Death by sawing

 


Death by sawing

Death by sawing is the act of sawing or cutting a living person in half, either sagittally (usually midsagittally), or transversely. Death by sawing was a method of execution reportedly used in different parts of the world

Different methods of death by sawing have been recorded. In cases related to the Roman Emperor Caligula, the sawing is said to be through the middle (transversely).

 In the cases of Morocco, it is stated that the sawing was lengthwise, both from the groin upwards and from the skull downwards (midsagittally).

In only one case, the story about Simon the Zealot, the person is explicitly described as being hung upside-down and sawn apart vertically through the middle, starting at the groin, with no mention of fastenings or support boards around the person, in the manner depicted in illustrations.

In other cases where details about the method beyond the mere sawing act are explicitly supplied, the condemned person was apparently fastened to either one or two boards prior to sawing.

Ancient history and classical antiquity

Ancient Persia

The legend of Jamshid

Jamshid was a legendary shah of Persia, whose story is told in the Shahnameh by Ferdowsi.

After 300 years of blessed reign, Jamshid forgot the blessings came from God, and began demanding that he be revered as a god himself. The people rebelled, and Zahhak had him sawn asunder.

Parysatis

Parysatis, wife and half-sister of Darius II (r. 423–405 BC) was the real power behind the throne of the Achaemenid Empire; she instigated and became involved in a number of court intrigues, made several enemies, yet had an uncanny knack for dispatching them at an opportune time.

At one point, she decided to have the siblings of her daughter-in-law Stateira killed, and only relented from killing Stateira as well due to the desperate pleas of her son, Artaxerxes II. Stateira's sister Roxana was the first of her siblings to be killed, by being sawn in half.

When Darius II died, Parysatis moved quickly, and was able to have the new queen Stateira poisoned; Parysatis still remained a power to be reckoned with for years after.

Hormizd IV

Hormizd IV (Persia:), son of Khosrow I, was the twenty-first King of Persia from AD 579 to 590. He was deeply resented by the nobility due to his cruelties.

In 590, a palace coup was staged in which his son, Khosrow II, was declared king. Hormizd was forced to watch his wife and one of his sons sawn in two, and the deposed king was then blinded. After a few days, the new king is said to have killed his father in a fit of rage.

Thracians

Thracians were regarded as warlike, ferocious, and bloodthirsty by Romans and Greeks. One of the most notorious was the king Diegylis, possibly only topped by his son Ziselmius.

According to Diodorus Siculus, Ziselmius sawed several people to death and commanded their families to eat the flesh of their murdered relatives.

The Thracians eventually rebelled, captured him and sought to inflict every conceivable torture upon him prior to his death.

Ancient Rome

The Twelve Tables

Promulgated about 451 BC, the Twelve Tables is the oldest extant law code for the Romans. Aulus Gellius, whose work "Attic Nights" is partially preserved, states that death by the saw was mentioned for some offenses in the tables, but that the use of which was so infrequent that no one could remember ever having seen it done.

Of the retained laws in the Twelve Tables, the following concerning how creditors should proceed with debtors is found in Table 3, article 6: "On the third market-day they [the creditors] shall cut pieces.

If they shall have cut more or less [than their shares], it shall be with impunity." The translator notes the ambiguity of the original text, but says that later Roman writers understood this to mean that creditors were allowed to cut their shares from the body of the debtor. If true, that would constitute dismemberment, rather than sawing.

Caligula

This method of execution was uncommon throughout the time of the Roman Empire. However, it was used extensively during the reign of Caligula when the condemned, including members of his own family, were sawn across the torso rather than lengthwise down the body.

It is said that Caligula would watch such executions while he ate, stating that witnessing the suffering acted as an appetiser.

The Kitos War

The Kitos War occurred 115–117 AD, and was a rebellion by the Jews within the Roman Empire. Major revolts happened several places, and the main source by Cassius Dio claims that in Cyrene, 220,000 Greeks were massacred by the Jews; in Cyprus, 240,000.

Dio adds that many of the victims were sawn asunder, and that the Jews licked up the blood of the slain, and "twisted the entrails like a girdle about their bodies".

Valens

In 365 AD, Procopius declared himself emperor, and moved against Valens. He was defeated in battle, and due to the treachery of his two generals Agilonius and Gomoarius (they had been promised they would be "shown favour" by Valens), he was captured.

In 366, he was fastened to two trees bent down with force; when the trees were released, Procopius was ripped apart in the manner of the legendary execution of the bandit Sinis. The "favour" Valens showed to Agilonius and Gomoarius was to have them both sawn asunder.

Jewish tradition

Death of Isaiah

The prophet Isaiah was, according to some traditional rabbinic texts, sawn apart on orders of King Manasseh of Judah. One tradition states that he was put within a tree, and then sawn apart; another says he was sawn apart by means of a wooden saw.

Christian martyrs

Simon the Zealot

Several early Christians are credited with being martyred by means of a saw. The earliest, and most famous, is the obscure apostle of Jesus, Simon the Zealot. He is said to have been martyred in Persia, and that the express mode by which he was executed was to be hanged up by the feet, as in the woodcut illustration.

Conus and his son

According to the Acta Sanctorum, after his wife's death in the age of Domitian, Conus went with his 7-year-old son into a desert. He destroyed several pagan idols in Cogni, Asia Minor (Anatolia). When caught, he and his son were tortured by starvation and fire, and were finally put to the saw, praying while they died.

Symphorosa and her seven sons

According to the 16th-century Foxe's Book of Martyrs, Symphorosa was a widow with seven sons living in the age of emperor Trajan (98-117) or Hadrian (117–138).

Refusing a command to pray at a heathen temple, Symphorosa was scourged, and then thrown in the river Aniene with a large stone fastened to her. The six eldest sons were all killed by stab wounds, and the youngest, Eugenius, was sawn apart.

The 38 monks and martyrs on Mount Sinai

According to the Martyrologium Romanum, during the reign of Diocletian "wild barbarians" decided to rob a community of monks living at Mount Sinai. There was nothing of material wealth there, and in their rage, the Arabs slaughtered them all, several by flaying, others by sawing them with dull saws.

St. Tarbula

Accused of practising witchcraft and causing the sickness of the wife of the ardently anti-Christian Persian king Shapur II, Tarbula was condemned and executed by being sawn in half in the year 345.

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