SCOURGING

The punishment of scourging was common among the Jews. The instrument of punishment in ancient Egypt, as it is also in modern times generally in the East, was usually the stick, applied to the soles of the feet-bastinado. Under the Roman method the culprit was stripped, stretched with cords or thongs on a frame and beaten with rods. (Another form of the scourge consisted of a handle with three lashes or thongs of leather or cord, sometimes with pieces of metal fastened to them. Roman citizens were exempt by their law from scourging.)