How Christians made tattoo cool in Ancient Rome
5 min readJun 12, 2018
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“I bear on my body the marks of Christ.” Tattoos went from being a form of punishment for criminals and slaves to a symbol of political and spiritual rebellion.
In Ancient Rome, in the first centuries AD, tattoos meant the same as for the majority of society a few decades ago: a habit of criminals and outlaws. The Romans were using it as public punishment for slaves and convicted…