A Genome-Wide Study of Modern-Day Tuscans: Revisiting Herodotus's Theory on the Origi

Yetos said:
ok I read it

I can not find transalations, but seems Greek archaiologists found etruscan religious remnants also in island of Tηνος Τinos before 800-700 BC

http://www.academia.edu/4681120/Χάρ...γίας-Ιστορικός_Η_ΑΡΧΑΙΑ_ΤΗΝΟΣ_ΣΤΟ_ΜΙΚΡΟΣΚΟΠΙΟ


also a Historian which even today no one dare to chalange him Thoukidides

The same winter the Megarians took and razed to the foundations the long walls which had been occupied by the Athenians; and Brasidas after the capture of Amphipolis marched with his allies against Acte, [2] a promontory running out from the king's dike with an inward curve, and ending in Athos, a lofty mountain looking towards the Aegean sea. [3] In it are various towns, Sane, an Andrian colony, close to the canal, and facing the sea in the direction of Euboea; the others being Thyssus, Cleone, Acrothoi, Olophyxus, [4] and Dium, inhabited by mixed barbarian races speaking the two languages. There is also a small Chalcidian element; but the greater number are Tyrrheno-Pelasgians once settled in Lemnos and Athens, and Bisaltians, Crestonians, and Edonians; the towns being all small ones. [5] Most of these came over to Brasidas; but Sane and Dium held out and saw their land ravaged by him and his army.
Click to expand...

Well, the conclusion of Briquet, and my conclusion after reading the chapter again, is that none of what these ancient writers say should be taken as a "scientific inquiry about the identity of a people."

As Briquet shows quite compellingly, I think, these ancient writers were not historians in the modern sense of the world. They wove together the stories of their gods and ancient heroes and modern cultural and trade associations into one big mish mash, and, as is the case for some people nowadays as well, they often had an agenda to promote.

Dionysius, as has been seen, supported the autochthonous origin. However, given the tenor of his entire work, some scholars believe he supported this theory largely to denigrate the Etruscans by showing them [FONT=&quot]not[/FONT] to be Greek or civilized, but rather the barbarian pirates of common Greek perception.

As to Herodotus' claim, I would suggest reading the whole chapter by Briquet; it's not very long. To recap it, it appears in a much longer exposition of who invented the games. In the course of it he says that the Lydians maintained that they invented the games at the same time that they sent some settlers to "Tyrrhenia". It doesn't seem they were necessarily correct about who invented the games, and, of course, the area around the northern Aegean was also called "Tyrrhenia" at one point. Meanwhile, the Etruscan/Tyrrenians called themselves Rasenna. You see how it goes?

Also, as has been pointed out, Lydians spoke an Indo-European language, and the Lydian historian of the 5th century BC, Xanthos, had, according to Dionysius, never heard of the story.

As for the "Pelasgian" theory of Hellicanus, among others, both the Greeks and the Etruscans promoted it, but from the explanation of Briquet, both the Greeks and the Etruscans, although sometimes rivals in trade, were also allies in trade, and it was in both their interests to support a theory whereby the Greeks and the Etruscans were somewhat related.

From the text:
"Etruscans were barbarians; this connected them with a people whom the Greeks represented as having been established on the soil of Hellas even before themselves and constituting the source of several Hellenic populations of later times (especially the Athenians presented by Herodotus 1.56 as the finest example of a Greek people descended from the Pelasgians.)...He well understood an aspect that would have been a positive in the eyes of the Greeks: being of Pelasgian origin, the Etruscans could be perceived, if not as Greeks in the strict sense (because they did not speak Greek) at least as related to a people with whom the Greeks were linked. In short, considered as ancient Pelasgians, the Etruscans were quasi-Hellenes."

This putative "Pelasgian" origin was also helpful to the Etruscans. "It is no coincidence either that around the time that Hellicanus developed the tradition of the Pelasgian origin of the Etruscans (firth century BC)... these two Etruscan cities (Spina and Caere) were centers of active trade with the Greek world. They presented themelves as founded by Pelasgians, highlighted their syngeneia" with this nearly Hellenic people, and conferred on themselves a prestigious foundation for the bonds of exchange and commercial partnership."

