ROMAN FORMS OF PUNISHMENT
ACCORDING to Gibbon, the laws of the Twelve Tables, like the statutes of Draco, were written in blood. These famous decrees sanctioned the frightful principle of the lex talionis; and prescribed for numerous crimes many horrible forms of punishment. The hurling from the Tarpeian Rock was mild in comparison with other modes of execution. The traitor to his country had his hands tied behind his back, his head shrouded in a veil, was then scourged by a lictor, and was afterwards crucified, in the midst of the Forum by being nailed to the arbor infelix. A malicious incendiary, on a principle of retaliation, was delivered to the flames. He was burned to death by being wrapped in a garment covered with pitch which was then set on fire.[22] A parricide was cast into the Tiber or the sea, inclosed in a sack, to which a cock, a viper, a dog, and a monkey had been successively added as fit companions in death.[23]
But the development of Roman jurisprudence and the growth of Roman civilization witnessed a gradual diminution in the severity of penal sanctions, in the case of free citizens, until voluntary exile was the worst punishment to which a wearer of the toga was compelled to submit. The Porcian and Valerian laws prohibited the magistrates from putting any Roman citizen to death. The principle underlying these laws was the offspring of a proud and patriotic sentiment which exempted the masters of the world from the extreme penalties reserved for barbarians and slaves. Greenidge, interpreting Cicero, very elegantly expresses this sentiment: "It is a facinus to put a Roman citizen in bonds, a scelus to scourge him, prope parricidium to put him to death."
The subject of this volume limits the discussion in this chapter to a single Roman punishment: Crucifixion. Around this word gather the most frightful memories and, at the same time, the sweetest and sublimest hopes of the human race. A thorough appreciation of the trial of Jesus, it is felt, renders necessary a comparatively exhaustive treatment of the punishment in which all the horrors and illegalities of the proceedings against Him culminated.
History.—Tradition attributes the origin of crucifixion, the most frightful and inhuman form of punishment ever known, to a woman, Semiramis, Queen of Assyria. We are reminded by this that quartering, drawing at a horse's tail, breaking on the wheel, burning and torture with pincers, were provisions in a codex bearing the name of a woman: Maria Theresa.[24]
Crucifixion was practiced by the ancient Egyptians, Carthaginians, Persians, Germans, Assyrians, Greeks, and Romans. The Romans employed this form of punishment on a colossal scale. The Roman general Varus crucified 2,000 Jews in one day at the gates of Jerusalem. The close of the war with Spartacus, the gladiator, witnessed the crucifixion of 10,000 slaves between Capua and Rome.
Crucifixion, as a form of punishment, was unknown to the ancient Hebrews. The penalty of death was enforced among them by burning, strangling, decapitation, and stoning. The "hanging" of criminals "on a tree," mentioned in Deut. xxi. 22, was a posthumous indignity offered the body of the criminal after death by stoning, and struck horror to the soul of every pious Israelite who beheld it. Among the Romans also degradation was a part of the infliction, since crucifixion was peculiarly a supplicium servile. Only the vilest criminals, among free men, such as were guilty of robbery, piracy, assassination, perjury, sedition, treason, and desertion from the army, met death in this way. The jus civitatis protected Roman citizens against this punishment.
Mode of Crucifixion.—A sentence of death having been pronounced by a Roman magistrate or tribunal, scourging became a preliminary to execution. This was done with the terrible flagellum into which the soldiers frequently stuck nails, pieces of bone, and other hard substances to heighten the pain which was often so intense as to produce death. The victim was generally bound to a column to be scourged. It was claimed by Jerome, Prudentius, Gregory of Tours, and others that they had seen the one to which Jesus was bound before His scourging began. After the flagellation, the prisoner was conducted to the place of execution. This was outside the city, often in some public road, or other conspicuous place like the Campus Martius at Rome. The criminal was compelled to carry his own cross; and when he had arrived at the place of crucifixion, he was compelled to watch the preparations for his torture. Before his eyes and in his presence, the cross was driven into the ground; and, after having been stripped naked, he was lifted upon and nailed to it. It sometimes happened that he was stretched upon it first and then lifted with it from the ground. The former method was the more common, however, as it was desired to strike terror into the victim by the sight of the erection of the cross. The body was fastened to the cross by nails driven into the hands and sometimes into the feet; more frequently, however, the feet were merely bound by cords.
