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.]

Jesus tasted these horrors in all their atrocity. A burning thirst,
one of the tortures of crucifixion,[1] devoured him, and he asked to
drink. There stood near, a cup of the ordinary drink of the Roman
soldiers, a mixture of vinegar and water, called _posca_. The soldiers
had to carry with them their _posca_ on all their expeditions,[2] of
which an execution was considered one. A soldier dipped a sponge in
this drink, put it at