Death In Carcere Mamertino (carcer Tullianum)
The Carcere Mamertino aka Carcer Tullianum is one of the most important and fascinating monuments of the Roman Republic at the time. It holds a great historical and archaeological wealth for over 3,000 years. The first signs of the place date back to the ninth century BC
It is located below the Church of St. Joseph ‘‘the Carpenter’’ – dated sixteenth century – it faces at the Roman Forum, one of the most impressive views of the city. The complex consists of two distinct parts: the Carcer, the upper level, which dates from the seventh century. B.C. and Tullianum, the lower level, which dates back to the sixth century.a.C. The Tullianum waters were left to die the enemies of the Roman people, including some major historical figures, like Vercingetorix, the prince and leader of Gallia (Gaul) and Jugurtha, a king of Numidia, born in Cirta.
On the Tullianum, an ancient tradition tells of the miraculous action of St. Peter, the first of the apostles of Jesus, which with a stick struck the rock and made water spring which used to baptize inmates and jailers;
The Tullianum has a circular hole in the roof, with 7 meters of diameter. This was the death cell, where convicted enemies of the state awaited execution and were strangled or decapitated.
Death of Lucius Aelius Sejanus and his 3 children
Drusus was poisoned by his wife, Livilla, and her lover, Lucius Aelius Sejanus. This was done so skillfully that it would be eight years before their plot was uncovered. When it was, Livilla was forced to commit the slow death of suicide by starvation. Sejanus’s death was far more gruesome. He had assumed great power in Rome, thanks to Tiberius’s self-imposed exile to Capri. On October 18 of a.d. 31, upon learning that Sejanus had murdered Drusus by poisoning his wine, Tiberius ordered his arrest. Sejanus was strangled that night in Rome and his body was thrown to a crowd of onlookers, who tore his corpse to pieces. After this, they conducted a manhunt for all his friends and relatives and killed them, too. Sejanus’s son and daughter were arrested in December of that year and killed by strangulation. When Tiberius was informed that the girl was a virgin, and thus not able under the law to be killed for a capital offense, he ordered the executioner to place the rope around her neck, rape young Junilla, and then, only after the young girl had been deflowered, pull the rope tight.
Tacitus Annales 5.9:
[5.9] Placitum posthac ut in reliquos Seiani liberos adverteretur, vanescente quamquam plebis ira ac plerisque per priora supplicia lenitis. igitur portantur in carcerem, filius imminentium intellegens, puella adeo nescia ut crebro interrogaret quod ob delictum et quo traheretur; neque facturam ultra et posse se puerili verbere moneri. tradunt temporis eius auctores, quia triumvirali supplicio adfici virginem inauditum habebatur, a carnifice laqueum iuxta compressam; exim oblisis faucibus id aetatis corpora in Gemonias abiecta.
V. 9. It was then determined that the surviving children of Sejanus should pay the penalty, though the anger of the populace was nearly spent and the majority of men had been placated by the earlier executions. They were therefore carried to the dungeon, the boy conscious of the fate in store for him, the girl so completely ignorant that she asked repeatedly what her offence had been and to what place they were dragging her: she would do wrong no more, and she could be cautioned with the usual childish beating. It is recorded by authors of the period that, as it was considered an unheard-of thing for capital punishment to be inflicted on a virgin, she was raped by the executioner with the halter beside her: they were then strangled, and their young bodies thrown on to the Gemonian Stairs.
And C. Suetonius Tranquillus, Tiberius Suet. Tib. 61
... quibusdam custodiae traditis non modo studendi solacium ademptum, sed etiam sermonis et conloqui usus. citati ad causam dicendam partim se domi uulnerauerunt certi damnationis et ad uexationem ignominiamque uitandam, partim in media curia uenenum hauserunt; et tamen conligatis uulneribus ac semianimes palpitantesque adhuc in carcerem rapti. nemo punitorum non in Gemonias abiectus uncoque tractus, uiginti uno die abiecti tractique, inter eos feminae et pueri. [5] immaturae puellae, quia more tradito nefas esset uirgines strangulari, uitiatae prius a carnifice, dein strangulatae.
