Introductory. The Sepulchres of Etruria.

The “Grotta del TifonÉ”—an Etruscan tomb opened by the Chevalier Manzi, in 1833—discovered some peculiarities at the time of its opening, which greatly mystified the cognoscenti of Italy. It was found, by certain Roman inscriptions upon two of the sarcophagi, that the inmates belonged to another people, and that the vaults of the noble Tarquinian family of Pomponius, had, for some unaccountable reasons, been opened for the admission of the stranger. No place was so sacred among the Etruscans as that of burial; and the tombs of the Lucumones of Tarquinia, were held particularly sacred to the immediate connections of the chief. Here he lay in state, and the scions and shoots of his blood and bosom were grouped around him, being literally, as the old Hebrew phraseology hath it, “gathered to their fathers.” It was not often, and then only under peculiar circumstances, which rendered the exception to the rule proper, that the leaves of stone which closed the mausoleum were rolled aside for the admission of foreigners. The “Grotta del TifonÉ,” so called from the Etruscan Typhon, or Angel of Death, which appears conspicuously painted upon the square central pillar, was the last resting-place of the distinguished family of Pomponius. It is a chamber eighteen paces long, and sixteen broad, and is hewn out in the solid rock. The sarcophagi were numerous when first discovered. The ledges were full—every place was occupied, and a further excavation had been made for the reception of other tenants. These tombs were all carefully examined by the explorers with that intense feeling of curiosity which such a discovery was calculated to inspire. The apartment was in good preservation; the paintings bright and distinct, though fully twenty-two centuries must have elapsed since the colors were first spread by the hands of the artist. And there were the inscriptions, just declaring enough to heighten and to deepen curiosity. A name, a fragment—and that in Latin. That a Roman should sleep in a tomb of the Etruscan, was itself a matter of some surprise; but that this strangeness should be still further distinguished by an inscription, an epitaph, in the language of the detested nation—as if the affront were to be rendered more offensive and more imposing—was calculated still further to provoke astonishment! Why should the hateful and always hostile Roman find repose among the patriarchs of Tarquinia?—the rude, obscure barbarian, in the mausoleum of a refined and ancient family? Why, upon an Etruscan tomb, should there be other than an Etruscan inscription? One of the strangers was a woman! Who was she, and for what was she thus distinguished? By what fatality came she to find repose among the awful manes of a people, between whom and her own, the hatred was so deep and inextinguishable—ending not even with the entire overthrow of the superior race? The sarcophagus of the other stranger was without an inscription. But he, too, was a Roman! His effigy, betraying all the characteristics of his people, lay at length above his tomb; a noble youth, with features of exquisite delicacy and beauty, yet distinguished by that falcon visage, which so well marked the imposing features of the great masters of the ancient world.

The wonder and delight of our visiters were hardly lessened, while their curiosity was stimulated to a still higher degree of intensity, as their researches led them to another discovery which followed the further examination of the “Grotta.” On the right of the entrance they happened upon one of these exquisite paintings, in which the genius of the Etruscan proves itself to have anticipated, though it may never have rivaled the ultimate excellence of the Greek. The piece describes a frequent subject of art—a procession of souls to judgment, under the charge of good and evil genii. The group is numerous. The grace, freedom, and expression of the several figures is beyond description fine; and, with two exceptions, the effect is exquisitely grateful to the spectator, as the progress seems to be one to eternal delights. Two of the souls, however, are not freed, but convict; not escaping, but doomed; not looking hope and bliss, but despair and utter misery. One of these is clearly the noble youth whose effigy, without inscription, appears upon the tomb. He is one of the Roman intruders. Behind him, following close, is the evil genius of the Etruscan—represented as a colossal negro—brutal in all his features, exulting fiendishly, in his expression of countenance, and with his claws firmly grasped in the shoulders of his victim. His brow is twined with serpents in the manner of a fillet, and his left hand carries the huge mallet with which the demon was expected to crush, or bruise and mangle, the prey which was assigned him. The other unhappy soul, in similar keeping, is that of a young woman, whose features declare her to be one of the loveliest of her sex. She is tall and majestic; her carriage haughty even in her wo, and her face equally distinguished by the highest physical beauty, elevated by a majesty and air of sway, which denoted a person accustomed to the habitual exercise of her own will. But, through all her beauty and majesty, there are the proofs of that agony of soul which passeth show and understanding. Two big drops of sorrow have fallen, and rest upon her cheeks, the only tokens which her large Juno-like eyes seem to have given of the suffering which she endures. They still preserve their fires undimmed and undaunted, and leave it rather to the brow, the lips, and the general features of the face to declare the keen, unutterable wo that swells within her soul, triumphant equally over pride and beauty. Nothing can exceed in force the touching expression of her agony unutterable, unless in the sympathizing imagination of him who seeks for the sources of the painter’s pencil into the very bosom of the artist. Immediately behind this beautiful and suffering creature is seen, close following, as in the case of the Roman youth already described, the gloomy and brutal demon—the devil of Etruscan superstition—a negro somewhat less dark and deformed than the other, and seemingly of the other sex, with looks less terrible and offensive, but whose office is not less certain, and whose features are not less full of exultation and triumph. She does not actually grasp the shoulders of the victim, but she has her nevertheless beneath her clutches, and the serpent of her fillet, with extended head, seems momently ready to dart its venomous fangs into the white bosom that shrinks yet swells beneath its eye.

