The Romans NEVER CRUCIFIED the Way We Think They Did! 7

Source: Wikipedia.org.

Part 6 - From Wax Image to Exposed Body.
Part 5 - The First Crucifix.
Part 4 - The Tropaeum and the Furca.
Part 3 - Crux - Modern English Use and Ancient Quotidian Meanings.
Part 2 - Crux.
Part 1.

Part 7 - Crucifixion and Priapus.

A. Introduction.

A while back, I got a long series of posts from John Thomas Didymus, who supplied me with a wealth of information about the Roman household, garden and agricultural god, Priapus. He was always threatening garden-variety thieves (ouch, that was a terrible joke) with rape, sodomy, or irrumation depending on the sex and age of the thief. It turns out, he was also the god of merchant sailing, navigable waterways and roadways. So without further ado, I will post what he had written, and expand upon it.

From John Thomas Didymus --

Ed you've made my day with the discovery of your blog. There is so much material to absorb that I am still trying to decide where to start. Great you know Latin -- I can't tell it from Chinese!! I will be feeding you back as I rummage thru your site systematically!!

Quote: "When the artificer, in doubt whether he should make a stool or a Priapus of me, determined that I should be a God. Henceforward I became a God, the greatest terror of thieves and birds: for my right hand restrains thieves, and a bloody looking pole on my frightful middle: but a reed fixed upon the crown of my head** terrifies the mischievous birds, and hinders them from settling in these new gardens.

(Priapus was also used as farmer's scarecrow evidently)

(your comment--** "in vertice harundo, lit. a reed, or a crown or wreath of reeds, upon the crown of the head. The similarity to the crown of thorns on the head of Jesus in the gospels is uncanny!")

My comments: This text set me thinking -- that what is being described in figurative language here is the Roman practice of impaling criminals on Priapus i.e., in actual fact, the figure of the fertility daemon Priapus was the model for the the crux on which criminals were impaled. The text "When the artificer, in doubt etc..." has "uncanny" similarities to the crucifixion and the crown of thorns because the Jesus was not fixed a crown of thorns incidentally, it was the regular Roman practice when criminals were impaled on the Priapus-crux to fix them with a "scarecrow wreath." That is, the impaling stake -- the crux -- was Priapus himself punishing the criminal who trespassed on the farmer's field!!!

Actually and unfortunately, we do not know about the Romans routinely pushing crowns of thorns upon crucified people's heads. Neither does it show up in the ancient texts except the Gospels and the writings of the Church Fathers. And it wasn't to keep the birds away, birds were usually allowed to feed on the crucified persons, perhaps even when still alive. But they could have supplied them sometimes to keep men from knocking themselves unconscious. This will have to be the subject of my next post.

And it is true, Priapus punished thieves with his "bloody-looking pole" or palus obsceno.

B. Priapus, Protector of the Pax Domestica.

As Priapus as recognized in his scarecrow / statue form was the protector of the pax domestica, just as the Roman execution pole / cross, was the de facto protector of the Pax Romana. And just as every hardened criminal was impaled on an acuta-crux, whether a simple stake or an outrigged spike that served as the seat of the gallows, so too Priapus threatened garden-variety thieves with his inordinately long membrum virile.

Mr. Didymus continues:

Here is the evidence from wikipedia that Priapus was deity who punished criminals or trespassers with his phallus-crux:

(Quote from wikipedia:) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priapus

Priapus' iconic attribute was his priapism (permanently erect penis); he probably absorbed some pre-existing ithyphallic deities as his cult developed. He was represented in a variety of ways, most commonly as a misshapen gnome-like figure with an enormous erect phallus. Statues of Priapus were common in ancient Greece and Rome, standing in gardens or at doorways and crossroads. To propitiate Priapus, the traveller would stroke the statue's penis as he passed by. The Athenians often conflated Priapus with Hermes, the god of boundaries, and depicted a hybrid deity with a winged helmet, sandals and huge erection.[7]

Statues of Priapus were often hung with signs bearing epigrams, collected in Priapeia (treated below), which threatened sexual assault towards transgressors of the boundaries that he protected:

Percidere, puer, moneo; futuere, puella;

barbatum furem tertia poena manet.

Femina si furtum faciet mihi virve puerve,

haec cunnum, caput hic praebeat, ille nates.

Per medios ibit pueros mediasque puellas

mentula, barbatis non nisi summa petet.

Translation:

I warn you, boy, you will be screwed; girl, you will be fucked;

a third penalty awaits the bearded thief.

If a woman steals from me, or a man, or a boy,

let the first give me her cunt, the second his head, the third his buttocks.

My dick will go through the middle of boys and the middle of girls,

but with bearded men it will aim only for the top.[16]

Another example comes from the works of Martial (6.73):

Non rudis indocta fecit me falce colonus:

Dispensatoris nobile cernis opus.

Nam Caeretani cultor ditissimus agri

Hos Hilarus colles et iuga laeta tenet.

Adspice, quam certo videar non ligneus ore,

Nec devota focis inguinis arma geram:

Sed mihi perpetua nunquam moritura cupresso

Phidiaci rigeat mentala digna manu.

Vicini, moneo, sanctum celebrate Priapum,

Et bis septenis parcite iugeribus.

Translation:

I am not hewn from fragile elm, nor is my member which stands stiff with a rigid shaft made from just any old wood. It is begotten from everlasting cypress, which fears not the passage of a hundred celestial ages nor the decay of advanced years. Fear this, evil doer, whoever you are. If your thieving rod harms the smallest shoots of this here vine, like it or not, this cypress rod will penetrate [i.e. sodomize] and plant a fig in you.[17]

My take: the Romans impaled thieves and criminals on the crux designed as a symbol of Priapus punishing the thief, and the "ritual" usually involved a "crown of thorns"--the fact that we are told that Jesus wore a "scarecrow wreath" on his execution pole is very strong line of evidence that Jesus was executed on a "cross" which had a sedile-seat modified into pointed phallic crux; he was actually "sodomized" to death on a Priapus stake "with a reed fixed upon the crown of [his] head" to indicate that he was a sacrificial victim to Priapus.

And indeed, there are more Priapean epigrams that refer to the sodomizing of thieves who steal into gardens, fields and orchards in order to steal stuff.

From the Internet Sacred texts Archive -- The Priapeia:

Epigram 10:

Ne prendare, cave, prenso nec fuste nocebo,

saeva nec incurva vulnera falce dabo:

traiectus conto sic extendere pedali,

ut culum rugam non habuisse putes.

'Ware of my catching! If caught, with rod I never will harm thee
Nor to thee deal sore wound using my sickle that curves.
Pierced with a foot-long pole thy skin shall be stretched in such fashion
Thou shalt be fain to believe ne'er had a wrinkle thine arse.

Also:

Take heed lest thou art caught. If I do seize thee, nor with my club will I belabour thee, nor cruel wounds with the curved sickle will inflict on thee. Thrust into by my twelve-inch I pole, thou shalt be so stretched that thou wilt drink* thy anus never had any wrinkles!

*think

Epigram 16:

Quid mecum tibi, circitor moleste?
ad me quid prohibes venire furem?
accedat, sine: laxior redibit.

What hast thou, meddling watch, with me to do?
Why baulk the robber who to me would come?
Let him draw nigh: the laxer shall he go.

Also:

What hast thou to do with me, thou meddlesome watchman? why dost thou hinder the thief from coming to me? Let him approach: he will return more 'open'!

Epigram 24:

Hoc sceptrum, quod ab arbore est recisum,

nulla iam poterit virere fronde,

sceptrum, quod pathicae petunt puellae,

quod quidam cupiunt tenere reges,

cui dant oscula nobiles cinaedi,

intra viscera furis ibit usque

ad pubem capulumque coleorum.

This staff of office cut from tree as 'tis,
No more with leafage green for aye to bloom;
Staff by the pathic damsels fondly loved,
Which e'en the kings delight in hand to hold
And oft by noble catamites bekissed--
This staff in robbers' vitals deep shall plunge
Up to its bushy base and bag of balls.

Also:

This staff of office, which, severed from the tree, can now shoot forth no verdure; sceptre, which pathic maidens crave, and some kings love to hold; to which patrician [1] paederasts [2] give kisses; shall go right into the very bowels of the thief, as far as the hair and the bag of balls. [3]

Epigram 31:

Donec proterva nil mei manu carpes,
licebit ipsa sis pudicior Vesta.
sin, haec mei te ventris arma laxabunt,
exire ut ipse de tuo queas culo.

Long as thy wanton hand to pluck refrain
Chaster than Vesta's self thou may'st remain
Else thee my belly's arm shall loosen so
Out of thy proper anus thou shalt flow.

Also:

So long as thou snatchest nothing from me with audacious hand, thou mayst be chaster than Vesta herself. But, if thou dost, these belly-weapons of mine will so stretch thee that thou wilt be able to slip through thy own anus.

Epigram 52 (three men forcing a fourth, a thief, to receive a donkey after having their way with him):

Heus tu, non bene qui manum rapacem
mandato mihi contines ab horto,
iam primum stator hic libidinosus
alternis et eundo et exeundo
porta te faciet patentiorem.
accedent duo, qui latus tuentur,
pulchre pensilibus peculiati;
qui cum te male foderint iacentem,
ad partes veniet salax asellus
nilo deterius mutuniatus.
quare qui sapiet, malum cavebit,
cum tantum sciet esse mentularum.

Ho thou, which hardly thy rapacious hand
Canst from the garden in my charge contain,
First shall this watchman, ever lustful loon,
Entering and exiting alternate-wise
Widen thy portal to its fullest stretch
Then shall the couple guarding either flank,
Grandly provided with those pensile parts,
After they've sorely pierced thee prostrate thrown
Bring to the self-same part an ass-foal lewd
Gifted with pizzle not a whit the worse.
Then who is wise beware of working ill,
Knowing so much of pego waits him here.

Also:

Hark ye, thou who scarcely withholdest thy greedy hand from the garden entrusted to me. Now, first the watchman, full of lechery, with alternate entrance and exit, shall make thy passage an open one. Then two shall approach, who stand guard at each side, nobly provided with pensile property. Who, when they have grievously ploughed thee, stretched prostrate, to the same part shall come a rampant little ass, by no means inferior in well-hung pizzle. Wherefore, he who is wise will beware of ill-doing, when he knows that here is so much of the mentule.

Epigram 87 (last part -- Priapus' phallus as a crux):

Proin, viator, hunc deum vereberis
manumque sursum habebis. Hoc tibi expedit,
parata namque crux stat ecce mentula.
"Velim pol" inquis? At pol ecce vilicus
venit, valente cui revulsa bracchio
fit ista mentula apta clava dexterae.

Hence of such Godhead (traveller!), stand in awe;
Best it befits thee off to keep thy hands.
Thy crux is ready, shaped as artless yard;
'I'm willing 'faith' (thou say'st) but 'faith here comes
The boor and plucking forth with bended arm
Makes of this tool a club for doughty hand.

Also:

Hence, warfarer, thou shalt be in awe of this god, and it will be profitable to thee to keep thy hands off. For a punishment is prepared--a roughly-shaped mentule. 'Truly, I am willing,' thou sayest; then, truly, behold the farmer comes, and that same mentule plucked from my groin will become. an apt cudgel in his strong right hand.[4]

Clearly, if thieves out in the country were threatened with penetration and it was considered a kind of 'crucifixion', then what would the state have done to armed robbers, pirates, insurrectionists, spies, traitors, defectors from the military, and the like when they were sentenced to be crucified?

Again, we don't have much, if any, evidence for a scarecrow wreath being routinely used for crucifixions. But it might have been done sometimes (Pozzuoli has no such wreath, neither does Alexamenos). All we have are the New Testament accounts and the writings of the Church Fathers. The accounts in the NT just say he was crucified. The Ante-Nicene Church Fathers who gave a description of the cross indicate the crucifixion was typical: with the cornu.

C. Priapus as a Versatile Protector and Guide.

Priapus was also a god of the waterways, as he was a god of merchant sailing.

From wikipedia's Priapus - Patron of merchant sailing, forwarded by Mr. Didymus:

Priapus’ role as a patron god for merchant sailors in ancient Greece and Rome is that of a protector and navigational aide. Recent shipwreck evidence contains apotropaic items carried onboard by mariners in the forms of a terracotta phallus, wooden Priapus figure, and bronze sheath from a military ram. Coinciding with the use of wooden Priapic markers erected in areas of dangerous passage or particular landing areas for sailors, the function of Priapus is much more extensive than previously thought.^[22]

...Priapus’ protection traits can be traced back to the importance placed on the phallus in ancient times (particularly his association with fertility and garden protection).^[22] In Greece, the phallus was thought of to have a mind of its own, animal-like, separate from the mind and control of the man.^[24] Represented in its erect form, the phallus was present in almost every aspect of daily life, reaffirming the male-dominant state of affairs in its overt presence.^[25] The phallus is also associated with “possession and territorial demarcation” in many cultures, attributing to Priapus’ other role as a navigational deity.^[22]

Source: "Babylon the Great" weblog

Indeed, the phallus was considered an apotropaic symbol that warded off evil [8], derived from the Greek verb ἀποτρέπω, which means "turn away from" and the Greek adjective ἀποτρόπαιον "averting evil" but also ἀπο τρόπαιον "from a defeat" or "from a tropaeum (trophy of an enemy's defeat)."

As an side, this is why ancient armies used to bring tropaeums into battle and why Romulus is sometimes depicted carrying a tropaeum as in this fresco from Pompeii ca. 79 CE. Not that tropaeums had phalluses!

Source: Roman History Resource wiki

Now this relates to the crux in that over the course of the centuries, the Romans developed T-type and mast-type crucifixion gallows, similar to a frame of tropaeum. Combined with the cornu that the crucified criminal was subjected to, it would not be long before sailors would consider a crux as apotropaic, for with a criminal fastened to and impaled on it, it was an actual victory over an enemy of the state, the pax Romana and the people. Especially so since pirates supplied a considerable portion of the criminals sentenced to crucifixion, [9] and because phalli could very well have been affixed to the masts of ships. [9a]

Indeed, Artemidorus (138-160 CE) notes this in the Second Century CE:

Σταυρόυσθαι πασι μέν τοϊς ναυτιλλομένοις άγατόν καί γάρ έκ ξύλον καί ήλων γέγονεν ό σταυρός ως καί τό πλοιον, καί ή κατάπτιος αυτού όμοια έστι σταυρω.

To be crucified, indeed, is admirable for those who go down to the sea in ships. For the σταυρός (crux), like a ship, is made out of timber and nails and a ship's mast resembles a σταυρός.

Artemidorus, Oneirocriticon 2.53

No doubt they were regarding a crux with a criminal impaled upon it as apotropaic ever since Caesar Augustus (or even Pompey before him) had cleaned the Mediterranean region free from pirates. Suetonius (69/75 to >130 CE) quoted a well-known homage paid to Augustus by the sailors of Alexandria:

per illum se vivere, per illum navigare, libertate atque fortunis per illum frui

By him they lived, by him they sailed and by him they enjoyed liberty and good fortune.

Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Divine Augustus 98.2 [10]

Priapus was not just the guardian and thieves' menace of gardens and fields and the protector merchant sailing, either. His statues' positions along the waterways and in harbors indicate that he protected all sailing. [11] His other roles included guarantor of fertility of natural vegetation and of increase in material wealth [12] and the sentry of property boundaries. [13] And, it turns out, he is invoked in inscriptions and in illustrations in tombs (and even the statue on the Esquiline!) [14] as a guardian of cemeteries and an apotropaic guarantor of safe passage of souls in the next life. [15]

And there is indication that Priapus, like Hermes / Mercury, also protected or at least guided travellers on the highways.

D. Priapus, A God of the Roads.

And, as it turns out, he was also in some places a god of the roads, the same as the role Hermes [18] fulfilled! As it is written in Epigram 29 of the Priapea:

'Falce minax et parte tui maiore, Priape,
ad fontem, quaeso, dic mihi qua sit iter.'

Dreadful wi' sickle and dire with thy greater part, O Priapus!
Prithee to me point out which be the way to the fount?

Also:

Priapus, terrific with thy sickle and thy greater part, tell me, prithee, which is the way to the fountain? [19]

Here Priapus appears as the friendly god of the roads, much like Hermes/Mercury, showing the way to a water source. Now, if he was the defender of gardens, fields, houses, merchant wealth, and sea-sailing, would he not also be the defender of the roads? Particularly since phalli were used apotropaically, there is a very good reason to believe that he did. And since Rome crucified pirates, would they not also crucify highwaymen? Indeed they did! [20] And usually they crucified criminals on the most heavilly travelled roads. [21]

quotiens noxios crucifigimus celeberrimae eliguntur viae, ubi plurimi intueri, plurimi commoveri hoc metu possint. omnis enim poena non tam ad (vin)dictam pertinet, quam ad exemplum.

Whenever we crucify / impale the noxious criminals, the most crowded roads are chosen, where the most people can see and be moved by this fear. For penalties relate not so much to retribution as to their exemplary effect.

Pseudo-Quintilian, Declamationes 274 [23]

The conclusion is obvious. The Roman crux, in the form of a cruciform gallows, was really an unrecognized stick-figure form of Priapus and other protector dieties. And if common thieves were "crucified" on Priapus' massive phallus, what does the reader think the Romans would have done when they crucified criminals? Just nail them to a flat-plane cross or tropaeum? Especially when we now know they deified deceased emperors by affixing their wax mannekins on crosses, such an execution would treat and exalt a criminal as a god. No, they would have subjected the criminal to an acuta crux, whether it was a simple impaling stake or (most frequently) the cornu of a male cross.

E. Other Protector Gods.

Here is a second-century mosaic of a good spirit by the name of Tykhon, depicted warding off the kakodaimon (wicked spirit) and his evil eye. The good spirit holds a pair of spits in the form of a "T" as a talisman for good luck, and is depicted with an engorged penis. [26] Well there was something else that was in the form of a "T" and according to Lucian (125-180 CE), it was the gallows upon which tyrants crucified (ἀνασκολοπίζειν = impaled) men. [27]

Source: Theoi.com.

And here is shown a statue of a polyphallic Mercury (a.k.a. Hermes) from Pompeii endowed with many enormous phalli with the largest one projecting from his groin. Notice he is not holding his caduceus like he normally would, but is holding a bag of coins indicating his role as the god of merchants.

Source: Wikipedia.org.

And an ancient coin (Nummus of Odessos in Thrace under the reign of Gordianus III, 238-244 CE) showing Hermes with a normal flaccid penis as it would be depicted in that time, and holding a purse and a caduceus. Notice it is different from the one depicted in modern times.

Source: A World of Myths - Hermes webpage.

Mr. Thomas continues:

Further Evidence:

The graffiti you referred to in another place in which the victim impaled on the crux stake had a donkey's head is explained on the same wikipedia page: (Quoting wikipedia)--

"Priapus joined Pan and the satyrs as a spirit of fertility and growth, though he was perennially frustrated by his impotence. In a ribald anecdote told by Ovid,[5] he attempted to rape the nymph Lotis but was thwarted by an ass, whose braying caused him to lose his erection at the critical moment and woke Lotis. He pursued the nymph until the gods took pity on her and turned her into a lotus plant. The episode gave him a lasting hatred of asses and a willingness to see them destroyed in his honour.[6] The emblem of his lustful nature was his permanent erection and his giant penis."[7]

Well that's an interesting association, Priapus as the crux getting his revenge upon donkeys! It's certainly true that Priapus is associated with donkeys and that donkeys were sacrificed in his honor, the ostensible reason being either because of the spoiled ravishing noted by Mr. Didymus or to appease Priapus because he had an "endowment" measuring contest with Silenus' donkey and the donkey ended up being killed, either because the donkey won -- or lost! [28] Of course, Zechariah and the gospel writers had no idea what abuse they were inviting when they had the Messiah come in sitting on a donkey, or as gMatthew says so well, "on a donkey, and on a colt the foal of a donkey." Around the time the Alexamenos was scratched in, Tertullian noted that another pictorial epigraph was circulated in Rome: "Not so long ago, a most abandoned wretch in that city of yours, ... a Jew, in fact,... carried about in public a caricature of us with this label: Onocoetes." [29] And it wasn't just Christians. Jews and the followers of the Gnostic sect of Typhon-Seth also suffered derision (or seemed to) from Romans for worshiping in their opinion such a low and mean animal as a donkey. [30]

Mr. Thomas continues:

The conflation by the Athenians of Priapus with Hermes makes sense: Hermes also was shamanic god of boundaries who punished thieves. [31] He was also depicted ithyphallic--with an enormously erect impaling penis.

Source: Wikipedia.org

The depiction of Priapus-Hermes-Mercury on this Wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priapus) holding a caduceus brings me to a question you raised somewhere else on the origin of the word "crux" I was fortunate, several years ago, to run into the book "Migration of Symbols" by Professor Donald McKenzie (http://www.amazon.com/Migration-Symbols-Donald-MacKenzie/dp/0766146383) which supplied me with information on the relationship of the indo-european c/k-r- root of "crux" with the spiral symbol. Take a look at the image of ithyphallic priapus-hermes-mercury on the same wikipedia page holding a double-spiral wand--the Caduceus. The Caduceus is an old shamanic phallic symbol depicting two serpents wound in a spiral around an "impaling pole." The derivation of "crux" from a root meaning "turn," "wind," "twist," "spiral" arises from the association of the phallic symbol of fertility deities with the shamanic spiral symbol. LaBarre provides evidence in his Ghost Dance that the spiral caduceus and the related double-axe symbols are old Indo-European phallic symbols of the fertility shamanic deities and D.McKenzie traces the evolution of the paleolithic spiral symbol in the four-armed swastika, fylfot, gammadion cross symbols of Indo-Europan cultures and other cross-cultural four-spoked cross-wheel symbols such as that on which Zeus (another phallic male deity) impaled Tartarus.

The same association of the magical phallus of "GOD" with spiral symbols is found the Indo-European root v-n-t/W-n-d. Thus any dictionary of root origins will tell you that sorcerer's magic "WAND" is from a w-n-d root meaning supple, wavy, spiral, twist, turn, etc. Thus in English we have the words wind (i.e., turn), wander (twist and meander), wend, wind (air) etc and scholars all recognize that the magic WAND that sorcerers hold in fairy tales is a phallic rod of divine magical power... (Primitive people associate divine spirits with wind or air and the spiral is a symbol of "circulating" air or wind. The devotee is filled with the Holy Wind or Spirit of the deity in a manner figuratively represented as sexual penetrative)

In Lucian's Prometheus on Caucasus, it is Hermes who is one of the two who nails Prometheus, stretched out on a cliff, for stealing fire and giving it to humans, and for stealing meat and swapping a bone with fat and gristle on it in its place. [32] So yes, Hermes did punish thieves.

In alchemical symbolism the caduceus is associated with primal matter, i.e., two serpents copulating around an erected penis (!) [33]. And indeed the Caduceus was even used as a phallus! Eva C. Keuls, in The Reign of the Phallus: Sexual Politics in Ancient Athens, notes that rape was very much a preoccupation of the minds of the people of ancient Greece. To them, to the Romans, heck, basically to everybody, rape was and is the ultimate translation of phallicism into action. It does, in fact, figure very much into Attic mythology, starting around 500 BCE. [34] A male deity would rape a female deity but male-on-male rape is also frequent and even female-on-male sexual assault is not unknown. [35] Of course, their gods were never shown with erections and so the heroes of their myths would use other items such as a scepter, lightning bolts or the form of an eagle (Zeus), a trident (Poseidon), and a caduceus (Hermes) and aim them for the genital zones of their victims. [36]

And there's a certain God-man who said he was going to be the figurative serpent on the pole -- not once, but three times according to John's gospel.

"And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up."

John 3:14 NIV

So Jesus said, "When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am [the one I claim to be] and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me."

John 8:28 NIV

"But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself."

John 12:32 NIV

Of course, these refer to Moses and his bronze serpent-on-a-pole referred to in Numbers 21:8-9. Yahweh orders Moses to make a snake from bronze and affix it to some kind of standard and set the assembly upright where everyone can see it. Those who were bit by snakes would be cured if they only look at it. But Hezekiah, King of Judah, according to 2nd Kings 18:4, later destroyed it because he deemed it an idol like the Asherah phalli (poles). Maybe because it was so obviously Aesculapian! So in Jesus' day the only snake-on-a-standard people knew about were those of Hermes, of Mercury, and of Aesculapius. And here all along I thought it meant Jesus predicting he was going to be crucified by being simply *nailed* on a tropaeum! Little did I know he he was saying that had to get himself "outside" the pole.

And somewhere along the line by the 2nd or 3rd Century CE, people equated the Rape (or at least the taking-up) of Ganymede by Zeus in the form of an eagle as equivalent to some kind of a "crucifixion:"

[Γανυμεδε] και εοικεν εσταυρωμένων,... α θέαμα αισχιστών, μειρακίων εξ ονύχων κρεμαμένων

[Ganymede] even resembled one crucified*,... a spectacle** most shameful, a young adult hanging from an eagle's talons.

* alt.: impaled

** LSJ: frequently of a sight which gives pleasure, i.e., delightful show.

Achilles Tatius, The Adventures of Leucippe and Clitophon 2.37.3 [37]

But Tartarus impaled by Zeus on a wheel??? I had to do a little research on that. It turns out, Zeus had bound Ixion on a wheel and made it spin for all eternity. The first iteration of the myth-fable has the wheel cartwheeling across the sky like the sun; it later transmogrified into a wheel spinning without end in Hades. But I know where you're coming from, for wheels have axles! And the last iteration of that tale was written by Lucian in the 2nd Century CE where he uses a verb that was ambiguous: it could mean either spun 'round and round on it, or penetrated by it. I guess Lucian figured out where the axle would go. I guess his Prometheus on Caucasus will forever be colored in my mind by what he wrote about how Zeus planned to punish Ixion:

ες τον εδην εμπεσών τροχώ αθλοις προσδεθείς συμπεριενεχτησεται μετ' αυτού αει.

The prizewinning wretch (lit.: winning athlete), will be cast into Hades, bound to a wheel and spun 'round and 'round (alt.: sodomized) in the midst of it for all eternity.

Lucian, Dialogue of the Gods 6.5 [38] [39]

The epigraphy shows that Ixion was not just put on any wheel, but a four-spoke one that formed a cross, representing the Rays of the Sun.

Here is an ancient epigraph showing Ixion bound to a wheel with the spokes forming the sign of a cross.

Source: Maicar.com.

And here is a neolithic representation of the Sun. Note the cross within.

Source: Joyful Heart.com.

And for the magic wand? I found the Proto-Indo-European root word for it was *wendh-, "to turn, wind, weave," from where we get the English words wind, "to move by turning and twisting," wend, "to proceed on, turn, go," wander, "to move about aimlessly," and wand, "a bending, flexible stick" but by 1400 the sense of "suppleness" had been lost. [40]

And guess who else used a magic wand?

Jesus.

Source: pocm.org.

F. Conclusion.

Mr. Didymus concludes:

All these evidence gives me a newly expanded perspective on the articles series on Jesus as suffering servant I wrote on God discussion. I knew quite well that the cross on which Jesus died had old religious-mystical phallic symbolic associations and i suspected but had no hard evidence before i read your comments and now your blog that the ancient Romans actually crucified criminals in the same way that many traditional cultures worldwide sacrifice victims to fertility deities--by pushing a "sodomizing" pole symbolic of the phallus of the deity right through the victim.

Thanks for the clinching evidence you have provided.

And thank you, John Thomas, for providing more evidence that the Bible does not say what people usually think it does.

Mr. Didymus finishes up:

More on Priapus and the Donkey Graffito:

The figure of Priapus as the god who "fucked his victim to death provided the ancient Romans opportunities for entertainment with ribald jokes, flippant and obscene sex stories. Wikipedia says:

"Priapus gave rise to a genre of poetry collectively termed Priapeia. The genre shows how Roman poets in particular invented comic and obscene situations for the deity, giving him more literary prominence than he enjoyed in rites or cult, though masked phallic figures were prominent on many festive occasions, both in Greece and in the wider Roman world. In Ovid's Fasti,[5] the nymph Lotis fell into a drunken slumber at a feast, and Priapus seized this opportunity to advance upon her. With stealth he approached, and just before he could embrace her, Silenus's donkey alerted the party with "raucous braying". Lotis awoke and pushed Priapus away.. To punish the donkey for spoiling his opportunity, Priapus bludgeoned it to death with his gargantuan phallus"

The element of sadistic jocularity and entertainment evident in crucifixion shows arises from its association with the X-rated "Priapeia." In this light we come to understand why crucifixion was exceptionally disgraceful way for a man to die -- he was held up in public as a man "fucked to death by Priapus. The splayed feet exposing the genitals and the agonized struggle of the victim seated on the god's pointed phallus was crudely and obscenely suggestive of sexual violence and thus for prudish people like the Jews it was an exceptionally odious manner for a relative or friend to die...No wonder the disciples of Jesus could only overcome the psychological trauma of Jesus' death in delusional beliefs that he had resurrected and transformed the disgrace of the crux into the victory of the tropaeum!!

And it's no wonder the Jews in Judea and Galilee were always in turmoil and periodically rebelling. They absolutely wanted nothing to do with it. It was not just a man depicted being penetrated to death by Priapus, it was also a form of parodic exaltation, mocking the criminal's attempt to rise above his station and dominate his betters. [41] which means not only were the crucified penetrated and forced by the way they were nailed or tied up to ride the penetrating cornu, they were also raised on high for maximum visibility. Whereas with a tropaeum, crucifixion on high would be an especial honour, treating a criminal as a god--; on the other hand, with a crux it was an especial dishonour, for more people could see the convict's ultimate shame: he will die penetrated by a god... not just a punitive rapist "sex" god but also a death god!

G. Footnotes.

[1] 'Patrician' and 'notorious' are alternative renderings of 'the Latin word oscula.

[2] 'Paederasts' is a poor translation. The Latin word is cinaedi, which in this context would be better translated as 'bottoms', i.e., 'passive' homosexual males.

[3] The whole of Priapus's member to the very hair of the pudendum and the scrotum would be thrust into the thief.

[4] The traveller mocks at Priapus's threat of sodomy ["crucifixion"] as a punishment. The god, in anger, retorts that if that punishment has no fears for him, a fustigation by the Farmer with the self-same mentule used as a cudgel may have a more deterrent effect.

[5] Ovid, Fasti, vi.319ff

[6] "Priapus." Who's Who in Classical Mythology, Routledge. 2002

[7] "Priapus." Bloomsbury Dictionary of Myth. 1996.

[8] Claudia Moser, Naked Power: The Phallus as an Apotropaic Symbol in the Images and Texts of Roman Italy. University of Pennsylvania, 2005-2006 Penn Humanities forum on Word & Image. Abstract.

[9] Martin Hengel, Crucifixion, tr. John Bowden, Philadelphia, 1977, Fortress Press, p. 49, n. 13

[9a] Moser, PDF, p. 38

[10] Hengel, p. 49, n. 13.

[11] Moser, PDF, p. 37

[12] Ibid, p. 36.

[13] Ibid, p. 37

[14] Q Horatius Flaccus (Horace), Satyrarum libri 1.8

[15] Moser, PDF, pp. 38, 39

[16] Craig A. Williams, Roman Homosexuality: Ideologies of Masculinity in Classical Antiquity, p. 21. Oxford University Press US, 1999. ISBN 0195125053

[17] Quoted in Eric Csapo, Theories of Mythology, p. 168. Blackwell Publishing, 2005. ISBN 0631232486

[18] Wikipedia, Hermes, Cult and Mythology. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermes

[19] Scaliger says that figures of Priapus and of Mercury were placed at crossroads, with rods in their hands, pointing out the way to fountains. 'The figure of Hermes had, like that of Priapus, a long and massive phallus; I have seen them in a cardinal's palace at Rome; and another proof is the saying of the philosophers, who, deriding the gluttony and lust of the youths, compared them to tois ermais [statues of Mercury], which had nothing but the head and the penis.' Therefore, Priapus is here referred to as a god of the road.

[20] Hengel, p. 49, n. 11, 13

[21] Ibid, p. 50, n. 14

[22] Neilson III, Harry R. 2002. “A terracotta phallus from Pisa Ship E: more evidence for the Priapus deity as protector of Greek and Roman navigators.” The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 31.2: 248-253.

[23] Ibid

[24] Csapo, Eric. 1997. "Riding the Phallus for Dionysus: Iconology, Ritual, and Gender-Role De/Construction." Phoenix 51.3/4: 260.

^[25] Keuls, Eva C. 1985. The Reign of the Phallus: Sexual Politics in Ancient Athens.University of California Press: (1993) Berkeley and Los Angeles: 4-5. California Digital Library

[26] Theoi "Tykhos" webpage, http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/Z40.1.html

[27] Lucian, Judicium vocalium (In the Court of the Vowels) 12.

[28] Frédéric Delord. "Priapus." 2009. In A Dictionary of Shakespeare's Classical Mythology(2009-), ed. Yves Peyré. http://www.shakmyth.org/myth/257/priapus

[29] Tertullian, Ad Nationes, I.14

[30] Jewish Encyclopedia, 1906 Ed., "Ass Worship." jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/2027-ass-worship

[31] Theoi.com, Hermes, "General Info"

[32] Lucian, Prometheus on Caucasus Sacred Text Internet Archive.

[33] Webpage article "Caduceus" www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/~alchemy/caduceus.html

[34] Keuls, pp. 47, 49

[35] Ibid, p. 49

[36] Ibid, p. 50

[37] Hengel, p.p. 7-8, n. 14.

[38] Lucian, Dialogi deorum 6.5 Greek text - Perseus Digital Library

[39] Lucian, Dialogue of the Gods 6 (fin) English text - Sacred Text Internet Archive

[40] Online Etymology Dictionary, http://www.etymonline.com/index.php

[41] Joel Marcus, "Crucifixion as Parodic Exaltation," JBL 125 (2006), pp. 73-87 (ap. Shelly Matthews, "Clemency as Cruelty," Violence, Scripture, and Textual Practice in early Judaism and Christianity, Ra'anan S. Boustan, Alex P. Jassen & Calvin J. Roetzel, eds., (2010) Leiden, Netherlands, Brill NV, pp. 117-144, p. 142). Mr. Marcus writes on p. 78, "Crucifixion was intended to unmask, in a deliberately grotesque manner, the pretension and arrogance of those who had exalted themselves beyond their station...." Marcus concludes that crosses sometimes might have been too high, so that there would be a confusion of who was mocking whom, since "the height of the cross might undergo a transvaluation and be seen to point toward the spiritual eminence rather than the arrogance of the victim." My note: add the cornu, and the prospect of transvaluation is, I assume, hereby averted (Suetonius Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Galba 9).

H. Previous Series.

Crucifixion – The Bodily Support - Part 1.

Crucifixion – The Bodily Support - Part 2 - Archaeological Evidence.

Crucifixion – The Bodily Support - Part 3 - Manuscript Evidence and its Similarity to the Imagery of the Caesar Cult.

Crucifixion – The Bodily Support - Part 4 - Physics of Crucifixion.

The Romans NEVER CRUCIFIED the Way We Think They Did! 6

Part 5 - The First Crucifix.
Part 4 - The Tropaeum and the Furca.
Part 3 - Crux - Modern English Use and Ancient Quotidian Meanings.
Part 2 - Crux.
Part 1.

Part 6 - From Wax Image to Exposed Body.

A. Introduction.

Between Friday March 17, 44 BCE and the time Cassius Dio (155 or 163/164 to after 229 CE) wrote his Roman History people got the idea that Mark Anthony actually exposed the very body of Julius Caesar to public view.

And Antony aroused them [the people] still more by bringing the body most inconsiderately into the Forum, exposing it all covered with blood as it was and with gaping wounds, and then delivering over it a speech, which was very ornate and brilliant, to be sure, but out of place on that occasion.

Cassius Dio, Roman History 44.35.4

In my opinion, derived from the Alexamenos Graffito and the Orpheos Bakkikos pendant (now lost) it also influenced at least three religions, the chief of which is Christianity. The likely others, now extinct, were the Egyptian Gnostic sect of Typhon-Seth [i], an Iranian cult whose deity was a horse-headed god [ii], and the mystery cult of Bacchus - Dionysius.

The change in thinking happened probably due to the fact that Julius Caesar and his opponents were known to have been involved in crucifying others and also due to the fact that Caligula was assasinated in a theatre during the production of Catullus' Laureolus, a play that featured a crucifixion that was utterly fake.

B. Julius Caesar's Crucifixions (of Other People).

B.1. Ceasar and the Pirates.

Classical scholars and Christian apologists are all quite familiar with Julius Caesar's crucifixions of the pirates on an island off the coast of Asia Province (west coast of Turkey) near Pergamos. Let's see what the historians who record the episode have to say about this.

