Unusual Punishments of the Theodosian Code

In 429 AD the Roman emperor Theodosius II established a commission to write down all the laws of the Roman Empire since 312, covering all the Christian emperors. The resulting work was the Codex Theodosianus (or Theodisian Code).

In his book The Triumph of Christianity, biblical scholar Bart Ehrman lists some of the more unusual punishments included in the codex:

• Imperial bureaucrats who accepted bribes were to have their hands cut off (Theodosian Code l.16.7)
• ineffective guardians of girls who had been seduced were to have molten lead poured down their throats (Theodosian Code 9.24.1)
• tax collectors who treated women tax delinquents rudely were to "be done to death with exquisite tortures"
• anyone who served as an informer was to be strangled and " the tongue of envy cut off from its roots and plucked out" (Theodosian Code 10.10.2)
• slaves who informed on their masters were to be crucified (Theodosian Code 9.5.1.1)
• anyone guilty of parricide "shall not be subjected to the sword or to fire or to any other customary penalty, but he shall be sewed in a leather sack, and, confined within its deadly closeness, he shall share the companionship of serpents" and then thrown into a river or ocean "so that while still alive he may begin to lose the enjoyment of all the elements" (Theodosian Code 9.15.1)

James Joyce was evidently familiar with the Theodosian Code since he referred to the final of these punishments in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Chap 3, during the section where the priest is describing the torments of hell to the school boys):