As H G Wells said, anyone who pines for the “Good Old Days” would change their mind as soon as they got their first toothache. They’d change their minds even faster if they fell afoul of the law – or at least the ruling classes. There’s a reason the US Constitution forbids “cruel and unusual punishment”: punishment in times past could be very, very cruel.
But few were as cruel or unusual as the ancient Persians.
By ancient standards, it must be said, the Persians were unusually interested in justice. For instance, they rarely condemned criminals to death for a first offence (except treason). But when they did execute someone, they had some incredibly nasty ways of doing so.
Some were relatively simple, such as being torn apart by trees – a punishment for theft. The convicted thief was brought to a spot where two trees grew close together. The executioners would bend the trees down and tie the tops as close together as possible. Then the felon’s legs were tied: one leg to each tree-top.
Whereupon the executioners cut the rope.
Death-by-tree-top was undoubtedly spectacular – the pieces of the victim’s corpse were left dangling from the trees as an example – but it was mercifully short compared to other execution methods.
When King Cambyses II (ruled 530-522 BC) wanted to make an example of the corrupt judge Sisamnes, he didn’t hold back. Sisamnes was flayed by being tied to a table and his skin carefully removed by a team of expert flayers. Historians are unsure whether Sisamnes was alive while this happened.
The Persians valued honesty very highly, so Cambyses made sure that Sisamnes’ fate would be a constant reminder to his successors. Sisamnes’ flayed skin was tanned and used to upholster a chair that later judges had to sit on. Just as a reminder.
Guess who Sisamnes’ first replacement was? His son, Otanes.
But Sisamnes got off lightly.
During the reign of Cyrus the Great, a court eunuch was sentenced to the “Triple Death”, which was every bit as horrible as it sounds.
First, the unfortunate eunuch had his eyes pulled from his head, but his punishers made sure he remained alive. Once he’d recovered from that, he was, like Sisamnes, flayed alive. Even then, though, he was not allowed to die, but nursed back to a semblance of health. Once he’d survived the flaying, he was finally crucified.
Another “triple death” was inflicted on a Carian (an ancient people of Western Turkey) who boasted of being involved in the death of Cyrus the Younger in 401 BC. Cyrus’ bereaved mother assuaged her grief over her favourite son by sentencing the Carian to be put on a wheel in the sun for 10 days, after which his eyes were gouged out. Finally, molten brass was poured into his ears.
But Mithridates, another accomplice in Cyrus’ death, was sentenced to what must be the most horrific death-by-torture in the Persian repertoire, if not in human history: scaphism.
First, the victim was stripped naked and put inside either a hollow log, or two lashed-together boats. Their head, legs and arms would stick out, exposed to the sun. Then they were force-fed milk and honey, to induce diarrhea. But the executioners were just getting warmed up.
Next, they rubbed honey all over the exposed parts of the victim, to attract insects. Eventually, the insects would eat away at the flesh, while wasps stung them over and over. All this time, their punishers kept them alive as long as possible, by keeping up the force-feeding.
Finally, the victim, still enclosed in their filth-filled prison, was thrown into a stagnant pond and left to fester. After a few days, delirium would set in and, eventually, septic shock, as they succumbed to infection and being eaten from the inside out by the tormenting insects. How many days? According to Plutarch, Mithridates suffered for a total of 17 days.
Which makes being given a few weeks in the pokey (if even that: more likely, a few weeks of “community service”) these days seem like tender-hearted kindness.
