374 



CRUCIFIXION, 



' ' .■uciiixion. meiit of this description, and perhaps a capital one, called 

 '""^V™"' crurifrangium by the ancients, inflicted on Roman slaves 

 and Christian martyrs, as also on women or gh-ls. Au- 

 gustus ordered the legs of one to be broken who had 

 given up a letter for a bribe; and Ammianus says, 

 " both the Apollinares, father and son, were killed, ac- 

 cording to the sentence, by breaking their legs." Un- 

 der the reign of Dioclesian, twenty-three Christians 

 suffered martyrdom in the same manner. The legs of 

 ihe criminal were laid on an anvil, and by main force 

 fractured with a heavy hammer, somewhat similar to 

 the modern barbarous custom of breaking the bones of 

 offenders on the wheel by an iron bar. From the nar- 

 rative of the evangelists, we may conclude, that break- 

 ing the legs of the thieves was to promote their death, 

 that they might be taken down the same day from the 

 cross. 



That spectators might learn the cause of punish- 

 ment, a label, or inscription, indicating the crime, fre- 

 quently surmounted the head of the criminal. The 

 offence charged against Jesus Christ, was having called 

 himself King of the Jews. Accordingly, the inscrip- 

 tion on his cross was, " This is Jesus, king of the 

 Jews." By our own customs, a label is sometimes 

 hung from the neck of an offender condemned to lesser 

 punishments, describing his guilt, which is meant to 

 aggravate the ignominy. But among the Romans, this 

 was perhaps also the Avarrant for putting the sentence 

 in execution. Caligula, at a public feast, ordered the 

 hands of a slave, who had stolen a piece of plate, to be 

 cut off, and hung from his neck, and he was then led 

 round the guests, preceded by a label declaring the 

 cause of punishment. Domitian ordered a person to 

 betaken from the theatre and thrown to the dogs, with 

 a label bearing, " For impious expressions." 



That the object of crucifixion might be fulfilled in 

 exposing the body of the criminal to decay, sentinels 

 were commonly posted beside the cross, to prevent it from 

 being taken down and buried. Privation of sepulture 

 Mas dreaded as the greatest evil by the ancients, who 

 believed that the soul could never rest or enjoy felicity, 

 so long as their mortal remains continued on the earth. 

 Thus, it was a great aggravation of the punishment, 



-Scio crucem futuram mihi sepulehrum 



Jbi mei majorts sunt siti; pater, avos, proavos, abavos. 

 Plauiue, Miles Gloriosus. 



Perhaps the practice of the Romans was uniform in 

 accomplishing what is expressed in these lines, and, in 

 Petronius Arbiter, it is said of the sentinel, " Proximo, 

 ergo node, cum miles qui cruces asservabat, ne quis ad 

 sepulturam corpora detraheret, notasset sibi, et lumen 

 inter monumenta clarius fulgens." Whence it appears, 

 that the soldier watched to prevent the removal of the 

 body, which the relatives of the deceased anxiously de- 

 sired, and, as the same author intimates, succeeded in 

 obtaining. The Jews solicited Pilate to permit the bo- 

 dy of Christ to be taken down, because the day subse- 

 quent to his crucifixion was a festival ; and although 

 the Jewish law in one place says of a criminal, " his 

 body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou 

 shalt in any wise bury him that day," it is certain, that 

 on occasions of hostility an enemy was exposed. Se- 

 ven descendants of Saul having been put to death by 

 the Gibeonites, " Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, took 

 sackcloth, and spread it for her on the rock, from the 

 beginning of harvest until water dropped upon them 

 out of heaven, and suffered neither the birds of the air 



to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field by Cnuifixn 

 night." In proceedings of so arbitrary a nature, and "-""Y^ 

 the adoption of customs by nations remote from each 

 other, or living in distant aeras, uniformity cannot be 

 thought to prevail. The Mahometan commentators on 

 their own laws are divided concerning the disposal of 

 crucified malefactors ; some maintain, that the body 

 should be taken down in three days, others that it 

 shoidd remain on the cross until it decays by the gra- 

 dual progress of dissolution. 



Besides these, the ordinary modes of inflicting the 

 punishment of crucifixion, assuredly sufficiently cruel 

 in themselves, mankind have sought the gratification 

 of vengeance in deviating from them. Such was the 

 conduct of the Roman soldiers under Titus at the siege 

 of Jerusalem, where the miserable Jews were crucified 

 in various postures by their sanguinary enemies. Se- 

 neca speaks of crucifixion with the head downwards ; 

 and of this we have a noted example in the history of 

 St Peter, during the first century of the Christian aera. 

 Having been seized by the Roman government, and 

 condemned to die on the cross, it is said that he solici- 

 ted, as a greater degradation, that he might be cruci- 

 fied with his head downwards. Hence Chrysostom ex- 

 claims, " Rejoice, O Peter, that you enjoyed the privi- 

 lege of dying by the cross, and that you desired cruci- 

 fixion in imitation of your blessed Master, not like him, 

 however, in an upright posture, but with your head 

 downwards, and your feet aloft, as if you had been pre- 

 paring to journey to heaven." Peter was not a solitary 

 instance; for another martyr, Calliopius, suffered in the 

 same manner : and Eusebius describes the punishment 

 of certain martyrs in Egypt, to have been inverted 

 crucifixion, as an aggravation of punishment. 



It appeai-s that delinquents were sometimes affixed 

 to the cross, and burnt or suffocated to death. A Ro- 

 man emperor commanded that an offender should be 

 treated thus, and suffocated with the smoke of green 

 wood, a crier proclaiming, "Let him who has sold smoke, 

 suffer by smoke." When the executioners prepared to 

 fix Polycarpus to the cross, he requested them to desist, 

 " as without being secured by nails, he who had per- 

 mitted his death by fire, would endow him with 

 strength to bear it," therefore they only bound him. 



With respect to the persons on whom this punish- 

 ment was inflicted, we have seen that the Carthaginian 

 leaders were not exempt from it ; but elswhere, espe- 

 cially among the Jews and Romans, only the lowest 

 malefactors were condemned to the cross. It was pe- 

 culiarly appropriated for slaves. 



Pone crucem servo : meruit quo crimine servus , 



Supplkium? Juv. Sat. v. 



The author of the Bellum Hispaniense annexed to 

 Caesar's Commentaries, says, Ea node speculatores prc- 

 hensi servi tres et unus ex legione vernacula. Servi in 

 crucem sublati ; militi cervices abscisses, cap. 20. Cruci- 

 fixion is always called servile supplicium by the Latin 

 writers. Livy also, in speaking of a revolt among the 

 slaves, which Marcus Acilius the praetor marched with 

 an armed force to quell, observes, that many were kill- 

 ed in an encounter, some captured and restored to their 

 owners, but the ringleaders were scourged and cruci- 

 fied ; and Augustus crucified thousands at a time in Sicily, 

 who wanted masters. Soldiers, and especially deserters, 

 were subjected to this punishment. It was not, however, 

 the proper punishment of the former, whence Vulca- 

 tius apparently reprehends Avidius Ca6sius, because he 