I'm quite aware that there are people who would interpret this claim by the Etruscans as meaning they must indeed descend from the "Pelasgians". The Etruscans are like a Rohrschack test; people see what they want to see.

In that regard it should be noted that the Pelasgian spoken, according to Herodotus, in Placia and Sylace near the Hellespont, and in Chalcidice , not in Cortona, as sometimes averred, is held by Dionysius not to resemble Etruscan at all. Well, at least it seems everyone is in agreement that Pelasgian was still spoken in some areas even at this late date. :)
Chalcidice is in Macedonia, by the way, so we are circling that area again...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalkidiki#/media/File:Nomos_Chalidikis.png

I'm rather persuaded by Briquet's conclusions about these stories: "Whether for the autochthonist thesis, or that identifying the Etruscans with the Pelasgians, or that they derived from Lydian colonists, their primary function was to account for the connections that existed at the time that these traditions were disseminated between the historical Etruscans and the Greeks. The meaning of a doctrine such as this, making the Etruscans natives, carried the corollary that they were mere Italian barbarians and were unrelated to Hellenism and its values: we recognize a development by hostile Greeks, probably the Syracusans at the time of their struggles against the Etruscans. The other two doctrines were rather favorable presentations: whether that of the Lydian origin...or that of the Pelasgian origin...With all of this we are far from scientific discourse."

I was particularly amused by the author's citation for a situation where, to facilitate trade, the Spartans asserted "brotherhood" with the Jews through their common origin from Abraham. Who knew? :)

That isn't to say that some historical memories might not have survived of an ancient population movement from the Aegean or other areas to the east into portions of Italy. We in fact know from archaeology that there was movement during the Bronze Age from Greece proper and Crete into Italy. The point is that we don't know if an additional migration happened specifically around 1000 BC to central Italy from either the northern Aegean or some other part of Anatolia, because the ancient writers contradict one another, and the stories are based on assertions that could be seen as agenda driven. I'm back to the beginning on this...[FONT=&quot]if [/FONT]it happened, we don't know if it happened around 900 to 1000 BC, we don't know from where, and we don't know what they were like autsomally. Hopefully we'll know more soon.

What we do know, as the author points out, is that " we cannot reduce a people to a single origin to account for all they have been in history. Every people has been the result of a melting pot, formed by the superposition and mixing of diverse elements. Any attempt to explain it in terms of origin is historically simplistic and wrong."
 
Angela said:
Well, the conclusion of Briquet, and my conclusion after reading the chapter again, is that none of what these ancient writers say should be taken as a "scientific inquiry about the identity of a people."

As Briquet shows quite compellingly, I think, these ancient writers were not historians in the modern sense of the world. They wove together the stories of their gods and ancient heroes and modern cultural and trade associations into one big mish mash, and, as is the case for some people nowadays as well, they often had an agenda to promote.

Dionysius, as has been seen, supported the autochthonous origin. However, given the tenor of his entire work, some scholars believe he supported this theory largely to denigrate the Etruscans by showing them not to be Greek or civilized, but rather the barbarian pirates of common Greek perception.

As to Herodotus' claim, I would suggest reading the whole chapter by Briquet; it's not very long. To recap it, it appears in a much longer exposition of who invented the games. In the course of it he says that the Lydians maintained that they invented the games at the same time that they sent some settlers to "Tyrrhenia". It doesn't seem they were necessarily correct about who invented the games, and, of course, the area around the northern aegean was also called "Tyrrhenia" at one point. Meanwhile, the Etruscan/Tyrrenians called themselves Rasenna. You see how it goes?

Also, as has been pointed out, Lydians spoke an Indo-European language, and the Lydian historian of the 5th century BC, Xanthos, had, according to Dionysius, never heard of the story.

As for the "Pelasgian" theory of Hellicanus, among others, both the Greeks and the Etruscans promoted it, but from the explanation of Briquet, both the Greeks and the Etruscans, although sometimes rivals in trade, were also allies in trade, and it was in both their interests to support a theory whereby the Greeks and the Etruscans were somewhat related.

