It is to be hoped that future investigation may throw some light on this point, and may also deal with the question whether the oft-recurring motive on the Roman sarcophagi of two genii holding a cloth (parapetasma) between them, as a background either for a scene or for the portrait of the deceased (fig. 44), can be traced to Etruscan prototypes or not. Hitherto, we have probably been too one-sided in attributing the types and symbols of the plastic art of Roman sarcophagi to Greek pictures, and the investigation of the share of Etruria therein would be a fine subject for a monograph. FOOTNOTES: [108] Livy vii. 17. 3-5. Cp. iv. 33. 2. [109] Pausanias x. 28. 7-8. [110] Sophocles, _Ajax_ 17. Aeschylus, _Eumenides_ 567. Euripides, _Rhesus_ 988. [111] Cicero, _De divinatione_ i. 30. Plutarch, _Camillus_ 32. [112] An Etruscan gem shows the dead Ajax and a winged genius in the act of placing the cerecloth over him. Beazley, _The Lewes House Collection of Ancient Gems_, p. 34., no. 37. [113] Plutarch, _Aetia romana_ 26 and 14. XVIII [Sidenote: ETRUSCAN DEMONS] [Sidenote: TOMBA DEL TIFONE] But the benevolent genii and Lasas are absolutely in the minority in the paintings and plastic art of Etruria, and become rarer as time goes on. The mood rises from sinister gloom to wild terror. Two pictures will illustrate this climax. In the Tomba del Tifone at Corneto, which was discovered in 1832 and which is one of the grandest of the family vaults of Etruria, there is preserved, besides the serpent-legged demons from which the tomb has derived its name, a large wall-painting representing the journey of a young man to the realm of the dead (fig. 45). To the left is seen an altar towards which the procession of mantle-clad youths moves; they are led by a young demon with snakes in his hair, and a torch and a snake in his hands. The procession advances to the sound of a lituus-trumpet, and the young men carry staves and seem to be the clients of the central figure. The central figure is made conspicuous by walking without any attributes in the centre of the procession right in the front, but over his right shoulder we see Charun’s clawlike hand, and Charun advances behind him like a black shadow, characterized by pointed asses’ ears, snakes in his hair, and his terrible hammer. The high rank of the young man is made apparent by the inscription over his head: ‘Laris Pumpus Arnthal clan cechase,’ i. e. Laris Pumpus, son of Arnth, priest (_sacerdos_). Here, then, we have another of the priestly aristocrats of Etruria. After him come two more companions with staffs, and a trumpeter,[114] as well as two young men without any attributes, and the scene is terminated by some dim figures, one of which seems to be a woman with a snake in her hair and another to be of negroid type; possibly these are the rulers of the underworld according to a later local Etruscan conception. One thing,