The Gemonian Stairs ( la, Scalae Gemoniae, it, Scale Gemonie) were a flight of steps located in the ancient city of

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus ( legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

. Nicknamed the Stairs of Mourning, the stairs are infamous in Roman history as a place of

execution Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that ...

Location

The steps were situated in the central part of Rome, leading from the Arx of the

Capitoline Hill The Capitolium or Capitoline Hill ( ; it, Campidoglio ; la, Mons Capitolinus ), between the Forum and the Campus Martius, is one of the Seven Hills of Rome. The hill was earlier known as ''Mons Saturnius'', dedicated to the god Saturn. ...

down to the

Roman Forum The Roman Forum, also known by its Latin name Forum Romanum ( it, Foro Romano), is a rectangular forum ( plaza) surrounded by the ruins of several important ancient government buildings at the center of the city of Rome. Citizens of the ancie ...

. As viewed from the Forum, they passed down the

Tabularium The Tabularium was the official records office of ancient Rome and housed the offices of many city officials. Situated within the Roman Forum, it was on the front slope of the Capitoline Hill, below the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, to t ...

and the Temple of Concord on the left side, and past the

Mamertine Prison The Mamertine Prison ( it, Carcere Mamertino), in antiquity the Tullianum, was a prison (''carcer'') with a dungeon ('' oubliette'') located in the Comitium in ancient Rome. It is said to have been built in the 7th century BC and was situated ...

on the right side. It is believed that the location of the steps roughly coincides with the current

Via di San Pietro in Carcere Via or VIA may refer to the following: Science and technology * MOS Technology 6522, Versatile Interface Adapter * ''Via'' (moth), a genus of moths in the family Noctuidae * Via (electronics), a through-connection * VIA Technologies, a Taiwa ...

, past the ruins of the Mamertine Prison. It is believed the stairs were built some time before the rule of

Tiberius Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus (; 16 November 42 BC – 16 March AD 37) was the second Roman emperor. He reigned from AD 14 until 37, succeeding his stepfather, the first Roman emperor Augustus. Tiberius was born in Rome in 42 BC. His father ...

(14–37), as they were not mentioned by name in any ancient texts that predate this period. Their first use as a place of execution is primarily associated with the rumoured paranoid excesses of Tiberius' later reign.

Executions

The condemned were usually strangled before their bodies were bound and desecrated. Occasionally the corpses of the executed were transferred here for display from other places of execution in Rome. Corpses were usually left to rot on the staircase for extended periods of time in full view of the Forum, scavenged by dogs or other carrion animals, until eventually being thrown into the

Tiber The Tiber ( ; it, Tevere ; la, Tiberis) is the third-longest river in Italy and the longest in Central Italy, rising in the Apennine Mountains in Emilia-Romagna and flowing through Tuscany, Umbria, and Lazio, where it is joined by th ...

. Death on the stairs was considered extremely dishonourable and dreadful, yet several senators and even an

emperor An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife ( empress consort), mother ( ...

met their demise here. Among the most famous who were executed on this spot were the

prefect Prefect (from the Latin ''praefectus'', substantive adjectival form of ''praeficere'': "put in front", meaning in charge) is a magisterial title of varying definition, but essentially refers to the leader of an administrative area. A prefect's ...

of the

Praetorian Guard The Praetorian Guard (Latin: ''cohortēs praetōriae'') was a unit of the Imperial Roman army that served as personal bodyguards and intelligence agents for the Roman emperors. During the Roman Republic, the Praetorian Guard were an escort fo ...

Lucius Aelius Sejanus Lucius Aelius Sejanus (c. 20 BC – 18 October AD 31), commonly known as Sejanus (), was a Roman soldier, friend and confidant of the Roman Emperor Tiberius. Of the Equites class by birth, Sejanus rose to power as prefect of the Praetorian ...

and the emperor

Vitellius Aulus Vitellius (; ; 24 September 1520 December 69) was Roman emperor for eight months, from 19 April to 20 December AD 69. Vitellius was proclaimed emperor following the quick succession of the previous emperors Galba and Otho, in a year of ci ...

. Sejanus was a former confidant of emperor Tiberius who was implicated in a conspiracy in AD 31. According to

Cassius Dio Lucius Cassius Dio (), also known as Dio Cassius ( ), was a Roman historian and senator of maternal Greek origin. He published 80 volumes of the history on ancient Rome, beginning with the arrival of Aeneas in Italy. The volumes documented the ...

, Sejanus was strangled and cast down the Gemonian stairs, where the mob abused his corpse for three days.Cassius Dio, ''Roman History'
LVIII.11
/ref> Soon after, his three children were similarly executed in this place. Vitellius was a Roman general who became the third emperor in the so-called Year of the Four Emperors in AD 69. He succeeded Otho upon his suicide on 16 April, but lived to be emperor for only eight months. When his armies were defeated by those of

Vespasian Vespasian (; la, Vespasianus ; 17 November AD 9 – 23/24 June 79) was a Roman emperor who reigned from AD 69 to 79. The fourth and last emperor who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors, he founded the Flavian dynasty that ruled the Emp ...

he agreed to surrender, but the

refused to let him leave the city. On the entrance of Vespasian's troops into Rome he was dragged out of his hiding place, driven to the Gemonian stairs and struck down. His last words were "Yet I was once your Emperor". On those same stairs, Decebalus's head was thrown along with his right hand in AD 106.

Similar places

During Republican times, the Tarpeian Rock, a steep cliff at the southern summit of the Capitoline Hill, was used for similar purposes. Murderers and traitors, if convicted by the ''quaestores parricidii'', were flung from the cliff to their deaths. Infants who suffered from significant mental or physical disabilities sometimes suffered the same fate, as they were thought to have been cursed by the gods.

References

External links

Emblematic Scenes in Suetonius' "Vitellius"
– interpretive essay, makes several mentions of the stairs

{{authority control Ancient Roman buildings and structures in Rome Execution sites Roman Forum Rome R. X Campitelli Stairways