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Crucifixion as Defeat

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Juan1234

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Hi, All - just some musings. Maybe you'll enjoy them. :)

It seems to me that crucifixion is in some sense the ultimate end of a power struggle. The man or woman hanging naked, nailed to a cross, challenged Rome in some way, big or small, and lost. In extreme macho fashion, Rome does not consider the conflict over until its adversary is utterly, publicly destroyed in every possible way. Putting them to death is less retribution and more a show of power and vitality, showing the adversary as puny, pathetic, and powerless, while Rome is mighty, all-powerful.

How best to demonstrate a person's powerlessness? To start, they must of course be forced to do or endure things that no one would do or endure if they had the power to avoid it. Every conceivable way must be found to go against their will. Do you want to be beaten? Of course not, so we're going to beat you. Do you want others to watch while you are punished? Of course not, so we will punish you in a public place where everyone can watch. Do you want your friends, family, fellow-citizens, neighbors, and random passers-by to see your private parts? Of course not, so we will strip you naked and put you on display for anyone who cares to look at you.

Then there are the physical illustrations of powerlessness. You are not strong. You thought you could stand up to Rome, but you are pathetic and weak. We will illustrate this fact by flogging you until you visibly lack physical strength. We will fasten you to a cross so that 1) you cannot move - another form of powerlessness, 2) you are hanging, not standing or sitting, and have no way to rest - a position of visible powerlessness, and 3) as already mentioned, your nakedness is on public display, and you are powerless to cover yourself.

Then there are the nails. All of the above could be accomplished with ropes, but nails show you as an object - a thing - a thing not worth preserving intact. So what if we put holes in your wrists and feet? We won't be using you for anything after this. This also gives another visible illustration of powerlessness: you are obviously in complete agony, partly because we just want to hurt you, sure - but more because as you shudder, moan, and weep, you show yourself to be broken and pathetic.

Much has been written about rape as an expression of power, and I think it applies very much to crucifixion, regardless of whether the prisoner was actually raped by soldiers before being crucified. It seems plausible, maybe even likely, that many crucified people were partially impaled on pegs jutting out from the cross. Just in case the above factors had not yet made it entirely clear to everyone watching you die, the peg up your butt or vagina made it very clear - you have no dignity anymore. You are being fucked by Rome, and we're all watching. You are nothing. You are defeated. You have lost - bathe in the shame. Rome has won.

Even if no cornu is involved, nailing a naked woman or man to a cross is obviously an act of sexual violence, and the sexual dimension has a profound psychological significance, both to the condemned and to the onlookers.

Death is almost just a side-effect of this punishment.
 
Hi, All - just some musings. Maybe you'll enjoy them. :)

It seems to me that crucifixion is in some sense the ultimate end of a power struggle. The man or woman hanging naked, nailed to a cross, challenged Rome in some way, big or small, and lost. In extreme macho fashion, Rome does not consider the conflict over until its adversary is utterly, publicly destroyed in every possible way. Putting them to death is less retribution and more a show of power and vitality, showing the adversary as puny, pathetic, and powerless, while Rome is mighty, all-powerful.

How best to demonstrate a person's powerlessness? To start, they must of course be forced to do or endure things that no one would do or endure if they had the power to avoid it. Every conceivable way must be found to go against their will. Do you want to be beaten? Of course not, so we're going to beat you. Do you want others to watch while you are punished? Of course not, so we will punish you in a public place where everyone can watch. Do you want your friends, family, fellow-citizens, neighbors, and random passers-by to see your private parts? Of course not, so we will strip you naked and put you on display for anyone who cares to look at you.

Then there are the physical illustrations of powerlessness. You are not strong. You thought you could stand up to Rome, but you are pathetic and weak. We will illustrate this fact by flogging you until you visibly lack physical strength. We will fasten you to a cross so that 1) you cannot move - another form of powerlessness, 2) you are hanging, not standing or sitting, and have no way to rest - a position of visible powerlessness, and 3) as already mentioned, your nakedness is on public display, and you are powerless to cover yourself.

