The Spectacle of the Patibulum: A Response to Ruben van Wingerden

Abstract

Ruben van Wingerden's articles on carrying a patibulum and σταυρός are admirably precise. However, his analyses of two texts of Plautus and a fragment of Clodius Licinus are problematic. In contrast to van Wingerden's rather minimalistic conclusions regarding carrying a patibulum or σταυρός, it seems likely that carrying a patibulum was a general element in Roman practice in accounts in which patibula are mentioned in conjunction with crucifixions – even when there is no explicit reference to carrying the patibulum through the streets.

1. Introduction

Ruben van Wingerden's recent articles on carrying a cross are admirable in their precision.¹ Van Wingerden's aim is to determine which ancient texts are the most probable references to carrying a cross. In his two articles he carefully analyses the Latin and Greek evidence respectively. His conclusions are that very few texts actually mention the practice outside of the Gospels. Those texts are: Plautus, Carb. fr. 2, ‘possibly’ Mil. glor. 358–60, Clodius Licinus, Rer. Rom. 21, lex Puteolana ii.8–10, Chariton, Chaer. 4.2.7, 4.3.10, Plutarch, Sera 554a–b, and Artemidorus, Onir. 2.56. As a methodology, this seems too restrictive.² He omits some crucial scholarly references and, in my view, makes some errors.³ In contrast to van Wingerden's rather minimalistic conclusions, it seems probable that carrying a patibulum was a general element in Roman practice in accounts in which patibula are mentioned in conjunction with crucifixions – even when there is no explicit reference to carrying the patibulum through the streets. Much of the article will be devoted to establishing this thesis, and a set of tables will be included as evidence for the contention. The Roman writers likely assume that their readers are intimately aware of this sort of spectacle – an assumption that linguists call a ‘pragmatic presupposition’ and which Umberto Eco calls a ‘known frame or scenario’.⁴ A warrant for the presupposition is the lex Puteolana, and an expanded defence of the reading patibul(atum) in ii.9 is offered below. Although carrying a furca (fork) was not precisely equivalent to carrying a patibulum (horizontal bar), both actions were probably frequent spectacles in Roman culture. There is some confirmation of this thesis in the three oldest depictions of crucifixion – which happen to depict Tau-shaped crosses.

2. Plautus (Writing ca 205–184 BCE)

Some of van Wingerden's analyses of texts from Plautus need to be revised in my view. In the Miles Gloriosus the slave Sceledrus is standing in a doorway blocking it, presumably with his arms outstretched. Palaestrio, a slave, says to Sceledrus (who had helped his master kidnap Philocomasium, a prostitute whom Palaestrio's master had fallen in love with):

Credo ego istoc exemplo tibi esse pereundum ⁵ extra portam, / dispessis manibus, patibulum quom habebis. ⁶

I suppose you'll soon have to go (‘disappear’) outside of the gate in a posture like that with your hands spread out, when you'll have a patibulum.

The gate is the Esquiline, ‘outside of which the poor were buried and public executions took place’.⁷ Mason Hammond, Arthur M. Mack, and Walter Moskalew – reading pereundum – comment on line 359: ‘The patibulum (in the next line) was a crossbar which the convicted criminal carried on his shoulders, with his arms fastened to it, to the place for execution. Hoisted up on an upright post, the patibulum became the crossbar of the cross’.⁸ Van Wingerden's conclusion that ‘Whether Plautus’ Mil. glor. 358–60 is to be counted as a “traditional” instance of cross-bearing is defined by which reading one adopts’, is probably incorrect due to the reasons given below.⁹ esse pereundum poses a difficulty for translators. Michael Hillen's entry in the ThLL is enlightening:

i. usu strictiore de eis, qui -eunt ita: (A) ut omnino esse desinant … saepius a notione sub B illustrata separari non potest … (B) ut non iam adsint eo quod auferuntur, amoventur, (1) potius e loco quodam …

In a stricter sense concerning those who pereunt in such a way: (A) that they entirely cease to be … more often cannot be separated from the sense illustrated in B … (B) that they are no longer present on account of the fact that they are carried away, removed (1) preferably from a certain place … ¹⁰

Plautus frequently uses the verb in sense i.B.¹¹ As an example of the difficulty of distinguishing the two senses, Hillen refers to a text of Ulpian in his work On the praetor's edict (Ad edictum (praetoris)): Marcellus apud Iulianum notat verbo ‘perisse’ et scissum et fractum contineri et vi raptum (‘Marcellus as reported by Julian remarks that by the word “destroyed,” cut up, broken, and forcibly abstracted are meant’).¹²

Both senses are likely present in Plautus's use of pereo, and he can use the verb for motion as noted. In Plautus's other texts (§ 7), the patibulum is an object one carries, like the furca (§ 6) – a context that supports the inclusion of sense i.B.¹³

Since there are no other texts, to my knowledge, in which the patibulum is used for a non-fatal punishment, it is highly probable that Plautus envisions the slave Sceledrus parading along the via Esquilina with the patibulum on his shoulders on the way to his death by crucifixion, due to his usage of pereo and patibulum in other texts, the identity of the Esquiline as the place of execution, and crucifixion as the servile supplicium in ancient Rome.¹⁴ This is simply one of many jests or curses in Plautus exchanged between slaves, or between masters and slaves, such as I dierecte in maxumam malam crucem (‘go to an extreme evil cross’).¹⁵

Van Wingerden also is somewhat sceptical about a passage in Plautus's Mostellaria in which a slave named Grumio predicts the fate of a crafty, dishonest slave named Tranio:

You executioner's sieve! At any rate that's what I believe you'll be if the old man returns here, so thoroughly will the executioners pierce you with cattle prods while you carry the crossbar through the streets.

O carnufic<i>um cribrum, quod credo fore: / Ita te forabunt patibulatum per uias / Stimulis, ‹carnufices› si huc reveniat senex. ¹⁶

In the judgement of van Wingerden, ‘Although this passage lacks the context of crux-terminology or references, later on in the play Tranio mentions the crux at various times as a threat, but it remains unclear whether we can see this threat as a prelude to crucifixion (i.e. crux-terminology)’.¹⁷ Again, here van Wingerden fails to detect the pragmatic presupposition of Plautus, or in his terminology, taken from Eco, known ‘frames’ and ‘scenarios’. Most fundamental is the universal association of patibulum with a fatal punishment.¹⁸ There are expressions such as suffigere patibulo where individuals are crucified and where patibulum comprises a pars pro toto (part for the whole) usage – that is, the word patibulum in those contexts refers to the horizontal and vertical members of a cross.¹⁹ Second, any Roman reader of Plautus would have been aware of the existence of the servile supplicium – death by crucifixion. To express it differently: no ‘patibulated’ (Plautus's patibulatum) individual escapes death by crucifixion. Third, Grumio tells Tranio that he will be the carnufic<i>um cribrum (the sieve of the executioners), pierced by their cattle prods as he is led through the streets. This usage of cribrum according to the OLD is a reference to ‘its many perforations’.²⁰ Being pierced by goads while being driven through the streets is not identical with flagellation, but the parallel is clear (see the lex in § 4).²¹

Few Romans would have been ignorant of the flagellations and other tortures that often preceded crucifixions.²² Fourth, a Roman reader would have been aware of the impending doom signified by the term carnifex. Admittedly it can mean ‘torturer’, but its most general sense was ‘executioner’.²³ Richard Meister describes its primary meaning as ‘1 occisor: a qui supplicium sumit de condemnatis, tortor, (praecipue de servo publico cf. Hitzig, PW iii 1599)’ (1 killer: a who exacts punishment on the condemned, torturer (especially of a public slave)).²⁴ Sense two is ‘2 cruciator, perditor: a de hominibus’ (2 torturer, destroyer: a of people).²⁵ Meister classifies the usages in Plautus under the first sense.²⁶ The slave Tranio is facing death by crucifixion after being forced to carry the patibulum through the streets while being tortured by goads.

