§167. The most common punishment for neglect of duty or petty misconduct was a beating with a stick or flogging with a lash. If the picture of a Roman school already referred to (§119) gives a correct idea of the punishments inflicted upon a schoolboy with the consent of his parents, we should expect that of a slave to be as severe as regard for his usefulness afterwards would permit. Hence we find that for the single rod or stick was often substituted a bundle of rods, usually elm (_ulmī_) corresponding to the birch of England and the hickory of America. For the lash or rawhide (_scutica_ or _lōrum_) was often used a sort of cat-o'-nine-tails, made of cords or thongs of leather. When the offense was more serious, bits of bone were attached to this, and even metal buttons, to tear the flesh, and the instrument was called a _flagrum_ or _flagellum_ (Fig. 32). It could not have been less severe than the knout of Russia, and we may well believe that slaves died beneath its blows. To render the victim incapable of resistance he was sometimes drawn up to a beam by the arms, and weights were even attached to his feet, so that he could not so much as writhe under the torture. §168. In the comedies are many references to these punishments, and the slaves make grim jests on the rods and the scourge, taunting each other with the beatings they have had or deserve to have. Sometimes the rods are parasites, who shave close the person to whom they attach themselves; sometimes they are pens, the back of the culprit being the copybook; sometimes they are catapults, dealing darts and death. Sometimes the victim is a bottomless abyss of rods; sometimes he has absorbed so much essence of elm that he is in danger of himself becoming a tree; sometimes he is an anvil; sometimes he is a solid melting under the blows; sometimes he is a garden well watered by blows. Sometimes an entertainment is being prepared scot-free for his back; and sometimes his back is a beautifully embroidered carpet. §169. Another punishment for offenses of the same trivial nature resembled the stocks of old New England days. The offender was exposed to the derision of his fellows with his limbs so confined that he could make no motion at all, could not so much as brush a fly from his face. Variations of this form of punishment are seen in the _furca_ and in the "making a quadruped out of a man." The latter must have been something like the "bucking and gagging" used as a punishment in the militia; the former was so common that _furcifer_ became a mere term of abuse. The culprit carried upon his shoulders a log of wood, shaped like a V, and had his arms stretched out before him with his hands fastened to the ends of the fork. This log he had to carry around in order that the other members of the _familia_ might see him and take warning. Sometimes to this punishment was added a lashing as he moved painfully along.