It is unclear exactly from which civilization the rack originated; the earliest examples are from Greece. The Greeks may have first used the rack as a means of torturing slaves and non-citizens, and later in special cases, as in 356 BC, when it was applied to gain a confession from
Herostratus, an arsonist who was later executed for burning down the
Temple of Artemis at
Ephesus, one of the
Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
Arrian's
Anabasis of Alexander states that
Alexander the Great had the pages who conspired to assassinate him, along with their mentor, his court historian
Callisthenes, tortured on the rack in 328 BC. According to
Tacitus, the rack was used in a vain attempt to extract the names of the conspirators to assassinate
Emperor Nero in the
Pisonian conspiracy from the freedwoman
Epicharis in 65 A.D. The next day, after refusing to talk, she was dragged back to the rack on a chair (all of her limbs were
dislocated, so she could not stand), but strangled herself on a loop of cord on the back of the chair on the way. The rack, in Roman sources, was referred to with the name
equuleus; the word
fidicula, more commonly the name of a small
lyre or stringed instrument, was used to describe a similar torture device, although its exact design has been lost. The rack was also used on early Christians, such as
St. Vincent (304 A.D.), and mentioned by the Church Fathers
Tertullian and
St. Jerome (420 A.D.). The illustration shows at upper left how prisoners on the rack were often burned with torches on their sides or armpits to enhance the cruelty of the torture. Slivers of red-hot coal were also commonly slid between the toes.
Britain Its first appearance in England is said to have been due to
John Holland, 2nd Duke of Exeter, the
constable of the Tower in 1447, and it was thus popularly known as "the
Duke of Exeter's daughter". The Catholic martyr
Nicholas Owen, a noted builder of
priest holes, died under torture on the rack in the
Tower of London in 1606.
Guy Fawkes is also thought to have been put to the rack, since a royal warrant authorising his torture survives. The warrant states that "lesser tortures" should be applied to him at first, but if he remained recalcitrant he could be racked. In 1615 a clergyman called
Edmond Peacham, accused of
high treason, was racked. In 1628 the question of its legality was raised in connection with a proposal in the
Privy Council to rack
John Felton, the assassin of George Villiers, the 1st Duke of Buckingham. The judges resisted this, unanimously declaring its use to be contrary to the laws of England. ==See also==