Cyphonism
Cyphonism (Template:Lang-grc, from κῡφός, "bent, crooked") was a form of punishment using a κύφων (kyphōn), a kind of wooden pillory in which the neck of a malefactor would be fastened.[1] Formerly, this term was widely believed to refer specifically to a method similar to scaphism, in which a person's naked body was smeared with honey, and exposed to flies, wasps, and other pests.[2][3]
The translated term kyphōnismos itself is a hapax legomenon, attested only in an explanatory gloss in the scholia on the Plutus of Aristophanes. The scholiast writes merely that the kyphōn is a "fetter made of wood", and kyphōnismos is the name given to a punishment using it.[4] Its interpretation as referring to smearing with honey and exposure to insects originated with the Renaissance humanist Caelius Rhodiginus,[5][6] and the term was subsequently applied to a form of torture on these lines described by Jerome as having been meted out to Christian martyrs in his vita of Paul of Thebes.[7] Rhodiginus supposed that the prisoner was bound in a kyphōn while this punishment took place.[5]
References
- ^ "cyphonism". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
- ^ Porter, Noah, ed. (1913). "Cyphonism". Webster's Dictionary. Springfield, Massachusetts: C. & G. Merriam Co.
- ^
Chambers, Ephraim, ed. (1728). "Cyphonism". Cyclopædia, or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences (1st ed.). James and John Knapton, et al.
- ^ English translation in 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. §476, p. 50.
- ^ a b Caelius Rhodiginus (1517). Ludovici Caelii Rhodigini lectionum antiquarum libri XVI (in Latin). Basel: Frobenius. p. 259.
- ^ Gallonio, Antonio (2002) [1591]. Traité des instruments de martyre et les divers modes de supplice employés par les païens contre les chrétiens (in French). Translated by Louis-Combet, Claude. Grenoble: Éditions Jérôme Millon. p. 49. ISBN 2-84137-124-7.
- ^ Migne, J.-P. (1879). "Onomasticon Rerum et Verborum Difficiliorum". Patrologia Latina (in Latin). Vol. 74. Paris: Garnier Fratres. col. 427.