Flogging is the wrong word if you ask me. This morning, I just read that Nero suggested that his secretary should commit suicide to avoid “death by flogging.” This, just moments before Nero put himself to death, with a little help from his friend.
But that word “flogging.”
When I hear flogging, I see in my mind, a bunch of people dressed in Amish-type clothes, up on the stage in the Fair tent, dancing their little flogs right off their little feet. They are jumping in unison, popping their knees high in the air, their arms pressed straight down at their sides. The drumbeat of their shoes resounds throughout the tent. The best group of floggers I ever did see. That — should be flogging. Those white knee socks moving this way, and that.
And the other synonymous word, flagellate is all wrong too. Flagellation happens when you are flogging, and a tiny bit of gas eeks out of your little knickers that are held up by your nifty leather suspenders. All that jumping around makes you gassy and you, well, you know. You flagellate.
But both of these words mean “to beat someone with a whip, or a stick, as punishment.” Torture. I’m not sure if Nero used either of these words when he was trying to convince his righthand man Epaphroditos to slit his throat. All of this because the Senate was imposing death by flogging. The Senate had quite enough of Nero, and all his crowd, it appears.
Nero wasn’t the most stand-uppish Roman ruler, from what I’ve read. He sat in the big chair from the years 54 to 68. And he was the last in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. (That dynasty? It was the first Roman imperial dynasty, consisting of the first five emperors—Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero—or the family to which they belonged.)
Anyway, Nero was a tyrant. I’m seeing a lot of tyrants these days. He is infamously known as the Emperor who “fiddled while Rome burned.” His time as ruler of Rome is often associated with extravagance. But one thing is certain. He was an early persecutor of Christians. His tyranny was feared, as he was known for executing people he perceived as enemies, including his own mother. Now that is one big meanie. I don’t care how many times she nagged you about keeping your room clean.
Nero’s death ended the Julio-Claudian Dynasty and it sparked a brief period of civil wars in Rome, known as the Year of the Four Emperors. That was the year 69. Four emperors ruled in succession: Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian. But I’m getting deep into Roman history when all I wanted to mention was flogging. Rat-a-tat-tat, with their wooden flogs, stomping on the floor.
The other one that always seems wrong to me is “drawn and quartered.” Of course, the actual punishment is horrific, involving the removal of organs, and finally being capped off, no pun intended, with cutting off the head and hacking the rest of the body into four pieces.
No, no, no. For a long time, I thought it meant that the person sat for a portrait. They were drawn, by the town artist, perhaps. And then, after all that sitting, they were shown to their accommodations in the castle, and found their quarters there, for some well-deserved rest. All of this, of course, before going out on the town for a big night of flogging.
My attention was sparked by this date, June 9, back in 68, when Nero ended his life and his rule. He was only 14 years old when he took the job. I’m guessing he didn’t know quite what he was doing. And, after a succession of errors, he found himself in a real jam. So he quit the job, the only way that was allowed. He was 30 years old when he died.
A good reminder for the rest of us to dance like nobody’s watching, as they say. Or flog like you just don’t care, even if it makes you flagellate.
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“Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.”
― Voltaire
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“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche
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“And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon.”
― Edward Lear, The Owl and the Pussycat
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