The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1889-03-21
ToRTuREs OF THE WHEEL.
One of the Excruciating Punishments
Used by the Ancients.

The wheel symbolized not the sun
only. but also the lightning. 1t was
used as means of kindlihg a fire by
turning it rapidly about on an axle. In
the island of the Null, till the introduce
tion of the lucifer matches, this method
of kindling was customary. Consider
ing the sacredness of the symbol of the
wheel, it is rendered most probable
that victims to the sun were offered by
entwining the limbs about the nine
spokes and then erecting the wheel on
long pole, so as to expose the vic
tim face to the sky.
We find this method of execution of
criminals in Europe, and it is probably,
like hanging, survival of sacrifice
to the sun. The Romans knew of
fastening criminal round the tire of
wheel and then rolling it. This was
the in HgGre in clrruS of Livy, but
among the German nations the other
was the form of execution. Gallonius,
in his book ON martyrdoms of the
saints, gives several plates represent
ing the torture of the wheel, and in
his text quotes his authorities. In the
first a man bound to a wheel is rolled
down Il hill; in the next we have the
man bound to the wheel with limbs
twisted in and out from the spokes,
set up in the sun; in the third martyr
bound about a wheel is turned over
flames, and another over spikes. That
the Greeks and Romans did sometimes
employ the mode of twining the
limbs among the spokes and exposing
to lingering death in the sun is al
most certain. In one of the doubtful
epistles of Phalaris it is particularized,
but it was not common, and those acts
of the martyrs which mention it are
also not genuine. 1t is, however,
spoken of by Gregory of Tours in the
sixth century. In 1910 the parliament
of Toulouse ordered the execution of
a robber captain by the wheel, and
Francis l., in 1885, decreed death on
the wheel to all highwayman. In 1926,
Frederic, count of Isenburg. the MUIR
derer of Englebert, bishop of Cologne,
was thus executed, but his limbs were
broken before he was affixed to the
wheel. This was q modification, a
concession to humanity, that came in
with Christianity. Originally the vic
Tins were allowed to liuger for many
days on their wheels, bound in the
most torturing contOrtions and de-
prived of food and water. But even
when their limbs were broken they
lived for many hours. A still further
concession to humanity came in the
seventeenth century, when the Grimm
ais were beaten on the chest and neck
with an iron bar. But this concession
was not general, and in the sentence
of the judges order was given whether
the execution was to take place 'from
below" or ''from above" If from be-
low, that signified that the extremities
were to be struck by the bar, and only
the final blow to be dealt on the
breast. Curtius, French writer of
the sixteenth century, describes the
penalty of the wheel: ut is mode
of death more like that of the cross
than of the gallows. In the first place
the limbs are bound to four rcross-beams,
then are broken with an iron bar; after
that the shattered body is taken off the
cross and fastened to The wheel which is
set upright, so that, still living and feel
ing, still writhing, the victim may die
in the full glare of the sun, lying on
his back. face upward" The last case
of the use of the wheel in Germany
was in 1S40.