ETB: Luke 23:32-49
Death
enalty
P
TO
O
CK
PH
TO
IS
BY
BOBBY
KELLY
T
HE USE OF THE
death penalty as a punishment for crime began
with the ancient laws of China; the
Babylonian Code of Hammurabi
continued it in the eighteenth century b.c., as did the Egyptians in the
sixteenth century, the Torah in the
fifteenth century, and the Hittite
Code in the fourteenth century.1 The
seventh-century Draconian Code
of Athens, named for Draco, the
Athenian statesman and lawmaker, prescribed death for most every
offense, including stealing cabbage.
According to Herodotus, the Greek
historian, the Persians employed
the death penalty. Some historians believe the Persians were the
first to utilize crucifixion. In about
520 b.c., Persia’s Emperor Darius
6 BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATOR / SPRING 2012
destroyed the walls of Babylon and
crucified 3,000 men.2 About 200
years later, Alexander the Great
taught the inhabitants of Tyre a lesson for their resistance by butchering 6,000 men and “after that the
king’s [Alexander] wrath furnished
the victors with an awful spectacle;
2,000 men . . . hung nailed to crosses
along a great stretch of the shore.”3
Given this history, we should not
be surprised that the Roman Law of
the Twelve Tablets in the fifth century b.c. followed suit by delineating
and indexing guidelines related to
implementing the death penalty.
Warranting the Death Penalty
Nailing down with precision what
crimes were punishable by death and
which ones might have received a less
severe punishment, such as flogging,
in the first-century Roman Empire is
difficult. The Twelve Tables, a code
of laws the Romans established in
450 b.c., formed the basis for their
legal system.4 In any culture, however, laws exist on the books that one
generation enforces, but not another.
I am aware that transporting an ice
cream cone in your pocket is illegal
in Kentucky. A friend of mine swears
that in Texas shooting a buffalo from
the second story of a hotel is against
the law. But even in the occurrence
of crimes punishable by death in
the first century, the Romans adjudicated the death penalty differently
according to class, whether nobility,
freeman, or slave.
Roman law at times employed
the death penalty for everything
from printing slander, destroying a
farmer’s crops, burning a house or a
stack of corn near a house, a patron
cheating his client, committing robbery, perjury, raising disturbances
at night, to the willful murder of a
freeman or a parent.5
The upper classes (senatorial
or equestrian class), however, controlled the criminal courts and typically received lenient treatment. As
a result, officials rarely imposed the
death penalty on them. The most
common penalty for the nobility
Upper left: A flagrum, which the
ancient Romans
used for punishment and to
extract information
from prisoners.
Right: Dated to
about A.D. 1330,
this carved ivory
panel depicts
Jesus’ crucifixion.
During the 13th
and 14th centuries, people used
panels of this type
to adorn private
places of worship,
such as chapels.
ILLUSTRATOR PHOTO/ GB HOWELL/ THE NELSON-ATKINS MUSEUM OF ART/ KANSAS CITY, MO (32/45/11)
THE ROMAN
SPRING 2012 / BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATOR
7
Pronouncing the Death Penalty
The central question is who wielded
the power to punish criminals and,
most importantly, who could impose
the death penalty? Certainly the
emperor had the absolute right of life
or death over all inhabitants of Rome.
However, from the time of Augustus,
the government delegated these powers
to the regional governors, procurators,
and prefects.8
The governors tended to come
from the aristocracy. The procurators
and prefects, however, served smaller and more challenging provinces
8 BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATOR / SPRING 2012
Right: Theater and
school for gladiators at Pompeii.
The schools served
as a training place
for those who
would be gladiators, offering special diets and gymnasiums for the
men in training.
Below: Silver tetradrachm minted
in Ephesus depicts
Alexander the
Great with ram’s
horns–a symbol of
his power.
and were not from the nobility.
Pilate himself, as prefect, would
have come from the equestrian
rank. These Roman administrators
had two basic responsibilities: to
collect taxes and keep the peace.
The emperor typically had little
concern for how the procurators and
prefects carried out these responsibilities. In the name of keeping the
peace, the provincial ruler exercised
the power of life and death. If a
gathering of subversives threatened
to revolt, he could send out the
troops. If several hundred died in
the process, this would serve as a
lesson to others who might disturb
the peace. If someone charged that
an individual was a rabble rouser, particularly if the accused was
a non-citizen, the local governor
could listen to the charges and free
him on the spot. On the other hand,
the governor could decide the person presented a genuine threat and
have him executed. If execution was
the verdict, it would be carried out
immediately.9 Persons in Rome set
punishments according to a compilation of statutes. In the provinces,
however, local governors exercised
exclusive authority concerning
charges, procedures, penalties, and
punishments.10
Knowing that the emperor had the
authority to impose the death penalty and could, by extension, grant
that authority to one of his governmental appointees (such as Pontius
Pilate), and knowing that Jesus was a
ILLUSTRATOR PHOTO/ GB HOWEL/ ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO (65/4747)
Left: Main arch
in the old city of
Tyre. Because the
people of Tyre
resisted Alexander
the Great’s
military advances,
Alexander slew
6,000 men and
nailed 2,000 to
crosses.
