[41] Aristotle, _fragm._ 519 R. Scholia to Homer’s _Iliad_ xxiii. 130. A similar dancer or armed runner appears in the Tomba Casuccini at Chiusi; both remind us in posture of the Tübingen armed runner (Bulle, _Der schöne Mensch_, pl. 89). IX [Sidenote: TOMBA DELLE BIGHE SYMPOSIUM] Similar incongruities, due to Greek artists, or at any rate Greek art, having set a Greek stamp on the wall-painting of Etruria, meet us in the representations of _symposia_. Again we can take the Bighe tomb as our starting-point (fig. 23).[42] Three festive couches are seen with two young men on each. The youths are naked to the waist, and have sumptuous gold necklaces, red or blue mantles, and chaplets on their heads. Some of them hold flat drinking-bowls, some eggs, and others have branches in their hands—all this, however, we only learn from the old copies: they are reclining on metal couches, whereas the tables in front of them are wooden, as is clearly proved by the colours employed. We may wonder that the couches are of metal, for according to the literary tradition the first metal couches came to Rome as late as 187 B.C. Nevertheless, ivory and golden couches are already mentioned by Plautus; this may, however, be due to the Greek text on which he based his comedy (_Stichus_ 377). The Etruscans, at any rate, knew bronze couches at least three hundred years earlier, and this is corroborated by the find of an actual bronze banqueting-couch in a tomb at Corneto.[43] The couches are covered with many-coloured woven or embroidered bolsters and cushions; these also are mentioned in the Roman comedies as ornaments of couches.[44] Ducks appear beneath the couches, and the guests are attended by three naked lads: a flute-player, a boy holding a branch, and another with a ladle, which are wrongly reproduced in the Ny Carlsberg facsimile as a staff. The symposium has begun, the tables having been cleared. Only young beardless men are seen feasting together, and nothing informs us who they are or why they are drinking. All that is certain is the luxury and pomp which seem to have characterized Etruscan houses and which are especially manifest in the jingling necklaces and the material and appointment of the festive couch. [Illustration: FIG. 24. BACK WALL IN THE TOMBA DEI LEOPARDI After Arch. Jahrb. 1916, pl. 9] [Illustration: FIG. 25. MARRIED COUPLE ON AN ETRUSCAN CINERARY URN] [Sidenote: TOMBA DEI LEOPARDI—HUNTING LEOPARDS]