• Sign up or login, and you'll have full access to opportunities of forum.

Public Executions In The Arena

Go to CruxDreams.com
Helach said:
The reality of these particularly cruel and pervert games are seriously questioned by historians and on the internet. Testemonies of the roman times who asserted such animal rapes are not many and their reliablility is not proven.

Several questions raise about this issue : first, it is not an easy task to teach wild and dangerous beasts, and for some species, it seems pratically unbelievable to assure the "good result" (except maybe for dogs, horses, jackasses or some domesticated bulls) ; second, chimpanzees are primates from central Africa and this species was probably unknown to the Romans, according to several sources, they didn't go that deep in Africa.
Click to expand...
Yes, the best-known source is Martial, whose account of the 'spectacles' was pretty much at the tabloid end of Roman reporting,
though probably based on grains of truth, sexed up for sensation. I think you're right about the difficulty of persuading wild animals to do the kinds of things they were supposed to do in the arena, even attacking human victims, never mind eating or raping them - though that's not to say they didn't manage it sometimes. And I think there's pretty good evidence of equatorial animals reaching Rome and other parts of the empire, they didn't have to go to the heart of Africa to get them, traders brought them down the Nile or round the coast by sea.
 
Pierre771 said:
The executioners always stripped their victims entirely (men and women) because they sold their clothes
Click to expand...
That's true.

In addition, as far as we know, in antiquity (and until the late medieaevum) women wore panties only as a sanitary suspender and the rest of the month they wore no underdress at all. So the men stripped from all the valuable clothes could have still their loincloth (not an attractive loot to take) but women must became really naked. Of course this loincloth could be torn off too but not always, and on the other hand, we have no account of additional clothes delivered for the victims, which seems impractical and troubling, so, finally, it is more probable to see naked women on the crosses even if the men crucified together with them were not fully exposed.
 
Andyman said:
That's true.

In addition, as far as we know, in antiquity (and until the late medieaevum) women wore panties only as a sanitary suspender and the rest of the month they wore no underdress at all. So the men stripped from all the valuable clothes could have still their loincloth (not an attractive loot to take) but women must became really naked. Of course this loincloth could be torn off too but not always, and on the other hand, we have no account of additional clothes delivered for the victims, which seems impractical and troubling, so, finally, it is more probable to see naked women on the crosses even if the men crucified together with them were not fully exposed.
Click to expand...
1st reflexion : women wore no underdress at all still in Europe in the 19th century and even later by the countryside. I guess they are a Victorian invention
2nd : are you sure they left this loincloth to men ? For obvious reasons, the artists left it to Christ but is it the reality ?
3rd : is it proved historically that there were really crucified women or is it only a fantasm in this forum ?
 
1 Well, they wore 'underdresses', petticoats, maybe several layers when it was cold. But Andyman's probably right about any 'panties', they were simply a loincloth/ rag for sanitary wear (or again, just to keep out the cold!)
2 I don't think we can be sure, obviously there can't be any archaeological evidence. Bear in mind though that the sight of genitals was widely believed to be polluting to the spectator - if men or women had their private parts covered, it wasn't to save them from shame, but the viewers.
3 Oh yes, well-known examples mentioned in credible classical sources include female Jewish rebels and followers of Spartacus.
 
Pierre771 said:
1st reflexion : women wore no underdress at all still in Europe in the 19th century and even later by the countryside. I guess they are a Victorian invention
2nd : are you sure they left this loincloth to men ? For obvious reasons, the artists left it to Christ but is it the reality ?
3rd : is it proved historically that there were really crucified women or is it only a fantasm in this forum ?
Click to expand...
#3, the Turks and the Armenians- late 1800s and early 1900s
 
The most important source is an instruction how to crucify slaves, found on the document known as Tabula Puteolana and publicated first in 1966.

Let's translate Paragraph 2, Col. II, 8-10 The Crucifixion of Slaves by Private Owners

"If one wants to privately execute a slave, male or female, or if he wants others to perform the execution [i.e., the contractor], they will execute in that manner [requested]. If [the private person] wants a patibulum put on the cross, the contractor has to furnish the cross-beam, posts, ties, ropes for the floggers as well as the floggers, while he who requests the execution must give to every laborer who carries the patibulum, to the floggers as well as to the executioner, four sesterces each."

