What in the world could be more consistent and powerful than the human desire to establish justice? Only the fact that in most cases behind the thirst for justice lies simple cruelty, perversion, and the need to prove one’s power over others. When the source of this justice possesses great authority, that’s truly frightening.
Plenty of examples come from the Roman Empire. Rome was the largest and wealthiest empire of its time and its society was drowning in hedonism which is why its main problem was a lack of entertainment, a lack of spectacle. They solved this problem in a rather radical way. “Damnatio ad bestias,” translated as condemnation to the beasts, was a death sentence in which the condemned were led into the arena and released to the mercy of wild animals such as tigers, leopards, lions, panthers, bears, and even bulls.
Typically, damnatio ad bestias was used against certain kinds of offenders: counterfeits, political criminals, deserters, poisoners, and kidnappers. Originally, this punishment was borrowed by the Romans from Carthage. In its earliest form, those sentenced were tied to a post and left exposed to wild animals. Over time, the Romans reshaped this method of execution to suit their tastes, turning it into more of a circus performance. And if you’re picturing a gladiatorial arena where a lion stands on one side and a criminal armed like a bestiarius gladiator stands on the other, that was not the case. For the person in the ring, the situation was far more terrifying.
The Roman philosopher Seneca the Younger once described one of his visits to the arena as a filthy and bloody massacre that was not able to satisfy his appetite for spectacle and only caused disappointment and disgust. The condemned were brought out into the arena without any equipment and sometimes with no clothing at all. After all, this was an execution, which meant survival was never an option. Animals were often released in pairs or even groups, making the show more engaging. When the animals finished with the condemned, they sometimes turned on each other, keeping the audience entertained. They were often kept without food for long stretches of time to heighten their hunger on the day of execution.
The most horrifying part was that lions and other predators rarely gave a quick end, instead creating a drawn out and terrifying spectacle for the audience. Bulls inflicted just as much cruelty. Each bull brought into the arena was a ferocious animal that had been provoked daily to build up maximum rage toward humans. The result was a violent and humiliating end for those sent against them. Today we can still witness the savagery and fury of bulls in Spanish bull fights where injuries and even deaths are not uncommon. At times these executions were staged as elaborate theater performances with props and decorations. For example, for the execution of Selurus, a bandit leader who lived near Mount Etna, a platform was built over a cage filled with animals.
Selurus climbed onto the platform as if ascending a volcano, which then collapsed, plunging him into the cage as though it were the volcano’s crater. His end was staged as a symbolic fall into the jaws of justice. In addition to the way Selurus met his fate, there was another curious and spectacular performance, the execution of a bandit by the name of Laureolus. In the “Book of Spectacles,” the Roman poet Martial described it as a theatrical reenactment of the eternal torment of Prometheus. Laureolus was nailed to a cross and a bear was released upon him. The scene ended in a grim finale underscored by birds of prey completing the symbolism of his punishment. In addition to punishing actual criminals and traitors, damnatio ad bestias was also used by the Romans as a tool to punish those whose religion was considered false, namely Christians.
This method of execution was popularized by the emperor Nero and continued from the 1st to the 3rd centuries AD. In its original form, the execution of Christians differed somewhat from the classical damnatio ad bestias. The condemned were sewn into animal skins and then attacked by dogs. Besides damnatio ad bestias, the Romans also used animals in another form of public execution known as “Poena Cullei.” In essence, both involved the use of animals, but Poena Cullei was less public and more sacred in Roman eyes. The key difference was that instead of the spacious circus arena, the victim of Poena Cullei was confined to a sack. Unlike damnatio ad bestias, Poena Cullei was not used against Christians since they were the ones to popularize it after the Roman Empire adopted their religion.
Since families served as the foundation of everything in the Roman Empire, the harshest punishments were reserved for those who dared to violate its values. In this case, the penalty was for committing the gravest sin of all, parricide: the killing of the father. The gist of this execution method was as follows. The person sentenced to this punishment was sewn shut into a sack with animals that might include a snake, a dog, a monkey, or a rooster. Once the sack was sealed, it was thrown into the water. The condemned was left to struggle in complete chaos, surrounded by frightened animals before eventually drowning.
