The knowledge of the Etruscan language was preserved all through antiquity by the Etruscan soothsayers. The emperor Claudius was versed in Etruscan, and delivered a long address in the Senate about the preservation of the old Etruscan ritual against the invasion of new, oriental elements. The other emperors had, as a rule, an Etruscan soothsayer in their suite, whom they consulted before taking any important step, and this custom survived down to the introduction of Christianity. Julian the Apostate was accompanied by hosts of Etruscan soothsayers, who, however, undoubtedly read the sacred books in the Latin translation by Tarquitius Priscus,[98] and, as late as 408, we learn that Tuscan soothsayers and scribes still existed. If any of them at that time could still read the language, then Etruscan, as a dead and sacred language, had survived the disappearance of the people by about half a millennium.[99] [Illustration: FIG. 35. DEMON IN THE TOMBA DELL’ ORCO] FOOTNOTES: [90] Livy iv. 37. 1-2. [91] Livy v. 22. 8. [92] Livy xxvii. 21. 6; 38. 6. [93] Livy xxviii. 45. 14-18. [94] Plutarch, _Tiberius Gracchus_ 8. [95] As a punishment because the country had joined the party of Marius. Plutarch, _Marius_ 41. [96] Cicero, _Pro Milone_ 26, 74, 87. [97] ii. 1. 29. The later authors speak of nothing but the corpulency and imbecility of the Etruscans. Catullus, _Carm._ 39. 21. Virgil, _Georg._ ii. 193; _Aen._ xi. 732. Diodorus v. 40. [98] Thulin, Pauly-Wissowa, vii. 2434. [99] The best summary view of the Etruscan civilization is still to be found in Ottfried Müller, _Die Etrusker_, in the second edition by Deecke. XVI To this long, sad period of national decline the later group of Etruscan tomb-paintings and reliefs on cinerary urns form a remarkable and melancholy accompaniment. [Sidenote: TOMBA DELL’ ORCO] The continuity is unbroken; the new creeps in, at first, without superseding the old subjects. This is especially clear in the front room of the Tomba dell’ Orco, which dates from the latter part of the fifth century, and from which we reproduced the beautiful married couple at the symposium (figs. 28, 29); in the same sepulchral chamber we see in a corner, beneath a finely stylized vine, a terrible death demon, with large wings and a shock of wildly fluttering reddish hair, which is sharply outlined on a blue background as if it were surrounded by a halo. His beard is pointed, his nose terminates in an eagle’s beak; over his shoulder a snake rears itself, and the latchets of his shoes are snakes. His dress consists of a sleeved chiton with belt and shoulder-straps, and in his hand he carries a torch or a hammer. The eyes roll horribly in the bluish face; the colour of the skin recalls the blue-bottle fly (fig. 35). [Sidenote: UNDERWORLD SCENES]