PAST CRIMESscratch on the right radius bone appears to indicate that another nail had been
driven into the arm just above the wrist, as the wrist bones were unbroken.
However, this evidence has been challenged and cannot be taken as
completely secure.
Another form of execution was condemnation to death in the arena,
reserved for the worst criminals and traitors. Typically, executions would
occur around midday, between wild beast shows and the afternoon gladiator
bouts. People who wished to avoid the execution spectacles would leave the
arena to go and eat their lunches. Such executions often included the use of
wild animals to kill and devour the defenceless victim; lions, bears, bulls,
elephants and other beasts were imported for the purpose, to such an extent
that certain species of animal, such as the Asiatic lion, actually became extinct
in the Roman period (Plate 2). It is said that the emperor Caligula fed
prisoners to the beasts, no matter what their crimes, when the price of meat for
the animals rose too high.
Sometimes the executions took the form of staged reenactments of Greek
dramas and myths–Orpheus eaten by a bear, and Hercules burned to death,
for example. Famously, Christians were thrown to the lions; their crimes were
officially that they followed an unauthorised religion, using magic, offering
sacrilege to the official gods and the divinity of the emperor, and holding
unlawful assemblies. Others who might suffer the same fate included
deserters, poisoners, counterfeiters and political prisoners. The practice was
not ended untilAD681. A large cemetery of the third to fourth centuriesADhas
been excavated near the Roman amphitheatre in Trier in Northern Germany.
At least fortysix graves were found, with very few grave goods, and the
position of some of the bodies, or indications of missing skeletal parts, suggest
that these burials are not normal. Some of the dead may have been gladiators,
others executed criminals.^8
One of a number of skeletons discovered at York had evidence of a bite on
his hip which must have been made by a large animal such as a bear, so
perhaps he had died in just such a spectacle. The bodies at York were mostly
of robust young men with developed musculature, suggesting they had taken
part in weapons training. Captured prisoners, criminals and runaway slaves
could be sentenced to gladiatorial schools, where they had to fight for their
lives time and again, although there was a remote possibility of survival. If
they won enough bouts, and managed to save sufficient money, they might be
able to buy their freedom.^9
The punishments inflicted by the Romans seem to us to be horrifying; but
we must remember that their perspective was different.