Cicero\'s decapitation

[Epictetus]

But meantime [Cicero’s] assassins came to the villa, Herennius a centurion… most of those that stood by covered their faces while Herennius was slaying him. For he stretched his neck forth from the litter and was slain, being then in his sixty-fourth year. Herennius cut off his head…

Plutarch, Life of Cicero, 48.1-5

What would Herennius have used for a weapon? A gladius? If so, that doesn’t seem to be a very good weapon for beheading. I can understand why Cicero stretched his neck out to make it as easy as possible.

Any thoughts? Have any of you re-enactors ever tried to hack a dead pig or something with a gladius to see what it was like?

[Dan Howard]

People are under the misapprehension that the gladius is not a cutting weapon. I've seen demonstrations where a gladius was used to simulate a beheading and it had no trouble at all. I can't remember what the test pieces were but I recall that the wielder used a two-handed blow.

[caiusbeerquitius]

Single handed cuts with our Sisak-gladius:

Bevor blade was finally sharpened. The pumpkin had an diameter of 45 cm:

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Until 1:44:

http:// http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pyKDDCeU1w


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After final sharpening:

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[S. Marcer]

Good Morning a everybody,
maybe the true killing happened with a smaller blade, but I think that the choice of the gladius for the decapitation is reasonable. Titus Livius writes about the cutting ability of the gladius, and the size of the wounds caused by this weapon:

[4] nam qui hastis sagittisqueet rara lanceis facta vulnera vidissent, cum Graecis Illyriisque pugnare adsueti,postquam gladio Hispaniensi detruncata corpora, bracchiis cum humero abscisis,aut tota cervice desecta divisa a corpore capita patentiaque viscera et foeditatemaliam vulnerum viderunt, adversus quae tela quosque viros pugnandum foret.
(Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, XXXI, 34)

[4] for men who had seen the wounds dealt by javelins and arrows and occasionally by lances, since they were used to fighting with the Greeks and Illyrians, when they had seen bodies chopped to pieces by the Spanish sword, arms torn away, shoulders and all, or heads separated from bodies, with the necks completely severed, or vitals laid open, and the other fearful wounds, realized in a general panic with what weapons and what men they had to fight.

Very Best
S.M.

[Vindex]

Can't see the video, Christian - it says its private

[Epictetus]

Yeah, now that I think about it I remember Marcus Aurelius writing about severed heads on the battlefield, too. I suppose if it could be done on the battlefield it could be done with an unresisting victim.

Still, to my mind it might not be an easy "one-swing" sort of job.

[caiusbeerquitius]

Moi, does it work now?

[PhilusEstilius]

I think I would agree with David that it may have taken even a few swings to get it off, not a nice job at all for the victim indeed very nasty.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Sounds like it..otherwise the covering of the heads would be moot...one swip the head is off, no one would be over the shock long enough to cover their heads, 'while he was being executed

most of those that stood by covered their faces while Herennius was slaying him

However, I think if it was taking a few slices and sawings to get through the vertebrae and tendons, cartalidge etc....then you would have time to anticipate and cover up....I imagine. :-|

[Crispvs]

The description is not detailed enough to tell us exactly why they covered their faces. It may have been to spare themselves the horrible sight of a man's neck being chopped to pieces with repeated blows, but I suspect that if they were veterans of any sort of battle in the civil wars which were still raging at the time, the sight of blood and ugly wounds would probably not be that shocking. I have worked in a military trauma ward and it really is quite shocking how fast you can get used to the sight of really quite horrific wounds. I had only been working there about six weeks before I found myself seeing gunshot wounds and not seeing them as particularly serious. I was regularly seeing much worse levels of destruction to the human body.

Thus I do not really think that in an age of hand to hand combat with bladed weapons, veteran soldiers would cover their faces at the sight of wounds being inflicted. I think that it might have been some sort of mark of respect towards a very famous man who was justifiably admired for his prosecution of the Cataline conspiracy a few years before. His more recent 'Philipic' speeches also, although directed against Anthony, had won him great admiration from many sections of the public. I am not trying to suggest that soldiers would spend their days doing the equivalent of reading the political columns in the newspaper. However, they may have tapped into a widespread feeling of admiration for the character of the man they had been order to go and kill.

I do not really think that it is important, for the historical fact of the beheading, whether it was done in one blow or several. The beheading was necessary in order to bring his head back to prove he was dead. There were no smart phones in those days!

