pleasure in whipping, with their own hands, the
bravest and highest of their adversaries. In one
of the tragedies of Sophocles, Minerva intercedes
in vain for a prisoner whom Ajax means
to whip to death. Greek slaves were very often
whipped, especially by the excitable Greek ladies.
Greeks beat their wives, and Romans were sometimes
beaten by their mistresses, as Ovid tells,
when he advises men not to regard such stripes
as disgracing.

Annually, on a certain day, all the marriageable
Spartan bachelors met at the altar of Juno
the young unmarried women, each armed with a
whip, to revenge her single-blessedness on the
bare backs of the bachelors, by flogging them
round the altar.

The whip played a very conspicuous part in
both the public and private life of the Romans.
The lictors, always attending the consuls, wore
their hunches of rods not merely for state show,
although it was not permitted to beat Roman
citizens except in the case of their being thieves:
but slaves were beaten with smooth leather
straps, called ferulæ; more painful were the
rutivæ, made of several strips of parchment
twisted together; and the superlative was the
ox-hide, called flagellum, often with right terrible.
Most terrible of all was an instrument
imported from abroad, the Spanish whip, used
only by very severe masters. They had not
only the right of whipping slaves at pleasure,
but even of killing them. The wit of the
people divided the slaves according to the kind
of whip with which their backs were most
acquainted. Plautus, who had been a baker's
servant, and, probably, as such had collected
very intelligible notes about the matter on his
own back, abounds in jokes and allusions
illustrative of this subject; such joking is a poor
fellow's astonishment that dead oxen should dance
on living men. Some masters, not satisfied with
the plain Spanish whip, made it more terrible
by fastening small nails or bones, and little
leaden balls to it. Slaves were stripped, their
hands tied to a tree or post, and their feet
hindered from kicking by the clog of a hundred-pound
weight. The most trifling faults were
punished in this manner, and a poor fellow
might even be flogged for the mere amusement
of his master's guests. It was no rare
occurrence that a slave died under the whip, and
there was no more regret than for the loss of a
pan or other piece of household property.

The Roman ladies were particularly cruel to
their slaves. The poor girls in attendance,
scratched and bleeding from wounds made
with the long pins the ladies wore as an
ornament, sometimes filled the whole house with
their cries.

The cruelty towards the slaves increased so
much that the emperors made some effort, to
check it. Laws were made, pursuant to which
such masters as would forsake their slaves in
sickness forfeited their rights on them after
their recovery; and a Roman who would
intentionally kill a slave was to be banished
Rome. Any lady who would whip or order
whipping of a slave, to such a degree that death
ensued before the third day, was to be
excommunicated for from five to seven years.

The young Roman libertines often chose the
disguise of a slave's dress for their love adventure.
Rich people kept so great a crowd of
slaves, that they did not know them all personally,
and thus the introduction into houses was
made easy. Sometimes, however, the master of
the house got a hint, perhaps from the shrewd
lady herself, and the intruder was flogged as a
runaway slave, or a spy. Such an occurrence
gave particular delight to the real slaves. It
was a misfortune that happened to the
celebrated historian Sallust, who courted Faustina,
daughter of Tulla, and wife to Milo. After
having received a severe flogging, Sallust was
released on paying a considerable sum.

Caligula used the whip with his own hand, and
on the spot; even upon people who, by talking
too loudly at the theatre, spoilt his enjoyment of
the players. He did not much care who the
offender was. Even the vestals were not exempt
from this punishment. The vestal Urbinia was
whipped by a priest, and led in procession
through the streets. Other vestals, we are
told, had been whipped for the same offence.
The guilty one, covered over with a thin veil,
was whipped by a priest in a dark room. Even
empresses were not always spared, at least in
the Christian time and in Constantinople, where
the mother of Justinian II. was so admonished.
To be whipped, however, was, in the eyes of a
Roman, the lowest disgrace, and for this reason
judges ordered Christians to be whipped at their
first examination.

The custom of inflicting pain on the body in
order to please Heaven did not begin with the
Christians. Herodotus relates that, at Bubastis,
all the Egyptians, men and women, attending
the ceremonies, beat themselves whilst the fire
was consuming the sacrifice. The Cariens
living in Egypt did even more, as they used to
cut their foreheads with knives to show that
they were foreigners. The Syrians also beat
and maltreated themselves in honour of the
mother of their gods, and Apuleius describes a
scene only equalled by the performances of
mediæval flagellators.

We find the same custom in Greece, and
especially amongst the Lacedemonians, who used
to flog themselves partly in honour of their
gods, partly in order to become inured to pain.
On a certain day a great number of youths were
cruelly beaten at the altar of Diana; but it was
voluntary, and the boys thronged to this rude
sport; it having been considered a great honour
to be able to endure sharp flogging without
uttering a sigh. The ceremony was carried on
with great solemnity; a priestess of Diana,
holding a small statue of the goddess in her
hand, presided, and priests seriously examined
the wounds inflicted by the whip, in order to
discern future events by them. These painful
exercises were encouraged by all parents,
although some ambitious youths dropped dead
under, or died after, the whipping, without