This punishment was deliberately designed to be long and frightening, forcing the condemned to face both fear and guilt in their final moments. Later, this punishment was revived to be used in medieval Europe, for example, in France. In the European interpretation, the animals were not chosen at random, but symbolized aspects of the committed crime. The snake represented the psychological torment and grief of the victims and criminal’s families. The rooster symbolized the crime embodying audacity. The dog represented the criminal’s in their blindness expressed as a lack of respect for family. The monkey symbolized the criminals themselves, their foolishness and only a mere resemblance to being human.
In essence, the symbolism stripped the murderer of dignity, reducing them to the level of an animal. Around the same time, Poena Cullei was modified specifically for Jewish people. In certain cases, instead of sewing a person into a sack with animals, the execution was made more public. The condemned, together with several dogs, were suspended upside down from a crossbeam in a public square. The desperate movements of the animals turned the punishment into a chaotic and terrifying spectacle for the crowd. The use of animals and executions was also practiced in ancient Egypt. But though the Egyptians did not stage executions as theatrical performances, still their punishments were just as brutal: execution by crocodiles.
The list of crimes that warranted this punishment was much shorter than the one the Romans used, containing only two: murder and kidnapping. Although the Egyptians were not showmen like the Romans, their process of enacting justice was still public. Murderers were first subjected to public humiliation and psychological torment, then thrown to crocodiles. As for kidnappers, execution wasn’t the immediate resort. For a first offense, the criminal was flogged and fined to compensate for the victim’s suffering. But if caught again, they were sentenced to death by being thrown to crocodiles. The true horror of this punishment was that crocodiles rarely killed instantly.
You can imagine for yourself what such an encounter might mean for a person and why it was considered one of the most terrifying ends in the ancient world. Death by crocodile was not the only punishment for murder. In particularly severe cases such as killing a firstborn son or daughter or parricide, a special penalty was used: the killer was tied to the corpse of the person they had murdered for 3 days, forced to remain in constant contact with the body. After that, they were executed by burning. A similar method involving corpses was used by the Etruscans. The condemned was bound tightly to the corpse of their victim, arranged so that every part of their bodies was pressed together face to face. Then the pair was paraded through the streets until the criminal collapsed from exhaustion still tied to the body.
The Etruscans borrowed this form of punishment from pirates who called it “marriage to a corpse” and used it to torment captives. Sometimes the cruelty was extended by providing food and water to the condemned, keeping them alive longer while bound to the corpse. Like the Etruscans, the Persians also practiced long and elaborate executions. You’ve probably heard of the punishment known as scaphism. Scaphism was the highest and most brutal form of punishment in ancient Persia. The purpose of this execution was not only to kill the condemned, but to subject them to extended and most excruciating suffering, which eventually led to their demise.
The execution began with peculiar preparations. The victim was stripped, forced to drink large amounts of milk, and fed honey. Their body was then smeared with honey as well. Then the person sentenced to this punishment was tied up and placed inside a boat or hollowed log which was then covered with another boat or log. The objective was to create a narrow enclosed space with minimal air circulation. This boat structure was then set afloat, usually on a small stagnant lake or pond. In rare cases where there was no access to water, it was left on land in a spot where the sun would heat the surface as much as possible.
Because of the excessive amounts of milk and honey ingested earlier, the prisoner quickly developed uncontrollable diarrhea. The torment could have ended here since lying in a suffocating sauna covered in one’s own waste was already enough to break a person both physically and mentally. Between the high heat and the lack of oxygen, it would already be challenging to last very long, but this was far from being finished. There were small gaps deliberately left between the two boats, not enough to allow fresh air in, but enough for odor to escape. The stench of honey mixed with human waste attracted wasps, flies, mosquitoes, and other insects, which were plentiful in stagnant waters. This was precisely why scaphism was carried out in these kinds of locations.
