To the right of the wrestlers, on the same main wall, is a particularly
interesting representation: beneath the inscription Phersu, a man,
dressed and masked like a punchinello, is leading a dog in a long leash
which is wound round his antagonist and ends in a wooden collar round
the neck of the dog. The ferocious blood-hound has inflicted bleeding
wounds on the legs and thighs of the antagonist, and the antagonist,
whose head is muffled in a sack, is vainly trying to disentangle
himself from the leash and to hit the dog with a club. The explanation
of this exciting and brutal contest, to which no parallel can be found
in Greek art, is evidently that Phersu tries to make his dog bite his
antagonist to death before the latter can get his head out of the sack
and hit man and dog with his club. If the club-bearer succeeds in
freeing himself from the sack and the dog, Phersu has only one chance:
to run away. As runner, he has his legs stiffened with thongs, and in
the much damaged fresco on the left main wall of the tomb we see the
flight of Phersu (fig. 5) and (not reproduced) the club-bearer pursuing
him. They are separated by a pair of pugilists who are boxing to the
accompaniment of flutes, again an evidence of Etruscan indifference to
incongruities in the composition. The escaping Phersu is painted alone
in another tomb at Corneto, the Tomba del Pulcinella, the name of which
is derived from this figure, but here he is placed beside a horseman
(fig. 6), who represents the equestrian processions at funerals, to
which we shall turn our attention later. The Tomba del Pulcinella,
which was discovered in 1872, also dates from the sixth century B.C.,
and like the Tomb of the Augur it bears the stamp of Ionic art,
especially in the receding contours of the crown of the head and in the
plump forms of the body.
[Illustration: FIG. 4. RIGHT MAIN WALL IN THE TOMBA DEGLI AUGURI]
[Illustration: FIG. 5. PART OF THE LEFT MAIN WALL IN THE TOMBA DEGLI
AUGURI
After a coloured drawing in the Helbig Museum]
[Illustration: FIG. 6. PAINTING FROM THE TOMBA DEL PULCINELLA]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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