Sunday, September 30, 2012

Crucifixion the Bodily Support - "Biblical Evidence" – Installment 3.



(Part 5c of the series: Crucifixion the Bodily Support)


Introduction.

What sort of gear was the instrument of Jesus' execution?

I am treating the four gospels as separate, and then will harmonise the whole lot, to see what differences come up.

Previously I looked at the “Biblical Evidences” in Mark and Matthew, and came to the conclusion that the instrument of Jesus’ execution could not be determined because four possible types could match its functions as described in predictions beforehand and by the prior meaning of the Greek verb that was used to denote “crucify”.


C. Luke.

There are several passages in this “history” in which the author admits to a certain Theophilus (friend of God) that he is not an eyewitness (Luke 1:1-4) that give us clues as to what the gear of Jesus' execution was imagined to be.


C.1. "He must take up his pole."

The first passage occurs in Luke chapter 9 verses 18-27, as Jesus questions his disciples who and what the crowds thought him to be, and who and what they the disciples themselves though him to be. Peter replies, “The Christ of God.” Then he warns them not to tell anybody because:
…“The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”
Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross (σταυρὸν) daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.”

Luke 9:22-27 NIV
Here again, as in Mark and Matthew, σταυρὸν would probably mean "pole" as in the patibulum or crossarm of a two-pole cross, simple or single-horned, or of an impaling stake, or of a simple pole, to which one is nailed or otherwise fixed and left to die. Except here Luke inserts the words daily (καθ' ἡμέραν "each day") which symbolizes something far more symbolic: the figurative “crucifying (or hanging or impaling)” the flesh and killing the desires thereof (Galatians 5:24, 6:14). And it is viewed as a positive thing! It is entirely without parallel outside the New Testament and Christian writings expounding on the subject; in some ancient Jewish and Pagan sources like Cicero, Seneca Minor and Philo, a figurative crucifixion was seen as a bad thing, for example., the “fixing” of the soul to the body or a person to his desires like a cruciarius literally fixed and/or fastened onto his instrument of execution.


C.2. No request by the Sons of Zebedee or their mum.

The passages about the twelve sitting on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel, and about those who would be the greatest has been surgically removed from this passage and deftly spliced into the narration of the Last Passover Seder or Last Supper (Luke 22:24-30). This of course, obviates the need to address the request of James and John the sons of Zebedee with a foreshadowing of the Crucifiction. (Mark 10:40, 45; Matthew 20:23,28).

Which means, of course, that the author of Luke appears to be avoiding the subject of sitting (καθίζω "to sit, cause to sit, take one's seat, settle, sink down") on the cross or pole.


C.3. "And then they fenced him with pales"

Some scholars like Martin Hengel (Crucifixion, p.25) state that the Gospels contain the most detailed accounts of a crucifixion. They do not. All they have is a simple statement that they did. Not how.

And Luke is no exception. We start again in the Prefect Pontius Pilate’s court:
He released the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder, the one they asked for, and surrendered Jesus to their will. As they led him away, they seized Simon from Cyrene, who was on his way in from the country, and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus. A large number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him. Jesus turned and said to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. For the time will come when you will say, ‘Blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ Then

“‘they will say to the mountains, “Fall on us!”
and to the hills, “Cover us!”’

For if men do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?”

Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed. When they came to the place called the Skull, there they crucified him, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.

Luke 23:25-34 NIV
Again there is a lot of detail about what went on before. Delivering the prisoner over to the will of the Jews, and now the Jews (!) leading him out to be crucified, making Simon of Cyrene carry his cross (σταυρὸν - pole), Jesus preaching to and prophesying at the masses of the city including weeping women (shades of women weeping for Tammuz!), arriving at Golgotha with two other criminals to be executed (ἀναιρεθῆναι) and then there they crucify him (ἐκεῖ ἐσταύρωσαν αὐτὸν). And they crucify the two others, one on his right, and one one his left, meaning Jesus is most conspicuous in the middle. And after that they gambled over his clothes. Now here, the author openly calls Jesus a criminal! Or at least that is how the sentence comes off. The Greek reads: Ἤγοντο δὲ καὶ ἕτεροι κακοῦργοι δύο σὺν αὐτῷ ἀναιρεθῆναι” (And were led with him two other criminals to be put to death / to be lifted up). The verb ἀναιρεθῆναι is in the aorist tense, infinitive case, passive voice, and could just as easily or more easily mean, “to be raised, taken up, lifted.” So we have here the first detail besides the definitions of the verb σταυρόω itself and it indicates that crucifixion (inexplicaply this time by the Jews instead of the Romans as we expect) involves lifting, hoisting. 

And again, the basic meaning of the verb σταυρόω applies here: "impale on [a] cross", according to the Greek-English Lexicon in Strong's Exhaustive Concordance. A pole or pale will do as well. And of course, we have the LSJ which defines σταυρόω as: "to fence with pales" and Thucydides The Peloponnesian War 7.25.7 defining the verb as: "to drive piles". So despite the lifting, these meanings cannot be ruled out. 

Luke does not have the Roman soldiers offer Jesus vinegar – yet!

Now one would think the soldiers would have been the ones doing the sorry business of crucifixion, except Luke indicates the Jews did it, by carelessly or cleverly using a chain relative pronouns back to their antecedent clearly identified as “the chief priests, the rulers and the people” (Luke 23:13 NIV).

Now despite not repeating the Sons of Zebedee incident and the foreshadowing of the Crucifiction therein, the author of Luke does include the two robbers. Now ‘Luke’ doesn’t say this, but if they were "seated" on poles (σταυρούς) under lesser charges (armed robbery) as they would have been in Mark and Matthew what about the one crucified under the charge of crimen maiestatis (high treason) as "The King of the Jews?" He would have to sit, too. Remember, the acuta crux that Tertullian called a sedilis excessu was there not to alleviate the suffering of the crucified, but to introduce horrible pain… and completely humiliate the condemned, utterly.

Jumping ahead to verse 39:
One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!”

Luke 23:39 NIV
Now Luke confirms the clue that condemned persons to be crucified were lifted up, by showing once the job was done, the criminals were hanged (κρεμασθέντων “having been hanged”, from κρεμάννυμι, “hang”). The verb ordinarily includes ἀποτυμπανισμός (apotympanismos) (Artayctes: Herodotus Histories 7.33.1, 9.120.4, 9.122.1) crucifixion as practiced in the late 70s BCE (a Roman POW and 6,000 captive rebellious slaves: Appian Bella Civilia 1.119,120) and impalement (Polycrates: Herodotus Histories 3.125.3,4; Onomarchus: Diodorus Siculus Library of History, 16.35.6, 16.61.2) as valid means of hanging.


C.4. The Mockery.

Now here the mockery is far different from that in Mark and Matthew. Here, no one dares Jesus to “Come down from the cross!” It is as if the author of Luke knows that ordinarily, or at least according to mark and Matthew, to come down of the cross or pole, the cruciarius has to lift himself off of the sedilis excessu in order to dismount himself, and come down to the ground, and he does not wish to acknowledge this. But he already let the cat out of the bag, so to speak, by using a conjugate of σταυρόω. And so the nature of the mockery is very different:
The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, the Chosen One.” The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar and said, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.”

There was a written notice above him, which read: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.

One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!”

Luke 23:35-39 NIV
Now here the mockery is far different and rather astounding! The masses were looking on while their rulers, who surely have better things to do, were now mocking him, saying, “let him save himself!” (σωσάτω ἑαυτόν). Then the soldiers finally show up, coming up to him and mocking him. And what do they offer him? Vinegar. And what do they challenge him to do? They challenge him “to save yourself!” (σῶσον σεαυτόν). Now let us jump ahead to the two others hanging with him. The dare one of them calls out is, “Save yourself and us!” (σῶσον σεαυτὸν καὶ ἡμᾶς). In the Greek, σωσάτω and σῶσον are derived from σῴζω, “save from death, keep alive, keep safe, preserve”. Luke's verb choice still shows the gear of Jesus' execution was lethal and impossible to remove one's self from, but it appears to be more vague than Mark and Matthew's chosen verb καταβαίνω "step down, dismount" would be, regarding the existence of a seat on the cross.

And of course this is just a set piece for the well-known penitent thief on the cross, shown slightly above to the left.


C.5. Where was the Sign?

Now after they crucified Jesus, where did the Roman soldiers the Jews install the sign bearing his name and charge of crimen maiestas?
There was a written notice above him: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.

Luke 23:38 NIV
The Greek for verse 38 is: "ἦν δὲ καὶ ἐπιγραφὴ ἐπ' αὐτῷ Ο ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ ΤΩΝ ΙΟΥΔΑΙΩΝ ΟΥΤΟΣ." Transliterated as: "Moreover there was also an inscription (on / at / near / over / against / upon / behind / in dependence on) him, THIS, THE KING OF THE JEWS." Now according to the author Luke, the titulus could have been placed (Gk. ἐπί) upon, above, behind, against, in dependence on him (the last with a chain), It does not define clearly the structure of the gear of Jesus’ execution, if you ask me.


C.6. The Deposition.

Again, Joseph of Arimathea asks Pilate for the body of Jesus, and Pilate agrees. Josephus takes down the body, wraps it and lays it in an unused tomb just like in the other three gospels. The removal of the body from the execution gear is as follows:

Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen cloth and placed it in a tomb cut in the rock, one in which no one had yet been laid.

Luke 23:53 NIV
The Greek for “took” is καθελὼν, a conjugate of καθαιρέω, “take down, put down bring down, depose, dethrone, fetch down as a reward or prize, take and carry off.” Again, Joseph may be doing this for the Sanhedrin in this Gospel, but we don’t have a Roman guard from the cohort that guards the Temple (Josephus Antiquities 20.5.3, Wars of the Jews 2.12.1) guard the tomb! And the Luke may be acknowledging a common Christian view that the gear of Jesus’ execution may also have been his “throne.”


C.7. "It is I, myself!"

This scene is after the Resurrection in Luke's story, after he appeared on a highway to and had supper (lit,: broke bread) with two others, Jesus appears to the whole assembled eleven in a room right after the two told the other nine the news:
While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”

When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence.

Luke 24: 36-44
Now here he shows them his hands and feet to prove that he was a living human with flesh and bones, and then he eats some broiled fish.

What do we make of this, unless this story's purpose was wholly theological?

