Etruscan religion

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Etruscan religion comprises a set of stories, beliefs, and religious practices of the Etruscan civilization, heavily influenced by the mythology of ancient Greece, and sharing similarities with concurrent Roman mythology and religion. As the Etruscan civilization was gradually assimilated into the Roman Republic from the 4th century BC, the Etruscan religion and mythology were partially incorporated into ancient Roman culture, following the Roman tendency to absorb some of the local gods and customs of conquered lands. The first attestations of an Etruscan religion can be traced back to the Villanovan culture.^[1]

Despite the massive Greek influences and its mixed character, the Etruscan religion is at its core completely un-Greek, as it proclaims the total submission of man to the divine will, compared to which man is nothing. For the Etruscans, their religion was therefore of central importance and reached deep into the way they lead their individual lives. The template and regulations for this were provided by the so-called Etrusca disciplina (from Latin disciplina: teaching, instruction, science), consisting of books that were strictly guarded by the priests as secret knowledge and contained precise instructions for conducting oracles. In ancient times, this Etrusca disciplina - the teaching of the interpretation of divine signals, i.e. the technique of divination (from Latin divinare: to have a divine inspiration) and of the correct handling of the world of the gods - was famous far beyond Etruria. Liver examination (haruspex), the interpretation of bird flight (augury) and lightning (fulgural discipline) were just as much a part of this teaching as the correct procedure for land surveying, administration or the construction of water pipes. However, the original texts of the disciplines were largely lost by Roman times. The associated cosmology is extremely complex and also only preserved in outline.