DEATH PENALTY
WHEN LIFE GENERATES DEATH (LEGALLY)

ROMANS

The Romans were a people original of central Italy which in its maximum expansion occupated almost all Europe, North Africa and Asia Minor. The Roman civilization started in the VIII century b.C. with the foundation of Rome, and ended in the V century a.D., due to the barbaric invasions.

In the Roman age, at least in the first centuries, the public authority intervened to punish only the crimes against the general order which were extimated public treason. And in these case it intervened in high mode, often with the death penalty. For private crimes the law of retaliation was applied , which often caused the death of the cuplrit.
But not only the treason of the State and other crimes against the State were extimated among heaviest crimes, but also bringing away a boundary-stone which delimitated the border of a ground, stealing the beasts or the harvest from anyone, violating anyone, infringing a promise, lying, stealing during the night, setting a house on fire, stealing from the master, cheating a client.
The punishments, attending to the Law of the XII tables (V century b.C.), were really cruel. The Romans used beheading, flogging till death, hanging, drowning, cutting of the limbs, the stake; the vestals guilty of infidelity were buried alive, because shedding their blood wasn't permitted, and their seducer was beaten till death; public enemies, slaves who had stolen something from the master, culprits of false witness were thrown by the Tarpeia cliff; for the slaves, and for those peoples who were not Roman citizens, there was the crucifixion, a penalty particulary long and painful.
There are also many examples of other methods: the king Tullo Ostilio, for example, quartered Mettio Fufetio because he had violated the pacts with Rome, fastening him to two wagons which were then lauched in opposite directions.
Also in the long run there was this kind of punishments among the Romans; still in 71 b.C. more than 6,000 men who followed Spartacus in his rebellion against Rome were crucified along the streets, and in the first centuries of the vulgar age the christians, extimated coulpable of overthrowing the public order, were given to the bests like meal in the amphitheatre.