Most Shocking Execution Methods Throughout History

Summary

This script delves into the gruesome history of capital punishment, detailing ten of the most horrific methods ever devised. From the 'Brazen Bull' where victims were roasted alive inside a bronze structure to the 'blood eagle', a Viking punishment involving the slow removal of a victim's ribs and lungs. It also covers Roman practices like 'poena cullei', sealing criminals in sacks with animals, and 'Damnatio ad bestias', throwing people to wild beasts. The narrative explores ancient propaganda, the psychological impact of these punishments, and their use as tools of power and control.

Takeaways

• 🐃 The 'Brazen Bull' was a brutal execution method where victims were enclosed in a bronze bull, heated until it became an oven, amplifying their screams through tubes.
• 📜 Ancient Greek historian Diodorus Siculus documented the Brazen Bull in his 'Bibliotheca historica', suggesting it was used by tyrant Phalaris of Sicily.
• 🔥 Phalaris, known for his cruelty, was said to have first experienced the Brazen Bull by tricking its creator Perilaus into becoming the test subject.
• 🐁 'Poena cullei', or 'penalty of the sack', was a Roman punishment involving being sealed in a sack with animals and drowned, reflecting Roman attitudes towards parricide.
• 🐍 The Romans believed that the punishment had to be as monstrous as the crime, hence the inclusion of animals in the sack to torture the victim before death.
• 💰 A Spanish conquistador, Pedro de Valdivia, might have been executed by having molten gold poured down his throat, a symbolic punishment for his greed.
• 🚣 'Scaphism', or 'The Boats', was a Persian punishment where victims were placed between two boats, force-fed, and left to be consumed by insects, as described by Plutarch.
• ⚰️ 'Lingchi', or 'death by a thousand cuts', was a Chinese execution method designed to prolong suffering, sometimes with bribes to the executioner to hasten death.
• 🇯🇵 'Five Punishments' in ancient China included tattooing, nose removal, foot amputation, castration, and finally death by dismemberment or boiling alive.
• 🐘 'Damnatio ad bestias' was a Roman punishment and form of entertainment where criminals were attacked by wild animals in arenas, often to a gruesome end.

Q & A

What was the 'Brazen Bull' execution method?

The 'Brazen Bull' was an ancient execution method where a victim was placed inside a bronze bull, which was then heated until the person inside was essentially cooked alive. The bull had tubes that carried the victim's screams, making the execution more horrifying for those who heard them.

Who was Phalaris, and what is his connection to the Brazen Bull?

Phalaris was a tyrant who ruled over the island of Sicily from around 570 to 554 BC. He was known for his extreme cruelty and is credited with the first use of the Brazen Bull as a method of execution, taking pleasure in the screams of his victims.

What was the 'poena cullei' and how was it administered?

Poena cullei, or 'penalty of the sack,' was a Roman punishment usually reserved for parricide. It involved placing the condemned in a sack with various animals and then drowning them in a body of water. The punishment was intended to be horrific and was written into Roman law.

How did Emperor Claudius use poena cullei as a form of punishment?

Emperor Claudius was known to favor poena cullei over crucifixion. He ordered more instances of this punishment, which involved sewing the condemned into a sack with animals and then drowning them, reflecting his残忍 nature.

What was the historical context of pouring molten gold down a person's throat?

Pouring molten gold down a person's throat was a symbolic execution method used against those accused of greed, particularly in the context of the Spanish conquest of the Americas. It was a quick and brutal way to kill someone, often used to send a message about the consequences of such behavior.

What is scaphism and what does it involve?

Scaphism, also known as 'The Boats,' was an ancient Persian execution method. The victim was placed between two boats, with limbs and head protruding through holes, then force-fed, and covered in milk and honey to attract insects. The victim would suffer a slow and agonizing death from exposure and infestation.

How did the Chinese practice of 'death from a thousand cuts' work?

Death from a thousand cuts, or lingchi, was a Chinese execution method where the victim was sliced with a knife, often thousands of times. The process was slow and painful, sometimes taking hours, and was intended to be a form of torture before death.

What was the 'Five Punishments' in ancient China, and how was it connected to Li Si?

The 'Five Punishments' in ancient China included tattooing the face, nose removal, foot or kneecap removal, castration, and execution by dismemberment or boiling alive. Li Si, a prominent figure during the Qin dynasty, was subjected to these punishments, including the loss of his nose and manhood, before being sawn in half.

How did the Japanese practice of boiling people alive differ from other cultures?

In Japan, boiling alive was used as a form of execution, but it was also a public spectacle. Notable cases include Ishikawa Goemon, who was boiled alive with his family. The method was brutal and intended to serve as a warning to others.

What is the 'blood eagle' execution, and which historical figures were said to have suffered this fate?

The 'blood eagle' was a Viking execution method where the victim's ribs were cut and pulled out to resemble wings, and their lungs were laid over the bones. Historical figures such as Halfdan and King Ælla of Northumbria were said to have suffered this gruesome fate.

How was rat torture used as a method of execution throughout history?

Rat torture involved placing rats in a confined space with a victim, often with the rats being agitated or starved. The rats would then eat the victim alive, starting with the face or any exposed flesh. This method was used in various regions, including medieval Germany and more recently in the 20th century during the Dirty War in Argentina.

