. Pompeii : its life and art . f the latter are more elab-orate. Quietus was a man of some prom-inence, as we see from the epitaph : Quieto Augustali; huic obmunificent\iain\ decurionum decreto etpopuli conse\su biselliihonor datus est, — To the memory of Gaius Calventius Quietus,member of the Brotherhood of Augustus. On account of hisgenerosity the honor of a seat of double width was conferredupon him by the vote of the city council and the approval of thepeople. At the Theatre and the Amphitheatre, Quietus had the privi-lege of sitting on a bisellium, as if he were a member ofthe
. Pompeii : its life and art . f the latter are more elab-orate. Quietus was a man of some prom-inence, as we see from the epitaph : Quieto Augustali; huic obmunificent\iain\ decurionum decreto etpopuli conse\su biselliihonor datus est, — To the memory of Gaius Calventius Quietus,member of the Brotherhood of Augustus. On account of hisgenerosity the honor of a seat of double width was conferredupon him by the vote of the city council and the approval of thepeople. At the Theatre and the Amphitheatre, Quietus had the privi-lege of sitting on a bisellium, as if he were a member ofthe city council. Below the inscription is a representation ofthe seat of double width, shown in Fig. 232. The square foot-stool at the middle implies that the seat was intended for a singleperson. The ends of the tomb were ornamented with finelycarved reliefs of the civic crown, which was made of oak leavesand awarded to those who had saved the life of a Roman citizen(Fig. 233). As the inscription does not record any deed of. Fis 231. — Relief, symbolic ofgrief for the dead. 414 POMPEII valor, it may be that the crown is used here merely as a decora-tive device. Though the monument of Quietus was built in the last yearsof the city, when such structures were generally provided with sepulchral chambers,it has no burial vault,and the enclosing wallis without a door. Itis perhaps a cenotaph,a monument erectedin honor of a manwhose remains wereinterred elsewhere; itis also possible thatQuietus had no rela-tives who wished tohave an accessible se-pulchral chamber inorder to make liba-tions to his ashes, andthat for this reasonthe monument wasmade solid, the urnbeing buried in the earth underneath. The small turrets on theenclosing wall are adorned with reliefs ; among them Oedipussolving the riddle of the Sphinx, and Theseus after the slaugh-ter of the Minotaur. The suggestion is obvious : he who is com-memorated here had solved the riddle of existence, had foundan exit from the la
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