The provenance of the fine bronze statuette of warrior (third quarter of the
6th century BC), now in the Leiden Museum, known as the ‘Mars of Ravenna’,
has been in recent times recognized to be Perugia.
The correct provenance
has given new light on the historical and prosopographic significance of the
statuette, that an Etruscan inscription informs us was a gift to Laran, the
Etruscan god of war, made by a certain Thucer Hermenas. It is not by chance
that a well known stele from Vetulonia representing a warrior named Avele
Feluske was dedicated by a man named Hirumina (parallel form for Hermenas),
called Phersnachs, the ethnic of Perusia. Avele Feluske was very likely the chief of
a military sodalitas, of which Hirumina/Hermenas was a member. To the same
warlike Perugian gens we can attribute also T.Herminius, consul in Rome in
506 BC, top moment of these “condottieri”, just like the first Roman consul Valerius Publicola, who, according the Lapis Satricanus was the chief of a
sodalitas; the Hermenas-Herminii from Perugia became a prominent patrician
family, since a Lar Herminius Coritinesanus (?), likely grand son of the cos. 506 BC, was also appointed consul in 448 BC.
