Crucifixion in Roman Antiquity: The State of the Field

• Autores: Felicity Harley
• Localización: Journal of early Christian studies: Journal of the North American Patristic Society, ISSN 1067-6341, Nº. 2, 2019, págs. 303-323
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • [...]the recovery of ancient understandings of crucifixion is a complex process, more so than is customarily assumed, with the methods of doing so contested, as a recent body of literature has demonstrated. What are the markers of an ancient crucifixion, and must they include the specification that the "cross" (crux or stauros) on which a victim was suspended be cruciform in shape? Since the seventeenth century, when the celebrated classical scholar Justus Lipsius published the first history of crucifixion, De cruce libri tres, scholars have been aware of the difficulties entailed in addressing these questions of definition, and evidence for the practice of crucifixion in Greco-Roman antiquity has been the focus of several detailed studies.6 Among these, the concise examination of the evidence by Martin Hengel, entitled Crucifixion in the Ancient World and the Folly of the Message of the Cross, first published in German in 1976, has been particularly influential for students of early Christianity.7 Its lucidity and brevity, not to mention its translation into English, have and continue to ensure its accessibility to a broad readership. [...]although Martial does not describe the shape of the "cross," it is his evocation of the image of Prometheus that enables for the ancient reader a clear picturing of Laureolus suspended, with arms outstretched. Seneca is just one witness to the variety of meanings crux could carry, including vertical pole or any structure comprising two posts, but also to the variety of positions in which a body could be placed on an execution device: for further discussion of Dial. 6.20.3 see Cook, Crucifixion, 34–35. Since many victims were tied and not nailed to their execution device, skeletal remains will not necessarily leave traces.