Jesus was not the only person to get crucified, if you read the Gospels it actually tells of two thieves that were also being crucified with Jesus (Matthew 27:38) . The validity of His crucifixion is helped if we can know if the crucifixion is a common enough punishment from Romans. Being crucified was very shameful and humiliating, so much so that Roman citizens were exempt from it ([[noauthor_undated-oy]]). Most of the time it was carried out against slaves, other tribes or criminals, and even people groups like the Jews. Flavius Josephus (37-100 A.D) wrote of the hundreds of Jewish prisoners crucified at Jerusalem in 70 CE, during an uprising against the Romans. > [!quote] [[Whiston2008-zx|Josephus]] > “They were first whipped and then tormented with all sorts of tortures, before they died, and were crucified before the wall of the city... the soldiers, out of wrath and hatred they bore the Jews, nailed those they caught to the crosses in different postures, by way of jest” Lucius Anneus Seneca (4BCE-65CE) recorded another mass crucifixion and noted: > [!quote] >“I see crosses there, not just of one kind but made in many different ways: some have their victims with their head down to the ground, some impale their private parts, others stretch out their arms'.”<p style='text-align: right;'>---[Lactantius. (2015)](https://paperpile.com/app/p/b68edc66-162f-097f-a601-5ce4d91c1014 'Of the Manner in Which the Persecutors Died, Addressed to Donatus')</p> Eusebius, a third-century historian, reports on these events as well > [!quote] >“For they say that the bystanders were struck with amazement when they saw them lacerated with scourges even to the innermost veins and arteries, so that the hidden inward parts of the body, both their bowels and their members, were exposed to view;”<p style='text-align: right;'>---[The History of the Church](https://paperpile.com/app/p/3eaa5a3b-2d43-00e2-9f3b-2bec08b38b37 'The History of the Church')</p> In Secondary Orations Against Verres, Cicero wrote about his prosecution of Verres. The charge was the premeditated murder by crucifixion of a noble Roman citizen, one Publius Gavius . The motive – punishment for his public crusade for freedom and citizenship. In his own prosecutorial words directed at Verres, Cicero describes in detail to the trial court the crucifixion process Verres used to kill Gavius: > [!quote] [[Cicero1935-iq|Cicero]] >“…according to their regular custom and usage, they had erected the cross behind the city in the Pompeian road…you chose that place in order that the man who said that he was a Roman citizen, might be able from his cross to behold Italy and to look towards his own home?… for the express purpose that the wretched man who was dying in agony and torture might see that the rights of liberty and of slavery were only separated by a very narrow strait, and that Italy might behold her son murdered by the most miserable and most painful punishment appropriate to slaves alone. >It is a crime to bind a Roman citizen; to scourge him is a wickedness; to put him to death is almost parricide. What shall I say of crucifying him? So guilty an action cannot by any possibility be adequately expressed by any name bad enough for it…that you exposed to that torture and nailed on that cross…He chose that monument of his wickedness and audacity to be in the sight of Italy, in the very vestibule of Sicily, within sight of all passersby as they sailed to and fro.” The archaeological findings from two different sites provide compelling evidence of crucifixion practices during the same period. In northern Italy, the excavation revealed the remains of a man who lived around 2,000 years ago, exhibiting signs of death by crucifixion, particularly noted in the unique trauma to his bones, a discovery analyzed by researchers Gualdi-Russo, Thun Hohenstein, Onisto, Pilli, and Caramelli ([[Gualdi-Russo2019-pq]]). This case presents a rare instance of archaeological evidence aligning with historical accounts of Roman execution methods. Similarly, in a separate find, Tzaferis and Haas documented the remains of a young male, aged between 20 and 23, whose heel had been pierced by a nail, consistent with crucifixion. This evidence, discovered near Jerusalem, further substantiates the historical practice of crucifixion in the region ([[Tzaferis1970-tv]], [[Haas1970-vo]]). Together, these findings not only validate historical texts describing crucifixion but also provide a tangible link to the cultural and penal practices of the time, offering a clearer picture of the methods and impacts of Roman executions.