The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire · ¶193

1. Any act of treason against the state, or of correspondence with the public enemy. The mode of execution was painful and ignominious: the head of the degenerate Roman was shrouded in a veil, his hands were tied behind his back, and after he had been scourged by the lictor, he was suspended in the midst of the forum on a cross, or inauspicious tree.

Edward Gibbon · Project Gutenberg #734 (Milman edition) — public domain
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