Plutarch (46 to 120 CE):

[1] To begin with, then, when the pirates demanded twenty talents for his ransom, he laughed at them for not knowing who their captive was, and of his own accord agreed to give them fifty. [2] In the next place, after he had sent various followers to various cities to procure the money and was left with one friend and two attendants among Cilicians, most murderous of men, he held them in such disdain that whenever he lay down to sleep he would send and order them to stop talking. [3] For eight and thirty days, as if the men were not his watchers, but his royal body-guard, he shared in their sports and exercises with great unconcern. [4] He also wrote poems and sundry speeches which he read aloud to them, and those who did not admire these he would call to their faces illiterate Barbarians, and often laughingly threatened to hang them all. The pirates were delighted at this, and attributed his boldness of speech to a certain simplicity and boyish mirth.

[5] But after his ransom had come from Miletus and he had paid it and was set free, he immediately manned vessels and put to sea from the harbour of Miletus against the robbers. He caught them, too, still lying at anchor off the island, and got most of them into his power. [6] Their money he made his booty, but the men themselves he lodged in the prison at Pergamum, and then went in person to Junius, the governor of Asia, on the ground that it belonged to him, as praetor of the province, to punish the captives. [7] But since the praetor cast longing eyes on their money, which was no small sum, and kept saying that he would consider the case of the captives at his leisure, Caesar left him to his own devices, went to Pergamum, took the robbers out of prison, and crucified them all, just as he had often warned them on the island that he would do, when they thought he was joking.

Plutarch, The Life of Julius Caesar 2.1-7 [1]

Plutarch uses the following Greek verbs for Caesar's promises to hang the pirates and how he carried the threats out. First, κρεμᾶν means (future infinitive active) "to hang, to hang up, to suspend." Any method will do, including crucifixion or impalement (Herodotus, Histories 3.125.3 & 4; Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, 16.35.6 & 16.94.4). Second, ἀνεσταύρωσεν (3rd person singular aortive indicative active of ἀνασταυρόω) means "he crucified," but also "he impaled." This same exact verb is utilized by Cassius Dio (Roman History, 74.8 & 75.7) to describe the Roman Emperor Alexander Severus (ruled 222 - 235 CE) fixing the heads of Niger and Albinus on poles.

Suetonius (69/75 – after 130 CE):

For he had instantly dispatched his other servants and the frends who accompanied him, to raise money for his ransom. Fifty Talents having been paid down, he was landed on the coast, when, having collected some ships, he lost no time in putting out to sea in pursuit of the pirates, and having captured them, inflicted upon the the Punishment which he had often threatened in jest.

Suetonius, The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Julius Caesar 4.2 [2]

Now here, Suetonius simply states that he inflicted the Punishment (supplicio adficeret), which Martin Hengel has demonstrated was the punishment for slaves. [iii] This, of course, was crucifixion or direct impalement (Seneca, Dialogue 6 (De Consolatione) 20.3)

Even in avenging wrongs he was by nature most merciful, and when he got hold of the pirates who had captured him, he had them crucified, since he had sworn beforehand that he would do so, but ordered that their throats be cut first.

Suetonius, The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Julius Caesar 74.1 [3]

Suetonius here uses suffixurum (verb-participle plural perfect passive masculine genitive) and suffigi (present passive infinitive) mean respectively "of being suffixed" and "to be suffixed" where suffigere means "to fix or fasten beneath," which could mean "to crucify" but definitely "to impale." Indeed, he the verb to describe the head of Emperor Galba being carried around a legion's camp stuck on a pike: "ille lixis colonibusque donauit, qui hasta suffixum non sine ludibrio circum castra portarunt (he handed it [Galba's severed head] over to his servants and camp-followers, who fixed it on a spear and paraded it round-about the camp with mockery)," The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Galba 20.3.

And of course, crux can also mean "impaling stake," e.g., acuta crux or punica crux. It could be a simple stake or, as we have seen, a riding thorn outrigged to a gallows.

Valerius Maximus (1st Century CE):

Also, Caius Julius Caesar, whose virtues provided him with an entry into Heaven, during the beginnings of his early youth while travelling to Asia as a private citizen, [was abducted and held captive] by seafaring pirates around the Isle of Pharmacuse, except one redeemed him with 50 Talents. So, then! With an unimportant sum he wishes perchance the most brilliant Star of the World to be brought back in a pirate boat. What is it, then, that I might complain about it any longer if he spared not the fellow-partakers [lit.: consorts] of his own divinity? But in fact the heavenly divinity vindicated himself in an unjust manner: indeed the captured robbers he crucified!

Valerius Maximus, Factorum et Dictorum Memorabilium 6.9.15 [4]

Now here the term for crucified is "crucibus adfixit." Its traditional meaning, of course, is "he fastened [them] to crosses" but its alternative meaning could mean "he impaled [them] on stakes." The latter meaning is clear in Memorabilium 6.9.ext.5 "Orontes Darii regis praefectus in excelissimo Mycalensis montis uertice cruci adfixit (Orontes, Prefect of Darius the King, impaled Polycrates in the highest peak of the Mycalenian Mountains)"[iv] and 9.2.3 "Carbonisque Aruinae truncum corpius patibulo adfixum gestatum est (And the dismembered body of Carbo Arvina was carried about, spitted on a carrying-pole)."[v]

So it is evident that Julius Caesar was associated with crucifixion early on... but was it mere crucifixion, or the full-blown variety with a riding thorn? (Only the latter is positively supported by the epigraphy without scholars making assumptions.) Or was it simple impalement? For us'ns, the verbiage is usually far too laconic, but for the ancients, they knew exactly what was going on. Because we moderns think they are two or three entirely different things but to the people back then they were one in the same (Seneca, Dialogue 6 (De Consolatione) 20.3).

And indeed, later writers like Valleius Paterculus (who wrote 395 CE) and Xylander (1532-1576 CE) describe Caesar's execution of the pirates. On the one hand they would just have meant mere crucifixion, since the knowledge of the Roman practice had by then died out, but then again, they could have figured out the meaning of the veribage. V. Paterculus (The Roman History 42.3) wrote that Caesar returned with maximum speed and "crucified them" (suffixit cruci), which, as we have seen before, could have meant impaled; Xylander stated in his work that "having wrought in the midst of the World as he had predicted: the pirates he led to the cross" (in crucem egit), which, the literal meaning is to force on to the actual instrument of execution itself: i.e., to force onto the cross (for fastening), or to thrust onto the stake, that is, impale.

And if we apply Ockham's Razor to all this, knowing that Caesar had captured the pirates by surprise, he would have executed them in haste as well. And knowing that Suetonius said that he slit their throats first, a likely method of crucifixion here would be direct impalement. But Ockham's Razor sometimes cuts the wrong way! Caesar had had told the pirates he would hang them all, he dragged them out of prison which means there was sufficient time to build gallows complete with sediles / cornus, and plant the stipes well in advance. So it is more likely the pirates were subjected to the full-blown crucifixion where they were not just nailed up, but also penetrated... for life. (Edited 1-30-2012) (Credit to Sam per comment below).

B.2. African War.

Julius Caesar doesn't crucifiy any one here as far as we know, but due to reinforcements led by him, some Numidian fugitives are lifted up in order to be put down the next day.

Caesar, being informed of the ambuscade of the Labienus by deserters, delayed there a few days, till the enemy, by repeating their practice often, had abated a little of their circumspection. Then suddenly, one morning ordering eight veteran legions with part of the cavalry to follow him by the Decuman Gate, he sent forward the rest of the cavalry; who suddenly was coming upon the enemy's light-armed foot, that lay in ambush along the valleys, slew about five hundred, and put the rest to flight. Meanwhile Labienus advanced, with all his cavalry, to support the fugitives, and was on the point of overpowering our small party with his numbers, when suddenly Caesar appeared with the legions, in order of battle. The day after, Juba ordered all the Numidians who had deserted their post and fled to their camp to be crucified.

Julius Caesar, Commentary on the African War 66 [5]

Here the Latin for crucified is in cruce suffixit. Traditionally thought of as "nailing up to a cross (tropaeum)" but it could just as easily refer to nailing up to and impaling on a Priapean version of a cross, or simply impaling on a stake. Application of Ockham's Razor here would lead the reader to rightly (or wrongly!) conclude that the deserters were simply impaled, unless the numbers were few (which we cannot figure out from the material). And again, what kind of crucifixion?

B.3. Hispanic War.

Here three slaves have been recorded to have lost their lives.

Pompey, being informed by some deserters that the town had surrendered, removed his camp toward Ucubis, where he began to build redoubts, and secure himself with lines. Caesar also decamped and drew near him. At the same time a Spanish legionary soldier deserting to our camp, informed us that Pompey had assembled the people of Ucubis, and given them instructions to inquire diligently who favored his party, who that of the enemy. Some time after in the town which was taken, the slave, who, as we have related above, had murdered his master, was apprehended in a mine and burned alive. About the same time eight Spanish centurions came over to Caesar, and in a skirmish between our cavalry and that of the enemy, we were repulsed, and some of our light-armed foot wounded. The same night we took of the enemy's spies, three slaves and one Spanish soldier. The slaves were crucified, and the soldier was beheaded.

