tar-smeared

Within days Nero was martyring thousands of Christians as tar-smeared blazing torches or as food for wild beasts or by crucifixion in the Circus Maximus. “An immense multitude was convicted, ” wrote the Roman historian Tacitus (Annals, 15: 44) of these Christians killed by Nero, “not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. ”

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I looked for Jamie and found him precisely where Ralston Bogues had said he was-in front of the door to the printer's shop, clutching a tar-smeared broom and with the light of battle in his eye.

A Breath of Snow and Ashes Gabaldon, Diana 2005

Jamie, who had quite obviously been waiting for some such injudicious move, stepped aside like a dancer, tripped Forbes, and smacked him across the shoulders with the tar-smeared broom, sending him sprawling into the cooling tar puddle, to the raucous delight of the whole street.

A Breath of Snow and Ashes Gabaldon, Diana 2005

In short order a sailor in a tar-smeared tunic and a bearded warehouseman had repeated Zara's warning.

Conan The Victorious Jordan, Robert 1984

In front was a black, tar-smeared house of wood for the keeping of fishers 'nets, and fishing boats lay about it.

Thyrza George Gissing 1880

The hangman advanced and applied a flaming torch to the tar-smeared faggots, which began to hiss and splutter in the still, frosty, winter air.

A German Pompadour Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Grävenitz, Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg 1905