PUNISHMENTS IN ANCIENT ROME

crucifixion of Spartacus probably didn't happen
Crucifixion is a well-known form of Roman punishment. That's what the Romans did to Jesus. After the Spartacus Slave Revolt, it was said, slaves were nailed to crosses along a 100 miles stretch of the Appian Way. Many of them remained there, it was said, until their bones were picked clean by vultures. Some historians doubt whether this really took place. There is some archaeological evidence that crucifixions did occur but it is unclear if the punishment was widely practiced.
The Emperors had no tolerance for people who revolted. In A.D. 70, Titus put down a Jewish revolt and and punished rebellious Jewish zealots by salting agricultural land, slaughtering and enslaving thousands of Jews, and looting menorahs and other sacred objects. Thousands of Jewish slaves were brought to Rome from Judea. During a huge triumphal procession, commemorated by the Arch of Titus, Jewish prisoners were paraded through the streets and strangled at the Forum. Josephus claimed that all together over 1 million Jews died as a result of the Roman crackdown.
The Romans burned and sacked the Second Temple in Jerusalem. The Arch of Titus in Rome has a frieze showing legionnaires carrying candelabra and silver trumpets from the Temple. The Roman's added insult to injury by razing the Roman standard on the ruin of the Temple with an image of a pig (Jews like Muslims refrain from eating pork).
The most common punishments were fines. In some case, people were exiled, a fairly common practice in ancient Greece. Wooden soles were sometimes strapped to the feet of prisoners, making escape difficult. Lacking pliability, wood restricts the foot's movement. According to Romae Vitam: “For theft the common punishment for a Roman citizen was to pay damages usually many times the value of the object stolen. The Romans made the difference between manifest and non-manifest theft, which depended on how close the thief was to the scene of the crime, manifest theft being the worst kind of theft. Initially, the penalty for manifest theft could be flogging, slavery or even death. Later on it was changed to paying damages amounting many times (usually four times) the value of the object stolen.”
Michael Van Duisen wrote for Listverse: “The status of homo sacer was given to those who broke oaths. Homo sacer translates best as “man who is set apart.” Those punished with this title were not allowed to be ritually sacrificed, but they could be killed by anyone, with impunity. Some people were deemed homo sacer by a group of vigilantes, without any actual legal standing. (It is believed this may have occurred in early Rome, since they lacked the standing forces necessary to enforce the law, allowing people to take matters into their own hands on occasion.) In addition, any legal rights the convicted would have normally had, such as land ownership, were revoked, essentially ridding him of what made him a part of society. The Law of the Twelve Tables, the foundation of Roman law, specifically mentions homo sacer, making it the punishment for patrons who deceive their clients. [Source: Michael Van Duisen, Listverse, February 13, 2014]
RELATED ARTICLES:
ROMAN JUSTICE SYSTEM factsanddetails.com ;
ROMAN LAW: TYPES, CODES, ORGANIZATION europe.factsanddetails.com ;
DEVELOPMENT OF ROMAN LAW europe.factsanddetails.com ;
ROMAN LAWS ON MARRIAGE, PROSTITUTION, FORNICATION, DEBAUCHERY AND ADULTERY factsanddetails.com ;
CRUCIFIXION: HISTORY, EVIDENCE OF IT AND HOW IT WAS DONE europe.factsanddetails.com
Websites on Ancient Rome: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Rome sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Late Antiquity sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; BBC Ancient Rome bbc.co.uk/history; Perseus Project - Tufts University; perseus.tufts.edu ; Lacus Curtius penelope.uchicago.edu; The Internet Classics Archive classics.mit.edu ; Bryn Mawr Classical Review bmcr.brynmawr.edu; Cambridge Classics External Gateway to Humanities Resources web.archive.org; Ancient Rome resources for students from the Courtenay Middle School Library web.archive.org ; History of ancient Rome OpenCourseWare from the University of Notre Dame web.archive.org ; United Nations of Roma Victrix (UNRV) History unrv.com
Punishments of Slaves in Ancient Rome

slave collar
Harold Whetstone Johnston wrote in “The Private Life of the Romans”: “It is not the purpose of the following sections to catalogue the fiendish tortures sometimes inflicted upon slaves by their masters. They were not very common, for the reason suggested in, and were no more characteristic of the ordinary correction of slaves than lynching is characteristic of the administration of justice in our own states. Certain punishments, however, are so frequently mentioned in Latin literature that a description of them is necessary in order that the passages in which they occur may be understood by the reader. [Source: “The Private Life of the Romans” by Harold Whetstone Johnston, Revised by Mary Johnston, Scott, Foresman and Company (1903, 1932) |+|]
