Etruscan Rock-cut Tomb, at Castel d' Asso (Fergusson, p. 285), from the "Annale dell' Instituto." The opening formula of the Etruscan inscription can be traced in the corresponding Latin letters as ECA SUTHI, reading from right to left.1

2

The spread of the Lycian custom of reliance upon maternity, in the archaic times, its extension to Etruria, together with other conventional symbols of Lycian or proximate Lydian 3 civilization, is marked and determined. Dennis, in his great work on Etruria, observes:

"The mention of the mother's name after the father's is a genuine Etruscanism. It is general in Etruscan epitaphs, and was retained even under the Roman domination, for some sarcophagi bear similar epitaphs in Latin, with 'natus' affixed to the mother's name.

"This custom the Etruscans must have derived from the East, as it is not practised by the Greeks or Romans; but the Lycians always traced their descent through the maternal line, to the total exclusion of the paternal."-Dennis (1848), vol. i. p. 133.

1 Dennis's Etruria, vol. i. p. 242. Bullettino dell' Instituto, 1833, plate of inscriptions, page 72.

2 In the funereal inscriptions copied from the monuments in these cities, all the pedigrees of the deceased, with one exception, are derived from the mothers; the exception is on the tomb of the Greek copied at Limyra, and he was evidently a foreigner, from having his monument inscribed in both languages."-Fellows' Asia Minor and Lycia (1852), p. 413.

3 Appian, lxvi., Pliny, xxxiii. 4, Plutarch in Romulus.

"The singular custom of the Lycians of tracing their descent by the maternal line, obtained also among the Etruscans, alone among the nations of antiquity."-Pref. p. xlii.1

The Rev. I. Taylor, in speaking of the seventeen Bilingual Inscriptions, or the seventeen Etruscan records to which Latin glosses or parallel versions are appended, continues these comparisons: "We have seen that the paternal descent is in two instances omitted from the Etruscan record, but carefully recorded in the Latin version. In like manner the maternal descent is in three instances omitted from the Latin version, but recorded in the Etruscan. The ethnological import of this difference has already been insisted on. There is no true Latin metronymic, but in four cases the Etruscan metronymic is translated by means of the Latin word Natus." 2-p. 256.

Elsewhere Mr. Taylor remarks: "It is very significant from an ethnological point of view, that no word for 'father' has as yet been detected in the inscriptions. The words denoting husband and wife are also somewhat doubtful."-p. 245.

In these instances we may follow the upward or reflex advance of Aryan influences in Italy, and the effect of Latin civilization in superseding the remains of local Scythism, in

1 Dennis, vol. ii. p. 189, incidentally remarks: "Of marriages, no representation, which has not a mythical reference, has yet been found on the sepulchral urns of Etruria, though most of the earlier writers on these antiquities mistook the farewell-scenes, presently to be described, where persons of opposite sexes stand hand in hand, for scenes of nuptial festivity."

2 In another place Mr. Taylor adds, "It must be remembered that the records of the Etruscan tombs extend over several centuries. . . . The bilingual inscriptions belong to the time when the Etruscan language was giving place to Latin, and they therefore exhibit the system of nomenclature in its most elaborate form, and partake to some extent of the peculiarities introduced from the Roman system." -p. 254. One of the best bilingual inscriptions in Latin and Etruscan occurs on a sarcophagus found at Perugia. Mr. 1. Taylor arranges the counterpart legends as follows:

Latin. P. VOLUMNIUS A.F. VIOLENS, CAFATIA NATUS. Etruscan. PUP. VELIMNA AU.

CAHATIAL.

Among other remarks Mr. Taylor notices that "Cahatial, the last word of the Etruscan record, is equivalent to Cafatia natus, the last words of the Latin inscription. In another bilingual inscription the Etruscan word Cainal is in like manner translated by Cainnia natus. Hence we learn positively the meaning of the suffix al, which occurs many hundred times in Etruscan inscriptions. It was the regular Etruscan metronymic; it is usually appended to the mother's name, and means 'child' or 'born of.'"

contrast to the earlier downward pressure of the Turánian nations upon the original Aryan home to the south-east of the Caspian.

