Encyclopedia of Homosexuality by Stephen Donaldson

Author:Stephen Donaldson [Stephen Donaldson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781317368137
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)
Published: 2016-03-30T16:00:00+00:00

ETRUSCANS

The Etruscans were the dominant people in central and northern Italy from the ninth to the second centuries B.C. Their civilization stood at its prime from the sixth to the third century B.C., but the language has not for the most part been interpreted, so that our knowledge of them must rest at present on an examination of their art.

Most of what has been discovered is the contents and decorations of tombs. As the goods found in them show, the Etruscans had close cultural and commercial ties with the ancient Greeks. Indeed, Otto Brendel states that “Etruscan is a branch of the civilization which we call classical,” going on to say that “it constitutes the only known case of a contemporary classical art apart from the Greek.” The achievement of the Etruscans has been obscured by their conquerors, the Romans, whom they greatly influenced.

Etruscan civilization incorporated an unmistakeable male homosexual element, readily seen in tomb frescoes, bronze sculptures, utensils, urns (cistae), and mirrors. This is not to say that Etruscan art does not celebrate heterosexuality (which it does); but rather that homosexual components are strongly present, as with both the Greeks and the Romans.

The earliest homosexual image appears on the fresco of the rear wall of the so-called Tomb of the Bulls at Tarquinia (one of the earliest tombs excavated to date, from ca. 540 B.C.), showing what is almost certainly one man anally penetrating another who has horns and who is, in turn, being charged by a bull. The iconography of this tomb has not been satisfactorily interpreted but it may have religious connotations. Symposium scenes were popular in the fifth century; they frequently featured naked and semi-naked male dancers and musicians in an all-male setting and bring to mind similar contemporary scenes on Greek vases, which have been found massively in Etruscan graves.

Bronze sculptures celebrating the nude male body inaugurated an Italian sculptural tradition which continues to the present day. These statues show close links with Etruscan terracotta sculptures and with Greek sculpture. Naked males frequently appear on Etruscan candelabras and incense burners in the form of satyrs or sportsmen. They become an elaborate motif on the handles of the lids of cistae dating from the early fourth century B.C.; these were apparently toilet boxes and were buried with the owner. Some of the earliest examples feature two clothed warriors carrying a dead warrior (also wearing clothes); but later all three figures are naked. By the late third century they become even more openly homoerotic—as on a cista in the Museo Archeologico, Palestrina, which shows Dionysus and a satyr.

The sides of cistae were frequently engraved with scenes from Greek mythology. The Chrysippos cista (ca. 350 B.C.; Villa Giulia, Rome) features the homosexual abduction of Chrysippos by Laios. The largest and finest cista, the so-called Ficorini Cista (ca. 400 B.C.; Villa Giulia), signed Novios Plautus in Latin, is virtually a symphony to the nude male body showing it in seventeen separate poses (two other figures are clothed). One naked

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