Then there are the nails. All of the above could be accomplished with ropes, but nails show you as an object - a thing - a thing not worth preserving intact. So what if we put holes in your wrists and feet? We won't be using you for anything after this. This also gives another visible illustration of powerlessness: you are obviously in complete agony, partly because we just want to hurt you, sure - but more because as you shudder, moan, and weep, you show yourself to be broken and pathetic.

Much has been written about rape as an expression of power, and I think it applies very much to crucifixion, regardless of whether the prisoner was actually raped by soldiers before being crucified. It seems plausible, maybe even likely, that many crucified people were partially impaled on pegs jutting out from the cross. Just in case the above factors had not yet made it entirely clear to everyone watching you die, the peg up your butt or vagina made it very clear - you have no dignity anymore. You are being fucked by Rome, and we're all watching. You are nothing. You are defeated. You have lost - bathe in the shame. Rome has won.

Death is almost just a side-effect of this punishment.
Some interesting views. To add to it, this might be enhanced by the condemned's forced participation - they have to walk to their own doom, knowing what awaits them there.

Of course, this also brings up the flipside - that because the authorities are raising the stakes like this, it becomes a fair bit easier (although still far from easy!) for the condemned to upset their show than it is for them to escape or survive. Just forcing their escort to kill them before reaching the cross is one sort of triumph, particularly for lone cruxes - makes a waste of the whole affair. And even once nailed up, some victims manage to turn things around on their executioners, by word or presence going out as bold martyrs rather than victims. (I even hear one guy managed to come back later - pretty hard to top, right?)
 
Hi, All - just some musings. Maybe you'll enjoy them. :)
Interesting musings, Juan.

The condemned were perhaps people of distinction in society. That makes the falling down even harder.
You are being fucked by Rome
You are being lawfully raped by Rome!

This theme is more or less the baseline of a now running roleplay thread.
 
Do you want to be beaten? Of course not, so we're going to beat you. Do you want others to watch while you are punished? Of course not, so we will punish you in a public place where everyone can watch. Do you want your friends, family, fellow-citizens, neighbors, and random passers-by to see your private parts? Of course not, so we will strip you naked and put you on display for anyone who cares to look at you.
But what about our lovely crux girls who WANT to be beaten and exposed? What do we do with them? Do we give them what they want? That hardly seems a punishment. No, for them we ignore their crimes. Or maybe we fine them a few denarii and send them on their way. You want to agitate against Rome? Yawn, knock yourselves out. The Emperor isn't going to react to your provocations by sending in legions or tweeting some nonsense. He will spend his time working hard, studying those briefing papers from his experts and actually governing...

I've often thought of an alternate history. Suppose the Romans had simply let Jesus preach until he died of old age or one of the numerous diseases rampant in those times? Or, what if they had sent a professional hit man to take care of him with a dagger in some dark alley or to slip some poison into the Passover wine, which could have easily been done, since there was no Stan Goldman to find the killer? The image of the suffering on the cross is central to the story told in the New Testament, and had Jesus died by a less dramatic means, it's unlikely that the story would have had the same resonance. How might the history of the last 2000 years have played out?
 
I've often thought of an alternate history. Suppose the Romans had simply let Jesus preach until he died of old age or one of the numerous diseases rampant in those times? Or, what if they had sent a professional hit man to take care of him with a dagger in some dark alley or to slip some poison into the Passover wine, which could have easily been done, since there was no Stan Goldman to find the killer? The image of the suffering on the cross is central to the story told in the New Testament, and had Jesus died by a less dramatic means, it's unlikely that the story would have had the same resonance. How might the history of the last 2000 years have played out?
I think it was the religious leaders of Jesus' own people who felt threatened by him and wanted him dead. And I think they wanted it to be public, official, and humiliating for many of the reasons I touched on above. It was personal, because he regularly humiliated them in public debate, etc. They took advantage of the thin political ice Pontius Pilate was treading, having upset the emperor with his offensive anti-Jewish behavior and having lost his political patron, Sejanus, who had been executed for treason not long before. Pilate had to listen to their demands and apply Roman justice to the situation or risk becoming the emperor's morning news with a riot on his hands.

