An amazing guy or possibly a murderer or even an idiot once said, “The past is a different country.” What he probably meant by that is that the past is different from the present. I don’t know for sure, since I’m not a professor (I’m a minor league umpire). One thing I do know for sure is that ancient civilizations had some crazy ways of punishing people when they broke the law, especially when you compare them to the forward-thinking and modern ways we punish crimes in the community choir at my local church. Here are some striking differences between how ancient civilizations punished crimes versus how my choir punishes them.
1. Theft
Ancient civilizations dealt with thieves extremely harshly. In Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece, thieves could even be killed! The luckier ones got off with a merciless flogging or had their hands cut off.
In my choir, we’ve recently voted to no longer execute thieves. We are a modern choir with modern values, so when we caught Beth Gleeson sneaking out of rehearsal with a hymnal in her purse, we just chained her to the hood of the choir director’s car for a year and drove around town with the words, “Here Comes The Thief Mobile” painted on the windshield. After a year, we unchained her and she immediately tried to steal another hymnal, so we had to chain her to the hood of the Thief Mobile for another year. Still, it shows just how far we’ve come as a society that we didn’t kill her.
2. Witchcraft
Using evil magic to harm people or cause their livestock to die was considered a very grave offense in much of the ancient world. Antiquated beliefs about witchcraft and the destructive power of malevolent sorcery meant that those found guilty of witchcraft could often face severe punishments, including drowning, burning, or hanging.
My choir’s beliefs about witchcraft have evolved far beyond these primitive notions. When we learned that Rory Sable, our lead soprano, had used a wicked charm to make our choir director’s car break down on the highway, we didn’t set her on fire or throw her in the river. We fined her $600 and we moved on.
3. Murder
It should come as no surprise that ancient civilizations punished murder with all the wrath they could muster. From Greece to Babylon to China’s Han Dynasty, if you were found guilty of murder your life was basically forfeit. You would almost always be executed, often slowly and painfully. In some extreme cases, you entire family could be executed right along with you!
My choir has studied the way that ancient civilizations punished murderers, and we think it’s barbaric. Our punishments are far more humane. When Jodi Knight stabbed Toph Murphy 38 times last Christmas for referring to the song “Silver Bells” as “The Ding-A-Ling, Hear Them Ring Song,” we knew we couldn’t just let it slide. Still, instead of just straight-up decapitating Jodi and calling it a day, we put some thought into how we would punish the murder. We decided to lock Jodi inside the choir director’s piano for the rest of her life. Sometimes we can still hear her banging and screaming in there during rehearsals, but when that happens that choir director just plays extra loud. We are humane and we are civilized.
4. Treason
In ancient civilizations, betraying your monarch or country was almost always punished with long, slow, brutal torture, followed by gruesome execution. This is to be expected, since treason is one of the most grievous crimes a person can commit.
Honestly, my choir views treason pretty much the same way as people did in the ancient world. Times may change, empires may rise and fall, but treason will always be treason. When we learned that Peter Siddle had leaked our choir’s Easter setlist to the North Korean government, we flayed him alive in front of his family.
5. Hacking A Choir Director’s Email
In Mesopotamia, hacking a choir director’s email and reading his private messages was punished by having your eyes ripped out. The Mayan civilization of Ancient Mesoamerica would punish a person who hacked a choir director’s email by shaving his head or running him over with a wheelbarrow full of rocks.
My choir likes to think we’re a bit more enlightened than that, so when it came to light that John Holtermann had guessed that our choir director’s email password was “music” and had used it to hack into his email account and read the messages the director was sending to John’s wife, we knew the punishment had to be firm, but also constructive and humane. In the end, we ripped out just one of his eyes and burned the words “Nosy Nelly” onto his forehead. He was allowed to keep his solo during “O Holy Night” at the Christmas show and everything.