Cyphonism
Template:Short description Cyphonism (Template:Langx, from Script error: No such module "Lang"., "bent, crooked") was a form of punishment using a Script error: No such module "Lang". (Script error: No such module "Lang".), a kind of wooden pillory in which the neck of a malefactor would be fastened.[1] Some sources describe cyphonism more specifically as involving a method similar to scaphism, in which a person's naked body, having been locked in the kyphōn, was smeared with honey, and exposed to flies, wasps, and other pests.[2][3]
Greek sources
The Greek term Script error: No such module "Lang". survives in two places.[4] The first is an explanatory gloss in the scholia on the Plutus of Aristophanes. The scholiast writes merely that the Script error: No such module "Lang". is a "fetter made of wood", and Script error: No such module "Lang". is the name given to a punishment using it; bad men, therefore, are likewise called Script error: No such module "Lang"..[5]
The Suda, a medieval Byzantine lexicon, offers a further definition under the headword Script error: No such module "Lang". (Script error: No such module "Lang".), stating that it refers to a "bad and ruinous" (Script error: No such module "Lang".) form of punishment.[4][6] Elsewhere, describing Script error: No such module "Lang"., the Suda appends a fragment of Claudius Aelianus recounting a law said to have been in force in the Cretan city of Lyctus: "If someone be so bold and pay no heed to what is in the law, let him be bound to the pillory (Script error: No such module "Lang".) next to the town hall for 20 days, doused in honey, naked, and in milk, so that he may be dinner for bees and flies. And when the time has passed, that he be pushed off a cliff, wrapping him in a woman's robe."[7]
Later use of the term
The term's use in the West dates back to the Renaissance humanist Caelius Rhodiginus, who discussed "Script error: No such module "Lang"." in his 1516 Script error: No such module "Lang". ("Of Ancient Readings") alongside a Latin translation of the Lyctian law from the Suda.[8][9] Subsequent authors identified the description with a form of torture involving exposure to insects which the late antique Christian historian Jerome recounted being meted out to past martyrs in his vita of Paul of Thebes.[3][10] This connection would partly obscure the original context of the term: in 1782 the Deutsche Encyclopädie defined cyphonism as a form of torture suffered by 3rd-century martyrs,[11] and in 1797 the third edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica pronounced that "the learned are at a loss to determine what [cyphonism] was", noting only its possible relevance to Jerome's account of Paul.[12]
References
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- ^ Script error: No such module "template wrapper". (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Porter, Noah, ed. (1913). "Cyphonism". Webster's Dictionary. Springfield, Massachusetts: C. & G. Merriam Co.
- ^ a b Script error: No such module "template wrapper".
- ^ a b Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Bossi, Francesco (1974). "Note ad Archiloco". Museum Criticum (in italiano) (8/9): 105–106.
- ^ English translation in Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Rutherford, William G., ed. (1896). Scholia Aristophanica: Being the Comments Adscript to the Text of Aristophanes as Have Been Preserved in the Codex Ravennas. Vol. 1. London: Macmillan and Co. p. 51, sec. 476.
- ^ Suda ⲕ 2796. English translation in Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Kappa 2796". Suda On Line. Translated by Whitehead, David. 22 March 2020. Retrieved 3 August 2023.
- ^ Suda ⲕ 2800. English translation in Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Kappa 2800". Suda On Line. Translated by Hutton, William. 25 March 2013. Retrieved 3 August 2023.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Caelius Rhodiginus (1517) [1516]. Ludovici Caelii Rhodigini lectionum antiquarum libri XVI (in Latina). Basel: Frobenius. p. 259.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Gallonio, Antonio (2002) [1591]. Traité des instruments de martyre et les divers modes de supplice employés par les païens contre les chrétiens (in français). Translated by Louis-Combet, Claude. Grenoble: Éditions Jérôme Millon. p. 49. ISBN 2-84137-124-7.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Migne, J.-P. (1879). "Onomasticon Rerum et Verborum Difficiliorum". Patrologia Latina (in Latina). Vol. 74. Paris: Garnier Fratres. col. 427.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Cyphonismus". Deutsche Encyclopädie (in Deutsch). Vol. 6. Frankfurt am Main: Barrentrapp und Wenner. 1782. p. 616.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Cyphonism". Encyclopaedia Britannica. Vol. 5 (3rd ed.). Edinburgh: A. Bell and C. Macfarquhar. 1797. p. 634.
