Auguſtus, after the Sicilian War, crucified ſix thouſand ſlaves who had not been claimed by their maſters. Tiberius crucified the prieſts of Isis, and deſtroyed their temple. Titus, during the ſiege of Jeruſalem, crucified all thoſe unfortunates who, to the number of five or ſix hundred daily, fled from the city to eſcape the famine; and ſo numerous were theſe executions, that croſſes were wanting, and the land all about ſeemed like a hideous foreſt. [Sidenote: _The different ſorts of Croſſes._] Theſe inſtances are ſufficient to ſhow that death by crucifixion was a common puniſhment; but, ſingularly enough, the ſhape of the Croſs has never been ſatiſfactorily ſettled; practically, the queſtion lies between the _Crux capitata_, or _immiſſa_, which is the ordinary form of the Latin Croſs, and the _Crux anſata_, or _commiſſa_, frequently called the _Tau_ Croſs, from the Greek letter T. The _Tau_-shaped Croſs is, undoubtedly, to be met with moſt frequently in the older repreſentations; and the more ancient authorities, ſuch as Tertullian, St. Jerome, St. Paulinus, Sozomen, and Rufinus, are of opinion that this was the ſhape of the Croſs. After the fifteenth century, our Lord is rarely depicted on the _Crux commiſſa_, it being reſerved for the two thieves. [Sidenote: _Antiquity of the Tau Croſs._] M. Adolphe Napoleon Didron, in his _Iconographie Chretienne_, gives a few illuſtrations of the antiquity of the _Tau_ Croſs: “The Croſs is our crucified Lord in perſon; ‘Where the Croſs is, there is the martyr,’ ſays St. Paulinus. Conſequently it works miracles, as does Jeſus Himſelf: and the liſt of wonders operated by its power is in truth immenſe. By the ſimple ſign of the Croſs traced upon the forehead or the breaſt, men have been delivered from the moſt imminent danger. It has conſtantly put demons to flight, protected the virginity of women, and the faith of believers; it has reſtored men to life, or health, inſpired them with hope or reſignation. “Such is the virtue of the Croſs, that a mere alluſion to that ſacred ſign, made even in the Old Teſtament, and long before the exiſtence of the Croſs, ſaved the youthful Isaac from death, redeemed from deſtruction an entire people whoſe houſes were marked by that ſymbol, healed the envenomed bites of thoſe who looked at the ſerpent raiſed in the form of a _Tau_ upon a pole. It called back the ſoul into the dead body of the ſon of that poor widow who had given bread to the prophet. [Sidenote: _The Tau Croſs._]