3. C. Clodius Licinus

Van Wingerden's treatment of C. Clodius Licinus's fragment needs additional discussion, since he does not make a final decision on the text but initially prints what is found in the MSS and then discusses various options: ‘Deligat{a} ad patibulos. deligantur et circumferuntur, cruci defiguntur’ (‘Fastened to a patibulum, They are fastened and led around and then nailed to the cross’).²⁷ Van Wingerden notes that deligata is dropped by the edition of T. J. Cornell (general editor) and does not object. However, he does not present the text as edited by Stephen Oakley in Cornell's collection, although he mentions its existence in his notes:²⁸

Patibulum (transverse/horizontal beam) is neuter in gender. Licinus in book 21 of his Roman Affairs uses it in the masculine: they are bound to patibuli and paraded around, and then fixed to the cross.

patibulum genere neutro. Masculino Licinus rerum Romanarum libro xxi: ad patibulos deligantur et circumferuntur, cruci defiguntur.²⁹

Van Wingerden apparently overlooks Oakley's decision not to place a period after patibulos.³⁰ Oakley's reconstructions avoid the awkward repetition of deligo in the MSS (deligata ad patibulos. deligantur …). The first fragment of Clodius Licinus in Oakley's edition describes an event in the Second Punic War, when the first historical accounts of Roman crucifixion emerged.³¹

4. The lex Puteolana

The lex supports the general thesis of the article: namely, that carrying a patibulum was a common practice in ancient Rome. Van Wingerden is somewhat uncertain about the relevance of the lex Puteolana: ‘To sum up, if Cook's reading is correct, then this is another instance that speaks of individuals carrying a patibulum to the crux’.³² This warrants further argumentation. The lex, which describes a concession for funerals and executions in Puteoli (Figure 1), contains the most detailed description of the technology of crucifixion.³³

Figure 1. Lex Puteolana col. II.1–19; credit: Professor Giuseppe Camodeca; used by permission

The section for private individuals reads:

ii. 8 Whoever will want to exact punishment on a male slave or female slave at private expense, as he (the owner) who wants the (punishment) to be inflicted, he (the contractor) exacts the punishment in this manner: if he wants (him) to lead the patibulated individual to the cross (vertical beam), the contractor will have to provide wooden posts, chains, and cords for the floggers and the floggers themselves. And anyone who will want to exact punishment will have to give four sesterces for each of the workers who bring the patibulum and for the floggers and also for the executioner.

Column ii. 8 qui supplic(ium) de ser(vo) servave privatim sumer(e) volet uti is {qui} sumi volet ita supplic(ium) sumet si in cruc(em) / 9 patibul(atum) ³⁴ agere volet redempt(or) asser(es) vincul(a) restes verberatorib(us) et verberator(es) praeber(e) d(ebeto) et / 10 quisq(uis) supplic(ium) sumet pro oper(is) sing(ulis) quae patibul(um) ferunt verberatorib(us)q(ue) item carnif(ice) HS iiii d(are) d(ebeto) /

Scholars disagree on the restoration of patibul(…) in ii.9. The photograph of the lex does not help. As Giuseppe Camodeca writes, the initial letters of ii.9 are damaged and quite small (Figure 1).³⁵ The survey (§ 7) of uses of patibulum justifies John Bodel's solution: patibul(atum) – ‘an individual whose hands are fastened to the patibulum/bar’. This image comports well with the general thesis of this article concerning the frequency of the spectacle of the patibulum. No other restoration is possible syntactically or semantically, if one follows extant classical usage. agere in patibulum is unacceptable from a syntactic and semantic basis, because it contradicts known Latin usage. Sergio Castagnetti's restoration, patibulo, in ii.9 (an ablative bearing the sense ‘with the patibulum’) also does not appear anywhere else in Latin literature. He is forced to translate with a paraphrase: ‘se vorrà che venga messo in croce col patibolo’ – not having an object for agere, which in all other texts has an object, or a subject when the passive agi occurs (§ 5).³⁶ ii.9 indicates that in ii.10 the workers bring the patibulum from the lucus Libitinae, or wherever such implements were stored, to the house where the slave to be punished is held. From there the slave him-/herself ‘carries’ (wears) it to the place of execution.³⁷ The lex shows that the scene of a male or female slave carrying the patibulum to the crux was common in Puteoli.

