Tages
Encyclopedia
Tages was a founding prophet
of Etruscan religion
who is known from reports by Latin authors of the late Roman republic
and Roman empire
. He revealed a cosmic view of divinity and correct methods of ascertaining divine will concerning events of public interest. Divination
was undertaken in Roman society by priestly officials called haruspices. Political officials also, such as the augur
es, were constituted with some responsibilities for divination. During the floruit of the religion these priests accompanied the public officials, including generals in the field, and were consulted on everything of interest to the senate and people of Rome
.
The sacred texts recording the revelations of Tages (and a few other prophets, mainly a female figure known as Vegoia
) were called by the Romans the Etrusca Disciplina at least as early as the late republic. They were written in the Etruscan language
, despite their Latin titles. None survived the Christian book burning of the middle centuries of the 1st Millennium AD. The last author claiming to have read elements of the disciplina is the 6th century Joannes Laurentius Lydus
, writing at Constantinople
. Thus knowledge of Tages comes mainly from what is said about him by the classical authors, which is a legendary and quasi-mythical view; Lydus
suggests that Tages is only a parable.
', Tages is most likely to be a Latinization of an Etruscan word. The reverse of a 3rd century BC
bronze mirror from Tuscania
depicts a youthful haruspex
in a conical hat examining a liver. He is labeled pavatarchies. A second, older haruspex with a beard listens and is labeled avl tarchunus. Massimo Pallottino
made the generally accepted suggestion that the first name is to be segmented pava Tarchies and means "the child, Tarchies." The second name is "the son of Tarchon", where Tarchon is the legendary king of Tarquinia
, location of Tages' revelation, and also one of the founders of the Etruscan League.
. He is either the grandson of Jove
, or he was born directly from a freshly plowed lot. Cicero
reports the myth in this way:
In Ovid
's version, Tyrrhenus arator ("a Tyrrhenian ploughman") observed a clod turn into a man and begin to speak of things destined to happen and how the Etruscan people could discover the future. Ovid as a poet, primarily interested in telling a good story, would have the less historically credible view.
lived in the 6th Century AD. Although the last classical-period writer to have read the books, he is the most specific about his sources. He implies that he read "the texts of the Etruscans"; that is, the Etrusca Disciplina, including the report of the haruspex
, Tarchon
, who was instructed by Tyrrhenus
. Tarchon's work on Tages, he says, is a dialogue in which Tarchon asks Tages questions in "the ordinary language of the Italians". This is presumably Vulgar Latin
, as Lydus cannot mean any early Italic dialect. Tages' recorded response is "in ancient letters", presumably in the Etruscan language
. Lydus says it is not very understandable, and that he relies on translations.
, the crooked staff of the augur
, or examining entrails wearing the conical cap of the haruspex
, are common, but are not necessarily Tages. Winged figures, representing divinity, are also common, especially on funerary urns from Tarquinia
, but whether any depict Tages is questionable. Assuming that a certain percentage of these representations are in fact Tages, there appears to be no standard way to depict him. Art historians have inserted Tages freely among them but entirely in a speculative fashion.
In addition to the labelled scene on the bronze mirror described above, which must have been repeated many times without labels, a type of scene engraved on 4th century BC
gemstones, once set in seal rings, appears to describe the Tages myth. A bearded figure (Tarchon?) bends over as though listening at the head or head and torso of another, beardless figure embedded in or arising from the ground. On a similar theme is a 3rd century BC
bronze votive statuette, 0.327 m (1.1 ft) high, from Tarquinia
, of a sitting infant peering upward with an adult's head and visage.
Prophet
In religion, a prophet, from the Greek word προφήτης profitis meaning "foreteller", is an individual who is claimed to have been contacted by the supernatural or the divine, and serves as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other people...
of Etruscan religion
Etruscan mythology
The Etruscans were a diachronically continuous population, with a distinct language and culture during the period of earliest European writing, in the Mediterranean Iron Age in the second half of the first millennium BC...
who is known from reports by Latin authors of the late Roman republic
Roman Republic
The Roman Republic was the period of the ancient Roman civilization where the government operated as a republic. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, traditionally dated around 508 BC, and its replacement by a government headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and...
and Roman empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
. He revealed a cosmic view of divinity and correct methods of ascertaining divine will concerning events of public interest. Divination
Divination
Divination is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic standardized process or ritual...
was undertaken in Roman society by priestly officials called haruspices. Political officials also, such as the augur
Augur
The augur was a priest and official in the classical world, especially ancient Rome and Etruria. His main role was to interpret the will of the gods by studying the flight of birds: whether they are flying in groups/alone, what noises they make as they fly, direction of flight and what kind of...
es, were constituted with some responsibilities for divination. During the floruit of the religion these priests accompanied the public officials, including generals in the field, and were consulted on everything of interest to the senate and people of Rome
SPQR
SPQR is an initialism from a Latin phrase, Senatus Populusque Romanus , referring to the government of the ancient Roman Republic, and used as an official emblem of the modern day comune of Rome...