The insects that arrived for the feast fed both on the excrement and on the honey covering the condemned. Once the honey was gone, they turned to the prisoner’s exposed skin, creating painful wounds where they also laid their eggs. In these horrific conditions, covered in filth, attacked by insects, and suffering from spreading infections, the person inside slowly died of gangrene, exhaustion, and septic shock. But sometimes death took longer than a few days or even a week. In certain cases, the floating coffin was hauled out of the water while the prisoner was still alive, not to relieve their suffering, but to prolong it. They were given food and drink, then set back to continue the ordeal. The aim was to stretch the torment as long as possible and delay the moment of death that the victim of this punishment longed for.
There were no specific crimes that were a prerequisite for this punishment. Scaphism was more of a reflection of the personal hatred Persian rulers felt for those they subjected to it. For example, the courtier Aspamithres was executed this way after betraying his king and taking part in his murder. Another victim was Mithridates, the soldier who killed Cyrus, the younger brother of Artaxerxes II, during the war for the throne. The ruler wanted to claim the killing of his brother for himself, and so he got rid of every witness. And yet, such elaborate measures were not always necessary to inflict maximum suffering. With enough imagination, a torture device can even be found in an open field. When speaking of the most brutal executions, one cannot omit the Slavic tribes, especially those who lived in territories of modern Ukraine.
They managed to add their own unique spin on one of the simplest and most widespread executions in the world: impalement. Instead of vertically impaling a person on a stake or driving a stake into the body and raising it upright, they performed the entire process horizontally. The stake was placed in the ground at an angle, all secured horizontally at a low height. The tied-up criminal was placed some distance away with each leg bound with separate ropes and attached to oxen. Once everything was ready, the oxen were driven forward. Slowly, they dragged the victim closer and closer to their inevitable and agonizing death. During this drawn out process, the condemned, fully aware of what awaited them, had time to reflect on their crimes, while the crowd observed their desperate resistance.
When the body finally made contact with the stake, the pain was immediate and overwhelming, and it only intensified with time, while the crowd often reacted with cruel amusement. This type of death could last for several hours and the victim ultimately died from blood loss. The only possible relief was losing consciousness from the shock. Sometimes the animals used in this execution also fell victim to the process. According to Herodotus, the Scythians living in what is now Ukraine had a special punishment for deceitful seers and sorcerers. A wagon drawn by oxen was loaded to the brim with brushwood. With their feet tied together and arms bound behind their back, the seers were thrown into the pile of brushwood, which was then set on fire.
The oxen were whipped into a frenzy, pulling the burning cart, which often resulted in bulls perishing in the flames along with the condemned. Sometimes, if the drawbar burned through, the oxen escaped with severe burns. Few deaths can compare to being burned alive, especially when first packed into a narrow cart with others sentenced to the same fate, then buried under heaps of branches and brushwood. As the fire grew, the condemned slowly roasted beneath the burning wood until the flames consumed the body entirely. In time, the Scythians left their lands, but they left a large cultural legacy in the form of burial mounds, gold artifacts, and stone idols. The last of these later became instruments of execution among the Slavic peoples in a punishment called “the marriage.”
First, the condemned was tied by the legs between two horses. The riders spurred them into a gallop straight towards a “stone bride.” At full speed, the prisoner was smashed groin-first against the stone at 25 to 30 mph, suffering catastrophic injuries to the lower body. Most who endured this execution died within hours or days from blood loss or shock. Those who somehow survived were left crippled for the rest of their limited life, which in those times amounted to a slow death sentence. The Slavic tribes also borrowed punishments and execution methods from their neighbors, including the Vikings, whom they called Varangians. One of them was the walk around the tree, also known in Scandinavian tradition as the “fatal walk.”
This was usually carried out for severe crimes such as mass murder, looting, or religious offenses against the gods. The prisoner’s hands were tied to prevent resistance. Then their abdomen was cut open and a section of the intestines was pulled out. The cut end was nailed to a tree and the condemned was forced to walk around it, slowly winding the gut around the trunk. They continued until they collapsed from blood loss and agony. All until the entire intestine, which on average measures 7 to 9 meters, was wound around the tree. The most horrifying part of this punishment was the awareness the condemned witnessed their own body being turned into part of the execution scene while enduring the pain that intensified with every movement.
