Editing Tages

{{Short description|Etruscan prophet}}
{{Other uses}}
{{primary sources|date=December 2019}}
[[File:Tarquinia - Ara della Regina.jpg|thumb|Foundation of Etruscan temple at [[Tarquinia]], scene of the Tages legend.]]
[[File:Furrows of arable land in Umbria.png|thumb|Furrows of the arable land in Umbria]]

'''Tages''' was claimed as a founding [[prophet]] of [[Etruscan mythology|Etruscan religion]] who is known from reports by Latin authors of the late [[Roman Republic]] and [[Roman Empire]]. He revealed a cosmic view of divinity and correct methods of ascertaining divine will concerning events of public interest. Such [[divination]] was undertaken in Roman society by priestly officials called [[haruspex|''haruspices'']].

The [[religious text]]s recording the revelations of Tages (and a few other prophets, mainly a female figure known as [[Vegoia]]) were called by the Romans the ''Etrusca Disciplina'' at least as early as the late republic. They were written in the [[Etruscan language]], despite their Latin titles. None presently survive. The last author claiming to have read elements of the ''disciplina'' is the sixth-century [[John the Lydian]], writing at [[Constantinople]].<ref name=Lydus>{{cite book|author=Lydus|title=De Ostentis|year=1897|url=https://archive.org/details/ioannislaurentii00lydu|chapter=2.6.B|publisher=Lipsiae, in aedibus B.G. Teubneri}}</ref> Thus, knowledge of Tages comes mainly from what is said about him by the classical authors, which is a legendary and quasimythical view; John the Lydian suggested Tages is only a parable.

==Etymology==
As the [[Etruscan alphabet]] had no '[[G]]', Tages is most likely a Latinization of an Etruscan word. The reverse of a third-century&nbsp;[[Anno Domini|BC]] bronze mirror from [[Tuscania]] depicts a youthful ''[[haruspex]]'' in a conical hat examining a liver. He is labeled ''pavatarchies''. A second, older ''haruspex'' with a beard listens and is labeled ''avl tarchunus''. [[Massimo Pallottino]] made the generally accepted suggestion that the first name is to be segmented ''pava Tarchies'' and means "the child, Tarchies." The second name is "the son of Tarchon", where Tarchon is the legendary king of [[Tarquinia]], location of Tages' revelation, and also one of the founders of the Etruscan League. <!-- Another representation of a nude bearded male with boots, mantle and spear is marked ''Veltune'', the Etruscan for [[Vertumnus]], said by Varro (rightly or wrongly) to be "the principal deity of Etruria". !-- this is not relevant to Tages--><ref>{{Cite book|chapter=The Religion of the Etruscans|editor-first=Nancy Thomson|editor-last=De Grummond|editor2-first=Erika|editor2-last=Simon|publisher=University of Texas Press|location=Austin|year=2006|isbn=0-292-70687-1|first=Nancy Thomson|last=de Grummond|title=Prophets and Priests|page=29}}</ref>

Gm. M. Facchetti proposed an alternative hypothesis linking the name to the repetitive Etruscan stem thac-/thax, which he interprets as 'voice'.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.academia.edu/45186231|title = Alcune osservazioni linguistiche sul nome di Tagete, in "AION", 9 (N.s.), 2020 (Giulio M. Facchetti)|last1 = Facchetti|first1 = Giulio Mauro}}</ref>

==Legend==
There are multiple versions of the origins of Tages.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Pallottino|first=Massimo|date=1930|title=Uno Specchio di Tuscania E la leggenda di Tarchon|journal=Rend. Acc. Real.|volume=6|pages=49–87}}</ref> Broadly Tages appeared from the earth while an Etruscan was ploughing, and then taught Etruscans [[divination]]. He is sometimes the grandson of [[Jove]].<ref name=Festus>{{cite book|author=Festus|title=De significatu verborum|chapter=359.14|quote=A boy named Tages, the son of Genius, grandson of Jupiter ...}}</ref> [[Cicero]]<ref>{{cite book|first=Marcus Tullius|last=Cicero|title=''On Divination''|chapter=II.50-51}}</ref> reports the myth in this way:<blockquote>They tell us that one day as the land was being ploughed in the territory of [[Tarquinii]], and a deeper furrow than usual was made, suddenly Tages sprang out of it and addressed the ploughman.  Tages, as it is recorded in the works of the Etrurians (''Libri Etruscorum''), possessed the visage of a child, but the prudence of a sage.  When the ploughman was surprised at seeing him, and in his astonishment made a great outcry, a number of people assembled around him, and before long all the Etrurians came together at the spot. Tages then discoursed in the presence of an immense crowd, who noted his speech and committed it to writing. The information they derived from this Tages was the foundation of the science of the soothsayers (''haruspicinae disciplina''), and was subsequently improved by the accession of many new facts, all of which confirmed the same principles. We received this record from them. This record is preserved in their sacred books, and from it the augurial discipline is deduced.</blockquote>

