Is there any historical evidence that these kinds of executions happened in Ancient ones? Did the Romans do these executions or not? There are people who deny these things happened in the old days like people deny the Holocaust.
There is abundant evidence for the use of crucifixion in antiquity.
It was used by the Greeks, Romans, Jews, and other peoples. I strongly recommend "Crucifixion", by the late Martin Hengel, a Lutheran:
Crucifixion: In the Ancient World and the Folly of the Message of the Cross
See also the contents page of the book.
As a rule, the Romans reserved crucifixion for the trash of society: slaves, and suchlike. In one his speeches, Cicero (106-43 BC) said:
"Wretched is the loss of one's
good name in the public courts,
wretched, too, a monetary fine
exacted from one's property,
and wretched is exile.
But, still, in each calamity
there is retained some trace of liberty.
Even if death is set before us,
we may die in freedom.
But the executioner,
the veiling of heads,
and the very word ‘cross,’
let them all be far removed
from not only the bodies
of Roman citizens
but even from their thoughts,
their eyes, and their ears."
- from Pro Rabirio Postumo, 16.
Plenty more Cicero on crucifixion here:
SNIPPET // Cicero on crucifixion, floggings, and Roman citizenship – St. Eutychus
A page with more info:
A Most Cruel and Ignominious Punishment
And a few more:
- “He was whipped until his bones showed.”
—Josephus (AD 37-100), Wars of the Jews, 6.5.3
- “Each criminal who goes to execution must carry his own cross on his back.”
—Plutarch (AD 46-about 120), Sera, 554
- “Some hang their victims upside down. Some impale them through the private parts. Others stretch out their arms onto forked poles.”
—Seneca (about 4 BC-65 AD), To Marcia on Consolation, 20.3
- “Is there such a thing as a person who would actually prefer wasting away in pain on a cross—dying limb by limb one drop of blood at a time—rather than dying quickly? Would any human being willingly choose to be fastened to that cursed tree, especially after the beating that left him deathly weak, deformed, swelling with vicious welts on shoulders and chest, and struggling to draw every last, agonizing breath? Anyone facing such a death would plead to die rather than mount the cross.”
—Seneca, (about 4 BC-65 AD), Epistulae morales (Moral Letters), 101.14
- “Reliable witnesses . . . . saw the man being dragged to the cross while crying out that he was a Roman citizen. And you, Verres, confirm that he did cry out that he was a Roman citizen, yet you sent him to a most cruel and shameful death anyhow!”
—Cicero, Against Verres, 70 BC, 2.5.64
- “Every day Roman soldiers caught 500 Jews or more. . . . The soldiers driven by their hatred of the Jews nailed them to crosses. They nailed them in many different positions, to entertain themselves and to horrify the Jews watching this spectacle from inside the walled city of Jerusalem. In time, the soldiers ran out of wood for crosses, and room for crosses even if they had found more wood.”
—Josephus (AD 37-100), Wars of the Jews, 5.11.1
What Romans said about crucifixion - Stephen M. Miller [I have omitted one quotation, because I think it may be unhistorical.]
