Gemonian Stairs

• The Gemonian Stairs were located at the top of the Capitoline Hill leading down to the Forum Romanum in Rome.
• After execution, usually by strangulation, the Body was bound and then thrown down the Gemonian Stairs and left to rot in full view of the Forum, for a long period.

Famous Victims

• The rotting bodies were eaten away by scavenging dogs and then eventually thrown into the River Tiber.
• Sejanus
  • He was one of the disgraced men whose body was thrown down the stairs.
• Otho
  • Occasionally, death was by actually being thrown down the Stairs. Otho was executed in this way in 69 CE.
  • It was considered a very shameful and dishonorable death.