“The most common punishment for neglect of duty or petty misconduct was a beating with a stick or a flogging with a lash. The stick or rod was usually of elm wood (ulmus); the elm-rod thus used corresponded to the birch of England and the hickory of America, once freely used in flogging. For the lash or rawhide (scutica or lorum) was often used a sort of cat-o’-nine-tails, made of cords or thongs of leather.Another punishment for offenses of a trivial nature resembled the stocks of old New England days. The offender was exposed to the derision of his fellows with his limbs so confined that he could make no motion at all—he could not even brush a fly from his face. A variation of this form of punishment is seen in the furca, which was so common that furcifer became a mere term of abuse. The culprit was forced to carry upon his shoulders a heavy forked log, and had his arms stretched out before him with his hands fastened to the ends of the fork. This log he had to carry around in order that the other members of the familia might see him and take warning. Sometimes to this punishment was added a lashing as he moved painfully along. |+|
“Less painful and degrading for the moment, but even more dreaded by the slave, was a sentence to harder labor than he had been accustomed to perform. The final penalty for misconduct on the part of a city slave for whom the rod had been spoiled in vain was banishment to the farm, and to this might be added at a stroke the odious task of grinding at the mill, or the crushing toil of labor in the quarries. The last were the punishments of the better class of farm slaves, while the desperate and dangerous class of slaves who regularly worked in the quarries paid for their misdeeds by forced labor under the scourge and by having heavier shackles during the day and fewer hours of rest at night. These may be compared to the galley slaves of later times. The utterly incorrigible might be sold to be trained as gladiators.” |+|
“The minor punishments were inflicted at the order of the master or his representative by some fellow slave called for the time carnifex or lorarius, though these words by no means imply that he was regularly or even commonly designated for the disagreeable duty. Still, the administration of punishment to a fellow slave was felt to be degrading, and the word carnifex was often applied to the one who administered it and finally came to be a standing term of abuse and taunt. It is applied to each other by quarreling slaves, apparently with no notion of its literal meaning, as many vulgar epithets are applied today. The actual execution of a death sentence was carried out by one of the servi publici at a fixed place of execution outside the city walls.” |+|
Severe Punishments of Slaves in Ancient Rome

breaking legs was a Roman military punishment
Harold Whetstone Johnston wrote in “The Private Life of the Romans”: “For actual crimes, not mere faults or offenses, the punishments were far more severe. Slaves were so numerous and their various employments gave them such free access to the person of the master that his property and very life were always at their mercy. It was indeed a just and gentle master that did not sometimes dream of a slave holding a dagger at his throat. There was nothing within the confines of Italy so much dreaded as an uprising of the slaves. It was simply this haunting fear that led to the inhuman tortures inflicted upon the slave guilty of an attempt upon the life of his master or of the destruction of his property.” [Source: “The Private Life of the Romans” by Harold Whetstone Johnston, Revised by Mary Johnston, Scott, Foresman and Company (1903, 1932) |+|]
When offenses were more serious, bits of bone, and even metal buttons were attached to stick or floggong lash “to tear the flesh, and the instrument was called a flagrum or flagellum. It could not have been less severe than the knout of Russia, and we may well believe that slaves died beneath its blows. To render the victim incapable of resistance he was sometimes drawn up to a beam by the arms, and weights were even attached to his feet, so that he could not so much as writhe under the torture. In Roman comedies are references to these punishments, and the slaves make grim jests on the rods and the scourge, taunting each other with the beatings they have had or deserve to have. But such jests are much commoner than the actual infliction of any sort of punishment in the comedies. |+|
“For an attempt upon the life of the master the penalty was death in its most agonizing form, by crucifixion. This was also the penalty for taking part in an insurrection; we may recall the twenty thousand crucified in Sicily and the six thousand crosses that Pompeius erected along the road to Rome, each bearing the body of one of the survivors of the final battle in which Spartacus fell. The punishment was inflicted not only upon the slave guilty of taking his master’s life, but also upon the family of the slave, if he had a wife and children. If the guilty man could not be found, his punishment was made certain by the crucifixion of all the slaves of the murdered man. Tacitus tells us that in the reign of Nero four hundred slaves were executed because their master, Pedianus Secundus, had been murdered by one of their number who had not been detected. The cross stood to the slave as the horror of horrors. The very word (crux) was used among them as a curse, especially in the expression (I) A.D. (malam) crucem. |+|
Punishment for Dereliction of Duty by Roman Soldiers

