Etruscan language in the context of "Ajax the Great"

Minerva (/mɪˈnɜːrvə/; Latin: [mɪˈnɛru̯ä]; Etruscan: Menrva) is the Roman goddess of wisdom, justice, law, victory, and the sponsor of arts, trade, and strategy. She is also a goddess of warfare, though with a focus on strategic warfare, rather than the violence of gods such as Mars. Beginning in the second century BC, the Romans equated her with the Greek goddess Athena. Minerva is one of the three Roman deities in the Capitoline Triad, along with Jupiter and Juno.

Minerva is a virgin goddess. Her domain includes music, poetry, medicine, wisdom, commerce, weaving, and the crafts. Minerva is often depicted with her sacred creature, an owl usually named the "owl of Minerva" which symbolised her association with wisdom and knowledge, as well as, less frequently, the snake and the olive tree. Minerva is commonly depicted as tall with an athletic and muscular build. She is often wearing armour and carrying a spear. As an important Roman goddess, she is highly revered, honored, and respected. Marcus Terentius Varro considered her to be ideal and the plan for the universe personified.

A ceremony (UK: /ˈsɛrəməni/, US: /ˈsɛrəˌmoʊni/) is a unified ritualistic event with a purpose, usually consisting of a number of artistic components, performed on a special occasion.

The word may be of Etruscan origin, via the Latin caerimonia.

Vulci or Volci (Etruscan: Velch or Velx, depending on the romanization used) was a rich Etruscan city in what is now northern Lazio, central Italy.

As George Dennis wrote, "Vulci is a city whose very name ... was scarcely remembered, but which now, for the enormous treasures of antiquity it has yielded, is exalted above every other city of the ancient world."

Oscan is an extinct Indo-European language of southern Italy. The language is in the Osco-Umbrian or Sabellic branch of the Italic languages. Oscan is therefore a close relative of Umbrian and South Picene.

Oscan was spoken by a number of tribes, including the Samnites, the Lucani, the Aurunci (Ausones), and the Sidicini. The latter two tribes were often grouped under the name "Osci". The Oscan group is part of the Osco-Umbrian or Sabellic family, and includes the Oscan language and three variants (Hernican, Marrucinian and Paelignian) known only from inscriptions left by the Hernici, Marrucini and Paeligni, minor tribes of eastern central Italy. Adapted from the Etruscan alphabet, the Central Oscan alphabet was used to write Oscan in Campania and surrounding territories from the 5th century BCE until at least the 1st century CE.

Apulu (Etruscan: 𐌖𐌋𐌖𐌐𐌀), also syncopated as Aplu (Etruscan: 𐌖𐌋𐌐𐌀), is an epithet of the Etruscan fire god Śuri as chthonic sky god, roughly equivalent to the Greco-Roman god Apollo.Their names are associated on Pyrgi inscriptions too.The name Apulu or Aplu did not come directly from Greece but via a Latin center, probably Palestrina.

Under the name Apulu, he is known as god of the Sun and light, thunder and lightning, healing and plague, as well as the protector of divination, but he also has volcanic and infernal characteristics.

Aita (Etruscan: 𐌀𐌕𐌉𐌀), also spelled Eita (Etruscan: 𐌀𐌕𐌉𐌄), is an epithet of the Etruscan chthonic fire god Śuri as god of the underworld, roughly equivalent to the Greek god Hades (Epic Greek: Ἄϊδης, romanized: Áïdēs).

Tyrsenian (also Tyrrhenian or Common Tyrrhenic), named after the Tyrrhenians (Ancient Greek, Ionic: Τυρσηνοί Tyrsenoi), exonym used by the ancient Greeks to refer to the Etruscans, is a language family of closely related extinct ancient languages, proposed by linguist Helmut Rix in 1998, that has gained acceptance. The family would consist of the Etruscan language of northern, central and south-western Italy, and eastern Corsica; the Raetic language of the Alps, in northern Italy and Austria, named after the Rhaetian people; and the Lemnian language attested in Lemnos in the northern Aegean Sea. Camunic in northern Lombardy, between Etruscan and Raetic, may belong to the family as well, but evidence of such is limited. The Tyrsenian languages are generally considered Pre-Indo-European, and more specifically Paleo-European.

Rhaetic or Raetic (/ˈraɪtɪk/), also known as Rhaetian, was a Tyrsenian language spoken in the ancient region of Rhaetia in the eastern Alps in pre-Roman and Roman times. It is documented by around 280 texts dated from the 5th through the 1st century BC, which were found through northern Italy, southern Germany, eastern Switzerland, Slovenia and western Austria, in two variants of the Old Italic scripts. Rhaetic is largely accepted as being closely related to Etruscan.

The ancient Rhaetic language is not to be confused with the modern Romance languages of the same Alpine region, known as Rhaeto-Romance.