Different Types of Punishment in the Roman Era
Example of gruesome Roman Scene
Page by: Jillian Simpson
Introduction/About my topic: My groups overall theme was violence and brutality. In almost all of the pictures we have browsed in class, violence prevelant and often times morbid. In most of the pictures involving martyrs in an arena, a large animal such as a lion or a tiger is seen and it is made known that the victims are going to be eaten a live by this beast. If not a lion, some pictures show a martyr or any criminal about to be slain by another human being, or it may portray someone already dead. For some reason, this theem of violence and brutality seems to be overlooked or doesn't bother people, perhaps because the images are not gorey? Our group wanted to look into the theme of violence and brutality since it has proved to be over-looked. I wanted to create my particulare page on if there were different types of punishment or a different severity of punishment based on the crime. We looked deeply into how martyr's were killed, but was every criminal killed the same way?
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The answer that I discovered was, yes, there were different types of punishment per crime as well as other forms of punishment as opposed to the typical arena setting.
Roman Punishments:
1) Slaves: In the Roman Era, slaves had no rights at all. HOWEVER, slaves were bought and used so their punishments could not be life threatening. Often times they were whipped, branded on their forehead, beaten, or forced to wear wood blocks around their neck. If a slave commited a "capital offense", they were sometimes crucfied.
2) Forgery: Forgerers were not sentenced to death. Instead, they were banished from their and were stripped of their houses and belongings. Although, if I slave was deemed a forgerer, it was punishable by death.
3) Patricide : Patricide meant that you killed your father and anyone convicted of this crime was put in a sack and thrown in the sea.
Punishments by death (mostly for treason):
1) Beheading
2) Throwing a person from a prison
3) Crucfixiton (Usually no evidence of nailing any body parts to the cross but instead skeletal remains show body's being contorted and tied to the cross)
4) Throwing a person into the river
5) Burying a person a live
People were also crucified in the name of Christianity!
- St. Peter : Saint Peter, one of Jesus's first disciples, was taken as a prisoner under rule of the emperor Nero after Nero blamed the Christians for Rome's downfall. Saint Peter was crucified upside down because he did not consider himself worthy enough to die like Jesus did because he betrayed him in the past .
I found St. Peter's death similar to the death's of Christan Martyrs. Ofcourse he did not volunteer to be die, but when he was sentenced to crucification, he opted for a more painful and morbid route since he felt as if he wasn't worthy enough to die like Jesus did. This parrallels Christian devotion to a person putting themselves in pain for their religion.
Sources.
http://www.tribunesandtriumphs.org/roman-life/roman-crucifixion.htm
http://www.tribunesandtriumphs.org/roman-life/roman-punishment.htm