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THE ROMAN ARENA: A PLACE FOR EXECUTIONS
In ancient Rome, there were plenty of other ways to meet a public death. In one case, 4,500 prisoners were tied to stakes in groups of thirty at the Forum. The tendon at the back of the neck was cut and they were dragged out of the city while still half alive and left behind as carrion for vultures and dogs.
The arena was a popular method of executing condemned criminals, Christians, and other religious or political dissenters perceived to be the enemies of the State. The average untrained man stood no chance when pitted against a gladiator.
It was more common for crowds of condemned criminals to be herded naked into the arena. Armed only with rusty swords, they were forced to fight to the death. Attendants lashed them into action with whips and anyone who refused to fight risked having a red-hot branding iron pressed against his genitals. These wretched souls fought until only one man was left standing but there was no reprieve even for him. As he raised his arms in apparent victory, a black-helmeted giant carrying a two-handed axe would enter the arena and slice him in half.
Romans particularly enjoyed the re-enactment of mythological scenes. In a re-staging of Pasiphae and the Bull, in which the legendary queen of Crete conceived the Minotaur, a real bull was lowered in a cage and harnessed to a naked female victim. This act was presumably performed as an execution as it must surely have been fatal.
Christians were famously thrown to the lions. This punishment was originally added to the law books to deal with recalcitrant slaves, but other victims were found when it proved a popular entertainment. The most feared aggressor was the Libyan lion with its razor-sharp claws. Once captured, the beast would be sedated with copious quantities of Armenian brandy and shipped across the Mediterranean to the port of Ostia and up the river to Rome. There it would be caged and starved. Ravenous and fully sober, it would finally be released into the arena to face a crowd of defenceless victims who often had their feet fixed to hollow stones by molten lead. Some magicians claimed the power to halt a lion in its tracks with a series of hand gestures. One animal could be mesmerized – ten could not – so more than one lion was released.
Bulls, bears, and leopards were also used to kill victims. Criminals, known as noxii, were often exhibited on a platform in the middle of the arena and the creatures they were going to face were penned beneath. Saint Benignus of Dijon was torn apart by twelve half-starved dogs after hot needles were inserted under his fingernails. The slave girl Saint Blandina refused to renounce her faith and was tortured until her exhausted tormentors could think of nothing more to do to her. Blandina was taken to the arena again. Tied to a stake, she was not attacked by any of the wild animals set upon her, but she endured having to watch her fellow Christians perish for several days. After being scourged and placed on a hot grate, she was wrapped in a net and tossed around by wild bulls before finally being despatched with a dagger!
The demented Emperor Nero sometimes took on the part of the wild animal, dressing in animal skins and attacking men, women, and children tied naked to stakes. When Queen Boudicca of the Iceni tribe revolted, after her daughters had been raped and she herself had been stripped and flogged, Nero ordered further public punishments.
'Every kind of atrocity was inflicted upon their captives,' said the second-century historian Cassius Dio. 'They hung up the noblest and best-looking women naked, cutting off their breasts and stitching them to their mouths, so that the women appeared to be eating them and after this they impaled them on sharp stakes, run up the body.'
Another punishment during Nero's reign was to force the prisoner to dig his own grave. A sharpened stake was then fixed to the bottom. The victim was bound hand and foot before being pushed into the pit. If his crime had been a minor one, he would be pushed so the stake pierced his heart and finished him off quickly. If he had been convicted of a more serious felony, the stake would pierce his groin and he would be left to die in agony or would perhaps be buried alive.
Being buried alive – after being scourged in public – was traditionally a punishment reserved for vestal virgins who had violated their chastity vows. The lucky ones were entombed in a small cave and left to starve. Nero inflicted this punishment on the priestess Rubria even though it was he who raped her.
Nero blamed the Christians for the burning of Rome in AD 64. He had them rounded up and ordered that they be 'lighted up, when the day declined, to serve as torches during the night'. They were tied to stakes, smeared with tar, and set alight to illuminate the gardens where the newly homeless sought refuge. However, this atrocity worked against him. Tacitus reported that the Christians behaved so bravely 'humanity relented in their favour'.
Defeated gladiators faced public execution if they were not killed in the arena outright but the emperor decided their ultimate fate. Usually the crowd bayed 'Jugula! Jugula!' (Cut his throat! Cut his throat!) and most emperors sought to placate the spectators. If his thumb went down, the defeated gladiator would have to sit back on one heel, grip the winner's thigh, and tilt his head back. He would give a little nod to indicate that he was ready to die and his opponent would then quickly cut his throat as the dying man released his grip.
Some champions were real show-offs and took pride in spelling out the emperor's name in their victims' blood.
Caligula's Games
If a gladiatorial contest went on for too long during the reign of the bloodthirsty, and possibly insane, Emperor Caligula (AD 37-41), the Emperor would call a halt and order the two participants to cut each other's throats for a bit of instant action. At least two deaths an hour were required in the arena for prime entertainment if the audience was not to become bored.
Even the victor was not safe: protocol demanded that he take on the next contender. If he was one of the emperor's favourites, however, he could be excused and the emperor would then throw money into the crowds of spectators to assuage them.
If one of the combatants lost his nerve and refused to fight on, say, his first appearance in the arena, the crowd would hiss and cry, 'Hoc habet' (He's had it). At a nod from Caligula, his opponent would step aside and an Armenian dwarf in gold costume would enter the arena. Armed with a vast array of weapons, he would kill the disgraced gladiator in the most painful way possible. The dwarf's lethal skill was so awesome that the crowd fell silent as the victim's screams could be heard echoing around not just the arena but the surrounding hills. Within minutes, he would be chopped into pieces and the dwarf would desecrate his remains.
