The place of execution was at last reached.  According to Jewish custom, the sufferers were offered a strong aromatic wine, an intoxicating drink, which, through a sentiment of pity, was given to the condemned in order to stupefy him.[1] It appears that the ladies of Jerusalem often brought this kind of wine to the unfortunates who were led to execution; when none was presented by them, it was purchased from the public treasury.[2] Jesus, after having touched the edge of the cup with his lips, refused to drink.[3] This mournful consolation of ordinary sufferers did not accord with his exalted nature.  He preferred to quit life with perfect clearness of mind, and to await in full consciousness the death he had willed and brought upon himself.  He was then divested of his garments,[4] and fastened to the cross.  The cross was composed of two beams, tied in the form of the letter T.[5] It was not much elevated, so that the feet of the condemned almost touched the earth.  They commenced by fixing it,[6] then they fastened the sufferer to it by driving nails into his hands; the feet were often nailed, though sometimes only bound with cords.[7] A piece of wood was fastened to the upright portion of the cross, toward the middle, and passed between the legs of the condemned, who rested upon it.[8] Without that, the hands would have been torn and the body would have sunk down.  At other times, a small horizontal rest was fixed beneath the feet, and sustained them.[9]

[Footnote 1:  Talm. of Bab., Sanhedrim, fol. 43 a.  Comp. Prov. xxi. 6.]

[Footnote 2:  Talm. of Bab., Sanhedrim, l.c.]

[Footnote 3:  Mark xv. 23; Matt. xxvii. 34, falsifies this detail, in order to create a Messianic allusion from Ps. lxix. 20.]

[Footnote 4:  Matt. xxvii. 35; Mark xv. 24; John xix. 23.  Cf.  Artemidorus, Onirocr., ii. 53.]

[Footnote 5:  Lucian, Jud.  Voc., 12.  Compare the grotesque crucifix traced at Rome on a wall of Mount Palatine. Civilta Cattolica, fasc. clxi. p. 529, and following.]

[Footnote 6:  Jos., B.J., VII. vi. 4; Cic., In Verr., v. 66; Xenoph.  Ephes., Ephesiaca, iv. 2.]

[Footnote 7:  Luke xxiv. 39; John xx. 25-27; Plautus, Mostellaria, II. i. 13; Lucan., Phars., vi. 543, and following, 547; Justin, Dial. cum Tryph., 97; Tertullian, Adv.  Marcionem, iii. 19.]

[Footnote 8:  Irenaeus, Adv.  Haer., ii. 24; Justin, Dial. cum Tryphone, 91.]

[Footnote 9:  See the graffito quoted before.]