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Following the venatio in the order of daily events was the execution of convicted Roman citizens of lower status, the humiliores.Usual forms of execution included burning at the stake, crucifixion, or ad bestias (when the prisoner is left alone in the ring with one or more wild animals).
Damnatio ad bestias (Latin for "condemnation to beasts") was a form of Roman capital punishment where the condemned person was killed by wild animals, usually lions or other big cats. This form of execution, which first appeared during the Roman Republic around the 2nd century BC, had been part of a wider class of blood sports called Bestiarii .
Among Ancient Romans, bestiarii (singular bestiarius) were those who went into combat with beasts, or were exposed to them.It is conventional [1] to distinguish two categories of bestiarii: the first were those condemned to death via the beasts (see damnatio ad bestias) and the second were those who faced them voluntarily, for pay or glory (see venatio). [2]
The Zliten mosaic is a Roman floor mosaic from about the 2nd century AD, found in the town of Zliten in Libya, on the east coast of Leptis Magna. [1] The mosaic was discovered by the Italian archaeologist Salvatore Aurigemma in 1913 and is now on display at The Archaeological Museum of Tripoli. [2]
Despite the contrast in atmosphere, the Berlin mosaic from a house in Miletus manages to combine both a venatio and an Orpheus with animals in its two parts. [8] An arena programme recorded by Martial combined an acted-out scene of Orpheus charming the animals with the punishment of criminals by damnatio ad bestias. [9]
The executions of deserters, prisoners-of-war, and criminals from the lower classes were normally crucifixions or damnationes ad bestias in which they would face wild animals. Scipio Aemilianus had been the first to execute criminals in this way when he had deserters from his army exposed to wild beasts in 146 BC. [29]
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Biting by animals, as in damnatio ad bestias (i.e., the cliché, "being thrown to the lions"), as well as crocodiles and sharks. Tearing apart by horses (e.g., in medieval Europe and Imperial China, with four horses; or "quartering", with four horses, as in The Song of Roland), variant with tearing apart by camels was sometimes used in the ...