The heir was the object of especial jealousy; HOC MONUMENTUM HÆREDEM NON SEQUITUR (H.M.H.N.S.) is a regular formula; the contrary stipulation, that the monument should go to the heir is most uncommon.[22] The prohibition to alienate is expressed with all the fulness of legal phraseology; HOC MONUMENTUM, CUM ÆDIFICIO SUPERPOSITO NEQUE MUTABITUR, NEQUE VÆNIET, NEQUE DONABITUR, NEQUE PIGNORI OBLIGABITUR, NEQUE ULLO MODO ABALIENABITUR, NE DE NOMINE EXEAT FAMILIÆ SUÆ,[23] and is sometimes enforced by a fine to the municipality, to the Roman people or the vestal virgins and the Pontifices, to secure the exaction of which one-fourth is to go to the informer. Legal chicanery was greatly dreaded as the means of defeating the purpose of the builder of the monument: hence we often find the protestation, HUIC MONUMENTO DOLUS MALUS ABESTO; sometimes with the addition ET JURISCONSULTUS, a combination which, in countries where the civil law is practised, is a standing jest against the jurisconsults.[24] To preclude one source of cavil we find a man protesting on his tomb, in an inscription by which he directs a statue to be erected to him, that when he made his will, he had "a sound and disposing mind;" SANUS, SANA QUOQUE MENTE INTEGROQUE CONSILIO, MEMOR CONDITIONIS HUMANÆ, TESTAMENTUM FECI.[25] It is recorded on the pyramid of C. Cestius that the monument had been erected in 330 days, "arbitratu Pontii Cl. Melæ heredis et Pothi liberti," the heir not having been trusted alone with the execution. So in Horace (Sat. 2, 5, 105), ----Sepulcrum Permissum arbitrio sine sordibus extrue. In one inscription, it is made the condition of inheritance, that the monument should be begun in three days after the testator's death, and its model is prescribed. A son apologizes to his father for having erected a humble monument to him on the ground of the smallness of the inheritance; "Si major auctoritas patrimoni mei fuisset, ampliori titulo te prosecutus fuissem, piissime pater."[26] With this distrust of posterity, it was natural that men should erect their monuments in their own lifetime, leaving to their heirs only the duty of inserting the years of their age; for the year of the decease, which the Romans marked by the Consuls, is rarely given. SIBI VIVUS FECIT (sometimes _se vivo, se vivis_ even _me vivus, se vivus_) is often found, as on the sarcophagus of M. Diogenes Verecundus, formerly in York. Mindus Zosimus Senior tells us plainly on his tomb his reason for not leaving the choice to his heir; he was afraid of his discharging the duty in a shabby way. Vivus mi feci, ne post me lentius heres Conderet exiguo busta suprema rogo.[27]