Figurative cippus

Figurative cippus
Marble
Produced in central Italy
First half of the 2nd century BC

The cippus comes from San Martino alla Palma, in the municipality of Scandicci, west of Florence towards Pisa. It is an ancient find, already described in detail by Thomas Dempster in his De Etruria Regali (1723).

A farewell scene is depicted on the cippus, which also bears the inscription: “I am the monument of Arnth Prastna, son of Lavci.”

The main figure, Arnth Prastna, is a warrior wearing a helmet and cuirass, shaking hands with a young, bare-chested man who affectionately places his arm around his shoulder. Behind him stands another male figure, older, wrapped in a cloak that covers his head. The procession formed by these three figures, likely members of the same family, is completed by two lictors carrying fasces, one of whom also holds a curved staff, a symbol of kingship.

Interestingly, while the inscription is written in the Etruscan language, the clothing of the figures is already fully Roman; the cippus dates to the mid-2nd century BCE, a period when Etruria was already under Roman rule.