The thieves' legs are broken

Saint John - Chapter 19

The thieves' legs are broken. J-J Tissot

[31] Then the Jews, (because it was the parasceve,) that the bodies might not remain on the cross on the sabbath day, (for that was a great sabbath day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.
Judaei ergo ( quoniam parasceve erat) ut non remanerent in cruce corpora sabbato ( erat enim magnus dies ille sabbati), rogaverunt Pilatum ut frangerentur eorum crura, et tollerentur.

[32] The soldiers therefore came; and they broke the legs of the first, and of the other that was crucified with him.
Venerunt ergo milites : et primi quidem fregerunt crura, et alterius, qui crucifixus est cum eo.

From The Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ, by J-J Tissot (1897)

The cruel operation to which Saint John alludes and which the Romans called crurifragium, was sometimes, according to the testimony of Suetonius and Seneca, inflicted as part of the punishment of crucifixion, but it was more often resorted to only as a means of hastening death when it seemed likely to be too long delayed.  As we have already remarked, those who suffered crucifixion might in certain cases linger for 12, 24 or even as many as 48 hours.  In order, therefore, to avoid the necessity of protracted watching beside the instrument of torture, the executioner sometimes substituted increased agony for length of suffering.  By means of a club, the bones of the legs of the condemned were broken, a custom originating, according to certain authors, in the belief prevailing amongst the ancients and shared by Pliny, that the strength of man is concentrated in the legs, especially in the knees.

In the present instance, the Jews had very urgent reasons for acting as they did.  To begin with: according to the Hebrew law it would be a desecration of the sacred soil of the Holy Land if the body of a criminal who had been executed were allowed to remain on the cross during the night.  Moreover, it was the eve of the Jewish Sabbath and of a Sabbath of peculiar sanctity.  Now the day was already far spent; everything must be finished before sunset.  The two thieves were, therefore, dispatched to begin with.  The first, who had railed at and insulted Jesus, yielded up his soul with yells of rage whilst the penitent one died in ecstasy without one moment of shrinking or of fear.  Looking on at these last manifestations of Jewish cruelty, the friends of Jesus shudder.  They tremble for the sacred form of the Saviour from which life has just departed.  Will that body, which has already been so terribly maltreated, be subjected to this further indignity?  No, no; that Jesus is really dead is to be proved in a very different manner, a more touching, may we not say in a providential manner?  In every detail, in fact, the execution of the malefactors differed from that of Jesus Christ.  The former were not nailed to the cross but bound to it with cords so that they had died without any shedding of their blood.  Jesu,s on the contrary, was, throughout the whole of His martyrdom, a bleeding Victim.  Whilst the thieves were beaten to death like dangerous wild beasts, the Savior Christ poured out His blood to wash away the sins of the human race.

Totus tuus ego sum 

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam