being purely Greek, but rather an amalgamation of Greek and eastern influences and cultural elements (Grimal 1975: 16), ‘Romanism’ was not solely Roman in nature but the outcome of centuries of interaction within and beyond Italy. Romanization cannot be seen as an exclusively Roman force. Rather, the culture associated with Romanization by modern scholars was a broad and vague whole of all kinds of Italic and Hellenistic forms, resulting in something predominated by Rome but not at all exclusively Roman. To quote Jiménez (2010: 57), ‘there is no such thing as a ‘pure’ Roman culture, because Rome and Italy were themselves trapped in a network of cultural references to the Hellenistic, Italic and Mediterranean worlds’ (cf. Woolf 1997; Hingley 2005: 55; Wallace-Hadrill 2008: 19–28, 73–143). It is typically impossible to reduce certain cultural developments to one single origin. This certainly applies to Italy, as it was a melting pot of several cultural influences, both Italic and external. Many of the trends attributed to Romanization can, therefore, be seen better in the light of broader Italic developments.

Roman influence throughout Italy was not all-reaching by the end of the second century bc but rather limited in socio-cultural terms. This should not come as a surprise, as such homogenization was never Rome’s intention to begin with. There was no self-evident trend towards Romanization, but Italic cultures did become more similar as time passed by. Local, particular forms were mixed with the Italo-Hellenistic universal, which could be seen as a shared cultural language from which localized ideas were drawn. Despite the evolution towards more homogeneity, people still selected particular mental and physical forms from this koine according to their own needs. It was only during the first century bc that many unique expressions of local culture disappeared within Italy, at varying speeds depending on the location and context (Roselaar 2019: 168).

Ultimately, it is not about a simple dichotomy between Etruscan and Roman, but rather about the interaction between elements that can be recognized as such by various groups. For the first century BC, typically Etruscan funerary culture is combined with Latin epitaphs, rather than all Etruscan forms being outright replaced when communities became Roman municipia. It is only during the first century ad that typical Etruscan funerary forms are replaced by monuments that can be considered Romano-Italic (Benelli 2023).

The Internal Perspective: Funerary Culture

In this paper, the focus lies on funerary culture as the outcome of negotiations and affirmations of societal norms (Morris 1992). It is used to study social categories and relations within (social) identities, also beyond the funerary domain. This revised view on funerary culture, focusing on underlying social and cultural factors determining funerary forms, has a basis in recent studies on Hellenistic Etruria (e.g. Roth 2013; Daveloose 2017). The death of a member of society represents a threat to existing social relations and ideals as a moment of discontinuity. However, it is also an opportunity to reaffirm and even manipulate these structures, according to current needs. Primary and secondary funerary rituals not only evaluate and memorialize the past but also shape the future. In these moments, individuals communicate personal and social identities in a public context. They do so driven by embedded factors — social norms, emotional relationships, and structural changes in society — and conscious manipulation of conventions. Funerary rituals and the related material culture are, therefore, not merely snapshots of how people wish to represent themselves and their loved ones, but also combinations of personal experiences and multiple processes of social identity formation (Chesson 2001). As a result, it is possible to deduce aspects of daily life from the funerary realm when this dimension is investigated in its proper context. While funerary culture is by no means a straightforward mirror of daily life, it does provide clues as to what underpins the rituals and material forms deployed for burials.

The investigation of late Etruscan women thereby finds itself at the crossroads of several theoretical considerations. We must be wary of outdated Romano-centric notions, both ancient and modern. At the same time, we cannot lose sight of the very real role material culture played in shaping opinions and behaviour. This entails investigating each community in its own right, letting go of imposed (cultural) borders.

To investigate the position of the Etruscan woman, this paper analyses one particular dimension of the funerary culture of Chiusi: the many epitaphs, in relation to the monuments on which these texts appear. A database was designed containing 2,431 epitaphs, sourced from ET², CIE and CIL). Each inscription was selected as long as it was an epitaph and consisted of at least a legible name (necessary to determine the gender of the deceased). These inscriptions belong to a wide variety of monuments, from elaborate sarcophagi to small clay urns. The materials used also vary in value, from alabaster to clay.³