In [[Ovid]]'s version,<ref>{{cite book|chapter-url=https://la.wikisource.org/wiki/Metamorphoses_(Ovidius)/Liber_XV|title=Metamorphoses|last=Ovidius Naso|first=Publius|chapter=15, lines 553-559}}</ref> ''Tyrrhenus arator'' ("a Tyrrhenian ploughman") observed a clod turn into a man and begin to speak of things destined to happen and how the Etruscan people could discover the future.

==Etrusca disciplina==
[[Joannes Laurentius Lydus]] lived in the sixth&nbsp;century&nbsp;[[AD]]. Although the last classical-period writer to have read the books, he is the most specific about his sources. He implies<ref name=Lydus/> that he read "the texts of the Etruscans"; that is, the ''Etrusca Disciplina'', including the report of the ''[[haruspex]]'', [[Tarchon]], who was instructed by [[Tyrrhenus]]. Tarchon's work on Tages, he says, is a dialogue in which Tarchon asks Tages questions in "the ordinary language of the Italians". This is presumably [[Vulgar Latin]], as Lydus cannot mean any early Italic dialect. Tages' recorded response is "in ancient letters", presumably in the [[Etruscan language]]. Lydus says it is not very understandable, and that he relies on translations.

==Representations of Tages==
Labeled Etruscan representations of Tages are very rare, and scenes clearly tied to the Tages myth are almost as rare. Figures leaning on the ''[[lituus]]'', the crooked staff of the ''[[augur]]'', or examining entrails wearing the conical cap of the ''haruspex'', are common, but are not necessarily Tages. Winged figures, representing divinity, are also common, especially on funerary urns from [[Tarquinia]], but whether any depict Tages is questionable. Assuming that a certain percentage of these representations are, in fact, Tages, there appears to be no standard way to depict him. Art historians have inserted Tages freely among them but entirely in a speculative fashion.

In addition to the labelled scene on the bronze mirror described above, which must have been repeated many times without labels, a type of scene engraved on fourth-century&nbsp;[[Anno Domini|BC]] gemstones, once set in seal rings, appears to describe the Tages myth. A bearded figure (Tarchon?) bends over as though listening at the head or head and torso of another, beardless figure embedded in or arising from the ground.<ref>{{cite book|pages=26–27|title=Etruscan myth, sacred history, and legend|first=Nancy |last=Thomson De Grummond|location=Philadelphia, PA|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology|year=2006}}</ref> On a similar theme is a third-century&nbsp;BC bronze votive statuette, {{convert|.327|m|ft|abbr=on}} high, from Tarquinia, of a sitting infant peering upward with an adult's head and visage.<ref>{{cite web|title=Museo Gregoriano Etrusco II|url=http://www.christusrex.org/www1/vaticano/ET2-Etrusco.html|publisher=Musei Vaticani e Cappella Sistina|year=1994|access-date=30 June 2009|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090625081931/http://www.christusrex.org/www1/vaticano/ET2-Etrusco.html|archive-date=25 June 2009}}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist|colwidth=30em}}

* {{Cite book|title=The Religion of the Etruscans|editor-first=Nancy |editor-last=Thomson De Grummond|editor2-first=Erika|editor2-last=Simon|publisher=University of Texas Press|location=Austin|year=2006|isbn=0-292-70687-1}}

==External links==
*{{Commons category-inline}}
*{{cite encyclopedia|first=Leonhard|last=Schmitz|title=Tages|encyclopedia=Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology|volume=3|page=971|editor-first=William|editor-last=Smith|location=Boston|publisher=Little, Brown and Company, ancientlibrary.com|orig-year=1867|year= 2009|access-date=23 June 2009|url=http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/3305.html|url-status=usurped|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080514035700/http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/3305.html|archive-date=14 May 2008}}

{{Etruscans}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Classical oracles]]
[[Category:Etruscan gods]]
[[Category:Etruscan mythology]]
[[Category:Etruscan religion]]
[[Category:Founders of religions]]
[[Category:Jupiter (god)]]
[[Category:Mythological Italian people]]
[[Category:Prophets]]
[[Category:Wisdom gods]]