5. A Roman spectacle: Driving Victims to the Cross (agere quemdam in crucem) or Victims Being Driven to the Cross (quidam … agi in crucem)

In the sections that follow, I will attempt to establish the thesis that carrying the patibulum was a frequent element in Roman crucifixions in accounts in which patibula are mentioned. This is in contrast to van Wingerden's minimalistic results that emphasise the texts he takes to be certain. The first step is to show that taking the condemned to the cross was a common practice according to the extant evidence. There is a phrase in Latin that hints at a Roman spectacle that must have been repeated with endless frequency, since so many examples have by chance survived into the modern world: driving a victim to the cross. Both the active (agere in crucem) and passive (agi in crucem) are used in references to the spectacle.

The Latin is equivalent to the NT phrase ἀπάγɛιν ɛἰς τὸ σταυρῶσαι (Matt 27.31 par) or the classical ἀπάγɛιν ἐπὶ τὸν σταυρόν.

Table 1. Agere/Agi in Crucem

The Latin formulas are so brief that it is fairly obvious that one may assume nearly any Roman reader knew the implications – the spectacle of being driven to execution and the drawn out, miserable death on the cross awaiting the condemned. They do indicate that agere is the vox propria for the journey to the cross. The comparable Greek phrases are likewise short, for the most part.

Table 2. ἀπάγɛιν (etc.) ἐπὶ τὸν σταυρόν

Certainly, these phrases resemble those of Mark and Matthew (Mark 15.20 ἐξάγουσιν αὐτὸν ἵνα σταυρώσωσιν αὐτόν par Matt 27.31). It is worth keeping in mind that if one only had Mark 15.20 and Matt 27.31, one would not know that the cross of Jesus had a patibulum or that Simon of Cyrene had carried the patibulum part of the way to the crux. Six texts with patibulum (§ 7 below) portray a spectacle in which an individual is led to crucifixion, and many of the texts in this section may similarly include patibula – although they are not mentioned explicitly. There are explicit hints in several texts that do describe victims carrying patibula that indicate the practice was common, which will be discussed below (§ 7). Carrying a furca provides an important analogy for the thesis concerning the frequency of the spectacle of the patibulum.

6. An analogy: the spectacle of the furca

The point of the argument here is that carrying the furca closely resembles carrying the patibulum. The furca, a punishment for slaves, was apparently frequent in ancient Rome. Combined with the other evidence, the frequency of the spectacle of the furca helps warrant the thesis of the article. In general, individuals punished by the furca survived the miserable experience.⁶³ Henceforth others could call them a furcifer.⁶⁴ A presumably legendary episode describes a slave who was punished by the furca before a circus of Romans.⁶⁵ In some accounts the slave was executed afterward.⁶⁶ The authors who portray the event are aware of its nature as spectacle. Iulius Paris (§ 5), the epitomator of Valerius, summarised the text as a reference to the crucifixion of the slave, but Iulius does not write that the slave carried a furca to a crux.⁶⁷ Macrobius transforms the punishment into the similar but not identical spectacle of the patibulum.

(1.11.3.) … a certain Autronius Maximus beat his slave, tied him to a patibulum, then drove him through the Circus before the start of the show … (5.) … it is called the dies instauricius, not (as some think) from the patibulum – that is, stauros in Greek – but from the act of making whole again, as Varro holds, noting that instaurare means ‘to replace the equivalent amount’ (instar novare).

3. … Autronius quidam Maximus servum suum verberatum patibuloque constrictum ante spectaculi commissionem per circum egit: … 5. … isque instauraticius dictus est non a patibulo, ut quidam putant, Graeco nomine ἀπὸ τοῦ σταυροῦ, sed a redintegratione, ut Varroni placet, qui instaurare ait esse instar novare ⁶⁸

Since other sources from Macrobius's era (Lactantius, Augustine, Arnobius), particularly Iulius Paris, indicate that the slave was executed, as did Valerius Maximus before them, it seems most probable that Macrobius envisioned the slave's subsequent execution – especially given his translation of patibulum by σταυρός – a word associated with crucifixion.⁶⁹ Furca makes an appearance in classical texts in various constructions:

Table 3. Constructions with Furca

From this evidence one can conclude that in general the furca, although a humiliating spectacle for the slave, was not usually a fatal punishment. A further warrant for this thesis is the liberal usage of the term ‘furcifer’ – used for an individual who had been obliged to carry the furca around.⁷⁸ The penalty of the furca resembles that of the patibulum, although the latter was always fatal. Both spectacles were probably frequent in ancient Rome, although the claim concerning the frequency of the spectacle of the patibulum needs additional evidence.

