112/283 Still there are instances, both in the Inscriptions and in the sculptures, of what appears to have been a formal execution of captives by beheading. In these cases the criminal, it would seem, stood upright, or bending a little forwards, and the executioner, taking him by a lock of hair with his left hand, struck his head from his shoulders with a short sword, which he held in his right. 5.] It is uncertain whether a punishment even more barbarous than these was not occasionally resorted to. In two or three bas-reliefs executioners are represented in the act of flaying prisoners with a knife. |