From Plutarch's Live of Coriolanus"
" For the Romans treated their slaves with great
humanity in these times, when, working and laboring themselves,
and living together among them they naturally were more gentle
and familiar with them. It was one of the severest punishments
for a slave who had committed a fault, to have to take the piece
of wood which supports the pole of a wagon, and carry it about
through the neighborhood; a slave who had once undergone the
shame of this, and been thus seen by the household and the
neighbors, had no longer any trust or credit among them, and had
the name of furcifer; furca being the Latin word for a prop, or
support."
An interesting picture of treatment of slaves by the Romans. Hard to imagine
such a bit of humiliation being so effective a control of slaves' behaviour.