fustigation was a Roman military punishment
Polybius wrote in “History” Book 6: “As soon as the morning appears, those who have made the rounds carry the tablets to the tribune. If they bring the full number back they are suffered to depart without any question. But if the number be less than that of the guards, the inscriptions are immediately examined, in order to discover from what particular guard the tablet has not been returned. When this is known, the centurion is ordered to attend and to bring with him the soldiers that were appointed for that guard; that they may be questioned face to face with him who made the rounds. If the fault be in the guard, he that made the rounds appeals at once to the testimony of his friends who were present. Such evidence always is demanded from him; and in case that he is not able to bring this proof, the whole blame rests upon himself. The council is then assembled; the cause is judged by the tribune, and the guilty person sentenced to be bastinadoed. [Source: Polybius (c.200-after 118 B.C.), Rome at the End of the Punic Wars, “History” Book 6. From: Oliver J. Thatcher, ed., “The Library of Original Sources” (Milwaukee: University Research Extension Co., 1907), Vol. III: The Roman World, pp. 166-193]
This punishment is inflicted in the following manner. The tribune, taking a stick into his hand, gently touches the criminal; and immediately afterwards all the soldiers of the legion attack him with sticks and stones; so that the greatest part of those that are thus condemned are destroyed immediately in the camp. If any one escapes, yet he is not saved. For all return into his country is shut against him: nor would any of his friends or kindred ever dare to receive him into their houses. Those, therefore, who have once fallen into this misfortune are lost without resource. The conductor of the rear, and the leader of the troops, if ever they neglect to give the necessary notice in due time, the first to the inspectors of the watch, and the second to the leader of the succeeding troop, are subject also to this punishment. From the dread of a discipline so severe, and which leaves no place for mercy, every thing that belongs to the guards of the night is performed with the most exact diligence and care.”
Tribunes and Punishments for Roman Soldiers
Polybius wrote in “History” Book 6: “The soldiers are subject to the control of the tribunes, as these are to that of the consuls. The tribunes have the power of imposing fines, and demanding sureties, and of punishing with stripes. The same authority is exercised by the prefects among the allies. The punishment of the bastinadoe is inflicted also upon those who steal any thing in the camp; those who bear false testimony; who, in their youth, abuse their bodies; and who have been three times convicted of one fault. [Source: Polybius (c.200-after 118 B.C.), Rome at the End of the Punic Wars, “History” Book 6. From: Oliver J. Thatcher, ed., “The Library of Original Sources” (Milwaukee: University Research Extension Co., 1907), Vol. III: The Roman World, pp. 166-193]

decimation was a Roman military punishment
“These offenses are punished as crimes. There are others that are regarded as the effects of cowardice, and disgraceful to the military character. When a soldier, for example, with a view of obtaining a reward, makes a report to the tribunes of some brave action which he has not performed. When any one, through fear, deserts his station, or throws away his arms in the time of engagement. For hence it happens that many, through the dread of the allotted punishment, when they are attacked by much greater numbers, will even encounter manifest destruction, rather than desert that post which they had been ordered to maintain. Others again, when they have lost their shield, or sword, or any other part of their arms in the time of action, throw themselves precipitately into the very midst of the enemy; hoping either to recover what they have lost, or to avoid by death the reproaches of their fellow-soldiers, and the disgrace that is ready to receive them.
“If it happens that many are at one time guilty of the same fault, and that whole companies retire before the enemy, and desert their station; instead of punishing all of them by death, an expedient is employed which is both useful and full of terror. The tribune, assembling together all the soldiers of the legion, commands the criminals to be brought forward: and, having sharply reproached them with their cowardice, he then draws out by lot either five, or eight, or twenty men, according to the number of those that have offended. For the proportion is usually so adjusted, that every tenth man is reserved for punishment. Those, who are thus separated from the rest by lot, are bastinadoed without remission in the manner before described. The others are sentenced to be fed with barley instead of wheat; and are lodged without the entrenchment, exposed to insults from the enemy. As the danger, therefore, and the dread of death, hangs equally over all the guilty, because no one can foresee upon whom the lot will fall; and as the shame and infamy of receiving barley only for their support is extended also alike to all; this institution is perfectly well contrived, both for impressing present terror, and for the prevention of future faults.”