Outlines

00:00

🐂 The Brazen Bull: A Gruesome Method of Execution

The paragraph delves into the historical accounts of a brutal execution method known as 'The Brazen Bull,' attributed to the tyrant Phalaris of Sicily. According to Diodorus Siculus in 'Bibliotheca historica,' the victim was enclosed within a bronze bull, which was then heated, causing the individual to be cooked alive. The bull's design allowed the victim's screams to echo, amplifying the horror. Phalaris reportedly used this method on its creator, Perilaus, after the latter boasted about the device. The paragraph questions the authenticity of this tale, suggesting it might be ancient propaganda, but acknowledges the plausibility given the cruel practices of the era.

05:04

🐕 Poena Cullei: The Roman 'Penalty of the Sack'

This section describes 'poena cullei,' a Roman punishment reserved for parricide, or those who killed their parents. Initially, the punishment involved drowning the criminal in a sack. However, it evolved to include a series of torturous steps: the victim was beaten, placed in a wolf-skin hood, fitted with wooden shoes, and then sealed in an ox-leather sack with various animals. The sack was then thrown into a body of water, leading to a slow and agonizing death. The paragraph discusses the Roman belief that such a punishment was necessary to prevent the criminal's blood and body from contaminating the earth and water. It also mentions that the punishment was formalized in Roman law and was not uncommon, with historical accounts including Cicero's and instances up to the 18th century.

10:06

💰 Molten Gold: A Symbolic Death for the Greedy

The paragraph recounts the execution of Pedro de Valdivia, a Spanish conquistador, by the Mapuche people of Chile, who, according to one account, poured molten gold down his throat as a symbolic punishment for his greed. It discusses the rapid death that would result from such an act, as well as a similar punishment in Emperor Constantine's 'raptus' statutes for those who failed to protect slaves. The narrative also touches on another case from 1599 involving a Spanish governor in Ecuador, highlighting the brutal and symbolic nature of these punishments linked to the lust for gold.

15:07

🚣 Scaphism: The Boat Punishment

Scaphism, derived from the Greek word for boat, was a punishment described by historian Plutarch, possibly as a form of propaganda against the Persians. It involved placing the condemned between two boats, with limbs and head protruding through holes, then force-feeding them and applying milk and honey to attract insects. The victim would be left to suffer and eventually die from exposure and infestation. The paragraph questions the authenticity of this method, suggesting it might be exaggerated, but acknowledges its mention in historical texts.

20:10

🔪 Lingchi and the 'Five Punishments' of Ancient China

This section discusses the brutal Chinese execution method of 'Lingchi,' or death by a thousand cuts, which was sometimes drawn out to prolong the suffering. It also details the 'Five Punishments' inflicted upon the Qin dynasty's Chancellor Li Si, which included tattooing, nose removal, foot amputation, castration, and eventual dismemberment by chariots. The paragraph provides a glimpse into the harsh penal system of ancient China, where such punishments were not only meant to kill but also to humiliate and deter through public spectacle.

25:10

🐉 The Blood Eagle: A Viking Punishment

The paragraph explores the 'Blood Eagle,' a punishment attributed to the Vikings, which involved cutting into the victim's back, removing ribs, and stretching the lungs over them to resemble wings. It references historical texts and sagas that describe this gruesome method, including the execution of Halfdan and King Ælla of Northumbria. While archaeological evidence is lacking, the description suggests the practice was not only a means of execution but also a form of conspicuous mutilation intended to send a message.

🐀 Rat Torture: A Horrific Method of Execution

The final paragraph details the use of rat torture as a method of execution and interrogation, particularly during the 16th century and, more recently, during the Dirty War in Argentina. It describes how rats were used to inflict pain and death upon prisoners by either allowing them to gnaw into the victim's body to escape a heated container or by starving them and placing them on the victim's face within a cage. The paragraph highlights the enduring cruelty of such practices and serves as a reminder of the potential for inhumanity throughout history.

Keywords

💡Brazen Bull

The Brazen Bull, also known as 'Vitellius,' was an alleged execution method from ancient Greece. It involved a hollow bronze bull, inside which the victim was placed, and a fire was lit beneath it. The individual was essentially roasted alive, and the bull's design amplified their screams. The script mentions this as an example of a demented execution method, illustrating the cruelty of ancient punishments. The Brazen Bull is highlighted as a symbol of the ingenuity used for torture, as described by the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus.

💡Poena Cullei

Poena Cullei, or 'punishment of the sack,' was a Roman punishment for parricide, the act of killing one's parent. The script describes a gruesome process where the condemned was beaten, placed in a sack with animals, and then drowned. This term exemplifies the Romans' belief in proportionate retribution for heinous crimes, and it showcases the video's theme of extreme historical punishments. The term is used to depict the escalation in cruelty as Roman law evolved.

💡Molten Gold

In the script, 'molten gold' refers to a method of execution where the victim had liquid gold poured down their throat, causing rapid death due to internal burns and organ failure. This method is mentioned as a symbolic punishment for greed, particularly in the context of Spanish conquistadors in South America. The concept ties into the video's exploration of how different societies devised creative and brutal ways to punish perceived transgressions.

