Women in Etruscan society

Women were respected in Etruscan society compared to their ancient Greek and Roman counterparts. Today only the status of aristocratic women is known because no documentation survives about women in other social classes.

Women's role and image evolved during the millennium of the Etruscan period. Affluent women were well-groomed and lived a family life within society, where their role was important both politically and administratively. Tanaquil and Velia Spurinna were among the women who played leading roles in Etruscan politics. In the final phase of Etruscan history, women lost much of their independence amidst conquest by the Roman Republic, and their status became that of Roman women.

Women and Etruscan society


Etruscan women were politically important, and dominant in family and social life. Their status in Etruscan civilization differed from their Greek and the Roman peers, who were considered to be marginal and secondary in relation to men.

Ancient writers like Livy and Pliny the Elder attest to the influence of women such as Tanaquil and Velia Spurinna. Livy describes the decisive role played by Tanaquil, the wife of Lucius Tarquinius Priscus. She predicted her husband's success and protected Roman royalty after his assassination. At the beginning of the first century, Claudius took as his first wife Plautia Urgulanilla, an Etruscan. Pliny refers to Tanaquil as a model of womanly virtue.

Contemporary images of Etruscan women often show them wearing rich attire. Archaeological pieces found in the tombs, such as frescoes, sarcophagi, urns, and funerary possessions testify to the importance of women in society. The spindle whorl and spring scale discovered in the tombs of Etruscan women show that they also practiced manual work, such as spinning and weaving. They participated in banquets, physical exercises, and attended games in which naked athletes participated; and generally could enjoy public life without being stigmatized by men. On occasion, women presided over events from a privileged platform, as shown on the fresco of Orvieto or the plaque of Murlo. In addition they could own property under their name, manage their homes, and conduct trade. On the frescoes of the Tomba delle Bighe, noble men and women mingle in the same bleachers.

On funerary urns and on the lids of sarcophagi, they appear as they were in daily life, without retouching, their faces often marked by wrinkles and their bodies showing aging, testifying to a strong character. This type of representation is practically unique in the ancient world, where women were limited to their role as wives, mothers or concubines.

Etruscologist Jacques Heurgon quotes the anecdote reported by Livy of a woman who despises her sister because "she lacks muliebris audacia", that is to say, the energy and ambition that seem characteristic of Etruscan women. Sybille Haynes studied small bronze sculptures, the oldest of which shows women and men lying in a triclinium, raising the drinking cup; but in the most recent examples, they are sitting next to the husband lying down. Between the two series, the Romans changed the status of women in the Etruscan society through Romanization.

The evolution of women's status by period
The characteristics of Etruscan women depended on their social rank, the place where they lived, and the period concerned. The Etruscan world cannot be considered as a homogeneous whole from the social, political, and economic points of view. It is nevertheless possible to highlight in general terms the main characteristics by examining the information and clues that have emerged during archaeological research, comparing them whenever possible with ancient texts.

Villanovan period
During the First Iron Age (9th – 7th century BC), parity between men and women seems to have been the rule. The unity of burials between the unmarried couple is evidenced by burial trousseaux of the period, shows no class differences or dominant personalities or families. Only the presence of characteristic status symbols, such as weapons for men and spindle whorls, weights, mirrors, and crockery for women, indicates a clear separation of the fields of competence attributed to the two sexes, the status of warrior-farmer for men and the organization of the home for women. It was probably during the First Iron Age that the first classification of a subordinate female role in community life appeared.

Orientalist period
During the Orientalist period (7th to early 2nd century BC), wealth was monopolized by a small number of individuals, revealing social differences, with hereditary transmission that does not seem to mark any distinction between the sexes. Women and men were equally wealthy in their burial trousseaux, as demonstrated by the findings of the Regolini-Galassi tomb in Cerveteri and tombs 2 and 11 of the necropolis of Banditella.

Archaic period
The Archaic period (600 to 475 BC) highlights women's status in marriage, as evidenced by the Sarcophagus of the Spouses (530 BC, Museum of Villa Giulia). The frescoes of the tombs of Tarquinia (6th – 5th century BC) confirm the presence of women in social spaces (banquets and sports), which among the Romans and the Greeks were reserved exclusively for men. But their participation and representation in these events do not seem to confirm Theopompus' claim of women's immorality. Indeed, the frescoes that show couples of spouses, highlight strong monogamous couples. The sarcophagi of semi-lying couples of Vulci (fourth century BC) seem to confirm this fact. Nevertheless, women appear in artistic representations on Attic vases dancing totally naked on an equal footing with men, and tomb frescoes reveal, as in the Tomb of the Bulls, daring erotic scenes showing a woman with several partners, or participating in complicated sexual games. Already in the 7th century BC, Tanaquil, an aristocrat from the city of Tarquinia, was skilled in the art of divination, "like all Etruscans". She urged her husband to leave Etruria and settle in Rome. On the way, she interpreted a prodigy and assured him that he would rule Rome, which happened after the death of Ancus Marcius. When Tarquin the Elder was assassinated, she had her son-in-law Servius Tullius proclaimed king. Historian Alain Hus deduced from these accounts that Etrusca disciplina, the art of interpreting divine signs, was the prerogative of aristocratic families among the Etruscans, and that women could exercise it.

