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Historical Question: How did crucifiers get people on the cross without encountering extreme resistance?

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Opal

Opal

Assistant executioner
The question assumes it was common knowledge in Antiquity about how horrible and lengthy death by crucifiction was.

So my question is did they not have to deal with a lot of convicted people who basically would have rather have committed suicide by any means - including greviously attacking the centurions/prison guards so as to incite a fast and fatal reaction - the Roman equivalent of 'death by cop'?
 
I don't know how they did, exactly, but one possiblity could be threatening their families/friends/towns. Assuming those weren't already dead or doomed, that is. Another would be breaking their limbs.

I would like to know myself, though - this question preoccupies me with a lot of excecutions, not just crux.
 
Opal said:
The question assumes it was common knowledge in Antiquity about how horrible and lengthy death by crucifiction was.

So my question is did they not have to deal with a lot of convicted people who basically would have rather have committed suicide by any means - including greviously attacking the centurions/prison guards so as to incite a fast and fatal reaction - the Roman equivalent of 'death by cop'?
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I'm not sure we have very good numbers on how many did that vs how many put up little or no resistance. The Zealots at Masada killed themselves rather than be captured by the Romans. I certainly wonder about people being made to carry their cross up a hill. Yes, they are whipped if they lie down, but why not just lie there and let them whip you to death. And perhaps some did...Since I much prefer whipping to crucifixion, perhaps I should use that as a story...

My understanding is that there are very few Roman writings about crucifixion, at least that have survived to the present. Much of what we know is actually based on modern research. Perhaps the Romans weren't so proud of it as some here think or they didn't consider it very interesting...
 
Without having any historical evidence, I think that carrying the cross hasn´t really happend. Allegedly the condemned had been whipped very hard (as a kind of foreplay). After that I think carrying a pile of massiv wood for a few hundred meter or more is out of question.
The merciless whipping could also be the reason why the convicted people didn´t resist the nailing - they were just to weak.
 
Theres no way there was a set 'way' to crucify people. In fact the few existing texts make that clear. (Was it Josephus (?) siege of Jerusalem)

So assuming theyre not using an existing stake ( hands above head) or a tree (ready made cross. Why saw it up and dig a hole to re-plant it?????)

then if they were using a cross beam as per commonly depicted method, then i see the logic in roping the arms to the beam inside the prison compound

From there your choice is either walk with it, or have someone grab each end of it and drag you while another whips the shit out of you

Most will carry
 
Otherwise, if your hands are shackled in front of you, its no problem to drag you (on the ground or walk, your choice) to the cross

Whereupon they simply connect one of the shackles to a fixing point on the beam THEN separate the shackles and fix the other to the other side

There's no way you could stop one person from doing that, never mind two or more
 
KageKamen said:
I don't know how they did, exactly, but one possiblity could be threatening their families/friends/towns.
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I can't be assed to do the research, but offhand I would say this would be quite a likely explanation, and I seem to remember that many crucifixion paintings contain what look like family/friends gathered round the cross with water etc.

Bottom line I suspect many people who had already seen a crucifixion, would, upon their sentence, go for a more quick maytr type death by attempting to attack either the magistrate or the guards or wait till they came to the holding cell in the morning.
 
With 4 or 5 people you can subdue almost anyone. 5 burly soldiers and dont think anyone has a chance..
Even if they attack.. the soldier would be under order to crucify not to give them a quick death..

Ropes/chains etc can be very usefull
Whipping/torture to wear them out just enough.
Threathening family/tribe members if you put up a fight.


exhausting someone before the execution begins:
carrying cross or just physical labour of anykind such as working an oldfashined threadmill for a few hours.

Deception can be a good help.. promising them a quicker death if they coorperate..
Or the promise not to use nails / telling them they will be released after being bound to the cross for a survivable time.
The chance of a pardon if they submit..

Or the chance to redeem yourself by accepting punishment before meeting the gods.

Not everyone was knowledgeable about crucifixion details/methods. Yeah it hurts but they calm down soon enough..
maybe it's bearable especialy if ropes are used..
 
