ABSTRACT
The ancient Romans carried the practice of flagellation farther, perhaps, than any other nation; and there are several authors who refer to their use of the scourge. Flagellatic emblems were common in every house; and the judges of the nation were surrounded with an array of whips, scourges, and leather straps, in order to terrify offenders and bring them to a sense of duty; but a great number of instruments of flagellation, besides those mentioned above, were successfully brought into use for punishing slaves. Among those were particular kinds of cords, manufactured in Spain. The scourges had all different names: there was the ferula, a flat strap of leather, which was the mildest of all; then came the scutica, an instrument of twisted parchment, which was a degree more severe than the first named; after that there was the flagella and the terrible flagellum, the severest of all, which was composed of plaited thongs of ox leather. In the third Satire of the first book of Horace, there is an account of the gradation in severity between the above-mentioned instruments of whipping. Horace lays down the rules which ne thinks a judge ought to follow in the discharge of his office, and also addresses himself, somewhat ironically, to persons who, adopting the principles of the stoies, affected much severity in their opinions, and pretended that all crimes being equal, they 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; 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.” There were other instruments of punishment still more terrible than the flagellum, such as balls of metal stuck full of small sharp points, and fastened to the end of long whips. So prevalent did the practice of whipping slaves become, that in course of time these unfortunates came to be named by the wits after the particular kind of flagellation they were made to undergo, as Restiones, Bucœdœ, Verberones, Flagriones, &c. The scourge was looked upon by the Romans as characteristic of dominion; and the master or mistress of a Roman household often exer cised their terrible powers with unrelenting severity, the poor slaves being not unfrequently scourged to death from a mere caprice.