In this scenario, death came within several hours as the person slowly bled out in unbearable agony. In general, the use of the surrounding environment was a common occurrence in torture and execution methods. However, in some cases, the resources were too scarce even for survival, forcing people to be mindful of their use. But this did not eliminate the need to punish those who had gravely transgressed. Life in harsh climate conditions requires a high level of self-control from an individual and a higher level of unity and teamwork within the community. The Siberian peoples who lived in Siberia, particularly in its northern part, where the average winter temperature is -22 Fahrenheit and sometimes drops even lower to -96 Fahrenheit, had always been this way.
At temperatures like these, boiling water poured from a cup instantly turns into snow and sweat or tears freeze within seconds. At temperatures below -58 Fahrenheit, even Arctic wolves and other animals adapted to extreme cold could simply freeze to death in the snowy wasteland. People living in this type of climate had a very meager diet that consisted of roots, reindeer meat, fish, and occasional berries. This meant that each member of the tribe was allocated a strict amount of resources, and everyone had to work for the common good. But what if someone in the tribe committed a crime and stole food or killed a fellow tribesman? There had to be some sort of punitive measure, and it had to serve as both a warning to others and a guarantee that the perpetrator would never repeat the offense. Yet, Siberians faced a problem.
Every tool and consumable resource was worth its weight in gold. So, an execution had to be as simple as possible using the environment itself, namely the severe temperatures and snow. Most often for serious offenses, a person was simply banished from the tribe and sent out into the snowy wilderness to fend for themselves. Exiled, they usually died of hypothermia after walking a dozen km at best, thanks to warm clothing and a small amount of food. This punishment was essentially a death sentence, but it gave the person at least a theoretical chance of survival. But if a person had committed a very grave crime such as murder, then no chances were given. The condemned would be taken far from the settlement on a sled, stripped naked, doused with cold water, and left in that state.
Anyone who’s ever experienced frostbite on their hands or face in winter can roughly imagine what happens in such conditions. At -22 Fahrenheit, severe frostbite sets in within minutes. Shivering begins, limbs go numb, and a sharp tingling sensation spreads across the body. At -96 Fahrenheit, without proper gear, death came even faster. The skin and extremities froze almost instantly, producing damage comparable to burns. As freezing deepened, tissues hardened, pain intensified, and the body began to shut down. Then in an attempt to adapt, the body generated more heat by burning through every reserve. Shivering and tingling subsided, creating a false sense of relief. Numbness spread. Drowsiness set in, breathing slowed, and dizziness began. Eventually, the person collapsed into the snow and drifted into unconsciousness, never to wake again, preserved by the permafrost like an ice sculpture.
Not too far from Siberia, practically next door, Japan also featured the use of climate and natural features as a method of execution. But unlike the ancient Siberian peoples, the Japanese did not sentence criminals to this fate, but ordinary Christians who refused to abandon their faith. The practice of using volcanoes for executions took place on the Shimabara Peninsula where Mount Unzen is located. What made this volcano unique is that it has hot springs with a high level of acidity roughly equal to that of hydrochloric acid or stomach acid. Moreover, the temperature in these springs ranges from 104 to 140 Fahrenheit, which enhances their acidic properties. This combination of acidity and heat allows the springs to easily dissolve flesh, bone, and even iron.
The Japanese used this feature to punish Christians who refused to adopt another faith. Those who were especially stubborn were tied up and thrown into the hot springs. Due to high heat and acidity, the human body was being digested alive, leading to a horrifyingly painful and slow death. The victim’s skin was quickly covered in severe burns, which exposed deeper tissue to the acid and heat. In an attempt to scream and escape the scorching water, the person swallowed it, causing further internal burns and silencing their cries until their voice turned to something inhuman. In these conditions, the body’s organs began to fail under the combined effect of heat and acid, and shock soon set in. Although the torture itself lasted only a few dozen minutes, the pain felt like an eternity.