Shackles, leg irons, two people.....you're fucked. Easy

Regards to the lack of historical record we have to consider the often tyrannical reign of Christian kingdoms & empires ( including the latter day romans) that followed this era.

Crucifixion was sacred and i have no doubt they would regard accounts of common people facing crucifixion and perhaps sexual degradation & torture as blasphemous

There are modern day religious scholar's who risk all kinds of blowback by daring to suggest that jesus was likely naked ( it basically says so in the bible - clothes gambled, but who has ever heard of the 'holy loin cloth relic' - no one)
 
Puritan said:
Crucifixion was sacred and i have no doubt they would regard accounts of common people facing crucifixion and perhaps sexual degradation & torture as blasphemous

There are modern day religious scholar's who risk all kinds of blowback by daring to suggest that jesus was likely naked ( it basically says so in the bible - clothes gambled, but who has ever heard of the 'holy loin cloth relic' - no one)
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I accept it might have been difficult to make any suicide attempt if the guards were careful enough.

But I find it difficult to believe, from a practical political perspective, that the authorities would have tried to make the effects and nature of death by crucifixion a 'sacred' secret, otherwise what would it's point be? As a deterrent.
 
Opal said:
I accept it might have been difficult to make any suicide attempt if the guards were careful enough.

But I find it difficult to believe, from a practical political perspective, that the authorities would have tried to make the effects and nature of death by crucifixion a 'sacred' secret, otherwise what would it's point be? As a deterrent.
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Oh i mean cleansing the record AFTER the transition to Christianity
 
It would never have really been a noteworthy event anyway

Here in the UK there were periods where virtually every crime you can think of was punishable by death, in fact there was no prison!

There was also no official police force and no centralised record keeping

Just as we'll never know how many petty thieves were strung up by local magistrates and vigilante mobs, we'll never know how many crucifixions, except we have the added problem of much greater passage of time in addition to Christian censorship of the records

Remember, they destroyed the many of the symbols of thousands of years of paganism, and the natural medicine associated with witchcraft.
 
There are a number of ideas. All of which depends on what the purpose of the crucifixion was. If it’s just a routine execution I’d think it very likely that the victims would be extremely dazed and fautiged from scourging and be unable to fight back meaningfully, being in too much pain from multiple nearly-shredded areas of their skin. Alternatively they may be tightly bound so that no punches or kicks could happen – whipping or not. They may have been carted to their cross in chains. They also may have been is such a state of abject terror that they disassociate and offer no meaningful resistance.
 
mp5stab said:
There are a number of ideas. All of which depends on what the purpose of the crucifixion was. If it’s just a routine execution I’d think it very likely that the victims would be extremely dazed and fautiged from scourging and be unable to fight back meaningfully, being in too much pain from multiple nearly-shredded areas of their skin. Alternatively they may be tightly bound so that no punches or kicks could happen – whipping or not. They may have been carted to their cross in chains. They also may have been is such a state of abject terror that they disassociate and offer no meaningful resistance.
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Maybe all the people being crucified read those stories on CF where the victims desperately long to be crucified so they can have the best orgasm imaginable (did I get that right?).
 
I am fascinated by the combination of force, persuasion, one-foot-in-front-of-the-other myopia, and possibly even social pressure that would be required to get a person stripped and crucified. For example, is a person in a state of extreme mental and physical
anguish able to come to the rational conclusion that it’s better to lie down and be beaten to death? That’s a tough call for the more visceral, short-term, animal side of our brains. Is it possible that for some, the social pressure of “doing the right thing,” not “making a scene,” not making these big soldiers mad - could those considerations hold some weight for some people, especially if for the moment they’re not in any pain? (E.g. they told me to strip. It will be embarrassing, but not painful. I can do that... Now they want me to walk. I can do that... at least they’re not yelling at me...) Again, visceral myopia? Certainly not everyone is as susceptible to such considerations, but I suspect some could be.
 
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