Classic period
During the Classical period, Etruscan women began to show signs of high rank and esteem. The sarcophagi of Chiusi, the urns of Volterra and the frescoes in tombs confirm the high position reached by women on the social ladder.

In onomastics (of proper names), women's civil status in inscriptions was indicated by their first name, absent in the Latin formulation, and then by their surname, which remained their birth name, even after marriage. In the onomastic formula, the matronymic added to the patronymic became widespread from the 4th century BC onwards, proving the high regard in which the wives' family of origin was held by the Etruscan aristocratic class.

Hellenistic period
Romanization began around 340 BC and lasted until the Augustan period, when acculturation led to the disappearance of Etruscan political power, as their cultural traits were assimilated by the Romans. Etruscan women lost many of their privileges, and adopted the status of Roman women, who probably also assimilated some of the cultural traits of Etruscan women and gave them a strong influence, such as that exercised by Livia (58 BC – 29 AD), the wife of Augustus, several times regent and advisor to her husband and the most powerful woman in the early Roman Empire. Several women in the imperial family, including Agrippina the Younger, also exerted political influence.

Women and the family
During banquets women lay on the triclinium next to their husbands, who acknowledged their equal social position in the management of the family patrimony and the upbringing of their children. Together with their fathers, women gave their names to their children (especially among the highest class of society), with funeral epigrams giving priority to the matronymic; women are also referred to by their gens names and with their own first names, affirming their individuality within the family group. Women's proper names frequently engraved on crockery and funerary frescoes include: Ati, Culni, Fasti, Larthia, Ramtha, Tanaquille, Veilia, Velia and Velka. By comparison, in Roman society, women are referred to by a feminized form of their nomen gentilicium: thus, all the women of the Livia gens are called Livia.

Women's fashion
According to the frescoes and tombs of the Etruscans, women wore elaborate jewelry and make-up. They were often dressed in a tunic over which was placed the chiton, a kind of long coat with short sleeves, edged with small geometric motifs such as incised circles and herringbones. Shoes have pointed, raised toes, reminiscent of Hittite models. Hair is worn under the tutulus, a round or conical headdress decorated with geometric motifs, or is gathered at the nape of the neck, with curls falling over the shoulders or in braids framing the face.

Women's accessories
Archaeological findings in burial trousseaux in necropolises, as well as fresco depictions, give a fairly accurate idea of the various accessories used by Etruscan women. Feminine adornment consisted of jewelry, braided gold wire pendants adorned with figurines, palmettes and flowers, necklaces, and precious metal earrings and pins. Etruscan women also had a wide range of refined toiletries at their disposal: ivory, alabaster and glass flasks, containers for ointments or perfumed oils, manicure instruments, engraved mirrors decorated with mythological scenes, featuring a slightly domed reflective surface and a reverse side decorated with incised motifs, bronze storage boxes decorated with engraved scenes, and so on.

Etruscan women viewed by other civilizations
Etruscan women attended banquets alongside men, unlike their Greek contemporaries where democracy was a male-only affair. Greek, and later Roman writers therefore gave Etruscan women a scandalous reputation, although this discredit – the Etruscan truphè – more generally concerned the morals of both sexes.

By the Greeks
The Etruscan tradition of mixed banqueting was frowned upon by the Greeks, where women lived in the shadows of the home. Greek daughters and wives stayed in their place in the domestic setting, rarely appearing in the community. As direct neighbors of the Etruscans in Magna Graecia (southern Italy), they were familiar with this difference in custom. Theopompus, a Greek historian of the 4th century BC, whom another Roman author, Cornelius Nepos, finds very slanderous, gives a contemptuous description: "Women enjoy all men in complete freedom. In the streets they walk boldly alongside men and dine lying next to them. They have taken great care of their bodies and faces, removing hair from their skin with melted wax and excelling in nudity". "There is no shame," according to Theopompus, "in committing a sexual act in public [...] when they gather with friends, this is what they do: first, when they have finished drinking and are ready for bed and while the torches are still lit, the servants sometimes bring courtesans, sometimes handsome boys and sometimes their own wives [...] Etruscan women make children not knowing who the father is".

By the Romans
Roman women were slightly freer than Greek women, but the status of Etruscan women was considered scandalous by the Romans, who often described their behavior as licentious and immoral, comparing them to the musicians and prostitutes of Greek or Roman banquets. Titus Livius contrasted the "virtuous Roman mother" to "Etruscan women lying on their banquet beds".