ABSTRACT

Tyrrhenia is the country, and Tyrrhenians are the so-called Etruscans. A sage wrote their history, and said that the demiurge, the creator god of all things, granted 12,000 years to his creatures, and distributed them into twelve seats (Gk. oikoi, “houses”). In the first millennium he created the heavens and the earth. In the second he created the visible firmament, calling it heaven. In the third the sea and all waters of the earth. In the fourth all the great lights: the Sun, Moon, stars. In the fifth all living things: birds, reptiles, quadrupeds in the air, on the earth, in the water. In the sixth he created man; to man remain 6,000 years.