History Repeats, and Repeats, and Repeats...

I picked this article up from visiting the site Delusion and Grandeur. (One of the links in his article leads to the one I posted below.) If you want to understand the present, look to the past. The celebration of homosexuality, infidelity, promiscuity, abortion, the denigration of marriage...these things aren't new. When they are accepted, it leads to societal collapse. (Let's not forget how decadent is music and art).

I am reminded of Xerxes and his extraordinarily decadent court in the movie 300.

"Etruscan Sexuality"

"Many Greek and Roman authors including Theopompus of Chios and Plato referred to the Etruscans as immoral. During later Roman times, the word Etruscan was almost synonomous with prostitute, and Livy's histories moralise about the rape of Lucretia, where Roman women are seen as virtuous model wives in comparison to their liberated Etruscan counterparts. On this site we shall examine the evidence given by these sources and also from Necropolis art such as the 'Tomb of the Bulls' in Tarquinia.

"Athenaeus, a Greek grammarian of the 3rd Century CE came too late to give a personal eye-witness account of Etruscan life-style, and had to rely instead on the accounts of Timaeus and Theopompus who both lived in the 4th Century BCE.

"According to Timaeus:

"'Among the Etruscans who had become extravagantly luxurious, it is customary for the slave girls to wait on the men naked....'

"Sharing wives is an established Etruscan custom. Etruscan women take particular care of their bodies and exercise often, sometimes along with the men, and sometimes by themselves. It is not a disgrace for them to be seen naked. They do not share their couches with their husbands but with the other men who happen to be present, and they propose toasts to anyone they choose. They are expert drinkers and very attractive.

"The Etruscans raise all the children that are born, without knowing who their fathers are. The children live the way their parents live, often attending drinking parties and having sexual relations with all the women. It is no disgrace for them to do anything in the open, or to be seen having it done to them, for they consider it a native custom. So far from thinking it disgraceful, they say when someone ask to see the master of the house, and he is making love, that he is doing so-and-so, calling the indecent action by its name.

"When they are having sexual relations either with courtesans or within their family, they do as follows: after they have stopped drinking and are about to go to bed, while the lamps are still lit, servants bring in courtesans, or boys, or sometimes even their wives. And when they have enjoyed these they bring in boys, and make love to them. They sometimes make love and have intercourse while people are watching them, but most of the time they put screens woven of sticks around the beds, and throw cloths on top of them.

"They are keen on making love to women, but they particularly enjoy boys and youths. The youths in Etruria are very good-looking, because they live in luxury and keep their bodies smooth. In fact all the barbarians in the West use pitch to pull out and shave off the hair on their bodies.

"Dionysius of Halicarnassus wrote in the first century BCE:

"'The Tyrrhenians were a people of dainty and expensive tastes, both at home and in the field, carrying about with them, besides the necessities, costly and artistic articles of all kinds designed for pleasure and luxury."

"This shows that perhaps Etruscan society had a high acceptance level of homosexuality. The city of Pompeii was founded by the Etruscans as part of their expansion in Campania. Although captured by the Samnites in the 4th Century, and later by the Romans,it retained many of the customs introduced by the Etruscans, in common with Capua, the Urbs princeps of the Campania league. We have a very good understanding of sexuality among the Pompeians during the 1st Century CE, although to correlate this with Etruscan habitation of Pompeii requires a trained imagination. In Pompeii, all variations of sexuality were openly and blatantly pursued. Here, homosexuality, group orgies and even pedophilia were widely accepted as normal behaviour.

"It has been variously argued, that the mores of Pompeii were influenced by the Samnites, the Greeks, or that they reflected the norm in general Etruscan society.

"The fact that the imagery is used so blatantly in tombs tends to reinforce the belief that Etruscan society was much more permissive than other contemporary societies. Some authors have drawn parallels with present day US society, from the perspective of the fact that both are very open societies, and with a high immigrant population. My own opinion is that we should exercise extreme caution when comparing modern societies with their ancient counterparts.

"Livy on Lucretia

"'The royal princes sometimes spent their leisure hours in feasting and entertainments, and at a wine party given by Sextus Tarquinius at which Collatinus, the son of Egerius, was present, the conversation happened to turn upon their wives, and each began to speak of his own in terms of extraordinarily high praise. As the dispute became warm Collatinu said that there was no need of words, it could in a few hours be ascertained how far his Lucretia was superior to all the rest. 'Why do we not,' he exclaimed, 'if we have any youthful vigour about us mount our horses and pay your wives a visit and find out their characters on the spot?'

"While other wives were found in various states of wantonness, Lucretia was:

"'very differently employed from the king's daughters-in-law, whom they had seen passing their time in feasting and luxury with their acquaintances. She was sitting at her wool work in the hall, late at night, with her, maids busy round her. The palm in this competition of wifely virtue was awarded to Lucretia.'

"'Her virtue only served to make her the target of Sextus Tarquin. Livy goes on to say that:

"'Sextus Tarquin, inflamed by the beauty and exemplary purity of Lucretia, formed the vile project of effecting her dishonour.'

"Sextus Tarquin 'went in the frenzy of his passion with a naked sword to the sleeping Lucretia, and placing his left hand on her breast, said, 'Silence, Lucretia! I am Sextus Tarquin, and I have a sword in my hand; if you utter a word, you shall die.' When the woman, terrified out of her sleep, saw that no help was near, and instant death threatening her, Tarquin began to confess his passion, pleaded, used threats as well as entreaties, and employed every argument likely to influence a female heart...he threatened to disgrace her, declaring that he would lay the naked corpse of the slave by her dead body, so that it might be said that she had been slain in foul adultery. By this awful threat, his lust triumphed over her inflexible chastity, and Tarquin went off exulting in having successfully attacked her honour. Lucretia, overwhelmed with grief at such a frightful outrage, sent a messenger to her father at Rome and to her husband at Ardea, asking them to come to her...'

"Her husband and father at her side, they attempted to console her, philosophically explaining that: 'it is the mind that sins not the body, and where there has been no consent there is no guilt.'

"Nevertheless, Lucretia could not bear to live with her honour forsaken. 'She had a knife concealed in her dress which she plunged into her, heart, and fell dying on the floor. Her father and husband raised the death-cry.'"