Roman crucifixion

The cruelest execution

A penalty Rome reserved for slaves and rebels, designed to humiliate in public. Cicero called it “the most cruel and horrifying punishment.”

A death meant to be seen

Crucifixion was not a Roman invention. Herodotus records similar executions among the Persians, and the practice was used by the Carthaginians and by Alexander the Great, who, according to the historian Curtius Rufus, had 2,000 men crucified after taking Tyre in 332 BC. Rome adopted it and turned it into an instrument of the state. It was the ‘slaves’ punishment,’ also applied to bandits, deserters and provincial rebels; Roman citizens, as a rule, were exempt. The aim was not only to kill but to humiliate and warn: executions took place in busy spots, beside roads and city gates, and the condemned hung exposed before everyone. Cicero called it the cruelest and most repulsive of punishments (Against Verres 2.5.165) and said the very word cross should be kept far from a Roman citizen’s body, eyes and ears (In Defense of Rabirius 16). For the Roman elite, it was a subject best left unspoken.

Spartacus, Varus and the crosses of Judea

The cross was used to crush revolts. In 71 BC, after defeating the slave rebellion led by Spartacus, the general Crassus had 6,000 prisoners crucified along the Appian Way between Capua and Rome (Appian, Civil Wars 1.120). Judea learned the same lesson in terror. About a century before Jesus, the Hasmonean king Alexander Jannaeus crucified 800 Jewish opponents in Jerusalem, according to Josephus (Antiquities 13.380). In 4 BC, after Herod’s death, Varus, governor of Syria, crushed the uprisings and crucified 2,000 rebels (Antiquities 17.295). During the siege of Jerusalem in AD 70, Josephus says Titus had about 500 fugitives crucified a day, sometimes more, until there was no room for the crosses and no crosses for the bodies (Jewish War 5.446-451). For a first-century Jew, the cross was not a religious symbol: it was a concrete reminder of what happened to anyone who challenged Rome.

How it was done

Ancient sources show much variation, and detailed reconstructions call for caution. The philosopher Seneca says he saw crosses of different shapes (Consolation to Marcia 20.3). In general, the condemned man was flogged first, which already left him badly weakened. Often he carried the horizontal beam to the site, where it was fixed to a stake already planted in the ground. He might be tied or nailed. A placard, the titulus, announced the reason for the sentence; ancient writers say it could be carried before the condemned or hung around his neck before being fastened to the cross. A small squad of soldiers carried out the execution and usually kept the victim’s clothes. The agony could last hours or days; death came from a combination of exhaustion, blood loss, shock and difficulty breathing, and physicians still debate the exact weight of each. Bodies were often left exposed and denied burial: the humiliation continued after death.

The heel of Yehohanan

For a long time there was no direct archaeological trace of a crucified person. That changed in 1968, when archaeologist Vassilios Tzaferis excavated Jewish tombs at Giv’at ha-Mivtar in northern Jerusalem. On an ossuary, a stone box in which bones were kept after the body decomposed, the name Yehohanan son of Hagakol was carved. Among the bones was a right heel pierced by an iron nail about 11.5 centimeters (4.5 inches) long, its tip bent, with bits of wood still attached. The nail probably struck a knot in the wood, could not be pulled out and was buried with the man. The first reconstruction, from 1970, was revised in 1985 by Joe Zias and Eliezer Sekeles, who showed there is no evidence of broken legs or of nails in the arms. The find confirms two important things: Jews were crucified with nails in the first century, and a crucified man could be buried in a family tomb.

What the Gospels show

The Gospels are restrained. None describes the nails or the physical suffering in detail; they say only that they crucified him. Yet every element they record fits known Roman practice: the prior flogging; soldiers forcing a passerby, Simon of Cyrene, to carry the cross; the public place near the city; the placard with the charge, ‘King of the Jews,’ in three languages; the division of the clothes among four soldiers; the mockery; the two men crucified alongside, described with a Greek word Josephus uses for bandits and rebels. Breaking the legs, requested to hasten death before the Sabbath, honored the law forbidding a body to hang overnight (Deuteronomy 21:22-23), and Josephus confirms that Jews took the crucified down before sunset (Jewish War 4.317). Pilate is surprised at the quick death and checks with the centurion before releasing the body to Joseph of Arimathea.

