FLAGRUM
FLAGRUM
dim.
FLAGELLUM (
μάστιξ), a whip, scourge.
It may be broadly stated that the corporal punishment of freemen was, like
other forms of torture, “abhorrent to Greek manners” [
CRUX p. 567
a]. The exceptions noticed by Thalheim
(
Rechtsalterth. p. 127) prove little against this rule. The
military and paternal government of Sparta allowed old men to use their
walking-sticks (
βακτηρίαι) on those who
were guilty of unseemly conduct in public (
τοὺς
ἀκοσμοῦντας, Dionys. xx.
fr. 2=13
Kiessling); a very different thing from flogging as commonly understood. We
are not surprised to read that Cinadon and his associates, who had planned a
wholesale massacre of their fellow-citizens, were scourged on the way to
execution (
Xen. Hell. 3.3, § 11).
But we entirely reject the notion, based only on scholiasts and grammarians
and unsupported by contemporary evidence, that the Athenian market was
patrolled by men with whips, even if they were only to be used against
non-citizens [
AGORANOMI]. The
strong feeling against
ὕβρις, or open
violence, extended even to slaves ([Xen.]
Rep. Ath. 1.10;
Aeschin.
c. Timarch. § 17). Not only was the use of
the
μάστιξ limited to slaves, but we find
no trace of its infliction in public, as among the Romans (
Liv. 2.36). A slave who had been flogged was called
μαστιγίας (
Aristoph. Kn. 1228,
Ran. 501,
Lysistr. 1240; Philem.
fr. 143 M.),
which of course became a term of mockery and contempt. Through the comic
writers,
mastigia passed into Latin (Plaut.
Capt. 3.4, 68, and often; Terent.
Adelph.
5.2. 6). Among the different kinds of whips we find the
σκυτίνη μάστιξ, Lat.
lorum or
scutica (Anacr.
fr. 19=21 Bergk4); one called
ὑστριχὶς with a lash of bristles
(
Aristoph. Frogs 619;
Pax, 746); another, the most terrible of all, called
ἀστραγαλωτή, because strung with
ἀστράγαλοι or knuckle-bones (Crates,
fr. 32 M. ap. Poll. 10.54; Lucian,
Asin. 38, p. 606 R.; Posidon, ap.
Ath. 4.153 a).
At Rome the sourging of citizens had been forbidden from very early times
(
Liv. 10.9;
Cic.
Rab. Perd. 4, § 12;
in Verr. 5.66.170).
Unprivileged persons, and especially slaves, were scourged in a variety of
ways, of which the flagellum was the worst (
horribili
flagello, Hor.
Sat. 1.3, 119). It
was a “knout” or “cat,” with lashes of knotted
cord, or even wire; like the
ἀστραγαλωτὴ
of the Greeks, it might be loaded with knuckle-bones (
tali, whence
talaria, sc.
flagella, Senec.
de
Ira, 3.19.1), or other cruel aggravations (cf. Apul.
Met. viii. p. 173). The cut below represents a scourge taken
from a bas-relief of the statue of Cybele in the Capitoline Museum at Rome.
The infliction of punishment with it upon the naked back of the sufferer
(
Juv. 6.477) was sometimes fatal (Hor.
Sat. 1.2, 41), and was carried into
execution by a class of persons, themselves slaves, who were called
lorarii. Some flagella found at Herculaneum consist
of several short chains with knobs of metal at the end, attached to a short
handle. Rich, who figures one of them, thinks that this sort was the
flagrum, the other the
flagellum; other writers treat flagrum and flagellum as
equivalent (Marquardt,
Privatl. 179, n. 3;
Becker-Göll,
Gallus, 2.176). The
stimuli mentioned by Plautus are probably goads or other sharp-pointed
instruments used separately (Göll), not spikes fastened to the
flagellum (Marquardt); so
μαστιγούμενος καὶ
κεντούμενος, Xen.
l.c. Less severe
forms of corporal punishment were with the cane (
νάρθηξ,
ferula), the leathern strap (
habena, scutica, lorum, Hor.
Sat. 1.3, 119;
Ep. 1.16, 47, 2.2, 15; cf.
bubulis exuviis, Plaut.
Most. 4.1, 26); the rope's end (Hor.
Epod. 4, 3,
where the
Hiberici funes are made of esparto grass, and
different from the flagella of
v. 11). During the
Saturnalia the scourge was deposited under the seal of the master. We
likewise find that some gladiators fought with the flagellum, as in the coin
here introduced: it has two lashes, as is also the case with some
driving-whips figured in ancient paintings.
 |
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Flagellum.
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For the
virgae of the lictors, see
FASCES For corporal punishment in
schools,
ferulae and
lora are mentioned (
Juv. 1.15, with
Mayor's note;
Mart. 10.62); see also a curious
painting from Herculaneum figured in Rich, s. v. “Ludus,” and
in Milman's
Horace.
[
J.Y] [
W.W]
