You Get White Cross Then!

"The second point of special interest for us is the way in which the Romans sometimes used crucifixion as a way of mocking a victim with social or political pretensions. "You want to be high and lifted up?" hey said in effect. "All right, we'll give you 'high and lifted up'". Crucifixion thus meant not only killing by slow torture, not only shaming, not only issuing a warning, but also parodying the Ambitions of the uppity Rrebels. They wanted to move up the social scale? Let them be lifted up above the common herd, then - on a cross! When the emperor Galba was governor of his native Spain, a man condemned to crucifixion objected that he was a Roman citizen. Galba's response was to make his cross higher than before and to have it painted white, signifying his high social status."

- N.T. Wright. The Day The Revolution Began