The literature

Every source worked up for the Roman Law and Crucifixion article, what each one is, how it bears on the article's claims, and which sources were considered and not used, with the reason.

This page lists every source the article rests on and every source considered for it.  The research dossiers are in research/: lead-scholarship.md (scholarship and page anchors), lead-primary-checks.md (primary texts, corrections, byte checks and quotation register), roman-legal-texts.md (Roman law and Latin texts), josephus-philo-and-historians.md (Josephus, Philo and biblical passages), archaeology-and-epigraphy.md (bones, inscriptions and rabbinic texts), and orchestrator-review.md (subsequent source and argument checks).  Helper results are leads until independently checked against the source.

How to read an entry

kind is primary (an ancient text, document or object), edition (a modern edition or translation of one), or study (modern scholarship).  direction says how the source bears on the claim it is cited for:  supports (supports the Gospel or Acts detail at issue), undercuts, complicates or background.  verified is full when the passage was read in the source itself, abstract when only a summary or record was read, and citation when only the reference was seen.

Roman law and Latin literature

  1. justinian-533b. Digest book 48, Latin, Mommsen-Krueger text from the Grenoble corpus (Wayback copy). kind: edition direction: supports, complicates verified: full. 48.6.7 (lex Iulia de vi publica), 48.19.28 and 48.19.38.2 (furca by status), 48.20.6 (clothing), 48.24.1-3 (bodies of the executed). Every text is a jurist of about 200-230 in a compilation of 533; the article says so wherever it uses them.
  2. scott-1932. S. P. Scott, The Civil Law vol. 11 (1932). kind: edition direction: supports, complicates verified: full. English of Digest 48.19, 48.20.6 and 48.24, checked against the Latin. The file needs grep -a.
  3. monro-1904. C. H. Monro, The Digest of Justinian vol. 1 (1904). kind: edition direction: background verified: full. Digest 1.18.3 and 1.18.6.8 on the governor's imperium and power of life and death.
  4. justinian-533c, justinian-533d. Digest books 1 and 2, Latin. verified: full. Considered and used only to check Monro's English; not cited. Digest 2.1.3 (merum imperium as "gladii potestas") was not needed once Sherwin-White's point about the narrow meaning of ius gladii was used instead.
  5. yonge-1856b. Cicero, Against Verres 2.5, Yonge's translation (vol. 1, Bohn printing of 1866). kind: edition direction: supports, complicates verified: full. Gavius, "Civis Romanus sum," and the cross facing Italy, p. 537. The library key's year was corrected in the YAML to the printing on disk.
  6. yonge-1917. Cicero, Pro Rabirio 16, Yonge's translation (vol. 2, 1917 Bell reprint). kind: edition direction: background verified: full. "The mere name of the gibbet," p. 269. Saved for this article.
  7. cicero-latinlibrary-verres-2-5, cicero-latinlibrary-rabirio. Latin Library texts. verified: full. Used to check the Latin of Verres 2.5.162 and 2.5.170 and Rabirio 16; the Latin of 2.5.170 is given in a note. Not cited separately.
  8. roberts-1905. Livy book 10, Roberts translation. kind: edition direction: background verified: full. The Valerian and Porcian appeal laws (10.9). livy-latinlibrary-book-10 was used only to check it.
  9. melmoth-1746. Pliny, Letters, Melmoth's translation revised by Bosanquet (Gutenberg 2811). kind: edition direction: complicates verified: full. 10.96-97: citizens sent to Rome; the incense test before the emperor's image; Trajan's "not to be sought out." pliny-latinlibrary-epistulae-10 checked the Latin.
  10. rolfe-1914, rolfe-1914b, rolfe-1914c, rolfe-1914d, rolfe-1914e. Suetonius, Rolfe's Loeb translation on LacusCurtius: Claudius 25.3, Galba 9.1, Caligula 32.2, Domitian 10.1, Augustus 13.2. kind: edition direction: complicates verified: full. False claimants to citizenship beheaded; a citizen crucified by Galba; placards stating the offence; Augustus refusing burial. The suetonius-latinlibrary-* texts checked the Latin.
  11. dio-1917c, dio-1917d. Cassius Dio books 51 and 60, Cary's Loeb. kind: edition direction: supports, background verified: full. The cult of Rome and Julius for citizens and of Augustus for "Hellenes" (51.20.6-7); the sale of citizenship under Claudius (60.17.5-6). Book 60 is in Loeb vol. 7 of 1924, corrected in the YAML.
  12. tacitus-116, tacitus-1876d, tacitus-1876e. Tacitus, Annals, Church and Brodribb. kind: edition direction: supports, complicates verified: full. 15.44 (Christus under Pilate), 6.29 (burial refused to the condemned in treason trials), 2.42 (Judea's tribute), 4.37 and 4.55 (provincial cult temples). tacitus-latinlibrary-annales-* checked the Latin. 12.60 (Claudius and the procurators' jurisdiction) was considered and not used, because Bond's account of the change of title covered the point.
  13. tacitus-1931. Tacitus, Histories 5, Moore's Loeb. kind: edition direction: background verified: full. 5.9: "Under Tiberius all was quiet" and Gaius's statue.
  14. petronius-latinlibrary-satyricon. Petronius, Satyricon 111-112, Latin. kind: primary direction: complicates verified: full. The soldier guarding crosses against burial; translated by the lead.
  15. petronius-1902. The translation ascribed to Oscar Wilde. Considered and not used: the guard sentence is not in the saved text in the form a helper reported, and the attribution and date are uncertain.
  16. seneca-1920b. Seneca, Epistle 101, Gummere. Considered and not used: the "accursed tree" passage adds nothing to Seneca's To Marcia 20.3, which the article quotes in Cook's translation through Tombs.
  17. van-wingerden-2019. Ruben van Wingerden, "Carrying a Patibulum," NTS 2019. kind: study direction: supports, complicates verified: full. Reprints the Latin of the Puteoli funeral contract, column II lines 8-10, and Cook's translation. The article does not take a side on who carried the beam.
  18. hinard-2003. Hinard and Dumont, Libitina (2003), the edition of the Puteoli inscription. verified: citation. Not obtained; the Latin is used through van Wingerden.

