Fig. 242.—Front of the tomb of Calventius Quietus, with bisellium.
Though the monument of Quietus was built in the last years of the city, when such structures were generally provided with sepulchral chambers, it has no burial vault, and the enclosing wall is without a door. It is perhaps a cenotaph, a monument erected in honor of a man whose remains were interred elsewhere; it is also possible that Quietus had no relatives who wished to have an accessible sepulchral chamber in order to make libations to his ashes, and that for this reason the monument was made solid, the urn being buried in the earth underneath. The small turrets on the enclosing wall were adorned with reliefs; among them Oedipus solving the riddle of the Sphinx, and Theseus after the slaughter of the Minotaur. The suggestion is obvious: he who is commemorated here had solved the riddle of existence, had found an exit from the labyrinth of life.
Around the front and sides of the tomb of Naevoleia Tyche runs a border of acanthus arabesques, forming panels in which reliefs are placed. The border in front is interrupted at the middle of the upper side by the portrait of Tyche; the lower half of the panel is devoted to a ceremonial scene in which offerings appear to be made to the dead, while in the upper half, under the portrait, we read the inscription: Naevoleia L. lib[erta] Tyche sibi et C. Munatio Fausto Aug[ustali] et pagano, cui decuriones consensu populi bisellium ob merita eius decreverunt. Hoc monimentum Naevoleia Tyche libertis suis libertabusq[ue] et C. Munati Fausti viva fecit,—'Naevoleia Tyche, freedwoman of Lucius Naevoleius, for herself and for Gaius Munatius Faustus, member of the Brotherhood of Augustus and suburban official, to whom on account of his distinguished services the city council, with the approval of the people, granted a seat of double width. This monument Naevoleia Tyche built in her lifetime also for the freedmen and freedwomen of herself and of Gaius Munatius Faustus,' who was seemingly her husband.
Fig. 243.—End of the tomb of Naevoleia Tyche, with relief of a ship entering port; beyond, end of the tomb of Calventius Quietus, with the civic crown.
The bisellium of Faustus is shown in one of the end panels; in the other we see a ship sailing into port ([Fig. 243]). The carving of the relief is bold, though crude; we see the sailors furling the sail, as the vessel glides into still water. The scene is symbolical of death,—the entrance of the soul after the storms of life into a haven of rest. The thought is expressed by Cicero with deep feeling in his essay on Old Age: 'As for myself, I find the ripening of life truly agreeable; the nearer I come to the time of death, the more I feel like one who begins to see land and knows that sometime he will enter the harbor after the long voyage.'
The sepulchral chamber of this tomb has a large niche opposite the entrance; the urn standing in it apparently contained the cinerary remains of two persons, Tyche and Faustus. Other urns were found in the smaller niches in the walls and on the bench of masonry along the sides. Three were of glass, protected by lead cases; one of them is shown in [Fig. 244]. They contained ashes and fragments of bone, with remains of a liquid mixture, which was shown by chemical analysis to have consisted of water, wine, and oil. Lamps were found on the bench, one for each urn, and there were others in a corner; they were used on anniversary days to light the chamber.