Tages
The son of a Genius Iovialis, and grandson of Iupiter, said to be a boy with the wisdom of
an old man, who, at Tarquinii, in Etruria, suddenly rose out of a freshly ploughed field. He
taught the chiefs (
lucumones) of the twelve Etruscan tribes, who were
summoned by the ploughman Tarchon, how to interpret the sacrifices, together with the lore of
thunder and lightning and other kinds of divination which in later times were practised by the
haruspices. Having done this, he disappeared again as suddenly as he had
appeared. The lore of Tages was at first transmitted orally from generation to generation in
the chief families, but was afterwards handed down in a comprehensive literature (Cicero,
De Div. ii. 50, 51; Ovid,
Met. xv. 558 foll.; Lucan, i. 637).