[23] It appears that the battle was fought in July or the beginning of August, adulta jam æstate. If so, the fifth hour nearly agrees with our nine in the morning.
[24] In the time of the republic, the title of Imperator was given by the soldiers in the field of battle to the commander-in-chief. The custom ceased under Augustus, who annexed the title to the imperial dignity, the prince being then generalissimo of all the armies of the empire. The name of Imperator, it is true, was afterward given to the general who gained a victory; but that was not done without the special permission of the prince. The same rule was observed under the following emperors; and accordingly we find that Tiberius was saluted Imperator; but the soldiers did not presume to do that honor to Germanicus.
[25] The mouth of the Visurgis, or the Weser.
THE CRUCIFIXION
A.D. 30[26]
FREDERIC WILLIAM FARRAR
The Crucifixion of Jesus Christ took place on Friday of the Passover week of the Jews, in the year a.d. 30. This day is known and now generally observed by Christians as Good Friday. Crucifixion, as a means of inflicting death in the most cruel, lingering, and shameful way, was used by many nations of antiquity. The Jews never executed their criminals in this way, but the Greeks and Romans made the cross the instrument of death to malefactors. The cross was in the shape either of the letter T or the letter X, or was in the form familiar in such paintings of the Crucifixion as the well-known representation of Rubens. It was the usual custom to compel the criminal to carry his own cross to the place of execution. The cross was then set up and the criminal was usually tied to it by the hands and feet and left to perish of hunger and thirst. Sometimes he was given a narcotic drink to stupefy him. In the case of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ the victim was fastened to the cross by nails driven through his hands and feet.
As Dr. Judson Titsworth has plainly pointed out, the men who were crucified with Jesus Christ were not thieves, but robbers (this is the term also used below by Farrar), or perhaps Jewish patriots, to the Romans political rebels and outlaws. They would then be classed with Jesus under the accusation that they were not loyal to the sovereignty of the Roman Emperor. During the procuratorship of Pontius Pilate there was a widely prevailing spirit of sedition and revolt among the Jews, and many rebels were sentenced to crucifixion. Such a rebel was the robber Barabbas, whom Pilate wished to substitute for Jesus as the victim of popular fury. The "robber" episode of the Crucifixion is treated by Farrar with a picturesque effect which heightens the vivid coloring in his account of the supreme event that marks "the central point of the world's history."