Talk:Religion/@comment-31.23.88.188-20170420164605/@comment-26397825-20170423001430

Crucifixion has been described in multiple texts and is an idea that came up before the death of Jesus Christ. From what I can read about it, Romans were the ones who mostly used it, but the pre-Roman states of Macedonia, Persia and Carthage also used it. One Greek writer, Herodutus actually described a crucifixion that occured in about 479BCE in one of his books: "They nailed him to a plank and hung him up ... this Artayctes who suffered death by crucifixion."[67]

He was talking about a Persian general being crucified by Athenians at the time, well before Jesus Christ was even immaculately conceived.

And another book, The Commentary on Herodotus by How and Wells references this as well, by stating: "They crucified him with hands and feet stretched out and nailed to cross-pieces; cf. vii.33. This barbarity, unusual on the part of Greeks, may be explained by the enormity of the outrage or by Athenian deference to local feeling."[68]

So crosses and crucifixion themselves aren't inheritly a Christian thing, it's just that Christians have claimed it for their own.