My Roman Crucifixion (Part 2) - Bystanders and Soldiers Account

“The Ones Who Watch” - Continued from the Roman Guard’s Account

By the time the man had been hanging for an hour, the blood had begun to crust in long, dark trails down his legs. His back - already flayed from the scourging - was pressed against the rough wood, every breath scraping new pain across open wounds. Sweat and blood soaked the beam. He tried to shift his weight from the nails in his wrists to the ones in his feet, but it only bought him seconds of breath at a time. That’s the trap of the cross - it makes you do the work of dying yourself.

But the real ugliness was below.

The crowd had grown. Not just a few bystanders anymore, but dozens. Some had come from the market, others from homes, shops, side streets. Men, women, children. They pushed close to the base of the hill like it was a festival.

They came to look.

Some shouted. “Rapist, there’s nothing left of it now”.

Others laughed. “Where are your gods now?”

A woman pointed up and said, “Look how the dogs of Rome leave their animals naked for us to see!”

I don’t know what it is, but there’s something about a naked man in pain that brings out the worst in people. There was a group of young men who made a sport of describing his body in detail. They pointed and snickered, not just at the blood, but at everything - the droop of his flesh, the dirt between his toes, the shaking of his belly every time he tried to pull up for breath.

One of them shouted, “Look at how his pride shrivels under the sun! A hero with nothing left to hide!”

Another mimicked his groans, twisting his own face and clutching his chest. The others laughed hard enough to spill wine.

A boy - no older than twelve - threw a pebble. It hit the man in the thigh. Not hard, but enough to make him flinch. The boy laughed. His father said nothing.

Sometimes, when I look at the ones hanging, I feel like I’m looking in a mirror. Not of myself, but of the whole crowd. The man on the cross is what we all fear, so we pretend it’s justice. We make him into a joke, a sinner, an animal. Because if he’s not a man anymore, then we never have to ask if it could be us.

I’ve seen women lift their skirts as a mockery. Men spit and curse like they’re taking revenge for some private shame. One old man threw a broken pot at him and said, “This is for my son, you blasphemer.” The pot didn’t reach. It shattered on the rocks below.

The man moaned. Not words anymore - just a rasping whimper that rose and fell with the wind.

I looked up again.

His head drooped to one side. Flies buzzed around his mouth and eyes. The exposed parts of him were sunburned and bitten, trembling uncontrollably. A line of saliva clung to his chin. He had no voice left to plead, and no strength left to resist.

Still the crowd mocked.

Still they stared.

Still they enjoyed it.

And we, the soldiers, watched too, but for different reasons. To keep order. To finish the job. To learn how far the body bends before it breaks.

I sat back on the stone, chewing a fig. One of my men said, “He’ll last till dusk.” Another replied, “Not with this heat.”

But I thought different. I thought he might last longer, because humiliation, I’ve learned, doesn’t just kill. It clings. It makes a man hang on, even if only to see when the next insult will fall. Or when the last one will.