The pictures of crosses in works of art are misrepresentations, in that they are too large and too high. The real cross of antiquity was very little longer than the victim, whose head was near the top, and whose feet often hung only twelve or fifteen inches from the ground. Pictorial art is also false because it fails to show the projecting beam from near the center of the cross upon which the criminal sat. That there was such a beam is attested by the almost unanimous voice of antiquity.
Crucifixion was conducted, under Roman auspices, by a carnifex, or hangman, assisted by a band of soldiers. At Rome, execution was done under the supervision of the Triumviri Capitales. The duty of the soldiers was not only to erect the cross and nail the victim to it, but also to watch him until he was dead. This was a necessary precaution to prevent friends and relatives from taking the criminal down and from carrying him away, since he sometimes continued to live upon the cross during several days. If taken down in time, the suffering man might easily be resuscitated and restored to health. Josephus tells us that three victims were ordered to be taken down by Titus at his request, and that one of them recovered. "In the later persecutions of the Christians, the guards remained four or six days by the dead, in order to secure them to the wild beasts and to cut off all possibility of burial and resurrection; and in Lyons the Christians were not once able by offers of much gold to obtain the privilege of showing compassion upon the victims of the pagan popular fury. Sometimes, however, particularly on festival days, e.g., the birthdays of the emperors, the corpse was given up to the friends of the deceased, either for money or without money, although even Augustus could be cruel enough to turn a deaf ear to the entreaties of the condemned for sepulture."[25]
Roman records tell us that the soldiers frequently hastened death by breaking the legs of the criminal; at other times, fires were built about the cross beneath him; and, again, wild beasts were turned loose upon him.
It was the general custom to allow the body to remain and rot upon the cross, or to be devoured by wild beasts and birds of prey. "Distracted relatives and friends saw the birds of prey attack the very faces of those whom they loved; and piety often took pains to scare away the birds by day and the beasts by night, or to outwit the guards that watched the dead."[26]
Sepulture was generally forbidden by law, though there were exceptions to the rule. At the request of Joseph of Arimathea, Pilate consented that Jesus should be taken down and buried.[27] A national exception seems also to have been made in the case of the Jews on account of the requirements of Deut. xxi. 22, 23.
Pathology.—The following pathological phases of death by crucifixion are from a treatise by the celebrated physician, Richter (in John's "Bibl. Arch."), which have been reproduced in Strong and McClintock's "Cyclopedia":
"(1) The unnatural position and violent tension of the body, which cause a painful sensation from the least motion.
"(2) The nails, being driven through parts of the hands and feet which are full of nerves and tendons (and yet at a distance from the heart) create the most exquisite anguish.
"(3) The exposure of so many wounds and lacerations brings on inflammation, which tends to become gangrene, and every movement increases the poignancy of suffering.
"(4) In the distended parts of the body, more blood flows through the arteries than can be carried back into the veins: hence too much blood finds its way from the aorta into the head and stomach, and the blood vessels of the head become pressed and swollen. The general obstruction of circulation which ensues causes an intense excitement, exertion, and anxiety more intolerable than death itself.
"(5) The inexpressible misery of gradually increasing and lingering anguish.
"(6) Burning and raging thirst.
"Death by crucifixion (physically considered) is, therefore, to be attributed to the sympathetic fever which is excited by the wounds, and aggravated by exposure to the weather, privation of water, and the painfully constrained position of the body. Traumatic fever corresponds, in intensity and in character, to the local inflammation of the wound, is characterized by heat, swelling, and great pain, the fever is highly inflammatory, and the sufferer complains of heat, throbbing headache, intense thirst, restlessness, and anxiety. As soon as suppuration sets in, the fever somewhat abates, and partially ceases as suppuration diminishes and the stage of cicatrization approaches. But if the wound be prevented from healing and suppuration continues, the fever assumes a hectic character, and will sooner or later exhaust the powers of life. When, however, the inflammation of the wound is so intense as to produce mortification, nervous depression is the immediate consequence; and, if the cause of this excessive inflammation of the wound still continues, as is the case in crucifixion, the sufferer rapidly sinks. He is no longer sensible of pain, but his anxiety and sense of prostration are excessive; hiccough supervenes, his skin is moistened with a cold clammy sweat, and death ensues. It is in this manner that death on the cross must have taken place in an ordinarily healthy constitution."