Long, indeed, did this terrible picture fix and fascinate the eyes of the spectators; and when at length they turned away, it was only to look back and to meditate upon the mysterious and significant scene which it described. In proceeding further, however, in their search through the “Grotta,” they happened upon another discovery. They were already aware that the features of this beautiful woman were Roman in their type. Indeed, there was no mistaking the inexpressible majesty of that countenance, which could belong to no other people. It was not to be confounded with the Etruscan, which, it must be remembered, was rather Grecian or Phoenician in its character, and indicated grace and beauty rather than strength, subtlety and skill, rather than majesty and command. But, that there might be no doubt of the origin of this lovely woman, examining more closely the effigy upon the sarcophagus first discovered—having removed the soil from the features, and brought a strong light to bear upon them—they were found to be those exactly of the victim thus terribly distinguished in the painting.

Here, then, was a coincidence involving a very curious mystery. About the facts there could be no mistake. Two strangers, of remarkable feature, find their burial, against all usage, in the tumulus of an ancient Etruscan family. Both are young, of different sexes, and both are Roman. Their features are carved above their dust, in immortal marble—we may almost call it so, which, after two thousand years, still preserves its trust—and, in an awful procession of souls to judgment, delineated by a hand of rare excellence, and with rare precision, we find the same persons, drawn to the life, and in the custody, as doomed victims, of the terrible fiend of Etruscan mythology. To this condition some terrible tale was evidently attached. Both of these pictures were portraits. For that matter, all were portraits in the numerous collection. With those two exceptions, the rest were of the same family, and their several fates, according to the resolve of the painter, were all felicitous. They walked erect, triumphant in hope and consciousness, elastic in their tread, and joyous in their features. Not so these two: the outcasts of the group—with but not of them—painfully contrasted by the artist—terribly so by the doom of the awful providence whose decree he had ventured thus freely to declare. The features of the man had the expression of one whom a just self-esteem moves to submit in dignity, and without complaint. The face of the woman, on the contrary, is full of anguish, though still distinguished by a degree of loftiness and character to which his offers no pretension. There were the portraits, and there the effigies, and beneath them, in their stone coffins, lay the fragments of their mouldering bones—the relic of two thousand years. What a scene had the artist chosen to transmit to posterity—from real life—and with what motive? By what terrible sense of justice, or by what strange obliquity of judgment and feeling, did the great Lucumo of the Pomponii, suffer the members of his family to be thus offensively perpetuated to all time, in the place of family sepulture? Could it have been the inspiration of revenge and hatred, by which this vivid and terrible representation was wrought; and what was the melancholy history of these two strangers—so young, so beautiful—thus doomed to the inexpiable torments of the endless future, by the bold anticipatory awards of a successor, or a contemporary? To these questions our explorers of the “Grotta del TifonÉ” did not immediately find an answer. That they have done so since, the reader will ascribe to the keen anxiety with which they have groped through ancient chronicles in search of an event which, thus wondrously preserved by art for a period of more than twenty centuries, could not, as they well conjectured, be wholly obliterated from all other mortal records.

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