Poena Cullei (Thrown Into River in a Sack with a Monkey)

medieval Poena Cullei
Capital punishment was quite prevalent in ancient Rome. It was used for a number of crimes in which someone would be jailed or even placed on probation today. Among the crimes for which one could be executed in ancient Rome were deserting the army, running away from slavery, and even under some circumstances, adultery.
Michael Van Duisen wrote for Listverse: “ Poena cullei was a special type of capital punishment, one which was reserved for a particular crime: parricide, or murder of a member of one’s family. Once convicted, the murderer would have his face covered with a wolf’s skin and sandals were placed on his feet (presumably to keep him from defiling the air or the ground). He would now wait in prison until a sack was made for him. Once it was ready, a dog, monkey, snake, and rooster were placed in the sack, along with the murderer, and the sack was thrown into a river or the ocean. [Source: Michael Van Duisen, Listverse, February 13, 2014]
Cicero wrote: “They therefore stipulated that parricides should be sewn up in a sack while still alive and thrown into a river. What remarkable wisdom they showed, gentlemen! Do they not seem to have cut the parricide off and separated him from the whole realm of nature, depriving him at a stroke of sky, sun, water and earth – and thus ensuring that he who had killed the man who gave him life should himself be denied the elements from which, it is said, all life derives? They did not want his body to be exposed to wild animals, in case the animals should turn more savage after coming into contact with such a monstrosity. Nor did they want to throw him naked into a river, for fear that his body, carried down to the sea, might pollute that very element by which all other defilements are thought to be purified. In short, there is nothing so cheap, or so commonly available that they allowed parricides to share in it. For what is so free as air to the living, earth to the dead, the sea to those tossed by the waves, or the land to those cast to the shores? Yet these men live, while they can, without being able to draw breath from the open air; they die without earth touching their bones; they are tossed by the waves without ever being cleansed; and in the end they are cast ashore without being granted, even on the rocks, a resting-place in death.”
Damnatio ad Bestias (Killing by Wild Animals)

Damnatio ad bestias (Latin for "condemnation to beasts") was a form of Roman capital punishment in which the condemned person was killed by wild animals in the arena. Unlike the betiarii, who were able to defend themselves to some degree, those condemned via damnatio ad bestias were either defenseless, tethered to one spot, or armed with only a wooden weapon. This form of execution, which first came to ancient Rome around the 2nd century B.C., was considered a type of blood sports called Bestiarii and regarded as entertainment for the lower classes of Rome. Killing by wild animals, such as lions, formed part of the inaugural games of the Colosseum in A.D. 80. Between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD, this penalty was also applied to the worst criminals, runaway slaves, and Christians. [Source: Wikipedia +]
“The exact purpose of the early damnatio ad bestias is not known and might have been a religious sacrifice rather than a legal punishment, especially in the regions where lions existed naturally and were revered by the population, such as Africa and parts of Asia. As a punishment, damnatio ad bestias is mentioned by historians of Alexander's campaigns. For example, in Central Asia, a Macedonian named Lysimachus, who spoke before Alexander for a person condemned to death, was himself thrown to a lion, but overcame the beast with his bare hands and became one of Alexander's favorites. During the Mercenary War, Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca threw prisoners to the beasts, whereas Hannibal forced Romans captured in the Punic Wars to fight each other, and the survivors had to stand against elephants. +
Lions were rare in Ancient Rome, and human sacrifice was banned there by Numa Pompilius in the 7th century B.C., according to legend. Damnatio ad bestias appeared there not as a spiritual practice but rather a spectacle. In addition to lions, other animals were used for this purpose, including bears, leopards, Caspian tigers, and black panthers. It was combined with gladiatorial combat and was first featured at the Roman Forum and then transferred to the amphitheaters. +
The practice of damnatio ad bestias was abolished in Rome in A.D. 681. It was used once after that in the Byzantine Empire: in 1022, when several disgraced generals were arrested for plotting a conspiracy against emperor Basil II, they were imprisoned and their property seized, but the royal eunuch who assisted them was thrown to lions. Also, a bishop of Saare-Lääne was sentencing criminals to damnatio ad bestias at the Bishop's Castle in modern Estonia in the Middle Ages. +
See Separate Article: ANIMAL SPECTACLES IN ANCIENT ROME: KILLING AND BEING KILLED BY WILD ANIMALS europe.factsanddetails.com
Crucifixion

Christ on the Cross by Rubens
Crucifixion is a well-known form of Roman punishment. That's what the Romans did to Jesus. After the Spartacus Slave Revolt, it was said, slaves were nailed to crosses along a 100 miles stretch of the Appian Way. Many of them remained there, it was said, until their bones were picked clean by vultures. Some historians doubt whether this event really took place. There is some archaeological evidence that crucifixions did occur but it is unclear how widely the punishment was widely practiced. It was not used on Roman citizens unless they did something particularly treasonous.
