Dedication of a statue by Claudia Venusta
created: Transcription (Reynolds).
source date: Second century CE.
language: ar; en; fr; de; grc; grc-Latn; el; he

Bibliography

[...], 2, whence [...], 1995.683, [...] 44.1539, [...] 1994.1820a; [...], A.28.3, whence [...], 2013.480.

Κλαυδία Βενόστα Κλαυδίου Καρτισθένους Μελίορος θυγάτηρ Διονύσον ἐκ τῶν ἰδίων

Claudia Venusta, daughter of Claudius Kartisthenes Melior, gave the statue of Dionysos at her own expense.

Kl(audia) Benosta Cl(audia) Venusta, daughter of Kl(audios) Cl(audius) Kartisthenes Melior, gave the statue of Dionysos at her own expense.

Commentary

Claudia Venusta and her father also figure in C.495, C.496, C.497, C.498 which record other dedications that she made, almost certainly in this Sanctuary; on the group see Dobias-Lalou, cited above. We can date the father’s priesthood of Apollo in CE 108-9, which shows that her dedications belong in the first half of the second century CE as their lettering suggests - but an earlier date could not be ruled out (Oliverio/SEG proposed first century CE). The family was certainly a locally distinguished one, receiving Roman citizenship under the emperors Claudius or Nero and combining a degree of romanità with Greek traditions. See further the discussion by Fadel Ali Mohamed and J. M. Reynolds, cited above.

It has been questioned whether Venusta offered all these inscriptions in this Sanctuary (Stucchi (1975), 185), but the grounds are weak and the discovery of this item should remove the doubt. We can now accept that she gave there not only a Dionysos but also a ‘great Demeter’ (C.495), a Kore (C.496), a Parthenos (C.497) and a second statue of Dionysos of which C.498 like all her other offerings except this one, mentions that it had a naos (which I take to be a shelter, of which a number of examples have been found on site). Mohamed and Reynolds questioned the normally proposed identity of Kore and Parthenos, suggesting that Parthenos was Athena, but I have come to feel that rash. Accepting their identity, it is possible that Venusta may have given two groups of the three commonly associated agricultural deities, Demeter, Kore and Dionysos. Whether or not that was so it is the case that our proposed date in the second century CE could suggest that she was offering statues to substitute for ones destroyed in the Jewish Revolt of CE 115-7 - but, so far, as I understand, there is no evidence of damage in the Sanctuary on that occasion.

It is noteworthy that Venusta used the koine language in her dedications. The date proposed is one when, as has been maintained, that was becoming normal usage in place of the Cyrenaean dialect (C.Dobias-Lalou, 'Langue et politique: à quoi sert le dialecte dans la Cyrénaïque romaine', Libyan Studies 25 (1994) 245-50, 245-6).