« Omnia sunt misera in bellis civilibus ». Spunti per una rilettura delle scene d’assedio sulle urne volterrane

 = Paper = 

The paper proposes a political interpretation of the reliefs depicting the sieges of Troy and Thebes on a group of eight funerary urns produced in Volterra in the first quarter of the 1st century BC. The goal is to demonstrate that clients, members of the city elite, chose to have on their urns particular elements of the two myths, linked to the themes of fratricide and deception. These reflected the lack of cohesion at Volterra, torn by the supporters of Marius and those of Sulla, during the siege of the city (81-79 BC). The Etruscan elites, endowed with a deep collective self-consciousness, perceived as extremely serious the loss of cohesion among the leading families, a phenomenon became striking on the civil war of the years 83-82 BC., and after the proscriptions (82-81 BC). The lost internal cohesion at Volterra would have contributed, for the most traditionalists among the Etruscans, to the end of their people.