But we can go still further and establish beyond the possibility of doubt that where men alone are gathered at the symposium of eternity, the pictures represent the heads of the families who ordered the tombs and had them decorated. To be sure, the pictures of the sixth and the beginning of the fifth centuries do not give us any information as to this—even the symposium in the Tomba delle Bighe is without inscription; but in this respect also the sepulchral paintings become more communicative after the middle of the fifth century. In the Tomba Golini at Orvieto, discovered in 1863 and called after its discoverer, and, to judge from its style, contemporary with the Tomba degli Scudi and the front chamber of the Tomba dell’Orco, we see in the symposium on the back wall (fig. 31) two men on the same couch drinking to the accompaniment of the two familiar musicians. Beneath the couch we can make out dimly a servant, and a hunting leopard, probably feeding; both have their names attached: that of the animal is Kankru. In Egyptian reliefs also, dating from the Fifth Dynasty, we occasionally find names attached to the domestic animals depicted, for instance ducks and pigeons.

Of the two men reclining on the couch the foremost holds a drinking-bowl and an egg. In the Ny Carlsberg facsimile he is represented as beardless, but no doubt wrongly. It is an elderly man; his face is one of the earliest examples of naturalism in Etruscan portraiture. The other, full-bearded, holds a flat, fluted vessel without foot, presumably one of the celebrated Etruscan golden vessels which are more minutely characterized in a symposium in the Tomba della Pulcella; they were even introduced into Athens, where, side by side with Corinthian works in bronze, they formed part of the decoration of a wealthy house, and they are eulogized in a poem by Critias,63 one of Athens’ finest beaux esprits.

In this painting in the Tomba Golini the inscriptions give us much valuable information as to the connexion between the two persons.64 Above the first we read: ‘Vel lecates arnthial ruva larthialisa clan velusum nefs marniu spurana eprthnec tenve mechlum rasneas cleusinsl zilachnve pulum rumitrine thi ma[l]ce clel lur.’ In translation the text runs: ‘Vel Lecates, Arnth’s brother,65 son of Larth, and descendant of Vel. He held the offices of Maro urbanus (spur means town) and Eprthne (secular official title) and was Zilach (dictator) of the Etruscan people in Clusium....’ The rest is unintelligible. It is interesting in the inscription to come across the name by which the Etruscans called themselves, rasneas; Dionysius of Halicarnassus (i. 30) was therefore justified in saying that the Etruscans called themselves Rasenas. The name Larth is common in Etruscan inscriptions. The Romans knew it and called the well-known Etruscan king by his full name, Lars Porsenna (in Etruscan, Larth Pursna).66

We now turn to the inscription above the bearded man on the same couch; his name is Arnth Leinies, son of Larth, and descendant of Vel; his official titles follow, and the inscription ends: ‘ru[va] l[ecates velus] amce,’ i. e., was brother of Vel Lecates. Thus we have two brothers reclining on the same couch, and the inscription makes it probable that the other symposiasts, too, are not chance revellers, but members of the same family, united in the picture as they were in life and in the grave.

In the same tomb, to the left of this scene, we see a table, bearing several metal vessels, a thymiaterion, and an ivory box for incense, and flanked by two candelabra with lighted candles stuck into birds’ beaks (fig. 32). The Etruscans were considered inventors of the art of candlemaking and taught the Romans to manufacture different kinds of candles, from big wax candles—candelae and cerei—to cheap dips—sebaceae. The Italic peoples used candles and candlesticks until Roman Imperial times, though in the last centuries they also had oil lamps, the manufacture and use of which they had learned from the Greeks; the oldest clay lamps found in the northern part of Italy date from about 300 B.C.67 To the left of the table is seen a naked slave with a jug and a dish; to the right a young man in a light-coloured, sleeved chiton, who has been conjectured to be another servant. But again the inscription affords positive information: ‘Vel leinies larthial ruva arnthialum clan velusum prumaths avils semphs lupuce’; i.e. ‘Vel Leinies, Larth’s brother, son of Arnth and descendant of Vel; he died (lupuce) at the age of 7.’68 So the boy is son of the hindmost man on the banqueting-couch and belongs to the noble family interred in the tomb.