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More specifically, "The epic of translating the word "fannea" "

I GOT THE BRILLIANT IDEA OF TRANSLATING AN INSCRIPTION FROM LATIN.

I do NOT speak latin.

I wish I did. But I really don't.

The inscription appears to be:

Ctullius Hesper
Et Tu Ilia Restituta
Bona Dea Fannea
Nens Sanctissim
Donum
Posuerunt

And I am pretty sure the translation could be read something a bit like

These two dudes, Catullius Hesper and his bro-dude Ilia fixed this new little altar for the Bona Dea.

Or maybe more directly,

These dudes Catullius Hesper and Ilia fixed, for the Bona Dea, this little sanctuary altar thing and put it here.

But that is not exactly what I am writing about.

What I am writing about is the word "fannea" because I had to go to crazy lengths to get the meaning of it.

First, a complaint about Latin. I can see why the empire keeled over. They inflected every single ********' word. English inflects basically nothing. Spanish has pared it down to just the verbs. I do not know how the Romans dealt with that bullshit.

I'm complaining because "fannea" looks like it has something done to it. I'm not sure what. I know it means something, but I just wanted a rough sense of the meaning. After poring through the "fan-" section in a latin dictionary, I found some words that were a bit close. That led me to "fanum" which is like a temple. The "-annea" part appears in a few other words and seems to be an ending that makes something an adjective meant "made out of" or something. The construction seemed familiar, I know I've seen it somewhere.

That's after I looked through THREE DIFFERENT DICTIONARIES.

THREE.

Before I had the brainwave of one vaguely related word, etymologically speaking: profane. As in, to make un-sacred or a state of being unsacred.

So if something is just fane...

Yep.

They faned this sanctuary and put it here.