Julius Obsequens, a Roman writer living in the 4th century, wrote in his book, “Liber de prodigiis“, a chronicle of wondrous occurrences and omens, that in the year 91 B.C., a strange thing was seen in the sky:

“At Aenariae, while Livius Troso was promulgating the laws at the beginning of the Italian war, at sunrise, there came a terrific noise in the sky, and a globe of fire appeared burning in the north. In the territory of Spoletum, a globe of fire, of golden color, fell to the earth gyrating. It then seemed to increase in size, rose from the earth and ascended into the sky, where it obscured the sun with its brilliance. It revolved toward the eastern quadrant of the sky.”

I was reading about the origins of the word decimate and noticed a cool little nugget of historical cruelty.

A decimation was used to punish Roman soldiers for acts of cowardice or mutiny. When a cohort (a military unit consisting of 800-450 soldiers, depending on the time period) was to be punished, the men were divided into ten groups and lots were chosen. This was usually done by choosing colored pebbles from a sack. The man who chose the wrong colored pebble would then be executed by his fellow group members, usually by stoning or clubbing.

The reasoning behind this punishment was that since every member of a cohort, from the top to the bottom, was susceptible to being executed for the actions of other members, such punishment would hammer in fear, correct behavior and group resolve. Since the execution of one-tenth of a cohort is a fairly sizable amount of men, this punishment was rarely used except instances where extreme behavioral modification was warranted.

Here and there, in my spare time, I’ve been picking away at Julius Caesar’s “Commentarii de Bello Gallico” (literally translated as “Commentaries on the Gallic War”) [Link to the full book at Project Gutenberg], his account of the nine years he spent at war in Gaul (named by the Romans, a large area of western Europe, comprising modern day France, Belgium and parts of Italy, Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands). It’s a great read, well worth the time if you dig history, romans, warfare, extreme violence and freaky pagan cultures (I mean, how can you go wrong with a recipe like that?). It’s full of battle and observations of a people that very little written account of exists. Druids are all over the place with all kinds of weird customs. My favorite tweaky little practice so far is the wicker man, a method of mass sacrifice, employed by the druids on behalf of the Celtic people to appease gods and ward away disease, or some other misfortune that has befallen them. A giant, hollow effigy of a man was made from sticks and then filled with human undesirables. Thieves and other criminals made the best stuffing material, though in a pinch, the average Joe might be used. The whole thing was then set alight, roasting those inside in one big bonfire.

“XVI.–The nation of all the Gauls is extremely devoted to superstitious rites; and on that account they who are troubled with unusually severe diseases and they who are engaged in battles and dangers, either sacrifice men as victims, or vow that they will sacrifice them, and employ the Druids as the performers of those sacrifices; because they think that unless the life of a man be offered for the life of a man, the mind of the immortal gods cannot be rendered propitious, and they have sacrifices of that kind ordained for national purposes. Others have figures of vast size, the limbs of which formed of osiers they fill with living men, which being set on fire, the men perish enveloped in the flames. They consider that the oblation of such as have been taken in theft, or in robbery, or any other offence, is more acceptable to the immortal gods; but when a supply of that class is wanting, they have recourse to the oblation of even the innocent.”

Julius Caesar’s book is the only written record of this practice. The veracity of his account has been criticized by several historians for different reason, chief being that Caesar does not claim to have witnessed the sacrifices himself and that in trying to drum up support among the citizens of Rome for his campaign, he might have exaggerated or invented the ritual in order to further paint the image of the Celt as barbaric and uncivilized.

But, if it were true, how insane a picture would that have been? Bodies writhing and screaming, stuffed into a wooden cage built in the shape of a man. Fat and fluids dripping to the ground as blackened skin curls and organs burst. Talk about a fucking Kodak moment to show the grandkids when they misbehave. I wonder what they did with the remains after all of it was burnt?