Ancient Rome had a grisly fondness for showy executions, but the punishment for someone who confessed to parricide, the murder of a parent or close relative, was especially grandiose. The traditional sentence for parricide was so extravagant that Augustus allegedly warned a man who was guilty of the crime not to confess because, without the confession, the trial and punishment would proceed as with any other capital offense.
If, however, a person did confess to parricide, their last moments were fated to be quite bizarre. At the time of execution, the confessed criminal was forced into a huge sack. The bag was so large because the criminal would not be alone inside. Before the sack was sealed, the executioners brought in a wide variety of small animals. From this macabre zoo, a rooster, a snake, a dog, and even a monkey were supposedly crammed into the sack with the condemned criminal. Finally, when the sewing was complete, the stuffed bag was tossed into a body of water, with the criminal and animals still trapped inside.
Written by C. Keith Hansley.
Picture Attribution: (Image from History of Rome and of the Roman people, from its origin to the Invasion of the Barbarians (1883), [Public Domain] via Flickr and Creative Commons).
Sources:
- The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius, translated by Robert Graves and edited by James B. Rives. New York: Penguin Classics, 2007.
- https://www.jstor.org/stable/30222199?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
- https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences-and-law/law/crime-and-law-enforcement/parricide
- http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0051%3Achapter%3D1%3Asection%3DC.-THE+PUNISHMENT+OF+PARRICIDE.
