An Ancient Joke About Crucifixion

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I’ve been reading Petronius’ Satyricon and found a joke about crucifixion:

A certain married woman of Ephesus had such a reputation for chastity that she drew women even from the surrounding communities just to gaze at her. At the funeral ritual when she buried her husband, she was not satisfied with just escorting the body to the grave, as is the general custom, with hair untied and blowing round freely, or with just beating her naked breast for all to see, but she followed the dead man even into his tomb, and when the body was laid in an underground vault after the Greek fashion, she began to watch and to seep over it both night and day. Thus torturing herself and courting death by starvation, she could not be led away from the tomb by her parents or relatives; finally the magistrates left her, after they had rebuffed her. Everyone showed deep sorrow for her as a woman of unique character, who was now spending her fifth day without food. The most trusted maid sat by the sorrowful woman, and at the same time lent tears to the mourning widow, and refilled the lamp placed in the tomb whenever it went short of oil. There was only one subject of conversation in the whole city: people of every class acknowledged that this alone was the true example of chastity and love.

At about this same time the governor of the province ordered that some thieves be crucified near the small building in which the woman was weeping over her late husband’s body. So on the next night, when a soldier, guarding the crosses to prevent anyone taking down a body for burial, observed a light shining brightly among the tombs and heard the groans of a grieving woman, a very human weakness made him desirous to know who it was or what she was doing. Accordingly he went down into the tomb, and on seeing this beautiful woman, at first he stood in total confusion as though he had seen some portent or ghosts from the underworld. But when he noticed the body of the dead man and had taken into account the tears and the face scratched by her nails, he came to the correct conclusion that the woman could not bear the loss of the dead one. He therefore brought his bit of supper into the tomb and proceeded to urge the grieving woman not to persist in her hopeless sorrow and break her heart with useless lamentations: he said that the same end, the same resting place awaiting us all, and added all those other things which restored wounded minds to sanity. But she was not moved by the rhetoric of consolation, tore at her breast more violently, pulled out her hair, and laid it on the body of the dead man. Still the soldier did not withdraw, but with the same encouragement tried to press some food on her servant, until the maid was seduced by the fragrance of the wine. She first extended her own hand, overcome by the kindness of the invitation, and once she was refreshed by the drink and food, began to lay siege to her mistress’ obstinancy, and said: ‘What will this benefit you, if you faint from hunger, if you bury yourself alive, if you breathe out your innocent life before the Fates summon it? Do you believe that the ashes or shades of the buried dead have sensibilities? Do you wish to come to life again? Having shaken off this womanly failing, do you wish to enjoy the comforts of life, while you can? the verse corpse of your husband lying there should encourage you to want to live.’ No one is averse to listen when urged to take food or stay alive. And so the woman being thirsty after several days of abstinence allowed her resolution to be broken, and filled herself with food no less greedily than the maid who had earlier been won over. And you know when temptation generally assails a person on a full stomach. The same inducements the soldier had used to persuade the woman to live, were now employed to conduct an assault on her chastity. In the eyes of the chaste woman the young man appeared neither unattractive nor ill-spoken, and the maid meanwhile promoted indulgence and repeatedly said: ‘Will you might against even a pleasing passion.’ … The woman did not hold back even this gratification of the flesh, and the conquering her talking her into both. So they slept together not only on their wedding night, but on the next night and on the third. The doors of the vault were of course closed, so that any acquiantance or stranger who came to the tomb would assume that the most chaste wife had breathed her last over her husband’s body. The soldier, delighted by both thee woman’s beauty and their trysting place, would buy whatever delicacies he could afford and so soon as it got dark, he would bring them to the tomb.

So when the parents of one of the crucified men noticed that the watch was lax, they took down the hanging corpse of their son and administered the last rites. The soldier was tricked while he neglected his duties, and so the next day when he saw that one cross had no corpse, he was in fear of his own execution and explained to the woman what had happened. He declared that he would not await the verdict of the judge, but would use his sword to impose sentence on himself for neglect of duty. He wanted her only to adapt a place for a man to die in and consecrate the vault which was ordained by fate, both to her lover and her husband. The woman, who was no less sympathetic than she was chaste, remarked: ‘Heaven forbid that I should see simultaneously the two corpses of the men dearest to me. I prefer to sacrifice a dead man than kill a living one.’ After this short speech she ordered that her husband’s body be removed from the coffin and fastened to the vacant cross. The soldier availed himself of the wise woman’s stroke of genius, and the next day the people wondered how the dead man had manged to get on the cross.’

I find the story interesting on a few levels:

• It shows that guarding the bodies of crucified victims was normal.

• There is the irony of a woman’s fervent grief for her husband and praise of her chastity juxtaposed with her seemingly ease of seduction and willingness to desecrate his body.

• For all the shame and horror associated with crucifixion, one could still make a joke about it. In fact, later in the same book, a woman comically refused to seduce a slave on the grounds that “May the gods forbid that I should ever witness a lover of mine on a cross.”