Roman executions

Suppose, starting 2000 years ago the SPQR does away with crucifiction, etc and does nothing worse than run its condemned through the heart with swords, do the rebellion and crime rates go up significantly with no change in the execution rate per offense?
 
I don't believe that execution methods would affect anything. Leastly death penalty not decrease crimes. But in Rome of course was more crimes where punishment was death than nowadays in many countries.
 
A Vlad Tepes Award for Rome!

Crucifixion and running through with swords are not the only two pre-gunpowder executions.

A condemned criminal could be:
-impaled on a long stick
-fed to wild animals
-hanged
-thrown off a cliff/ high wall
-locked in a Brazen Bull
-guillotined (see also "Halifax Gibbet")
-broken on a wheel
-boiled in a large urn
-forced to drink cyanide or hemlock
-thrown in a vat of molten lead
-thrown into a volcano
-chained to a rock and thrown into the sea
-buried alive
-strangled
-have a cardiectomy (removal of heart) without anaesthesia
-have their lungs torn out
-publicly disembowelled
-pushed between two millstones and ground into paste
-forced to stand under a falling weight
-sealed inside a barrel of water
-burned at the stake
-thrown into solitary confinement for 6 weeks without human interaction, not even to provide food or water

Anything else?
 
Crucifixion and running through with swords are not the only two pre-gunpowder executions.

A condemned criminal could be:
-impaled on a long stick
-fed to wild animals
-hanged
-thrown off a cliff/ high wall
-locked in a Brazen Bull
-guillotined (see also "Halifax Gibbet")
-broken on a wheel
-boiled in a large urn
-forced to drink cyanide or hemlock
-thrown in a vat of molten lead
-thrown into a volcano
-chained to a rock and thrown into the sea
-buried alive
-strangled
-have a cardiectomy (removal of heart) without anaesthesia
-have their lungs torn out
-publicly disembowelled
-pushed between two millstones and ground into paste
-forced to stand under a falling weight
-sealed inside a barrel of water
-burned at the stake
-thrown into solitary confinement for 6 weeks without human interaction, not even to provide food or water

Anything else?

In other words, just start thinking of really messy ways to kill people and the Romans probably used them at some point.
 

Sior

Banned
Dismemberment. (Torn apart by horses)

Drawing and quartering (First he was drawn, that is, tied to a horse and dragged to the gallows. The remainder of the punishment might include hanging (usually not to the death), usually live disemboweling, burning of the entrails, beheading, and quartering. )

Keelhauling (Dutch kielhalen;"to drag along the keel"; German Kielholen; Swedish kölhalning; Danish kølhaling; Norwegian kjølhaling) is a form of punishment meted out to sailors at sea. The sailor was tied to a line that looped beneath the vessel, thrown overboard on one side of the ship, and dragged under the ship's keel, either from one side of the ship to the other, or the length of the ship (from bow to stern). As the hull was usually covered in barnacles and other marine growth, if the offender was pulled quickly, keelhauling would typically result in serious cuts, loss of limbs and even decapitation. If the victim was dragged slowly, his weight might lower him sufficiently to miss the barnacles, but this method would frequently result in his drowning.)
 
For the execution of roman citizens the romans usually used the axe. Nobles could often escape the axe via exile or the chance to kill themselves. At the end of the late republic the romans even were near to end the death penalty at least for nobles at all. Well, the principate stopped that development in iurisdiction.

Usually just slaves and enemies were crucified and not always. And the execution methods of the roman enemies were not that much nicer.
 
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