Worst Roman Punishment?

I wanted to get people's opinions on the worst Roman punishment of the anceint world. Any time period is fine but I thought I might learn something new out of this and might make some people feel sympathetic for the criminals today he heh....

Personaly, I think the worst Roman punishment was the punishment for patricide or killing your father. This was considered a act of ultimate evil durring the pagan ages or Rome. The punishment was devised by the Priests of Jupiter rather than the roman politicians. My file name is actually the name fo some one accused of this crime and also the case where Cicero made himself famous

The first thing that happened was that you were taken to the feild of Mars outside Rome. they would Then strip you of everything on you and have you put one foot on two pedestals placed a couple feet apart as to expose every part of your body. You were then wipped until there was no difference between flesh and blood on your body. The crowd was free to throw stones at you and about anything they wanted really.

After you were completely whipped they took your naked body and but you in a sack with a snake, a chicken and a dog. This was to simbolize the reverse of being born. Thus un-born since you had taken the life of the one that gave life to you, it was seen as fit punishment. After you were in the bag with the other animals they would sow the bag shut and then chuck it in the Tiber. How gruesome

I can only imagaine the poor person who had to do thins... :fish:

P.S. not sure why I put the fish thing but I thought it was rather funny at the time...

The worst punishment of anything is death pretty much. I remembered watching something on the history channel about a Roman fort in Britannia. While digging in the fort , the archeologist found a scull neatly cut in half( the face part of the skull was totally sliced off, isn't that gruesome). The archeologists assumed the cut-face belonged to a merchant who ripped off the Roman soldiers and so the soldiers got pissed.But then some other archeologist came up with the wack idea that the face belonged to a Roman soldier that everyone disliked. WEIRD isn't it.

Got to agree with you on that one, ouch that has gotta hurt. But I'd still rather have that happen than the paracide punishment. Why didn't they just get things over with a slice their head off like the rench revolutionaries and Marie Antoniette. Sheesh, why did they have to be so fancy about it anyways lol...

I think that punishment for the Vestal Virgins who, well, weren't virgin , of sealing them alive inside underground vaults would be pretty awful. Imagine being sealed in the pitch black without food or water. You'd take a while to die, and your last moments would probably be full of agony and terror. Not very nice at all, but at the time the Vestal Virgins were highly sacred, and for any sort of deflowering on the part of the Vestals this was probably considered heresy and thus was just.

I always thought that one of Nero's favourite punishments was quite nasty. The offender's penis would be wound with wire, and he would then have to drink water until he died (presumably from a burst bladder).

As this topic is broader than religion, I moved it from the temple forum to the ethics forum.

I always thought that one of Nero's favourite punishments was quite nasty. The offender's penis would be wound with wire, and he would then have to drink water until he died (presumably from a burst bladder).

Heh, reminds me of Caligula the movie.

I want to see that movie, I never did (actually I want to read the book too, but I don't really like the author's other work...) Ok that's off topic.

I don't know much about Roman punishments per se (except that they were brutal and quite fun for the executioner who I'm sure almost always had a sadistic bent) and that many of them had roots in religious values.

I would like to note though, that beheading is *not* a kind death, as the blade is rarely sharp enough to cut cleanly through on the first try...in fact it could take several times hacking at the bone before the person actually died. I would prefer the way of slaying defeated gladiators-sword point through the back of the neck. Kills faster than a run of the mill beheading (if done correctly it would sever the spine, killing almost instantly...and you would be numb from the neck down anyway).

Damn, they had way to much time on thier hands to think up such things, didn't they have hobbies back then?

What did the term "banned from water and fire" mean as a punishment ?

If I had to wager a guess (and that's about all I can do) I think it means that they would pretty much exile the person from society...not exile in the traditional sense but if anyone gave them anything to survive (food, water, fire, etc) that person would be punished as well...basically meaning "go off into the woods somewhere and live, or starve to death in the streets"

I always thought that one of Nero's favourite punishments was quite nasty. The offender's penis would be wound with wire, and he would then have to drink water until he died (presumably from a burst bladder).

That one is definatly bad.... patricide is still the worst in my book but that one comes pretty close.... ummm....I didn't doo nothing...

On a mass scale, I would say decimation is probably the worst in the legion. I don't get why an emperor would want to destroy his own legion.

Well...execution for a legionary is just like execution for everyone else...and the randomness of it led to an element of fear. That said, I don't quite understand the principle behind unecessary loss of warriors, but I guess they figured that those legionaries weren't any good anyway because that was the punisment for desertion.

An old one courtesy of the infamous Spartacus...

Roman Punishments