I just finished watching Gladiator for the umpteenth time and I am still puzzled by the scene where they’re going to execute Maximus (Russel Crowe).
The soldier charged with killing him has Maximus kneel and he lifts his sword as to decapitate. Maximus then says, “Give me a clean death. A soldier’s death.” The guy in charge nods and the executioner positions himself behind Maximus and poises to thrust the sword down into either his neck or back.
Is there any sort of historical basis for this? Was being decapitated an “unclean” death? I did a cursory Google search and got nothing but transcripts and movie reviews.
Decapitation by swinging the sword around could be swift, clean, and painless–if you were a good executioner. If you were a bad executioner, it might take several clumsy blows to lop off the person’s head, causing a considerable amount of blood, mess, and extreme pain.
When Maximus asks for a ‘clean’ death, the soldier nods and points the sword downwards with the tip at the nape of his neck (I’m trying to find a screencap now). This could be to crush the spinal column so Maximus will be stunned and won’t feel any pain, but I’m not sure…
Also from the realms of WAGness. I can imagine that a complete body arriving at a funeral could more easily pass for a soldier dead in battle than a decapitated body which just screams execution.
I can’t remember where I read it (or indeed whether the source was presenting it as factual or if it was just a bit of fiction), but I have heard of Roman arena executions (of a defeated opponent) being carried out by thrusting a spatha (a slender, pointed sword designed primarily for stabbing, not slashing) down through the left collarbone and into the heart.
I asked this of a friend as well. She said that she remembered from a history book that “soldier’s death” refered to a painless execution, as you all have stated.
Since I was thinking that the decapitation would be quicker and more painless, this hadn’t occured to me. Although in retrospect, I don’t think decapitation by a gladius would be very quick or painless.
Lazlo, Gladiator is to history what Star Wars is to physics: they might meet but only coincidentally.
Beheading (decollatio or capitis amputatio) was among Romans the most honorable way to go (though I doubt they would have called it the most desirable one).
In earlier time, an axe was used but the sword was traditionally the nobler weapon and therefore used for noble men - Cicero, e.g., was beheaded and it was called a good death. (Though his head was struck off by a common soldier, which might have been a bit vulgar, I guess. )
Anyway, there were other death penalties less honourable (see for example Tac. Ann. ii. 32; Suetonius, Nero 49, Claud. 34.): A soldier who had done something despicable (recreancy or sleeping while on sentry duty) was beaten to death with clubs or had to endure the lapidatio, the stoning - an incredibly shameful way to die that disgraced the family of the executed severly.
When the soldier decided to behead Maximus instead of simply stabbing him, he was actually honouring him in the one way still … feasible.
Didn’t upper class Romans who felt compelled to suicide as a point of honour(U.S. honor) plant their sword hilts in the earth with the blades pointing upwards and “fall on their swords”?
I must admit it always sounded a pretty painful way to die to me.
I remember reading somewhere that for her execution Mary Queen of Scots requested a French sword be used rather than a blunt axe … sadly the sword took seven blows to do the job, maybe the extra weight of an axe blade makes it a better tool than a sword ?
I can’t comment whether that’s an accurate representation of Roman suicide, but honestly, what choices do you think they had? Living in a universe of bathtubs and toasters, fun pill bottles in the medicine cabinet, guns, good sturdy rope, high rise buildings and razor blades, it’s easy to think “Gah, who would fall on their sword!?”. Perhaps the fact that I am not suicidal is affecting my ability to be creative, but given my understanding of available methods of suicide back then - poisoning, jumping off an aqueduct, self-immolation, drowning or stabbing yourself, I’m going to have to say stabbing myself wouldn’t be my last choice by far. Besides, it’s easy for anybody willing to pass off your death as murder or dying in battle – try doing that with poisoning.
Yes I know another zombie, but honest, I was searching for this myself! Why would a blade down the neck to the heart be more painless, it seems a good way to die of a heart attack or something similar.
One intoxicated caller to a radio talk show 1990’s) San Francisco area) admitted having just killing his girlfriend and cutting off her head - then added something about “well, ALMOST off -it’s still hanging on”.
This is why the executioners axe was huge, and the guillotine’s blade was huge - it takes either a very sharp or very heavy device to go cleanly through the neck - check out a skeleton - the vertebrae of the next has a spur which covers the gap. And the spinal cord isn’t exactly slender and soft - even if you could avoid having the blade deflected by bone, you still have a thick cord to deal with.
I believe Henry VIII had an executioner imported to decapitate his favorite victim - e didn’t trust the local talent to do the job with a single blow.
Ancients iron wasn’t so good as to hold an edge - a slender blade through the shoulder would not encounter bone on its way to the heart.
I think a lot of it was the social implications. There were certain means commonly used to execute criminals and other means commonly used to execute captured enemy soldiers. Maximus may have been saying he wanted to be executed like a soldier rather than a criminal.
This type of attitude is still around. When Alfred Jodl and Wilhelm Keitel were sentenced to death at the Nuremberg trials, they requested that they be executed by a firing squad rather than being hung.
James Clavell’s Shogun made a big deal of this same topic. Samurai being put to death were to kill themselves via seppuku, which basically involved making a big cross-shaped cut in one’s abdomen. Because of the pain involved, a samurai would be worried about dishonoring himself at the last by crying out or failing to complete the cuts. Thus, they would have a “second” standing behind them as they knelt, ready to lop off the samurai’s head before that could happen.
No idea whether there was any historical accuracy there.
I have a twitch which starts whenever I try to read Clavell, as his books are entertaining but obnoxiously stereotypical, to the point of being borderline racist. Clavell more or less got Seppuku correct, although it wasn’t the only method of suicide.
Suicide also wasn’t actually that common in Japan, or at least, no more so than elsewhere. Japan’s high suicide rate is probably a modern phenomena based on the adulating fiction around suicide, rather than actually being a historical carry-over. Often, people who desperately wanted revenge or were in a really bad situation would commit suicide rather than beg for the mercy they knew their enemies weren’t going to give, but that’s not really unusual. The only unusual bit was that, where most people would just say, “Screw it”, grab a sword, and go out with a bang, the Japanese would often have a really spectacular suicide.
Well, it livens up a a Friday evening when you’ve lost a war and your entire kingdom, I guess.
Note that historically, defeated soldiers were frequently absorbed wholesale in the victor’s ranks - generally only the enemy leader’s family was killed, and often not even that. The enemy’s high-ranking generals and officers would either offer their services to the victor or to another power almost immediately. Authentically Japanese fiction doesn’t even mention suicide, although a callous attitude towards death and the fatalistic view that life was cheap and frequently short were common. I wouldn’t say they were much different than the early-mid Romans or Vikings - all were militaristic cultures who often viewed death with little fear, as they were entirely too familiar with it. That didn’t mean they were eager to throw their lives away. They were focused, like all people, on gaining wealth or power, living their lives and worrying about relatives and trying to get their children the best start in life.
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