💡Scaphism

Scaphism, derived from the Greek word for 'boat,' was a form of execution where the victim was placed between two boats, force-fed, and left to be eaten by insects. The script uses this term to illustrate the extreme lengths ancient civilizations went to in their punitive measures. It exemplifies the video's focus on the historical imagination and application of slow, agonizing deaths as a form of deterrence or retribution.

💡Lingchi

Lingchi, or 'death by a thousand cuts,' was a Chinese execution method where the victim was methodically sliced, sometimes over an extended period to prolong suffering. The script mentions this to underscore the severity of Chinese torture techniques. Lingchi highlights the video's theme of the varied and often inhumane methods of execution throughout history.

💡Five Punishments

The 'Five Punishments' were a series of brutal physical mutilations in ancient China, including tattooing, nose removal, foot removal, castration, and death by dismemberment. The script uses this term to emphasize the harshness of Chinese legal retribution and to narrate the fate of Li Si, a high-ranking official who fell from grace. This keyword helps to convey the video's message about the残忍 nature of historical justice systems.

💡Damnatio ad Bestias

Damnatio ad Bestias, or 'condemnation to beasts,' was a Roman punishment where the condemned was thrown to wild animals for public spectacle. The script uses this term to illustrate the Romans' penchant for combining capital punishment with entertainment. It showcases the video's theme of the theatrical and often sadistic nature of ancient executions.

💡Blood Eagle

The 'Blood Eagle' was a Viking execution method, allegedly involving the carving of the victim's back, removal of ribs, and stretching of lungs over them to mimic wings. The script mentions this to highlight the Vikings' reputation for brutal and symbolic forms of execution. The term 'Blood Eagle' is used to exemplify the video's exploration of the violent history and the creative, albeit gruesome, methods of punishment.

💡Rat Torture

Rat torture involved placing rats in a container on a prisoner's body and heating the container, causing the rats to burrow into the victim's flesh to escape the heat. The script uses this term to demonstrate the unimaginable cruelty of certain historical torture methods. It ties into the video's overarching theme of the extremes to which humans have gone in the infliction of pain and the pursuit of power or retribution.

💡Impalement

Although not directly mentioned in the provided script, 'impalement' is a historical method of execution where a person was pierced by a stake, often through the torso. It is relevant to the video's theme as it represents another extreme and cruel form of punishment. Impalement was used in various cultures, including the Ottoman Empire under Vlad the Impaler, and symbolizes the video's focus on the darker aspects of human history.

Highlights

The 'Brazen Bull' was an ancient execution method where victims were roasted alive inside a bronze bull.

Diodorus Siculus documented the Brazen Bull in 'Bibliotheca historica', suggesting its use by tyrant Phalaris.

The bull had acoustic pipes that carried the victim's screams, amplifying the horror for onlookers.

Phalaris, known for his cruelty, was said to have been the first user of the Brazen Bull.

The sculptor Perilaus, who created the bull, was the first to test it, meeting a gruesome end.

Roman statesman Cicero mentioned the Brazen Bull, indicating its notoriety in ancient times.

Poena cullei, a Roman punishment, involved placing criminals in a sack with animals to drown them.

The punishment for parricide was designed to avoid contaminating the earth with the criminal's blood.

Cicero and Seneca discussed poena cullei, with the latter suggesting it was worse than crucifixion.

Molten gold was poured down the throat of Spanish conquistador Pedro de Valdivia as a symbolic punishment.

Emperor Constantine wrote laws that included pouring molten lead as a punishment for certain crimes.

Scaphism, or 'The Boats', was a Persian execution method involving force-feeding and exposure to insects.

Lingchi, or death by a thousand cuts, was a Chinese execution that could be made quicker with bribes.

The 'Five Punishments' of ancient China included tattooing, nose removal, and castration.

Familial extermination in China meant that three generations of a criminal's family would be executed.

Boiling alive was a punishment for poisoning in England during the reign of King Henry VIII.

Damnatio ad bestias involved throwing criminals to wild animals in Roman arenas for public spectacle.

The Vikings' 'blood eagle' execution involved cutting the victim's ribs and lungs to resemble an eagle.

Rat torture involved using rats to inflict pain and potentially death upon prisoners.

Rat torture was documented in the Tower of London and later in South America during the 20th century.

Transcripts

Having molten gold poured down your throat must be a bad way to go, but we imagine having

an elephant with blades attached to its feet kicking you around like a soccer ball isn’t

much fun, either.

And as for having your ribs pulled through your back or rats eating your face, well,

that would be grim.

So, buckle in, and prepare to be disturbed beyond belief.

10.

Imagine being cooked alive inside a bronze animal as purposefully made organs in the

device carry your howls around a room.

In this room, the man who ordered your extremely painful execution rejoices at the sound of

your agonizing screams.

Could there be anything more demented?

This was the method of execution called “The Brazen Bull”.

But did it actually happen?

That’s hard to say, but if you believe an ancient Greek historian named Diodorus Siculus,

it did.

He wrote 40 books that were called the “Bibliotheca historica”, and in chapter IX, pages 18

to 19, he recounts this strange method of capital punishment.

In short, the bronze bull was an oven of sorts.

It was supposed to be about the size of a regular bull and made out of bronze.

Once the person was placed inside it, a fire was lit underneath.

But the craziest part was that tubes fixed to the bull would make it so the howling of

the victim could be heard in all its horror.

