Crucifixion

Crucifixion is an ancient method of deliberately slow and painful execution in which the condemned person is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross and left to hang until dead.

Crucifixion was used among the Seleucids, Carthaginians, and Romans from about the 6th century BC to the 4th century AD. In the year 337, Emperor Constantine I abolished it in the Roman Empire out of veneration for Jesus Christ, the most famous victim of crucifixion. It was also used as a form of execution in Japan for criminals, inflicted also on some Christians.

In the EMPATH: The Luckiest Smurf story series, the only known live form of this method of execution was that of Jesus Christ, which was witnessed by the Smurfs during their time-traveling adventures in The Lost Year. Otherwise, Empath simply imagines himself being a victim of this method of execution in the mini-story "The Only Begotten Son" as he wonders why as Papa Smurf's only begotten son he was singled out to be separate from his fellow Smurfs.