They watched him there. The soldiers, in relays, had to guard the criminal from any attempt of his friends to remove him from the cross—a long and tedious duty, during the performance of which they were allowed to sit.
Crucifixion was not accompanied by immediate death. It was one of its greatest horrors that the tortured sufferer sometimes lived for days before death relieved him from his agony. Till this supervened, the guard had to keep watch.
That this caution was not superfluous, we have intimations in ancient history, which tells of crucified persons being sometimes removed by their friends and restored to the use of their limbs and faculties.
Josephus ('Vita,' 75) relates that he thus took down three criminals after a lengthened suspension, one of whom completely recovered, though the others succumbed to their injuries. This vigilance of the soldiers was providentially ordered as one of the means of proving the reality of Christ's death.