First, there is no evidence of nails. Second, there is no evidence of a wound from an impalement stake (those things would transfix the body like fish on spits, or a roast lamb on a spit. It also shows that in this case any acuta crux (sedilis excessu) attached to the pole, cross, or frame did not do lethal damage to any internal organs, particularly the lower G.I. tract.

C.8. Conclusions.

And so here is where I draw my conclusions on what Mark is saying about the gear of Jesus' crucifixion:

1. It might have been or included a pole one wore on one’s death march.
2. It was designed so one could lifted up, either onto it or by it, or by one of its constituent parts.
3. It was designed so one could hang on it.
4. It might have been designed so that a sign could be placed on top or alternatively the sign was placed on a separate pole near it.
5. The use of σταυρόω indicates that a "fencing with pales", or a "pile driving (impalement)" is going on, or both.
6. There was no mention of wounds.
7. Lethal damage from an impaling stake is not plausible. If the gear of Jesus' execution had an acuta crux typical of Roman devices, the point was blunted and the spike itself smoothed.

It appears the gear of Jesus' execution would be:

1. An ordinary pole with a blunted, smoothed spike the condemned had to sit on.
2. A two-beam or two-pole cross with the same kind of spike.
3. An overhead beam supported on two poles, from which the condemned hanged, with or without a stake in the middle on which the condemned was impaled (but without internal damage).

Next up: Acts.

Friday, September 28, 2012

Crucifixion the Bodily Support - "Biblical Evidence" – Installment 2.




(Part 5b of the series: Crucifixion the Bodily Support)


Introduction.

What sort of gear was the instrument of Jesus' execution?

I am treating the four gospels as separate, and then will harmonize the whole lot, to see what differences come up.

Previously I looked at the “Biblical Evidences” in Mark, and came to the conclusion that the instrument of Jesus’ execution could not be determined because four possible types could match its functions as described in predictions beforehand and by the prior meaning of the Greek verb that was used to denote “crucify”.


B. Matthew.

There are several passages in this tale that give us clues as to what the gear of Jesus' execution was imagined to be.


B.1. "He must take up his pole."

The first passage occurs in Matthew chapter 10, as Jesus sends out the Twelve to preach round about Galilee and gives them authority to drive out devils and heal the sick. He segues into the cost of discipleship and they might be arrested and even killed. And then he says families will break up because of the sword he will bring upon the Earth, finishing up with saying that those who love their biological family more than him are not worthy of him. Then he says this:
… and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

Matthew 10:38-39 NIV
Here again, as in Mark, σταυρὸν would probably mean "pole" as in the patibulum or crossarm of a two-beam or two-pole cross, simple or single-horned, or as in an impaling stake, or as in a simple pole, to which one is nailed or otherwise fixed and left to die. Of course, the last type of pole would have to be of a small enough thickness and short enough length to be portable. This, of course, precludes the Jehovah's Witnesses' stake because it’s too long and far too big in diameter. A heavy two-beam cross made of 6 x 6 or larger dimensional lumber is also precluded.

The second passage occurs in Matthew 16 and the scene there is identical with the scene in Mark chapter 8. Jesus predicts his death that he must suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the Torah, and be killed and rise again the third day. Peter objects and Jesus sternly reprimands him. And again he tells the whole crowd of disciples around him,
“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.

Matthew 16:24, 25 NIV
Again, the Greek for “cross” is σταυρὸν, "pole". And the author indicates that he knows that taking up one’s “pole” is the beginning of one’s death march, escorted by his executioners.


B.2. "Grant that these sons of mine may sit."

Again, Jesus makes his second prediction that he will be condemned to death, be handed over to the goyyim, who will mock him, spit on him, flog him and kill him. This time they will crucify him (as opposed to just killing him in Mark 10). And then he will rise again on the third day.

And then we go right into the scene between Jesus and Mrs. Mary Zebedee the mother of James and John, the Sons of Zebedee.
Then the mother of Zebedee’s sons came to Jesus with her sons and, kneeling down, asked a favor of him.

“What is it you want?” he asked.

She said, “Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom.”

“You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said to them. “Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?”

“We can,” they answered.

Jesus said to them, “You will indeed drink from my cup, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared by my Father.”

Matthew 20: 20-23 NIV



And then after this Jesus calls the other ten, who are indignant, together and told them if they wish to be great ones among themselves and their followers, they must be their subjects' servants, not the other way around. He then concludes this with another premonition of his death, "that the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

Now the reference to "the baptism that I am baptized with" and "the cup I shall drink" is an allusion to his up-coming sufferings. Otherwise, why does he ask, "Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will” at Gethsemane? Because the cup is the cup of suffering that he must drink during his illegal trial before the Sanhedrin, his legal trial before Pilate, his floggings and tortures and even the crucifixion. And the baptism? It could very well be his death, for in Romans 6:3, we have Paul asking his readers if they knew that those who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death. After all, baptism back then was immersion and if the person dunking you didn't lift you back up, you'd drown... and be immersed in death, not just water.

Now what about the ones sitting at his right and at his left when Jesus comes into his glory? Well notice he said if one wished to be great, one has to serve. Which means his ultimate service is "giving his life for many." Which means of course, he is foreshadowing his crucifixion with two highwaymen, that is, two armed robbers, one on either side, so that when he comes into his glory, it will be on an Roman execution pole, as I have explained in more detail in my article about Mark.

And what is this about sitting (καθίζω "to sit, cause to sit, take one's seat, settle, sink down") at his right and at his left? Again, what Maecenas preferred and Seneca rebuked his verse for (Epistles101:10-14) applies here, as I have also gone into further detail previously.

What Mrs. Zebedee was asking of Jesus for her two sons, and didn't know it, and they didn’t know it either, was for them to "sit on" or rather "ride"  the crosses, poles or pales the two armed robbers were going to "sit on." For they were already told that they were going to take their seats on actual royal thrones in the World to Come, judging the Twelve Tribes of Israel (Matthew 19:16-30).


B.3. "And then they fenced him with pales"

Some scholars like Martin Hangel (Crucifixion, p. 25) state that the Gospels contain the most detailed accounts of a crucifixion. They do not. All they have is a simple statement that they did. Not how.

And what Matthew says, seems to be copied line-for-line from Mark:

Then he released Barabbas to them. But he had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.

Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand and knelt in front of him and mocked him. “Hail, king of the Jews!” they said. They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again. After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him.

As they were going out, they met a man from Cyrene, named Simon, and they forced him to carry the cross. They came to a place called Golgotha (which means The Place of the Skull). There they offered Jesus wine to drink, mixed with gall; but after tasting it, he refused to drink it. When they had crucified him, they divided up his clothes by casting lots.

Matthew 27:26-35 NIV
Notice they have a lot of detail about what went on before. Flogging, delivering the prisoner over to the soldiers, mocking him, leading him out to be crucified, making someone else, that is, Simon of Cyrene carry his cross (σταυρὸν - pole), arriving at Golgotha (Κρανίου Τόπος, lit.: Place of the Cranium), the refused offering of a tincture of wine and gall, and then they crucify him (καὶ σταυροῦσιν αὐτὸν). And after that they gambled over his clothes.

No details are given how Jesus was crucified. Just the use of the verb σταυρόω "impale on [a] cross", according to the Greek-English Lexicon in Strong's Exhaustive Concordance. And of course, we have the LSJ which defines σταυρόω as: "to fence with pales" and Thucydides The Peloponnesian War 7.25.7 defining the verb as: "to drive piles".

So we have not a single clue as how the Roman Soldiers crucified Jesus, except the basic definition of the verb σταυρόω. Not one clue as to the nature of the structure of Jesus' execution.

And instead of a tincture of wine and myrrh, Matthew says the Roman soldiers gave Jesus a tincture of wine and gall (χολῆς “bile, cuttle-fish ink, a disgust”). The author of Matthew is invoking Psalm 69:21 as a prophecy here: “They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst.”


B.4. Where was the Sign?

Now after they crucified Jesus, where did the Roman soldiers install the sign bearing his name and charge of crimen maiestatis?

And sitting down, they kept watch over him there. Above his head they placed the written charge against him: this is jesus, the king of the jews.

Matthew 27:36, 37 NIV

The Greek for verse 37 is: "καὶ ἐπέθηκαν ἐπάνω τῆς κεφαλῆς αὐτοῦ τὴν αἰτίαν αὐτοῦ γεγραμμένην ΟΥΤΟΣ ΕΣΤΙΝ ΙΗΣΟΥΣ Ο ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ ΤΩΝ ΙΟΥΔΑΙΩΝ." Transliterated as: "And they put* over the head of him of the accusation of him written**: THIS IS JESUS, THE KING OF THE JEWS." Now the titulus was placed above his head, and the Greek implies it was placed on something that would keep it there.

* also placed, laid, applied
** also inscribed, engraved, scratched


B.5. And Who Were with Him?

If you recall Matthew 20: 20-23, Mrs. Zebedee came up with her two sons James and John to Jesus and asking that they get to sit beside him one at his right and the other at his left, naively thinking that he was speaking of the sitting on his throne in the World to Come. In reply, Jesus said it was outside of his power to grant their request, for the seats were reserved for those for whom it was prepared. This, of course, was an illusion to his crucifixion.

And who were the two to sit at his right and at his left, for whom it was prepared?
Two robbers were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left.

Matthew 27:38 NIV
That is right, the two robbers. And if they were "seated" on poles (σταυρούς) under lesser charges (armed robbery) what about the one crucified under the charge of high treason as "The King of the Jews?" He has to sit, too. Remember, the acuta crux "pointed stake" that Tertullian called a sedilis excessu "projection of a seat" was there not to alleviate the suffering of the crucified, but to aggravate it by introducing horrible pain… and completely humiliating the condemned, utterly. If the Romans dealt this part of the extreme punishment to those convicted with lesser charge, they certainly would have subjected with this thing those in the same group convicted of a greater charge.


B.6. The Mockery.

Then there are the insults heaped on Jesus.
Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, “You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!”

In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him. “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! He’s the King of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” In the same way the robbers who were crucified with him also heaped insults on him.

Matthew 27:39-44 NIV

The part of the insults that I will focus on is the taunts "save yourself! Come down from the cross!" (σῶσον σεαυτὸν… καὶ κατάβηθι ἀπὸ τοῦ σταυροῦ) in verse 40 and "He’s the King of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross" (βασιλεὺς Ἰσραήλ ἐστιν. καταβάτω νῦν ἀπὸ τοῦ σταυροῦ) in verse 42. In verse 40 the Greek transliterates as: - "save yourself,… and come down from the pole." The relevant line in verse 42 transliterates from the Greek as: "King of Israel he is. Let him come down now from the pole."

Now, in the Koine Greek the verbs, shown for "come down" are conjugated from καταβαίνω. As I have said before, in the Scott-Liddell Greek-English Lexicon, if one were to replace "horse" (ἵππου), "carriage" (ἁρμαμάξης) or "chariot" (δίφρου or ἁρμάτων), the verb καταβαίνω means "dismount," meaning, of course, that there is a strong possibility that Jesus has to dismount the pole somehow so he can step down from it, because he, too, is "mounted" or "stuck" on it, in mid-air. Note Matthew like Mark does not mention the use of nails at all. When one compares this with Matthew 20:20-23 and the remarks of Seneca, it is fairly obvious what is happening here.


B.7. The Deposition.

Again, Joseph of Arimathea asks Pilate for the body of Jesus, and Pilate orders the body released. And so, Josephus takes down the body, wraps it up and lays it in an unused tomb just like in the other three gospels, except Matthew states Joseph carved it out of the rock for his own use. The removal of the body from the execution pole or frame is as follows:
Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of the rock. He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away.

Matthew 27:59, 60 NIV
The Greek for “took” is λαβὼν, a conjugate of λαμβάνω, “take, lay ahold of to take or receive, grasp, seize, carry off as a prize of booty.” So the implication here is Joseph may be doing this for the Sanhedrin. Which is also implied by what follows the next day when the Sanhedrin approaches Pilate and ask that the tomb be guarded. It is obvious they were somehow informed that he was placed there. Who else could have informed them in this story, except Joseph of Arimathea? Or are we to assume that the Sanhedrin had spies watching them, when Matthew, like Mark, mention only the women who followed Jesus as the ones who were watching? Or that the women themselves were the spies?

B.8. Conclusions.

And so here is where I draw my conclusions on what Mark is saying about the gear of Jesus' crucifixion:
  1. It was a pole (or beam) one could wear.
  2. It was designed so one could sit, sink, or settle onto it.
  3. It could have been designed so that a sign could be placed on top or alternatively the sign was placed on a separate pole immediately behind it.
  4. The use of σταυρόω indicates that a "fencing with pales", or a "pile driving (impalement)" is going on, or both.
It appears the gear of Jesus' execution would be:
  1. An impaling stake with a separate pole right behind, for the sign.
  2. An ordinary pole with a spike the condemned had to sit on.
  3. A two-beam or two-pole cross with the same kind of spike.
  4. An overhead beam supported on two poles, from which the condemned hanged, with a stake in the middle on which the condemned was impaled.

Next up: Luke and Acts.


Thursday, September 27, 2012

Another Update - The Romans... 9 - Utility Poles and Masts

Update to the post dated 21-Feb-2012:


The Romans NEVER CRUCIFIED the Way We Think They Did! 9 - Utility Poles and Masts has been updated to reflect the use of tar or pitch in crucifixions as prescribed in the Lex Puteoli. and the implication of the crucifixions outside Jerusalem as depicted in the Roman Coliseum.

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Crucifixion the Bodily Support - "Biblical Evidence"



(Part 5a of the series: Crucifixion the Bodily Support)

Introduction.

What sort of gear was the instrument of Jesus' execution?

There was a big stink raised by the sensationalist press a few years ago when Gunnar Samuelsson's hypothesis that successfully defended before his peers at Gotheburg University in Sweden was released upon the world. As a result, most people think he believes

Conservative Christians scholars, professional and armchair alike, as for example, Martin Hengel, Leolaia and Stephen C. Jones have treated the gospels as complimentary. However, critical scholars -- and ancient critical philospohers like Porphyry -- have determined them not to be complimentary, and contradictory. Ancient Christians have found parallels between the Crucifixion and the sailing of Odysseus and his crew past the Sirens, with Odysseus himself lashed to the mast. Furthermore, critical modern scholars believe the accounts of the crucifixion itself  to be not based on eyewitness accounts at all, but midrashed out of the Septuagint and patterned after a triumph of a Caesar, perhaps that of Flavius Vespasian Caesar; the funeral of Julius Caesar, with his wax image crucified on a cruciform tropaeum; the capture, trial, scourging and release of Jesus ben Ananias in Josephus' Wars of the Jews 6.301-309 = 6.5.3 and even Josephus' account of the rescue of three of his friends from Roman execution poles in Life 420-421 = Life 75. In other words, they are saying that there wasn't a crucifixion (f, i, x, i, o, n), but a crucifiction! (f, i, c, t, i, o, n). And judging by internal evidences in the gospels, they are correct. But I will deal with that a later time.

So I am going to treat the four gospels as separate, and then harmonise the whole lot, to see what differences come up. So here we go.

A. Mark.

There are several passages in this tale that give us clues as to what the gear of Jesus' execution was imagined to be.

A.1. "He must take up his pole."

The first passage occurs in Mark chapter 8, right after Simon bar Jonah, now Simon Peter, confesses that he, Jesus, is the Christ. Jesus predicts his own death: that he must be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the Torah, be killed and after three days rise again. And then he calls to the crowd and also to his discpiles:

Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross (τὸν σταυρὸν αὐτοῦ) and follow me.

Mark 8:34 NIV
Now here, σταυρὸν would probably mean "pole" as in the patibulum or crossarm of a two-beam or two-pole cross, simple or monohorned, or of an impaling stake, or of a simple pole: to which one is nailed or otherwise fixed and left to die. Of course, the last type of pole would have to be of small enough of a thickness and short enough of a length, say, 3.5 m in length by 150 mm in diameter (11'8" x 6" dia) of Jerusalem Pine at say 510 kg / cu m (32 pcf). This, of course, would be no Jehovah's Witnesses' stake but something much lighter and very easy to carry. And obviously it would be no heavy two-beam cross made of 6 x 6 or larger dimensional timber.

A.2. "Grant that we may sit."

Again, Jesus makes his second prediction that he will be condemned to death, be handed over to the goyyim, who will mock him, spit on him, flog him and kill him. And then he will rise again on the third day.
And then we go right into the scene between Jesus and the James and John, the Sons of Zebedee.

Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.”

“What do you want me to do for you?” he asked.

They replied, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.”

“You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said. “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?”

“We can,” they answered.

Jesus said to them, “You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared.”

Mark 10: 35-40 NIV

And then after this Jesus calls the other ten, who are indignant, together and told them if they wish to be great ones among themselves and their followers, they must be their subjects' servants, not the other way around. He then concludes this with another premonition of his death, "that the Son of Man did not come to be served, but serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

Now the reference to "the baptism that I am baptized with" and "the cup I shall drink" is an allusion to his up-coming sufferings. Otherwise, why does he ask, "Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will” at Gethsemane? Because the cup is the cup of suffering that he must drink during his illegal trial before the Sanhedrin, his legal trial before Pilate, his floggings and tortures and even the crucifixion itself. And the baptism? It could very well be his death, for in Romans 6, we have Paul asking his readers if they knew that those "who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death." After all, baptism back then was complete immersion and if the person dunking you didn't lift you back up, you'd drown... and be immersed in death, not just water.

Now what about the ones sitting at his right and at his left when Jesus comes into his glory? Well notice he said if one wished to be great, one has to serve. Which means his ultimate service is "giving his life for many." Which means of course, he is forshadowing his crucifixion with two highwaymen, that is, two armed robbers, one on either side, so that when he comes into his glory, it will be on an Roman execution pole! (Hint: the pole won't look like the Jehovah's Witnesses' depiction with ordinary poles on the left, for the three are not "sitting.") 

And sure enough, the Antenicene Church fathers thought so, for starting with Justin Martyr (Dialogue with Trypho 73), they accused the Jews of doctoring the 96th Psalm from the Christians' copies of the Septuagint to remove the words, "from the wood!" (ἁπό του ξύλου) So that the sentence "Tell among the nations, the Lord has reigned!" was originally supposed to have been, "Tell among the nations, the Lord has reigned from the wood!" Christians actually believed this back then.

And what is this about sitting (καθίζω "to sit, cause to sit, take one's seat, settle, sink down") at his right and at his left? Well there is some interesting rhetorical literature back then that people did actually "sit" on their crosses. For the apparent normative Roman execution pole (at least from the turn of the second century on for the entire Empire, and earlier, perhaps much earlier, for Italy) had a crossarm and a central point called by various names including a sedile, a cornu, a palus, and a σκόλοψ. Indeed, Seneca (Epistles 101:10 through 14) who inveighed against Maeceneas for preferring to sit on a pointed crux over suicide. The two of them are openly explicit in line 12:

" 'One may nail me up and set underneath a pointed crux for sitting'* " (Suffigas licet et acutam sessuro crucem subdas) "Is it so great to press down** on one's own wound and to hang stretched out tight from a patibulum?" (Est tanti vulnus suum premere et patibulo pendere districtum?)
*also "ride, sink down, settle on, subside, be fixed, stuck fast, etc." (Lewis and Short)
**also "bear down upon, press hard upon, press down, press into, force in, overwhelm, weigh down, etc." (Lewis and Short)

What makes it worse, is that in naughty Roman verse, the Latin vulnus refers to the "wound" opened by a man's entry into the back passage of his co-participant in anal sex. (Martial, Quintus Serenus and Priapeia 10, ap. The Priapeia, Sacred-Texts.com) So Seneca is apparently using a euphemism here.

Well, back to the throne. What the two were asking of Jesus, and they don't know it, was for them to "sit on" or rather "ride"  the crosses, poles or pales the two armed robbers were going to "sit on!" For they were naively think they were going to take their seats on actual royal thrones in the Kingdom of God, i.e., the World to Come.

 A.3. "And then they fenced him with pales" (or is it "pile-drove him?") 

Some, including some scholars, believe that the Gospels contain the most detailed accounts of a crucifixion. They do not. All they have is a simple statement that they did, not how they did it.

Here is what Mark says, from when Pilate passes sentence:

Pilate released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.

The soldiers led Jesus away into the palace (that is, the Praetorium) and called together the whole company of soldiers. They put a purple robe on him, then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him. And they began to call out to him, “Hail, king of the Jews!” Again and again they struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to him. And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him.

A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross. They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means The Place of the Skull). Then they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. And they crucified him. Dividing up his clothes, they cast lots to see what each would get.

