The Etruscans have ever been a puzzle to historians and one of the principal enigmas in ethnology. Entirely unlike the Hellenic or Italiote races in appearance as well as in customs, even the ancients were at a loss to surmise whence this remarkable people originated. Dionysius says, "they claimed alliance with no people in the world." Inquiry regarding them would not be so interesting, were it not that they have left such an abundance of proofs of their proficiency in art and advancement in civilized industry. At the time of which we are writing, they possessed the very respectable beginning of a literature. We have nearly two thousand of their inscriptions; but hardly a word are we able to interpret, for the Etruscan language is to-day what the Egyptian hieroglyphics were before Champollion. These people were the artists and the manufacturers for all Italy. In the museums of Europe are to be seen specimens of their art, such as statues, beautifully ornamented vases, bas-reliefs, and jewelry, which can but excite the wonder of the beholder by the richness of their execution. Their tombs have been found to contain great quantities of such treasures, which they were in the habit of burying with their chiefs. Reclining on one of these tombs are the carved effigies of a man and his wife, represented as though resting upon a couch. If these figures give as correct an idea of the appearance of the Etruscans as they indicate artistic ability, they were a thickset people, with retreating foreheads, aquiline noses, and eyes rather oblique--all suggestive of the Asiatic type. The barbarous religious ideas of the Etruscans rendered the race gloomy and fatalistic. Their priests were supposed to be experts in divining the future; and their gods often required to be propitiated with human sacrifices. Their civilization had a powerful effect upon that of Rome. In Etruria women were treated with a respect unusual among the races of that time; and it may have been owing to this influence that the women of Rome enjoyed so much more liberty than their sisters of Greece. On the other hand, to the Etruscans' characteristic delight in cruel sports has been attributed the introduction of gladiatorial contests in the arena at Rome.