The Price of Defeat
The defeated barbarian chieftain has been stripped naked - and possibly raped - obviously whipped and is now made to kneel in abject humiliation before the Roman general who defeated him.
His future is pre-determined!
He'll be kept naked and in shackles and placed in a cage for the long trip back to Rome. Once there, he will be lowered into one of the underground dungeons of the infamous Tullianum prison to await his fate.
Eventually, the general will be granted a "Triumph" by a grateful Senate during which the captured barbarian chieftain will be paraded naked through the streets to the jeers and taunts of a hostile Roman crowd.
After the Triumph, he'll be taken back to the Tullianum and executed by strangulation and his bound corpse thrown down the Gemonian Stairs also known as "the Stairs of Mourning. Placed there on public display, his body will be left to rot over an extended period during which it will be preyed upon by scavenging dogs and other carrion eaters.
In time, his decomposed corpse will be thrown unceremoniously and ignominiously into the River Tiber.
Meanwhile, the surviving members of his tribe have been enslaved.
This the price all enemies of Rome must pay for their defeat in battle.
Origin of picture unknown and sourced from the internet. The words are mine.
Once more, great Chris, I need to warmly congratulate you for the excellent historical accuracy and correctness that you show in this post. A scholar of Roman History couldn’t have been more precise and accurate.
ReplyDeleteThis was exactly the fate met by hundreds of enemies of Rome, after their defeat.
The conclusive and most abject shame and dishonour of the public auction into slavery for all the other remaining alive prisoners, was the final act of this drama of incredible violence and sadism.
Not rarely some of the surviving warriors tried to commit suicide, rather than being dragged, naked and in shackles, into a Slave Market and there being displayed for the bidders ……. an infamous fate to which, for many of them, death was preferable.
But one of the first concerns that Roman slave-traders had was to prevent even the “wildest” and “craziest” of their slaves from committing suicide, causing huge economic damages to their owners.
Based on the experience of centuries of slave-trade, merchants were extremely skilled in recognizing slaves who potentially might to kill themselves; and only vary rarely this could happen.
A bit less expert in this were certain Masters, also because some astute slaves were able to find the most bizarre and unpredictable ways for taking their own life. E.g. Pliny gives as examples the cases of a German slave, destined to become a gladiator, who was able to choke himself by stuffing into his own mouth and throat, pieces of sponges until he was unable to breath ……. or a young Illyrian slave who, for his tall and massively muscled physique, had been chosen to toil as a “watchdog” guarding the entrance door of his Master’s house.
As it happened not rarely to slaves watching the doors of rich Roman houses and villas, this slave was tied to the wall with a chain around one of his ankles while a second chain was fastening his iron-collar to another ring in the wall ( this for avoiding that, especially during night shifts, when these slaves were not controlled, the slaves could go away, or sit down for resting, and even sleep).
But (Pliny says) this Master had been a bit careless …… and he had left, to his young Illyrian “watchdog”-slave, two chains (for his neck and for his ankle) that were excessively long.
So one night, the insubordinate Illyrian slave was able to climb the wall ……. reach an iron hook fixed at a big height over the door, a hook that was holding a lantern.
The young slave inserted into the hook one of the rings of his neck chain ……. then, throwing himself in the void, hung himself, most likely causing to his heedless Roman Master a not negligible economic damage.
Karel