The guy who first used it was named Phalaris, a tyrant who, from around 570 to 554 BC, had

the run of the island we now call Sicily.

He was apparently renowned for his extreme cruelty, at times taking much pleasure from

acts of cannibalism.

As the story goes, a sculptor from Athens named Perilaus constructed the bull for this

baby-eating tyrant, and on seeing that it was fitted with acoustic pipes, Phalaris was

made up with the artisan.

Perilaus said to Phalaris, “His screams will come to you through the pipes as the

tenderest, most pathetic, most melodious of bellowing.”

But it seems that Perilaus didn’t much like this bit of showing off by the sculptor, so

he tricked him into getting inside.

Without breaking a smile, he said to Perilaus, “Come then, Perilaus, do you be the first

to illustrate this; imitate those who will play the pipes and make clear to me the working

of your device.”

After Perilaus got inside, Phalaris lit the fire himself to see if the music of the tortured

indeed filled his ears.

Before Perilaus was dead, he was taken out of the bull, and subsequently dragged to a

cliff where he was thrown to his death.

He did this because he didn’t want Perilaus’ body leaving marks on what was otherwise a

spotless bull.

The brazen bull was talked about a fair bit in the years after.

The Roman statesmen and philosopher Cicero had something to say about it.

He said in his Verrine Orations, “That noble bull, which that most cruel of all tyrants,

Phalaris, is said to have had, into which he was accustomed to put men for punishment,

and to put fire under.”

There was also talk of persecuted Christians going this way, but it’s more than likely

these legends were far from the truth.

If the insanely cruel Phalaris story is true is also a long shot.

The historical documents exist, but some scholars say it may have been a bit of ancient propaganda.

Saying that, given other forms of abject cruelty that went on back then, there’s no reason

to think someone wasn’t ever roasted inside a bull.

The first thing that springs to mind is what kind of sicko came up with it with this next

one.

9.

We know this one happened, and it happened a lot because it was written into Roman law.

It was called “poena cullei” and was usually reserved for people who’d killed their father,

aka, patricide.

Poena cullei was literally the “penalty of the sack”, which in its early days around

100 or 200 BC may have simply consisted of tying a person up in a sack and throwing them

into a body of water, but that was the early days; the Romans got more sadistic at some

point.

Killing any parent is called parricide, and according to historians, the Romans saw this

as one of the most monstrous things a person could do.

So, in accordance with such monstrousness, the punishment had to be equally horrific.

First, a person was beaten with rods.

His head was then placed in a hood made from wolf’s skin, and wooden shoes were fitted

to him, not unlike the cement shoes the mafia used many years later.

He was then placed inside a large sack made from ox-leather, but the piece de resistance

was what happened next.

As the man was bleeding heavily inside his sack, animals were thrown in.

They might have been a dog, a monkey, a cock, a snake, or a combo.

The sack with its now no doubt confused contents was driven on a cart to a river or a pond

into which the sack was dumped.

So, the victim didn’t just drown but spent the last minutes of his life likely fighting

a bunch of animals in an enclosed space.

According to one historian, the animals didn’t go quietly, and they would “lacerate and

torture the doomed wretch within.”

That would have had to have been a really big sack, but historians tell us that the

Romans had plenty of these at hand since they were used to contain wine.

As mad as it sounds, the Romans believed that such a punishment was required for a crime

they said was a “foul thing, unclean, causing the gods to withdraw their presence from a

world he polluted.”

Cicero, who was beheaded himself after getting on the wrong side of Mark Antony, said getting

rid of a person this way meant that they wouldn’t contaminate anything.

He said you couldn’t just kill a man who'd committed such a terrible crime because his

blood would contaminate the ground.

You couldn’t just throw him into the sea with no sack because his body would contaminate

the water.

Cicero even said that you couldn’t feed the guy to the beasts, because the animals

could get contaminated.

Putting the condemned in the sack meant separating him from nature, even though we know that

was a pretty silly thing to think.

The Roman historian we know as Livy wrote about this in the “History of Rome” saying

that it happened to a man named Marcus Publicius Malleolus after he was convicted of killing

his mother, aka, matricide.

He got the clogs and the sack treatment, but in this case, it seems he didn’t get the

animal treatment.

The Romans wrote the punishment into their laws, bodies of rules you might have heard

in the form of Lex Pompeia or Lex Cornelia, both of which talk about poena cullei.

And being a formal law, it happened a lot.

When Seneca the Younger wrote about it, he said Emperor Claudius was really fond of putting

men in the sack, so much so he was ordering more poena cullei than he was crucifixion.

Interestingly, his father, Seneca the Elder, thought it was worse than crucifixion.

He lived through times when there were some utterly terrible tyrants, so he witnessed

a lot of men going down to the bottom of a river in a sack filled with animals.

About that, he wrote, “I kept imagining the culleus, the snake, the deep.”

Some scholars seem to think it went obsolete around that time, but that contradicts a letter

that Emperor Constantine sent on November 16, 318.

Writing about parricides he said, “He will not be punished by the sword, by fire or by

some other ordinary form of execution, but he will be sewn up in a sack and, in this

dismal prison, have serpents as his companions.

Depending on the nature of the locality, he shall be thrown into the neighboring sea or

into the river.”

