We meet the hero of Deep Calling Deep, the historical figure Praetorian Prefect Sextus Burrus, as he is questioning the brutality of Rome.
Crucifixion was used throughout Rome’s history as more than a form of execution. It was torture, plain and simple.
There are a plethora of places to read about the specifics of this particularly horrible death. Suffice it to say that every minute part of the ritual was intended to humiliate, slow down the process of death, and cause as much suffering as possible.
There are some misconceptions about crucifixion, though.
oil painting by Fyodor Bronnikov
Romans were not the first nor the only ones to crucify people. Crucifixion is believed to have started in Persia, and it was also used in one form or another by the Carthaginians, and the Macedonians. In 519 BC Darius I, king of Persia, crucified 3,000 political opponents in Babylon, and in 332 BC a Macedonian king crucified 2,000 survivors from his siege of Tyre. The Greeks, however, were generally opposed to the ordeal.
We know of the thieves on either side of Jesus, but the Romans crucified thousands upon thousands of others.
- An infamous mass crucifixions followed the Third Servile War in 73–71 BC, better known as the slave rebellion led by Spartacus. General Crassus hunted down the rebel followers and crucified 6,000 of them. Crosses lined the Appian Way all the way to Capua, with a victim every 100 feet or so.
- The were other mass killings after the Roman civil wars, and after the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. Josephus tells us the Romans crucified people along the walls of Jerusalem, placing them in different positions for their own amusement.
- Crucifixion wasn’t just used in war, though. Julius Caesar crucified the Cilician pirates who had captured him as a youth and demanded ransom. In the first century AD, 400 slaves, including women and children, were crucified after one of them murdered their master. Ancient law called for all slaves to be killed since no one stopped the murderer.
- According to martyrology, ten thousand Roman soldiers who had decided to follow Christ were crucified on Mt. Ararat (where Noah is said to have landed the ark) by Emperor Decius (around 250 AD).
Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor, abolished crucifixion in the Roman Empire in 337 out of veneration for Jesus.
Crucifixion was not a quick death. Although Jesus died in about six hours, it could take days to die, depending on how fit they were before the execution, how much torture had already taken place, and whether or not their death was hastened in any way.
Crucified slaves, from the movie Spartacus (1960)
Victims were usually stripped naked and whipped, causing a good deal of blood to be lost, and then they had to carry the crossbeam to the site of execution. The Roman guards could not leave until after the condemned had died, so they sometimes broke their legs—leading to suffocation—to speed up death.
The shape we know as the cross was not the only form used. The Romans used all shapes and sizes, especially during a mass killing.
Two basic kinds were the crux simplex (a simple stake) and the crux compacta (a composite of two pieces of wood). The victim could be affixed to the crux simplex or impaled on it. There were three kinds of crux compacta: X-shaped, T-shaped, t-shaped. Seneca the Younger recounts: “I see crosses there, not just of one kind but made in many different ways: some have their victims with head down to the ground; some impale their private parts; others stretch out their arms on the gibbet.”
The victim was usually only a few feet off the ground, not way above the heads of observers. This not only conserved wood, it made their suffering and humiliation easier for all to see—and the lesson that Rome always wins much more obvious.
Criminals didn’t carry a cross to their own execution. For one thing, it would be far too heavy, weighing up to 300 pounds. They would have carried only the crossbeam, which would be closer to 100 pounds—still very heavy after a flogging. For another thing, Romans generally had upright beams already set up at the place of execution. In Rome, that place was just beyond the Esquiline Gate to the east of the city. (Crassus may have used the Appian Way outside the Capua Gate, as that was along the triumphal route.)
Crucifixion was reserved used for slaves, rebels, foreigners, pirates, and those convicted of especially heinous crimes. Considered a shameful and disgraceful way to die, it was not used on citizens, who were allowed a more dignified death by beheading unless found guilty of high treason.
The Romans were very aware of how horrible a death crucifixion led to. Cicero described crucifixion as “a most cruel and disgusting punishment,” and Seneca argued that it would be better to commit suicide than endure the torture of crucifixion. “Can anyone be found who would prefer wasting away in pain dying limb by limb, or letting out his life drop by drop, rather than expiring once for all?”
Jesus may not be the only man ever crucified, but he was the only Perfect Man, innocent, dying not because of his crimes but for our sin. Only Immeasurable Love would willingly submit to unendurable pain for fallen man.
His death gives us life. And now it is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us.
