The Romans society, culture, religion, and government were influenced by the Etruscans. The Etruscan used fasces and Roman society were no different, the fasces was a political symbol, judicial, military, and religious authority. It represented civil authority and the power over life and death. The actual fasces was a bundle of birch sticks with bronze blades attached to it. They were carried by lictors, which were civil servants and they would protect the magistrates, acting as bodyguards. An important part of the Roman culture was the idea of clan names, which came from the Etruscans. The Romans would cremate and bury their dead outside the city and instead placed those tombs on major roads, as the Etruscans once did. Governmental structure …show more content…
The Etruscan religion involved nature and had a deity in all things from natural occurrences to man created objects. The Romans wanted to determine and understand what the deities wanted from them. To understand what the deity wants they had to read the signs and determine what they want and do their will. An Augury is a divination using birds, and the Romans watched birds to determine the will of the gods, as the Etruscans did. An Augur is a priest that is trained to take the auspices, and the augury is done before any major decision and it is taken very seriously. Another belief from the Etruscans was hepatoscopy, where an animal was killed and its liver was taken. The liver was looked at for signs and see what the gods were trying to inform. The Romans also created sculptures to depict gods. The three major gods of Roman belief can from a combination of Etruscan gods and Greek gods. Tinia was the chief god, god of sky and thunderbolts from an Etruscan belief that was combined with Zeus, the Greek god resulting in the Roman god Jupiter. Uni was the goddess virgin, and goddess of birth, she was married to Jupiter and she was combined with Hera, the Greek goddess of birth and marriage creating Juno, Roman goddess. The last of the major gods was Minerva the goddess of the moon, and virgin goddess of wisdom and war she was combined with Athena, the Greek goddess creating the Roman goddess