.
The sacred texts recording the revelations of Tages (and a few other prophets, mainly a female figure known as Vegoia
Vegoia
Vegoia is a nymph and/or sibyl in the Etruscan religious framework that is vested with the responsibility of writing some parts of their large and complex set of sacred books, of initiating the Etruscan people to the arts, rules and rituals of land marking, and of...
) were called by the Romans the Etrusca Disciplina at least as early as the late republic. They were written in the Etruscan language
Etruscan language
The Etruscan language was spoken and written by the Etruscan civilization, in what is present-day Italy, in the ancient region of Etruria and in parts of Lombardy, Veneto, and Emilia-Romagna...
, despite their Latin titles. None survived the Christian book burning of the middle centuries of the 1st Millennium AD. The last author claiming to have read elements of the disciplina is the 6th century Joannes Laurentius Lydus
Joannes Laurentius Lydus
John the Lydian or John Lydus was a 6th century Byzantine administrator and writer on antiquarian subjects. His works are of interest for specific data about classical events.- Life and career :...
, writing at Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...
. Thus knowledge of Tages comes mainly from what is said about him by the classical authors, which is a legendary and quasi-mythical view; Lydus
Joannes Laurentius Lydus
John the Lydian or John Lydus was a 6th century Byzantine administrator and writer on antiquarian subjects. His works are of interest for specific data about classical events.- Life and career :...
suggests that Tages is only a parable.
Etymology
As the Etruscan alphabet had no 'GG
G is the seventh letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:The letter 'G' was introduced in the Old Latin period as a variant of ⟨c⟩ to distinguish voiced, from voiceless, . The recorded originator of ⟨g⟩ is freedman Spurius Carvilius Ruga, the first Roman to open a fee-paying school,...
', Tages is most likely to be a Latinization of an Etruscan word. The reverse of a 3rd century BC
Anno Domini
and Before Christ are designations used to label or number years used with the Julian and Gregorian calendars....
bronze mirror from Tuscania
Tuscania
Tuscania is a town and comune in the province of Viterbo, Lazio Region, Italy. Until the late 19th century the town was known as Toscanella.-Ancient times:...
depicts a youthful haruspex
Haruspex
In Roman and Etruscan religious practice, a haruspex was a man trained to practice a form of divination called haruspicy, hepatoscopy or hepatomancy. Haruspicy is the inspection of the entrails of sacrificed animals, especially the livers of sacrificed sheep and poultry...
in a conical hat examining a liver. He is labeled pavatarchies. A second, older haruspex with a beard listens and is labeled avl tarchunus. Massimo Pallottino
Massimo Pallottino
Massimo Pallottino was an Italian archaeologist specializing in Etruscan civilization and art....
made the generally accepted suggestion that the first name is to be segmented pava Tarchies and means "the child, Tarchies." The second name is "the son of Tarchon", where Tarchon is the legendary king of Tarquinia
Tarquinia
Tarquinia, formerly Corneto and in Antiquity Tarquinii, is an ancient city in the province of Viterbo, Lazio, Italy.- History :Tarquinii is said to have been already a flourishing city when Demaratus of Corinth brought in Greek workmen...
, location of Tages' revelation, and also one of the founders of the Etruscan League.
Legend
According legend, Tages appeared at ploughing-time and taught Etruscans divinationDivination
Divination is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic standardized process or ritual...
. He is either the grandson of Jove
JOVE
JOVE is an open-source, Emacs-like text editor, primarily intended for Unix-like operating systems. It also supports MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows. JOVE was inspired by Gosling Emacs but is much smaller and simpler, lacking Mocklisp...
, or he was born directly from a freshly plowed lot. Cicero
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
reports the myth in this way:
They tell us that one day as the land was being ploughed in the territory of Tarquinii, and a deeper furrow than usual was made, suddenly Tages sprang out of it and addressed the ploughman. Tages, as it is recorded in the works of the Etrurians (Libri Etruscorum), possessed the visage of a child, but the prudence of a sage. When the ploughman was surprised at seeing him, and in his astonishment made a great outcry, a number of people assembled around him, and before long all the Etrurians came together at the spot. Tages then discoursed in the presence of an immense crowd, who noted his speech and committed it to writing. The information they derived from this Tages was the foundation of the science of the soothsayers (haruspicinae disciplina), and was subsequently improved by the accession of many new facts, all of which confirmed the same principles. We received this record from them. This record is preserved in their sacred books, and from it the augurial discipline is deduced.
In Ovid
Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...