Mark 15:15-24

Notice they have a lot of detail about what went on before. Flogging, delivering the prisoner over to the soldiers, mocking him, leading him out to be crucified, making someone else, a certain Simon of Cyrene carry his cross (σταυρὸν - pole), arriving at Golgotha - Cranium Place - , the refused offering of a tincture of wine and myrrh, and then they crucify him (καὶ σταυροῦσιν αὐτὸν). And after that they gambled over his clothes.

No details are given how jesus was crucified. Just the use of the verb σταυρόω "impale on [a] cross", according to the Greek-English Lexicon in Strong's Exhaustive Concordance. And of course, we have the LSJ which defines σταυρόω as: "to fence with pales" and Tucydides 7.25.7 defining the verb as: "to drive piles".

So we have not a single clue as how the Roman Soldiers crucified Jesus, except the basic definition of the verb σταυρόω. Not one clue as to the nature of the structure of Jesus' execution.

What's worse, is the tincture of wine and myrrh. Historic scholars believe that in Judea, the Jewish womens' auxiliaries would minister to persons about to be crucified by offering them wine mixed with some kind of strong painkiller, that basically would knock them out or put them into a stupor. But the Jews would have used olibanum or libanum, called by the Hebrews libanah, to do this. They would not have used myrrh, for myrrh was and is a tonic and a stimulant. Now what did the Romans believe myrrh was good for? For one thing, they believed it was a sexual aphrodisiac -- and not necessarily only as an herbal scent! It is still used as such in Ayurvedic medicine today because it works.

And Mark has the Roman soldiers give Jesus the tincture of wine and myrrh! It is just as plain in the Greek as it is in the English; antecedents and relative pronouns work just the same in Greek as the do in English. So it is possible the soldiers intended to sexually stimulate Jesus, which would make the shame and humiliation of crucifixion even greater. Of course, for Jesus refuses to drink this stimulative tincture!

A.4. Where was the Sign?

Now after they crucified jesus, where did the Roman soldiers install the sign bearing his name and charge of crimen maiestasis, i.e., high treason?

It was the third hour when they crucified him. The written notice of the charge against him read: THE KING OF THE JEWS.

Mark 15:25, 26
The Greek for verse 26 is: "καὶ ἦν ἡ ἐπιγραφὴ τῆς αἰτίας αὐτοῦ ἐπιγεγραμμένη Ο ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ ΤΩΝ ΙΟΥΔΑΙΩΝ." Transliterated as: "And was the epigraphy of the accusation of him: THE KING OF THE JEWS." Nothing about where the writing was posted, except it was on-site.

A.5. And Who Were with Him?

If you recall Mark 10: 35-40, James and John bar Zebedee came up to Jesus and asking that they get to sit beside him one at his right and the other at his left, naively think that he was speaking of the sitting on his throne in the World to Come. In reply, Jesus said it was outside of his power to grant their request, for the seats were reserved for those for whom it was prepared. This, of course, was an illusion to his crucifixion.
And who were the two to sit at his right and at his left, for whom it was prepared?

They crucified two robbers with him, one on his right and one on his left.

Mark 15:27
That is right, the two robbers. And if they were "seated" on poles (σταυρούς) under lesser charges (armed robbery) what about the one crucified under the charge of high treason as "The King of the Jews?" If the acuta crux was just a horizontal dowel, beam, cleat or a plank, then it would have been added to the punishment for those with the greater charge as well as for those with the lesser, except when it made the crucifixion less torturous. When it was an upright stake designed for crucifixion by penetration, no way would have it been remitted for those with the highest charge when those with the lower charges were forced to "sit on it." 

A.6. The Mockery.

Then there are the insults heaped on Jesus.

They crucified two robbers with him, one on his right and one on his left. Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, “So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, come down from the cross and save yourself!”

In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! Let this Christ, this King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe.” Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him.

Mark 15: 27-32 NIV
The part of the insults that I will focus on is the the taunts "come down from the cross and save yourself" (σῶσον σεαυτὸν καταβὰς ἀπὸ τοῦ σταυροῦ) in verse 30 and "Let this Christ... come down from the cross" (ὁ χριστὸς..  καταβάτω νῦν ἀπὸ τοῦ σταυροῦ) in verse 32.  In verse 30 the Greek transliterates as: - "save yourself, having come down from the pole." The relevant line in verse 32 transliterates from the Greek as: "The Christ...  let him come down now from the pole."

Now, in the Koine Greek the verbs, shown for "come down" are conjugated from καταβαίνω. Now, in the Scott-Liddell Greek-English Lexicon, if one were to replace "horse" (ἵππου), "carriage" (ἁρμαμάξης) or "chariot" (δίφρου or ἁρμάτων), the verb καταβαίνω means "dismount," meaning, of course, that there is a strong possibility that Jesus had to dismount his execution pole somehow so he can step down from it, because some how, he, too, is "sitting" or "sinking down" on it. When one compares this with Mark 10:35-40 and the remarks of Seneca on Maeceneas' preferences for the tortures of crucifixion over suicide, to me it is fairly obvious in this story that this is what Jesus has to do.

A.7. The Removal from the Cross.

Next, we have Joseph of Arimathea request the body of Jesus so he can bury it. Then he does so, right before the sun was to set. In Mark chapter 15 verse 44, Pilate was surprised that Jesus was already dead. The Greek for "was surprised" (ἐθαύμασεν) expresses a sense of amazement, with a suggestion of the beginning of speculation as to why it came about. Why? Because crucifixion was supposed to be a slow, lingering death that would take two days or more. Ditto for impalement, unless the executioner pierces any vital organs. Yet according to Mark, Jesus died after only six hours. Pilate then checks with the centurion and, after that was out of the way, permits Joseph to do so, and in verse 46, we see him taking Jesus' body down from the cross (καθελὼν αὐτὸν). Now here, καθελών (καθαιρέω) means "take down, bring down, depose, dethrone (see Justin Martyr Dialog. w/ Tryph. 73, above) take down as a reward or prize, take and carry off, etc."

Conclusions from this? First, Jesus died far too soon. Second, the body was suspended and needed to be taken down to the ground for Joseph of Arimathea to bury it. (What about the other two?)

A.8. Conclusions.

And so here is where I draw my conclusions on what Mark is saying about the gear of Jesus' crucifixion:
  1. It was a pole one could wear.
  2. It was designed so one could sit, sink, or settle onto.
  3. Consumption of a myrrh and wine tincture could make the sufferer sexually stimulated (as well as drunk).
  4. The use of  σταυρόω indicates that a "fencing with pales", or a "pile driving (impalement)" is going on, or both.
  5. Jesus died far too soon.
  6. The bodies of those hanged were suspended above the surface of the Earth. 
It appears the gear of Jesus' execution was one of four items:

  1. An impaling stake with a blunt point,
  2. A simgle vertical pole with a central point wherewith one sat, sank, settled, or "rode" when he hung in the down position, 
  3. It was a multiple pole frame with the same type of attachment to sit on, or
  4. A horizontal beam resting on two poles and suspending Jesus, who is impaled on a third, pointed pole in the middle.

Next at bat: Matthew.

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Σταυρόω

Roman execution poles resembled
our utility poles more than they resembled crosses!

The Greek verb σταυρόω goes quite aways back, into the Classical Greek period if not earlier, for I did not find any from the earlier Archaic period. I found quite a few instances, mostly with the help of the search tools at the Perseus Digital Library.

The basic definition of σταυρόω according to the LSJ and Middle Liddell Greek-English lexica is, "impalisade, fence with pales" and only later on does it mean "crucify" without regard to the method thereof. In New Testament times the meaning of the word becomes "to crucify the flesh (metaphorically), to destroy its power"

The term first appears in the Thucydides (460-395 BCE), The Peloponnesian War, where he describes actions done by opposing military forces. The first appearance is in the battle between Demosthenes' forces and the Lacedaemonians:
Δημοσθένης δὲ ὁρῶν τοὺς Λακεδαιμονίους μέλλοντας προσβάλλειν ναυσί τε ἅμα καὶ πεζῷ παρεσκευάζετο καὶ αὐτός, καὶ τὰς τριήρεις αἳ περιῆσαν αὐτῷ ἀπὸ τῶν καταλειφθεισῶν ἀνασπάσας ὑπὸ τὸ τείχισμα προσεσταύρωσε, καὶ τοὺς ναύτας ἐξ αὐτῶν ὥπλισεν ἀσπίσι [τε] φαύλαις καὶ οἰσυΐναις ταῖς πολλαῖς: οὐ γὰρ ἦν ὅπλα ἐν χωρίῳ ἐρήμῳ πορίσασθαι, ἀλλὰ καὶ ταῦτα ἐκ λῃστρικῆς Μεσσηνίων τριακοντόρου καὶ κέλητος ἔλαβον, οἳ ἔτυχον παραγενόμενοι. ὁπλῖταί τε τῶν Μεσσηνίων τούτων ὡς τεσσαράκοντα ἐγένοντο, οἷς ἐχρῆτο μετὰ τῶν ἄλλων.

Meanwhile Demosthenes, seeing the Lacedaemonians about to attack him by sea and land at once, himself was not idle.

He drew up under the fortification and enclosed in a stockade the triremes remaining to him of those which had been left him, arming the sailors taken out of them with poor shields made most of them of osier, it being impossible to procure arms in such a desert place, and even these having been obtained from a thirty-oared Messenian privateer and a boat belonging to some Messenians who happened to have come to them.Among these Messenians were forty heavy infantry, whom he made use of with the rest.


In the first instance προσεσταύρωσε means "he enclosed in a stockade", i.e., "impalisaded or fenced alongside with pales"1.

The second appearance describes a battle between Syracusian locals and the Athenians at Syracuse where the Syracusians build up a wall and extend and fortify it with palisades and stockades, but understaffed it.

ἐπειδὴ δὲ τοῖς Συρακοσίοις ἀρκούντως ἐδόκει ἔχειν ὅσα τε ἐσταυρώθη καὶ ᾠκοδομήθη τοῦ ὑποτειχίσματος, καὶ οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι αὐτοὺς οὐκ ἦλθον κωλύσοντες, φοβούμενοι μὴ σφίσι δίχα γιγνομένοις ῥᾷον μάχωνται, καὶ ἅμα τὴν καθ᾽ αὑτοὺς περιτείχισιν ἐπειγόμενοι, οἱ μὲν Συρακόσιοι φυλὴν μίαν καταλιπόντες φύλακα τοῦ οἰκοδομήματος ἀνεχώρησαν ἐς τὴν πόλιν

The Syracusans now thought the stockades and stonework of their counter-wall sufficiently far advanced; and as the Athenians, afraid of being divided and so fighting at a disadvantage, and intent upon their own wall, did not come out to interrupt them, they left one tribe to guard the new work and went back into the city.