The second edition of ET is an editio minor published in 2014, aimed at collecting all hitherto known Etruscan inscriptions. As such, it contains far less information than the monumental CIE, which is formatted similarly to its Latin counterpart (CIL). As ET² regularly contains questionable readings, lacks some Etruscan epitaphs and does not include Latin inscriptions from culturally Etruscan contexts, it is necessary to combine this edition with the other corpora. Both Etruscan and Latin inscriptions are included, as the Hellenistic period signalled the transition from the former to the latter for each Etruscan community, even if at different moments. As discussed above, the earliest Latin epitaphs of the region still belong to an Etruscan context in terms of funerary culture, which is why they are included here. A main point of investigation are the potential differences between both languages, possibly linked to various epigraphic habits and paradigms. The resulting numbers of epitaphs are: 1,486 Etruscan and 263 Latin epitaphs for Chiusi, 349 Etruscan and 163 Latin epitaphs for Tarquinia, and 147 Etruscan and 23 Latin epitaphs for Volterra. Tarquinia and Volterra serve as points of comparison regarding the average percentages.

For each epitaph, the gender of the deceased was recorded, resulting in four types: 1) male, 2) female, 3) uncertain, 4) multiple. The last category contains burials with more than one deceased, typically husband and wife. For the more detailed analyses, only the first two categories will be investigated. The gender of the deceased is typically determined on the basis of the name mentioned in the epitaph. The Etruscans had a limited number of praenomina, also for women (e.g. Ramtha, Hasti, Velia). In addition, the family name of women was usually characterized by a suffix typical for their gender, -ei (e.g. male Pulfna, female Pulfnei). Beyond onomastics, some (partly) illegible epitaphs could be attributed to women based on the style of the associated monument, e.g. when a female figure was reclining on the lid of the ash chest. This combined method leads to the identification of the gender of most burials with an epitaph.

It is important to note that Etruscan individuals will be considered either men or women. There has been much attention to gender identity among the Etruscans,⁴ and even more specifically for the at times opaque lines between male and female (e.g. Nielsen 1986; Bonfante 2009; Sandhoff 2009; 2011). However, this paper assumes a more straightforward approach, based on the names assigned to the deceased at birth. These names are associated with either men or women, with no overlap. This approach is generally supported by other indications of gender in the epigraphic evidence. Deceased in inscriptions are, when described with specific terminology, identified with the dichotomy male-female. Women can be described as puia (wife) or seχ (daughter), while men are sometimes named as clan (son). The nomina of the deceased are at times inflected in a genitive, either one typical for men or one typical for women. There are certainly several terms which could point towards a more fluid gendered identity, such as the hatrencu of Vulci (e.g. Lundeen 2006). However, at face value, the basic dichotomy of male-female seems justified for these kinds of large-scale analyses.

Dating inscriptions is a difficult business; in this particular case, dates are mostly based on stylistic analyses or association with a particular tomb. Scholars such as Thimme (1954; 1957) have long since created relative chronologies within tombs based on family trees, which were then connected to datable grave goods, often (imported) ceramics. Combined with stylistic analyses (e.g. Stevens 2001; de Angelis 2015), this has created a rough idea of the dating for types of monuments. Still, many of the epitaphs used in this paper are dated to a century or even a longer period. Palaeography is not very useful in this regard, as there is a great degree of homogeneity within the Hellenistic corpus of Chiusi, with most change happening before and after this period. For many epitaphs of the area of Chiusi, no specific date beyond the generic ‘recent period’ is possible. This equates roughly to the last five centuries bc, too broad an interval to be informative for this research. Therefore, these epitaphs — most of which I suspect actually belong to the well-documented second century bc — have been excluded from the analysis. By attributing some epitaphs to particular tombs — information often lacking in ET² — and by consulting scientific literature, it has been possible to date 844 epitaphs from Chiusi with more precision.

To turn these time intervals into legible graphs, they have each been converted into periods consisting of 25 years. For instance, an epitaph dated to the second century bc will cover four units of 25 years (200–176, 175–151, 150–126, 125–101). Next, each time unit is given a weight depending on the total number of units covered, in this case 0.25 for each unit. An inscription dated to the first quarter of the first century bc, will cover just one time unit (100–76) and will, therefore, have a weight of 1.00 for that specific unit. An epitaph dated to 50 years will cover two units, each with a weight of 0.50, and so on. This allows for the construction of a graph detailing change over time, as it spreads out broadly dated inscriptions over the associated time interval. Of course, a disadvantage of this method is the fact that within a broader interval (e.g. 200–101 bc), there might be a higher chance of the inscription belonging to time unit 200–176 than, for instance, the other three within this range, despite each unit being assigned the same weight. However, without a detailed investigation of each inscription and associated context, it is not possible to be more specific in attributing this weight. For now, this is a degree of generalization that has been made, hopefully to be refined in the near future.

