File:Venus of Southbroom (Musgrave).jpg

English: "Penates (Household Gods) Dug Up at Devises in Our Belgium in the Year 1714, Table 4, to Go before Page 125.

"Figure 1. Venus. Length: 4¼ in. Weight: 9 oz.

"§. I. THE FIRST shows Venus. So exceptional and so renowned was the body of Venus (which presumably commended her to Cinyras, the Cyprian’s king, whose little Whore she was, and so to all of Greece) that—lovely, enticing, and held in highest honor by all—she was at last raised to Godhood by this same source Cinyras. Raised into Heaven she oversaw all things related to Whoring, which she was thought to understand before all others since before all others, as Lactantius holds, she was said to have established the Art of whoring and to have urged it upon women that they made profit from their body lest she alone be seen as unchaste. The form which oversaw forbidden Loves was called now Whore (Pornḕ), now Public-Use (Pándēmēs), now Companion (Hetaĩra). She was called the Shapely (hē Morphō̂) among the Spartans and the Fine-Assed from her beautiful Buttocks. The Syracusans raised up a Temple to Venus the Fine-Assed. From antiquity, she was held to be the Goddess of all Loves, Graces, Beauties, Enticements, and Pleasures. "And the Whores did not worship her alone," affirms the noble and most learned Edward Herbert, "but also the modest Girls, that they might win for themselves Loveliness, Beauty, and Grace, and furthermore the fertile Widows also prayed to her for other Marriages." Of course, Widows are of this mind and the same spirit in every age.

"The LITTLE IMAGE, which—in order to preserve the Shape and marvellous Symmetry of this Goddess—was forged from molten brass, has a Head encircled with Ribbons, Curls hanging on this side and that. The Right Hand is raised to the Teats, the Breasts growing together like sisters. The Chest is well formed and the Abdomen below is not too swollen. The left Arm is missing, whose Hand was perhaps lowered covering the space between her thighs, for she was intensely modest [i.e., this statue was a Venus Pudica]. The Venus of Arundel, whose Figure is in the most learned Price, is quite good looking but ours, however, is much better looking. She shows an exceeding nobility of form and by the marvellous composition of her Art perhaps overcomes all the Images of the Goddess which now remain: namely, her Syracusan ass and

"Arms and face and rounded calves,

"which would please Horace. Further notes here would be wrong. Venus is everywhere. Lucretius dedicated his Little Poem to Venus and Virgil made her the mother of Aeneas. Those who are called charming, eloquent, or beautiful are Venuses and Cupids. Yet it is not the lowest praise of this Goddess that—as is clear from this Little Image—one should be a Penates. The Romans loved naked statues of Venus and it is seldom possible to find one Veiled among them. Even though Pliny said "Nothing Greek is veiled", nonetheless the same source reports elsewhere that Praxiteles made two statues of this Goddess and the second of them was veiled. Regarding this famous statuette Venus there exists an Epigram of Evenus reading

"Pállas kai Kronídao syneúnetis eîpon, idoûsai
"Tḕn Knidíēn, adikō̂s tòn Prýga memphómetha.
"i.e.

"When Minerva and Jove’s sister saw the Cnidia,
"They said, 'We were wrong to complain about Paris.'"

Notes: "To the Most Noble Prince Frederick, the destined Royal Heir, Great Britain's hope, Delight, and most yearned for Spirit, son of the Most High George and grandson of the Most August George, William Musgrave, Fellow (?) of Exeter College, Oxford, of his own will and in Obedience to his Oath wished these here Penates, hidden by the Earth for 1500 years, to be dedicated.

"These Penates [found] by William Cadby, Gardener at Devizes, engraved on Brass and printed on Imperial Paper, are available for sale at the Booksellers Knapton in London, Clements in Oxford, and Yeo in Exeter. 1717."

Excerpt from Musgrave's 1st illustration of the Southbroom Hoard discovered outside Devizes, Wiltshire, in 1714. This statue and the statue of Vulcan are now lost, while the others are held by the British Museum as figures 1811,0309. Listed as figure #375 in Durham. Scholars continue to classify it as Venus, Aphrodite, or a Gallo-Roman equivalent via Interpretatio Graeca or Romana, with similiar figures making the 2nd most common surviving statuary of goddesses from the era. The figure of a partially or fully nude Venus attempting to cover herself before a viewer is known as a Venus Pudica. The missing arm would probably have been attempting to cover her genitals.

See also:

• Emma Durham, "Depicting the Gods: Metal Figurines in Roman Britain", Internet Archaeology, No. 31, 2012.
• Emma Durham, "Style and Substance: Some Metal Figurines from South-West Britain", Britannia, No. 45, November 2014, pp. 195–221.