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The Man in the Blood-Red Hat
Inside the Episode
With Jonathan Stamp
You knew it was going to be a rough one, even by 'Rome's standards, at the production meeting.
Someone from Hair and Make-Up asked a question about the torture scene in the episode.
And the answer came back, 'Which one?'
Two torture scenes in fifty minutes may seem excessive but it reflects a Roman reality, albeit a rather unpalatable one.
The Romans were inured to physical cruelty. They saw it around them every single day. The horrors that are today meted out in secret torture chambers were an everyday sight, out in the open, in the Forum itself.
Later of course, under the Emperors, torture also formed a titillating part of the entertainments put on in the theatre and amphitheatre. When the presentation, perhaps in the re-enactment of some Greek myth, called for, say, disembowelment, a real slave was provided for the purpose. The snuff movie is not a modern invention.
The Romans even had an official torturer-in-chief. He was known as the Carnifex. He was also the public executioner and his role was considered so disgraceful - although also necessary - that he wasn't permitted to reside within the city itself. He had a special dwelling just outside one of the city gates, called the Esquiline gate, which was a place of particularly evil repute. He was marked out by the special blood-red hat he wore. And the scourges he used - great leather whips, studded with balls of lead, that could tear a man to shreds in twenty blows - were hung up for public display at the entrance to the Subura, Rome's most populous district. As I said, the Romans were not coy about such things.
Torture was obligatory when it came to the interrogation of slaves. It was held that a slave would unquestionably lie when called upon to give evidence. This was both because slaves were sub-human, but also because it was expected that a slave would say anything to protect his master. For that reason the evidence of slaves was only admissible in court if it had been extracted under torture.
Obviously the Carnifex was too busy to attend to every needful case, so Roman undertakers made a useful living by also hiring themselves out as torturers. Their day job gave them an intimate understanding of human anatomy, which was regarded as useful when it came to the calculated and informed infliction of pain. Ever the pragmatists, those Romans.
All that having been said there is something about the scene in which Servilia is tortured that would have disturbed even the Romans.
It's not the physical pain she's required to enjoy, but the loss of status. Torture was reserved for slaves and the lower classes, whom the Romans referred to as 'humiliores'. For an upper-class Roman, let alone an aristocratic woman like Servilia - the class they referred to as 'honestiores' - to be treated in such a way would have seemed an unbearable affront. Having your 'face cut off' was one thing, losing your social standing in the process quite another. That, the Romans would have thought, was cruel.
Documentarian and historian Jonathan Stamp is a former Executive Producer in the BBC History Department and acted as Consultant and Co-Producer on Rome.
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Rome Logo Tee
An HBO SHOP(SM) exclusive features a soft cotton construction with the Rome logo across the front.
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Rome Fact
If a slave was called upon to give evidence
in a Roman court, by law he had to be tortured first.
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"Testudo et Lepus (The Tortoise and the Hare)"
