![]() ![]() The experiment had to be stopped after about 30 minutes, because of wrist pain. Within 6 minutes, the volunteers had trouble breathing, their pulse rates had doubled, and their blood pressure had plummeted, according to the 1963 study in the journal Berlin Medicine (Berliner Medizin). To investigate crucifixion (without actually killing anybody), German researchers tied volunteers by their wrists to a cross and then monitored their respiratory and cardiovascular activity in the 1960s. Otherwise, the corpse was left on the cross, where predatory animals and birds would devour it. When the person died, family members could collect and bury the body, once they received permission from a Roman judge. Sometimes, the process was sped up by additional physical abuse from the Roman soldiers. But death didn't always come quickly it took anywhere from three hours to four days to expire, the professors wrote. While the victim awaited death, soldiers would commonly divide up the victim's clothes among themselves. After that, the patibulum was lifted and affixed to the upright post of the cross, and the feet would be tied or nailed to it. ![]() Then, the victim would be tied or nailed to the patibulum. In Jerusalem, women would offer the condemned a pain-relieving drink, usually of wine and myrrh or incense. In another heinous turn, Josephus reported how soldiers under Antiochus IV, the Hellenistic Greek king of the Seleucid Empire, would have the victim's strangled child hung around his neck. Sometimes, the Roman soldiers would hurt the victim further, cutting off a body part, such as the tongue, or blinding him. "The victim was then usually taunted, then forced to carry the patibulum tied across his shoulders to the place of execution." "Frequently the victim fainted during the procedure and sudden death was not uncommon," the authors wrote. This excessive whipping would weaken the victim, causing deep wounding, severe pain and bleeding. During scourging, a person was stripped naked, tied to a post, and then flogged across the back, buttocks and legs by Roman soldiers. In Rome, people condemned to crucifixion were scourged beforehand, with the exception of women, Roman senators and soldiers (unless they had deserted), Retief and Cilliers wrote. For instance, in 9 A.D., the victorious Germanic leader Arminius crucified many of the defeated soldiers who had fought with Varus, and in 28 A.D., Germanic tribesmen crucified Roman tax collectors, according to the report. ![]() When Rome's legions crucified its enemies, however, local tribes wasted no time in retaliating. "Christ was crucified on the pretext that he instigated rebellion against Rome, on a par with zealots and other political activists," the authors wrote in the report. In 4 B.C., the Roman general Varus crucified 2,000 Jews, and there were mass crucifixions during the first century A.D., according to the Roman-Jewish historian Josephus. The practice became especially popular in the Roman-occupied Holy Land. Instead, slaves, disgraced soldiers, Christians, foreigners, and - in particular - political activists often lost their lives in this way, Retief and Cilliers reported. However, given that crucifixion was seen as an extremely shameful way to die, Rome tended not to crucify its own citizens. For the next 500 years, the Romans " perfected crucifixion" until Constantine I abolished it in the fourth century A.D., co-authors Francois Retief and Louise Cilliers, professors in the Department of English and Classical Culture at the University of the Free State in South Africa, wrote in the SAMJ report. ![]()
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