Here the word ἐσταυρώθη means "the stockades [were] advanced", literally, "it [the defence line] was impalisaded"2 where they had elected to build a palisade fence in lieu of or in addition to the stone wall line of defence.

Later on in this chapter the Athenians and the Syracusans engaged in battle and the Athenians were victorious, and they pulled down the stone wall and the palisade and stockades, using the stakes for their tropaeum.

The third instance is where the Athenians and Syracusans were engaged in a pitched battle for Megara Harbor. The Syracusans had driven piles into the seabed in front of their docks to permit their own ships to dock inside and keep the Athenians out. The Athenians who observed this went and pulled the pilings out, broke them or sent divers to cut them in two. The destruction of the pilings was far advanced enough to require the Syracusans to drive new piles under fire:

χαλεπωτάτη δ ν τς σταυρώσεως κρύφιος: σαν γρ τν σταυρν ος οχ περέχοντας τς θαλάσσης κατέπηξαν, στε δεινν ν προσπλεσαι, μ ο προϊδών τις σπερ περ ρμα περιβάλ τν ναν. λλ κα τούτους κολυμβητα δυόμενοι ξέπριον μισθο. μως δ αθις ο Συρακόσιοι σταύρωσαν.

But the most awkward part of the stockade was the part out of sight: some of the piles which had been driven in did not appear above water, so that it was dangerous to sail up, for fear of running the ships upon them, just as upon a reef, through not seeing them. However divers went down and sawed off even these for reward; although the Syracusans drove in others.


And here in this this instance the verb σταύρωσαν means “drove in others”, i.e., drove piles in [again].3

So Thucydides shows an understanding in this context that σταυρόω that means “to impalisade, fence with pales," to mean, by extension, "to drive piles”.

Polybius (200 – 118 BCE).

The next to use the verb σταυρόω is Polybius where he describes the “crucifixion” of Spendius by the Carthaginian general Hannibal and the revenge upon Hannibal by Mathos’ mercenary army (238 BCE).

4 μετ δ τατα προσαγαγόντες πρς τ τείχη τος περ τν Σπένδιον αχμαλώτους σταύρωσαν πιφανς. 5 ο δ περ τν Μάθω κατανοήσαντες τν ννίβαν ῥᾳθύμως κα κατατεθαρρηκότως ναστρεφόμενον, πιθέμενοι τ χάρακι πολλος μν τν Καρχηδονίων πέκτειναν, πάντας δ ξέβαλον κ τς στρατοπεδείας, κυρίευσαν δ κα τς ποσκευς πάσης, λαβον δ κα τν στρατηγν ννίβαν ζωγρί. 6 τοτον μν ον παραχρμα πρς τν το Σπενδίου σταυρν γαγόντες κα τιμωρησάμενοι πικρς κενον μν καθελον, τοτον δ νέθεσαν ζντα κα περικατέσφαξαν τριάκοντα τν Καρχηδονίων τος πιφανεστάτους περ τ το Σπενδίου σμα,

4 When this was done they brought the captives taken from the army of Spendius and crucified them in the sight of the Enemy. 5 But observing that Hannibal was conducting his command with negligence and overconfidence, Mathos assaulted the ramparts, killed many of the Carthaginians, and drove the entire army from the camp. All the baggage fell into the hands of the enemy, and Hannibal himself was made a prisoner of war. 6 They at once took him to the pole on which Spendius was “crucified” and after their getting their revenge with tortures, took down the latter’s body and set up and left Hannibal, still living, to his pole, then slaughtered thirty Carthaginians of the highest rank round-about Spendius’ body.


Now here Polybius used in line 4 the conjugate σταύρωσαν for “[they] crucified.”3 But the previous extant meanings from Thucydides are “impalisade,” “fence with pales,” and “pile drive.” Well “impalisade” is right out. So the other meanings are valid to conjure a picture of Spendius’ “crucifixion”. One is “fence with pales,” i.e., hang from a beam suspended by two poles and impale on a central pale, for example, which is necessary to affix the condemned on top of preplanted stakes of enormous heights (see Esther 7:9-10), or impaled across three pales as described by Plutarch in Artaxerxes 17.5. The other is “pile drive” which is obvious enough: the Vlad Tepes method of “crucifixion,” cited by Seneca ad being done “by others”. (Dialogue 6 (De Consolatione) 20.3). Now what about nailing to a cross? In that case, we would be assuming that the Romans were already nailing people to and/or impaling them on two-beamed crosses, simple or single-horned, about 145 to 120 BCE or so and that he was actualizing the punishment for himself by projecting it onto the Carthaginians. But as Gunnar Samuelsson has shown in his Crucifixion in Antiquity, we cannot assume the Romans were crucifying in that manner that early as commonly believed.

Line 6 clears matters up a bit. It describes a singular pole (σταυρός: “upright pale”) – or cross if you want to quibble, doesn’t necessarily mean it was a cross – on which Spendius was “crucified.” And getting their revenge for the murder of Spendius and his troops, Mathos and his troops set up and left (νέθεσαν, which also means “lay upon”, “lay on as a burden”) Hannibal on the selfsame pole.

Plus, we have some modern scholarship to determine how the Carthaginians “crucified”. David W. Chapman in his book, Ancient Jewish and Christian Perceptions of Crucifixion (p. 16) cites the earlier Phoenician language scholars Zelig Harris (A Grammar of the Phoenician Language, AOS 8. New Haven, American Oriental Society, 1936), and J. Hoftijzer and K. Jungeling (Dictionary of the Northwest Semitic Inscriptions, 2 vols. HdO I.21. Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1995) that Ṣ-L-B (TzLB) in the Punic language is very much uncertain but might mean "impale" or "impale on a razor," respectively. Even so, I consider it more probable than the scholars’ assumption that the Romans got crucifixion from the Carthaginians, who got it from the Phoenicians, who got it from the Greeks, who got it from the Persians, compounded by their failure to caution that it did not necessarily conform to our English conception of nailing to a simple two-beam cross, for the Greeks and Romans cite examples of the Carthaginian punishment that went back to 550 BCE!

Furthermore, there is an epigraph ca. 250 BCE in an Esquiline Tomb in Rome showing a man being lifted on a horizontal overhead beam, interpreted to be a preliminary stage of a Carthaginian “crucifixion:” likely in my opinion to be an impaling on a stake between two poles while suspended by the beam at the same time, or in short, “fenced with pales.” Why? The central pale is not depicted: it is possible the Carthaginians lifted the person in place first and then set the pale.

So, then, the sort of crucifixion likely suffered by Spendius was “pile-driving,” i.e., simple direct impalement or “fencing with pales” (Polybius simply failed to mention the lifting beam and the outside support poles on either side for the latter and focused on the central impaling pole of this kind of crucifixion). And Hannibal, likewise, was probably impaled. Otherwise, chances are he was tied to Spendius’ pole. Polybius does NOT mention nails!

Septuagint / Hellenic Jewish Apocrypha (2nd or 1st Cent. CE).

Next at the bat are the Jewish Greek-language scholars of the Second or First Century BCE and the Septuagint translation of the Tanakh, specifically, Esther and the additions thereto. I’ve already gone over this with a fine-toothed comb in Impalements in Antiquity (4E) so I’ll just go over it briefly.

9 επεν δ βουγαθαν ες τν ενούχων πρς τν βασιλέα δο κα ξύλον τοίμασεν αμαν μαρδοχαί τ λαλήσαντι περ το βασιλέως κα ρθωται ν τος αμαν ξύλον πηχν πεντήκοντα επεν δ βασιλεύς σταυρωθήτω π' ατο 10 κα κρεμάσθη αμαν π το ξύλου τοίμασεν μαρδοχαί κα τότε βασιλες κόπασεν το θυμο

9Then Harbonah, one of the eunuchs in attendance on the king, said, “What is more, a stake is standing at Haman’s house, fifty cubits high, which Haman made for Mordecai—the man whose words saved the king.” “Impale him on it!” the king ordered. 10 So they impaled Haman on the stake which he had put up for Mordecai, and the king’s fury abated.

The Septuagint / The Tanakh (1985 JPS), Esther 7:9-10

 The New Living Translation also uses "impale" for the king's order to execute of Haman.

Here σταυρωθήτω is used for “impale him.”4 and due to the stake's insane height of 50 cubits (25 meters = 75 feet) carries forward the previous meanings “fence with pales, pile drive, impale.” Clear enough.

And we have the additions:

δια τό αυτόν τόν ταυτα εξεργασάμενον πρός ταις Σούσων πύλαις εσταυρωσθαι σύν τη πανοικα, τήν καταξίαν του τά πάντα επικρατουντος θεου διά τάχους άποδόντος αυτω κρίσιν.

For he was the worker of these things, is hanged at the gates of Susa with all his family: God, who ruleth all things, speedily rendering vengeance to him according to his desserts.


And here, εσταυρωσθαι “is hanged,”5 and could just as easily mean “is fenced with pales, is pile driven,” i.e., impaled, although it’s getting late in history now, into the era that I believe the Priapus stake type of cross was invented by the Romans, likely by Sicilian Propraetor Caius Verres around 73 BCE, and coming onto the time when Rome first conquered Judaea in 63 BCE. So whoever was writing this possibly was thinking of the Roman style of crucifixion. Still, they probably knew the biblical Hebrew and spoke Aramaic so they may have been aware that the Persian method of penal bodily suspension was different from the Roman one.

Diodorus Siculus (90-21 BCE).

Next we have the Sicilian Historian Diodorus Siculus and no doubt he was aware of the Romans nailing people to tortuous wooden suspension devices. Yet our two examples of σταυρόω do not imply any kind of crucifixion in his Library of History.

μνγρ ρχιτέκτων τς καταλήψεως το ερο Φιλόμηλος κατά τινα περίστασιν πολεμικν αυτν κατεκρήμνισεν, δ δελφς ατοῦ Ὀνόμαρχος διαδεξάμενος τν τν πονοηθέντων στρατηγίαν μετ τν συμπαραταξαμένων ν Θετταλί Φωκέων κα μισθοφόρων κατακοπες σταυρώθη.

