I have already presented 8 early witness to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ under Pilate (some Biblical, some secular). The crucifixion by Pilate is discussed in Encyclpedias as being historical.
On the Crucifixion, Harvey writes: "It would be no exaggeration to say that this event is better attested, and supported by a more impressive array of evidence, than any other event of comparable importance of which we have knowledge from the ancient world." [Harv.JesC, 11] Harvey quoted by J.P. Holding
The below point is separte yet related. I am here presenting it for reference not debate.
There are also references by Julius Africanus in his Chronography, to historians Thallus (A.D. 52?) and Phelegon discussing the darkness at the time of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ (hense also an indirect witness to the crucifixion itself), though this is debated.
Julius Africanus
http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-06/anf06-50.htm#P2221_636742
XVIII. 47
1. As to His works severally, and His cures effected upon body and soul, and the mysteries of His doctrine, and the resurrection from the dead, these have been most authoritatively set forth by His disciples and apostles before us. On the whole world there pressed a most fearful darkness; and the rocks were rent by an earthquake, and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down. This darkness Thallus, in the third book of his History, calls, as appears to me without reason, an eclipse of the sun. For the Hebrews celebrate the passover on the 14th day according to the moon, and the passion of our Saviour fails on the day before the passover; but an eclipse of the sun takes place only when the moon comes under the sun. And it cannot happen at any other time but in the interval between the first day of the new moon and the last of the old, that is, at their junction: how then should an eclipse be supposed to happen when the moon is almost diametrically opposite the sun? Let that opinion pass however; let it carry the majority with it; and let this portent of the world be deemed an eclipse of the sun, like others a portent only to the eye. 48 Phlegon records that, in the time of Tiberius Caesar, at full moon, there was a full eclipse of the sun from the sixth hour to the ninth-manifestly that one of which we speak. But what has an eclipse in common with an earthquake, the rending rocks, and the resurrection of the dead, and so great a perturbation throughout the universe? Surely no such event as this is recorded for a long period. But it was a darkness induced by God, because the Lord happened then to suffer. And calculation makes out that the period of 70 weeks, as noted in Daniel, is completed at this time.
The following link discusses the Thallus reference and why the darkness was not recorded by Seneca and Pliny the Elder. http://www.tektonics.org/tekton_01_01_01_THL.html
