Scaphism (from Greek σκάφη, meaning “boat”), a ancient method of torture and execution, emerges as one of the most horrifying practices in history. The victim was stripped naked and securely fastened inside a narrow boat or a hollowed tree trunk. Another boat or tree trunk of the same size was placed on top, leaving the victim’s hands, legs, and head protruding. The victim was forcibly fed milk and honey to induce severe diarrhea. Additionally, honey was applied to the victim’s body to attract insects.
Afterward, the victim was allowed to float in a pond with stagnant water or be left out in the sun. The victim’s feces accumulated in this “container,” attracting more insects that slowly consumed the flesh and laid their larvae, leading to gangrene. To prolong the torment, the victim might be fed daily. Ultimately, death likely occurred due to dehydration, exhaustion, and septic shock. According to other accounts, there was no consumption of the victim’s body, and the honey attracted stinging insects like wasps.
This unbearable form of punishment, with its origins in ancient Iran, has long intrigued historians. To fully comprehend scaphism, we must examine the historical and cultural context in which it developed. This barbaric practice was used in ancient Iran, where it was considered a form of execution, particularly for heinous crimes. The Persians, known for their elaborate and sometimes brutal tactics, developed scaphism as a method of both punishment and public display.
The origins of scaphism are shrouded in the mists of antiquity, with early references to this gruesome practice emerging from the annals of ancient Persia. The first written accounts of scaphism can be traced back to Persia’s Achaemenid Empire, which existed from 550 to 330 BCE. This method of torture and execution appears in some of the earliest historical records from this era, shedding light on the practices of that time.
History of Scaphism
Ctesias reports that in 465 BC, by the order of King Artaxerxes I, a similar execution was carried out on the court eunuch Aspamitra, who had been involved in the murder of King Xerxes I of Persia. Plutarch attests that in this manner, in 401 BC, a Persian warrior named Mithridates was executed, who had killed Cyrus the Younger in battle. However, Persian King Artaxerxes II decided to claim Cyrus’s murder as his own and eliminate witnesses. The unfortunate Mithridates died only 17 days later.
He therefore gave orders that Mithridates should be put to death by the torture of the boats. Now, this torture of the boats is as follows. Two boats are taken, which are so made as to fit over one another closely; in one of these the victim is laid, flat upon his back; then the other is laid over the first and carefully adjusted, so that the victim’s head, hands, and feet are left projecting, while the rest of his body is completely covered up. Then they give him food to eat, and if he refuse it, they force him to take it by pricking his eyes. After he has eaten, they give him a mixture of milk and honey to drink, pouring it into his mouth, and also deluge his face with it.
Then they keep his eyes always turned towards the sun, and a swarm of flies settles down p165 upon his face and hides it completely. And since inside the boats he does what must needs be done when men eat and drink, worms and maggots seethe up from the corruption and rottenness of the excrement, devouring his body, and eating their way into his vitals. For when at last the man is clearly dead and the upper boat has been removed, his flesh is seen to have been consumed away, while about his entrails swarms of such animals as I have mentioned are clinging fast and eating. In this way Mithridates was slowly consumed for seventeen days, and at last died.
Plutarch, Life of Artaxerxes.
A similar method of torture and execution also existed among the Etruscans: the victim was stripped naked and tied tightly to a decomposing corpse, as a result of which the victim’s body also began to gradually decompose.
The 12th-century Byzantine chronicler Joannes Zonaras later described the punishment based on Plutarch’s information:
The Persians outvie all other barbarians in the horrid cruelty of their punishments, employing tortures that are peculiarly terrible and long-drawn, namely the ‘boats’ and sewing men up in raw hides. But what is meant by the ‘boats,’ I must now explain for the benefit of less well informed readers. Two boats are joined together one on top of the other, with holes cut in them in such a way that the victim’s head, hands, and feet only are left outside. Within these boats the man to be punished is placed lying on his back, and the boats then nailed together with bolts.
Next they pour a mixture of milk and honey into the wretched man’s mouth, till he is filled to the point of nausea, smearing his face, feet, and arms with the same mixture, and so leave him exposed to the sun.
This is repeated every day, the effect being that flies, wasps, and bees, attracted by the sweetness, settle on his face and all such parts of him as project outside the boats, and miserably torment and sting the wretched man. Moreover his belly, distended as it is with milk and honey, throws off liquid excrements, and these putrefying breed swarms of worms, intestinal and of all sorts. Thus the victim lying in the boats, his flesh rotting away in his own filth and devoured by worms, dies a lingering and horrible death.
Joannes Zonaras
Similar Practices
In Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale,” the criminal Autolycus tells a shepherd and his son that because Perdita has fallen in love with the prince, her father will be stoned to death, and her brother will be punished as follows:
He has a son,—who shall be flayed alive; then ‘nointed over with honey, set on the head of a wasp’s nest; then stand till he be three quarters and a dram dead; then recovered again with aqua-vitae or some other hot infusion; then, raw as he is, and in the hottest day prognostication proclaims, shall he be set against a brick wall, the sun looking with a southward eye upon him,—where he is to behold him with flies blown to death.
Shakespeare – The Winter’s Tale.
The KGB used a similar, though non-lethal, technique for extracting confessions. The naked prisoner would be placed in a narrow, wooden box filled with hundreds or even thousands of insects, enduring excruciating pain from their bites.
Richard Sair refers to a case in modern China where a man was chained outside, and he was bitten by several mosquitoes.
Doubts About the Truth
One of the main issues regarding Plutarch’s truthfulness is that he held a hostile attitude towards the Persians. He despised the Persians so much that in his work on Herodotus’ malevolence, he called him “φιλοβάρβαρος” (philobarbaros), meaning “barbarian-lover,” partially because Herodotus did not depict the Persians as straightforward evildoers.
Furthermore, even Plutarch himself criticized the works of Ctesias for their “extravagant and incredible narratives.” As noted by historian Geneviève Carlton, “It’s possible the Persians really did torment criminals with “the boats,” also known as scaphism, but it’s just as likely Ctesias made it up.”
The existence of scaphism is not confirmed by archaeological findings or references in independent historical sources. Due to the degree of horror depicted in the execution, it has found its way into many popular texts on the history of the ancient world and fictional literature. However, such examples are virtually absent in scholarly literature.
Impact
Perhaps the legend of the ancient Persian punishment led to the appearance of a torture device known as the “Dessauer Trog” or “Dessau Torture Trough” in Germany in the 18th century. Its application for interrogation purposes is described in later legal literature. However, all things considered, this device did not gain wide popularity and remained a unique specimen created by the order of Prince Leopold I.