Looking back at history, it becomes clear that the followers of the Christian religion were persecuted in many cultures different from their own. But what is most surprising is that the Christian suffering was not limited to foreign lands. It occurred even in the very places where Christianity originated. Crucifixion is perhaps one of the most famous and probably feared tortures in history. This is not surprising because Jesus Christ was executed by that very method. So therefore, the crucifixion acquired a strong religious connotation and began to be considered in Christianity not as torture for the personal crimes of an individual but as punishment for the sins of all mankind. And although the crucifixion gained its fame thanks to the Roman Empire, this method of execution was not invented by the Romans.
It like many executions from our list was actively used during the time of the Assyrian Empire and later was adopted by Babylon, the Persians, the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians. The latter passed on the knowledge of this execution to the Romans. To some extent, crucifixion could be called a kind of impalement because the basis of this execution was also the piercing of the condemned body. In addition, it like impalement was aimed not so much at punishing a particular criminal as at intimidating the public. Crucifixion was usually carried out as a public execution and in its classical form was carried out according to a special procedure. First, the convict was beaten with a whip after which he or she was forced to carry the crossbar of the cross to the place of the execution.
Upon arrival, a person was placed on a crossbar so that the upper part of his or her back rested against it and his or her arms were spread apart and either tied to a board or nailed. After that, the crossbar with the person was lifted to a height of approximately 9 to 12 feet and fixed on a vertical support. There is a special ledge on it which the convict’s feet were placed, nailing or tying them to the cross. In some cases, the condemned person could die during the flogging stage, especially if whips with bone or lead tips were used. If the crucifixion took place on a hot day, fluid loss from sweating combined with blood loss from the flogging and injuries could lead to death from hypovolemic shock. If the execution occurred on a cold day, the condemned could die from hypothermia.
However, the primary causes of death were not the injuries from the nails or the bleeding. The position of the body during crucifixion caused a gradual and painful process of asphyxiation. The intercostal muscles and diaphragm involved in the breathing process gradually fatigued and weakened. Given the prolonged nature of the execution, after a while, the victim was simply unable to breathe. But sometimes the moment of death was hastened by breaking the condemned person’s legs with an iron club, forcing them to hang solely by their arms. Also in some cases people were immediately nailed to a finishing cross lying on the ground and the entire structure was lifted into an upright position with the help of ropes or instead of a cross only one wooden support could be used.
In this case the hands were nailed to a pole above the head. Interestingly in Carthage crucifixion was used as a method of execution for the generals and politicians. That method of execution was often used as punishment for betrayal, defeat in battle or political mistakes. Keelhauling is a very inventive method of torture known since the time of the ancient Greeks. In the Rhodian maritime code “Lex Rhodia” of 700 BC, this penalty was used as a punishment for piracy. In the 17th century, this method became popular thanks to the British and Dutch who applied it to the sailors who stole or attacked their colleagues. The essence of the torture was as follows.
One end of the rope was tied to the hands of the criminal. The other end was thrown overboard and tied to the legs. When the victim was firmly tied up, he was stretched across the ship with the rope so that his back or stomach touched the keel of the ship. In this form, the criminal was dragged along the keel along the entire underwater part of the ship. The procedure could be repeated several times depending on the severity of the fault. By the way, the Dutch were not in a hurry to end the victim’s torment, and after each lap, they gave the offender the opportunity to rest in order to restore the feeling of pain, which he really often lost during the procedure.
It often ended with death or the person was left with severe injuries incompatible with life. In the first case, the person simply drowned due to a long stay underwater. In the second, he bled out due to multiple cuts received from shells and sharp polyps on the ship’s bottom. Perhaps the most striking example took place in 1673 when Cornelis Evertsen the Youngest punished sailors for murder. That was an official although rare punishment in the Dutch Navy as illustrated by the painting “The Keelhauling of the Ship’s Surgeon of Admiral Jan van Nes.” The painting depicts a large crowd gathered to watch the events which was a showpiece punishment meant to intimidate other potential criminals similar to flogging throughout the fleet.
There is evidence that such an execution was used in Britain right up to the end of the 19th century. In 1880, George Shaw-Lefevre in Parliament came across a recent report from Italy on the keelhauling on the British battleship HMS Alexandra and denied that such an incident had taken place. It is terrible to even imagine the feeling that the sailors experienced during this execution. But an even more terrible feeling was experienced by the victims of bamboo torture. That very execution gave the victim an incredibly long and painful death. Bamboo torture is the most eco-friendly execution that has ever existed in the history of mankind. But at the same time, it can be attributed to one of the most cruel and painful executions.