Regarding the resonance of the image of Jesus suffering on the cross, my understanding is that it was more of an embarrassment at the time. The resonance has come into being over centuries of veneration. People would taunt the early Christians as lunatics because their God had died on a cross, in the most humiliating, undignified way. I think it was actually a tough pill to swallow at least until Constantine. Christianity differs from, for example, Shia Islam as a religion of the oppressed, focused on the tragic mistreatment of the past. As similar as the images have become of the suffering Jesus and the suffering of Hassan and Hussein, the core significance is very different. Hussein was a hero who made a glorious stand against his enemies and wouldn't give in. Jesus was, for all the world to see, a failed revolutionary who was caught and executed in the most humiliating way. Whereas a crucified "founder" MIGHT have "worked" well as a symbol for a religion focused on the wrongs inflicted on an oppressed people, it's really not the right "marketing" for Christianity, because the call wasn't to rise up and avenge Jesus' blood. In fact, the call was to give your life away for others the way he did, which is not an attractive prospect.
 
And even once nailed up, some victims manage to turn things around on their executioners, by word or presence going out as bold martyrs rather than victims.
I think it would take an unbelievably extraordinary person to pull off the bold martyr routine convincingly while hanging naked on a cross with a stick up his/her butt. ;) There's just no way to die this death with dignity!
 
Regarding the resonance of the image of Jesus suffering on the cross, my understanding is that it was more of an embarrassment at the time. The resonance has come into being over centuries of veneration. People would taunt the early Christians as lunatics because their God had died on a cross, in the most humiliating, undignified way. I think it was actually a tough pill to swallow at least until Constantine. Christianity differs from, for example, Shia Islam as a religion of the oppressed, focused on the tragic mistreatment of the past. As similar as the images have become of the suffering Jesus and the suffering of Hassan and Hussein, the core significance is very different. Hussein was a hero who made a glorious stand against his enemies and wouldn't give in. Jesus was, for all the world to see, a failed revolutionary who was caught and executed in the most humiliating way. Whereas a crucified "founder" MIGHT have "worked" well as a symbol for a religion focused on the wrongs inflicted on an oppressed people, it's really not the right "marketing" for Christianity, because the call wasn't to rise up and avenge Jesus' blood. In fact, the call was to give your life away for others the way he did, which is not an attractive prospect.
Hussain's martyrdom by beheading was less successful than Jesus', since Shi'ism remains a minority within Islam. And there were instances in Christianity, like the Crusades, where the call was to avenge (and also to suffer). But throughout history, one of the most powerful of Christianity's messages is that "Jesus died for your sins", (or as Patti Smith put it, "Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine"). You might be able to make that case if he had died by beheading like Hussain, but that's a tougher sell if he had died of typhus or cancer or tuberculosis. So, if the Romans had never come up with crucifixion, who knows how things would have turned out?

Of course, it's impossible to say, but that's true of all alternate histories. Some say everything is predestined and there is no possible present but the one we live in. Now that is a very sad thought...
 
Then there are the physical illustrations of powerlessness. You are not strong. You thought you could stand up to Rome, but you are pathetic and weak. We will illustrate this fact by flogging you until you visibly lack physical strength. We will fasten you to a cross so that 1) you cannot move - another form of powerlessness, 2) you are hanging, not standing or sitting, and have no way to rest - a position of visible powerlessness, and 3) as already mentioned, your nakedness is on public display, and you are powerless to cover yourself.

It is the psychological aspects (like these that you mention) that have interested me, intrigued me. I think that's also why I like stories and roleplay about spanking. It's about the psychological submission. With crucifixion, it's being forced upon a prisoner. With spanking, the spankee is voluntarily submitting to that transfer of power. She goes over his knee willingly, even though she knows there is humiliation involved.

Just more musings...
 
