‘Give me leave, Minerva, to gratify, on this occasion, my own
fancy; he shall have it, I do assure you, and I prepare no other
punishment for him.’
The punishment of flagellation was also much in vogue among the
Romans; and it was the common chastisement which Judges inflicted
upon Offenders, especially upon those of a servile condition.
Surrounded by an apparatus of whips, scourges, and leather-straps,
they terrified Offenders, and brought them to a sense of their duty.
Judges, among the Romans, as has been just now mentioned, used
a great variety of instruments for inflicting the punishment of
whipping. Some consisted of a flat strap of leather, and were called
_Ferulæ_; and to be lashed with these _Ferulæ_, was considered as
the mildest degree of punishment. Others were made of a number
of cords of twisted parchment, and were called _Scuticæ_. These
_Scuticæ_ were considered as being a degree higher in point of
severity than the _ferulæ_, but were much inferior, in that respect,
to that kind of scourge which was called _Flagellum_, and sometimes
_the terrible Flagellum_, which was made of thongs of ox-leather,
the same as those which Carmen used for their Horses. We find in
the third Satyr of the first Book of _Horace_, a clear and pretty
singular account of the gradation in point of severity that obtained
between the above-mentioned instruments of whipping. In this Satyr,
Horace lays down the rules which he thinks a Judge ought to follow
in the discharge of his office; and he addressed himself, somewhat
ironically, to certain persons who, adopting the principles of the
Stoics, affected much severity in their opinions, and pretended that
all crimes whatever being equal, ought to be punished in the same
manner. ‘Make such a rule of conduct to yourself (says Horace)
that you may always proportion the chastisement you inflict to the
magnitude of the offence; and when the Offender only deserves to be
chastised with the whip of twisted parchment, do not expose him to
the lash of the horrid leather scourge; for, that you should only
inflict the punishment of the flat strap on him who deserves a more
severe lashing, is what I am by no means afraid of[17].’
The choice between these different kinds of instruments, was, as we
may conclude from the above passage, left to the Judge, who ordered
that to be used which he was pleased to name; and the number of blows
was likewise left to his discretion; which sometimes were as many as
the Executioner could give. ‘He (says Horace in one of his Odes) who
has been lashed by order of the Triumvirs, till the Executioner was
spent[18].’
Besides this extensive power of whipping exercised by Judges among
the Romans, over persons of a servile condition, over Aliens, and
those who were the subjects of the Republic, Masters were possessed
of an unbounded one with regard to their Slaves, over whose life
and death they had moreover an absolute power. Hence a great number
of instruments of flagellation, besides those above-mentioned, were
successively brought into use for punishing Slaves. Among those were
particular kinds of cords manufactured in Spain, as we learn from
a passage in an Ode of Horace, the same that has just been quoted,
and was addressed to one _Menas_, a freed-man, who had found means
to acquire a great fortune, and was grown very insolent. ‘Thou (says
Horace) whose sides are still discoloured (or burnt) with the stripes
of the Spanish cords[19].’
A number of other instances of this practice of whipping Slaves, as
well as other different names of instruments used for that purpose,
may be found in the antient Latin Writers, such as Plautus, Terence,
Horace, Martial, &c. So prevalent had the above practice become,
that Slaves were frequently denominated from that particular kind of
flagellation which they were most commonly made to undergo. Some were
called _Restiones_, because they were used to be lashed with cords;
others were called _Bucædæ_, because they were usually lashed with
thongs of ox-leather; and it is in consequence of this custom, that a
Man is made to say in one of Plautus’s Plays, ‘They shall be _Bucædæ_
(that is to say, scourged with leather-thongs) whether they will
or no, before I consent to be _Restio_,’ or so much as beaten with
cords[20]. And Tertullian, meaning in one of his Writings to express
Slaves in general, uses words which simply signify ‘those who are
used to be beaten, or to be discoloured with blows[21].’
Nay, so generally were whipping and lashing considered among the
Romans, as being the lot of Slaves, that a whip, or a scourge, was
become among them the emblem of their condition. Of this we have an
instance in the singular custom mentioned by _Camerarius_, which
prevailed among them, of placing in the triumphal car, behind the
Triumpher, a man with a whip in his hand; the meaning of which was
to shew, that it was no impossible thing for a Man to fall from the
highest pitch of glory into the most abject condition, even into that
of a Slave.
Suetonius also relates a fact which affords another remarkable
instance of this notion of the Romans, of looking upon a whip as
a characteristic mark of dominion on the one hand, and of slavery
on the other. ‘Cicero (says Suetonius, in the life of Augustus)
having accompanied Cæsar to the Capitol, related to a few friends
whom he met there, a dream which he had had the night before. It
seemed to him, he said, that a graceful Boy came down from Heaven,
suspended by a golden chain; that he stopped before the gate of the
Capitol, and that Jupiter gave him a whip (_flagellum_). Having
afterwards suddenly seen Augustus, whom (as he was still personally
unknown to several of his near relations) Cæsar had sent for and
brought along with him to be present at the ceremony, he assured his
friends that he was the very person whose figure he had seen during
his sleep.’ Juvenal likewise, in one of his Satyrs, has spoken of
Augustus conformably to the above notion of the Romans. ‘The same
(says he) who, after conquering the Romans, has subjected them to his
whip[22].’
But, besides all those instruments of flagellation used for punishing
Slaves, which have been mentioned above, and as if the terrible
_flagellum_ had not been of itself sufficiently so, new contrivances
were used to make the latter a still more cruel weapon; and the
thongs with which that kind of scourge was made, were frequently
armed with nails, or small hard bones. They also would sometimes
fasten to those thongs small leaden weights: hence scourges were
sometimes called _Astragala_, as Hesychius relates, from the name of
those kinds of weights which the Ancients used to wear hanging about
their shoes. Under the tortures which those different instruments
inflicted, it was no wonder that Slaves should die: indeed this
was a frequent case; and the cruelty, especially of Mistresses
towards their female Slaves, grew at last to such a pitch, that a
provision was made in the Council of Elvira to restrain it; and it
was ordained, that if any Mistress should cause her Slave to be
whipped with so much cruelty as that she should die, the Mistress
should be suspended from Communion for a certain number of years.
The following are the terms of the above Ordinance, in the fifth
Canon. “If a Mistress, in a fit of anger and madness, shall lash
her female Slave, or cause her to be lashed, in such a manner that
she expires before the third day, by reason of the torture she has
undergone; inasmuch as it is doubtful whether it has designedly
happened, or by chance; if it has designedly happened, the Mistress
shall be excommunicated for seven years; if by chance, she shall be
excommunicated for five years only; though, if she shall fall into
sickness, she may receive the Communion[23].”
[Illustration: (decorative end of chapter icon)]