ILLUSTRATOR PHOTO/ BOB SCHATZ (26/31/17)
in the case of a capital crime was
exile, which existed in two forms.
A person could be expelled from
Rome for a period or, in more severe
cases, deported, which involved loss
of citizenship and expulsion to some
remote location. For the lower classes
hard labor was the more likely alternative to the death penalty. The least
severe version involved a temporary sentence to the public works
or mines. The more ruthless version involved sentence to gladiatorial
school where the convicted would
receive training in how to fight well
and, if defeated, how to offer his
body for the most gripping death
blow. Beyond these possibilities,
however, lay the death penalty.6
By the time of Jesus, the death
penalty for most Roman citizens
was limited to “massive violations
of the public order,” such as “treason” or “grave acts of disobedience
against magistrates.”7 For non-citizens such as foreigners, freedmen,
and slaves, however, the government
could prescribe the death penalty for
any number of crimes. Above all,
Rome was concerned with order,
loyalty, and taxes. If a non-citizen
stirred up the populace, acted in a
disloyal manner, or challenged payment of Roman taxes, the death
penalty would surely result.
ILLUSTRATOR PHOTO/ BOB SCHATZ (20/6/1)
non‑Roman citizen from the peasant
class, the account of Jesus’ death in the
Gospels gains credibility. The charges
the Sanhedrin brought against Jesus
were well designed to bring about
Jesus’ death given Rome’s concerns in
a province like Judea: “We found this
man subverting our nation, opposing
payment of taxes to Caesar, and saying that He Himself is the Messiah,
a King” (Luke 23:2, HCSB). Some
30 years later Paul would have more
options due to his Roman citizenship.
As a citizen he had the right of due
process and ultimately the right to
appeal to the emperor (Acts 24–25,
especially 25:10‑12).
Carrying Out the Death Penalty
The lack of information Roman
authors gave about the details of
crucifixion seems surprising on the
surface. Historically, though, persons
and nations who have tortured or executed others have not left behind copious details about their actions. When
Romans prescribed the death penalty,
in the case of heinous acts of treason
by a Roman citizen, or for crimes by
a foreigner, freedman, or slave, they
carried it out in the most brutal and
vicious manner. Methods of execution included strangulation; beating
to death; impalement; decapitation
with the sword; burning; throwing
the victim to the beasts; “bleeding,”
which consisted of the guilty party
cutting his or her wrists; and crucifixion. The Romans had a curious
punishment for murdering a parent:
they submersed the condemned person in water in a cloth sack that also
contained a dog, a rooster, a viper,
and an ape.11 For Romans as well as
Greeks and Jews, however, no method
of execution caused offense like crucifixion. It was “an utterly offensive
affair, ‘obscene’ in the original sense
of the word.”12 Cicero, the first-century Roman philosopher and politician,
asserted that crucifixion was a “cruel
and disgusting penalty.”13 In fact, citizens did not even like to speak about
the act. Cicero stated explicitly:
[The] executioner, the veiling
of the head, and the very word
“cross” should be far removed not
only from the person of a Roman
citizen but from his thoughts,
his eyes and his ears. For it is
not only the actual occurrence of
these things or the endurance of
them, but liability to them, the
expectation, nay, the mere mention of them, that is unworthy of
a Roman citizen.14
Compiling information from the
meager sources available, we know
crucifixion would have looked something like the following. The victim,
in conjunction with the pronouncement of the sentence, endured scourging or flogging (Mark 15:15; John 19:1).
Then, the person carried the beam
to the place of execution, a custom
Plutarch and the Gospels mentioned
(Luke 23:26; John 19:16-17).15 The
executioner stripped the criminal of
his clothes before tying or nailing
him to the wooden cross with arms
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outstretched. The condemned sat on
a small wooden peg.16 The Romans
used a variety of positions for crucifying offenders: some were hung head
downward, the traditional method
of Peter’s execution;17 others were
hung on a cross shaped like the letter
X, often referred to as crux Andreana
(Andrew’s cross);18 others had a stake
impale their genitals; while others had
their arms stretched out on a crossbeam formed like the letter T.19 This
last type was common and according
to the Gospels was the kind of cross
on which Christ suffered.
Regardless of the type of cross
or whether nailed or tied to it,
crucifixion was a protracted ordeal
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Germanicus,
a general and
great-nephew of
Augustus. When
her husband died,
perhaps of poisoning, Agrippina fell
out of favor, was
banished from
Rome, and died of
starvation in exile.
that might last a number of days.