7. The Patibulum in Roman texts and the Spectacle of Carrying It

The classical evidence for the use of patibulum follows below. Many of the texts below are pars pro toto usages. The first five examples indicate a spectacle in which the condemned individual carries the patibulum through the streets (some have been mentioned above). In the sixth example, the headless torso of Carbo Arvina is carried about fixed to a patibulum in a clear imitation of the spectacle illustrated by the first five texts. The seventh example is also a spectacle, although the image of the dead pretender Celsus, whose corpse had been consumed by dogs, is attached to a patibulum in a pars pro toto usage.

Table 4. Constructions with Patibulum

It is worthwhile remembering that Lucian identifies the stauros with the Tau shape – although in the Greek texts above there is a usage of synecdoche (σταυρός for patibulum).¹⁰⁸ These texts illustrate the syntactical and semantic usage of patibulum. One is immediately aware that there are no examples of cum patibulo or sub patibulo, nor are there any examples where patibulo appears as an ablative bearing the meaning ‘with the patibulum’.¹⁰⁹ The word also appears universally in fatal spectacles – either of a condemned individual carrying the patibulum through the streets or crucified with his or her arms stretched out on the horizontal bar, suspended in the air. The one possible exception is the text from Macrobius, but his translation of patibulum by σταυρός probably indicates that the slave was executed (see § 6). Like the furca, bearing the patibulum through the streets before crucifixion was a spectacle.

Gunnar Samuelsson justifiably argues that the Gospels are sparing in their narratives of the crucifixion.¹¹⁰ Nevertheless, the most vivid portrayal of crucifixion which survives the literature of Greco-Roman antiquity is that of the Gospels, including the detail in which either Jesus (John 19.17) or Simon of Cyrene (Matt 27.32 par Mark 15.21 par Luke 23.27) carries the patibulum through the streets of Jerusalem. In the Gospels (Matt 27.26 par Mark 15.15, John 19.1), with the exception of Luke where no such torture is mentioned, Pilate had already scourged Jesus, and no scourging is mentioned while carrying the patibulum itself. Only Luke (23.27–31) describes a crowd of onlookers following Jesus and Simon, including the mourning women of Jerusalem. It is all part of a Roman spectacle as in some of the texts above. Since in Luke's spectacle Simon carries the patibulum, the two criminals most likely carried theirs (27.32): Ἤγοντο … ἕτɛροι κακοῦργοι δύο σὺν αὐτῷ ἀναιρɛθῆναι. To van Wingerden's examples of Greek texts in which one carries the patibulum, one should probably add that of Peter in the Gospel of John, although there is disagreement. The risen Jesus (John 21.18) prophesies that he, too, will bear the bar (to the crux). The extension of Peter's hands is likely a reference to the patibulum.¹¹¹

The texts of the lex Puteolana, Chariton, Plutarch, and Artemidorus imply a broader cultural practice (rather than reporting on singular events).¹¹² They indicate that carrying the patibulum before crucifixion was a common practice in the Roman world – even if Plutarch (‘every criminal’) and Artemidorus exaggerate somewhat. Six other Latin texts (§ 7) also assume Roman familiarity with practice, and it was a regular element of Plautus's humour who assumes the audience is well aware of the spectacle. The frequency of the spectacle contrasts with van Wingerden's minimalistic results. Since the Romans had the technology to suspend an individual on a simple vertical beam (see Figure 2 in § 8), and since many texts portray the leading of an individual to a cross, I would suggest as a reasonable hypothesis that whenever patibula are mentioned in Roman texts, one can probably assume that the individual had earlier carried it through the streets. This assumption would constitute a ‘pragmatic presupposition’ of Mediterranean literature that readers would take for granted. Mention of the patibulum itself brought to the Mediterranean mind a spectacle (as it did in the case of Jesus, Simon of Cyrene, and the examples canvassed above) – one in which an individual was forced to carry it to a place of execution. The classical texts listed above and the Gospel texts about ‘taking up one's σταυρός’ warrant the thesis that the patibulum spectacle was frequent in Roman society.¹¹³

