That a belief in a future existence formed a prominent and controlling feature in the creed of the Etruscans4 is abundantly shown by the contents of their tombs. They would never have produced and preserved paintings, tracings, types, of such a character and in such quantities, had not the doctrines they shadow forth possessed a ruling hold upon their hopes and fears. The symbolic representations connected with this subject may be arranged in several classes. First, there is an innumerable variety of death bed scenes, many of them of the most touching and pathetic character, such as witnesses say can scarcely be looked upon without tears, others of the most appalling nature, showing perfect abandonment to fright, screams, sobbing, and despair. The last hour is described under all circumstances, coming to all sorts of persons, prince, priest, peasant, man, mother, and child. Patriarchs are dying surrounded by groups in every posture of grief; friends are waving a mournful farewell to their weeping lovers; wives are torn from the embrace of their husbands; some seem resigned and willingly going, others reluctant and driven in terror. The next series of engravings contain descriptions and emblems of the departure of the soul from this world, and of its passage into the next. There are various symbols of this mysterious transition: one is a snake with a boy riding upon its back, its amphibious nature plainly typifying the twofold existence allotted to man. The soul is also often shown muffled in a veil and travelling garb, seated upon a horse, and followed by a slave carrying a large sack of provisions, an emblem of the long and dreary journey about to be taken. Horses are depicted harnessed to cars in which disembodied spirits are seated, a token of the swift ride 3 Saturnal. lib. i. cap. 7. 4 Dennis, Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria, ch. xii. of the dead to their doom. Sometimes the soul is gently invited, or led, by a good spirit, sometimes beaten, or dragged away, by the squalid and savage Charun, the horrible death king, or one of his ministers; sometimes a good and an evil spirit are seen contending for the soul; sometimes the soul is seen, on its knees, beseeching the aid of its good genius and grasping at his departing wing, as, with averted face, he is retiring; and sometimes the good and the evil spirits are leading it away together, to abide the sentence of the tribunal of Mantus. Whole companies of souls are also set forth marching in procession, under the guidance of a winged genius, to their subterranean abode.