I agree about spanking. I routinely spank my two boi slaves and it teaches them the value of total submission and who is in control. Prior to being crucified they are spanked over my lap with others watching. These others can range from complete strangers to their former coworkers or acquaintances, who are most eager to see them naked, humiliated and receiving corporal punishment.
 
Hussain's martyrdom by beheading was less successful than Jesus', since Shi'ism remains a minority within Islam. And there were instances in Christianity, like the Crusades, where the call was to avenge (and also to suffer). But throughout history, one of the most powerful of Christianity's messages is that "Jesus died for your sins", (or as Patti Smith put it, "Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine"). You might be able to make that case if he had died by beheading like Hussain, but that's a tougher sell if he had died of typhus or cancer or tuberculosis. So, if the Romans had never come up with crucifixion, who knows how things would have turned out?

Of course, it's impossible to say, but that's true of all alternate histories. Some say everything is predestined and there is no possible present but the one we live in. Now that is a very sad thought...
All true. I was mostly pointing out that during the most critical time, when Christianity exploded from a handful of fishermen to an empire-wide phenomenon, the crucifixion bit was regarded as embarrassing, and the early Christians used symbols like the fish or the Chai-Rho to identify themselves, not the cross. One of the earliest depictions of crucifixion was probably made to MOCK Christianity (the horse-headed guy on the cross), indicating that bringing up the crucifixion was seen more as a rebuttal of the Christian message, at least among the general pagan or Jewish population. I think it was only after crucifixion was outlawed and the psyche of the empire was sufficiently removed from the humiliating, gruesome reality of crucifixion that the cross/crucifix became a symbol of veneration and began to acquire all the significance you're talking about.
 
You might be surprised... especially if some of our gifted artists and writers turned their minds to the theme.
I think it's easy to do in art, or even in literature. But I doubt it happened very often in reality, if ever. Even Jesus, who has come down through history as the ultimate martyr, was mocked while he hung on the cross. I don't think in reality there was any of the graceful, dignified tragedy we have become accustomed to seeing in the mountains of art depicting it. I think if you're hanging naked on a cross, possibly with a cornu up your butt or vagina, you just look stupid, almost comic.
 
I think it's easy to do in art, or even in literature. But I doubt it happened very often in reality, if ever. Even Jesus, who has come down through history as the ultimate martyr, was mocked while he hung on the cross. I don't think in reality there was any of the graceful, dignified tragedy we have become accustomed to seeing in the mountains of art depicting it. I think if you're hanging naked on a cross, possibly with a cornu up your butt or vagina, you just look stupid, almost comic.
The Romans crucified a lot of people. And one thing I know about people is that if you take enough of them, almost anything will turn up sooner or later.
 
I love this idea it’s crucifixion as a show of total and utter defeat. The Carthaginians would crucify Generals who’s wars and campaigns had failed. No doubt that was just the start of the association, as crucifixion was emasculating and sexually degrading to the max. I find it very easy to imagine the general’s wives being forced share this burden to ride on the crosses naked in front of thousands, a fitting humiliation to a once noble family. Not dying in agony for crimes of her own, but for the foolish ambitions and failed aspirations of her failure of a husband.

No doubt that during the routs, the enemy took advantage of the camp followers in a similar manner, and secured them to hastily made crosses afterwards. Those women would experience the pain of defeat far, far sooner that the Generals and Kings who has forsaken them. And the pain would consume them as the enemy forces left to pressure their forces further back. Hung on crosses, forgotten by first their army, then the enemy, and then history. They would breathe the last sigh and their defeat would be total
 
I love this idea it’s crucifixion as a show of total and utter defeat. The Carthaginians would crucify Generals who’s wars and campaigns had failed. No doubt that was just the start of the association, as crucifixion was emasculating and sexually degrading to the max. I find it very easy to imagine the general’s wives being forced share this burden to ride on the crosses naked in front of thousands, a fitting humiliation to a once noble family. Not dying in agony for crimes of her own, but for the foolish ambitions and failed aspirations of her failure of a husband.