From the text:
"Etruscans were barbarians; this connected them with a people whom the Greeks represented as having been established on the soil of Hellas even before themselves and constituting the source of several hellenic populations of later times (especially the Athenians presented by Herodotus 1.56 as the finest example of a Greek people descended from the Pelasgians.)...He well understood an aspect that would have been a positive in the eyes of the Greeks: being of Pelasgian origin, the Etruscans could be perceived, if not as Greeks in the strict sense (because they did not speak Greek) at least as related to a people with whom the Greeks were linked. In short, considered as ancient Pelasgians, the Etruscans were quasi hellenes."

This putative "Pelasgian" origin was also helpful to the Etruscans. "It is no coincidence either that around the time that Hellicanus developed the tradition of the Pelasgian origin of the Etruscans (firth century BC)... these two Etruscan cities (Spina and Caere) were centers of active trade with the Greek world. They presented themelves as founded by Pelasgians, highlighted their syngeneia" with this nearly Hellenic people, and conferred on themselves a prestigious foundation for the bonds of exchange and commercial partnership."

I'm quite aware that there are people who would interpret this claim by the Etruscans as meaning they must indeed descend from the "Pelasgians". The Etruscans are like a Rohrschack test; people see what they want to see.

In that regard it should be noted that the Pelasgian spoken, according to Herodotus, in Placia and Sylace near the Hellespont, and in Chalcidice , not in Cortona, as sometimes averred, is held by Dionysius not to resemble Etruscan at all. Well, at least it seems everyone is in agreement that Pelasgian was still spoken in some areas even at this late date. :)
Chalcidice is in Macedonia, by the way, so we are circling that area again...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalkidiki#/media/File:Nomos_Chalidikis.png

I'm rather persuaded by Briquet's conclusions about these stories: "Whether for the autochthonist thesis, or that identifying the Etruscans with the Pelasgians, or that they derived from Lydian colonists, their primary function was to account for the connections that existed at the time that these traditions were disseminated between the historical Etruscans and the Greeks. The meaning of a doctrine such as this, making the Etruscans natives, carried the corollary that they were mere Italian barbarians and were unrelated to Hellenism and its values: we recognize a development by hostile Greeks, probably the Syracusans at the time of their struggles against the Etruscans. The other two doctrines were rather favorable presentations: whether that of the Lydian origin...or that of the Pelasgian origin...With all of this we are far from scientific discourse."

I was particularly amused by the author's citation for a situation where, to facilitate trade, the Spartans asserted "brotherhood" with the Jews through their common origin from Abraham. Who knew? :)

That isn't to say that some historical memories might not have survived of an ancient population movement from the aegean or other areas to the east into portions of Italy. We in fact know from archaeology that there was movement during the Bronze Age from Greece proper and Crete into Italy. The point is that we don't know if an additional migration happened specifically around 1000 BC to central Italy from either the northern Aegean or some other part of Anatolia, because the ancient writers contradict one another, and the stories are based on assertions that could be seen as agenda driven. I'm back to the beginning on this...if it happened, we don't know if it happened around 900 to 1000 BC, we don't know from where, and we don't know what they were like autsomally. Hopefully we'll know more soon.

What we do know, as the author points out, is that " we cannot reduce a people to a single origin to account for all they have been in history. Every people has been the result of a melting pot, formed by the superposition and mixing of diverse elements. Any attempt to explain it in terms of origin is historically simplistic and wrong."
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let me keep my precautions,
cause for example Greeks accuse the Thyrrenians as women pirates,
Miltiades burns Lemnos to punish the Thyrrenians who once steall the women from Athens!!
now the point that Greeks puts Thyrrenians in North Aegean and West minor Asia, (pelasgian argos and Aktai generally) is correct as lemnian stele proved,
dating to Greek colonization and Greek nation unification movements, we see it follows the Etruscan first to West minor Asia, a possibly occupy the empty space after 800 BC,

Exonym and esonym has no meaning,
we call our shelves Hellenes, but all the rest call us Greeks so that means nothing,

now ok all lets admit ancient Greeks were try to connect thyrrenians with Lydians, but Lydians possibly learn IE same time with Hettit, and pre-Lydians are known that are connected with Kretans/ and still nobody is sure of what were Arzawa/Assuwa who stood against Hettit, on controversary, but also a Greek say that Σκοτουσα Pelasgiotis, pelasgion Argos in North Greece was build by Cretans, but were Cretans that split on the way from Crete to Italy!!!!

