Sometimes in notorious offences, to augment the pains, they tyed certain huccle-bones or plummets of lead, or sharp thorns to the end of the thongs, and such scourges the Greeks termed[593] ἀστραγαλωτὰς μάστιγας Flagra taxillata in the Scripture they are termed[594] Scorpions. My father hath chastised you with rods, but I will correct you with Scorpions, 1 King. 12. 12.
[593] Eustathius. Item. Athenæus lib. 4.
[594] Tholosan. synt. jur. univers. l. 31.
CHAP. IX.
Punishments borrowed from other Nations.
The punishments borrowed from other Nations are principally six: 1. Crux, The death on the Cross. 2. Serrâ dissectio, the cutting one asunder with a saw. 3. Damnatio ad bestias, The committing one to fight for his life with wild beasts. 4. τροχὸς, the wheel. 5. καταποντισμὸς, Drowning one in the sea. 6. τυμπανισμὸς, Beating one to death with cudgels. The first and the third were meerly Roman punishments; the second was likewise used by the Romans, but whether originally taken from them is doubtful: the fourth and the last were meerly Greek punishments; the fifth was for the substance in use among Hebrews, Greeks and Romans, but in the manner of drowning them, they differed. It will be needful to speak somewhat of all these.
1. Crux. This word is sometimes applied to any tree or stake on which a man is tortured to death, but most properly it is applied to a frame of wood consisting of two pieces of timber compacted cross-wise. The first is termed Crux simplex, the last Crux compacta. This latter is threefold. 1. Decussata. 2. Commissa. 3. Immissa.
Crux decussata. This was made of two equal pieces of timber obliquely crossing one the other in the middle, after the manner of the Roman X, and thence it is called decussata.[595] Decussare, est per medium secare. Veluti si duæ regulæ concurrant ad speciem literæ X, quæ figura est crucis. This kind of cross is by the common people termed Crux Andræana, Saint Andrews-cross, because on such an one he is reported to have been crucified.
[595] Hieron. in Jerem. c. 31.