In fact the man who first schemed of the seizure of the shrine, Philomelus, in a crisis of war hurled himself off a cliff, while his brother Onomarchus, after taking over the command of his people, now became desperate and so was cut to pieces in a battle at Thessaly, along with the Phocians and mercenaries of his command, and “crucified.”


Again, σταυρώθη 2 comes from σταυρόω, “fence with pales, pile drive, impale” to which we might be able to add “crucify.” Then again, maybe not.

Now if there is one thing that has to be obvious, is that it’s not possible to crucify a dismembered corpse by nailing it to a cross! Now κατακοπείς is the verb-participle singular aorist passive masculine nominative of κατακόπτω “cut in pieces, cut down, destroy, kill, massacre, butcher” with an apparent strong emphasis on chopping up into pieces. Even in modern Greek it means “hack, chop.” So if he was cut down without being chopped into pieces, we could have a nailing up version of crucifixion here. Except the event happened in 352 BCE in Thessaly. So probably, then, Onomarchus was impaled.

Next we have the Romans attempting to block Lilybaeum (now Marsala) harbor at the end of Sicily ca. 241 BCE and how Diodorus uses the verb here may inform us how he pictured to himself the post-mortem suspension of Onomarchus’ body.

Οί δε Ρωμαιοι θεασάμενοι τήν εισβολήν της δυνάμεως, λίθοις καί χώμασιν εκ δευτέρου τό στόμιον του λιμένος έχωσαν καί ξύλοις μεγίστοις καί άγκύραις τά βάθη εσταυρωσαν.

The Romans, who had observed the force effecting an entrance, again blocked the mouth of the harbor with stones and jetties, and blocked the channels with huge timbers and anchors, but then a strong wind arose, the sea grew turbulent and broke everything up.


The conjugate εσταυρωσαν 3 here clearly means “blocked’ in the sense of “fenced in with pales,” or “impalisading”. The Romans may have driven the piles down into the sea floor but given that they also used anchors and a wind-tossed sea broke everything up, indicates to me the timbers were weighted down by the anchors instead.
Strabo (65 BCE – 24 CE).

The next to utilize the word σταυρόω is Strabo. Strabo is probably familiar with Roman crucifixion because in Geography 3.4.18 he mentions Romans crucifying or impaling enemy fighters over in Cantabria (modern-day northern Spain by the coast) he mentions “that when some of the captive Cantabrians had been nailed/impaled on their crosses/stakes they precedes to sing their paen of Victory. (τι λόντες τινς ναπεπηγότες π τν σταυρν παιάνιζον)”. Here ναπεπηγότες is a conjugate of ναπήγνυμι, “transfix, fix on a spit, impale, crucify” which includes the preverb να: “up.” Plutarch employs this verb in Artaxerxes 17.5 describing the eunuch who was flayed alive impaled across three pales. So what the Romans did here was either regular impalement or nailing men to crosses each equipped with a sedile, and impaling each man on it.

But it is in Geography 14.1.39 where he uses σταυρόω for the execution of the grammarian Daphitas, which occurred in Homer’s time (8th Century BCE):

κεται δ ν πεδί πρς ρει καλουμέν Θώρακι πόλις, φ σταυρωθναί φασι Δαφίταν τν γραμματικν λοιδορήσαντα τος βασιλέας δι διστίχου “ πορφύρεοι μώλωπες, πορρινήματα γάζης Λυσιμάχου, Λυδν ρχετε κα Φρυγίης.”

And the city [Lithaeus] lies in the plain [of the western Libyans] near the mountain called Thorax, on which Daphitas the grammarian is said to have been crucified, because he reviled the kings in a distich: “Purpled with stripes, mere filings of the treasure of Lysimachus, ye rule the Lydians and Phrygia.”


It seems to me the sort of crucifixion here indicated by σταυρωθῆναί 6 would be simple direct impalement, “pile driving”, due to the antiquity of the event and the fact that Strabo uses a different verb for what the Romans did. But other ancient writers say he was thrown off of a rock called Iππος (horse) for criticizing Homer or insulting Attalus the King. (Cicero De fato 5; Valerius Maximus Memorabilium 1.8, ext. 8). Martin Hengel postulates that this is because there could have been a confusion between κρημνέναι (“to hang, crucify”) and κρημνίζειν (“to cast down”). (Martin Hengel, Crucifixion, p. 75) So who knows?

Asklepiades Pharmakologistas (Late 1st - Early 2nd Cent. CE).

Then we have from sometime in the first century Asklepiades Pharmakologistas (First Century CE) quoted in by Alexander Medicus (Sixth Century CE):

ς σκληπιάδης φαρμακευτής. λον σταυρωμένον τ βραχίονι τοπάσχοντος περίαπτε κα παλλάξεις

“Just like Asklepiades the pharmacologist ordains, fasten a nail from a crucifixion on the arm of the sick person and you will deliver him [of his ailment]”

Asklepiades Pharmakologistas, Jun. ap. Alexander Medicus 1.15

Now this may seem obvious, but what is the text actually saying? The Greek, λον σταυρωμένον transliterates as “a nail, having been ‘pile-driven’ (i.e., driven into a pole)”.7 But what kind of pole? The text has no mention or not whether it had a transverse piece or not or what it was used for, for the ancient author assumes everybody knows what he was talking about. If we cross reference Pliny Elder (21-79 CE), Natural History 28.11,46 (fragmentum clavi a cruce aut spartum e cruce “a fragment of a nail from a pole / gallows or a rope from a pole / gallows”) and the Mishnah, Shabbat 6.10 (ובמסמר מן הצלוב משום רפואה “a nail from [the gallows of] an impaled person as a cure [for various conditions]”). So what Asklepiades is referring to here quite clearly is that the staked nail, i.e., the nail that was driven into the pole or gallows of an impaled person. So the pole Asklepiades mentioned was an execution pole of an unknown structure. It could have been a simple pole, a sharpened pole with the criminal sitting on top, a utility pole, a pole with decussate crossed planks on it, etc. Extant graffiti illustrations from the time show a utility pole with a sharpened upright peg at mid-height, and a fresco that is apparently original to the Roman Coliseum constructed 80 CE shows three people hanging on blackened crosses, two of them without their arms stretched tight.

Flavius Josephus (37-100 CE).

Josephus leaves us three examples in his Antiquities, written in 93 CE. The first is the legendary post-mortem suspension of the Chief Baker by the Egyptian Pharoah as predicted by the Israelite (Jewish) Patriarch Joseph, the second is a mass execution by the Romans to put down a revolt, the third is a fake suspension during a play.

κα προσελθν μήνυσεν ατ τν ώσηπον τήν τε ψιν, ν ατς εδεν ν τ ερκτ, κα τ ποβν κείνου φράσαντος, τι τε σταυρωθείη κατ τν ατν μέραν π τν σιτοποινκκείν τοτο συμβαίη κατ ξήγησιν νείρατος ωσήπου προειπόντος.

“[S]o he came and mentioned Joseph to him, as also the vision he had seen in prison, and how the event proved as he had said, also that the chief baker was crucified on the very same day, and that this also happened to him according to the interpretation of Joseph.”


Now here Josephus, using σταυρωθείη, 8 could have been actualizing for himself the normative Roman punishment of the cross / Priapus stake onto the suspension of the Chief Baker, or he could be describing a “pile-driving” suspension instead: impalement, which is shown in the Egyptian epigraphy.

Josephus’ second example describes the aftermath of the revolt under Simon, a slave of the recently deceased Herod the Great, who rose up, recruited men from Sepphoris in Galilee, crowned himself and burnt Herod’s palace. An ally Athronges ambushed a Roman century of soldiers and Judaea was filled with highwaymen. The Romans send Varus to quell the troubles. Varrus meets with leaders in Jerusalem and decamps to sea-side. Whereupon:

Οαρος δ κατ τν χώραν πέμψας το στρατο μέρος πεζήτει τος ατίους τς ποστάσεως. κα σημαινομένων τος μν κόλασεν ς ατιωτάτους, εσ δ ος κα φκεν: γίνοντο δ ο δι ταύτην τν ατίαν σταυρωθέντες δισχίλιοι.

“Upon this, Varus sent a part of his army into the country, to seek out those that had been the authors of the revolt; and when they were discovered, he punished some of them that were the most guilty, and some he dismissed: now the number of those that were crucified on this account were about two thousand.


Here, Josephus uses σταυρωθέντες “having been crucified or impaled,” 9 which William Whiston translated “that were crucified”. Fair enough. But the valid meanings of the root verb σταυρόω, for penal human bodily suspension, would be “fence with pales” (suspend between two poles and impale on top of a sharpened third), “drive piles” (impale) and “crucify” (nail or tie to a cross and (at least sometimes) impale someone on it). Considering that this was a mass suspension, I would suggest it was done either by direct impalement or by the normative Roman crucifixion. A fencing with pales crucifixion would be too much of a hassle in my opinion, even if Josephus’ numbers are exaggerated.

Josephus’ last example is the fake crucifixion / impalement of an actor in a play called Cinyras. (Suetonius, Juvenal, Martial and Tertullian all called the work Laureolus. Or maybe they were two different plays.) This occurred the day Gaius “Caligula” Caesar was assassinated and as Caligula was watching the play, he saw two omens of his soon impending death in it:

νθα δ κα σημεα μανθάνει δύο γενέσθαι: κα γρ μμος εσάγεται, καθ ν σταυροται ληφθες γεμών, τε ρχηστς δρμα εσάγει Κινύραν, ν ατός τε κτείνετο κα θυγάτηρ Μύρρα, αμά τε ν τεχνητν πολ κα περτν σταυρωθέντα κκεχυμένον κα τν περ τν Κινύραν.

[A]nd here he perceived two prodigies that happened there; for an actor was introduced, by whom a leader of robbers was crucified, and the pantomime 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 about him that was crucified, and also about Cinyras.


We have two conjugates of σταυρόω here: σταυρονται “was crucified / impaled” 10 and σταυρωθέντα “having been crucified / impaled.” 11 It is not possible to determine by the lack of language which one it was exactly. With a great deal of fake blood around the one crucifed, the word for “shed” is κκεχυμένον: “having been poured out.” So it is implied that the blood is on the floor around the pole. On the one hand, it could be a fake impalement. But on the other hand and much more likely given it’s in the theatre, it could be a fake crucifixion with a sedile either installed or implied, to explain the vast amount of “blood” on the stage floor around the post.

