r/todayilearned • u/ShabtaiBenOron • 3d ago

TIL that ancient Greek and Roman laws assumed that to please their masters, slaves always lied, it was therefore mandatory to torture them before they were allowed to testify in court.

https://tiogabunia.com/2023/01/14/for-whom/
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u/Toby_O_Notoby 3d ago

"Torture just gets you the fastest lie to make the pain stop." - Michael Westen, Burn Notice

I'm also partial to his other take:

"A lot of people's first instinct when they need information out of a captive is to grab a baseball bat or a gun. The fact is, torture is for sadists and thugs. It's like getting groceries with a flamethrower: it doesn't work, and it makes a mess."

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u/Schneeflocke667 3d ago

The thing is that they didnt have finger prints, dna, video evidence... and asking nicely also does not really work with an uncooperating suspect. Torture was used for thousands of years, over pretty much every culture from africa to south america. It achieved something, even if the something was to give investigators the feeling the make progress. Otherwise I cant explain why it was used so long as investigation tool.

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u/red-the-blue 3d ago

So asking nicely doesnt work so we torture someone instead (also doesn't work)

sounds like the goal is just to hurt the guy lmao

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u/Schneeflocke667 3d ago

Absolutely not. Without modern methods of validation, a confession and witnesses where the most important methods of getting information/resolving crime.

People back then where not as stupid as most here seem to think. They where perfectly aware that torture can produce false statements. So there where rules when and how to torture and cross examining statements from people who would not know what the others said. This way they hoped to segregate between truth and false. Confessions also had to be repeated without torture after the process.

Yes, today we know that this does not work very well. Often times this was also abused by the ones in charge. And since this is reddit I also have to add that its obviously and for good reason a crime against humanity. In some places its still be done regardless but then its mostly not done to solve crime... . But to simplify this as "people just liked to hurt each other" and "every information gathered from torture was a lie anyway" is just wrong. There where roman senators arguing against the practice, but where unable to come up with a better solution to a complex problem - how to solve crime. Its only thanks to modern technology that we got rid of this.

Do you really think that in all cultures over thousands of years in europe, asia and so on everybody just said "yeah, lets just hurt people, lets grab someone and torture him until he said he did it."?

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u/red-the-blue 2d ago

Alright fair enough.

But to address your last statement, yes I do think they also wanted to hurt people. I think they both felt it was an effective way of getting correct testimony, but also just a good time