Christian,

Your photos are most interesting. I imagine that rolled up cane matting must must have been quite tough. However it looks as if it was cleaved with a single cut.
Sometimes it is not the weight of the blow which matters so much as how it is delivered. Back in my combat re-enactment days a test of someone's ability to use the correct action in swinging a sword was to fill a plastic bottle with water (without a lid) and stand it up at about waist height. Even with a 5mm thick blunt edge (regulation for steel weapons fighting) a properly directed swing could slice cleanly through the bottle. By comparison, a poorer blow would make a ragged gash in the bottle or simply knock it over without causing damage.
Thus if Herrenius' gladius was relatively sharp and (presumably as a veteran of real combat) he used a confident, practiced action when delivering the blow, I see no reason why a single blow could not have severed the head.
The description from Livy is reminiscent of the scenes in the lower border of the Bayeaux Tapestry during the Battle of Hastings scenes, where severed heads and limbs are depicted alongside often decapitated bodies.

However, as a corollary to all that, it might also be remembered that when Anne Boleyn was executed for treason in 1536 she paid the executioner a sum of money to do the job with a single blow. Despite this the executioner (the 'Swordsman of France' i.e. the top executioner in France) took three blows to sever her head. His first blow actually went into her shoulder and it was only with his second blow that he actually killed her. It took him a third blow to actually remove her head. I don't know if that says anything about the Romans but I find it interesting nonetheless.

Crispvs

[Epictetus]

I cut the passage down a bit to just focus on the act of beheading and who was doing it. Here it is in full:

But meantime his assassins came to the villa, Herennius a centurion, and Popillius a tribune, who had once been prosecuted for parricide and defended by Cicero; and they had helpers. 2 After they had broken in the door, which they found closed, Cicero was not to be seen, and the inmates said they knew not where he was. Then, we are told, a youth who had been liberally educated by Cicero, and who was a freedman of Cicero's brother Quintus, Philologus by name, told the tribune that the litter was being carried through the wooded and shady walks towards the sea. 3 The tribune, accordingly, taking a few helpers with him, ran round towards the exit, but Herennius hastened on the run through the walks, and Cicero, perceiving him, ordered the servants to set the litter down where they were. 4 Then he himself, clasping his chin with his left hand, as was his wont, looked steadfastly at his slayers, his head all squalid and unkempt, and his face wasted with anxiety, so that most of those that stood by covered their faces while Herennius was slaying him. 5 For he stretched his neck forth from the litter and was slain, being then in his sixty-fourth year. 6 Herennius cut off his head, by Antony's command, and his hands — the hands with which he wrote the Philippics. For Cicero himself entitled his speeches against Antony "Philippics," and to this day the documents are called Philippics.

I think it quite likely that the ones covering their faces were Cicero’s servants who had been carrying his litter.

[Alexand96]

For some reason, perhaps quite wrongly, I find myself under the impression that cleanly seperating the hands would be more difficult for a gladius than cleaving off someone's head. Perhaps an axe would have been used?

That being said, I know that I must be wrong in regards to the hands, because often in recent conflicts, particularly Africa comes to mind, people have used often old and unkept machetes to take the hands of many unlucky victims. I have a friend from Burundi who has seen the effects of this weapon firsthand.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

I do not really think that it is important, for the historical fact of the beheading, whether it was done in one blow or several. The beheading was necessary in order to bring his head back to prove he was dead. There were no smart phones in those days!

I don't believe he was beheaded in the forum , nor the people around him soldiers.
They would have done their job and defended him if they were. As I recalled, he was in his litter being taken to safety. Not everyone was a soldier.
I think seeing the treated wounded and injured are a different thing to seeing someone living and whole having their head hacked off, or sawn off, as the case may be.
I know I found it traumatic, yet I have also seen severely injured people, disabled for life by their injuries as well.

[john m roberts]

Years ago, the Tower of London had a display of heading swords (not "beheading"). I was very surprised at how small the blades were - no more than 1 1/2" wide and perhaps 24" long, with handles just long enough to get a two-handed grip. Very different from the giant Chinese snickersnees. Appaently, skill and technique were called for, and in an execution the victim kelt upright while the headsman swung the sword horizontally. Of course, the heading sword was more a surgical instrument than a weapon, but it demonstrates that a head can be severed with one blow using a sword of quite modest proportions.

[Vindex]

Yes, thank you Christian, I can see it now.

(and I haven't forgotten about the spatha; just tracking down the iron reports from the excaavtion which is taking a bit of time!)