The History of Rome

Regarding the development of the fine arts among the Etruscans and Sabellians our knowledge is little better than none[16]. We can only notice the fact that in Etruria the dancers (histri, histriones) and the pipe-players (subulones) early made a trade of their art, probably earlier even than in Rome, and exhibited themselves in public not only at home, but also in Rome for small remuneration and less honour. It is a circumstance more remarkable that at the Etruscan national festival, in the exhibition of which the whole twelve cities were represented by a federal priest, games were given like those of the Roman city-festival; we are, however, no longer in a position to answer the question which it suggests, how far the Etruscans were more successful than the Latins in attaining a national form of fine art beyond that of the individual communities. On the other hand a foundation probably was laid in Etruria, even in early times, for that insipid accumulation of learned lumber, particularly of a theological and astrological nature, by virtue of which afterwards, when amidst the general decay antiquarian dilettantism began to flourish, the Tuscans divided with the Jews, Chaldeans, and Egyptians the honour of being admired as primitive sources of divine wisdom. We know still less, if possible, of Sabellian art; but that of course by no means warrants the inference that it was inferior to that of the neighbouring stocks. On the contrary, it may be conjectured from what we otherwise know of the character of the three chief races of Italy, that in artistic gifts the Samnites approached nearest to the Hellenes and the Etruscans were farthest removed from them; and a sort of confirmation of this hypothesis is furnished by the fact, that the most gifted and most original of the Roman poets, such as Naevius, Ennius, Lucilius, and Horace, belonged to the Samnite lands, whereas Etruria has almost no representatives in Roman literature except the Arretine Maecenas, the most insufferable of all heart-withered and affected[17] court-poets, and the Volaterran Persius, the true ideal of a conceited and languid, poetry-smitten, youth.

Earliest Italian Architecture

The elements of architecture were, as has been already indicated, a primitive common possession of the stocks.  The dwelling-house constitutes the first attempt of structural art; and it was the same among Greeks and Italians. Built of wood, and covered with a pointed roof of straw or shingles it formed a square dwelling-chamber, which let out the smoke and let in the light by an opening in the roof corresponding with a hole for carrying off the rain in the ground (cavum aedium). Under this "black roof" (atrium) the meals were prepared and consumed; there the household gods were worshipped, and the marriage bed and the bier were set out; there the husband received his guests, and the wife sat spinning amid the circle of her maidens. The house had no porch, unless we take as such the uncovered space between the house door and the street, which obtained its name vestibulum, i. e. dressing-place, from the circumstance that the Romans were in the habit of going about within doors in their tunics, and only wrapped the toga around them when they went abroad. There was, moreover, no division of apartments except that sleeping and store closets might be provided around the dwelling-room; and still less were there stairs, or stories placed one above another.

Earliest Hellenic Influence