The particular words used in the original latin text are not absolutely clear, but according to Gino Zaninotto's analysis, "it seems that, consigning the slave to the contractor, the owner dictated the method of capital punishment and the torture which should precede it, acting, in regard to the slaves, with the same authority as the magistrates."

So, this source gives us few interesting facts:
- women were punished exactly the same as men,
- the flogging/whipping was an integral part of a crucifixion,
- any additional torture or humiliation could be added by the owner of the slave with no need to approval by authorities.

The document has been dated between the end of the Republic and the beginning of the Empire (middle of the First Century A.D.).
 
Andyman said:
The most important source is an instruction how to crucify slaves, found on the document known as Tabula Puteolana and publicated first in 1966.

Let's translate Paragraph 2, Col. II, 8-10 The Crucifixion of Slaves by Private Owners

"If one wants to privately execute a slave, male or female, or if he wants others to perform the execution [i.e., the contractor], they will execute in that manner [requested]. If [the private person] wants a patibulum put on the cross, the contractor has to furnish the cross-beam, posts, ties, ropes for the floggers as well as the floggers, while he who requests the execution must give to every laborer who carries the patibulum, to the floggers as well as to the executioner, four sesterces each."

The particular words used in the original latin text are not absolutely clear, but according to Gino Zaninotto's analysis, "it seems that, consigning the slave to the contractor, the owner dictated the method of capital punishment and the torture which should precede it, acting, in regard to the slaves, with the same authority as the magistrates."

So, this source gives us few interesting facts:
- women were punished exactly the same as men,
- the flogging/whipping was an integral part of a crucifixion,
- any additional torture or humiliation could be added by the owner of the slave with no need to approval by authorities.

The document has been dated between the end of the Republic and the beginning of the Empire (middle of the First Century A.D.).
Click to expand...

Wonder who the "contractors" were? I can imagine that might have been quite a lucrative business!
 
A magistrate or mayor - the representative of local authorities. His part in this business was rather passive and he couldn't forbid the execution of a particular person, but at least the owner must make everything formally correct and pay some amount of money and it requires some time for preparations, so it could be some kind of an obstacle making the crucifixion of his slave less easy and hastily, for example in a fit of anger. And in case of some swindle at least the owner knew that the ceasar's administration would be informed.
 
Last edited:
Eulalia said:
1 Well, they wore 'underdresses', petticoats, maybe several layers when it was cold. But Andyman's probably right about any 'panties', they were simply a loincloth/ rag for sanitary wear (or again, just to keep out the cold!)
Click to expand...

Yeah, Barb and I researched that for the Ann Lee story http://www.cruxforums.com/xf/threads/the-real-historical-female-jesus.5775/page-3 We didn't find anything convincing for or against some kind of loincloth so we had one because it made the story better. The question of sanitary pads is still with us in the developing world where the cost of commercial pads is beyond the means of many women http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/13/magazine/design-issue-sanitary-pads-india.html
 
It is the pass from Mishna (Jewish law from the Roman times) as a unique historical source, in which there is a mention about the women faced the pole during crucifixion. But it is a law of Israel, not of the Rome.

The Romans themselves made no distinctions between men and women and it is far less probable.

And as for avoiding the exposure, once again please take a look at this picture:

752.jpg

This position (with knees forcibly encircling the pole) allows victim to hide nothing at all and forced her to be far more exposed than in "normal" layout...
 
New roman arena 256-1.jpg

SLAVE PUBLICLY SCOURGED FOR STEALING A JEWEL

"In 27 b.C., in Capua, Clodia, a joung slavegirl, was accused of stealing a golden ring with a precious jem in her master's house. The ring was found in her cubiculum and she wasn't able to demonstrate her innocence. Her master condemned the woman to be publicly scourged in the arena. She received more then 50 lashes, and the wounds were so serious that she died three days later."
 
MICHELE PATRI said:
View attachment 437511

SLAVE PUBLICLY SCOURGED FOR STEALING A JEWEL

"In 27 b.C., in Capua, Clodia, a joung slavegirl, was accused of stealing a golden ring with a precious jem in her master's house. The ring was found in her cubiculum and she wasn't able to demonstrate her innocence. Her master condemned the woman to be publicly scourged in the arena. She received more then 50 lashes, and the wounds were so serious that she died three days later."
Click to expand...

Too bad. It was such a lovely jewel!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom