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

In honorem Kathleen M. Coleman

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 December 2022

John Granger Cook Open the ORCID record for John Granger Cook [Opens in a new window]
John Granger Cook*
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Religion & Philosophy, LaGrange College, 601 Broad St, LaGrange, GA 30240 Email: jcook@lagrange.edu
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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.

Keywords

spectaclepatibulumσταυρόςcarrying a cross
Type
Articles
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 69 , Issue 1 , January 2023 , pp. 76 - 94
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

1 Wingerden, R. van, ‘Carrying a patibulum: A Reassessment of Non-Christian Latin Sources’, NTS 66 (2020) 433–53Google Scholar, idem, ‘Carrying a σταυρός: A Re-Assessment of the Non-Christian Greek Sources’, NTS 67 (2021) 336–55 Cf. idem, ‘Crucifixion Practices: How to Attach a patibulum to a stipes’, NovT 64 (2022) 269–76 and idem, ‘Horizontal or Not? The Patibulum in Sallust, Hist. 3 Frg. 9’, Biblica 99 (2018) 592–9.

2 For the Latin material, see van Wingerden, ‘patibulum’, 452–3, and for the Greek material, see van Wingerden, ‘σταυρός’, 352.

3 Omitted key references: Cobet, C. G., ‘Annotationes criticae ad Charitonem’, Mnemosyne 8 (1859) 229–303Google Scholar; Gatti, P., ‘patibulum’, ThLL x/1.706.48–708.30; and S. Castagnetti, Le ‘leges libitinariae’ flegree. Edizione e commento (Napoli: Satura, 2012)Google Scholar.

4 Van Wingerden, ‘Carrying a patibulum’, 445 refers to Umberto Eco's concept, ‘encyclopaedic knowledge’, in which ‘interpreters resort to known “frames” (other texts) or “scenarios” and common and specific knowledge from which to make certain assumptions to understand the text. This resorting to other texts and frames (is) what Eco called “inferential walks”’ – citing (no pagination) U. Eco, Six Walks in the Fictional Woods (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994). This phenomenon corresponds to the ‘pragmatic presuppositions’ of linguistics. Cf. Stalnaker, R., ‘Pragmatic presuppositions’, Semantics and Philosophy (ed. Munitz, M. and Unger, P.; New York: New York University Press, 1974) 197–214Google Scholar and van Valin, R. D., Exploring the Syntax-Semantics Interface (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005) 69CrossRefGoogle Scholar (‘Pragmatic Presupposition: The set of propositions lexicogrammatically evoked in an utterance which the speaker assumes the hearer already knows or believes or is ready to take for granted at the time of speech’; with reference to Lambrecht, K., Information Structure and Sentence Form: Topic, Focus, and the Mental Representation of Discourse Referents (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) 52)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Plautus, Mil. glor. 359 (CUFr IV, 196 Ernout). esse pereundum is a correction for esse perfundum in MS A (Ambrosianus Palimpsestus (G 82 sup.), saec. iv–v). Other manuscripts’ variations are esse eundum and esset eundem.

6 Plautus, Mil. glor. 359–360, cp. 352–53. Trans. of K. M. Coleman (private communication; slightly mod.).

7 T. Macci Plauti Miles Gloriosus (ed. with an introduction and notes by M. Hammond, A. M. Mack, and M. Moskalev; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997) 109. For references to the Esquiline as a place of burial for the poor and for victims of execution (which Maecenas later converted into gardens), cf. Bodel, J., ‘Graveyards and Groves: A study of the Lex Lucerina’, American Journal of Ancient History 11 (1986 [1994]) 1–133Google Scholar, at 38–9, 107, and Cook, J. G., Crucifixion in the Mediterranean World (WUNT 327; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2 2019) 21, 53, 385–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 428.