Lemnean stele does not say that Brutus is going to homeland, but West, away from homeland.

and the 'coinsidence'
Hattica and Parna etc were the Pelasgian/thyrrenians toponyms before IE take Athens, Athens was not Mycenean and possibly not in Troyan war!!!
Hattian and Thyrrenian are the 'lost' languages?, or the lost language?

etc,

so to my conclusion,
before lemnean stele we could say a lot,
but after that, we see also existance in Tinos island that stops!!!! that stops about 800-700 BC
coinsidence?
Pyrgi tablet!!! what can someone say?
strange but only Greeks Tyrros and Etruscans claim Hercules, before Alexander

ok I am waiting autosomals also, but I am certain of the result :laughing:
cause if Lemnean stele proved what Thoukidides wrote, surely that will prove more and more the correct of ancient writters
and the village that stele was found is named Καμινια kaminia Caminia, and also we know that another city of Thyrrenians was named καμικι-οις Kamiki Camiki
and odysseus went to the land of Seireinai and κυρνος kurnos Cyr-nos
 
Angela said:
Well, the conclusion of Briquet, and my conclusion after reading the chapter again, is that none of what these ancient writers say should be taken as a "scientific inquiry about the identity of a people."

As Briquet shows quite compellingly, I think, these ancient writers were not historians in the modern sense of the world. They wove together the stories of their gods and ancient heroes and modern cultural and trade associations into one big mish mash, and, as is the case for some people nowadays as well, they often had an agenda to promote.

(...)

What we do know, as the author points out, is that " we cannot reduce a people to a single origin to account for all they have been in history. Every people has been the result of a melting pot, formed by the superposition and mixing of diverse elements. Any attempt to explain it in terms of origin is historically simplistic and wrong."
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Thanks Angela. Briquel is certainly one of the most interesting Etruscologist. One can not speak of Etruscan without reading some Briquel's text.


Dominique Briquel, L'origine lydienne des Étrusques. Histoire de la doctrine dans l'Antiquité, 1990 (full text PDF)

http://www.persee.fr/web/ouvrages/home/prescript/article/efr_0000-0000_1990_ths_139_1_4502

Dominique Briquel, Les Pélasges en Italie. Recherches sur l'histoire de la légende, 1984 (full text PDF)

http://www.persee.fr/web/ouvrages/home/prescript/monographie/befar_0257-4101_1984_mon_252_1

Dominique Briquel, Visions étrusques de l'autochtonie, 1986 (full text PDF)

http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/dha_0755-7256_1986_num_12_1_1724

Dominique Briquel, Les Tyrrhènes, peuple des tours. Denys d'Halicarnasse et l'autochtonie des Étrusques, 1993 (full text PDF)

http://www.persee.fr/web/ouvrages/home/prescript/monographie/efr_0000-0000_1993_mon_178_1

Dominique Briquel, Le regard des Grecs sur l'Italie indigène, 1987 (full text PDF)

http://www.persee.fr/web/ouvrages/home/prescript/article/efr_0000-0000_1990_act_137_1_3903


 
Angela said:
As to the pigmentation of the Etruscans, their art, particularly the funerary art which depicts the upper class families and their servants, makes it clear that there were fair individuals amongst them. One also has to consider the conventions of the art of the time, where men were often depicted as darker than women, and also the fact that while Etruscan art is almost always unique in its motifs, attitudes, and what could be called its world view, it's undeniable that some aspects of it, whether created by Etruscans or imported Greek artisans, is derivative of the Greek art of the time. This all makes it very difficult to assign any sorts of percentages to the Etruscans in terms of these pigmentation issues which so fascinate some people.
tarquinia1.jpg


Tomb_painting4.jpg
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Besides the paintings of Etruscans by the Etruscans themselves, we can also get a general idea of what their average pigmentation was like from Roman-era statements on the subject. Martial characterized the Etruscans as "swarthy" in his Epigrams.
 
