The rhetor Lucian of Samosata (c. 120–c. 180) is believed to be the author of a satirical court speech where the Greek letter sigma sues the letter tau for infringing on words traditionally spelled with sigma and other consonants. Apparently, the pronunciation and Greek orthography of the time were tending to replace these other letters with tau. The speech is deliberately silly, but jokes often unwittingly reveal what a culture takes most seriously. Here’s what caught my attention at the end of Sigma’s speech.
Humans cry out and bemoan their fortune and often curse Cadmus, because he introduced Tau into the class of the letters. They say that tyrants—who followed after the body of (Tau), imitated his image, and then framed wood in such a form—crucify men upon it: that from (Tau), the evil name even joins together with the evil device.[1] Because of all these things, then, how many deaths do you suppose Tau is worthy of? Well, I for one think this alone is the just punishment left for Tau: paying the price of his own form. [2]
In other words, it’s only fair that Tau himself be crucified for his many offences, since his T shape spawned the idea in the first place
What is particularly interesting is Lucian’s claim (in Sigma’s voice) that the cross is especially associated with tyrants. Of course, the Romans had made arguably the most extensive use of crucifixion as a method. Lucian—or whoever the author is; there is some dispute about the attribution—is a Hellenized elite living in the Roman Empire but before the era of universal citizenship. This at least raises an eyebrow that Lucian is making a subtle jab at Roman hegemony and its ethos, albeit with plausible deniability. Indeed, when the Romans occasionally appear by name in Lucian’s compositions, it’s obvious he does not have a high opinion of them, though given his satirical tendency, this can be said for many other groups as well (e.g., philosophers).
While this faux court speech appeared about 150 years or more after Jesus’ execution, culturally, the world had not changed that much, and one can find the same elite horror at crucifixion in earlier authors such as Cicero as well.
And I think that drives home the inherent gravity of what Pilate himself was doing in “washing his hands” of Jesus and surrendering him to this death. In some contexts, Christians have occasionally tried to let Pilate off the hook, attenuate his guilt, emphasize his better intentions, imagine that he later became a Christian, or other variations on the same theme. For example, Mel Gibson’s The Passion more or less follows this tradition, in my view.
Crucifixion was, however, about the very worst thing you could do to a person. Pilate, an unsavory, violent, and deliberately provocative governor toward the Jews (if Josephus is to be believed), was fundamentally abandoning his duty to administer justice—and he arguably understood this all too well, hence the squirming. In the eyes of many Greco-Roman elites, a class to whom Pilate belonged, crucifixion inherently constituted an edgy, undeniably brutal, and possibly tyrannical means of capital punishment. Putting it in a more modern context, executing someone for political pressure is bad enough; sending the dubiously accused to the electric chair is a miscarriage of justice of another order altogether.
Juxtaposed with more judicious Roman officials in the book of Acts—and I think Luke intends the reader to see the parallels—Pilate comes off even worse. To be sure, “washing his hands” of Jesus was a fig leaf of sorts, but one suspects most of Pilate’s peers themselves would seen right through it.
The Loeb translator, A.M. Harmon, notes that business about the “evil name” refers to s(tau)ros, a cross. ↑
Translation is my own. Lis consonantium 12: κλάουσιν ἄνθρωποι καὶ τὴν αὑτῶν τύχην ὀδύρονται καὶ Κάδμῳ καταρῶνται πολλάκις, ὅτι τὸ Ταῦ ἐς τὸ τῶν στοιχείων γένος παρήγαγε. τῷ γὰρ τούτου σώματί φασι τοὺς τυράννους ἀκολουθήσαντας καὶ μιμησαμένους αὐτοῦ τὸ πλάσμα ἔπειτα σχήματι τοιούτῳ ξύλα τεκτήναντας ἀνθρώπους ἀνασκολοπίζειν ἐπ’ αὐτά· ἀπὸ δὲ τούτου καὶ τῷ τεχνήματι τῷ πονηρῷ τὴν πονηρὰν ἐπωνυμίαν συνελθεῖν. τούτων οὖν ἁπάντων ἕνεκα πόσων θανάτων τὸ Ταῦ ἄξιον εἶναι νομίζετε; ἐγὼ μὲν γὰρ οἶμαι δικαίως τοῦτο μόνον ἐς τὴν τοῦ Ταῦ τιμωρίαν ὑπολείπεσθαι, τὸ τῷ σχήματι τῷ αὑτοῦ τὴν δίκην ὑποσχεῖν. ↑