Professor Allen D. Callahan told PBS: “The Romans had a genius for brutality. They were good at building bridges and they were good at killing people, and they were better at it than anybody in the Mediterranean basin had ever seen before.... [Source: Allen D. Callahan: Associate Professor of New Testament, Harvard Divinity School, Frontline, PBS, April 1998 ]
“Crucifixion was considered such a humiliating form of punishment that if you were a Roman citizen, of course, you couldn't be crucified, no matter what the offense. It was usually the execution of choice... for slaves and people considered beneath the dignity of Roman citizenship. It was a form of public terrorism.... You would be punished by being hung out publicly, naked until you died. And this sent a very powerful message to everybody else in those quarters that if you do or even think about doing what this guy's accused of having done, you, too, can wind up this way and it was very effective; excruciating, perhaps the most excruciating form of capital punishment that we know.
“It was a Roman job, there's no mistake about that. There has been some examination of the question of whether Jews... actually crucified people in any circumstances. There's some evidence that crucifixion did take place; members of the Pharisee party at one point were crucified, maybe a century and a half before Jesus. But that's disputed. It's a Roman form of execution and it was a public execution on a political charge.”
See Separate Article: CRUCIFIXION: HISTORY, EVIDENCE OF IT AND HOW IT WAS DONE europe.factsanddetails.com
Persecution of Christians in Rome
Under Roman rule, Christians were denied business opportunities and status in society, prohibited from worshiping, attacked by mobs, persecuted, tortured and killed in organized campaigns by the Romans government. The Roman historian Tacitus accused them of "hatred of the human race." The Book of Revelation was written in response to the Roman persecutions.
Christians sometimes had their foreheads tattooed by Romans (some Christian slaves carried religion symbols to counteract images inscribed on them by their Roman masters) or were condemned to work in mines. In the worst cases, they were arrested and given the choice of recanting their faith or facing execution, with some being thrown to hungry lions in the Coliseum and other arenas.
Tacitus wrote Christians, "were nailed on crosses...sewn up in the skins of wild beasts, and exposed to the fury of dogs; others again, smeared over with combustible materials, were used as torches to illuminate the night."
Due to persecution, Christians met in secret primarily in the houses of wealthy members. This only seemed to raise the level of hostility against them. Because early Christians held services "behind closed doors" at night instead of during the day in open temples like the Roman they were accused of having orgies and engaging in cannibalism (partly from a misinterpretation of the practice of Communion).
The Romans demanded that their gods be worshipped, but at the same time they received the local gods. The reason the Jews and Christian were persecuted is that they presented a threat and refused to worship the Roman gods. Judaism and Christianity were not the only religions in the Roman empire. Mithraism, Manichaeism, Gnosticism and many others were practiced. There were lots of other strange religions around — Manichaeans, Donatist, Pelagians, Arians. Subjects from all religions were expected to make sacrifices to the Roman gods and worship the Roman emperor as a god.
See Separate Articles: MARTYRS AND THE PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS IN ROME europe.factsanddetails.com ; PERSECUTION AND TREATMENT OF CHRISTIANS UNDER DIFFERENT ROMAN EMPERORS europe.factsanddetails.com ; VICTIMS OF ROMAN CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION europe.factsanddetails.com
Voluntary Death in Ancient Rome
Edward Gibbon wrote in the “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”:“A Roman accused of any capital crime might prevent the sentence of the law by voluntary exile, or death. Till his guilt had been legally proved, his innocence was presumed, and his person was free: till the votes of the last century had been counted and declared, he might peaceably secede to any of the allied cities of Italy, or Greece, or Asia. His fame and fortunes were preserved, at least to his children, by this civil death; and he might still be happy in every rational and sensual enjoyment, if a mind accustomed to the ambitious tumult of Rome could support the uniformity and silence of Rhodes or Athens. [Source: Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence. Part VII,“Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” Vol. 4, by Edward Gibbon, 1788, sacred-texts.com]
A bolder effort was required to escape from the tyranny of the Caesars; but this effort was rendered familiar by the maxims of the stoics, the example of the bravest Romans, and the legal encouragements of suicide. The bodies of condemned criminals were exposed to public ignominy, and their children, a more serious evil, were reduced to poverty by the confiscation of their fortunes. But, if the victims of Tiberius and Nero anticipated the decree of the prince or senate, their courage and despatch were recompensed by the applause of the public, the decent honors of burial, and the validity of their testaments. The exquisite avarice and cruelty of Domitian appear to have deprived the unfortunate of this last consolation, and it was still denied even by the clemency of the Antonines.