Drac II said:
Besides the paintings of Etruscans by the Etruscans themselves, we can also get a general idea of what their average pigmentation was like from Roman-era statements on the subject. Martial characterized the Etruscans as "swarthy" in his Epigrams.
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Actual quote from Martial, please.
 
Ancient Iberians were blonde and blue eyes lol
 
If you google the Latin original to Martial's epigram to Laelia it speaks of "coloratis (ie high-coloured)Etruscis" when the Latin for swarthy is "fuscus" or "adustus".
 
Reading the context of the epigram "ruddy" Etruscans makes more sense.
 
Vallicanus said:
If you google the Latin original to Martial's epigram to Laelia it speaks of "coloratis (ie high-coloured)Etruscis" when the Latin for swarthy is "fuscus" or "adustus".
Click to expand...

Indeed even with my modest knowledge of Latin: 'Cum tibi non Ephesos nec sit Rhodes aut Mityline, sed domus in uico, Laelia, Patricio, deque coloratis numquam lita mater Etrsuscis, durus Aricina de regione pater.' doesn't exactly translate into:

Though, Laelia, your home is not Ephesus, or Rhodes, or Mitylene, but a house in a patrician street at Rome; and though you had a mother from the swarthy Etruscans, who never painted her face in her life,
 
Drac II said:
http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/martial_epigrams_book10.htm

"Though, Laelia, your home is not Ephesus, or Rhodes, or Mitylene, but a house in a patrician street at Rome; and though you had a mother from the swarthy Etruscans, who never painted her face in her life, and a sturdy father from the plains of Aricia;"
Click to expand...

As other posters have pointed out, your translation of that quote is questionable.

Regardless, the discussion of phenotype arose because a poster seemed to imply that the presence of "fairer" people among the modern Tuscans must be a result of gene flow from Langobards. I pointed out that there were also "fair" people among the Etruscans. The source of those traits in terms of migration is unclear. There were fair Middle Neolithic farmers in central Europe. Whether there were any in Middle Neolithic Italy we don't yet know because we don't have any samples. There were "fairer" people among the Indo-Europeans, and there's an archaeological and linguistic trail from them into Italy as well, which could have filtered into the Villanovan culture.

As to whether any incoming migrations in the Bronze Age and/or beginning of the Iron Age may have changed the phenotype is impossible to determine at this point. Perhaps the analysis of the genomes of these "southern European" plotting Etruscans will include phenotype snps, although even if they reveal that they didn't possess many de-pigmentation snps we do have evidence from portraits that some Etruscans did possess them. More importantly, as to your point, we won't know until we get samples from, say, Lydia (although I doubt that is the source of any first millennium gene flow) and, say, the northern Aegean or, perhaps, Greece, what comparisons can be drawn. There's also the additional fact that whether or not the Etruscans were "swarthier" than the Romans, which, I would submit, your quote absolutely does not prove, this could be explained by the fact that the Etruscans retained more native "Neolithic" ancestry than the Romans, which would be supported by the fact that the Romans spoke an Indo-European language and the Etruscans spoke a language which some people, at least, believe to be a remnant Neolithic one.

So, I don't see how this quote gets us very far. Nor am I going to let this thread deteriorate into another pigmentation war.

Just generally, you seem to have an obsession with pigmentation, Drac II. Indeed, I fail to find any evidence in your posts of any interest in genetics, ancient or modern, other than a desire to prove that Spaniards are not "swarthy", and if forced to admit that they are, to prove that they are at least less swarthy than Italians.

I'm sure that from, say, a Swedish or Finnish perspective all southern Europeans might be described "swarthy", wouldn't you agree? Does that mean that there aren't "fairer" people among them? There's a lot more variation in southern Europe than in those countries, as you are at pains to point out for Spain at every possible opportunity. What's wrong with being "swarthy" anyway? Some of us have, indeed, a decided personal preference for a "Mediterranean look" whether in the Iberian, Italian, Greek, Balkan, or southern French variety.:)

Regardless, there are rules on this forum about harassment of other people. I think that could extend to harassment of other national groups on the basis of racist concerns having to do with pigmentation or "origin". This isn't Stormfront or even theapricity. I'm not inclined to tolerate it any longer no matter the source or the object. Be advised.

Ed. Hautville, there's no need to descend to that level, no matter the provocation.
 
