Disciplinary use and torture Prisoners at a whipping post in a Delaware prison, circa 1907.Flogging is an approximate synonym that was probably derived from flagellum in the British navy, where flogging was a common disciplinary measure that became associated with a seaman's manly disregard for pain. Aboard ships, knittles or the cat o' nine tails was used for severe punishment, while a rope's end or starter was used to administer the lightest discipline to sailors. Flagellation probably originated in the Near East but quickly spread throughout the ancient world. In Sparta, young men were flogged as a test of their masculinity. The Jews limited flagellation to forty strokes, and in practice delivered forty strokes minus one, so as to avoid any possibility of breaking this law due to a miscount. Additionally they would have a doctor monitor the punishment, who would stop it if it became too much for the person to safely bear. In the Roman Empire, flagellation was often used as a prelude to crucifixion, and in this context is sometimes referred to as scourging. Whips with small pieces of metal or bone at the tips were commonly used. Such a device could easily cause disfigurement and serious trauma, such as ripping pieces of flesh from the body or loss of an eye. In addition to causing severe pain, the victim would be made to approach a state of hypovolemic shock due to loss of blood. The Romans reserved this torture for non-citizens, as stated in the lex Porcia and lex Sempronia, dating from 195 and 123 BC. The poet Horace refers to the horribile flagellum (horrible whip) in his Satires, calling for the end of its use. Typically, the one to be punished was stripped naked and bound to a low pillar so that he could bend over it, or chained to an upright pillar as to be stretched out. Two lictors (some reports indicate scourgings with four or six lictors) alternated blows from the bare shoulders down the body to the soles of the feet. There was no limit to the number of blows inflicted— this was left to the lictors to decide, though they were normally not supposed to kill the victim. Nonetheless, Livy, Suetonius and Josephus report cases of flagellation where victims died while still bound to the post. Flagellation was referred to as "half death" by some authors and apparently, many died shortly thereafter. Cicero reports in In Verrem, "pro mortuo sublatus brevi postea mortuus" ("taken away for a dead man, shortly thereafter he was dead"). Often the victim was turned over to allow flagellation on the chest, though this proceeded with more caution, as the possibility of inflicting a fatal blow was much greater. While flagellation and other forms of corporal punishment are now forbidden in most Western countries, flagellation is still a common form of punishment around the world, particularly in Islamic countries. Medically supervised caning is also still used as a punishment for some categories of crime in Singapore and Malaysia [1]. [edit] Australian penal colonies While common in the British Army and British Royal Navy as a means of discipline, flagellation also featured prominently in the British penal colonies in early colonial Australia. Given that convicts in Australia were already "imprisoned", punishments for offenses committed in the colonies could not usually result in imprisonment and thus usually consisted of corporal punishment such as hard labour or flagellation. Unlike Roman times, British law explicitly forbade the combination of corporal and capital punishment; thus, a convict was either flogged or hanged but never both. Flagellation took place either with a single whip or more notoriously, with the cat o' nine tails. Typically, the offender's upper half was bared and he was suspended by the hands beneath a tripod of wooden beams (known as 'the triangle'), while either one or two floggers administered the prescribed number of strokes. During the flogging, a doctor or other medical worker was consulted at regular intervals as to the condition of the prisoner - if the offender had fainted from blood loss or suffered extreme skin and flesh loss from the back, the punishment was usually suspended until such time that the offender had sufficiently healed. Once healed, the remainder of the required strokes were administered. Punishment was usually limited to 20, 50 or 100 strokes at one flogging, though records exist of prisoners in Australian penal colonies such as Norfolk Island or Port Arthur receiving more than 3,000 strokes over a number of months or years. Due to its prevalence, flagellation featured prominently in the culture of early colonial Australia. It was often a mark of pride for a flogged former convict to "show his stripes" (expose his flagellation scars) as an "iron man", or to hide them at all costs if an emancipated convict was attempting to rebuild some semblance of a normal life in society. Children in the Australian colonies were often observed playing "flogging games" where a doll or another child would pretend to be "strung from the triangles" and whipped. (See also: History of Australia).