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The “Enlightened” Greeks The Greeks saw slaves in the same light. Free citizens of the Greek city-states could not, by law, be tortured, but slaves were seen as satisfactory substitutes for their owners. In a court hearing, when evidence had to be obtained by force, the contesting parties often offered their own slaves for torture or asked for the torture of the slaves of their opponents. They had the right to carry this out themselves, but the practice was considered degrading for free men, and they usually employed the public torturer—who was often himself a former slave. Even enlightened Greek philosophers agreed on the use of torture. Plato, for example, in his description of the ideal state, allowed the necessity of one law for free men and another for slaves. A slave, he said, could be flogged for an offense that would earn a free man nothing but censure ; or be put to death for a crime for which a free man would only be fined. Nevertheless, Greek thinkers recognized that information gained by torture could be suspect. Anxious to avoid further pain, a slave would likely admit to whatever his torturers wanted to hear. As the orator Antiphon said, appearing for the defense in a murder case: “Witnesses under torture are biased in favor of those who do most of the torturing. They will say anything to gratify them.” What kinds of torture did Greek slaves suffer? Much the same as those that continued for the next 2,000 years, as we know from a passage in the play, The Frogs , written by Aristophanes around 406 B . C .: INGENIOUS DEVICES Ancient stories tell of fiendish machines used by early Greek tyrants. They are probably only legendary, but similar devices were certainly developed centuries later in Europe. One, used by the tyrant Nabis, was the figure of a woman. When Nabis wanted money from a citizen, he would put his arms around him and press him against the woman’s body, pretending it was his wife’s. Then, by means of springs, he would cause sharp spikes to be forced from under the figure’s clothes and into the unfortunate victim. Another tyrant, Phalaris, was shown a life-size metal bull that had been invented by a man named Perilaus. A victim could be locked inside the bull’s belly, and a fire lit beneath. Then, said Perilaus, an ingenious ar- rangement of pipes would convert the victim’s screams into the sound of the bull lowing. “Get in, and imitate the cries of a man to prove your claim,” said Phalaris. And when Perilaus obeyed, the tyrant lit the fire.

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Torture in Ancient Times