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Drac II said:
http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/martial_epigrams_book10.htm

"Though, Laelia, your home is not Ephesus, or Rhodes, or Mitylene, but a house in a patrician street at Rome; and though you had a mother from the swarthy Etruscans, who never painted her face in her life, and a sturdy father from the plains of Aricia;"
Click to expand...

That's a 1800's translation! Extremely obsolete. There are other words for swarthy in Latin ("niger", "subniger", "fuscus", "nigrans") coloratis is more ambiguous and less strong. Litteraly is the past participle of verb coloro and means "to give a color to, color, tinge, dye". It could be also translated as "tinted, coloured, ruddy" and to a lesser extent as "sunburned", while Seneca used the term ("corpora colorata") with the meaning of healthy glow.

Martial was neither a historian nor a geographer but a satirical and parodistic poet of Iberian origin, lived in Rome in the 1st century AD; Martial is mocking Laelia because she uses Greek phrases with a strong non Greek accent and basically he is saying that she has not noble roots to act like that. These epigrams were written at the end of the 1st century AD (from 86 AD to 102 AD), when Etruscans were already assimilated by Romans and they had lost prestige and influence on the Romans.

Something similar happened to the Etruscan quarter in Rome, the Vicus Tuscus, that underwent a process of deterioration and vilification. Originally inhabited by Etruscans since the Rome foundation, also center of commercial activity in Rome and one of the city's bookselling districts, Vicus Tuscus was much later around the 1st century AD, at the time of Martial, associated with low life and prostitution when wasn't anymore inhabited by Etruscans only. Whatever is the true meaning of coloratis used by Martial, at his time a sunburned or tanned skin was a sign of poverty and rusticity, while a pale skin was essential for a rich Roman woman.

http://dlib.etc.ucla.edu/projects/Forum/resources/Richardson/Vicus_Tuscus

Due to the decline of the Vicus Tuscus, the term "tuscus" in Rome became synonym of a rude person, coarse, crude, and that's really ironic, Etruscans were much more sophisticated than Romans, especially than early Latin and Sabin shepherds. By the way this meaning survived in Spanish and Portuguese but not in Italian. Tuscans had their revenge on Rome 1000 years later, imposing popes, language and culture.

https://books.google.com/books?id=UxxwAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA630




LXVIII

Cum tibi non Ephesos nec sit Rhodos aut Mitylene,

Sed domus in vico, Laelia, patricio,

Deque coloratis numquam lita mater Etruscis,

Durus Aricina de regione pater;

5

Κύριέ μου, μέλι μου, ψυχή μου congeris usque,

- Pro pudor! - Hersiliae civis et Egeriae.

Lectulus has voces, nec lectulus audiat omnis,

Sed quem lascivo stravit amica viro.

Scire cupis quo casta modo matrona loquaris?

10

Numquid, cum crisas, blandior esse potes?

Tu licet ediscas totam referasque Corinthon,

Non tamen omnino, Laelia, Lais eris.
 
In the course of this research, I came upon the following:

The March 2015 edition of the Bryn Mawr Review contains a review of Giovanni Rapelli's work on the Etruscan language in which Bouk van der Meer of Leiden University disagrees with Rapelli's presumption that there was a migration of Etruscan speakers from northwest Anatolia, stating:

"As for Etruscan immigration(s) into Italy based on Herodotus and the non-Greek, Etruscoid Lemnian inscriptions, there is now evidence to the contrary: Etruscan pirates from Southern Etruria may have settled on Lemnos, around 700 BC or earlier and had been responsible for the inscriptions. Moreover, Carlo de Simone has definitely shown that Etruscan is not an Anatolian language.3 The Etruscan numerals, very characteristic elements of any language, do not have any parallels in Anatolian or other languages. "

http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2015/2015-03-02.html

This is the Carlo de Simone work to which he makes reference:
Carlo de Simone, “La nuova iscrizione ‘Tirsenica’ di Lemnos (Efestia, teatro): considerazioni generali”, Rasenna 2011, 1-34.

It may be in the new Italian language volume on the Etruscans or even in more recent papers. I'm going to try to hunt it down.