The intense sufferings and prolonged agony of crucifixion can be best illustrated by an account of several cases of this form of punishment taken from history.
From the "Chrestomathia Arabica" of Kosegarten, published in 1828, is taken the following story of the execution of a Mameluke. The author of this work gleaned the story from an Arabic manuscript entitled "The Meadow of Flowers and the Fragrant Odour":
"It is said that he had killed his master for some cause or other, and he was crucified on the banks of the river Barada under the castle of Damascus, with his face turned toward the East. His hands, arms, and feet were nailed, and he remained so from midday on Friday to the same hour on Sunday, when he died. He was remarkable for his strength and prowess; he had been engaged with his master in sacred war at Askelon, where he slew great numbers of the Franks; and when very young he had killed a lion. Several extraordinary things occurred at his being nailed, as that he gave himself up without resistance to the cross, and without complaint stretched out his hands, which were nailed and after them his feet: he in the meantime looked on, and did not utter a groan, or change his countenance or move his limbs. I have heard this from one who witnessed it, and he thus remained till he died, patient and silent, without wailing, but looking around him to the right and the left upon the people. But he begged for water, and none was given him, and he gazed upon it and longed for one drop of it, and he complained of thirst all the first day, after which he was silent, for God gave him strength."
Describing the punishments used in Madagascar, Rev. Mr. Ellis says: "In a few cases of great enormity, a sort of crucifixion has been resorted to; and, in addition to this, burning or roasting at a slow fire, kept at some distance from the sufferer, has completed the horrors of this miserable death.... In the year 1825, a man was condemned to crucifixion, who had murdered a female for the sake of stealing her child. He carried the child for sale to the public market, where the infant was recognized, and the murderer detected. He bore his punishment in the most hardened manner, avenging himself by all the violence he was capable of exercising upon those who dragged him to the place of execution. Not a single groan escaped him during the period he was nailed to the wood, nor while the cross was fixed upright in the earth."[28]
More horrible still than punishment by crucifixion was that of impalement and suspension on a hook. The following description of the execution, in 1830, at Salonica, of Chaban, a captain of banditti, is given by Slade: "He was described by those who saw him as a very fine-looking man, about thirty-five. As a preparatory exercise, he was suspended by his arms for twelve hours. The following day a hook was thrust into his side, by which he was suspended to a tree, and there hung enduring the agony of thirst till the third evening, when death closed the scene; but before that about an hour the birds, already considering him their own, had alighted upon his brow to pick his eyes. During this frightful period he uttered no unmanly complaints, only repeated several times, 'Had I known that I was to suffer this infernal death, I would never have done what I have. From the moment I led the klephte's life I had death before my eyes, and was prepared to meet it, but I expected to die as my predecessors, by decapitation.'"[29]
The Cross.—The instrument of crucifixion, called the Cross, was variously formed. Lipsius and Gretser have employed a twofold classification: the crux simplex, and the crux composita or compacta. A single upright stake was distinguished as a crux simplex. The crux composita, the compound or actual cross, was subject to the following modifications of form: Crux immissa, formed as in the Figure ✝; crux commissa thus formed Ｔ; and the crux decussata, the cruciform figure, set diagonally after the manner of the Roman letter X. It is generally thought that Jesus was crucified upon the crux immissa, the "Latin cross."
According to the well-known legend of the "Invention of the Cross," the actual cross on which Jesus was crucified was discovered in the year 326 A.D. by the Empress Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great. As the story goes, while visiting Jerusalem and the scenes of the passion, she was guided to the summit of Calvary by an aged Jew. Here an excavation was made, and, at a considerable depth, three crosses were found; and, with them, but lying aside by itself, was the inscription, in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek, placed above the head of Christ at the time of the crucifixion. To determine which of the three crosses was the one upon which Jesus suffered, it was decided, at the suggestion of Macarius, bishop of Jerusalem, to employ a miracle. The sick were brought and required to touch the three. According to the legend, the one upon which the Savior died immediately imparted miraculous healing. A church was at once built above the excavation and in it was deposited the greater part of the supposed real cross, and the remainder was sent to Byzantium, and from there to Rome, where it was placed in the church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, built especially to receive the precious relic. The genuineness of this relic was afterwards attested by a Bull of Pope Alexander III.
