_The use of Flagellations was known among the ancient Heathens.
Several facts and observations on that subject._
It is not to be doubted, that flagellations had been invented,
and were become, in early times, a common method of punishment in
the Pagan world. Even before the foundation of Rome, we meet with
instances which prove that it was the usual punishment inflicted on
Slaves. Justin, in his Epitome of Trogus Pompeius, relates that the
Scythians more easily overcame their rebellious Slaves with scourges
and whips, than with their swords. ‘The Scythians being returned
(says Justin) from their third expedition in Asia, after having been
absent eight years from their Wives and Children, found they now had
a war to wage at home against their own Slaves. For, their Wives,
tired with such long fruitless expectation of their Husbands, and
concluding that they were no longer detained by war, but had been
destroyed, married the Slaves who had been left to take care of the
cattle; which latter attempted to use their Masters, who returned
victorious, like Strangers, and hinder them, by force of arms, from
entering the Country. The war having been supported, for a while,
with success pretty nearly equal on both sides, the Scythians were
advised to change their manner of carrying it on, remembering that
it was not with enemies, but with their own Slaves, that they had to
fight; that they were to conquer by dint, not of arms, but of their
right as Masters; that instead of weapons, they ought to bring lashes
into the field, and, setting iron aside, to supply themselves with
rods, scourges, and such like instruments of slavish fear. Having
approved this counsel, the Scythians armed themselves as they were
advised to do; and had no sooner come up with their enemies, than
they exhibited on a sudden their new weapons, and thereby struck such
a terror into their minds, that those who could not be conquered by
arms, were subdued by the dread of the stripes, and betook themselves
to flight, not like a vanquished enemy, but like fugitive slaves.’
Among the antient Persians, the punishment of whipping was also
in use: it was even frequently inflicted on the Grandees of the
Kingdom by order of the King, as we find in _Stobæus_, who moreover
relates in his forty-second Discourse, ‘That when one of them had
been flagellated by order of the King, it was an established custom,
that he should give him thanks as for an excellent favour he had
received, and a token that the King remembered him.’ This custom of
the Persians was however in subsequent times altered: they began to
set some more value on the skin of Men; and we find in Plutarch’s
_Apophthegms of Kings_, ‘That Artaxerxes, son of Xerxes, sirnamed
the _Longhanded_, was the first who ordered that the Grandees of
his kingdom should no longer be exposed to the former method of
punishment; but that, when they should have been guilty of some
offence, instead of their backs, only their clothes should be
whipped, after they had been stripped of them.’
We also find, that it was a custom in antient times, for Generals
and Conquerors, to flog the Captives they had taken in war; and
that they moreover took delight in inflicting that punishment with
their own hands on the most considerable of those Captives. We meet,
among others, with a very remarkable proof of this practice, in the
Tragedy of Sophocles, called _Ajax Scourgebearer_ (Μαστιγοφόρος): in
a Scene of this Tragedy Ajax is introduced as having the following
conversation with Minerva.