You can find it again in laws from the 500s written under Emperor Justinian, but it seems

it was already thought of as archaic by that time.

Still, it seems it reappeared in Germany in the 14th century and may have happened as

early as the 18th century, although cats and dogs were the animals used, or possibly, a

non-venomous snake.

In one documented case in Germany, the sack split after hitting the water, and the cat

and dog swam away as the man drowned.

Can we top that?

Of course, we can.

8.

Could there be a more fitting way to execute a greedy person than pouring molten gold into

their mouth?

You might have seen something similar to this on TV, Game of Thrones perhaps, but the scenes

on TV didn’t just come out of thin air.

One such real story says that in the 16th century a Spanish conquistador named Pedro

de Valdivia had been fighting the indigenous Mapuche people of Chile and had come undone.

Instead of getting their gold, he fled on horseback after losing a battle.

His horse got caught in a marsh and he was subsequently taken back to the heads of the

tribe to face the music.

There is no doubt this man died at the hands of the Mapuche.

Sources differ, though, as to how he died.

He might have merely gone the regular way in having his heart ripped out.

In that account, the Mapuche leaders ate the heart.

But according to another conquistador, Pedro Mariño de Lobera, they took their hostage

and poured molten gold down his throat.

This was a symbolic kind of death, although scientists who’ve actually had the time

to think about it, have said it would have been over very quickly.

The steam would rupture the organs, and the thermal injury to the lungs would pretty much

cause instant death from pulmonary dysfunction and shock.

Within a matter of seconds, you’d have a dead conquistador, but you’d also easily

be able to take back the now hardened gold.

In fact, if those Mapuche really knew what they were doing, they’d have fed him tiny

bits of molten gold to allow the torture to last longer.

As for this ever being written into any kind of law, we need to invoke Emperor Constantine

again.

He had it written into his “raptus” statutes as the punishment for when a nurse failed

to protect a female slave from being stolen by a man.

The law stated that the man should be burned at the stake, and if the slave was actually

trying to escape with him, she should also be burned.

But, if the nurse was somehow involved in helping the man to steal the slave, she should

have molten lead poured down her throat.

We aren’t kidding.

Here’s part of the actual statute: “These nurses first of all, whose service

is proved to have been hateful and whose talk is proved to have been bought, this punishment

shall threaten: that the opening of their mouth and of their throat, which brought forth

destructive encouragements, shall be closed by the swallowing of molten lead.”

But in general, there aren’t too many cases of this happening throughout history.

There’s another case dated 1599, which involved a Spanish governor in Ecuador, who again got

this symbolic treatment because of his greed and lust for gold.

It was written that no sooner than he swallowed the gold his internal organs burst.

As you know, many years later scientists said this would have indeed happened.

Now we need to talk about scaphism. 7.

Scaphism comes from the Greek word for boat, so this punishment is sometimes simply just

called “The Boats.”

Ah, the boats, it sounds so nice…

It’s not.

The only story we have doesn’t come from the actual executors but a man writing about

his long-term enemy.

The man was the Greek historian Plutarch, telling the story of how vile and inhumane

the ancient Persians could be at times.

For this reason, we have to at least wonder if it was a work of propaganda.

Anyway, in his work called the “Life of Artaxerxes”, Plutarch writes that a guy

named Mithridates committed the worst possible crime, and so the punishment had to fit it.

Mithridates was a mere soldier working on behalf of King Artaxerxes.

After Artaxerxes’ father, king Darius II, died, there had been a bit of struggle for

the throne with his kid brother, Cyrus.

In 401 B.C., Cyrus got the upper hand in a battle against his brother’s army, but while

he was charging down the battlefield on his horse telling his now-kneeling enemies to

get out of his way, Mithridates stood up and threw a dart at him.

It hit him somewhere in the temple and knocked him off his horse, with his death coming soon

after.

Artaxerxes got wind of this, and apparently showered Mithridates with gifts.

The king then said to Mithridates something along the lines of, “Let’s just keep this

between us.

I killed Cyrus, not you.

Ok?

Got that?

Me, not you?”

It was agreed that Mithridates was to say he was given the gifts for trapping the horse

and knocking Cyrus off, but not for killing him.

As things tend to happen after a good battle, later at a banquet Mithridates had a little

too much to drink and when speaking to a eunuch he said perhaps too much.

When the eunuch complimented him for trapping the horse, Mithridates angrily retorted, “Talk

you what you please of horse-trappings, and such trifles; I declare to you explicitly

that this hand was the death of Cyrus.”

He then put his killer hand in front of the eunuch’s face.

Word soon got back to Artaxerxes about this ungrateful and insolent soldier, and soon

he ordered Mithridates’ execution.

And what a death it was.

Mithridates was placed between two boats in the water, one on top of the other.

His head and arms and legs were placed through holes, so it was as if he was in a kind of

coffin-suit.

He was then force-fed, and if he declined the food, they “pricked his eyes.”

The text doesn’t state what instrument did the pricking, which is kind of important.

After that, they poured milk and honey not only into his mouth but all over his face.

As he lay there in the sun like this, all bloated from being force-fed, with his poop

and vomit everywhere, flies and other insects covered him.