Figure 2. lagynos depicting damnatio ad bestias; Inventory: O.39628. © Römisch – Germanisches Zentralmuseum; credit: R. Müller

8. The T-shaped Images and the Spectacle of Carrying the Patibulum

The Romans had the technology to suspend – easily, one presumes –an individual on a vertical beam without a patibulum. The scene (Figure 2) of damnatio ad bestias vividly illustrates that possibility, and Martial combines the penalties of crucifixion and damnatio ad bestias in one of his spectacles in which he mentions the actual crucifixion of the star of a well-known mime.

… so Laureolus, hanging on no false cross, gave up his defenceless entrails to a Scottish bear. His mangled limbs were still alive, though the parts were dripping with blood, and in his whole body there actually was no body.

nuda Caledonio sic viscera praebuit urso

non falsa pendens in cruce Laureolus.

vivebant laceri membris stillantibus artus

inque omni nusquam corpore corpus erat.¹¹⁴

The hypothesis lies near at hand – in contrast to van Wingerden's minimalism – that when the patibulum is mentioned, it indicates the spectacle of the condemned individual's carrying it through the streets. It is certainly intriguing that all of the most ancient images of Roman crucifixion depict individuals on Tau-shaped crosses in which the horizontal beam comprises the patibulum: the crucified Alkimila (Figures 3 and 4) in the Puteolan taberna from the Trajanic-Hadrianic era; the graffito (Figure 5) of the crucified donkey-man (iii ce); and the Pereire gem (Figure 6) of the nude crucified Christ.

Figure 3. Puteoli: graffito of Alkimila's crucifixion: credit: Professor Giuseppe Camodeca; used by permission

Figure 4. Alkimila; credit: Professor Giuseppe Camodeca; used by permission

Figure 5. Palatine graffito; by permission of the Ministero della Cultura – parco Archeologico del Colosseo

Figure 6. Magical gem, intaglio, jasper. British Museum 1986,0501.1, 30 x 25 x 5.8 mm, late ii ce – early iii ce. Photograph © Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved

Although the images do not themselves give visual evidence that the patibula were carried, as Felicity Harley-McGowan justifiably insists, ‘they might imply it to a viewer who understands the practice (presuming that the practice was known at the time and place the images were created)’.¹¹⁵ The literary sources encourage the reader to assume that where a patibulum is mentioned, the spectacle of the journey through the streets to the crux is not far behind.

9. Conclusion

In addition to the texts that van Wingerden affirms in support of the carrying of the patibulum to the crux, there is further material to take into account. The readings above of Plautus and Clodius Licinus are warranted. The suggested reconstruction of lex Puteolana ii.9 (patibul(atum)) makes best sense in my view and conforms closest to extant Latin usage, and the lex warrants the frequency of the Roman practice in Puteoli one might name the ‘spectacle of the patibulum’.

One can restrict the image of carrying a patibulum to texts that are deemed certain as van Wingerden does. Admittedly, one cannot demonstrate that the patibula were carried by the condemned from solely the semantics of the texts in which the following phrases and words appear: agere/agi in crucem; ἀπάγɛιν ɛἰς τὸ σταυρῶσαι (etc.); and patibulum. The following pragmatic presupposition does, however, have reasonable grounds: when one encounters the above phrases and words in the description of a Roman spectacle, it is likely that ancient readers (often) – at least those inhabitants of the empire who lived in or near towns – envisioned the condemned individual carrying the patibulum to the crux.¹¹⁶ Doubtless this was not true in all such cases. However, the Roman love of spectacle (consider the furca) probably implies that there is plenty of justification for believing that the supposition is reliable. The prevalence of this spectacle in Roman society, if the hypothesis is correct, indicates that the Gospels’ depiction of the patibulum-bearing of Jesus, Simon of Cyrene, (probably) Peter, and individuals who wish to follow Jesus was easily recognisable for Mediterranean readers, who would have witnessed the unavoidable scene in their own streets.