Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Flagellum

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

FLAGELLUM (μάστιξ). A cat, or scourge; made with a great number of knotted and twisted tails, like the numerous feelers of the polypus, which are consequently deisgnated by the same name (Ov. Met. iv. 367.); chiefly employed for the punishment of slaves. (Juv. vi. 478. Hor. Sat. i. 2. 41. Ib. 3. 119. Marcell. Dig. 48. 19. 10.) Though a diminutive of FLAGRUM, it was in reality an instrument of greater severity; the diminutive only applying to the fineness of the fibres which composed it, but which, by their very nature, increased the sufferings inflicted. Consequently, it is characterised by the epithet horribile; in some cases, even producing death (Hor. ll. cc.); and the nature of the wound produced by it is always specified by words which are descriptive of cutting, such as caedere, secare, scindere (Hor. Juv. ll. cc. Ov. Ibis, 183.), in contradistinction to those connected with flagrum, which express an action of thumping or pounding, such as pinsere or rumpere. The scourge held by the upright figure in the illustration (Flagellum/1.1), which is copied from the device on the handle of a bronze jug found at Pompeii, is no doubt intended to represent one of these instruments; but it will be readily conceived from the minuteness of the design, consequent upon the confined space allotted to it, that it affords only an imperfect idea of the real object.

2. A driving-whip (Virg. Aen. v. 579. Sil. iv. 440.); in which case we may infer that it designates one of a severer description than those commonly used; with two or three thongs, for instance, instead of a single one like the scutica. The specimen (Flagellum/2.1) here introduced is used by a Triton in a Pompeian painting.

3. The thong attached to a harpoon (aclis), for the purpose of drawing it back again to the person who had launched it. Virg. Aen. vi. 730. Servius ad l.

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  Flagellum/1.1
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  Flagellum/2.1