Average values

To properly contextualize the gender ratios belonging to the Hellenistic period, it is useful to briefly look at the patterns that were predominant in the preceding periods. In this regard, an interesting point of comparison is Amann’s (2000: 93–103) analysis of Orientalizing epigraphy. For Etruria, there is not much material to go on, but the extant inscriptions paint a clear picture. Men predominate heavily over women, with Amann counting 120 male and only 40 female names among all types of inscriptions, many indicating possession or dedications. Among the first funerary inscriptions, this imbalance is even starker, with only a handful of female epitaphs in the Crocifisso del Tufo necropolis of Volsinii for the sixth and early fifth centuries bc (Amann 2000: 116). The whole notion of Etruscan society dominated by women in this earlier period is in no way backed up by the contemporary funerary evidence.

Turning to the Hellenistic period, the overall average gender ratio will be analysed before going into more detail and looking at Chiusi in a diachronic manner. These averages will provide a broader idea of the degree to which women were included in Etruscan epigraphic culture. Starting with the general average for the linguistically Etruscan epitaphs for Chiusi, Tarquinia and Volterra,⁵ men predominate in all three communities (Figure 2, Table 1). Chiusi shows averages of 55% for men, with women representing 43% of all inscriptions; the rest are ‘multiple’ burials or deceased of unknown gender.⁶ Tarquinia shows a similar result, with 58% for men. However, here the ‘uncertain’ category is substantially larger than for Chiusi, resulting in only 33% for women.⁷ For Volterra, the results based on Etruscan inscriptions alone are around 59% for men and 35% for women. Clearly, men are the preferred recipients of epitaphs, even if women are now much better represented than before the fourth century BC. In part, this predominance of men can be attributed to the age difference between husband and wife, causing men to typically predecease their wives, who in turn commemorate their husbands. Because of the high mortality of children and the importance of spouse-to-spouse commemoration, this must leave many widows without relatives or friends capable or willing to arrange a monumental burial with an epitaph for them. We must remember that it is also possible that a significant proportion of wives was buried in the container of their husbands without their own epitaph. So, while the imbalance between men and women likely has sociocultural causes, it is also partly determined by demographic realities (themselves also subject to social and cultural customs).

Figure 2

Distribution of all Etruscan epitaphs according to the gender of the deceased per city(325–1 BC) (Source: Author).

The results are, therefore, rather consistent across the case studies. Looking at Nielsen’s (1989) results for other cities, however, there are some noteworthy exceptions. In Cortona and Arezzo, men predominate massively (85% and 75%, respectively) but the number of inscriptions is too low to be statistically relevant.⁸ Tuscania, on the other hand, gives a more balanced image, depending on the material involved. For stone sarcophagi with reclining figures, with or without inscriptions, there is a 50:50 ratio, the only instance in which women score similarly to men. For inscriptions on stone sarcophagi and cippi, there is a more expected 58% for men and 42% for women. Finally, terracotta sarcophagi yield 63% and 37% in Tuscania.

The higher proportion of males in the Tuscanian inscriptions on stone sarcophagi and cippi implies that the iconographic stone sarcophagi without inscriptions have a higher proportion of women, possibly higher than that of men. However, as the exact share of the cippi in Nielsen’s data is not made explicit, we cannot know this for sure. More recently, Kaimio (2017: 35) has analysed these cippi, determining that 33 (52%) belong to men and 30 (48%) to women. The terracotta sarcophagi — mostly dating to the second century bc — strongly favor men. In the more expensive materials, therefore, women feature about as much as men and even more so in the anepigraphic version of these monuments. For Nielsen (1989: 58), these results indicated that ‘Tuscanian families seem to have laid equal weight on the commemoration of all their family members, men and women, boys and girls’. However, it will become clear that this is only true for particular cases.

With its diverse range of funerary monuments, Tuscania does not fully follow the pattern discerned by Nielsen, which can be summarized as the ‘rule of availability’.⁹ Simply put, Nielsen (1989: 60) concluded that the more readily available a funerary form was, the higher the proportion of women was for that type of monument. While her results of both epigraphic and anepigraphic monuments across Etruria mostly justify this general rule, some nuances are in order.