Julius Caesar, Commentary on the Hispanic War, 20 [6]

The Latin for the last sentence is tersely, "Servi sunt in crucem sublati, militi cervices abscisae." Meaning, the slaves were "hoisted up into the assembly of a gallows" or "pushed / borne up onto a stake and impaled thereon." Nota bene: crucem is the accusative of crux, and when the preposition in is used with an accusative, it indicates motion towards an object and entry into or contact with it. Since only three slaves were put to death in this manner, I am holding the opinion that it is the full-blown Priapean variety described above.

C. A Threat to Caesar from Pompey's Faction - and their Final Success!

Indeed, during the first civil war, Julius Caesar perceived himself to be under the threat of crucifixion, or at the least, torture. He expressed exactly that in a speech before Pharsalus:

Today either the reward or the penalty of war is before
us. picture to yourself the crosses and chains in store for Caesar, my
head stuck upon the rostrum and my bones unburied.

Lucan, The Civil War (Pharsalia) 7.303-5 [7]

Now here the latin for "crosses" is cruces, accusative plural of crux. it could mean crosses, crucifixions, direct impalements, or simply tortures, or a combination thereof, for a person can only be put to death once by crucifixion or by single or simultaneous multiple direct impalement. My opinion? It means tortures, followed by beheading and (possibly) post-mortem crucifixion or impalement of the corpse.

Indeed, the Pompeiian threat never went away, for even after the Senate had bestowed many honors upon Caesar, including those of dictator, pontifex maximus, and (to be bestowed post-mortem) of a divus, what did the Pompey loyalists do? They assasinated Julius Caesar in Pompey's Curia, in the portico section that was used as temporary quarters for the Senate, with twenty-three stab woulnds in what must have been felt like torture. It was Cassius Longinus who dealt the fatal blow, and Caesar fell backwards with his arms out toward his side at the base of a statue of Pompey himself.

And when, and even before, Mark Anthony displayed the wax image on the tropaeum?

The people could endure it no longer. It seemed to them monstrous that all the murderers who, with the single exception of Decimus Brutus, had been made prisoners while belonging to the faction of Pompeius...

Appian, The Civil Wars 2.20.146 [8]

Indeed, the killer who struck the fatal blow, Cassius Longinus, had previously in 53-52 BCE subjugated Judea by force after Crassus' defeat at the hands of the Parthian Empire. In quelling a rebellion there, he captured 30,000 Jews including a certain Pitholaus who had defected and led the Jewish rebellion after Aristobulus passed on and had Pitholaus executed on the advice of Aristobulus' son, Antipater, whom Cassius held in high regard (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 14.7.3, Jewish War 1.9). There is little doubt that the mode of this execution was crucifixion or impalement because it was Aristobulus' father, Alexander Jannaeus, who had done the same to 800 Pharisees in the middle of the City of Jerusalem and earned the bon mot of "Thracian." [vi] [vii]

And nine years after he crucified in Judea, Cassius Longinus has killed again! To all the Romans attending the funeral, including not a few Jewish people, the exposition of the tortured body in imagino must have struck the assassins' deed as tantamount to a crucifixion!

D. Mark Anthony's Execution of Antigonus.

Mark Anthony, the one who displayed the wax image of Julus Caesar's slain body on a cruciform tropaeum, went on to slay a beloved ruler himself.

During the Civil War that was to follow in the wake of Julius Caesar's assasination, Antigonus, the last of the Jewish Hasmonean Kings, met his demise on the orders of Mark Anthony, to allay the fears of Herod, who would become Kind Herod the Great, because he, Herod, was a very unpopular private citizen of Arab-Idumean stock whereas Antigonus was a well-loved monarch of royal blood. The method of execution was by beheading with an axe (Cassius Dio, Roman History 49.22.4-6; Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 14.16.4 [487-91], 15.5-10; Jewish War 1.18.3 [354-7]; Plutarch, Anthony 36.2). All agree that it was a most dishonorable death for a king and Mark Anthony gained quite a bit of notoriety from that; Cassius Dio was the only one who noted what went on before he was beheaded:

These people (the Jews of Judea) Anthony entrusted to a certain Herod to govern; but Antigonus he bound to a cross and scourged, -- a punishment no other king had suffered at the hands of the Romans -- and afterwards slew him.

Cassius Dio, Roman History 49.22.4-6 [9]

It should be noted that the word for "to a cross" here is σταυρῷ which also means "to a post" and the word for "flogged" is ἐμαστίγωσε, which is commonly translated in the New Testament as "scourged," i.e., "torn up by blows." It appears to be related to μαστιχάω (mastikhaō, “I grind the teeth”) from which the word "masticate" (to chew) is derived.

It is possible that the death of the last of the Hasmoneans at the hand of Mark Anthony might have had a hand in transmorphing the exhibitied wax image of the cruciatus, Julius Caesar, and his hidden body into an exposed cruciarius himself! [viii]

E. Threats against Octavian Caesar (Augustus).

Now before Caesar's nephew and adopted son, Octavian, would be able to rise to the throne, he basically has to fight a multiple-way civil war with Decimus Brutus, Marcus Lepidus, Mark Anthony, and the Pompey partisan / nobleman faction. He had first aligned himself with the latter alliance but when he discovered that they were making threats against him and found out that Anthony and lepidus had formed an alliance themselves, he defected to to Lepidus and Anthony's side.

But when he had learned that Anthony after his flight had found a protector in Marcus Lepidus, and that the rest of the leaders and armies were coming to terms with them, he abandoned the cause of the nobles without hesitation, alleging as a pretext for his change of allegiance the words and acts of a certain of their number, asserting that some had called him a boy, while others had openly said that he ought to be honoured and gotten rid of, to escape the necessity of making suitable recompense to him or his veterans.

Suetonius, The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Augustus 12 (beg.) [10]

And it turns out that faction wasn't kidding! Even in the late 4th Century CE Valerus Paterculus was able to get the dirt on them and in fact it was Cicero who said that Octavian should be tollendum "lifted up," whereby he said it in one sense and meant it in another! Vicious!!

It was at the time that Cicero with his deep-seated attachment to the Pompeian party, expressed the opinion, which said one thing and meant another, to the effect that Caesar "should be commended and then -- elevated." [ix]

Velleius Paterculus Roman History 2.62.6 [11]

And indeed, decimus Brutus says this in his own letter to Cicero about the 25th of May (9th before the Calends of June) 42 BCE (Cicero, Ad familiares 11.20.1) in which he wrote :

"Octavian himself has no reasonable complaint about you, except a speech in which it was said you were to have called him an adolescent about to be extolled, decorated, and "lifted up," to be allying with him so that it may not be possible for him to be "lifted up."

Cicero, Ad Familiares 11.20.1 [12]

Vicious and a right hypocrite! To be "lifted up" means both to be "extolled" and also to be "lifted up [to be crucified or impaled]." Because about 30 years or so before, he wrote a long winded speech in five volumes against the Proconsul of Sicily, Gaius Verres whose atrocities and shameful acts included, among other things, a full-blown crucifixion of a Roman Citizen upon what I take to be a unitary cruciform gallows and impaling stake structure mentioned as such twice: cruciatus et crux - (In Verres 2.5.14), and illum cruciatum et crucem (In Verres 2.5.170).

F. Gaius "Caligula" Caesar's Assassination.

Suetonius (69/75 to after 130 CE) reports Caligula was assasinated just after he was conversing with some young actors of noble birth rehearsing their lines backstage, just before the performance of a play.

[1] On the ninth day before the Kalends of February at about the seventh hour he hesitated whether or not to get up for luncheon, since his stomach was still disordered from excess of food on the day before, but at length he came out at the persuasion of his friends. In the covered passage through which he had to pass, some boys of good birth, who had been summoned from Asia to appear on the stage, were rehearsing their parts, and he stopped to watch and to encourage them; and had not the leader of the troop complained that he had a chill, he would have returned and had the performance given at once. [2] From this point there are two versions of the story: some say that as he was talking with the boys, Chaerea [Cassius] came up behind, and gave him a deep cut in the neck, having first cried, "Take that," and that then the tribune Cornelius Sabinus, who was the other conspirator and faced Gaius, stabbed him in the breast. Others say that Sabinus, after getting rid of the crowd through centurions who were in the plot, asked for the watchword, as soldiers do, and that when Gaius gave him "Jupiter," he cried "So be it," and as Gaius looked around, he split his jawbone with a blow of his sword. [3] As he lay upon the ground and with writhing limbs called out that he still lived, the others dispatched him with thirty wounds; for the general signal was "Strike again." Some even thrust their swords through his privates. At the beginning of the disturbance his bearers ran to his aid with their poles, and presently the Germans of his body-guard, and they slew several of his assassins, as well as some inoffensive senators.

Suetonius, The Lives of The Twelve Caesars, Caligula 58.1-3 [13]

Josephus (37-101 CE) reports in his Antiquities that Caligula was assasinated during a performance of Laureolus, which he calls Cinyras, that was a play named after a nortorious highwayman, written by the First-Century CE playwright, Catullus, namesake of the First-Century BCE poet and sworn enemy of Julius Caesar, Catullus. This was one of several plays that dealt with the death of tyrants.

And here he perceived two prodigies that happened there; for an actor was introduced, by whom a leader of robbers was crucified, and the pantomine brought in a play called Cinyras, wherein he himself was to be slain, as well as his daughter Myrrha, and wherein a great deal of fictitious blood was shed, both around him who was crucified and also about Cinyras.

Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 19.1.13 [94] [14]

Now herein Josephus tels us that (1) a leader of robbers was crucified, (σταυροῦται) 3rd sg pres ind middle-passive of σταυρόω, which means "fence with pales, impalisade, drive piles" The LSJ reports that it is in the New Testament does it mean "crucify;" the Middle Liddell adds as a reference Polybius (Histories 1.86) wherein the historian records that Spendius was crucified by Hamilcar. Which brings us back to one of the original definitions of this Greek verb, "to drive piles," meaning, "to impale," which leads us to (2) there was a great deal of blood shed around the one crucified (τόν σταυρωθέντα), meaning poured out (ἐκκεχυμένον) around the main pole of whatever he was hanging on. In this case, a fake version of a simple impaling stake would be the better candidate, assuming that the crucified/impaled was supposed to shed his blood. But perhaps it wasn't a simple stake, epigraphy from Pompeii and Pozzuoli indicates it could have been a cruciform gallows equipped with a fake sedile instead.

Continuing with the subject of the assasination, Caligula had realised that this was the day that Pausanius had slain Philip, King of Macedonia. [x] Josephus describes the assasination in a different place, and Caligula coming out of the theatre for the last time at the ninth hour, but in the end he is assasinated and with immense bloodshed. And Cherea Cassius was the guilty party. [xi] [xii]

Suetonius tells us in his work, the previous paragraph filled with bad omens for Caligula, that during an audition or rehearsal for Laureolus, several understudies for the part of the lead actor had demonstrated their ability to regurgitate artificial blood. This was one of the omens.

[T]he pantomimic actor Mnester danced a tragedy which the tragedian Neoptolemus had acted years before during the games at which Philip king of the Macedonians was assassinated. In a farce called "Laureolus," in which the chief actor falls as he is making his escape and vomits blood, several understudies so vied with one another in giving evidence of their proficiency that the stage swam in blood.

Suetonius, The Lives of The Twelve Caesars, Caligula 57.4 [15]

Juvenal attended a performance of this play and wished the actor was indeed crucifed or impaled.

And Lentulus acts hanging with such art,
Were I a judge, he should not feign the part.

Juvenal, Satires 8.187-188 [16]

A more accurate but less poetic translation would be: "Now, too, the fleet Lentulus agreeably played the part of Laureolus; as a judge I deem him worthy of a true crux." [xiii]

At a later performance in the new Flavian Ampitheatre (Roman Colosseum), Martial (38/41 to 102/109 CE) witnessed an actual criminal being put to death, playing the part of Laureolus:

Laureolus, suspended on no feigned crux, offered up his defenceless entrails to a Caledonian bear. His mangled limbs quivered, every part dripping with gore and in his whole body no shape to be [f]ound.

Martial, Liber Spectaculorum 7 [17]

Indeed, a bear would most certainly be lethal to a naked and defenceless human being! For a single bear paw is close to the size of a human head. Presently, the Eurasian Brown Bear has a mass of 680 lbs. (mean avg) / 583 lbs (avg min) / 780 lbs (avg max) / 1058 lbs (Guiness Book World Record) for males and 330-550 lbs for females. It would exert a lot of downward and outward force on a crucified person! If on a cruciform gallows sans acuta crux (sedile), the nails probably would let go and the condemned would fall flat on his face; on a regular impaling stake the condemned would quickly be killed. In all likelihood, the criminal was crucified on a gallows with an acuta crux attached and outrigged to it.

G. Conclusion.

Knowing the above, it is very easy to see how the expositus of the waxen image of the slain Gaius Julius Caesar could have been morphed into an actual crucifixion post-mortem of the person himself, for Caesar and everyone around him, and even his descendant, Gaius Caligula Caesar, was intimately involved with crucifixion one way or another. Also, it was very easy to see that because of the expositus the crowd perceived his assasination as tantamount to an actual crucifixion. This in spite of the fact that an acuta crux / sedile / cornu is completely unnecessary to display a wax image on a tropaeum and is utterly necessary to keep a living person crucified, or at least guarantee that all the witnesses would view the crucifixion as shameful as can be; and in spite of the fact that all pictorial epigraphy that refer to actual crucifixion (what damn few that remain), not a fictitious one, do not show a cross without the cornu. Nevertheless, it was very easy for Cassius Dio to mistakenly believe that it was Caesar's body itself, not a waxen mannekin, that was clearly displayed for all to see.

H. Original Greek / Latin Sources.

[1] Plutarch, Caesar 2.1-4 (note: different verse numbering system)

[1] πρῶτον μὲν οὖν αἰτηθεὶς ὑπ᾽ αὐτῶν λύτρα εἴκοσι τάλαντα κατεγέλασεν ὡς οὐκ εἰδότων ὃν ᾑρήκοιεν, αὐτὸς δὲ ὡμολόγησε πεντήκοντα δώσειν ἔπειτα τῶν περὶ αὐτὸν ἄλλον εἰς ἄλλην διαπέμψας πόλιν ἐπὶ τὸν τῶν χρημάτων πορισμόν, ἐν ἀνθρώποις φονικωτάτοις Κίλιξι μεθ᾽ ἑνὸς φίλου καὶ δυοῖν ἀκολούθοιν ἀπολελειμμένος οὕτω καταφρονητικῶς εἶχεν ὥστε πέμπων ὁσάκις ἀναπαύοιτο προσέταττεν αὐτοῖς σιωπᾶν. [2] ἡμέραις δὲ τεσσαράκοντα δυεῖν δεούσαις, ὥσπερ οὐ φρουρούμενος, ἀλλὰ δορυφορούμενος ὑπ᾽ αὐτῶν, ἐπὶ πολλῆς ἀδείας συνέπαιζε καὶ συνεγυμνάζετο. καὶ ποιήματα γράφων καὶ λόγους τινὰς ἀκροαταῖς ἐκείνοις ἐχρῆτο, καὶ τοὺς μὴ θαυμάζοντας ἄντικρυς ἀπαιδεύτους καὶ βαρβάρους ἀπεκάλει, καὶ σὺν γέλωτι πολλάκις ἠπείλησε κρεμᾶν αὐτούς: [3] οἱ δὲ ἔχαιρον, ἀφελείᾳ τινὶ καὶ παιδιᾷ τὴν παρρησίαν ταύτην νέμοντες. ὡς δὲ ἧκον ἐκ Μιλήτου τὰ λύτρα καὶ δοὺς ἀφείθη, πλοῖα πληρώσας εὐθὺς ἐκ τοῦ Μιλησίων λιμένος ἐπὶ τοὺς λῃστὰς ἀνήγετο καὶ καταλαβὼν ἔτι πρὸς τῇ νήσῳ ναυλοχοῦντας ἐκράτησε τῶν πλείστων, καὶ τὰ μὲν χρήματα λείαν ἐποιήσατο, τοὺς δὲ ἄνδρας ἐν Περγάμῳ καταθέμενος εἰς τὸ δεσμωτήριον αὐτὸς ἐπορεύθη πρὸς τὸν διέποντα τὴν Ἀσίαν Ἰούνιον, 1 ὡς ἐκείνῳ προσῆκον ὄντι στρατηγῷ κολάσαι τοὺς ἑαλωκότας. [4] ἐκείνου δὲ καὶ τοῖς χρήμασιν ἐποφθαλμιῶντος ῾ἦν γὰρ οὐκ ὀλίγα καὶ περὶ τῶν αἰχμαλώτων σκέψεσθαι φάσκοντος ἐπὶ σχολῆς, χαίρειν ἐάσας αὐτὸν ὁ Καῖσαρ εἰς Πέργαμον ᾤχετο, καὶ προαγαγὼν τοὺς λῃστὰς ἅπαντας ἀνεσταύρωσεν, ὥσπερ αὐτοῖς δοκῶν παίζειν ἐν τῇ νήσῳ προειρήκει πολλάκις.

[2] Suetonius, De Vita XII Caesarum, Divus Iulius 4.2

nam comites seruosque ceteras inition statim ad expediendas pecunias, quibus redimeretur, dimiserat. numeratis deinde quinquaginta talentis expositus in litore non distulit quin e uestigo classe deducta persequeretur abeuntis ac redactos in potestatem supplicio, quod saepe illis miratus inter iocum fuerat, adficerat.

[3] Suetonius, De Vita XII Caesarum, Divus Julius 74.1

Sed et in ulciscendo natura lenissimus piratas, a quibus captus est, cum in dicionem redegisset, quoniam suffixurum se cruci ante iuraverat, iugulari prius iussit, deinde suffigi.

[4] Valerius Maximus, Factorum et Dictorum Memorabilium 6.9.15

C. autem Caesar, cuius uirtutes aditum sibi in caelum struxerunt, inter primae iuuentae initia priuatus Asiam petens, a maritimis praedonibus circa insulam Pharmacusam exceptus L se talentis redemit. parua igitur summa clarissimum mundi sidus in piratico myoparone rependi fortuna uoluit. quid est ergo quod amplius de ea queramur, si ne consortibus quidem diuinitatis suae parcit? sed caeleste numen se ab iniuria uindicauit: continuo enim captos praedones crucibus adfixit.

