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Life in the Roman Army and the Realities of Rome

Khalid Elhassan November 19, 2021 37 min

Octavian and Mark Antony oversee the proscription of the optimates in 43 BC. Alamy

1. Unsurprisingly, Given the Patriarchy’s Great Power in Ancient Rome, to Kill One’s Father Was Amongst the Most Heinous Crimes in Roman Eyes

In light of the extraordinary powers that Roman fathers exercised over their family, it is no surprise that, from time to time, some kids snapped and did in the patriarchs. Since Ancient Rome was as pure a distillation of patriarchy as ever existed, that patriarchy took a particularly dim view of the murder of patriarchs. The Romans were particularly horrified and revolted by patricide, or the murder of one’s father. So they expressed their abhorrence with a particularly inventive punishment: poena cullei, or the “Punishment of the Sack“.

In accordance with Roman law, 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 that included a snake, a rooster, a monkey, and a dog. The sack was 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.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

Ancient History Encyclopedia – The Roman Funeral

Dart, Christopher J. – The Social War, 91 to 88 BCE: A History of the Italian Insurgency Against the Roman Republic (2014)

Fuhrman, Manfred – Cicero and the Roman Republic (1992)

Encyclopedia Britannica – Battle of Caudine Forks

Encyclopedia Britannica – Sulla, Roman Dictator

Goldworthy, Adrian – The Complete Roman Army (2003)

History Collection – The Sacred Chickens That Shaped Roman Decision-Making

Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 10 (1920) – The Lex Pompeia and the Poena Cullei

Livy – Ab Urbe Condita Libri

Nature, May 24^th, 2016 – The Secret History of Ancient Toilets

Parkin, Tim, and Pomeroy, Arthur – Roman Social History (2007)

Plutarch – The Parallel Lives: The Life of Brutus

Plutarch – The Parallel Lives: The Life of Sulla

Plutarch – The Parallel Lives: The Life of Tiberius Gracchus

Scullard, Howard Hayes – From the Gracchi to Nero (1982)

Severy, Beth – Augustus and the Family at the Birth of the Roman Empire (2003)

United Nations of Roma Victrix – The Samnite Wars

Vintage News – The Romans Used Urine For Mouthwash

Washington Post, February 17^th, 2016 – Lead Poisoning and the Fall of Rome

Watson, George Ronald – The Roman Soldier (1969)

Wikipedia – Roman Conquest of the Iberian Peninsula

Wikipedia – Roman Hairstyles

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.