sport, the
gladiatorial games. The only fundamental institution of Rome which it is
the habit to ascribe to Etruria, the idea of the so-called _templum_ or
division of the sky into regions as an axiom of augury, seems to have
been quite as much a general Italic idea as a specifically Etruscan one.
Even in art her influence was relatively slight, and though her
architects seem to have built the earliest formal temples for Rome, they
were soon succeeded in this work by the Greeks. We seek in vain for a
complete and satisfactory explanation of this limitation of her
influence, but certain thoughts suggest themselves, which, as far as
they go, are probably correct. All that we know of Etruria impresses us
with the fact that hers was an outward civilisation unaccompanied by an
inward culture, that it was a formal rather than a spiritual growth, an
artificial acquisition from without rather than a development from
within outwards. It was strong but with its strength went brutality, it
was interested in art but for its sensual rather than its spiritual
aspects. Now the idealism of youth is present in nations just as in
individuals, though probably a nation is less conscious of it than an
individual. It is with the nation one of the effects of the instinct of
self-preservation, and for a youthful nation to absorb the vices of an
old decadent one would be self-destruction. Thus the youthful Rome
rejected most of the Etruscan poison, and thus nature purified herself,
and Etruria was buried in the pit of her own nastiness.

There was however one town which acted as an interpreter between Rome
and Etruria, and was the original cult-centre for a very great goddess,
spreading her cult in both directions, into Rome and into Etruria. The
town was Falerii and the goddess was Minerva, who in a certain sense
entered Rome three times, once direct from Falerii to Rome, and once
from Falerii to Rome by way of Etruria, and finally, when Falerii was
captured by the Romans, again direct to Rome. In the earliest period
there are scarcely any traces of the worship of Minerva in Latium or
Southern Italy, and we are absolutely certain that she was not known in
Rome. In the country north of Rome, however, the situation is different
There she is found quite frequently, especially in Etruria under the
name of MENERVA or MENRVA. Yet she cannot have been an Etruscan goddess,
because the name itself is Italic and not Etruscan. She is therefore
neither Ro