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Somersham headless bodies were victims of Roman executions
- sillysaurusx 5y agoOne innovation of Napoleonic era warfare was to seek out and destroy the opposing army, rather than checkmate them and accept their surrender. Related to that, there was recently a mock trial for a king in command of the army that won the battle where the archers annihilated the knights (edit: Agincourt). After the battle was over, he ordered his men to execute the survivors, under penalty of death if you refused. His men wanted to ransom the surviving nobles, who were worth a small fortune alive. But the survivors outnumbered them two to one, even after the battle, and the king wanted to take no chances. It was probably the correct decision, though he was found guilty in the mock trial.
- mc32 5y agoSeems like perhaps the battle of Agincourt is what you are referring to in the last parag.
- sillysaurusx 5y agoBingo, thanks.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- pharmakom 5y agoDownside of this is that the other side will never surrender!
- sillysaurusx 5y agoThis is true. Hitler discovered it during the Russian war. He had an opportunity that was practically unique in warfare history: the populations freed from Stalin’s rule were eager to be rid of him, and would have happily joined ranks to fight him. But, not so much after executing some of them for ideological reasons. Their comrades quickly learned what the stakes were.
- cafard 5y agoBasically, Hitler just wanted enough Slavs around to do menial labor for the Germans who would displace the others. Even so, there were assorted soldiers from the USSR serving in the German army for a good deal of the war.
- hungryforcodes 5y agoHardly an "innovation" then.
- cafard 5y agoNapoleon's armies took great numbers of prisoners, and the centuries before had had their share of deadly battles.
- inglor_cz 5y agoInterestingly, the original scientific article mentions that under Roman law, body of an executed criminal would be released by the authorities to the family for burial. That wasn't/isn't typical for modern Western criminal justice; executed people tended to be buried in prison yards, often in unmarked graves.
- rhacker 5y ago100% guess here. One major difference is, in historic times said executed person was probably questionably guilty - aka most likely not guilty - the family probably wanted the body for a better burial.
- walrus01 5y agoI wonder if the difference in this case is that the executed persons might have been members of the military, serving far away from home, and buried where they were executed because obviously transporting an unrefrigerated corpse any distance at all was not viable.
- lostlogin 5y agoThe Wikipedia article on capital punishment is interesting. The number of countries that have abolished or functionally abolished capital punishment is heartening, though the population that live in countries that still practice it is depressing. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment
- ALittleLight 5y ago"Elsewhere, decapitated bodies make between 2.5% to 6% of burials." That seems like a really high percentage of the dead were executed. Is it reasonably to guess from this fact that 2-6% of Roman mortality was caused by execution? That seems absurdly high. Maybe burial in a cemetery was more common for the executed than the otherwise deceased?