Most notably, the relatively cheap terracotta sarcophagi contain significantly more male than female deceased in Tuscania, directly counter to Nielsen’s general rule. The implication might be that the people willing and able to spend more on funerary monuments were also more willing to give women a monumental burial. On the other hand, sarcophagi with inscriptions were even more expensive and here there is a predominance of men, indicating that above a certain price, women were deemed less worthy of the investment. The ‘rule of availability’, therefore, should perhaps be restyled as the ‘rule of ubiquity’: the more popular a particular funerary form was — for whatever reason — the higher the proportion of women in this medium. However, Perugia presents a notable exception, with a higher proportion of women in the epigraphic monuments compared to the anepigraphic ones (Nielsen 1985: 194). Still, men predominate clearly over women in Perugia as well. Limiting himself to family tombs with five or more epitaphs, Kaimio (2022: 75) counted 317 male and 175 female epitaphs, resulting in 64% for men and 36% for women. Ultimately, it is hard to pin down an exact pattern or ‘rule’, with significant variations existing across Etruria. Still, women typically feature more often on cheaper and more popular types of funerary monuments.

The general predominance of men over women in funerary culture provides us with clues to the status of Etruscan women within this realm. Women were seemingly not valued as much as men in this respect. If costly decisions had to be made about who was accorded a monumental burial, men were usually preferred, even more so for epigraphic monuments. While this does not necessarily indicate a lesser status for women in daily life, it is clear that the funerary image of the Etruscan family was a predominantly male one. Men were seemingly the logical representatives of the family. Tomb composition was, despite considerable variation, mostly based on agnatic ties (Nielsen 1989: 85). Men were the almost exclusive founders of tombs, as my research (Daveloose 2022: 506–514, 689–707) has shown that there is only one certain case of a woman acting in this capacity (ET² Ta 1.108). Moreover, there is only one, highly uncertain, instance of a woman individually dedicating an epitaph (ET² Cl 1.796).¹⁰ While women may have arranged epitaphs often for their predeceased husbands, they mainly seem to have done so only in this very specific circumstance (i.e. the lack of a living husband or father with citizen rights to take up this responsibility instead). However, as only roughly a dozen funerary dedications can be identified for Etruria, it is clear that the vast majority of epitaphs did not explicitly mention those responsible for the monument. Mostly men were singled out in this capacity, but part of the many more ‘anonymously’ dedicated monuments could be linked to women, especially widows.

Overall, the matter of gender dynamics and the associated funerary discourse is a complex one. For instance, the use of the metronymic could be interpreted as a reference to maternal descent and even to the individual persona of the mother in the case of southern metronymics mentioning both praenomen and nomen (Daveloose 2023). This may have corresponded with more publicly present women in this area, as representatives of their families.

Language provides another way to analyse the ratio of men to women, comparing Etruscan to Latin. This also represents a diachronic axis, as Latin came to replace Etruscan. Generally speaking, women are less frequently represented in the Latin epitaphs (Table 2). For Chiusi, men make up 70% of all Latin epitaphs, with women represented in 25% of the inscriptions. Volterra shows a similar result: 67% for men and 24% for women. Tarquinia is somewhat of an exception, with 62% for men and 36% for women. For the latter case study, therefore, the difference with the Etruscan results is minimal, perhaps statistically insignificant.

These results seem to give validity to Nielsen’s (1989: 61–62) suggestion that Romanization¹¹ is one of the reasons behind the more limited commemoration of women, both in inscriptions and in anepigraphic burials. Her results from Cerveteri — with 35% women in Etruscan and 26% women in Latin inscriptions — provide further evidence for this hypothesis. Supposedly, the Etruscan cultural identity weakened over time, which led to greater difficulty in maintaining the traditional burial forms. Under these circumstances, there would be a tendency to favour men over women in burial. This seems too simplistic, however, and Cerveteri certainly is a special case with its early close relations with Rome (going back at least to the Gallic sack of Rome in 390 bc). The number of epitaphs did decrease in most Etruscan centres during the first century bc (in Volterra by the end of this century), but this was probably caused by a change in the function of funerary culture rather than the loss of a cultural identity, as will be argued below. It makes no sense that the number of epitaphs would become so low due to supposed influence from Rome, where epitaphs were becoming more ubiquitous than ever before. It is not just a matter of exchanging an Etruscan for a Roman identity. Rather, there is a significant transformation of funerary and epigraphic culture. I argue that epigraphic language did play an important part in this development, but this has little to do with old notions of Romanization. Still, the link between language and epigraphy for the Etruscans needs further discussion, taking into account the quantitative development.