Scandal and the power of God

Preaching a crucified Messiah seemed almost absurd to the ancient world. To many Jews it sounded like a curse, since the Law called cursed anyone hung on a tree; to Greeks and Romans it was madness to worship a man executed like a slave. In Rome, on the Palatine Hill, a graffito was found in 1857, probably from the second or third century, showing a man before a crucified figure with a donkey’s head and the Greek caption ‘Alexamenos worships his god’: mockery aimed at a Christian. Justin Martyr, around AD 150, acknowledges that Christians were called mad for giving a crucified man the place next to God (1 Apology 13). Even so, Paul made the cross the center of the message: Christ humbled himself to death on a cross (Philippians 2:8) and became a curse for us (Galatians 3:13). In the fourth century, under Constantine, crucifixion was abolished, and the cross gradually became the best-known symbol of the Christian faith.

Did you know?

• Cicero wrote that the very word cross should be kept far from a Roman citizen’s body, eyes and ears. Cicero, In Defense of Rabirius 16
• After Spartacus’ revolt in 71 BC, 6,000 prisoners were crucified along the Appian Way between Capua and Rome. Apiano, Guerras Civis 1.120
• The iron nail in Yehohanan’s heel, about 11.5 cm long, bent when it hit a knot in the wood and was buried with him: that is why it survived. Ossuary of Yehohanan, Giv’at ha-Mivtar, Jerusalem (1968)
• One of the oldest images of Jesus’ crucifixion is a mockery: a graffito in Rome showing a crucified figure with a donkey’s head and the caption ‘Alexamenos worships his god.’ Alexamenos graffito, Palatine Hill, Rome
• Josephus reports that during the siege of AD 70 the Romans crucified about 500 fugitives a day before the walls of Jerusalem. Josefo, Guerra Judaica 5.446-451

Where this shows up in the Bible

• Marcos 15:21-22: Roman soldiers could force civilians to perform services such as carrying loads; that requisition falls on Simon of Cyrene, coming in from the country. Mark names his sons, Alexander and Rufus, as people his readers knew, a detail from someone who had witnesses. The condemned man, weakened by the flogging, could no longer carry the beam alone.
• João 19:19-22: The placard with the charge was part of a Roman execution: it announced the crime and served as a warning. Pilate writes ‘King of the Jews’ in Hebrew, Latin and Greek, the languages of faith, power and trade, and refuses to change it. Without meaning to, the governor proclaims to the world who Jesus is.
• Lucas 23:39-43: The two men crucified with Jesus were probably bandits or rebels, exactly the kind of people the cross was designed for. In the middle of the empire’s most shameful execution, one of them asks to be remembered in the Kingdom and receives a promise for that very day. The place of total exclusion becomes a place of welcome.
• João 19:31-34: Breaking the legs hastened death, because the crucified could no longer push up to breathe. The request came from respect for the Law, which required burial on the same day for anyone hung on a tree. The soldiers see that Jesus is already dead, and the spear thrust confirms it: John insists the death was real, seen by those who were there.
• Marcos 15:42-46: The Romans often left bodies on the cross, but they could release them to relatives or authorities, especially in Judea, because of the Law. The heel of Yehohanan, found in a family tomb, shows that a crucified man could be buried with dignity. Joseph of Arimathea risks his own reputation by asking Pilate for the body.
• 1 Coríntios 1:22-24: Paul knew how absurd the message sounded: to Jews, a crucified Messiah was a scandal; to Greeks, foolishness. He neither hides the cross nor dresses it up. He declares that there, in the most humiliating form of death Rome knew, God displayed his power and his wisdom.

To go deeper

• Martin Hengel, Crucifixion in the Ancient World and the Folly of the Message of the Cross (1977)
• Cicero, Against Verres 2.5 and In Defense of Rabirius
• Flavius Josephus, The Jewish War, books 2 and 5
• Joe Zias and Eliezer Sekeles, The Crucified Man from Giv’at ha-Mivtar: A Reappraisal, Israel Exploration Journal 35 (1985)
• John Granger Cook, Crucifixion in the Mediterranean World (2014)

Where to read in the Bible

• John 19:17–18

Connections

• linked to Jesus of Nazareth · factual · John 19:18

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