Votive Altar with Latin Inscription

Marble altar (ara), decorated on three sides with stylized garlands of fruit and leaves suspended between bovine skulls (bucrania). On the main face, enclosed within thin linear frames, there is a Latin inscription arranged in six lines, which reads:
“To Hera Lacinia, for the health of Marciana, sister of the Augustus. Oecius, freedman, procurator.”

The altar was discovered accidentally in 1843 at an unspecified location on the Capo Colonna promontory, at a time when the sanctuary had not yet been the subject of systematic archaeological excavations. The inscription commemorates a dedication to Hera Lacinia made by Oecius, an imperial freedman—that is, a former slave who had been manumitted and remained under the patronage of the imperial household. In the dedication, Oecius entrusts to the goddess the protection and well-being of Ulpia Marciana, sister of the emperor Trajan. This altar therefore represents a valuable testament to the continuity and vitality of the cult of Hera, which was still fully active in the 2nd century AD.