Given that Josephus uses νασταυρόω synonymously with σταυρόω (and in the case of the post-mortem hanging of Saul and his son Johnathan (Antiquities 6.374-375 = 6.14.8), where Josephus clearly shows that he used νασταυρόω there to mean “impale”) and in Life 420-421 = 75 which he wrote six years later he talks about three friends who were νασταυρόω’ed and has them retrieved from their crucifixion poles and given medical attention after obtaining authorization from Titus and one survives -- if they were simply, directly impaled not one of the three would have survived --, Josephus has the first one or two mentions of σταυρόω where the verb is clearly referring to Roman crucifixion.

Plutarch (45-120 CE).

This anecdote in Plutarch’s Parallela Minora is about a person, a certain Lucius Tiberis, who places his son and his assets in the custodial responsibility of his son-in-law at a time Hannibal was ravaging Campagnia (217-211 BCE or so). Hoping to gain the father’s assets, the son-in-law kills the son and then the father bids his son-in-law to view some treasures he’d like to show him. And guess what happens to the son-in-law:

λθόντα δ τύφλωσε κα σταύρωσεν.

[B]ut when he came, Tiberis put out his eyes and nailed him to a cross.


What is translated as “nail to a cross” is in the Greek, σταύρωσεν: “he σταυρόω’ed him,” i.e., “fenced him with pales, pile-drove him, impaled him, crucified him.”12 Nothing about nailing to a cross or even a pole, which Plutarch renders elsewhere as “λλεἶς σταυρν καθηλώσεις σκόλοπι πήξεις; (But thou wilt, perhaps, fasten one to the cross [or pole], or impale him on a stake.) κα τί Θεοδώρ μέλει, πότερον πρ γς ἢὑπ γς σήπεται; (Now what cares Theodorus, whether it is above or under ground that he putrefies ?)” Moralia (An visitositas ad infelicitatem sufficia) 499D, where “thou wilt fasten” is καθηλώσεις.13 So σταύρωσεν probably means something else here. Given that the suspension was done privately and about the beginning of the time most scholars believe the Romans adopted the practice of crucifixion from the Carthaginians (although back then it probably was not on a cross), it is very possible Plutarch was referring to a simple impalement.

Epictetus (55-135 CE).

Epictetus’ Discourses were written down in one set of volumes by Arrian in 108 CE. Here, the verb σταυρόωis used in two passages, and one passage makes it obvious he was referring to Roman crucifixion in both places.

κα σ ε τοιοτον πίλογον παρασκευάζ, τί ναβαίνεις, τί πακούεις; ε γρ σταυρωθῆναι 6 θέλεις, κδεξαι κα ξει σταυρός

And you, if you are preparing for such a peroration, why do you wait, why do you wait the order to submit to trial? For if you wish to be crucified, 6 wait, and the cross will come.


ν ν τ βαλανεί κδυσάμενος κα κτείνας σεαυτν ς ο σταυρωμένοι τρίβ νθεν κα νθεν, εθ λείπτης πιστς λέγ ‘μετάβηθι, δς πλευρόν, κεφαλν ατο λάβε, παράθες τν μον,’

…that when you have undressed yourself in the bathing-room, and stretched yourself out like a man crucified, you may be rubbed here and there; and the attendant may stand by, and say, “Come this way; give your side; take hold of head; turn your shoulder.”


The clue in the second passage is that those being massaged stretched themselves out (κτείνας σεαυτν) like those crucified (ς οἐσταυρωμένοι).14 We are not talking about the cross of Christian piety or Hollywood art here, nor are we talking about the Jehovah’s Winesses’ retarded “torture stake” but rather the Roman execution utility pole as shown in the epigraphy (not counting the Alexamenos which according to scholarly consensus, was not yet scratched into existence at this time – 108 CE).

Artemidorus (138-160 CE).

Artemidorus of Ephesus, a dream interpreter who flourished in the Seccond Century CE, has a few passages bearing the verb σταυρόω and all are references to Roman crucifixion.

κακοργος δέ ὤν σταυρωθήσεται 15 διά τό ψος καί τῶν χειρῶν ἔκτασιν

But then the criminal is crucified 15 amidst the height and a stretching out of the hands.

Oneirocritica 1.76.35

Σταυροῦσθαι 16 πσι μέν τος ναυτιλλομένοις γατόν καί γάρ κ ξύλων καί λων γέγονεν σταυρός ὡς καί τό πλοῖον, καί ή κατάρτιος αὐτοῦ ὁμοία ἐστί σταυρῷ

Indeed for all those going to sea to be crucified 16 is auspicious, for even the cross [or pole] is made of timbers and nails like a boat, whose mast is similar to a cross [or pole].

Oneirocritica 2.53.3

γυμνοί γάρ σταυροῦνται 10 καί τάς σάρκας ἀπολλύουσιν οἱ σταυρωθέντες 9

For those crucified 9 are crucified 10 naked and they lose their flesh to carrion birds.

Oneirocritica 2.53.7

There’s just one caveat here; Artemidorus is using the Greek word for “mast,” κατάρτιος, as inclusive of the hanging yardarm; because properly speaking, a mast is the spar that supports the yardarm, and of course the plain upright σταυρός by itself is a pole or stake, and it too supports the crossarm. But as I have shown before, sailors also venerated Hermes / Priapus as the patron God of Merchant Sailing and considered the fascinus, a representation of a phallus, to be apotropaic; and they would bring them aboard their ships, and presumably install them on the very masts themselves, for which some fascina were undoubtedly shaped. And in which case one can thus easily guess what a cross, or σταυρός was at this time: a Priapus stake.

Appian 95-165 CE.

Our next ancient writer, Appian, described events in the Punic Wars, the Mithridatic wars, and the Civil Wars. Most of the time he uses conjugates of the verb κρεμάννυμι, “hang” to describe hangings, crucifixions and/or impalements, including Spartacus’ suspension of a captive Roman soldier (Civil Wars 1.119 = 1.14.119) and Crassus’ suspension of 6,000 prisoners of war along the Appian Way (Civil Wars 1.120 = 1.14.120). But sometimes he does use the verb σταυρόω and he doesn’t always use it to mean, “crucify.”

The first anecdote describes the peace conference in 242 BCE, where the people and soldiers on the winning side get to air their grievances against the Carthaginians, who had just lost the First Punic War:

Λίβυες,… χαλέπαινόν τε ατος τς ναιρέσεως τν τρισχιλίων, ος σταυρώκεσαν τς ς ωμαίους μεταβολς ονεκα.

The African Soldiers… were angry also on account of killing of 3,000 of their own number whom the Carthaginians had crucified 17 for deserting to the Romans.


This is describing the execution of African (lit.: Libyan) Soldiers by crucifixion. Since by this time the verb σταυρόω had obviously expanded its meaning to include “crucify” according to how the Romans did it, Appian could be actualizing the event for himself by projecting the Roman methods back to an earlier time and onto an enemy people Rome fought three wars with.

This second narration describes events at the final fall of Carthage at the end of the Third Punic War in 146 BCE. Scipio Amellianus is fighting the Carthaginians and has routed them from their camp next to their city and proceeds to fortify the isthmus next to it:

δύο τε πικαρσίας ατας τέρας περιθες ς γενέσθαι τ λον ρυγμα τετράγωνον, σταύρωσε πάντα ξύλοις ξέσιν. κα π τος σταυρος τς μν λλας τάφρους χαράκωσε, τ δ ς τν Καρχηδόνα ρώσ κα τεχος παρκοδόμησεν π τος πέντε κα εκοσι σταδίους, ψος μν δυώδεκα ποδν χωρς πάλξεών τε κα πύργων, ο κ διαστήματος πέκειντο τ τείχει, τ δ βάθος φ μισυ μάλιστα το ψους.

He then made two others running transversely, giving the interior space the form of a quadrangle, and threw around the whole a palisade of chevaux-de-frise. In addition to the palisade he fortified the ditches also, and along the one looking toward Carthage he built a wall twenty-five stades in length and twelve feet high, without counting the parapets and towers which surmounted the wall at intervals. The width of the wall was about one-half of its height.


In this example, Appian clearly uses σταυρόω in the Classic sense: “to impalisaded, to fence with pales.”18

The third example involves a storming of the besieged city of Xanthus in Lycia, 42 BCE.  

κα πολλο μν ξέπιπτον, εσ δ ο τ τεχος περβάντες κα πυλίδα νέξαν, προεσταύρωτο πυκνοτάτοις σταυρος, κα τος ετολμοτάτους αωρουμένους πρ τ σταυρώματα σεδέχοντο.

Many fell off, but some scaled the wall and opened a small gate, defended with a very dense palisade, and admitted the most daring of assailants, who swung themselves over the palings.


Now here, “defended with a very dense palisade” (προεσταύρωτο πυκνοτάτοις σταυρος) transliterates as “impalisaded or fenced in front with closely set pales.” Here προεσταύρωτο 19 is derived from προσταυρόω “draw a stockade in front of,” i.e., “impalisade in front of” or “fence with pales in front of.” Again, σταυρόω is being used here in the Classic sense, with προ, “in front of” as a preverb.

The next example of the use of σταυρόω describes an even in 41 BCE where Octavian (Caesar Augustus) proceeds to prevent two enemy legions from joining forces and makes betterments to his own fortifications and defenses:

κα Κασαρ ατν κάστ στρατν πιστήσας, να μ πρς λλήλους συνέλθοιεν, ς τν Περυσίαν πανλθε κα μετ σπουδς τς τάφρους προσεσταύρου κα διπλασίαζε τ βάθος κα πλάτος ς τριάκοντα πόδας μφότερα εναι, τό τε περιτείχισμα ψου κα πύργους π ατο ξυλίνους δι ξήκοντα ποδν στη χιλίους κα πεντακοσίους

Octavian stationed a force in front of each, to prevent them from forming a junction, and returned to Perusia, where he speedily strengthened his investment of the place and doubled the depth and width of his ditch to the dimensions of thirty feet each way. He increased the height of the wall and built 1500 towers of wood on it, sixty feet apart.


What is translated as “he strengthened his investment of the place” is actually in the Greek τς τάφρους προσεσταύρου (the ditches, on the sides of, he fenced with pales).20 So again we have a use of the Greek σταυρόω in the Classic sense, with προσ “on the side of” as a preverb.

Appian’s last anecdote describes an even occurring in 39 BCE, where Sextus Pompeius bribed a tribune and a centurion of Murcus, and had them kill Murcus. He says slaves did it, and then:

ς τε πίστιν τς ποκρίσεως τος θεράποντας σταύρου.21

To give credibility to this falsehood he crucified 21 the slaves.