8 Hammond et al., T. Macci Plauti Miles, 109.

9 Van Wingerden, ‘Carrying a patibulum’, 441.

10 M. Hillen, ‘pereo’, ThLL x/1.1325,65–1341.75, at 1327.42–4 and 1330.11–2. Trans. (for the most part) Robert A. Kaster (communication of 18 October 2021). Cf. Hillen, ibid. 1330.11–27 for examples of sense i.B.

11 Similar uses are: Plautus, Capt. 537 peri<i>sti e patria tua (‘you disappeared from home’), trans. of Plautus (5 vols.; LCL; ed. and trans. W. de Melo; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011–13) i.561; Poen. 68 quoniam periisse sibi uidet gnatum unicum (‘when he sees that his only son was lost’), ibid. 86 cum nutrice una periere a Magaribus (‘they disappeared from Megara together with their nurse’), ibid. 989 periere pueri liberi Carthagine (‘freeborn children were stolen from Carthage’), de Melo, Plautus iv.25, 27, 125; Curc. 654 Therapontonigonus (miles): sed tu dic mihi, / Ubi is est homo qui te surripuit? / Planesium (virgo): Nescio: / Verum hunc servavi semper me cum una anulum, / Cum hoc olim perii (‘(Therapontonigonus the soldier:) But you, tell me, where is the man who snatched you? (Planesium, a virgin:) I don't know. But I've always kept this ring with me. With this ring I got lost back then’), de Melo, Plautus ii.305; Mil. glor. 118–9 capiunt praedones nauem illam ubi uectus fui: prius perii quam ad erum ueni quo ire occeperam (‘the pirates take that ship I've been traveling on: I've been snatched away before reaching my master, where I'd begun to go’), trans. mod. of de Melo, Plautus, iii.155; and Truc. 52 periit aurum (a piece of jewellery got lost), de Melo, Plautus v.273. Consequently, van Wingerden's worries (‘patibulum’ 440) that ‘While with the reading esse pereundum it is not clear that Sceledrus would have to carry the patibulum through the gate, the variant eundum would clearly imply that’ are unnecessary.

12 Ulpian, libro quinto ad edictum apud Digesta 50.16.9; trans. of Watson, A., ed., The Digest of Justinian (4 vols., Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985)Google Scholar iv.448.

13 Cf. OLD s.v. extra § 6c ‘(w. vbs. of motion) to the outside of, out of’.

14 Cf. Chapman, D. W. and Schnabel, E. J., The Trial and Crucifixion of Jesus: Texts and Commentary (WUNT 344; Tübingen 2015), 866CrossRefGoogle Scholar s.v. ‘Slave Revolts and crucifixion’, ‘slaves and crucifixion’ and Cook, Crucifixion, 548 s.v. servile supplicium. For Macrobius (the one possible exception), see § 6 below.

15 Plautus, Poen. 347. Cf. Chapman and Schnabel, Crucifixion, 713–53 on such taunts.

16 Plautus, Most. 55–57, trans. modified of de Melo, Plautus, iii.323 (who has ‘hangman’ for carnifex). ‘carnufices’ is a reasonable conjecture where there is a lacuna in the MS.

17 van Wingerden, ‘Carrying a patibulum’, 442. Although he (ibid., 441 n. 47) refers to the OLD, s.v. patibulatus for the lemma ‘fastened to a yoke or gibbet’ and (P. Gatti, ‘patibulatus’,) ThLL x/1.706(.40–1) ‘i.q. patibulo affixus’ he fails to translate the expression (fixed to a patibulum/horizontal bar) in accordance with Gatti's general approach to the meaning of patibulum. He does not engage the arguments for crucifixion of Chapman and Schnabel, Trial, 565–6.

18 Cf. the index in Cook, Crucifixion, 547–8 s.v. ‘patibulum’, ‘patibulatus’.

19 Cf. Gatti, ‘patibulum’, ThLL x/1.706.70–75 and Cook, Crucifixion, 547–8 s.v. ‘patibulum: pars pro toto’.

20 See OLD s.v. §b.

21 forabunt, ‘pierce’, refers to the actions of the goads, not nailing. Cp. Lucretius 1019 adhibet stimulos torretque flagellis (applies goads and torments with scourges).

22 On scourging and crucifixion, cf. Chapman and Schnabel, Trial, 866 s.v. ‘scourging and flogging’; Cook, Crucifixion, 547 s.v. ‘flogging’.

23 See R. Meister, ‘carnifex’, ThLL iii.478.1–479.47.

24 Meister, ‘carnifex’, 478.9–10. See H. F. Hitzig, ‘carnifex’, PW iii (1899) 1599–1600. Hitzig notes that originally the carnifex was responsible only for the crucifixion of slaves (Bacch. 687–8 cruciatum … carnuficem, Capt. 1099 ad carnuficem dabo ‘I will give him to the carnifex’ (the slave Stalagmus to be executed for kidnapping, almost certainly by crucifixion)). cruciatum does not necessarily refer to crucifixion, however. Cf. O. Hey, ‘cruciatus’, ThLL iv.1218.52–1220.54. See ibid., 1218.63–4 ‘cruciatus est quivis dolor asper et vehemens sive corporis sive animi …’ (cruciatus is ‘anyone in bitter and vehement pain either of the body or the soul’). On executions before the Esquiline gate, Hitzig mentions Tacitus, Ann. 2.32.3, Plautus, Pseud. 330–2, and Suetonius, Claud. 25.3.

25 Meister, ‘carnifex’, 479.10.

26 Plautus, Asin. 311, 482, 697, 892; Bacch. 688, 785, 876; Poen. 369, 1302; Cist. 384; Capt. 597 (pix atra agitet); Rud. 322, 778, 857; Amph. 376, 422, 518, 588; Merc. 618; Most. 1114; Persa 547, 747; Pseud. 707, 950.

27 van Wingerden, ‘Carrying a patibulum’, 443–4.

28 T. J. Cornell, general ed., The Fragments of the Roman Historians. Vol. i. Introduction, Vol. ii. Texts and Translations, Vol. iii. Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), i.482–3 (introductory comments on Clodius Licinus by S. P. Oakley), ii.924–7 (testimonia and fragments; edited by Oakley), iii.560–3 (commentary and discussion of deligata ad patibulos deligantur … by Oakley). Cf. van Wingerden, ‘Carrying a patibulum’, 444, n. 6.

29 C. Clodius Licinus frag. 3, text and trans. (slightly revised) from Oakley in Cornell, Fragments, ii.926–7 (Oakley uses ‘gibbet’ for patibulum, following the OLD). Cf. Cook, Crucifixion, 453–5. For an analysis of patibulum as a horizontal beam, cf. Gatti, ‘patibulum’, ThLL x/1.706.48–708.30 and Cook, ibid, 16–34.

30 For the evidence from the MSS and the various conjectures, cf. Oakley, Fragments, 2.926.

31 Clodius Licinus frag. 1 (Oakley, Fragments, ii.924) with commentary in ibid., iii.560–1. Cf. Cook, Crucifixion, 161–3 for crucifixions during the Second Punic War.

32 Van Wingerden, ‘Carrying a patibulum’, 448.

33 Information on the lex may be found in Cook, Crucifixion, 370–86 and n. 34. The stone is now displayed in a small and beautifully lit room in the Museo Archeologico dei Campi Flegrei.

34 F. Hinard and J. C. Dumont, ed., Libitina: Pompes funèbres et supplices en Campanie à l’époque d'Auguste (Paris: De Boccard, 2003) 18 app. crit.: patibul(um) Bove, Moreau; patibul(atum) Bodel, Dumont. They (18) leave patibul(...) in their edition. S. Panciera, ed., Libitina e dintorni … (Libitina 3; Rome: Quasar, 2004) 40, 49 (patibul(um)), 49 n. 23 ‘patibul(atum) Bodel’. Castagnetti, Le ‘leges libitinariae’ flegree, 13, 26 patibul(o). In his interpretation the slave is taken to the cross with the workers carrying the patibulum. He notes (179–80): past participles in the lex otherwise only omit the case endings.

