Floggings in Roma

Ferula, Scutica and Flagrum

 

Flogging was customary in Ancient Roma.

The Romans had several instruments for flogging:

• Elm rods were used for flogging freemen
• As military punishments, the centurions (officers) used the vine, laurel or myrtle canes, which they carried as an emblem of rank, for flogging the soldiers for misconduct.
• They also used three kinds of whips:
  - the  lōrum or ferula, a leather strap.
  - the scutica, a whip with the thongs made of twisted parchment
  - the flagrum or the (smaller) flagellum, a whip with two or three lashes with small metallic dumbbells on the points.

 

Variations on the flagrum were the astragala, in which the points had ram astragali instead of dumbbells, and the scorpion, with thorns or metal hooks on the points, for tearing the flesh.

 

Three forms of corporal punishment were employed by the Romans for judicial punishments, in increasing degree of severity:

• fustigatio, a less severe beating meted out for relatively light offences and often accompanied by a severe warning
• flagellatio, a severe flogging administered to criminals whose offences were more serious
• verberatio, the most severe, always associated with other punishments, including crucifixion.

The law didn't establish the instrument or number of lashes for each crime. The lictors (functionaries on charge of the floggings)  decided the kind of punishment and the instrument to be used.

Judicial punishments were given with the punished tied to a low pillar or laying on the floor, for allowing hitting him from both sides on his back. He was then beaten by several "lictors"  or "carnifex" (profesional whippers) until they were exhausted, or their commanding officer called them off.

The Roman didn't use flogging on the roman citizens, as stated in the "lex Porcia" and "lex Sempronia", dating from 195 and 123 BC

 

The society was divided into "honestiones" (honorable men) and humiliores (persons of low condition) The honestiones were not subject to flogging. The punishment was reserved for "humiliores" and slaves, because it was thought that it was infamous, but this part of the law was not always respected, especially in the provinces. And in the centuries II and III the flagellation was allowed also for "honestiones" in case of treason and other special crimes.

And of course they could flog foreigners, as Celt Queen Boudicca (or Boadicea, for the Romans) . At 61 AD the King Prasutagus of the Iceni died, he left half of his possessions to Emperor Nero, and the other half to his wife Boudicca and her daughters. The Romans, that did not accept a woman as a lawful heir,  took all of his possessions, and made her responsible for the debts. As she couldn't pay, they publicly bared and flogged her (and flogged and raped her daughters). Legend says that she suffered the lashes without uttering a sound, and history says that, when freed, she leaded one of the worst rebellions against Rome in its history.

Jesus also was flogged under Roman law with the flagrum. It was customary to flog the convicts that were going to be crucified for hastening their death. In the case of Jesus, it was the last effort of Pontius Pilate to save him from crucifixion, so he probably was condemned to a flagellatio. He received many strokes, which left him in very bad physical condition. This is why he fell several times when carrying the cross, and finally had to have Simon helping him.

This is how one expert in the crucifixion, Dr. C. Truman Davis, describes the results of a flogging:

"The heavy whip is brought down with full force again and again across a person's shoulders, back and legs. At first, the heavy thongs cut through the skin only. Then, as the blows continue, they cut deeper into the subcutaneous tissues, producing first an oozing of blood from the capillaries and veins of the skin, and finally spurting arterial bleeding from vessels in the underlying muscles. The small balls of lead first produce large, deep bruises, which the others cut wide open. Finally, the skin of the back is hanging in long ribbons, and the entire area is an unrecognizable mass of torn, bleeding tissue."

 

As a possible document on Roman flagellation, the Turin's Holy Shroud (a piece of cloth probably from the first century, in which the negative of a body with signs of flogging and crucifixion is burnt by unknown means), shows that the man that was wrapped in it (that the tradition says was Jesus) was flogged by two people, one from the right and the other from the left, with whips with two and three leather thongs, with exactly the same characteristics described above for the flagrum. The subject was flogged with his arms extended.

Romans legally could, and did, flog the slaves. The law established for the same crime harsher punishments for slaves than for free men.

Slaves had no rights, the Roman law considered them things subject to ownership as it was livestock (and also women, you've come a long way, baby) and they could be flogged with rods or whips at will by their owners for any fault, or just for entertainment of free men. Sometimes the victims were whipped by the carnifex or lōrārius (from lōrum, strap, a slave used for giving punishments) while hung up by the arms, with weights attached to their feet, the same as in modern times' slavery.

The slave's punishments were very severe, and the women were as addicted at flogging as the men. It is said that a Roman woman could make her slave maid serve her bared from the waist up, so she could use more easily the whip on her back for punishing the slightest errors.

An ironic statement by Martial provides evidence of flogging for a silly mistake, "You say, Rufus, that your rabbit has not been cooked well, and you call for a whip. You prefer to cut up your cook, rather than your rabbit."

There were also floggings for other reasons than punishment. There was a religious festivity called Lupercalia (from lupus, wolf) in middle February, conducted by male pagan priests called Luperci. It was held in the Lupercal cave on the Palantine Hill in Rome, where the tradition said that Romulus and Remo were feed by a she-wolf before founding Rome. Two naked priests with the help of Vestal virgins sacrificed a dog (probably substituting for a wolf) and a goat. Dressed in loincloths made from the goat's skin, they ran by Rome's streets flogging people with what they called februa (means of purification) that were straps made also from the sacrificed goat's skin. Women, especially, offered themselves for the whipping, in the hope that it would help her fertility and ease the childbirth.

 

Published: 03/05/03

Rev: 04/26/05, 05/17/05