It was about an hour (or so it seemed) into my execution that I began to feel my first real discomfort. The fatigue in my arms was becoming noticeable; my shoulders ached and I had to let myself hang for a long while to avoid getting a cramp in my left chest muscle. I had used the foot rest for little more than a place to keep my body weight from pulling even further on my arms, but now I realized my breathing had become shallow and I was having difficulty exhaling. I pushed up till I was on the balls of my feet and blew out a long breath. My head cleared almost instantly.
While I was thus elevated, I considered the vials still present in my mouth. I was looking down a dark spiral of increasing pain; every moment I persisted was as good as I was ever going to feel ever again. The next moment would be worse, and the one after that, more distasteful still. There would be no rest from this exertion, no hiatus where I could gather myself to begin again. I could not scratch the infernal itch on my cheek, nor alleviate the growing agony at the top of my shoulders. My legs began to tire and I let myself hang from my arms once again.
Imagine this if you can: while I hang upon the cross, do not let every hurt I describe fade from your memory as you put each scroll aside. Rather, try to let each description of an insult to my body compound and layer upon the next, building into a glorious fanfare of pain. While it may not be an entirely accurate representation of my sentence of execution, it will pull you much closer to the awful experience than these scribblings could possibly achieve without assistance. If that is your wish.
I had never wanted to sink my teeth into any succulent, steaming roast boar as much as I desired to slice my gums and tongue apart on the bitter contents of those glass vials. But I could not do it. I let myself hang for as long as I could, then minutes later as my breath grew shallow, I pulled myself up again. Livia had provided the antidote to my ordeal, but I could not take it yet. I could not allow any suspicion to fall upon her. I could not die too soon. I had to be strong. Not my worst quality, but certainly not my finest.
I had to think.
It was dark. The men below were seated around a campfire, talking, eating, drinking, ignoring me. Were they the same legionaries that began the first watch? My mouth was paste. I should have taken the water. Too late. They were too far away and I did not want to waste a painful breath or worse, risk expelling a vial by calling out.
To protect Livia, I had to survive until morning. I swore to myself I would not crack the vials till I could see the sun ignite the highest peaks of the Amanos Mountains.
You cannot know what it was like, and I am fully aware that you do not want to know. But this thing was done to me and done by me-to know my story, and the story of my master, you must be strong and hear me out. To communicate the torment of this cruelty, to give you even the smallest inkling of the madness of a Roman hanging, I must crawl inside myself and speak of those hours as I have remembered them for each of the thousands of days since I said my farewells to the world, to everything and everyone in it that I loved. And when I am done, when I have described this abomination to you, you must ask yourself who it is you condemn more, the man who passed judgment, or the man who brought the sentence upon himself.
Gods my breath does not come easy.
How many hours? Eleven? Twelve? It has to be less than twelve. Two more guard changes after this. Pins and needles shooting through my fingers. Making fists only makes it worse.
Tired. Sagging. Lift up. Pull up. Breathe out.
Must be a full moon rising behind me. The ground is turning ghost blue. My tongue rolls over the vials like a lover. It is difficult, very difficult-not to keep from biting down on them, but to keep from swallowing them whole. My arms burn. My insides ache. I am soaked with sweat.
What are they doing down there? Laughing, gambling. Good for them.
Breathe. Take one more step toward dying.
I must devise a regimen of exercise. Hang with feet draped on foot rest. Count to twenty. Up on the balls of your feet. Pull up with your arms. Exhale. Take five normal breaths. Let them laugh at you. Shake the stiffness from arms and neck as best as you can. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat…
Something crumples in my right thigh. There is a twisting, grabbing pain clawing at my leg! A cramp, its black heart the muscle torn by Sulla’s archer. A wound received on the first day of my employment with the house of Crassus come to haunt me on my last.
My left leg will have to do the work of two. Will have to…
Hours or only moments have passed; it could be either. My breathing is so shallow I am panting like a bird. I must rise up to breathe freely-grip the ropes with the tips of my fingers, pull down with my forearms and ignore the rope burns, contract the spent shoulder muscles one more time and push up on the ball of my left foot. There. I look at the darkened city beyond the curling smoke of the spent campfire around which three legionaries sleep; the fourth sits with his back to me, poking at the embers with a stick. A few seconds is all I can stand, then down I slump as slowly as I can, my torso twisting back into its contorted lassitude-constricting my lungs with the weight of my body while my muscles cramp and my shoulders scream.
I am puzzled by a question that hangs before my closing eyes, prying them open long enough to wonder why I am asking it.
Why did Crassus condemn me to this torture, to the one form of Roman execution that is not instantaneous?
I am still crucified, but the cross is on the Via Appia just outside Capua. As far as the eye can see other crosses line the way, two facing each other every hundred feet. They are all skeletons, or mostly so. I had been to the city several times on errands for dominus, but it had never looked as dingy and drained of color as this. The sky presses low and dark; clouds move swiftly past, escaping the sight and the stink. The crows don’t seem to mind, though. Several sit on the beam above my outstretched arms, what is left of them, picking every now and then at a remnant with lackluster enthusiasm. The wind whistles low and tuneless through our bones. Thunder rumbles in the distance. There is no pain, so either I have died or I am dreaming. I think about it a moment, but can not decide, considering the landscape before my-whatever I am using for eyes, which possibility I hope to be true.
The corpse directly opposite me picks up its head and speaks. It has to raise its voice to be heard over the wind and the width of the wide road between us. “Why would you serve a man like that?” it asks.
I recognize him at once. “Your body was never found. You should not be hanging here.”
Spartacus laughs. “Name one who does deserves this death. Not you, surely. Not me. Yet here we are. You found me. You have succeeded where others have failed.”
“I shall count it, then, among my very few accomplishments. What do you mean, ‘a man like that?’ You know nothing of Marcus Crassus.”
“I know enough. I know he killed 70,000 innocent people. I know you are defending him this very moment, even after he has had you killed.”
“Innocent? Who among us is innocent? Not all of us are as handy with a gladius as you. You did the best you could. We both failed.”
“You compare yourself to me?”
“Never. I led no uprising. You used a sword. I wrote letters.”
“You could have poisoned him in his sleep.”
“No. I would have saved him from himself had I been able.”
“Then you’re a fool, and deserve your fate.”
“I could not kill a man I once thought of as my friend, if only to myself.”
“That’s right, because between the two of you, you would have been the only one to think it. Look what your ‘friend’ did to my people.” He turns his head from side to side. “All I wanted to do was lead them to freedom. And he slaughtered us.”