Note 19 — Chapter I · COMPARISON OF THE LATIN LANGUAGE WITH THE GREEK—ERAS OF LATINITY—ORIGIN OF THE ROMANS—ELEMENTS OF THE LATIN LANGUAGE—ETRUSCAN INFLUENCE.
Reading edition
The religion of Rome furnishes many other traces of Etruscan influence:—ex. gr., the ceremonies of the augurs and haruspices were Etruscan, and the lituus, or augur’s staff, may be seen on old Etruscan monuments. The Tuscan Fortune, Nortia, the etymology of whose name (ne-verto) coincides with that of the Greek Ἀτροπος (the unchangeable,) had the nails, the emblem of necessity, as her device; and hence the consul marked the commencement of the year by driving a nail.
The Roman Hymen, the god of marriage, was Talassius; a fact which illustrates one of the incidents in the tradition which Livy (book i. c. ix.) adopts respecting the rape of the Sabine virgins.
The name Talassius was evidently derived from the Tuscan name Thalna, or Talana, by which was designated the Juno Pronuba of the Romans, and the Ἡρη τελειά of the Greeks.