The Etruscans always had a penchant for menacing monsters threatening the afterlife. As Rome grew in power and defeated the Etruscan city-states one by one, in the fourth and third centuries BCE, the Etruscan religion became, well, gloomier. And in their tombs and on their pottery, the imagery became darker and more frightening. The necropolis near the Tuscan town of Sarteano has produced a remarkable tomb that shows the darkly religious practices of the Etruscans. Around 400 BCE, after the Etruscans were beginning to be defeated, one city stayed after another by the imperialistic Romans. We see the Etruscans just failing to unite into one massive army. Romans are slowly picking them apart until, by the first century BC, one city after another had fallen, Anaterria was largely just a memory. The Etruscans, while they were flourishing, were known for being one of the most deeply religious and even fatalistic peoples of the Mediterranean. Each Etruscan community had its own collection of spirits, but they also shared many divinities and often fused them with divinities from Greece. Changing around the Greek stories and embellishing the attributes of the divinities. They had a particular fondness for gods with, or divinities with monstrous and frightening aspects. Often resorting to depicting them with snaky legs or snaky hair, or even wings. The Tomb of the Infernal Quadriga of Sarteano excavated by doctor Alessandra Minetti, shows the Etruscan obsession with hideous monsters and demons that got in the way of what was passage to the afterlife. A happy afterlife often involved scenes of dining at some sort of a Divine banquet, but getting to that joyful state wasn't easy. There might be a hideous demon driving a chariot or snaky monsters to deter you from your goal. Come with me and have a closer look as Dr. Eso Manetti explains this tomb especially for us.