# Give me a clean death, a soldier's death (historical q about Gladiator) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 28, 2006, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-a-clean-death-a-soldiers-death-historical-q-about-gladiator/385911 "2006-12-28T21:46:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2012, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-a-clean-death-a-soldiers-death-historical-q-about-gladiator/385911/21 "2012-12-03T04:27:28Z")
It wouldn’t surprise me to find that indiviual units or armies had their own traditions within a larger social framework. ---
**Author:** ![Damfino](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Damfino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damfino)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2012, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-a-clean-death-a-soldiers-death-historical-q-about-gladiator/385911/22 "2012-12-03T22:13:35Z")
> [@usedtobe](#): > > Decapitation is NOT simple or easy. > > 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. 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. ---
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2012, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-a-clean-death-a-soldiers-death-historical-q-about-gladiator/385911/23 "2012-12-03T22:51:05Z")
> [@Cat\_Jones](#): > > 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 ? OK, now you have spoiled both Gladiator and English history. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2012, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-a-clean-death-a-soldiers-death-historical-q-about-gladiator/385911/24 "2012-12-04T02:01:19Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > 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. 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](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukio_Mishima#Coup_attempt_and_ritual_suicide), though. > [@](#): > > The customary kaishakunin duty at the end of this ritual had been assigned to Tatenokai member Masakatsu Morita, but Morita was unable to properly perform the task. After several failed attempts, he allowed another Tatenokai member, Hiroyasu Koga, to behead Mishima. Morita then knelt and stabbed himself in the abdomen; Koga once again performed the kaishakunin duty. For the Romans, did they display the heads of certain enemies like other cultures? ---
**Author:** ![Damfino](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Damfino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damfino)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2012, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-a-clean-death-a-soldiers-death-historical-q-about-gladiator/385911/25 "2012-12-04T23:07:38Z")
They did, notably Cicero s after he was assassinated. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2012, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-a-clean-death-a-soldiers-death-historical-q-about-gladiator/385911/26 "2012-12-05T01:43:13Z")
Was he asking for the death of a regular solder rather than the death of a political enemy? ---
**Author:** ![gunnergoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e95f7d/32.png) [@gunnergoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gunnergoz)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2012, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-a-clean-death-a-soldiers-death-historical-q-about-gladiator/385911/27 "2012-12-05T01:49:31Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2012, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-a-clean-death-a-soldiers-death-historical-q-about-gladiator/385911/28 "2012-12-05T05:48:40Z")
> [@usedtobe](#): > > …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… [Yep](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Boleyn#Final_hours), Jean Rombaud of Saint-Omer. As a traitor Anne was originally sentenced to be burnt at the stake before the King commuted her sentence. > [@gunnergoz](#): > > 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. IIRC condemed criminals were usually stripped naked prior to their executions; especially prior to crucifixion (a penalty that Roman citizens weren’t subject to). ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2012, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-a-clean-death-a-soldiers-death-historical-q-about-gladiator/385911/29 "2012-12-05T22:46:43Z")
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. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/give-me-a-clean-death-a-soldiers-death-historical-q-about-gladiator/385911.md?page=1)