A voluntary death, which, in the case of a capital offence, intervened between the accusation and the sentence, was admitted as a confession of guilt, and the spoils of the deceased were seized by the inhuman claims of the treasury. Yet the civilians have always respected the natural right of a citizen to dispose of his life; and the posthumous disgrace invented by Tarquin, to check the despair of his subjects, was never revived or imitated by succeeding tyrants. The powers of this world have indeed lost their dominion over him who is resolved on death; and his arm can only be restrained by the religious apprehension of a future state. Suicides are enumerated by Virgil among the unfortunate, rather than the guilty; and the poetical fables of the infernal shades could not seriously influence the faith or practice of mankind. But the precepts of the gospel, or the church, have at length imposed a pious servitude on the minds of Christians, and condemn them to expect, without a murmur, the last stroke of disease or the executioner.
Bakery–Prison of Ancient Rome
In December 2023, archaeologist announced they had discovered an ancient bakery in Pompeii in which enslaved people and donkeys were locked up together and used to power a mill to grind grain for bread. Barbie Latza Nadeau of CNN wrote: The site consists of a narrow room with no external view but only small, high windows covered by bars through which minimal light passed. There were also indentations in the floor “to coordinate the movement of the animals, forced to walk around for hours, blindfolded,” the statement said. [Source: Barbie Latza Nadeau, CNN, December 9, 2023]
The discovery was made in the Regio IX section of Pompeii, which has an ongoing archaeological dig. Archaeologists discovered the bakery while excavating an ancient Pompeiian home that was being renovated. The bodies of three victims of the Vesuvius eruption were found in at the site, believed to be residents of the home rather than slaves. The house was divided into a residential section with “refined frescoes” on one side, and a commercial bakery on the other.
Next to the bakery was the dimly lit prison area, Pompeii Archaeological Park director Gabriel Zuchtriegel said. “What has emerged is testimony of the backbreaking work to which men, women, and animals were subjected in the ancient mill-bakeries,” he added. Zuchtriegel said these prison bakeries were previously described by the Roman writer Apuleius in the 2nd century A.D., in his novel “Metamorphoses” (also known as “The Golden Ass”), in which the protagonist, Lucius, “transformed into a donkey and was sold to a miller.” Zuchtriegel said the episode was based on the writer’s direct knowledge of the animals and humans living and working together.
The newly discovered prison area had no doors to the outside, only to the inner atrium. “It is, in other words, a space in which we must imagine the presence of people of servile status whose owner felt the need to limit the freedom of movement,” Zuchtriegel said. “It is the most shocking side of ancient slavery, the side devoid of relationships of trust, where it was reduced to brute violence, an impression which is fully confirmed by the closing of the few windows with iron grates.”
Archaeologists also believe that the indentations in the slab flooring were not made by repetitive movement but were carved to prevent the donkeys and other animals from slipping on the pavement and to force them to only walk in a circular motion to grind the grain, almost like a clockwork mechanism. “The iconographic and literary sources, in particular the reliefs from the tomb of Eurysaces in Rome, suggest that a millstone was normally moved by a couple made up of a donkey and a slave,” Zuchtriegel said. “The latter, in addition to pushing the grindstone, had the task of encouraging the animal and monitoring the grinding process, adding grain and removing flour.”
Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons
Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Rome sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Late Antiquity sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; “Outlines of Roman History” by William C. Morey, Ph.D., D.C.L. New York, American Book Company (1901) ; “The Private Life of the Romans” by Harold Whetstone Johnston, Revised by Mary Johnston, Scott, Foresman and Company (1903, 1932); BBC Ancient Rome bbc.co.uk/history/ ; Project Gutenberg gutenberg.org ; Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Live Science, Discover magazine, Archaeology magazine, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP, The New Yorker, Wikipedia, Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopedia.com and various other books, websites and publications.
Last updated October 2024