35 Communication of 6 October 2021. See especially Hinard and Dumont, Libitina, Plates 4–5 for ii.9.

36 Castagnetti, Le ‘leges libitinariae’ flegree, 26: ‘if he wishes that he come to be put on the cross, with a patibulum’.

37 I owe these two formulations to John Bodel (communication of 1 December 2021).

38 Iulius Paris, Epit. 1.7.4 (BiTeu Valerius Maximus ii, 652,14–15 Briscoe).

39 Suetonius, Cal. 12.2.

40 Cicero, Ver. 2.5.165.

41 Cicero, Ver. 2.5.164.

42 Cicero, Ver. 2.5.163.

43 Cicero, Ver. 2.5.170. ‘Some one obscure individual’ from R. G. C. Levens, Cicero: The Fifth Verrine Oration (London: Methuen, 1946) 162.

44 Cicero, Fin. 5.92. A description of Polycrates.

45 Seneca, Con. 7.6.6; trans. of Winterbottom, Seneca the Elder, Declamations, 2.125.

46 Cicero, Fin. 5.84.

47 Petronius 53.3.

48 Calpurnius, Decl. 17.

49 Calpurnius, Decl. 23.

50 Calpurnius, Decl. 33.

51 Livius 22.33.1–2.

52 Orosius, Hist. 5.9.4.

53 Cicero, Clu. 187.

54 Valerius Maximus 8.4.2.

55 Orosius, Hist. 6.18.33.

56 SHA Septimius Severus 4.3.

57 Lucian, Peregr. 34. Cp. Luke 23.27: Ἠκολούθɛι δὲ αὐτῷ πολὺ πλῆθος τοῦ λαοῦ καὶ γυναικῶν.

58 Dionysius Halicarnassus, Ant. Rom. 12.6.6.

59 Photius, Codex 94 Bekker 78a; text of Photius, Bibliothèque. Tome ii (‘Codices’ 84–185) (ed. R. Henry; Collection Byzantine; Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1960) 47. Trans. mod. of Stephens, Susan A. and Winkler, John J., Ancient Greek Novels: The Fragments. Introduction, Text, Translation, and Commentary (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995) 198CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

60 Photius, Codex 94 Bekker 78a (47 Henry).

61 Photius, Codex 94 Bekker 78a (47 Henry).

62 Ps. Callisthenes, Historia Alexandri Magni (recensio α) 1.37.4 (W. Kroll, ed., Historia Alexandri Magni (Berlin: Weidmann, 1926) 42.23–4).

63 See H. Rubenbauer ‘furca’, ThLL vi/1.1609.59–1610.82 and Cook, Crucifixion, 37–44.

64 See H. Rubenbauer, ‘furcifer’, ThLL vi/1.1610.84–1611.36. Cf. the description of the punishment in Donatus, Ad Terenti Andr. 618.2 (BiTeu 192 Wessner = BiTeu 199 Cioffi) with a parallel in Isidore, Orig. 10.108.

65 Livy 2.36.1; Cicero, Div. 1.55; Valerius Maximus 1.7.4; Dionysius Halicarnassus, Ant. rom. 7.69.2.

66 Cf. Cook, Crucifixion, 24–5, 38–9 and van Wingerden, ‘Carrying a patibulum’ 450–2. In Valerius Maximus 1.7.4 he is executed.

67 Cp. Lactantius, Div. 2.7.20–1 verberatum servum sub furca medio circo ad supplicium duxerat (‘he led a slave being beaten “under the furca” through the middle of the circus to execution’), Augustine, Civ. 4.26 (BiTeu i, 178,19–20 Dombart/Kalb) … quod primo eorum die in quodam scelerato, qui populo spectante ad supplicium duci iussus est … imperium (‘on the first day of the games, in the case of a criminal who had been condemned to death while the crowd watched, a command …’), and Arnobius 7.39 (no mention of the furca): servum pessime meritum per circi aream mediam transduxisse caesum virgis et ex more multasse post patibuli poena (‘(he) led a slave who merited the worst through the middle of the circus, beaten with rods, and according to custom punished him with the penalty of the patibulum’).

68 Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.11.3 (= ThLL x/1.707.28), 1.11.5 (= ThLL x/1.707.38–39). Trans. of Macrobius, Saturnalia (2 vols.; LCL; ed. and trans. R. A. Kaster; Cambridge, 2011) i.111–3 (he uses ‘gibbet’ for patibulum).

69 Van Wingerden, ‘Carrying a patibulum’, 452 argues that a ‘crucifixion context is missing’, but the mention of σταυρός does imply crucifixion, and Iulius Paris and Arnobius explicitly mention crucifixion.

70 Livy 2.36.1. Cp. Valerius Maximus 1.7.4.

71 Cicero, Div. 1.55.

72 Plautus, Cas. 438, trans. of de Melo, Plautus, ii.59 (who has ‘fork’, here and in the examples below).

73 Plautus Cist. 248, trans. of de Melo, Plautus, ii.159.

74 Plautus, Cas. 389.

75 Plautus, Men. 943, trans. of de Melo, Plautus, ii.523.

76 Horace, Serm. 2.7.66.

77 Plautus, Pers. 855–855a, trans. of de Melo, Plautus, iii.557.

78 Rubenbauer, ‘furcifer’, has many examples.

79 Plautus, Mil. glor. 359–60.

80 C. Clodius Licinus frag. 3.

81 Plautus, Most. 55–57.

82 Plautus, Carbonaria frag. 2.

83 Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.11.3.

84 Valerius Maximus 9.2.3.

85 SHA Tyranni Triginta 29.3–4 (Trebellius Pollio), trans. of Historia Augusta (3 vols.; LCL; ed. and trans. D. Magie, Cambridge,: Harvard University Press 1921–32) iii.133.

86 Seneca, frag. 124 (BiTeu 42, Haase).

87 Seneca, Dial. 6.20.3.

88 Seneca, Dial. 7.19.3.

89 Apuleius, Met. 4.10.3–4 (F (Laurentianus 68.2 saec. xi) patibulum; patibulatum cj. Scaliger: cf. SCBO, 77 Zimmerman); trans. Apuleius, Metamorphoses. Book iv, 1-2 (trans., intro., and comm. B. L. Hijmans; Groningen: Bouma, 1977) 83 (patibulum as a play on beam for a cross and bar for doors).

90 Apuleius, Met. 10.12.4.

91 Tacitus, Hist. 4.3.2.

92 Sallustius, Hist. 3 = Nonius Marcellus, De comp. doctr. iv (BiTeu 2, 582 Lindsay), frag. 9 (the MSS have improbi).

93 Firmicus Maternus, Mathesis 6.31.58. Van Wingerden, ‘Carrying a patibulum’, 449–50 incorrectly argues, ‘it is uncertain that it reflects the Roman practice of crucifixion (which might have been abolished by the time Firmicus wrote)’. The Mathesis can be securely dated between 334–337 ce, and a Roman senator like Firmicus would have been familiar with a Roman practice that had only recently been abolished. Cultural memory does not disappear overnight (cf. the evidence in Cook, Crucifixion, 398–416; e.g., Aurelius Victor (ca 360 ce)). On the date, cf. S. Gersh, ‘12 Firmicus Maternus (Iulius) RE 11’, Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques (ed. R. Goulet, Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 2000) iii.423–5.

