It wouldn’t surprise me to find that indiviual units or armies had their own traditions within a larger social framework.
Not exactly . The spinous process of a vertebra angles down to cover the intervertebral disc space. This is the barrier… A blow correctly angled in between the spinous processes will reach the vulnerable cartilaginous disc and the cord behind. The spinal cord is NOT tough. It has a jelly like cheesy consistency . A properly angled strike would go right through it. Beyond that oesophagus, trachea , muscles, skin, all susceptible to a sword stroke.
OK, now you have spoiled both Gladiator and English history.
This.
As seppuku advanced, apparently it was sufficient to do a surface wound to ones belly before the second did the actual killing.
It’s always best to get someone who’s good with a sword, though.
For the Romans, did they display the heads of certain enemies like other cultures?
They did, notably Cicero s after he was assassinated.
Was he asking for the death of a regular solder rather than the death of a political enemy?
FWIW, I do know that the Romans had a tradition of executing captured enemy leaders by choking them to death from behind with a chain or rope around their neck. Sometimes this was done in public. I suspect this was in the day intended to be one of the least dignified of executions that one could be subject to.
Yep, Jean Rombaud of Saint-Omer. As a traitor Anne was originally sentenced to be burnt at the stake before the King commuted her sentence.
IIRC condemed criminals were usually stripped naked prior to their executions; especially prior to crucifixion (a penalty that Roman citizens weren’t subject to).
I always thought this was an anachronism.
I’ve read about medieval knights, who after winning a fight against an honorable opponent would mercifully stab down through his medulla and spinal cord to ensure a quick and relatively painless death. That’s what chivalry was all about, people.
Presumably, if the opponent wasn’t honorable (a peasant or a Muslim or something terrible like that), the prevailing knight would just thwack him on the neck from the side a few times until the decapitation was more or less finished.