The Schoolmaster’s joy is to flog,
The milk-maid’s delights are on May-day;
But mine are in sweet Molly Mog.
However, the researches of our Author on the present deep subject, as well as mine in my humble capacity of Commentator, can bear no comparison, I think, in point of sagaciousness, with the discovery made by Thomas Perez, the Uncle of Diego, who relates his own history in the third volume of the Adventures of Gil Blas, and who takes that occasion to mention the great abilities of his Uncle as an Antiquary. “If it had not been for him (says he) we should still be ignorant that children, in Athens, cried when their Mothers whipped them.”
CHAP. VI.
Flagellations of a religious and voluntary kind were practised among the ancient Heathens.
WE have hitherto only treated of involuntary Flagellations, and such as were in all cases inflicted by force on those who suffered them. But besides Flagellations of this kind, there were others of a voluntary sort among the Heathens, to which those who underwent them, freely and willingly submitted, and which may indeed create our surprise in a much greater degree than the former.
Thus, at Lacedæmon, there was a celebrated Festival, which was kept annually, and was named the Day of Flagellations, on account of the ceremony that was performed in it, of whipping before the altar of Diana a number of Boys, who freely submitted to that painful treatment; and this Festival has been mentioned by a great number of Authors.
Plutarch, for instance, in his Book of the Customs of the Lacedæmonians, relates, that he had been an eye-witness of the celebration of the solemnity we speak of. ‘Boys (says he) are whipped for a whole day, often to death, before the altar of Diana the Orthian; and they suffer it with chearfulness, and even joy: nay, they strive with each other for victory; and he who bears up the longest time, and has been able to endure the greatest number of stripes, carries the day. This solemnity is called The Contest (or race) of Flagellations; and is celebrated every year.’