the other by imperceptible gradations, but the influence of Etruria on Rome not only led to nothing but was in itself of a most superficial sort.  Etruria must have had some literature, yet we search the history of Roman literature in vain for any traces of the influence of that literature on Rome, with the one exception of books on divination and the interpretation of lightning.  We know too little of her manners and customs to be able to tell exactly how much they may have influenced Rome, and yet it is worth noting that the things which Roman writers actually refer to Etruria, are all of them most superficial:  a few of the insignia of political office; a few of the trappings of one or two ritualistic acts; a branch of divination, by the consultation of the entrails (haruspicina), which was of secondary importance compared to augury; and the most depraved form of Roman public sport, the gladiatorial games.  The only fundamental institution of Rome which it is the habit to ascribe to Etruria, the idea of the so-called templum or division of the sky into regions as an axiom of augury, seems to have been quite as much a general Italic idea as a specifically Etruscan one.  Even in art her influence was relatively slight, and though her architects seem to have built the earliest formal temples for Rome, they were soon succeeded in this work by the Greeks.  We seek in vain for a complete and satisfactory explanation of this limitation of her influence, but certain thoughts suggest themselves, which, as far as they go, are probably correct.  All that we know of Etruria impresses us with the fact that hers was an outward civilisation unaccompanied by an inward culture, that it was a formal rather than a spiritual growth, an artificial acquisition from without rather than a development from within outwards.  It was strong but with its strength went brutality, it was interested in art but for its sensual rather than its spiritual aspects.  Now the idealism of youth is present in nations just as in individuals, though probably a nation is less conscious of it than an individual.  It is with the nation one of the effects of the instinct of self-preservation, and for a youthful nation to absorb the vices of an old decadent one would be self-destruction.  Thus the youthful Rome rejected most of the Etruscan poison, and thus nature purified herself, and Etruria was buried in the pit of her own nastiness.

There was however one town which acted as an interpreter between Rome and Etruria, and was the original cult-centre for a very great goddess, spreading her cult in both directions, into Rome and into Etruria.  The town was Falerii and the goddess was Minerva, who in a certain sense entered Rome three times, once direct from Falerii to Rome, and once from Falerii to Rome by way of Etruria, and finally, when Falerii was captured by the Romans, again direct to Rome.  In the earliest period there are scarcely any traces of the worship of Minerva