Cruel and Unusual Punishment in the Roman Empire and Dynastic China

The paper compares cruel and unusual punishment in two ancient empires, Imperial Rome and Dynastic China, through an exploration their imperial legal codes and, to a lesser degree, through the examination of selected exemplary cases. The paper argues that both empires utilized extraordinary punishments in cases where conduct threatened social order or major cultural values. However, while the Romans generally extended these punishments to include cruel mass spectacles, the Chinese employed unusual public punishments in a more instrumental manner primarily to ward off the threat of disorder and the thirst for cruel spectacle for its own sake was absent.