In connection with the legend of the discovery of the actual cross upon which Christ was crucified, goes a secondary story that the nails used at the crucifixion were also found at the same time and place. Later tradition declared that one of these was thrown by Helena into the Adriatic when swept by a terrific storm, and that this was followed by an instantaneous calm.
The popular impression among Christians that the cross is exclusively a Christian religious symbol, seems to be without historical foundation. It is quite certain, indeed, that it was a religious emblem among several ancient races before the beginning of the Christian era.
The ancient Egyptians adored the cross with the most holy veneration; and this sacred emblem was carved upon many of their monuments. Several of these monuments may be seen to-day in the British Museum.[30] A cross upon a Calvary may also be seen upon the breast of one of the Egyptian mummies in the Museum of the London University.[31] The ancient Egyptians were accustomed to putting a cross on their sacred cakes, just as the Christians of to-day do, on Good Friday.[32]
The cross was also adored by the ancient Greeks and Romans, long before the crucifixion of Christ. Greek crosses of equal arms adorn the tomb of Midas, the ancient Phrygian king.[33] One of the early Christian Fathers, Minucius Felix, in a heated controversy with the pagan Romans, charged them with adoration of the cross. "As for adoration of the cross," said he to the Romans, "which you object against us, I must tell you that we neither adore crosses nor desire them. You it is, ye Pagans, who worship wooden gods, who are the most likely people to adore wooden crosses, as being part of the same substance with your deities. For what else are your ensigns, flags, and standards, but crosses, gilt and beautiful? Your victorious trophies not only represent a cross, but a cross with a man upon it."[34]
It also seems that, at a time antedating the early Romans, Etruscans and Sabines, a primitive race inhabited the plains of Northern Italy, "to whom the cross was a religious symbol, the sign beneath which they laid their dead to rest; a people of whom history tells nothing, knowing not their name; but of whom antiquarian research has learned this, that they lived in ignorance of the arts of civilization, that they dwelt in villages built on platforms over lakes, and that they trusted to the cross to guard, and maybe to revive, their loved ones whom they committed to the dust."
The cross was also a sacred symbol among the ancient Scandinavians. "It occurs," says Mr. R. P. Knight, "on many Runic monuments found in Sweden and Denmark, which are of an age long anterior to the approach of Christianity to those countries, and, probably, to its appearance in the world."[35]
When the Spanish missionaries first set foot on the soil of Mexico, they were amazed to find that the Aztecs worshiped the cross as an object of supreme veneration. They found it suspended as a sacred symbol and an august emblem from the walls of all the Aztec temples.[36] When they penetrated farther south and entered Peru, they found that the Incas adored a cross made out of a single piece of jasper.[37] "It appears," says "Chambers's Encyclopedia," "that the sign of the cross was in use as an emblem having certain religious and mystic meanings attached to it, long before the Christian era; and the Spanish conquerors were astonished to find it an object of religious veneration among the nations of Central and South America."[38]
That the ancient Mexicans should have worshiped the cross and also a crucified Savior, called Quetzalcoatle,[39] is one of the strangest phenomena of sacred history. It is a puzzle which the most eminent theologians have found it impossible to solve. They have generally contented themselves with declaring the whole thing a myth built upon primitive superstition and ignorance. This worship of the cross and Quetzalcoatle was going on before Columbus discovered America, and it seems impossible to establish any historical or geographical connection between it and the Christian worship of the cross and the crucified Jesus.
Several writers of eminence have contended that the widespread adoration of the cross, as a sacred symbol, among so many races of mankind, ancient and modern, proves a universal spiritual impulse, culminating in the crucifixion of Jesus as the common Savior of the world. "It is more than a coincidence," says the Rev. S. Baring-Gould, "that Osiris by the cross should give life eternal to the spirits of the just; that with the cross Thor should smite the head of the great Serpent, and bring to life those who were slain; that beneath the cross the Muysca mothers should lay their babes, trusting to that sign to secure them from the power of evil spirits; that with that symbol to protect them, the ancient people of Northern Italy should lay them down in the dust."[40]
But it is not with the mythical crucifixions of mythical gods that we have to deal. The real, historical death of Jesus upon the cross with its accompanying incidents of outrageous illegality is the purpose of this treatise; and to the accomplishment of that design we now return.