Seneca, for example, tells of a man named Tricho, an equestrian, who, in the reign of Augustus, beat his son to death. Whether the death was accidental from overzealous corporal punishment or a deliberate act of immense cruelty is unclear. Nor is the name or age of his son known. All we know is that Seneca remembered the case and that the son died a nasty death. Being flogged with rods was a punishment that was not supposed to be meted out to free citizens; only the enslaved were considered worthy of it, because it was horrendous.
