Public Executions: From Ancient Rome to the Present Day Read Free Page A

bears, and leopards were also used to kill victims. Criminals, known as
noxii
, were often exhibited on a platform in the middle of the arena and the creatures they were going to face were penned beneath. Saint Benignus of Dijon was torn apart by twelve half-starved dogs after hot needles were inserted under his fingernails. The slave girl Saint Blandina refused to renounce her faith and was tortured until her exhausted tormentors could think of nothing more to do to her. Blandina was taken to the arena again. Tied to a stake, she was not attacked by any of the wild animals set upon her, but she endured having to watch her fellow Christians perish for several days. After being scourged and placed on a hot grate, she was wrapped in a net and tossed around by wild bulls before finally being despatched with a dagger!
    The demented Emperor Nero sometimes took on the part of the wild animal, dressing in animal skins and attacking men, women, and children tied naked to stakes. When Queen Boudicca of the Iceni tribe revolted, after her daughters had been raped and she herself had been stripped and flogged, Nero ordered further public punishments.
    'Every kind of atrocity was inflicted upon their captives,' said the second-century historian Cassius Dio. 'They hung up the noblest and best-looking women naked, cutting off their breasts and stitching them to their mouths, so that the women appeared to be eating them and after this they impaled them on sharp stakes, run up the body.'
    Into the arena: Christians, or possibly gladiators, battle lions, armed only with a cloak and dagger.
    Another punishment during Nero's reign was to force the prisoner to dig his own grave. A sharpened stake was then fixed to the bottom. The victim was bound hand and foot before being pushed into the pit. If his crime had been a minor one, he would be pushed so the stake pierced his heart and finished him off quickly. If he had been convicted of a more serious felony, the stake would pierce his groin and he would be left to die in agony or would perhaps be buried alive.
    Being buried alive – after being scourged in public – was traditionally a punishment reserved for vestal virgins who had violated their chastity vows. The lucky ones were entombed in a small cave and left to starve. Nero inflicted this punishment on the priestess Rubria even though it was he who raped her.
    Nero blamed the Christians for the burning of Rome in AD 64. He had them rounded up and ordered that they be 'lighted up, when the day declined, to serve as torches during the night'. They were tied to stakes, smeared with tar, and set alight to illuminate the gardens where the newly homeless sought refuge. However, this atrocity worked against him. Tacitus reported that the Christians behaved so bravely 'humanity relented in their favour'.
    Defeated gladiators faced public execution if they were not killed in the arena outright but the emperor decided their ultimate fate. Usually the crowd bayed
'Jugula! Jugula!'
(Cut his throat! Cut his throat!) and most emperors sought to placate the spectators. If his thumb went down, the defeated gladiator would have to sit back on one heel, grip the winner's thigh, and tilt his head back. He would give a little nod to indicate that he was ready to die and his opponent would then quickly cut his throat as the dying man released his grip.
    Some champions were real show-offs and took pride in spelling out the emperor's name in their victims' blood.

Caligula's Games
    If a gladiatorial contest went on for too long during the reign of the bloodthirsty, and possibly insane, Emperor Caligula ( AD 37-41), the Emperor would call a halt and order the two participants to cut each other's throats for a bit of instant action. At least two deaths an hour were required in the arena for prime entertainment if the audience was not to become bored.
    Even the victor was not safe: protocol demanded that he take on the next contender. If he was one of the emperor's