Minerva.
‘What kind of severity do you prepare for that miserable man?’
Ajax.
‘I propose to lash his back with a scourge till he dies.’
Minerva.
‘Nay, do not whip the poor Wretch so cruelly.’
Ajax.
‘Give me leave, Minerva, to gratify, on this occasion, my own fancy; he shall have it, I do assure you, and I prepare no other punishment for him.’
The punishment of flagellation was also much in vogue among the Romans; and it was the common chastisement which Judges inflicted upon Offenders, especially upon those of a servile condition. Surrounded by an apparatus of whips, scourges, and leather-straps, they terrified Offenders, and brought them to a sense of their duty.