In conclusion of this section of the subject of the status of women in Etruria in ancient days, I quote Mr. Dennis' mature conclusions from the comprehensive data supplied alike by the illustrations painted on extant fictile vases, and the surroundings and inner testimonies of the tombs themselves :

"The equality of women in the social scale of Etruria may also be learned from the figures on these urns. It is evident that no inferior respect was paid to the fair sex when dead, that as much labour and expense were bestowed on their sepulchral decorations as those of their lords. In fact, it has generally been remarked that the tombs of women are more highly ornamented and richly furnished than those of the opposite sex."-Dennis (new edition), vol. ii. p. 162.

To these casual coincidences of mind and matter I must supplement the curious identity of reckoning, now proved to have obtained at our extreme points of comparison, between Etruria and India, in the normal use of the numbers 4 and 16. It has hitherto been supposed that the development of this system of reckoning was peculiar to India; but the repeated 4s of the early allusions to cities and nations in the valley of the Euphrates 2 seems to indicate a wider spread of this most practical system of arithmetic. The Etruscan method of dealing with fours has, so far, been understood and generally recognized, but it has been lately definitely illustrated by the discovery of a bronze disc at Settima, near Piacenza,3 which is divided into "36 compartments— 16 are round the rim, 16 on the upper surface of the disc, and 4 on the cone-constituting the Etruscan Templum, used by the Augurs for dividing the firmament into 16 regions."

1 Ancient Indian Weights, Numismata Orientalia, No. I. p. 18.

2 Rawlinson's Ancient Monarchies, vol. i. p. 19, vol. ii. p. 325; and Sir H. Rawlinson, J.R.A.S. Vol. I. N.s. p. 193.

3 Athenæum, 23rd Nov. 1878, p. 664.

TOMB OF DARIUS AT NAKSH-I-RUSTAM.-Fergusson, vol. i. p. 195.

Sir H. Rawlinson's impressions in regard to the prevalence of the Scythic element in Media were summarized so long ago as 1854-5, in the following terms:

"I will only remark, that it must have been during this interval that nationalities were first established; and that the aboriginal

Scyths or Hamites appear to have been the principal movers in the great work of social organization. They would seem, indeed, simultaneously or progressively, to have passed in one direction by Southern Persia into India; in another, through Southern Arabia to Ethiopia, Egypt and Numidia."-Sir H. Rawlinson, J.R.A.S. Vol. XV. p. 235.

In conclusion, he elsewhere adds:

"We further observe that in the Greek writers, from the time of Alexander downwards, the Saca and Cadusii are so mixed up with the Northern Medes as to be absolutely indistinguishable from them. . . . . The second column of the trilingual Inscriptions of the Achæmenidæ, which has hitherto borne the title of Median, is now found to be written in a bond-fide Scythic dialect, and to be evidently addressed as their vernacular language to the mass of the subjects of the Great King, as distinguished from the native Persians and the conquered Babylonians."-Sir H. Rawlinson, J.R.A.S. Vol. XV. p. 245.

We may further test these propositions, in their bearing upon the influence of the female sex, by the historical contributions of the Greek writers.

We find Cyrus, on his accession, honouring the daughter of Astyages as a mother (Queen Mother ?), and then, on the death of Spitames, improving his title to the throne of her father by making her his wife; while, at the last, Cyrus is found admonishing his sons to obey in all things their mother.

The family custom of recognizing the female line of descent crops-up continually in the annals of the ruling Achæmenidæ, and may be traced throughout the Dynasty

1 Herodotus, vii. 11, makes Cyrus and Cambyses sons of Achæmenes. Darius thinks it essential to marry a daughter of Cyrus, vii. 11. Ctesias Fragmenta C. Muller, p. 43 : καὶ τὴν θυγατέρα Αμύτιν πρότερον μὲν μητρικῆς ἀπολαῦσαι τιμῆς, ἔπειτα δεὶ καὶ εἰς γυναῖκα ἀχθῆναι τῷ κύρῳ.

So also the Scythian Scylas, of whom Herodotus tells us, "Ariapithes met his death by treachery at the hands of Spargapithes, King of Agathyrsi, and Scylas succeeded to the kingdom, and his father's wife, whose name was Opæa; this Opæa was a native, by whom Ariapithes had a son, Oricus."-iv. 78. "Their (the Persians') mode of burial is to smear the bodies over with wax, and then to inter them. The Magi are not buried, but the birds are allowed to devour them. These persons, according to the usage of the country, espouse even their mothers."-Strabo, xv. iii. 20.