Josephus, Philo and the New Testament

  1. thackeray-1928. Josephus, Jewish War 1-3, Loeb. kind: edition direction: supports verified: full. Coponius's capital power (2.117, p. 367), Judas the Galilean (2.118, pp. 367-369), the standards and aqueduct (2.169-177, pp. 389-391), Quadratus (2.241, p. 417), Florus and the equestrians (2.308, p. 443), the end of the emperor's sacrifice (2.409, p. 483), Herod's temple at Caesarea (1.414, p. 197). English pages are odd; the folio follows each page's notes in the OCR.
  2. thackeray-1957. Jewish War 4-7, Loeb (1928 translation, 1957 printing). kind: edition direction: supports verified: full. The crucified buried before sunset (4.317, p. 93), crucifixions at the siege (5.449-451, p. 341), Titus on the Temple barrier (6.124-126, p. 411). Saved by a helper.
  3. feldman-1965. Antiquities 18-20, Loeb. kind: edition direction: supports, complicates verified: full. The Testimonium sentence on the trial (18.64, p. 51), the sons of Judas crucified (20.102, p. 443), the stoning of James (20.200-203, pp. 495-497). Saved by a helper.
  4. josephus-1737b. Antiquities, Whiston. kind: edition direction: supports verified: full. Gratus and Caiaphas (18.35), Pilate's recall (18.89), the vestments (18.91-95), Antipas's exile (18.252), Varus's 2,000 (17.295), would-be kings (17.285), the balustrade (15.417), Herod's temples (15.298, 15.339, 15.363-364), Judas's "slavery" (18.4). Niese sections were read from niese-1892. Whiston's "accusations of the Jews" at 18.89 mistranslates the Greek "Samaritans"; the article notes it.
  5. josephus-1737c. Life, Whiston. kind: edition direction: complicates verified: full. Three crucified acquaintances taken down, one survived (420-421). The Loeb Life (thackeray-1926) was not obtained: archive.org returned server errors for loeb-186.
  6. josephus-1737. Jewish War, Whiston. Considered and not used: the Loeb was used throughout for the War.
  7. niese-1892, niese-1895, niese-1890b. Greek of Josephus, Perseus. verified: full. Used to confirm section numbers and the Greek of War 2.117, Ant. 18.60 and 18.89, and Life 421. Not cited separately.
  8. philo-yonge-embassy-to-gaius. Philo, Embassy to Gaius, Yonge. kind: edition direction: complicates verified: full. Agrippa's letter (276-329) on Pilate's shields and character (299-305), Augustus's sacrifices (317), Gaius's statue (188). A helper's claim that 299-305 is a speech and not a letter is wrong.
  9. philo-yonge-flaccus. Philo, Against Flaccus, Yonge. kind: edition direction: supports verified: full. Crucified men released to relatives on imperial festivals (83-84). Saved by a helper.
  10. philo-yonge-special-laws-3. Philo, Special Laws 3, Yonge. kind: edition direction: supports verified: full. Burial of the hanged before sunset (152). Saved by a helper.
  11. cohn-1896. Cohn-Wendland vol. 5, Greek OCR. Considered and not used: the OCR does not contain usable Greek of the passages.
  12. gutenberg-2024. King James Bible. kind: edition direction: background verified: full. Deuteronomy 21:22-23 and every Gospel, Acts and Pauline passage quoted.
  13. sblgnt-2010. SBL Greek New Testament. Considered and not used: a helper used it for the Greek of John 18:31; the article quotes the KJV only.
  14. martinez-1999. Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition. kind: edition direction: supports verified: full. Temple Scroll col. LXIV 7-12, p. 1287 (running head opens the English page).
  15. lake-1926c. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 5.1.44, Lake's Loeb (OCR). kind: edition direction: supports verified: full. Attalus's Latin placard, p. 427.
  16. origen-1885d. Origen, Letter to Africanus 14, ANF. kind: edition direction: complicates verified: full. Jewish courts condemning to death under Rome in the third century, "not without the knowledge of the ruler." Saved by a helper. The Greek was not read.
  17. deissmann-1927. Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East, revised edition. kind: study direction: complicates verified: full. P.Flor. 61, the prefect of Egypt releasing Phibion to the crowd, p. 269. Saved for this article. The 1910 first edition (deissmann-1910) was considered and not used because Bond cites the revised edition's page.