's version, Tyrrhenus arator ("a Tyrrhenian ploughman") observed a clod turn into a man and begin to speak of things destined to happen and how the Etruscan people could discover the future. Ovid as a poet, primarily interested in telling a good story, would have the less historically credible view.
Etrusca disciplina
Joannes Laurentius LydusJoannes Laurentius Lydus
John the Lydian or John Lydus was a 6th century Byzantine administrator and writer on antiquarian subjects. His works are of interest for specific data about classical events.- Life and career :...
lived in the 6th Century AD. Although the last classical-period writer to have read the books, he is the most specific about his sources. He implies that he read "the texts of the Etruscans"; that is, the Etrusca Disciplina, including the report of the haruspex
Haruspex
In Roman and Etruscan religious practice, a haruspex was a man trained to practice a form of divination called haruspicy, hepatoscopy or hepatomancy. Haruspicy is the inspection of the entrails of sacrificed animals, especially the livers of sacrificed sheep and poultry...
, Tarchon
Tarchon
In Etruscan mythology, Tarchon and his brother, Tyrrhenus, were culture heroes who founded the Etruscan Federation of twelve cities, the Dodecapoli. One author, Joannes Laurentius Lydus, distinguishes two legendary persons named Tarchon, the Younger and his father, the Elder...
, who was instructed by Tyrrhenus
Tyrrhenus
In Etruscan mythology, Tyrrhenus was one of the founders of the Etruscan Federation of twelve cities, along with his brother Tarchon. Herodotus describes him as the saver of Etruscans, because he led them from Lydia to Etruria. His name was given to the Etruscan people by the Greek. The Romans...
. Tarchon's work on Tages, he says, is a dialogue in which Tarchon asks Tages questions in "the ordinary language of the Italians". This is presumably Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin is any of the nonstandard forms of Latin from which the Romance languages developed. Because of its nonstandard nature, it had no official orthography. All written works used Classical Latin, with very few exceptions...
, as Lydus cannot mean any early Italic dialect. Tages' recorded response is "in ancient letters", presumably in the Etruscan language
Etruscan language
The Etruscan language was spoken and written by the Etruscan civilization, in what is present-day Italy, in the ancient region of Etruria and in parts of Lombardy, Veneto, and Emilia-Romagna...
. Lydus says it is not very understandable, and that he relies on translations.
Representations of Tages
Labeled Etruscan representations of Tages are very rare, and scenes clearly tied to the Tages myth are almost as rare. Figures leaning on the lituusLituus
The word lituus originally meant a curved augural staff or a curved war-trumpet in the ancient Latin language. In English it is used with several meanings.-Roman ritual wand:...
, the crooked staff of the augur
Augur
The augur was a priest and official in the classical world, especially ancient Rome and Etruria. His main role was to interpret the will of the gods by studying the flight of birds: whether they are flying in groups/alone, what noises they make as they fly, direction of flight and what kind of...
, or examining entrails wearing the conical cap of the haruspex
Haruspex
In Roman and Etruscan religious practice, a haruspex was a man trained to practice a form of divination called haruspicy, hepatoscopy or hepatomancy. Haruspicy is the inspection of the entrails of sacrificed animals, especially the livers of sacrificed sheep and poultry...
, are common, but are not necessarily Tages. Winged figures, representing divinity, are also common, especially on funerary urns from Tarquinia
Tarquinia
Tarquinia, formerly Corneto and in Antiquity Tarquinii, is an ancient city in the province of Viterbo, Lazio, Italy.- History :Tarquinii is said to have been already a flourishing city when Demaratus of Corinth brought in Greek workmen...
, but whether any depict Tages is questionable. Assuming that a certain percentage of these representations are in fact Tages, there appears to be no standard way to depict him. Art historians have inserted Tages freely among them but entirely in a speculative fashion.
In addition to the labelled scene on the bronze mirror described above, which must have been repeated many times without labels, a type of scene engraved on 4th century BC
Anno Domini
and Before Christ are designations used to label or number years used with the Julian and Gregorian calendars....
gemstones, once set in seal rings, appears to describe the Tages myth. A bearded figure (Tarchon?) bends over as though listening at the head or head and torso of another, beardless figure embedded in or arising from the ground. On a similar theme is a 3rd century BC
Anno Domini
and Before Christ are designations used to label or number years used with the Julian and Gregorian calendars....
bronze votive statuette, 0.327 m (1.1 ft) high, from Tarquinia
Tarquinia
Tarquinia, formerly Corneto and in Antiquity Tarquinii, is an ancient city in the province of Viterbo, Lazio, Italy.- History :Tarquinii is said to have been already a flourishing city when Demaratus of Corinth brought in Greek workmen...
, of a sitting infant peering upward with an adult's head and visage.