Scatter Brained

FOR TOMORROW YOU DIE
Although the Roman persecution of early Christians tends to get all 
the  attention,  Christians  weren’t  that  much  better  when  they  as-
sumed power. Greeks who continued to worship their pantheon of 
gods were frequently put to death until the beliefs died out in the 
late fi rst millennium CE. A popular means of  execution was dis-
memberment in public. But if you think that sounds bad . . . 
02
  Means to an End:
Unpleasant Execution Methods Th
 roughout History
(In Reverse Order of Preference!)
LING CHI:
 A slow, excruciating death, implemented a mil-
lennium ago by China’s Song dynasty, 
ling chi
 (or “slicing”) 
entails a piecemeal disassembling of the arms and legs by 
knife, culminating in decapitation. On the upside, luckier 
victims got to indulge in a good bit of opium beforehand, as 
an act of mercy. We’d argue that a better act of mercy would 
be not to carve up living people, but that’s just us. Th
 e good 
news is 
ling chi
 was abolished. Th
  e bad news is that it wasn’t 
until 1905, only 900 years late.
✖  ✖  ✖
SAWING:
  Employed  by  historical  free  spirits  like  Caligula, 
Spanish Inquisitors, and—whaddya know—the ancient 

---

6
S C A T T E R B R A I N E D
 Chinese, death by sawing is kind of like the horror franchise 
Saw,
 except more horrifi c and not a movie. Th
  e convicted was 
strung up by the feet and sawed in twain, beginning at the 
crotch; his upside-down posi-
tion ensured a continuous 
fl ow of blood (or whatever 
blood remained) to the brain, 
so he barely had to miss a mo-
ment of the terror until it was 
over. Recipients included such 
heinous criminals as adulter-
ers and sodomites, plus a few 
saints, maybe the prophet Isaiah, and any young woman 
thought to be carrying Satan in her womb. Th
  at’s the thing 
about the Beelzebaby—you never can be too sure, so kudos to 
the Spanish, because during the entire Inquisition, Satan’s 
spawn wasn’t born even once.
✖  ✖  ✖
BOILING ALIVE:
 Fairly self-explanatory. Historically, exe-
cution by boiling is far more widespread than you’d think. 
In fact, it was prevalent in the Roman Empire, ancient 
China,  Egypt,  throughout  the  Middle  East  (where  to  con-
serve water they used oil), classical Japan, 17th-century In-
dia, England under Henry VIII, and Uganda under Idi Amin 
in the 1970s. More recently, the gruesome act seemed rele-
gated exclusively to members of the crustacean family—
 until an autopsy report emerged from Uzbekistan in 2002 
implicating the practice in 
at least
 one political prisoner’s 
demise.
✖  ✖  ✖