7 terrible methods of execution used by the Romans

arielpr (52)in #history • 7 years ago

Great personalities like Aristotle or Cicero supported torture, a method of punishment that allowed the inhuman to do "justice." At first, in ancient Rome it was only valid for slaves. Free men even had the right to make their slaves suffer the punishment to which they were not willing.

However, with empire and class division between honest and humiliating, the latter could suffer horrible methods of torture in interrogations. The former were also exposed to humiliation and mistreatment in cases of treason and specific crimes, since, as Dante asserted in his "Divine comedy," betrayal is the worst of sins: "But when the accusation is treason concerning The life of the emperors, all without exception are to be tortured, if they are called to give testimony and when the case requires it. "

If your penalty was the tormentum, you could be sure that the punishment you would have would lead to death. If you were only subjected to a terrible interrogation with torture included, you were being victim of a cuaestio per storm. What were the worst methods of torture that the Romans did?

Inside the stomach of a donkey

A dead donkey with an open belly and without bowels. The accused was stripped and placed inside the animal's stomach. Then they sewed it only with the face of the victim from outside to prevent the suffocation and prolong the suffering. Both bodies were exposed to the intense rays of the sun to begin to decompose and the victim was almost cooked by the outside heat. The worms walked over the defendant and the vultures were approaching when they smelled rot. It was so until, at last, the tortured one died.

Food for wild pigs

The inhabitants of Heliopolis tortured their women with this method: "any virgin who submitted to this torture was first given to the gladiators. After she was not a virgin, she was undressed in public and her stomach was open while her guts went out of control. They filled their stomach with bait, it was sewn again and then they gave it to the wild pigs to lose the life ".

Destroyed by parasites

The emperor Domitian destined the most cruel tortures for the Christian people. One of the worst was to muddle them with honey and milk, put them in a barrel and wait for the parasites to feed on their flesh. Soon after leaving them in the barrel, the parasites entered the cavities of the victims and the body began to rot. They had to spend a couple of weeks in that state for the tortured to die.

Buried alive

The emperor Nero established this type of torture towards the virgins who broke their vows of chastity. He would put the women in a small cave until they died of starvation, if this mode did not satisfy him, depending on their contents, he forced the victims to dig their own tomb and then put them in them: tied and pushed to death.

An animal ripping the body

It could be cats, dogs and even hungry rats. The executioners held a cauldron that warmed from the bottom. The animal was placed inside and on the opposite side, the accused remained with the stomach uncovered. Then, the hotter it was, the animal tried to escape at all costs, ripping to death the one on the other side.

Stung by bees

In a woven basket they placed a naked person who was later hung in a tree that, they knew, had a honeycomb. Infuriated bees attacked man to death, some had a rapid demise due to allergies, others agonized for hours.

Crucifixion

The best known method of torture is this. It was used in hundreds of cases to torture and annihilate slaves. They would sometimes bandage the eyes of the accused, place him on a cross or carve, and whip him to death. Other times they would tie their arms to a beam, be hoisted on a long pole and their feet were nailed; Then they left him there until death reached him. There were also reported cases where the accused were placed in the head, or even there were executors who decided to place the post right in his crotch, everything depended on how benevolent or unfortunate was the hangman.

Like the Romans, punishment and torture have passed for years in the collective imagination as a form of social coercion. From the Greeks, the Inquisition and the mafias or recent cartels, nobody escapes to be tortured with the worst infamies that we could imagine.