Many persons, when summoned to trial, stabbed themselves at home, to avoid the distress and ignominy of a public condemnation, which they were certain would ensue. Others took poison in the senate-house. The wounds were bound up, and all who had not expired, were carried, half-dead, and panting for life, to prison. Those who were put to death, were thrown down the Gemonian stairs, and then dragged into the Tiber. In one day, twenty were treated in this manner; and amongst them women and boys. Because, according to an ancient custom, it was not lawful to strangle virgins, the young girls were first deflowered by the executioner, and afterwards strangled.
Stairs of Mourning
The Gemonian Stairs were a flight of steps located in the ancient city of Rome. Nicknamed the Stairs of Mourning, the stairs are infamous in Roman history as a place of execution.
The condemned were usually strangled before their bodies were bound and thrown down the stairs. Occasionally the corpses of the executed were transferred here for display from other places of execution in Rome. Corpses were usually left to rot on the staircase for extended periods of time in full view of the Forum, scavenged by dogs or other carrion animals, until eventually being thrown into the Tiber.
Death on the stairs was considered extremely dishonourable and dreadful, yet several senators and even an emperor met their demise here. Among the most famous who were executed on this spot were the prefect of the Praetorian Guard Lucius Aelius Sejanus and the emperor Vitellius. Sejanus was a former confidant of emperor Tiberius (Caligula’s uncle) who was implicated in a conspiracy in 31AD. According to Cassius Dio, Sejanus was strangled and cast down the Gemonian stairs, where the mob abused his corpse for three days. Soon after, his three children were similarly executed in this place.
Vitellius was a Roman general who became the third emperor in the so called Year of the Four Emperors in 69AD. He succeeded Otho upon his suicide on April 16, but lived to be emperor for only eight months. When his armies were defeated by those of Vespasian, he agreed to surrender but the Praetorian Guard refused to let him leave the city. On the entrance of Vespasian’s troops into Rome he was dragged out of his hiding-place, driven to the Gemonian stairs and struck down.
C. Suetonius Tranquillus, Tiberius, chap. 75
Morte eius ita laetatus est populus, ut ad primum nuntium discurrentes pars: 'Tiberium in Tiberim!' clamitarent, pars Terram matrem deosque Manes orarent, ne mortuo sedem ullam nisi inter impios darent, alii uncum et Gemonias cadaueri minarentur, exacerbati super memoriam pristinae crudelitatis etiam recenti atrocitate. [2] nam cum senatus consulto cautum esset, ut poena damnatorum in decimum semper diem differretur, forte accidit ut quorundam supplicii dies is esset, quo nuntiatum de Tiberio erat. hos implorantis hominum fidem, quia absente adhuc Gaio nemo extabat qui adiri interpellarique posset, custodes, ne quid aduersus constitutum facerent, strangulauerunt abieceruntque in Gemonias. [3] creuit igitur inuidia, quasi etiam post mortem tyranni saeuitia permanente. corpus ut moueri a Miseno coepit, conclamantibus plerisque Atellam potius deferendum et in amphitheatro semiustilandum, Romam per milites deportatum est crematumque publico funere.
The people were so much elated at his death, that when they first heard the news, they ran up and down the city, some, crying out "Away with Tiberius to the Tiber;" others exclaiming, "May the earth, the common mother of mankind, and the infernal gods, allow him no abode in death, but amongst the wicked." Others threatened his body with the hook and the Gemonian stairs, their indignation at his former cruelty being increased by a recent atrocity. It had been provided by an act of the senate, that the execution of condemned criminals should always be deferred until the tenth day after the sentence. Now this fell on the very day when the news of Tiberius's death arrived, and in consequence of which the unhappy men implored a reprieve, for mercy's sake; but as Caius had not yet arrived, and there was no one else to whom application could be made on their behalf, their guards, apprehensive of violating the law, strangled them, and threw them down the Gemonian stairs. This roused the people to a still greater abhorrence of the tyrant's memory, since his cruelty continued in use even after he was dead. As soon as his corpse was begun to be moved from Misenum, many cried out for its being carried to Atella, and being half burnt there in the amphitheatre. It was, however, brought to Rome, and burnt with the usual ceremony.
or better ...
(sorry - no org. pics found)