A
The text is
To the Good Goddess Venus of Cnidus. Decimus Iunius Annianus Hymenaeus and the sodality Invicta Phaedimiana gave as a gift.
This small pediment was part of a shrine dedicated to the goddess Bona Dea Venus Cnidia (Chioffi 1993: p.201).
Rather than this being the deity usually known as the Bona Dea, it seems that the title ‘Good Goddess’ is here being used as an epithet for Cnidian Venus
(Brouwer 1989: p.35; Marcattili 2010: p.29).
It is dedicated jointly by an individual and a group of worshippers, or
D. Iunius Annianus Hymenaeus is probably a freedman (Solin 2003: vol. I p.569), his second cognomen Hymenaeus representing his
membership of the spira.
The name is particularly suitable in this cultic context since Hymenaeus was a son of Venus and Liber according to some mythological genealogies (Servius, On the
Aeneid 4.127).
A fragmentary marble slab found near the second
Sirmond MS. Paris suppl. 1419 = Lat. 10808, no.243; Doni cod. Vat. Lat. 7113 f.42’; Doni BN Naples, MS G.XII.75 fol.51 no.4 (following Menestrier); Selden (1629) p.50 no.1; Prideaux (1676) p.91, no.24; Reinesius (1682) p.127, no.92 (following Selden); Spon (1685) p.94 (following Prideaux); Hesselius (= Gude) (1731) p.38 no.10 (Arundel collection, following Reinesius) + p.54 no.3 (on the Pincian); Maittaire (1732) p.34, no.42; Chandler (1763) p.131, no.12; Donatus (1765) p.33 no.3 (following Spon); Orelli (1828) vol.I no.1522; CIL VI.1 no.76 [Hübner] (1876); CIL VI.4 fasc.2, p. 3003 (1902); CIL VI.4 fasc.3 p.3755 (1933); ILS 3515 (Dessau 1955); Brouwer (1989) p.35 no.24 + pl.XI.24; Iorizzo (2009) 20-22, 28-34 = AE 2009 no.159
Online: EDCS 17200178 [accessed 15/08/16] Photograph (EDCS). EDR158754 [last updated 29/07/16, Orlandi] [accessed 15/08/16]