94 Tacitus, Ann. 1.61.4.

95 Tacitus, Ann. 4.72.3.

96 Tacitus, Ann. 14.33.2.

97 Apuleius, Met. 6.31.1.

98 Cicero, Ver. 2.4.90.

99 Seneca, Ep. 101.12.

100 Apuleius, Met. 6.32.31 (she is to be sewn inside a dead ass).

101 Codex Theodosianus 9.5.1 = CIL iii, 12043 = InscCret i (Lyttos), 188 and CIL v, 2781. Cf. Cook, Crucifixion, 395.

102 Orosius 5.9.6.

103 Aurelius Victor, Hist. abbrev. 41.4.

104 Chariton, Chaer. 4.2.7.

105 Chariton, Chaer. 4.3.10.

106 Plutarch, Sera 554a.

107 Artemidorus, Onir. 2.56.

108 Lucian, Jud. voc. 12. Chapman and Schnabel, Trial, 310–12 unjustifiably doubt the Lucianic authorship. Cf. Swain, S., Hellenism and Empire: Language, Classicism, and Power in the Greek World, AD 50–250 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1996) 48Google Scholar. On the synecdoche, cf. Cook, Crucifixion, 28–32.

109 These facts are important for the reconstruction of patibul(…) in the lex Puteolana in § 4.

110 Samuelsson, G., Crucifixion in Antiquity: An Inquiry into the Background of the New Testament Terminology of Crucifixion (WUNT 2/310; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2 2013) 237–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

111 Cf. Plautus's dispessis manibus in § 2, Seneca's extendendae per patibulum manus and brachia patibulo explicuerunt in § 7, and Artemidorus, Onir. 1.76 τὴν τῶν χɛιρῶν ἔκτασιν (‘the stretching out of the hands’). For a defense of that interpretation (and ref. to some who disagree), which is also supported by the parallelism between 21.19 and 12.33, 18.32, see W. Bauer, Das Johannesevangelium (HNT 6; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 31933) 238–9, H.-W. Kuhn, ‘Die Kreuzesstrafe während der frühen Kaiserzeit. Ihre Wirklichkeit und Wertung in der Umwelt des Urchristentums’, ANRW ii/25.1 (1982) 648–793, at 699, J.-M. Prieur, Das Kreuz in der christlichen Literatur der Antike (Bern et al.: Peter Lang, 2006) 210, M. M. Thompson, John: A Commentary (NTL; Louisville: John Knox, 2015) 443, and J. G. Cook, ‘The Tradition of Peter's Crucifixion’, in: Talking God in Society: Multidisciplinary (Re)constructions of Ancient (Con)texts. Festschrift Peter Lampe (vol. 1; ed. U. E. Eisen and H. E. Mader; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2021) 733–51.

112 I take this formulation from a reviewer who also notes that the Chariton novel relies on the reader recognizing the patibulum-carrying as a readily accepted literary device.

113 Matt 10.38, 16.24, Mark 8.34, Luke 9.23, 14.27 (crucifixions of Christians seem to have been infrequent after the Neronian executions until the Great Persecution). For the crucifixions during Nero's imperium, cf. Cook, J. G. ‘Chrestiani, Christiani, Χριστιανοί: A Second Century Anachronism?’ VC 74 (2020) 237–264CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Coleman, K. M., ‘“Informers” on Parade’, The Art of Ancient Spectacle (ed. Bergmann, B. and Kondoleon, C.; Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1999) 231–45Google Scholar, at 232–4 investigates several examples of processions (e.g., Suetonius, Tit. 8.5, Martial, Sp. 4, Pliny, Pan. 34.1) of delatores (informers) that are comparable to the spectacle I am portraying.

114 Martial, Sp. 9(7).3–6. Trans. of M. Valerii Martialis Liber Spectaculorum (edited with introduction, translation, and commentary by K. M. Coleman; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006) 82–96, at 82.

115 Communication of 4 Oct. 2021. On these images, cf. Harley-McGowan, F., ‘The Alexamenos Graffito’, The Reception of Jesus in the First Three Centuries (vol. 3; ed. Keith, C., Bond, H., and Schröter;, J. London/New York: T&T Clark, 2019) 105–40Google Scholar and Cook, Crucifixion, 540 index.

116 I take the formulation about the town dwellers from John Bodel (communication of 1 December 2021).