“ Here follows the literal translation of the passage of Juvenal, in which he describes in a very lively manner, the havoc which an incensed woman usually 20 made on the above occasion. “If her husband has, the night before, turned his back on her, woe to her waiting woman; the dressing maids lay down their tunics; the errand slave is charged with having returned too late; the straps break on the back of some; others redden under the lash of the leather scourge, and others, of the twisted parchment.” ”

“ Jerom informs us, that there were men in Rome silly enough to lay their posteriors bare in the public markets, or open streets, and to suffer themselves to be lashed by a pretended conjuror. “It is no wonder (says he) that a false diviner lashes the buttocks of those blockheads in the middle of the streets, and in the market-place.” ”

“ He at last feigns to fall into a kind of phrenetic fit, pretending that he is replete with the spirit of the goddess; as if the presence of the gods ought not to make man better, instead of rendering them disordered and weak. ”

“ IT is not to be doubted, that flagellations had been invented, and were become, in early times, a common method of punishment in the Pagan world. Even before the foundation of Rome, we meet with instances which prove that it was the usual punishment inflicted on slaves. Justin, in his epitome of Trogus Pompeius, relates that the Scythians more easily overcame their rebellious slaves with scourges and whips, than with their swords. ”

“ In this book, Apollonius is said to have spoken in the following manner to Thespesion. “Flagellations are practiced before the altar of Diana Scythia, because the oracles have ordered it so; now I think that it would be folly to resist the will of the gods. If so (Thespesion answers) you show, O Apollonius, that the gods of the Greeks possess but little wisdom, since they prescribe to men who think they are free to lash themselves with whips.”
Nor was the practice of those flagellations to which the persons who underwent them willingly submitted, confined to the nations of Greece ”

“ The war having been supported for a while, with success pretty nearly equal on both sides, the Scythians were advised to change their manner of carrying it on, remembering that it was not with enemies, but with their own slaves, that they had to fight; that they were to conquer by dint, not of arms, but of their right as masters; that instead of weapons, they ought to bring lashes into the field, and, setting iron aside, to supply themselves with rods, scourges, and such like instruments of slavish fear. ”

“ Lastly, if masters acted as they ought, there would be no occasion for chastisement; but the negligence of teachers is now so great, that, instead of causing their disciples to do what they ought, they content themselves with punishing them for not having done it. Besides, though you may compel the obedience of a boy, by using the rod, what will you do with a young man, to whom motives of a quite different nature must be proposed? ”

“ He then proceeds to award a sentence of punishment against himself; and at the same time grasping his scourge, an instrument which those priests constantly wear about them, and which is made of twisted woollen cords armed with small bones, he lashes himself with repeated blows; all the while manifesting a wonderful, though affected firmness, notwithstanding the violence and number of the stripes. ”

“ Plutarch, for instance, in his book of the customs of the Lacedæmonians, relates, that he had been an eye-witness of the reception of the solemnity we speak of. “Boys (says he) are whipped for a whole day, often to death, before the altar of Diana the Orthian; and they suffer it with cheerfulness, and even with joy: nay, they strive with each other for victory; and he who bars up the longest time, and has been able to endure the greatest number of stripes, carries the day. ”

“ Suetonius, in the life of Quintilian has also mentioned this practice of schoolmasters of whipping their disciples; and the severity which they used, as well as other considerations, induced him to disapprove of it entirely. The following are his expression on that subject. “With respect to whipping schoolboys, though it be an established practice, and Chrysippus is not averse to it. 23 First, it is a base and slavish treatment; and certainly if it were not for the youth of those who are made to suffer, it might be deemed an injury that might call for redress. ”

“ Nay, the opinion of the merit of voluntary or religious flagellations, was in ancient times grown so universal that we find them to have also been practiced among the Romans, who had adopted notions on that subject of the same kind with those of the Syrians and the Egyptians, and thought that the gods were, upon particular occasions, to be appeased by using scourges and whips. ”

“ 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’ plays, “they shall be Bucædæ (that is to say, scourged with leather thongs) whether they will or no, before I content to be Restio,” or so much as beaten with cords. And Tertullian, meaning in one of his writings to express slaves in general, uses words which simply 13 signify “those who are used to be beaten, or to be discoloured with blows.” ”

“ In fine, to the passages above produced concerning the flagellations of children, from which we find that very great men have much differed in their opinions in regard to them, we may add, that King Solomon, that oracle of wisdom has, without reserve, declared in favour of that mode of correction. “He that spareth the rod, hateth his son; but he that loves him chastises him betimes.” ”

“ If a mistress, in a fit 15 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 ”

“ An instance of this notion or practice is to be met with in the Satyricon of Petronius, in which Encolpus relates, that, being upon the sea, the people of the ship flagellated him, in order as they thought to prevent a storm. “It was resolved (he says) among the mariners, to give us each forty stripes, in order to appease the tutelar deity of the ship. No time accordingly is lost, the furious mariners set upon us with cords in their hands, and endeavour to appease the deity by the effusion of the meanest blood: as for me, I received three lashes, which I endured with Spartan magnanimity.” ”

“ In fact, what advantage is it to you, whether you are cut to pieces with rods, or slaughtered with iron weapons?”
The above uncontrolled power of inflicting punishments on their slaves, enjoyed by masters in Rome, was at last abused by them to the greatest degree. 19 The smallest faults committed in their families by slaves, such as breaking glasses, seasoning dishes too much, or the like, exposed them to grievous punishments ”

“ Seneca, in his treatise upon Providence, has also mentioned those singular flagellations which took place at Lacedæmon, as well as the conduct of the Lacedæmonian fathers on those occasions. “Do not you think (says he) that the Lacedæmonians hate their children, who try their tempers by having them lashed publicly? Their very fathers exhort them firmly to bear the lashes of the whips; and entreat 30 them, when torn to pieces and half dead, still to continue to offer their wounds to other wounds.” ”

“ Herodotus has left us an account of the manner in which they commonly performed their flagellations, in the account he has given of the festival which they celebrated in honour of their goddess. After preparing themselves by fasting (he says) they begin to offer sacrifices, and they mutually beat each other during the time that the offerings are burning on the altar ”

“ Prudentius, I find, has also mentioned the same festival in his Roman Martyr: “what is the meaning (says he) of this shameful ceremony? By this running about the streets, under the shape of Luperci, you show that you are persons of low condition. Would you not deem a man to be the meanest of slaves, who would run naked about the public streets, and amuse himself with striking the young women?”
All the flagellations we have above mentioned were performed in public solemnities, or with religious views of some kind or other ”

“ 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 12 life and death they had moreover an absolute power. ”

“ And in another place, Plautus, alluding to the thongs of ox-leather with which whips were commonly made, introduces a slave engaged in deep reflection on the surprising circumstance of “dead bullocks, that make incursions upon living men.” ”

“ For, if she has determined to be dressed more nicely than usual, and is in haste, being expected in the public gardens, the unfortunate Psechas then dresses her head, with her own hair in the utmost disorder, and her shoulders and breasts bare. ”

“ He begins to vociferate, and, by purposely contrived lies, to upbraid and accuse himself in the same manner as if he ha been guilty of having entertained bad designs against the mysteries of the holy religion. ”

“ For their wives, tired with such long fruitless expectation of their husbands, and concluding that they were no longer detained by war, but had been destroyed, 8 married the slaves who had been left to take care of the cattle ”