No doubt that during the routs, the enemy took advantage of the camp followers in a similar manner, and secured them to hastily made crosses afterwards. Those women would experience the pain of defeat far, far sooner that the Generals and Kings who has forsaken them. And the pain would consume them as the enemy forces left to pressure their forces further back. Hung on crosses, forgotten by first their army, then the enemy, and then history. They would breathe the last sigh and their defeat would be total
Well, those who share the marital bed, share the secrets, the ambitions, the success,... and the downfall.
 
I love this idea it’s crucifixion as a show of total and utter defeat. The Carthaginians would crucify Generals who’s wars and campaigns had failed. No doubt that was just the start of the association, as crucifixion was emasculating and sexually degrading to the max. I find it very easy to imagine the general’s wives being forced share this burden to ride on the crosses naked in front of thousands, a fitting humiliation to a once noble family. Not dying in agony for crimes of her own, but for the foolish ambitions and failed aspirations of her failure of a husband.

Herodotus records an event in Greek Cyrenaica, wherein during one of the interminable coups and counter-coups that Greek colonists loved so much, the leader of the town of Barca was assassinated. His mother fled to Cyrene and won the favor of the neighboring Persian governor of Egypt. The Persian sent an army that besieged and took Barca.

The bereaved mother ensured that “the men involved in the murder of her son [were] impaled, and placed near the breasts of their wives, which she ordered to be cut off for that purpose.”

It’s hard to think of a more sexually-charged punishment then to be set up with a stake up my ass and my wife’s severed tits on either side of me.
 
Hi, All - just some musings. Maybe you'll enjoy them. :)

I very much enjoyed reading that. It was very stimulating.

Death is almost just a side-effect of this punishment.

I completely agree.

Some interesting views. To add to it, this might be enhanced by the condemned's forced participation - they have to walk to their own doom, knowing what awaits them there.

For me, I love the idea of forcing some of them to participate and others having no participation in what's happening to them. Forced blow job vs forced skullfuck. Forced to walk there vs dragged there. The key is figuring out which condemned you put in which group. Is it based on their crimes, their personality, status?

But what about our lovely crux girls who WANT to be beaten and exposed? What do we do with them? Do we give them what they want? That hardly seems a punishment. No, for them we ignore their crimes. Or maybe we fine them a few denarii and send them on their way. You want to agitate against Rome? Yawn, knock yourselves out. The Emperor isn't going to react to your provocations by sending in legions or tweeting some nonsense. He will spend his time working hard, studying those briefing papers from his experts and actually governing...

If I knew that they wanted that, I certainly wouldn't let them get away with it. I'd either punish them the same, just mock them for their arousal, for everyone else's amusement or punish them in a way that they don't want. They want it public, I'd make it private. They want to be fucked, I'd cut off their clit and burn their holes first. They want crucifixion, I'd behead them or boil them or shot them. They want anticipation, I'd kill them without notice.

O course, that's all hypothetical, especially in ancient Rome, after all, they could be lying to avoid the cross.
 
It seems to me that crucifixion is in some sense the ultimate end of a power struggle. The man or woman hanging naked, nailed to a cross, challenged Rome in some way, big or small, and lost. In extreme macho fashion, Rome does not consider the conflict over until its adversary is utterly, publicly destroyed in every possible way. Putting them to death is less retribution and more a show of power and vitality, showing the adversary as puny, pathetic, and powerless, while Rome is mighty, all-powerful.
There is one aspect to consider.
Rome displays the defeated in full public, to emphasise its mighty, untouchable power.

Every potential adversary knows the risks in advance. And knows the chances are rather small to be victorious over Rome.

So, why risking it, with that possible prospect of ending humiliated on a cross?

Arrogance? Probably.
In their viewpoint, they do not defy Rome, they defy those who impersonate it. So they estimate them weaker than they are.

Or is there some kind of a kick of defying the cross? The prospect of the cross is real, but the challenge of the fight is all or nothing, with, in the latter case, death on the cross being calculated in advance as a possible anticlimax.
The cruel and humiliating cross conceived not only as a sign of defeat by Rome, but also accepted as the rightful, 'self-inflicted' sanction in case of failure.
 
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