We’ll let Plutarch himself describe the next part:

“Creeping things and vermin spring out of the corruption and rottenness of the excrement,

and these entering into the bowels of him, his body is consumed.

When the man is manifestly dead, the uppermost boat being taken off, they find his flesh

devoured, and swarms of such noisome creatures preying upon and, as it were, growing to his

inwards.”

Mithridates apparently lasted 17 days like this before he died.

Maybe Plutarch was telling the truth, but whether those insects devoured Mithridates’

insides is certainly up for debate.

He would have just died anyway from being left out under the elements.

Now let’s see about as bad as punishment ever got in China.

6.

The Chinese have a shocking history of torture that involved quite unbelievable methods of

execution, perhaps even worse than the Europeans.

You’ve no doubt all heard of death from a thousand cuts, which wasn’t often as many

as a thousand cuts.

Still, there are documents that tell us sometimes the operation would purposefully be done as

slow as possible.

And to think, the last cases of this happening in China were in the 20th century!

Lingchi, aka slow slicing, was a pretty common form of execution throughout China for many

centuries.

The best a victim could hope for would be either bribing the executioner to get hold

of some pain relief or perhaps being able to pay enough to ensure that the executioner

sliced something that would ensure a fast death.

Still, it was also known as the “lingering death” so at times many cuts were made while

the person was still conscious.

The executioners would usually start taking thick chunks of flesh from the victim’s

arms and chest, and then move down to the legs.

In the end, the arms were hacked off and so was the head, just to ensure the afterlife

wasn’t much fun.

It would usually take around 15 minutes, although there are some reports that state as many

as 3,000 cuts were made before death occurred.

We guess they were very small cuts.

Now for something even more extreme than that.

5.

We haven’t finished with China, yet, because things actually got worse than lingchi.

To explain this, we’ll have to talk about a very respected Chinese man born sometime

around 280 BC.

His name was Li Si.

During the Qin dynasty, this guy was renowned for his philosophical writings as well as

his political intelligence, which is why at one point he became the Chancellor, which

back then was a kind of Prime Minister to the emperor.

Li Si wrote beautifully and had grand ideas of how society and indeed the world should

be run, with one historian saying Li Si wrote about “one world comprising all Chinese,

bringing with universal dominion universal peace.”

But this man, one of the most remarkable men in Chinese history, in short had some problems

after one of the emperor’s died.

During a tricky succession period, he was betrayed by another politician named Zhao

Gao.

Li Si was at first tortured so Zhao Gao could understand who was on who’s sides during

all this tumult.

He was subjected to something called the “Five Punishments”, which was about as bad as

it got in ancient China and to be fair to the Romans, it made fighting a monkey in a

submerged sack seem like a holiday.

The least painful of the five punishments was merely tattooing the condemned person’s

face.

This was a bit like branding in Middle Ages Europe.

In some cases, the man got his tattoo and walked around with a mark of shame on him.

But for more serious cases, there was nose removal, which again, meant you had to go

out in public and everyone knew you’d done something wrong.

Worse was foot removal, and in some cases, kneecap removal, both of which meant the condemned

wouldn’t be able to walk around very well at all.

In other cases, they would remove a man’s penis and testicles, which would make him

a eunuch.

But imagine that happened to you and they still killed you?

That was the fifth punishment, in Chinese, Dà Pì.

This consisted of either cutting someone in four, fēn wéi lù; boiling them alive, pēng;

or pulling their head and limbs off by connecting them to chariots; “chēliè.”

It might also have meant slow slicing, beheading or simply strangulation.

As for Li Si, he apparently lost his nose and then lost his manhood, after which, he

was sawn in half, an operation in which the executioner often worked slowly.

For Li Si, all this was done in the market square.

He was also sentenced to something called familial extermination, which meant members

of his family were too killed in this brutal way.

We’re not sure if his son went that way.

Records show Li Si’s last words to his son as he was getting the chop were, “I wish

that you and I could take our brown dog and go out through the eastern gate of Shang Cai

to chase the crafty hare.

But how could we do that!”

During the Qin dynasty, the rule for familial extermination was that “three clans” had

to go, so we guess that meant three generations of your family.

Strangely enough, this happened to a lawmaker named Shang Yang.

He’d written some very progressive legislation, but his humanity ensured he got on the wrong

side of some of the Qin nobility.

Part of their annoyance was Yang asking for equality before the courts, meaning the elites

also had to answer to the law.

They didn’t much like that.

When they finally got him, they tied him to chariots and ripped him to pieces, which some

sources say was an execution he’d written himself into the law.

His entire family was also executed.

Ok, so we just mentioned boiling alive, which is something we think we need to talk about

some more.

4.

Japanese officials did a fair bit of boiling people alive in their time, but we think one

of the most shocking executions was that of the mean-looking bandit, Ishikawa Goemon.

In the 16th century this guy was a bit of a hero to the poor, Japan’s version of Robin

Hood.

He stole from the rich and gave to the poor, but let’s always remember that legends such

as this and Robin Hood might have been embellished over the years.

For instance, the legend has it that Hideyoshi had ninja abilities like something you might

have seen in the movies, stuff similar to fighting off 50 men at once and having the

ability to jump high into trees.

The truth is he was a thief but also a man who stood up for the poor and detested the

corruptions of the powers that be.