[5] Julius Caesar, de Bello Africo 66

Caesar interim de insidiis Labieni ex perfugis certior factus paucos dies ibi commoratus, dum hostes cotidiano instituto saepe idem faciendo in neglegentiam adducerentur, subito mane imperat porta decumana legiones se + VIII + veteranas cum parte equitatus sequi atque equitibus praemissis neque opinantes insidiatores subito in convallibus latentes [ex] levi armatura concidit circiter D, reliquos in fugam turpissimam coniecit. Interim Labienus cum universo equitatu fugientibus suis suppetias occurrit. Cuius vim multitudinis cum equites pauci Caesariani iam sustinere non possent, Caesar instructas legiones hostium copiis ostendit. Quo facto perterrito Labieno ac retardato suos equites recepit incolumes. Postero die Iuba Numidas eos qui loco amisso fuga se receperant in castra, in cruce omnes suffixit.

[6] Julius Caesar, de Bello Hispaniensi 20

Quod Pompeius ex perfugis cum deditionem oppidi factam esse scisset, castra movit Ucubim versus et circum ea loca castella disposuit et munitionibus se continere coepit. Caesar movit et propius castra castris contulit. Eodem tempore mane loricatus unus ex legione vernacula ad nos transfugit et nuntiavit Pompeium oppidanos Ucubenses convocasse eisque ita imperavisse ut diligentia adhibita perquirerent qui essent suarum partium itemque adversariorum victoriae fautores. Hoc praeterito tempore in oppido quod fuit captum, servus est prensus in cuniculo quem supra demonstravimus dominum iugulasse; is vivus est conbustus. Idemque temporis centuriones loricati VIII ad Caesarem transfugerunt ex legione vernacula, et equites nostri cum adversariorum equitibus congressi sunt, et saucii aliquot occiderunt levi armatura. Ea nocte speculatores prensi servi III et unus ex legione vernacula. Servi sunt in crucem sublati, militi cervices abscisae.

[7] Lucan, De Bello Civili (Pharsalia) 7.303-5

Aut merces hodie bellorum aut poena parata.
Caesareas spectate cruces, spectate catenas
Et caput hoc positum rostris effusaque membra.

[8] Appian, De Bello Civilae 2.20.146

οὐκ ἔφερεν ἔτι ὁ δῆμος, ἐν παραλόγῳ ποιούμενος τὸ πάντας αὐτοῦ τοὺς σφαγέας χωρὶς μόνου Δέκμου, αἰχμαλώτους ἐκ τῆς Πομπηίου στάσεως γενομένους, ἀντὶ κολάσεων ἐπὶ ἀρχὰς καὶ ἡγεμονίας ἐθνῶν καὶ στρατοπέδων προαχθέντας ἐπιβουλεῦσαι....

[9] Dion Cassius, Histoire Romaine 49.22.6-7

Ἐκείνους μὲν οὖν Ἡρώδῃ τινὶ ὁ Ἀντώνιος ἄρχειν ἐπέτρεψε, τὸν δ´ Ἀντίγονον ἐμαστίγωσε σταυρῷ προσδήσας, ὃ μηδεὶς βασιλεὺς ἄλλος ὑπὸ τῶν Ῥωμαίων ἐπεπόνθει, καὶ μετὰ τοῦτο καὶ ἀπέσφαξεν.

[10] Suetonius, De Vita XII Caesarum, Divus Augustus 12

Sed ut cognovit Antonium post fugam a M. Lepido receptum ceterosque duces et exercitus consentire pro partibus, causam optimatium sine cunctatione deseruit, ad praetextum mutatae voluntatis dicta factaque quorundam calumniatus, quasi alii se puerum, alii ornandum tollendumque iactassent, ne aut sibi aut veteranis par gratia referretur.

[11] Velleius Paterculus, Historiae Romanae 2.62.6

Hoc est illud tempus, quo Cicero insito amore Pompeianarum partium Caesarem laudandum et tollendum censebat, cum aliud diceret, aliud intellegi vellet.

[12] Cicero, Ad Familiares, 11.20.1

ipsum caesarem nihil sane de te questum, nisi dictum quod diceret to dixisse, laudandum adolescentem, ornandum, tollendum, se non esse commissurum, ut tolli possent.

[13] Suetonius, De Vita XII Caesarum, Caligula 58.1-3

[1] VIIII. Kal. Febr. hora fere septima cunctatus an ad prandium surgeret marcente adhuc stomacho pridiani cibi onere, tandem suadentibus amicis egressus est. Cum in crypta, per quam transeundum erat, pueri nobiles ex Asia ad edendas in scaena operas evocati praepararentur, ut eos inspiceret hortareturque restitit, ac nisi princeps gregis algere se diceret, redire ac repraesentare spectaculum voluit. [2] Duplex dehinc fama est: alii tradunt adloquenti pueros a tergo Chaeream cervicem gladio caesim graviter percussisse praemissa voce: "Hoc age!" dehinc Cornelium Sabinum, alterum e coniuratis, tribunum ex adverso traiecisse pectus; alii Sabinum summota per conscios centuriones turba signum more militiae petisse et Gaio "Iovem" dante Chaeream exclamasse: "Accipe ratum!" respicientique maxillam ictu discidisse. [3] Iacentem contractisque membris clamitantem se vivere ceteri vulneribus triginta confecerunt; nam signum erat omnium: "Repete!" Quidam etiam per obscaena ferrum adegerunt. Ad primum tumultum lecticarii cum asseribus in auxilium accucurrerunt, mox Germani corporis custodes, ac nonnullos ex percussoribus, quosdam etiam senatores innoxios interemerunt.

[14] Josephus, Antiquitatae Judaicae 19.1.13 [94]

[94] ἔνθα δὲ καὶ σημεῖα μανθάνει δύο γενέσθαι: καὶ γὰρ μῖμος εἰσάγεται, καθ᾽ ὃν σταυροῦται ληφθεὶς ἡγεμών, ὅ τε ὀρχηστὴς δρᾶμα εἰσάγει Κινύραν, ἐν ᾧ αὐτός τε ἐκτείνετο καὶ ἡ θυγάτηρ Μύρρα, αἷμά τε ἦν τεχνητὸν πολὺ καὶ περὶ τὸν σταυρωθέντα ἐκκεχυμένον καὶ τῶν περὶ τὸν Κινύραν

[15] Suetonius, De Vita XII Caesarum, Caligula 57.4

...et pantomimus Mnester tragoediam saltavit, quam olim Neoptolemus tragoedus ludis, quibus rex Macedonum Philippus occisus est, egerat; et cum in Laureolo mimo, in quo actor proripiens se ruina sanguinem vomit, plures secundarum certatim experimentum artis darent, cruore scaena abundavit. Parabatur et in noctem spectaculum, quo argumenta inferorum per Aegyptios et Aethiopas explicarentur.

[16] Juvenal, Satirae 8.187-8

Laureolum uelox etiam bene Lentulus egit,
iudice me dignus vera cruce.

[17] Martial, Liber Spectaculorum 7

nuda Caledonio sic viscera praebuit urso
non falsa pendens in cruce Laureolus
vivebant laceri membris stillantibus artus
inque omni nusquam corpore corpus erat.

I. Footnotes.

[i] Wünsch, Sethianische Verfluchungstafeln aus Rom, p. 222, Leipsic, 1898 (ap. K. Kohler & S. Krauss, "Ass-Worship," Jewish Encyclopaedia, 1906, sub-heading "Origin in the Egyptian typhon-Worship).

[ii] A. Alföldi, “Der iranische Weltriese auf archäologischen Denkmälern”, in: Jahrbuch der schweizerischen Gesellschaft für Urgeschichte 40, Zurich 1949/50, 28 (ap. F. Carotta & A. Eickenberg, Orpheos Bakkikos - the Missing Cross (pdf), p.7).

[iii] M. Hengel, (tr. J. Bowden), Crucifixion, Philadelphia 1977, Fortress Press, pp.51-63.

[iv] Cf. Herodotus, Histories 3.125.3,4; Cicero de Finibus 5.30.92; Lucian, Charon 13 (fin), 14; Philo, de Providentia, frg. 2.24f (ap. Eusebius, Praeparatio evangelica 8.14.386-399).

[v] Even Martin Hengel recognized this as an impalement (Crucifixion, p. 47). The context forces the patibulum to be interpreted as a pole. Interesting, because the Greeks starting with Chariton ~ or the Four Evangelists ~ would also call the patibulum a pole: a σταυρός!

[vi] Francesco Carotta, Jesus Was Caesar, "III Crux" (footnote [183])

[vii] Josephus, Jewish War 1.4.6 [96-98], Antiquities of the Jews 13.14.2 [379-383]

[viii] Carotta, ibid.

[ix] The equivocation is on the verb tollere which, on the one hand, means "to lift up" or "extol," but on the other hand, "to lift up [into a cross / onto a stake]" or "remove."

[x] Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 19.1.13 [95]

[xi] Ibid, 19.1.13 [96-98] & 19.1.14 [99-113]

[xii] Wikipedia, Caligula, "Asassination and Aftermath"

[xiii] Hengel, p. 35: "Juvenal wished that the actor Lentulus were on a real cross in this fearsome piece; it was an abomination to the satirist that the actor, as a member of the upper class, should debase himself by such a performance." Of course, I left the word crux untranslated, above because it doesn't necessarily mean a cross, even as an instrument of torture-execution.

J. Previous Series.

Crucifixion – The Bodily Support - Part 1.

Crucifixion – The Bodily Support - Part 2 - Archaeological Evidence.

Crucifixion – The Bodily Support - Part 3 - Manuscript Evidence and its Similarity to the Imagery of the Caesar Cult.

Crucifixion – The Bodily Support - Part 4 - Physics of Crucifixion.