Bible Review

Suetonius, Tibullus 17.

Pliny describes myrrhed wine as the finest (Naturalis Historia 14.92). Sour wine or vinegar, as in Mark 15:36, was understood to deaden pain (Pliny, Naturalis Historia 23.24–27), but while the ancients often describe the sedative effect of myrrh alone or in combination with other ingredients, none ascribe such an effect for myrrhed wine. Wine mixed with myrrh was an expensive delicacy that probably was not understood to deaden pain.

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 4.59–61; cf. Livy, Epitome 50.55.5–6.

The Vulgate calvaria (as opposed to caput), the ambiguity of the English word “head” and the popular image associated with Gordon’s Calvary may exert undue influence on modern translations.

Although we do not have an explicit record of such a response, Suetonius may provide a hint when he reports that during a procession of Nero’s, his escort “shouted that they were attendants of Augustus and the soldiers of his triumph” (Nero 6.25).

See, for example, Dio Cassius 62.4.3–6.2.

See Suetonius, Nero 25.2; and Dio Cassius 6.23.

See, for example, Livy, Epitome 1.10.5; 10.7.9; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 2.34.2; Dio Cassius 51.21.8–9; and Suetonius, Nero 25.

Dio Cassius 6.23 (see Zonaras 7.21). For other accounts, see Livy, Epitome 10.7.10; Juvenal, Satires 10.36; and Servius’s commentary on Virgil’s Eclogues 6.22.