After each bout, the bald, black-clad 'carrion man' came into the arena carrying a red-hot poker and a silver hammer. He would apply the poker to the genitals of the fallen. If there was no reaction, he assumed they were dead and struck them on the head with the hammer to release their souls. Anyone who was still alive but too injured to continue was dragged down to the 'finishing-off room' under the stadium where a professional butcher would despatch him with a few strokes of his meat cleaver.
Under Caligula, people were condemned to death in the arena without their case even being heard. The aged and infirm were matched against tired beasts. A famous writer was burnt alive for writing a line that contained a double entendre. The manager of the gladiators was chained up and beaten for days for some unspecified offence and was only killed when Caligula could no longer stand the stench of the decomposing brain.
Parents were forced to watch the execution of their children. One man was brought on a litter when he pleaded that he was too ill to attend. Another was invited to dine with Caligula shortly after his son was executed for being too well-dressed and coiffed. The grieving man was asked to dinner once again on the day of the funeral and attended because he feared for the life of his other son. Caligula was also bald so anyone with a good head of hair risked, at the very least, having it shaved off.
Ptolemy was condemned to the arena for wearing a purple cloak that was much admired. Aesius Proculus, a particularly tall and handsome man, was dragged from his seat in the amphitheatre and forced to take on two gladiators. When he beat both opponents, Caligula ordered his death after displaying him to the ladies, bound and clad in rags.
Men of rank were branded on the face, shut up in cages like animals, or sawn in half. When the actor Apelles was asked the question: 'Who is greater, Jupiter, the king of the gods, or Caligula?', the madman had him cut to pieces with a whip because he hesitated before answering. As Apelles pleaded for mercy under torture, the emperor praised his voice and the melodious quality of his groans.
Caligula instructed his executioners to take their time and 'strike a man so that he feels he is dying'. He ordered one senator to be slit open and his eyes and internal organs removed with red-hot pincers (in that order) to prolong his agony. The man was then sawn in half and torn to pieces. Caligula's lust for cruelty, however, was not satisfied until he saw the man's limbs, bowels, and other body parts dragged through the street and piled up before him. He was so numb to the sight of pain and blood that he often ordered torture or decapitation as entertainment while he ate.
The Cruelties of Domitian
The Emperor Domitian (81–96) was particularly tough on Christians and, one way or another, a slow, painful, humiliating, and very public death was in store for them. They were hacked to pieces, burned to death, or perforated with a stake. Spikes, pincers, and iron claws would be used to tear the flesh from their bones and honey would be rubbed on their skin so insects would sting them to death.
The faithful would also be strung up by one leg, their thumbs, or their hair. Women's breasts would be cut off. Machinery would be used to crush victims or they would be beaten to death with hammers, whips, or cudgels. Martyrs were smeared with honey and milk before being nailed into barrels and force-fed. Parasites would then feed on their internal organs as their bodies rotted from the outside. It could take two weeks to die.
Victims were also skinned alive or roasted. After being sewn inside an animal's carcass, they would be left to die in the sun unless the vultures got there first. Others were boiled in oil or had molten lead poured over them. Eyes were torn out, limbs severed, and genitals torn.
Saint Cyrilla's belly was slit open and filled with hot coals. Saint Euphemia was forced to watch her severed limbs being fried in a large pan. Roasting on a gridiron (a frame made of iron bars the thickness of a finger) was another unpleasant option. Three bars ran lengthways to the height of a man while seven or eight shorter pieces ran crosswise, forming a grill. More bars braced the structure and there were short legs on each corner. A fire was lit underneath and the victim was pinioned with iron forks.
Numerous saints were broiled alive in public in this way, among them Saint Laurence, whose famous wit proved to be his downfall. When the Emperor Valerian (253–260) asked him to hand over the treasures of his church, he sent the widows and orphans in his care. Being sentenced to be martyred on the gridiron did not seem to quell his spirit in any way. After some time over the fire, he is reputed to have said, 'This side is roasted enough, oh great tyrant; you decide whether roasted or raw makes better meat.' When they turned him over, he said, 'Now it's done to a turn; you can start eating.' Pagan onlookers reported that he gave off a malodorous stench. Believers smelt a sweet odour and saw him bathed in heavenly light. Some Roman senators converted on the spot. As he died, Saint Laurence prayed that Rome would convert to Christianity. His body is buried on the Via Tiburtina.
The saint's death heralded the end of Roman paganism. When the Emperor Diocletian (284–305) was upbraided by his chamberlain for executing Christians on the gridiron, the unfortunate man was hung up and scourged. Vinegar and salt were rubbed into his wounds and he was sent to the gridiron and cooked over a slow fire. After that, any idolatry was forbidden and Laurence's prayer was answered. The basilica of San Lorenzo, begun by Constantine, Diocletian's successor, to commemorate the death of Laurence, stands to this day.
Another version of the gridiron was the metal chair on which the victim was forced to sit as it was heated from underneath. Seven women who had collected drops of Saint Blaise's blood, after he had been tortured with hot combs and beheaded in 316, were sentenced to die in this way. Seven brass chairs were sent for and the women were forced to sit on them. Fires were then lit until they were 'so hot that sparks flew from them as from a furnace heated to the utmost, and their bodies were so scorched that all the people that stood by were savored of the frying'.