Rabbinic texts

  1. sefaria-2026aa. Talmud passages on the "forty years": y. Sanhedrin 7:2 (and 1:1), b. Shabbat 15a, b. Avodah Zarah 8b, b. Sanhedrin 41a. kind: edition direction: complicates verified: full. The Yerushalmi's Hebrew דיני נפשות was checked; the Bavli's "capital cases" comes by emendation. m. Sanhedrin 7:1-2 and y. Sanhedrin 7:2's report of Eleazar ben Zadok were considered and not used: the burning of a priest's daughter cannot be dated and does not bear on Roman jurisdiction without speculation. b. Sanhedrin 37a, 51b, 97b and 98a in the same set were not relevant here.
  2. sefaria-2026bg. Mishnah Sanhedrin 6. kind: edition direction: supports, complicates verified: full. Court graveyards and reburial of bones. Saved by a helper.
  3. sefaria-2026bh. Mishnah Pesachim 8:6. kind: edition direction: complicates verified: full. A prisoner promised release before Passover. Saved for this article.
  4. instone-brewer-2011. David Instone-Brewer on b. Sanhedrin 43a. Considered and not used: the Talmudic Yeshu tradition is late and is treated in Why Judaism Rejects Jesus.

Archaeology and inscriptions

  1. taylor-2006. Joan E. Taylor, "Pontius Pilate and the Imperial Cult in Roman Judaea," NTS 2006. kind: study direction: supports, complicates verified: full. The Pilate stone's text, dimensions and restorations; Pilate's coins. Saved by a helper.
  2. cotton-2010. CIIP I.1. kind: edition direction: supports, complicates verified: full. No. 2, the Temple warning, p. 43 (finds of 1871 and 1935 at pp. 43-44); no. 50, the Giv'at ha-Mivtar ossuary, p. 93, read "Hezkil" after Puech. No. 461, the ossuary of "Yehosef son of Qyp'" from the so-called Caiaphas tomb, was considered and not used: CIIP calls the identification uncertain, and the article needs nothing from it.
  3. haas-1970. N. Haas, IEJ 1970. kind: study direction: supports verified: full. The original anatomical report. Saved by a helper.
  4. zias-1985. Zias and Sekeles, IEJ 1985. kind: study direction: complicates verified: full. The reappraisal: nail length, arms tied, leg breaks after death. File added by a helper.
  5. ingham-2022. Ingham and Duhig, British Archaeology 2022. kind: study direction: supports verified: full. Fenstanton skeleton 4926. Two-column layout: read with plain pdftotext.
  6. ucda-2021, albion-2021. University of Cambridge and Albion Archaeology news pages on Fenstanton. verified: full. Considered and not used: the magazine report by the excavators carries the same facts with more detail. Only the press release gives the nail's length (5 cm), so the article gives no length.
  7. gualdi-russo-2019. The Gavello heel bone (called gualdi-russo-2018, its online date, in the helper dossier). verified: abstract. The Florence repository abstract states the authors' proposed crucifixion explanation and their caution about poor preservation and other damage. It is now cited directly for that limited claim. Repository HTML and extraction are held in the library; the full paper remains closed and is not evaluated. Ingham and Duhig supply the contrasting root-damage reading.
  8. magness-2012. Jodi Magness, The Archaeology of the Holy Land. kind: study direction: supports, complicates verified: full. Jannaeus's crucifixions, why nails rarely survive, the burial accounts and Jewish law.
  9. harper-2020. Harper et al., the Nazareth Inscription's marble. kind: study direction: undercuts (the apologetic link to the empty tomb) verified: full. Saved for this article.
  10. Not obtained, known only through the works above: V. Tzaferis, "Jewish Tombs at and near Giv'at ha-Mivtar," IEJ 20 (1970); J. Naveh, "The Ossuary Inscriptions from Giv'at ha-Mivtar," IEJ 20 (1970); V. Tzaferis, "Crucifixion — The Archaeological Evidence," BAR 11.1 (1985), quoted through Magness; CIIP II no. 1277 (the Pilate stone); G. Alföldy, SCI 18 (1999); Lehmann and Holum (1999); the Albion grey-literature report on Fenstanton.