It was used in India, China, and Japan. In the last one, it was especially popular. The procedure was extremely simple. The convict was placed in a tied horizontal position at a low height above the shoots of young bamboo or tied to a tree in an upright position. After that, they simply left the victim like that for several days. The execution was based on the unique property of bamboo: rapid growth. Its growth rate is so great that it is measured in centimeters per hour. Namely, in just 1 hour, some species of this plant can grow by as much as 1.5 inches. During the day, a small sprout reaches a size of 35 inches. These figures correspond to the ideal growth conditions of bamboo.
In reality, it can grow a little slower and especially if a human body is hanging over it. But still, the growth rate is quite enough to use it as an instrument of execution. On average, in a couple of days, the stem had already reached the convict’s body and began to slowly pierce the skin. At the same time, the top of the bamboo was specially sharpened so that the plant could more effectively pierce the victim’s body. It has been impossible for the victim to break the stem or change the direction of its growth because bamboo is very durable. Besides, tightly bound limbs have severely limited mobility. Death most often occurred from loss of blood, but particularly unlucky and persistent victims of execution could remain alive and conscious even when the bamboo passed through the body.
Death was not always the goal. In some cases, bamboo was used as a means of torture and interrogation of criminals. In this case, bamboo shoots were specially placed in places where after growth, it would not touch vital organs and would not cause severe bleeding, for example, in the area of the forearms or shins. Thanks to this, torture could be carried out for days without the necessity to involve an executioner in the work because nature would do everything by itself. In historical records, this method of torture and execution was first mentioned in the 19th century. Also in the memoirs of “Hakka Soul,” the Chinese poet and writer Wu Ping-chu, it is written that the Japanese military sometimes used bamboo as an instrument of torture against captured soldiers, which the Chinese population believed in.
However, many historians doubt that the bamboo execution actually existed. We still incline to believe that it took place. We can make the following arguments in favor of this. Firstly, the population of Asia has historically been very religious and the main focus of religion rested on patron gods of wildlife. And secondly, wood unlike bamboo was in short supply, especially in Japan. And similar impaling executions existed all over the world. And it is very likely that in the East they came up with their own analog with bamboo. Due to these factors, it can be assumed that such an execution was still practiced. And bamboo torture is actually only a small part of a huge family of executions in which although it is not the most cruel and bloody, it is definitely the longest.
Impalement is one of the most ancient and popular forms of execution in history. It has been known since the time of Mesopotamia and was officially enshrined in the Code of Hammurabi which we mentioned at the beginning of this video. According to this code, impalement was condemned, for example, to women who killed their husbands for the sake of another man. Also, captured soldiers could be executed in a similar way. Later, impalement became a popular method of execution in many cultures and states. For example, the Greek historian Herodotus pointed out in his notes that the Persian king Darius having captured Babylon sentenced 3,000 Babylonians to impalement.
Later, this execution became very popular in medieval history. Just remember Ivan the Terrible and Vlad the Impaler. These guys liked to use that kind of execution. Both transversal and longitudinal impalement were used as the main types of execution. The difference between these two methods is that when the victim was cross-impaled on a stake with his stomach or chest so that the tip of the stake came out from the back. In the longitudinal case, the convict was impaled on a stake with his or her mouth or the opposite opening of the human digestive system so that the stake ran along the entire body. A good example of transversal impalement is the Assyrian approach.
First they pierced the chest of the prisoner with a stake after which they rested the stake on the ground and with the help of ropes lifted it together with the body of the unfortunate. Also in the Holy Roman Empire women who killed their children were sometimes condemned to impalement. The same way people were punished in Zika for marital infidelity. First one traitor was placed in the grave. Then thorns were laid out on him or her. After that the second one was placed on the top. The final stage of the execution was the piercing of both criminals with a single stake. Longitudinal impalement is perhaps the most famous type of this execution. It was performed according to the following scenario. A man was placed…
