The cross-bar was bound upon the back of the victim, or his head was placed in the _patibulum_, and he was then led through the city, accompanied by the centurions and soldiers having his execution in hand, amid the gibes and insults of the cruel crowd. The title, a piece of wood, covered with white gipsum, labeled with the crime for which he was to suffer, in letters of black, was usually carried before the condemned person, so that the curious might be advised of the cause of his death. At the place of crucifixion, the prisoner was stripped and his clothes given to the soldiers; he was then bound to the _patibulum_ and thus raised on ladders, until the notch was reached in the upright piece, to receive it, or the cross-piece was fastened to the upright post upon the ground and then raised into an upright position, with the afflicted one bound to the cross, with his hands nailed to the ends, there to suffer the slow agonies of a lingering death, which might last for hours or perhaps for days. The shame of this torture to which the Saviour was subjected has become not only the symbol of salvation, but the true type of that absolute renunciation of the world which characterizes the true Christian, for did not Christ Himself say: “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me”?[32] _Burying alive_, was a form of capital punishment applied in Rome as a punishment to the vestal virgins, violating their oaths of chastity and it was also in vogue in France during the middle ages. According to the law of Numa, the unchaste Vestal was simply stoned to death,[33] but the cruel torture of burying her alive was devised by Tarquinius Priscus and inflicted from his time forward.[34] On her conviction, the poor creature was stripped of her _vittae_ and other indicia of office and after being scourged, was attired like a corpse and placed in a closed litter, and then borne through the Forum, attended by her weeping relatives and friends, with all the ceremonies of a real funeral, to the _Campus Sceleratus_, within the walls of the city, near the Colline gate. The vault, underground, was furnished with a couch, a lamp, and a table, with a little food. The pontifex maximus offered up a prayer to Heaven for the culprit and having thus performed his sacred office, delivered her to the executioner, who led her down into the subterranean cell and drew up the ladder and filled the pit with earth even with the ground,[35] thus forever consigning to mother earth the body of her wayward daughter, who, in pursuance of her God-given instincts, had violated the unnatural law of the barbarous pagan days of ancient Rome.