We often think about crime as a modern problem, or maybe a problem that comes with living in the city, but when you think about it for a second, this is obviously not the case. As the old saying goes “as soon as God created the third human being, a conspiracy was hatched against one of them.” The fact is that wherever there’s something to be stolen, whenever there’s someone to rip off, there will be a criminal lurking about to do the deed. It’s simply a fact of human nature, and the following stories should prove it…
Crime and Punishment in the Fifteenth Century AD, Vlad the Impaler
You don’t get the nickname “The Impaler” by being light on criminals. Vlad is infamous to this day for the extreme measures he took to combat crime in Transylvania. Of course, besides just wanting to fight crime, Vlad Tepes was also a sadistic tyrant, killing an estimated one hundred thousand criminals by way of impalement and other devious methods.
No matter the age, religion, gender or social class, all criminals were dealt with in the same way with no exceptions. One particularly gruesome method of punishment involved the feeding of criminals remains to their friends and relatives. The top of the list of Vlad’s “pet peeves” included theft, lying and adulterous relations.
In one famous instance, a merchant reported the theft of one hundred gold pieces to Vlad. The criminal was captured, tortured and executed, and the gold returned to the merchant. Or rather, one hundred and one gold pieces were returned to the merchant. Upon counting the gold, the merchant immediately returned to Tepes to give him back the extra gold piece, knowing full well that this had been a test that Tepes had arranged for him, and had he not returned the extra gold, that he, too, would be punished just as ruthlessly as the thief had been.
Organized Crime in the Thirteenth Century, The Thuggee Cult
The word “Thug” is said to come from the ancient Thuggee Cult, a secret society of Islamic assassins and thieves who roved India preying on weary travelers.
Their methods of operation, while devious and horrific, were actually quite ingenious and not hard to admire, if you’re in the right, macabre sort of mood. The thuggees would pose as travelers, banding together with groups of travelers moving through India. This would often involve a slow process of infiltrating a group of travelers one at a time, and a single job might take months of synchronized, organized operations before any move was made. By infiltrating one at a time, a small group of travelers could be overwhelmed when two, then three, then four thuggees made their way into the group pretending not to know one another.
When the numbers were sufficient to overpower the victims, the thuggees would wait until they were on their own “friendly” territory and assassinate entire bands of travelers, taking their goods and money to support their group. Small children would often be spared, but recruited into the thuggee cult themselves as apprentice thieves.
The thuggees could identify one another by their distinctive yellow scarves, which they would use as garrotes to finish their victims off silently. The thuggee cult actually maintained their operations until the nineteenth century, when British colonialists took measures to combat them and make travelers more aware.
Much like the Vikings, the thuggees didn’t consider themselves criminals in the least, but rather, simply a group of men trying to make a living in desperate times. It was a point of honor to be a good earner within a thuggee cult, and they took pride in their work.
Conclusion
When you look at the notion of punishment in the ancient world… it was fierce. There were seemingly no crimes too small to justify a good old fashioned painful and humiliating execution. Not only that, but even hesitation to whole heartedly endorse gruesome punishment could be met with gruesome punishment!
In short, be glad you live in the Twenty First Century, where shop lifting will get you slapped with a week of community service, instead of a week on a dull, splintery stake.
Gil Bronson blogs about how to choose among forensic science schools.
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