So, when he tried to assassinate some of those powers, they wanted to make an example of

him.

One take on the tale is that he was boiled alive with his son, although it is said he

saved his son by holding him above his head.

Another variation, which sounds more true, is that he was thrown into a large kettle

with his entire family.

They all died.

In any case, you wouldn’t last long if you were thrown into boiling water.

Your organs would cook, but not before you felt a considerable amount of pain.

This was witnessed by the crowd who watched a poisoner being boiled alive after England’s

King Henry VIII had made it the form of capital punishment for this offense.

Maybe he thought someone would poison him, which was no doubt a real threat.

Anyway, after they threw that man in the water, one witness later wrote, “He roared mighty

loud, and women who were big with child did feel sick at the sight of what they saw.”

Just months after that, a maid was also boiled alive for trying to poison the head of the

house where she worked.

That woman’s name we can’t find, but in 1542, a woman named Margaret Davy was also

boiled alive in England for trying to knock off her employer.

A book that came out later talked about her death, saying:

“That the Offendor shall be boyled to death in hot water: upon which Statute Margaret

Davy, a young woman was attainted of High Treason for poysoning her Mistress, and some

others, was boyled to death in Smithfield the Seventeenth of March in the same year?”

That book called poisoning the “most detestable” of crimes, which of course it was for the

people who wrote the laws and hired folks to wash their floors and cook their stewed

rabbit.

But over in Germany and France, boiling alive was more often the sentence for clipping,

which consisted of scraping bits off coins and then melting the bits to make new coins.

It was an absolutely brutal form of execution because, just like many of the punishments

we are talking about today, it was supposed to inflict a lot of pain before death.

In this respect, having your head chopped off by a sharp blade was bliss.

But get this, what if the person was innocent of a crime like poisoning?

After all, couldn’t the owner of a large household just get sick from tainted food?

Listen to this other piece of writing that came out after Margaret’s death.

“The public was not satisfied as to her guilt, and, notwithstanding the comparatively

slow travel of news in those days, the story of Margaret Davy’s trial and punishment

soon spread through the kingdom and aroused universal horror.”

Harsh times, indeed, but as you’ll now see, when it comes to being demented, the Romans

were outstanding.

Emperor Nero might have boiled 100s of his perceived enemies, but maybe he thought he

was letting them off lightly.

3.

Ok, a question for you.

Would you rather be boiled alive, or attacked by a wild animal?

Concerning the latter, if the animal doesn’t get straight to some main arteries, it might

feel like being eaten alive.

As we know from recordings that were never made public but were talked about in the movie

“Grizzly Man”, being eaten alive can take a long time and involves a hell of a lot of

screaming.

The Romans had this as a form of death penalty but also as entertainment for the masses.

It was the death sentence called “Damnatio ad bestias”, which meant “condemnation

to beasts”.

It actually appalled some Roman writers, but for the most part, it was great entertainment

for the plebs who watched from the arena stands.

This shouldn’t be confused with gladitorial sport, as the men who fought the animals simply

couldn’t win, which is why it fell into the “Damnatio” category of punishments.

Even if they somehow miraculously took out an elephant, or bear, or lion, with their

bare hands, they’d soon have seen another animal in front of them, or a sword.

But there was a difference in some respects regarding dying this way.

There was also “obicĕre bestiis”, which meant being thrown to the beasts.

In this case, you weren’t even allowed to fight.

You were just thrown to animals while in chains, or perhaps, a Roman favorite, an elephant

sat on you.

There are a few records of this punishment being used when armies were defeated.

In another case featuring some mutineers, a Roman writer recalled, “Before the eyes

of the entire army he threw them to the elephants.

All were trampled to death beneath the feet of the beasts.”

This also happened in India, in Sri Lanka, and in Siam, which is present day Thailand.

There, being thrown to the elephants sounded a bit like elephant soccer.

The beasts were trained to kick the condemned and throw them around, which soon resulted

in death.

Even more frightening was what a European man who came back from India said.

This was a country where death by elephant wasn’t uncommon at all.

The traveler described how one man was forced to put his head on a block, after which the

mahouts made the elephant step on the guy’s head.

Imagine the mess.

A Moroccan traveler in India said an emperor he met loved to watch a good game of death

by elephant, and that’s why he went a step further than the Siamese and fitted the animals

with blades on their feet.

The traveler wrote, “They were ordered, accordingly, to be thrown to the elephants,

which had been taught to cut their victims to pieces.

Their hoofs were cased with sharp iron instruments, and the extremities of these were like knives.”

Now for something you won’t believe actually happened.

2.

It was called the blood eagle, and unlike some other punishments we’ve talked about

today, it seems the Vikings were the only ones to do it.

Imagine the scene, you’re a king in England around about the 9th century and those pesky

Vikings keep coming over and doing all that pillaging they’re famous for.

You’ve tried having a pleasant sit down with these guys over a glass of mead, but

they really don’t see things your way.

Feeling just a bit peeved, you do something you really shouldn’t.

That’s break your word and have the group of Vikings in front of you murdered.

What do you think the Vikings will do in retaliation?

According to some very old texts, once these guys had gotten hold of you, they might have

taken you to a kind of chopping block.

You being an Anglo-Saxon, think, ok, here we go, off with my head.

