Ad sua qui domitos deduxit flagra Quirites.
Juv. Sat. X. v. 99.
This notion of the Romans, of looking upon a scourge as a characteristic appendage of dominion, was so general among them, as is observed above, that they moreover supposed the gods themselves to be supplied with whips; and even Venus had also been thought to be furnished with one. In consequence of this supposition, Horace, who, as we may conclude from thence, had cause to be dissatisfied with some trick his Mistress had played him, or perhaps only with her impertinence in general, desires Venus to chastise her with her whip, “Do, Queen, (says he, addressing Venus) do, for once, give arrogant Chloe a touch with your sublime whip.”
Regina, sublimi flagello
Tange Chloën semel arrogantem.
Od. 26. Lib. III. ad Ven.
[23] The absolute dominion possessed by Masters over the persons of their slaves, led them to use a singular severity in the government of them. So frequently were flagellations the lot of the latter, that appellations and words of reproach drawn from that kind of punishment, were, as hath been above observed, commonly used to denominate them; and expressions of this kind occur in the politest writers: thus, we find in the Plays of Terence, an Author particularly celebrated for his politeness and strict observance of decorum, Slaves frequently called by the words Verberones, Flagriones, or others to the same effect.
As for Plautus, who had been the Servant of a Baker, and who was much acquainted with every thing that related to Slaves, and their flagellations in particular, he has filled his scenes with nicknames of Slaves, drawn from this latter circumstance; and they are almost continually called in his Plays, flagritribæ (a verbis, flagrum & terere) plagipatidæ, ulmitribæ, &c. besides the appellations of Bucædæ and Restiones, above-mentioned.
Sometimes the flagellations of Slaves, or the fear they entertained of incurring them, served Plautus as incidents for the conduct of his plots; thus, in his Epidicus, a Slave who is the principal character in the Play, concludes upon a certain occasion, that his Master has discovered his whole scheme, because he has spied him, in the morning, purchasing a new scourge at the shop in which they were sold. The same flagellations in general, have moreover been an inexhaustible fund of pleasantry for Plautus. In one place, for instance, a Slave, intending to laugh at a fellow-slave, asks him how much he thinks he weighs, when he is suspended naked, by his hands, to the beam, with an hundred weight (centupondium) tied to his feet; which was a precaution taken, as Commentators inform us, in order to prevent the Slave who was flagellated from kicking the Man (Virgator) whose office it was to perform the operation. And in another place, Plautus, alluding to the thongs of ox-leather with which whips were commonly made, introduces a Slave engaged in deep reflection on the surprizing circumstance of “dead bullocks, that make incursions upon living Men.”