THE DOCTRINE OF SAECULA
Varro recorded the Etruscan doctrine of saecula (“cycles” rather than “centuries”), the tradition that the gods limited the lifespans of peoples as well as individual mortals (Censorious De die natali [On the Day of Birth] 14.6 and 15).
These were published by Sulla (82 BCE) as supporting his regime change (Plutarch Sulla 7.6-9; Censorious On the Day of Birth 17.5-6). Human life was granted in twelve seven- year stages, up to a maximum of eighty-four years, after which predictions were no longer valid. Nations were allotted cycles in which to develop, flourish and wane, each as long as the life of a particular person born at its opening (not a hundred years). The beginning of the nomen Etruscum, “Etruscan civilization”, coincided with what we recognize as the beginning of distinctive ancestral material culture. Etruria’s tenth, final cycle began in 44 BCE, by which time the autonomy of the Etruscan cities was over (de Grummond 2006c: 41-51; Turfa 2006a: 82-3).
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