16. The Punishment of the Sack
Occasionally, some ancient Roman kids snapped and killed their patriarch. Unsurprisingly, what with ancient Rome being as pure a distillation of patriarchy as ever existed, it took a dim view of murdering a patriarch. Roman law was particularly horrified and revolted by patricide, or the killing of one’s father. So they expressed their abhorrence with a particularly inventive punishment: poena cullei, or the “Punishment of the Sack”.
Those convicted of patricide were first severely beaten with blood-colored rods, while their heads were covered in a bag made of a wolf’s hide. Then the patricide was sewn into the poena cullei, a sack made of ox hide, together with an assortment of live animals including a dog, a snake, a rooster, and a monkey. The sack was then beaten to rile up the animals and get them to bite and tear at the patricide. It was then put on a cart driven by black oxen to a river or the sea, where the sack and its occupants were thrown into the water.