Xenoph. Hellen. iii, 1, 1; Diodor. xiv, 19.
[24] Xen. Anab. 1, 9, 8. Πολλάκις δ᾽ ἰδεῖν ἦν ἀνὰ τὰς στειβομένας ὁδοὺς, καὶ ποδῶν καὶ χειρῶν καὶ ὀφθαλμῶν στερουμένους ἀνθρώπους.
For other samples of mutilation inflicted by Persians, not merely on malefactors, but on prisoners by wholesale, see Quintus Curtius, v. 5, 6. Alexander the Great was approaching near to Persepolis, “quum miserabile agmen, inter pauca fortunæ exempla memorandum, regi occurrit. Captivi erant Græci ad quatuor millia ferè, quos Persæ vario suppliciorum modo affecerunt. Alios pedibus, quosdam manibus auribusque, amputatis, inustisque barbararum literarum notis, in longum sui ludibrium reservaverant,” etc. Compare Diodorus, xvii, 69; and the prodigious tales of cruelty recounted in Herodot. ix, 112; Ktesias, Persic. c. 54-59; Plutarch, Artaxerx. c. 14, 16, 17.
It is not unworthy of remark, that while there was nothing in which the Persian rulers displayed greater invention than in exaggerating bodily suffering upon a malefactor or an enemy,—at Athens, whenever any man was put to death by public sentence, the execution took place within the prison by administering a cup of hemlock, without even public exposure. It was the minimum of pain, as well as the minimum of indignity; as any one may see who reads the account of the death of Sokrates, given by Plato at the end of the Phædon.
It is certain, that, on the whole, the public sentiment in England is more humane now than it was in that day at Athens. Yet an Athenian public could not have borne the sight of a citizen publicly hanged or beheaded in the market-place. Much less could they have borne the sight of the prolonged tortures inflicted on Damiens at Paris in 1757 (a fair parallel to the Persian σκάφευσις described in Plutarch, Artaxerx. c. 16), in the presence of an immense crowd of spectators, when every window commanding a view of the Place de Grève was let at a high price, and filled by the best company in Paris.
[25] Xen. Anab. i, 9, 13.
[26] Xen. Anab. i, 6, 6.
[27] Xen. Anab. i, 2, 2-3.
[28] Xen. Hellen. iii, 1, 1.
[29] Diodor. xiv, 21.