Scaphism: Milk & Honey

What happens when the punishment for treason is being sealed inside a pair of boats, covered in milk and honey, and left for nature to slowly finish the job?

In this episode of Torture: A Dark History, Kevin Young and Dan Hourigan travel back to ancient Persia to explore scaphism, one of the most horrifying forms of execution ever attributed to the ancient world.

We’ll break down the gruesome process, from the boats and forced feeding to the insects, exposure, and eventual death, while also examining why milk and honey supposedly played such an important role. We’ll look at the horrifying role that flies, bees, wasps, and maggots were said to play as the victim was left trapped in their own waste.

Then we’ll meet Mithridates, the only person actually recorded as suffering this punishment, at least according to the ancient sources. His story involves Cyrus the Younger, King Artaxerxes II, a battlefield killing, a boast after a few drinks, and a punishment that supposedly lasted seventeen days.

But there’s a problem. The story comes to us through Plutarch, who was writing centuries after the alleged execution, based on earlier accounts from Ctesias, a historian whose reputation for exaggeration makes the entire story difficult to verify. We’ll also look at the related Greek punishment of cyphonism and ask whether scaphism was a real Persian execution method or one of antiquity’s particularly nasty pieces of propaganda.

And because this is Torture: A Dark History, Kevin and Dan bring their usual dark and twisted humor to an episode where the phrase “being eaten alive” is taken literally.

If you’re interested in scaphism, ancient Persian torture, Mithridates, Artaxerxes II, Cyrus the Younger, Plutarch, Ctesias, cyphonism, ancient executions, maggot therapy, insects, and the darker side of ancient history, this episode is going to leave you seriously reconsidering boats, honey, and picnics.

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