Oh, so much for the proposition that all Italian scholars come down on the side of an autochthonous origin. People have very quickly forgotten all the early autosomal studies and even some of the early mtDna studies by Italian researchers which came to the opposite conclusion. It would be nice if people on the internet gave Italian scholars (and hobbyists, for that matter), some respect as serious scholars trying to be as objective as possible.

Ed. I'm unsure why Beeks takes this position in 2015, when Carlo De Simone has maintained this for years, and in prior publications Beeks did not seem convinced.
 
Pax Augusta said:
That's a 1800's translation! Extremely obsolete. There are other words for swarthy in Latin ("niger", "subniger", "fuscus", "nigrans") coloratis is more ambiguous and less strong. Litteraly is the past participle of verb coloro and means "to give a color to, color, tinge, dye". It could be also translated as "tinted, coloured, ruddy" and to a lesser extent as "sunburned", while Seneca used the term ("corpora colorata") with the meaning of healthy glow.

Martial was neither a historian nor a geographer but a satirical and parodistic poet of Iberian origin, lived in Rome in the 1st century AD; Martial is mocking Laelia because she uses Greek phrases with a strong non Greek accent and basically he is saying that she has not noble roots to act like that. These epigrams were written at the end of the 1st century AD (from 86 AD to 102 AD), when Etruscans were already assimilated by Romans and they had lost prestige and influence on the Romans.

Something similar happened to the Etruscan quarter in Rome, the Vicus Tuscus, that underwent a process of deterioration and vilification. Originally inhabited by Etruscans since the Rome foundation, also center of commercial activity in Rome and one of the city's bookselling districts, Vicus Tuscus was much later around the 1st century AD, at the time of Martial, associated with low life and prostitution when wasn't anymore inhabited by Etruscans only. Whatever is the true meaning of coloratis used by Martial, at his time a sunburned or tanned skin was a sign of poverty and rusticity, while a pale skin was essential for a rich Roman woman.

http://dlib.etc.ucla.edu/projects/Forum/resources/Richardson/Vicus_Tuscus

Due to the decline of the Vicus Tuscus, the term "tuscus" in Rome became synonym of a rude person, coarse, crude, and that's really ironic, Etruscans were much more sophisticated than Romans, especially than early Latin and Sabin shepherds. By the way this meaning survived in Spanish and Portuguese but not in Italian. Tuscans had their revenge on Rome 1000 years later, imposing popes, language and culture.

https://books.google.com/books?id=UxxwAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA630




LXVIII

Cum tibi non Ephesos nec sit Rhodos aut Mitylene,

Sed domus in vico, Laelia, patricio,

Deque coloratis numquam lita mater Etruscis,

Durus Aricina de regione pater;

5

Κύριέ μου, μέλι μου, ψυχή μου congeris usque,

- Pro pudor! - Hersiliae civis et Egeriae.

Lectulus has voces, nec lectulus audiat omnis,

Sed quem lascivo stravit amica viro.

Scire cupis quo casta modo matrona loquaris?

10

Numquid, cum crisas, blandior esse potes?

Tu licet ediscas totam referasque Corinthon,

Non tamen omnino, Laelia, Lais eris.
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Martial was a Romanized Celtiberian, and he actually lived in Italy, so he was well acquainted with what the people from different areas there looked like.

The word "coloratus" can indeed mean "swarthy", among other similar meanings all relating to a darker complexion:

http://www.latin-dictionary.org/coloratus

So no, there is nothing wrong with the translation of the passage. In fact, this is the exact same word that Tacitus used to describe the Silures and Iberians, and which I don't see many people desperately trying to turn into something else just because some might incorrectly think the word "swarthy" means something like "black" or what have you. Martial applies the word in a similar way as Tacitus, but to the Etruscans.

Martial can hardly be accused of having something against the Etruscans since he was not a Roman to begin with, but a Celtiberian living in Rome, so he had no hidden agenda against Etruscans. He characterizes various other people as also having darker complexions (Egyptians, Indians, some Romans.)
 
Angela said:
As other posters have pointed out, your translation of that quote is questionable.

