Sharp, like a needle.
As hot as burning coals, the spikes were hammered through flesh and muscle. Through sinew and bone. And finally through the gnarled wood of the flat-board, to the dirt beneath.
As sparks from the clashing metal danced in the air, blood spurted in a fine mosaic mist onto the arms and face of the legionnaire. The soldier winced and spat, though not at the touch and taste of the blood, for he was well used to them both after half a lifetime in the service of his emperor.
He wiped away the red specks with barely a second thought, leaving an ugly slash smeared across his cheek.
No, the blood didn't bother him too much.
It was the screaming that really annoyed him.
Why didn't these snivelling scum just die quietly, and with some dignity? Like a Roman.
"They squeal and wrestle like a sticked pig" he told his watching comrades as he struggled with the tool in his hand. "Keep him straight and still" he continued, shouting at the hapless foot soldier gripping the victim's shaking hands. "Or you shall find yourself nailed up there with him."
The hammer struck again and the hands were joined together at the wrist. At that very moment, when the sickening frenzy of pain was at it's most intense, the victim lost all control of his bowels. It was something the legionnaire had experienced on more than one occasion and the stink was, also, of no concern to him. But, again, he wished this wretch would cease his infernal noise.
"Rot in Xhia's pit, you Roman bastard" cried the victim in a hoarse and guttural voice, and through tightly gritted teeth. He would have undoubtedly have enjoyed spitting in the legionnaire's face as an afterthought. But this wasn't an option as the prone victim's throat was bone dry. A consequence of the blood-chilling pain in his wrists and at his feet.
"Stick him up there" the legionnaire told his colleagues. "Stick him up there and let him dangle. Let us see what an hour of that does to his opinion of his superiors." Sycophantic laughter filled the air as a group of troops heaved the dead weight of the victim upright and fixed him to the stauros on which he would die a horribly slow and painful death.
The judgement was read. "Jacob bar Samuel. Having been accused by his own people of being a common and lying thief, and having been fairly tried and condemned by Thalius Maximus, representative in the free city of Byzantium of his most great and awesome emperor Lucius Nero, is, this day, crucified for his banditry and thievery. Let his just and righteous punishment serve as a rare example to all who would consider perpetrating crimes and treasons against the authority of the empire of Rome."
Centurion Crispianius Dolavia turned his horse away from the crucified thief whose loud screaming had partially drowned out the reading of the sentence. But the way that Dolavia was now facing offered him no sanctuary either. A phalanx of black-clad women, their heads shrouded with funeral coverings, knelt in the dirt several feet away, wailing and crying out the name of the executed man and beating the ground with their fists. "If you do not get these screeching whores from my sight with great haste, I shall take pleasure in having you put to the sword" the centurion told a nearby soldier who instantly rushed forward and drew his own weapon, holding it threateningly above the women.
"Move yourselves" the soldier shouted, kicking dust into the women's faces as they scattered and ran down the steep hillside with the soldier at their heels, gowling at them like a crazed dog.
Crispianus admired such dedication, even in the face of his own terrible threat. "Be advised that I wish for that soldier to be given extra pay for his efficiency" he told the captain of the guard, who nodded and helped the centurion from his saddle. "Five denarii at the least."
Sore and skinned from the chafing leather, Crispianus landed on the ground with a wince and a curse to Jupiter. Then, a little unwillingly, he returned his attention to the condemned man. And the noise that he continued to make.
"What crime did the dog commit?" he asked the captain.
"Stole bread from the garrison" replied the barrel-chested man. "To feed it's starving family, it said."
"Crucifixion is a punishment too good for the cur" noted the centurion.
But that simply wasn't true.
The principle of this form of execution was sublimely simple. Yet it was about as undignified a death as it was possible to imagine, with the wrists and feet of the unfortunate victim nailed together in such a position that the prisoner slowly died of hyper-asphyxiation and hypovolemic shock whilst they jerked spasmodically with the last of their energy. Sometimes, if there was a lack of nails, the legions simply used rope bindings instead, that scarred and chafed the skin raw instead of piercing it cleanly. But the effect was much the same. The Romans were experts at this sublimely cruel manner of dispatch. They could keep a person alive for days on the stauros if they wanted to, dehydrated, exhausted, in terrible pain, but still clinging to life.
The only relief for the dying man was the ability to push himself up by his feet and so ease the vice-like pressure upon the chest and allow him to breathe. But this required undergoing the agony of scraping the broken bones of his feet against the thick metal spike nailed through them. The usual custom was to let the executed man fight a cruel and hopeless struggle for air for an hour, for five, or ten, depending on the severity of his crimes. And, when the overseeing officer eventually got bored with the proceedings, or when darkness encroached, to break the man's legs and thus prevent him from relieving himself any longer.
Death would follow soon afterwards. If the executed man was lucky.
But the saddlesore centurion was, frankly, already bored. The heat of the day was beginning to take it's toll, making him weary, and the shrill screaming was giving him a dull ache in his head.
"Captain. Have one of the men finish the job" he ordered. "Put this beast out of my misery."
The captain had every intention of doing so - one did not disobey and order from the likes of Crispianus Dolavia. But he was curious. "The condemned has been up there for less than an hour, sir. Shoudl we not leave him longer as an example to others?"
"Do you wish to spend any more time than is absolutely necessary listing to that, Captain?" Crispianus moaned with resignation as the dying man let out another loud and pitiful cry. "We require that this deed is done with. The three Jews responsible for the murder of a solider in a market brawl have a date with gross justice and I want this one down and in the ground before we drag them to this place."
"Very good sir" said the captain disinterestedly, turning to the closest legionnaire and barking a command to carry out the centurion's order. The legionnaire, Marinus Topignius, picked up his short pilum lance and without ceremony speared Jacob bar Samuel through the ribs like a hot knife sinking into butter. the victim's eyes bulged open fully and a final choking cry of pain and a prayer for vengeance from beyond the grave escaped his lips. And then his guts spilled onto the parched earth beneath him and he was dead.
"Agitators and terrorists. This land is full to bursting with such as they" snapped Crispianus Dolavia bitterly, taking a mouthful of wine from his flask. He swilled it around his dry mouth and spat the wine onto the ground. "If not the Zealot Jews who wickedly defy us, it is the Greeks. And if not them, it is the Macedonians, or the Samarians... A plethora of petty and vicious races who do not have the capacity to realise when they are well off. We bring them peace, bread, prosperity and a place in the empire and what do they present us for out gifts in return?" He paused and gazed at the crucified man who was now being wrenched from the execution place by Marinus and his legionnaire brothers. "Wonder you why these flea-bitten wretches seem so content to die for such a ridiculous cause, Captain?"
"Cause, sir?" asked the captain. "He was just a thief..."
"Not the condemned, specifically" the centurion replied, wearily. "I mean, generally?"
The captain, Drusus Felinistius, shrugged. "I am but a mere solider, sir, and as a consequence of this, not paid to think."
Crispianus Dolavia shook his head. "Bury his bones, captain. Bury them deep and salt the earth." He watched as the thief's broken body was thrown into a dirt pit at the side of the hill. One of the legionaries began to shovel the blood away from the base of the stauros pole, but the centurion called for him to stop. "There is no time for that now, soldier" he said miserably. "We have another three of these troublesome scum to exterminate before sunfall."
By all of the gods in the heavens, Crispianus Dolavia hated Byzantium.