Modern scholarship

  1. sherwin-white-1963. Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament. kind: study direction: supports, complicates verified: full. Capital jurisdiction (pp. 36-43), the trial before Pilate (pp. 24-29), Paul's trials, citizenship and appeal (pp. 48-68, 149-154), the verdict on Acts (p. 189).
  2. winter-1961. Paul Winter, On the Trial of Jesus. kind: study direction: undercuts (John 18:31) verified: full. Saved for this article. Its 1961 claims that no nails were used for the feet (p. 65) predate the 1968 find; noted in the dossier, not used in the article.
  3. bond-2004. Helen K. Bond, Pontius Pilate in History and Interpretation. kind: study direction: complicates verified: full. The province, Pilate's record, the four Gospels' Pilates, the trial outline, the amnesty. Saved for this article.
  4. hengel-1977. Martin Hengel, Crucifixion. kind: study direction: background verified: full.
  5. samuelsson-2011. Gunnar Samuelsson, Crucifixion in Antiquity. kind: study direction: complicates verified: full. Saved for this article.
  6. tombs-2017. David Tombs's review of Cook 2014. kind: study direction: complicates verified: full. Used for Cook's position and his translation of Seneca. Cook's book itself (Crucifixion in the Mediterranean World, 2014) and his "Crucifixion and Burial," NTS 57 (2011) were not obtained; so his burial argument is not stated or used here.
  7. brown-1994b. Raymond E. Brown, The Death of the Messiah vol. 2. kind: study direction: supports, complicates verified: full. The Roman and Jewish attitudes to burying the crucified, pp. 1207-1210. brown-1994 (vol. 1) was considered and not used.
  8. crossan-1994. kind: study direction: undercuts (the burial) verified: full.
  9. ehrman-2014. kind: study direction: undercuts (the burial) verified: full for the passages cited. His p. 160 claim concerns ordinary practice and expressly allows exceptions. Parent review retains that distinction: an example of burial is not a measured frequency or an automatic refutation of his probability judgment.
  10. fredriksen-1999, sanders-1993, meier-1991. kind: study direction: supports (the execution and proposed trial reconstructions) verified: full for the cited passages. The downloaded Meier PDF and extraction are held under the existing canonical meier-1991 key; Sanders's public hOCR-derived text is also retained. The legacy duplicate meier-1991b is considered and not used in the final article: it is the same volume, and remains reserved for older citations without another physical copy.
  11. price-1984. Simon Price, Rituals and Power. kind: study direction: complicates verified: full.
  12. udoh-2005. Fabian Udoh, To Caesar What Is Caesar's. kind: study direction: complicates verified: full.
  13. Considered and not used: Jean Juster, Hans Lietzmann, Josef Blinzler, Haim Cohn and David Catchpole on the trial, and Jean-Pierre Lémonon on Pilate, known here only through Bond, Winter and Sherwin-White; A. H. M. Jones and Peter Garnsey on appeal, known through Bond and Sherwin-White and reported as such; Craig Evans, Jesus and the Ossuaries (2003, archive.org jesusossuaries0000evan), located but not read because Magness and Brown covered the same Jewish burial evidence.
  14. Ruben van Wingerden, "The Descent from the Cross" and Roman Crucifixion Practice, Novum Testamentum 67 (2025), 182-197, DOI 10.1163/15685365-bja10088. Considered and not used: publisher and institutional metadata/abstract were located, but publisher PDF routes returned 403. No claim here depends on search snippets or an unexamined full text.

Metered accounts

None.  No JSTOR, hoopla or logged-in reading was used by the lead or the helpers.