Regardless, the discussion of phenotype arose because a poster seemed to imply that the presence of "fairer" people among the modern Tuscans must be a result of gene flow from Langobards. I pointed out that there were also "fair" people among the Etruscans. The source of those traits in terms of migration is unclear. There were fair Middle Neolithic farmers in central Europe. Whether there were any in Middle Neolithic Italy we don't yet know because we don't have any samples. There were "fairer" people among the Indo-Europeans, and there's an archaeological and linguistic trail from them into Italy as well, which could have filtered into the Villanovan culture.

As to whether any incoming migrations in the Bronze Age and/or beginning of the Iron Age may have changed the phenotype is impossible to determine at this point. Perhaps the analysis of the genomes of these "southern European" plotting Etruscans will include phenotype snps, although even if they reveal that they didn't possess many de-pigmentation snps we do have evidence from portraits that some Etruscans did possess them. More importantly, as to your point, we won't know until we get samples from, say, Lydia (although I doubt that is the source of any first millennium gene flow) and, say, the northern Aegean or, perhaps, Greece, what comparisons can be drawn. There's also the additional fact that whether or not the Etruscans were "swarthier" than the Romans, which, I would submit, your quote absolutely does not prove, this could be explained by the fact that the Etruscans retained more native "Neolithic" ancestry than the Romans, which would be supported by the fact that the Romans spoke an Indo-European language and the Etruscans spoke a language which some people, at least, believe to be a remnant Neolithic one.

So, I don't see how this quote gets us very far. Nor am I going to let this thread deteriorate into another pigmentation war.

Just generally, you seem to have an obsession with pigmentation, Drac II. Indeed, I fail to find any evidence in your posts of any interest in genetics, ancient or modern, other than a desire to prove that Spaniards are not "swarthy", and if forced to admit that they are, to prove that they are at least less swarthy than Italians.

I'm sure that from, say, a Swedish or Finnish perspective all southern Europeans might be described "swarthy", wouldn't you agree? Does that mean that there aren't "fairer" people among them? There's a lot more variation in southern Europe than in those countries, as you are at pains to point out for Spain at every possible opportunity. What's wrong with being "swarthy" anyway? Some of us have, indeed, a decided personal preference for a "Mediterranean look" whether in the Iberian, Italian, Greek, Balkan, or southern French variety.:)

Regardless, there are rules on this forum about harassment of other people. I think that could extend to harassment of other national groups on the basis of racist concerns having to do with pigmentation or "origin". This isn't Stormfront or even theapricity. I'm not inclined to tolerate it any longer no matter the source or the object. Be advised.

Ed. Hautville, there's no need to descend to that level, no matter the provocation.
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It is not "my translation" but a very popular English translation of Martial's Epigrams. And the word in question can indeed mean "swarthy", no matter what some non-Latinists here have said.

As Alan explained in another thread, these "pigmentation" SNPs can be misleading, as the people who carry them may or may not show the pigmented/depigmented appearance.

I never denied that there were fairer people among Etruscans, only that both their own paintings and Martial's characterization of Etruscans as having a darker complexion gives us a good idea that the majority of them were of the darker types.

You should be directing your attacks against users like Hauteville, who as usual pulls out rants about "Iberians" whenever something he does not like is posted about Italians. I was actually sticking to the topic. Martial did characterize the Etruscans as having a darker complexion. Nothing wrong with my post.
 
Vallicanus said:
Interesting. Do you have any other literary descriptions of ancient Italian groups?
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I assume you mean pigmentation-wise. If so, yes, there are some others. The same Martial mentions what seems to be a belief of the time that Tivoli produced people with lighter complexions (he uses this to parody a certain "Lycoris", apparently a Roman woman, whom he teases for being obsessed to be lighter complexioned.) Catullus refers to the Lanuvians as dark complexioned.
 
Drac II said:
I assume you mean pigmentation-wise. If so, yes, there are some others. The same Martial mentions what seems to be a belief of the time that Tivoli produced people with lighter complexions (he uses this to parody a certain "Lycoris", apparently a Roman woman, whom he teases for being obsessed to be lighter complexioned.) Catullus refers to the Lanuvians as dark complexioned.
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Thanks for that so I'll ignore the jibe about me being a "non-Latinist".

Lanuvines were described as "ater dentatusque" ie dark and full-toothed".
 
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