Here Appian uses σταυρόω to describe a multiple-crucifixion, Roman style. But it is not mentioned how the crucifixion gear was constructed. So on the outside chance it could have been a simple cross, but more likely a Priapus stake where the victim is “pile-driven” onto its sedile, a simple impaling stake, or a pale / pole fence with the pale in the middle for impaling the victim. Appian could be projecting what was going on in his time back to the Roman Civil War of 44-27 BCE to actualize the unwarranted execution of the slaves for himself, but then again he could be remembering what actually went on. It’s for him to know and for us to never find out, thanks in no small part to the Christians who totally changed how the crux / σταυρός of Jesus’ execution looked like.

Lucian (117-180 CE).

Lucian crafted a play that actualized the hanging or crucifiction of the Greek god Prometheus on a cliff in the Caucasus with fetters and chains for his Greek audience. He uses every verb the Greeks used for Roman crucifixion including some unexpected ones. In the opening scene, Hermes is looking around for some convenient crags to which to nail Prometheus. Hephaestus answers:

περισκοπμεν, ρμ: οτε γρ ταπεινν κα πρόσγειον σταυρσθαι χρή, ς μ παμύνοιεν ατ τ πλάσματα ατο ο νθρωποι, οτε μν κατ τ κρον, — φανς γρ ν εη τος κάτω — λλ ε δοκε κατ μέσον νταθά που πρ τς φάραγγος νεσταυρώσθω κπετασθες τ χερε π τουτου το κρημνο πρς τν ναντίον.

“Look around, O Hermes: for it will not do to fix him too low down, or these men of his might come to their maker’s assistance; nor at the top, where he would be invisible from the Earth. What do you say to a middle course? Let him hang over the precipice, with his arms stretched out from crag to crag.”

Prometheus on Caucasus 1 (English text here.)

Here Lucian used ἐσταυρῶσθαι "to crucify him" 22 for “to fix him,” i.e., “make him fast, secure, stable” and ἀνεσταυρώσθω "he must be crucified" 23 for “let him hang,” evoking appropriate definitions of σταυρόω (pile drive, impale, immobilize on a Roman stake or gallows) and νασταυρόω (impale, suspend on a pole).

Several lines Lucian later has Prometheus bring to the audience’s minds the example in Horace Satires 1.3.82 of what a master ought not to do:

λλ μως κείνων οκ στιν στις τ μαγείρ σταυρο ν τιμήσαιτο, ε τ κρέα ψων καθες τν δάκτυλον το ζωμο τι περιελιχμήσατο πτωμένων ποσπάσας τι κατεβρόχθισεν, λλ συγγνώμην πονέμουσιν ατος: ε δ κα πάνυ ργισθεεν, κονδύλους νέτριψαν κατ κόρρης πάταξαν, νεσκολοπίσθη δ οδες παρ ατος τν τηλικούτων νεκα.

“A mortal would never want his cook crucified for dipping a finger into a stew-pan, or filching a mouthful from the roast, they overlook these things. At the worst their resentment is satisfied with a box on the ears or a rap on the head. I find no precedent among them for crucifixion in such cases.”


And here Lucian uses σταυροῦ for “crucified”24 and νεσκολοπίσθη "he should be impaled" 25 for “for crucifixion”. The verbs used here would of course evoke the earlier definition of σταυρόω (fence with pales, pile drive, impale) and νασκολοπίζω (fix on a [pointed] pole [as in heads on pikes], impale). In fact this last verb has *kept* its Classic meaning throughout the Koine era and still means “impale” in the Modern Greek!

So what Lucian is describing here in Prometheus on Caucasus is the sort of crucifixion that involves: (1) pile drive, (2) impale, (3) immobilize on a stake or gallows, (4) suspend on a pole, (5) fix on a [pointed] pole, and (6) stretch the arms out. Of course, Prometheus is a mythological fiction and the god is supposed to be chained to a rock instead, so how Prometheus is actually affected by these actions is strictly in the ear of the listener and the eye of the beholder. But translate it into reality, and you have the cruel and unusual and utterly shameful sort of Roman crucifixion that appears to have become the norm across the Empire by the turn of the Second Century CE at the latest.

And how do we know it’s the norm? Because Lucian cites this type of crucifixion in The Court of the twelve Vowels, where Sigma is indicting Tau of mangling the Greek language, and allowing himself to be mimicked by tyrants so they can crucify and impale people on a wodden gallows of his shape!

οτω μν ον σον ς φωνν νθρώπους δικε: ργ πς; κλάουσιν νθρωποι κα τν ατν τύχην δύρονται κα Κάδμ καταρνται πολλάκις, τι τ Τα ς τ τν στοιχείων γένος παρήγαγε: τ γάρ τούτου σώματί φασι τος τυράννους κολουθήσαντας κα μιμησαμένους ατο τ πλάσμα πειτα σχήματι τοιούτ ξύλα τεκτήναντας νθρώπους νασκολοπίζειν 26 π ατά: π δ τούτου κα τ τεχνήματι τ πονηρ τν πονηρν πωνυμίαν συνελθεν. τούτων ον πάντων νεκα πόσων θανάτων τ Τα ξιον εναι νομίζετε; γ μν γρ ομαι δικαίως τοτο μόνον ς τν το Τα τιμωρίαν πολείπεσθαι, τ τ σχήματι τ ατο τν δίκην ποσχεν.

Such are his verbal offences against man; his offences in deed remain. Men weep, and bewail their lot, and curse Cadmus with many curses for introducing Tau into the family of letters; they say it was his body that tyrants took for a model, his shape that they imitated, when they set up the erections on which men are crucified impaled.26 Σταυρς the vile engine 27 is called, and it derives its vile name from him. Now, with all these crimes upon him, does he not deserve death, nay, many deaths? For my part I know none bad enough but that supplied by his own shape--that shape which he gave to the gibbet named σταυρς after him by men.


So here we have it. The verb σταυρόω has gone through an evolution from “impalisade, fence with pales, pile drive” to “impale, hang from a gallows and impale” to “crucify: suspend on pole with a crossarm at the top and an outrigged sedile (mini-impalement stake or a short horizontal beam fitted with an upright peg). Well, normatively. Next I will present the “biblical evidence” for the gear of Jesus’ execution and will draw some conclusions Christians are NOT going to like. Well they changed the architecture of the crux / σταυρς, and have been going by a sanitized version for centuries, so they should expect this.

Note the resemblance to a utility pole?
And a man standing "erect" in an upright stance?


NOTES.

1. Perseus Greek Word Study Tool, προσεσταύρωσε, third person singular aorist active conjugate of the preverb πρός- and the verb σταυρόω.
2. Perseus Greek Word Study Tool,  ἐσταυρώθη, third person singular aorist indicative passive conjugate of the verb σταυρόω.
3. Perseus Greek Word Study Tool, σταύρωσαν, third person plural aorist indicative active conjugate of the verb σταυρόω.
4. Perseus Greek Word Study Tool, σταυρωθήτω, third person singular aorist imperative passive  conjugate of the verb σταυρόω.
5. Perseus Greek Word Study Tool, εσταυρωσθαι, third person singular aorist middle/passive conjugate of the verb σταυρόω.
6. Perseus Greek Word Study Tool, σταυρωθῆναι, aorist infinitive passive conjugate of the verb σταυρόω.
7. Perseus Greek Word Study Tool, λον, noun singular masculine accusative of ἧλος, "nail"; ἐσταυρωμένον, verb-participle singular perfect middle-passive masculine accusative conjugate of the verb σταυρόω.
8. Perseus Greek Word Study Tool, σταυρωθείη, third person singular aorist optive passive conjugate of the verb σταυρόω.
9. Perseus Greek Word Study Tool, σταυρωθέντες, verb-participle plural aorist passive masculine nominative conjugate of the verb σταυρόω.
10. Perseus Greek Word Study Tool, σταυρονται, third person plural present indicative middle-passive conjugate of the verb σταυρόω.
11. Perseus Greek Word Study Tool, σταυρωθέντα, verb-participle singular aorist passive masculine accusative conjugate of the verb σταυρόω.
12. Perseus Greek Word Study Tool, σταύρωσεν, third person singular aorist indicative active conjugate conjugate of the verb σταυρόω. 
13. Perseus Greek Word Study Tool, καθηλώσεις, second person singular future indicative active conjugate of the verb καθηλόω.14. Perseus Greek Word Study Tool, ἐσταυρωμένοι, verb-participle plural perfect middle-passive masculine nominative conjugate of the verb σταυρόω.15. Perseus Greek Word Study Tool, σταυροῦσθαι, present infinitive middle-passive conjugate of the verb σταυρόω. 16. Perseus Greek Word Study Tool, σταυροῦσθαι, present infinitive middle-passive conjugate of the verb σταυρόω.
17. Perseus Greek Word Study Tool, ἐσταυρώκεσαν, third person plural pluperfect indicative active reduplicative conjugate of the verb σταυρόω.
18. Perseus Greek Word Study Tool, ἐσταύρωσε, third person singular aorist indicative active conjugate of the verb σταυρόω.
19. Perseus Greek Word Study Tool, προεσταύρωτο, third person singular imperfect or pluperfect indicative middle-passive conjugate of the preverb προ- and the verb σταυρόω.
20. Perseus Greek Word Study Tool, προσεσταύρου, third person singular imperfect indicative active conjugate of the preverb πρός- and the verb σταυρόω.
21. Perseus Greek Word Study Tool, ἐσταύρου, third person singular imperfect indicative active conjugate of the verb σταυρόω.
22. Perseus Greek Word Study Tool, ἐσταυρῶσθαι, perfect infinitive middle-passive conjugate of the verb σταυρόω.
23. Perseus Greek Word Study Tool, ἀνεσταυρώσθω, third person singular perfect imperative middle-passive conjugate of the verb ἀνασταυρόω.
24. Perseus Greek Word Study Tool, σταυροῦ, third person singular imperfect indicative active homeric conjugate of the verb σταυρόω.
25. Perseus Greek Word Study Tool, νεσκολοπίσθη, third person singular aorist indicative passive conjugate of the verb νασκολοπίζω.
26. Perseus Greek Word Study Tool, ἀνασκολοπίζειν "to impale", present infinitive active conjugate of the verb νασκολοπίζω.
27. The Greek is: τ τεχνήματι τ πονηρῷ, which apparently transliterates as: "for that cunning device for that painful / malicious / base [act]" or similar.