The place of meeting usually had a _tetrastyle_ (portico with four fronts), where were set up the rules of the club near the altar of its protecting divinity, and where stood a _triclinium_ for the repasts.[18.53] These repasts indeed were looked forward to with impatience; they took place on the day sacred to the patron divinity, or on the birthdays of members who had contributed endowments.[18.54] Every one brought his little portion; one of the brotherhood furnished in turn the accessories of the feast, such as couches, table-furniture, bread, wine, sardines, and hot water.[18.55] A slave, newly emancipated, owed his comrades an _amphora_ of good wine.[18.56] A quiet air of enjoyment animated the repast; it was a positive rule that none of the business of the society should be discussed, in order that nothing might disturb the brief interval of enjoyment and repose which these poor souls were thus providing for themselves.[18.57] Every violent act or rude remark was punished by a fine.[18.58] In appearance these clubs were simply associations for burial of the members.[18.59] But that object alone would have been enough to invest them with a moral character. In the Roman, as in our own time, and as in all ages when the religious sentiment is weakened, reverence for the tomb is nearly all that the masses retain. The poor man loved to believe that his body would not be cast into those horrible common trenches;[18.60] that his club would provide for his decent obsequies; that the brethren who should follow him on foot to the funeral pile would receive each a little _honorarium_[18.61] (about four cents) in testimony of respect for the departed.[18.62] The slave especially felt the need of an assurance that if his master denied him the privilege of the ordinary rites of sepulture, there would be a little band of friends who would perform "imaginary obsequies."[18.63] Hardly any was so humble or destitute as not to contribute a penny per month to the common fund to procure after his death a little urn in a _Columbarium_, with a slab of marble on which his name should be carved. Sepulture among the Romans was of extreme importance, being closely connected with the _sacra gentilitia_, or family rites. Persons interred together even contracted a sort of intimate fraternity or relationship.[18.64]