Demons and Forgetting in Etruscan Homeric Art

Abstract

Abstract This paper examines the inclusion of Etruscan demons such as Charun and Vanth in Homeric art, using the François Tomb as a case study. The combination of Greek and Etruscan figures is often described as a “patchwork” of influences. I argue that the “patchwork” approach is anachronistic and that fourth-century viewers would not have seen such a dichotomous opposition between Etruscan demons and Greek myths. Anthropological memory theory supplies a new framework for understanding the inclusion of Greek myths in the Etruscan pantheon. I argue that the François Tomb was the end product of a centuries-long process of forgetting: the Greek origin of the Homeric myths was no longer felt as acutely in the fourth century as when the two cultures first made contact. By the fourth century, the blending was not a calculated change or an attempt to show off foreign knowledge. It was a representation of the Etruscans’ own cultural memory, adapted over three centuries of Greek contact to become a syncretic system.