But no, they cut through your back and proceed to pull out your ribs, which kind of gives

the impression that you have wings.

But at that moment, they are hardly good wings, being boney and all, so they then cut out

your lungs and stretch them over the bones.

Tada!

You are an eagle, as featured in that bloody wonderful TV show, Vikings.

But did it ever happen, that’s what you want to know?

The word on the street, or at least in the artifacts, is yep, it very well may have gone

down like that.

As you already know, if something wasn’t written into law or talked about in scores

of old documents, there is always a chance the punishment was made up and used as propaganda

to show people just how bad the baddies were, but according to modern scholars, the blood

eagle punishment could definitely have been a thing.

One of those old texts says this, “Earl Einarr went up to Halfdan and cut the ‘blood

eagle’ on his back, in this fashion that he thrust his sword into his chest by the

backbone and severed all the ribs down to the loins, and then pulled out the lungs;

and that was Halfdan’s death.”

Halfdan was one of those royalty guys in the British isles that the Vikings disliked.

Then there was the case of the excellent Viking warrior named Ivar the Boneless, called that

likely because his John Thomas never stood to attention.

In the saga the “Tale of Ragnar’s sons” it is said he went up to northern England

and had it out with king Ælla of Northumbria.

Ivar apparently got a lot of the English on his side, who of course weren’t really English

back then, and he also captured the king.

The saga says, “And Ívarr, the one, who dwelt at York, had Ella’s back, cut with

an eagle.”

Another take on the event goes, “They caused the bloody eagle to be carved on the back

of Ælla, and they cut away all of the ribs from the spine, and then they ripped out his

lungs.”

With the right equipment and some amount of precision, it could have happened, although

archaeologists have yet to find the remains of someone who might have been blood-eagled.

So far, there are nine documented accounts of it happening, but if the writers of the

sagas were just being poetic, we don’t know.

What is certain is that the Vikings dabbled in what scientists have called “conspicuous

mutilation”, meaning these violent acts had a meaning.

As for the pain, one researcher said, “There is no possibility that a victim would have

remained alive throughout the procedure.

It is clear that a victim undergoing a 'full' blood eagle would have died long before their

ribs could have been formed into the shape of wings and their lungs externalized.”

We guess it can’t have been that bad then…

Ok, if you had to choose one way to die from this list, we imagine not one of our viewers

would choose this next one.

1.

It’s called rat torture.

Back in the day, and still today to a lesser degree, there were a lot of rats in the city

of London.

It was sometime during the 16th century when word got around that the Tower of London had

its very own “Dungeon of the Rats.”

Documents from back then show that some of these cells at the bottom of the dungeon would

let water in from the River Thames, and with it came the rats.

That might have made someone a bit squeamish, but apparently at times “flesh” was “torn

from the arms and legs” of prisoners.

That’s hardly death by rat, unless you count dying from an infection.

But then there’s the documented story of the Dutch military leader named Diederik Sonoy,

who it is said during the Eighty Years' War in the 16th and 17th centuries, got creative

with rats.

In the book, “The Rise of the Dutch Republic”, it’s written that this guy put a few rats

inside a bowl of some sort.

He then placed that bowl on the belly of a prisoner.

So far, not very frightening, but it’s also said he heated the bowl up, and so for the

rats, there was only one place to escape the heat.

That was to bite and claw their way into the man’s stomach.

The book states they would “gnaw into the very bowels of the victim”, which you can

imagine would be very painful and almost certainly led to death.

The entrance into the victim’s belly would of course have been made easier to open if

some slicing had been done beforehand.

It’s very likely this was a form of torture during an interrogation, but it’s also likely

the person died shortly after.

Then there was rat torture medieval Germany-style, which apparently consisted of starving some

rats first.

The victim then had a metal cage placed over this head into which the famished rats were

stuffed.

They would subsequently eat his face, and according to one source, the victim would

be left to die that way.

Admittedly, evidence of this happening is scarce.

It seems quite unbelievable that anyone would do this to a person, but rat torture has been

recorded happening as recently as the 1970s when death squads under the orders of dictators

in South America decided it was a good idea.

It happened during the Dirty War in Argentina from 1976 to 1983.

Believe it or not, the USA was sponsoring and supporting this infinitely brutal military

dictatorship, in which around 30,000 people just went missing.

Many of them were tortured in the worst imaginable ways before they were killed.

The dictatorship, which called itself “Process of National Reorganization”, functioned

as part of the US campaign called Operation Condor.

The state of terror led to right-wing death squads taking anyone off the streets who voiced

leftist views or even endorsed those things we call human rights.

Later, when Argentina’s National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons wrote its

reports, it was revealed that what had happened to some people before they disappeared was

quite plainly evil.

Even the ancient Romans would have winced.

We won’t go into detail, but the torture involved opening one of a person’s orifices,

after which a tube called a “recto-scope was used as well as a bunch of starving rats.

Even if the victim survived, they might have then been taken on what became known as a

“death flight”, meaning they were thrown from an aircraft or helicopter.

This is all very grim indeed, but you know how the saying goes, “Those Who Do Not Learn

History Are Doomed To Repeat It.”

Now you need to look at some forms of execution we left out in “Impalement - Worst Ways

to Die (History Animation)” or “Skinned Alive - Worst Ways to Die.”