*EX LIBRIS : "A HISTORY OF PRIVATE LIFE" : Speadeagled at the Crossroad

I love Roman portraits of this style . They usually seem to be young couples -
perhaps  it was "chic"to have one done. 

This is certainly a handsome book, a 670 page larger format softcover, published by Harvard's Belknap Press in 1992. But like the Church of England Curate's egg it is "good in parts".  It is made up of a series of chapters by different authors and at times their writings are somewhat contradictory, and at other times disclose a degree of anti-Christian prejudice. But those parts are minor and , for the most part it is an interesting and rewarding read.

I wanted to bring to your notice a really interesting piece from the book, which for the life of me I can't find at present, despite three careful skimmings ! I am sure you have had the experience - you KNOW roughly where it is in the book, you KNOW it is on the left hand page starting in the lower half etc., but the more you look, the more the text seems to conceal itself. So, I am simply asking you to let me tell you.

 The author is dealing with aspects of law in the period of late Antiquity, recounting some surprising oddities. The example is given of a law that provided the death penalty for anyone who, coming upon a man spreadeagled and staked to the ground at his feet and ankles at a cross-road, attempted to cut him loose. Weird, we might think - what was going on?

Further research showed that the penalty for rape at the time was to be thus spreadeagled at the crossroad and left there to die!! Obviously family or tribal sympathies - if not Charity - might have tempted someone to remove the wretched fellow from his agony. But the death penalty was a strong deterrent! The good old days.

The motive may not have been "women's rights"- rightsspeak lay many hundreds of years in the future, but concern for family honour worked in this time to protect women from harm as far as practicable. The same result is sought to-day but dressed up in different verbiage.