of statues and monuments erected at Olympia and Delphi in
honor of major Greek fi gures, such as political and military
leaders and Olympic athletes. Some unusual Greek crimes in-
cluded causing damage to the stump of a sacred olive tree and
idleness, which prevented a person from supporting himself
and his family and was punishable by death before the penal-
ty was eventually reduced to a fi ne by the fi ft h century b.c.e.
Despite the appearance of a greater judiciousness in es-
tablishing laws covering crimes and punishments, penalties
oft en remained severe. For example, death remained a po-
tential penalty for a statesman who misled the Athenian as-
sembly. In a noted case, the wealthy Athenian and military
commander Miltiades was charged with this crime by Xan-
thippos in 489 b.c.e. for his failure to fulfi ll his promise of
victory in a military expedition against the island of Paros.
Although he was convicted, Miltiades died in prison from a
war wound before his sentence was carried out. Exile was also
considered a severe form of punishment in ancient Greece,
because citizenship within a city-state came with many privi-
leges that the exiled person forfeited.
Several ancient sources have noted that the ancient Greeks
did have prisons. Nevertheless, long imprisonment prob-
ably was not a typical form of punishment. Imprisonment
for crimes probably was rare and usually temporary until a
punishment, such as death, exile, or a fi ne, was decided upon.
Historians believe that most prisoners kept for any extended
time were debtors who owed money to the state. However, the
prisons were not draconian in nature. According to histori-
ans, prisoners were generally allowed freedom of movement,
and restraints, such as chains, were used only occasionally.
From the writings of Greek philosophers and historians,
it is clear that the ancient Greeks developed a sophisticated
notion of the role punishment should play for various crimes.
Th eir concepts of justice and punishment moved beyond the
idea that punishments should be applied merely for retribu-
tion and to appease the gods. Instead, the Greeks viewed pun-
ishment for crimes as an example to deter others and as a
means of correction so that those who were punished became
better people unlikely to repeat their misdeeds.
Roman law was offi cially introduced to Greece following
Rome’s conquest of Greece in 149 b.c.e. Nevertheless, many
Greek laws concerning crime and punishment remained in
eff ect. In fact, Greek law and custom greatly infl uenced the
development of Roman law. For example, in both systems,
theft from a temple was punishable by death, but only Roman
authorities had the power to execute criminals.
ROME
BY TOM STREISSGUTH
Roman law originated in the ancient customs of the kingdom
and the Roman Republic, established among the farming
villages along the banks of the Tiber River. Th e fi rst writ-
ten Roman law—in fact, the fi rst surviving Roman writing
of any kind—is the Lex Duodecim Tabularum, or the Law
To the Romans, the worst form of execution was
crucifi xion: the killing of a condemned prisoner on a
cross or stake. The Romans fi rst encountered cruci-
fi xion as practiced by the Carthaginians of North Af-
rica. Reminded of their own custom of tying or nailing
criminals to a tree and allowing them to die without
food or water, the Romans adopted crucifi xion as a
punishment for slaves, pirates, thieves, and mutinous
rebels. (A Roman citizen of high birth guilty of serious
crimes was beheaded, allowed to commit suicide, or
permanently exiled.) Mass executions of the defeated
were common after civil unrest or rebellion; after the
slave revolt led by Spartacus in 71 B.C.E., 6,000 pris-
oners were crucifi ed along the Appian Way between
Rome and the town of Capua.
A prisoner to be crucifi ed was stripped, scourged
nearly to death, and forced to carry the cross to his
place of execution. He was then nailed or roped to
the cross, which was made of a stipes (upright) and
patibulum (crosspiece). The traditional cross was built
in the shape of a letter T; the Romans sometimes at-
tached the patibulum beneath the top of the stipes, in
what became known as the Latin cross. By one tradi-
tion, a sign giving the crimes or the name of the pris-
oner was attached to the top of the cross.
The victim of a crucifi xion could die of suffoca-
tion, shock, loss of blood, or dehydration. The death
could take several days; to hasten death, the Romans
broke the prisoner’s legs, forcing the body’s collapse
and a rapid death through asphyxiation. The worst
dishonor of crucifi xion was in the fact that the body
was left on the cross after death, to be consumed by
vultures or wild animals, and not afforded a proper
burial. The practice of crucifi xion was central to the
tradition of Christianity, which held its founder to
have been executed in this brutal manner. For this
reason, the emperor Constantine, the fi rst Roman
leader to convert to Christianity, discontinued the
practice during his reign in the early fourth century.A MOST HUMILIATING DEATH
of the Twelve Tables, of 450–449 b.c.e. At the prompting of
the plebeians, or commoners, the leaders of Rome convened
a committee of 10 men—the decemvirs—to create this code.
Th e intention was to reframe in a more just form the unwrit-
ten, customary laws that heavily favored the patricians, en-
shrine the new laws in writing in a public place, and make
them a cornerstone of the Roman Republic. To that end, the
laws of the Twelve Tables were set up on bronze tablets in the
Roman Forum and enforced by Rome’s two elected consuls,
who served as the chief law-enforcers of the realm.crime and punishment: Rome 303