The gradual nature of the death
satisfied the primal hunger for
revenge. Seneca captured the chilling nature of crucifixion as follows:
Can anyone be found who would
prefer wasting away in pain,
dying limb by limb, or letting
out his life drop by drop, rather
than expiring once for all?
Can any man be found willing to be fastened to the
accursed tree, long sickly,
already deformed, swelling
with ugly tumours on chest
and shoulders, and draw the
breath of life amid long-drawnout agony? I think he would
have many excuses for dying
even before mounting the cross!20
Furthermore, death by crucifixion served as a deterrent to those
who would threaten Roman rule
or peace. It did so by the physical deprivation and psychological
shame the offender experienced. In
the case of a Jew, the shame was
further heightened by the belief
that “anyone hung on a tree is under
God’s curse” (Deut. 21:23, HCSB), a
curse Paul cited in relation to Jesus’
crucifixion (Gal. 3:13). In order to
enhance the event as deterrent,
crucifixions did not take place in
isolated areas but on well-traveled
routes. Pseudo-Quintillian asserts
that “when we [Romans] crucify
criminals the most frequented roads
are chosen, where the greatest number of people can look and be seized
by this fear.”21 The public display of
the naked victim was all about pain
and shame.
This is the death Jesus died, the
death of God’s own Son on a tree
of shame. Sobering indeed. Is there
any wonder that Paul spoke of the
foolishness of the message of a
crucified Messiah (1 Cor. 1:21)? i
1. This introduction is a summary of Michael H. Reggio,
“History of the Death Penalty,” from Laura Randa., ed.,
Society’s Final Solution: A History and Discussion of the
Death Penalty (Landham, MD: University Press of America,
1997). Available from the Internet: http://www.pbs.org/
wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/execution/readings/history.
html.
2. Herodotus The Persian Wars 3.159.
3. Quintus Curtius, History of Alexander, Books I-V, The
Loeb Classical Library, trans. John C. Rolfe (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1946), 4.4.17 (p. 205).
4. John Crook, Law and Life of Rome (London: Thames
and Hudson, 1967), 12.
5. John Laurence, A History of Capital Punishment
(New York: The Citadel Press, 1960), 3.
6. Crook, Law and Life of Rome, 272-73.
7. Karl Loewenstein, The Governance of Rome (The
Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973), 184.
8. Craig S. Wansink, “Roman Law and Legal System”
in Dictionary of New Testament Background, ed. Craig
A. Evans and Stanley E. Porter (Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press, 2000), 986; A. N. Sherwin-White, Roman
Society and Roman Law in the New Testament (Grand
Rapids: Baker Book House, 1963), 6-8.
9. H. F. Jolowicz and Barry Nicholas, Historical
Introduction to the Study of Roman Law, 3rd ed.
(Cambridge: University Press, 1972), 445-47; Everett
Ferguson, Backgrounds of Early Christianity, 2nd ed.
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 61-62.
10. Wansink, “Roman Law,” 986.
11. Laurence, A History of Capital Punishment, 3.
12. Martin Hengel, Crucifixion (Philadelphia: Fortress,
1977), 22.
13. Cicero, Against Verres 2.5.64 in Cicero in TwentyEight Volumes, vol. 8, The Verrine Orations, The Loeb
Classical Library, trans. L. H. G. Greenwood (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1935), 651.
14. Cicero Pro Rabirio 5.16 in The Speeches, The Loeb
Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1927), 467.
15. See Plutarch On the Delays of the Divine Vengeance
9.
16. Hengel, Crucifixion, 25.
17. See the Apocryphal Acts of Peter 37.
18. According to tradition dating from the 7th century,
Andrew died on a cross of that form.
19. Seneca, Moral Essays: To Marcia on Consolation
20.3.
20. Seneca, On the Futility of Planning Ahead in Ad
Luicilium Epistulae Morales, trans. Richard M. Gummere,
The Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1926), 167.
21. Quintillian, The Lesser Declamations, vol.1, The
Loeb Classical Library, ed. and trans. D. R. Shackleton
Bailey (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006),
259.
Bobby Kelly is the Ruth Dickinson
professor of Bible at Oklahoma
Baptist University, Shawnee,
Oklahoma.
ILLUSTRATOR PHOTO/ BRENT BRUCE/ UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA MUSEUM OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY (32/41/83)
ILLUSTRATOR PHOTO/ BRITISH MUSEUM/ LONDON (31/9943)
Above: Scene that
decorated the
palace at Nineveh
depicts men being
impaled as the
Assyrians conquered the city of
Lachish.
Below: Agrippina
the Elder (circa
14 B.C.–A.D.
33), the daughter of Agrippa,
Augustus’s
wealthy lifelong
friend and supporter, and Julia,
Augustus’s daughter. She married