Despite their screams, he is not aware that his comrades are alternately raised and hanged naked like him by the wrists, their feet agitating in the void, trying to lean on the stipes before finally falling back. Only Amset who has the best physical condition manages to enclose the stipes with his feet and manages to keep himself in a high position by hugging the post with his ankles.
Once the four young men had more or less calmed down, the soldiers advanced from Salmu for the last stage of his crucifixion. A soldier slightly bends his right leg, lifts it and places the ankle towards the back of the pole with his knee pointing outwards. This allows Salmu to take support and straighten up to breathe better and relieve a little pain in his wrists. But the respite is short-lived and soon a long nail comes to smash his ankle and fix it against the post. The young convict falls back screaming madly in pain. The same process is repeated with his second ankle. In a fog of unbearable suffering, Salmu realizes that his crucifixion is over: he is now crucified by 4 nails that pierce him and bind him to the cross until death.
The pain does not erase the humiliation of being completely naked, arms crossed, knees apart cannot hide his sex well highlighted. His family and friends may see his downse. Yesterday he was still a rich newlywed wearing jewelry and beautiful clothes, going from party to party with his pretty wife enjoying life. Today he is no more than a totally naked crucified convict. His body yesterday seductive and coated with perfume is now dirty, bloody and shiny with sweat as he wriths in pain screaming incessantly.
After a long time he manages to stop screaming, to remain motionless to limit the slenderness of pain that radiates from his wrists and ankles and he regains consciousness of his environment. He realizes that his comrades are now all crucified like him with nail-pierced ankles on the sides of the stipes so that they cannot hide their sex with their legs.
The crowd continues to shout at them and scream apart from the gallery of their families who remain silent. He can see his wife and mother crying in the arms of his father and his friends lamenting. He then feels even more the humiliation of being naked in front of them and in front of the crowd. Ashamed, he then lowers his head and desperately looks for what he could do to limit the pain or to shorten his suffering.
Anhour after he has managed to regain his spirits follows the same path: he knows that he will die crucified naked on his cross. Even if he were to be dissociated now, there would be little chance that he would survive with his pierced wrists and broken ankles and he would be nothing but a crippled one anyway. He has already seen crucified perform the dance of the cross: lift themselves by leaning on the nailed ankles to breathe better and relieve the wrists before falling back when the muscles of the legs are too exhausted to maintain the high position that does not allow to lock the knees. He tells himself that he will try to stay in the low position to hasten his asphyxiation and his death and as immobile as possible so as not to revive the atrocious spikes of pain coming from the nails.
Tiresias,on the other hand, constantly moves on the cross, letting out screams and grunts as he tries to find the least painful position. First of all, he leans on his legs, lifts his buttocks to the maximum against the pole and the upper body leaning forward but the pain in his ankles is excruciating and he feels the muscles of his thighs tetanus quickly in the effort. So he lets himself fall as slowly as possible gradually passing his weight from his ankles to his wrists. The pain barely recedes in his feet but bursts into his wrists. In addition, the rubbing of the wood against his flayed buttocks and back awaken the pains of flogging. He shifts his ass to the right outside the post and tries to sit on his heels with his arms outstretched to the maximum, so he could hide his balls a little between his legs and relieve his ankles. He cannot maintain the position because the pain in his wrists becomes unbearable because all his weight rests on them. He then tries to straighten up and projects his body forward, but besides that the posture is obscene it makes both the ankles and the wrists suffer. Crying in pain, he placed his buttocks against the pole in the low position completely exhausted and suffering more and more. He groans when he realizes that no position can relieve him even of some of the pain. In addition to whatever his position, his hanging sex is exhibited in full view of everyone, he has no way to hide it and thus reduce the shame he feels to be naked in front of the crowd and his family
Amset knows that suffering and humiliation will only increase and he tries to accept them to make them more bearable. Like Anhour,he tries to remain as immobile aspossible in the low position lifting himself only unconsciously and mechanically when the asphyxiation becomes unbearable.
The poor young condemned knew, having observed as spectators naked crucified men twisting and screaming, that crucifixion was the worst way to die, but they could never have imagined the intensity of the suffering they suffered. The crucifixion was not a simple execution, but the cruellest and most degrading torture of all, both by physical suffering and by the humiliation of being exposed totally naked, vulnerable.
