Tyrrhanoi. Visti con gli occhi dei Greci: Cortona (?), un ‘caso sospetto’ di ktisis greca

Abstract

This paper shows some features of the relation between Greeks and Etruscans during the 5th century BC. The story of the cult of Odysseus, who died and was worshipped in Cortona, implies a series of legends that in the 5th century were presumably employed by Athenian intellectuals according to a pro-Etruscan perspective. Sparta, for her part, probably in antagonism with Athens, resorted to the saga of Penelope’s exile from Ithaca to the Ionian area; through this mythical tradition it is in fact possible to glimpse Spartan concern with the Ionian regions. The Etruscans were involved in the coeval Greek political climate, since they participated in the Pythian games and dedicated thesauroi to the temple of Apollo in Delphes. Moreover, the diffusion across the Tyrrenian regions of the myth of Dionysus kidnapped by pirates - as is testified by an Etruscan hydria of the sixth century BC. - shows that the Etruscans were also able to revisit Greek topics.