Credit: Dangerous Minds / Public Domain

The information age has made us believe that humans have become more cruel and brutal as history has gone on. Naturally, if you haven’t heard the name Sisamnes, then it’s easy to think that.

A cursory glance at your phone won’t just ruin your day; it will also introduce you to a whole new way that someone can victimise another person. Cruel and unusual barely covers it, and sadly, it hasn’t been able to do so for about 30 years now. However, no matter how much it might feel like it, this isn’t because the 21st century has brainwashed people into being more cruel than they’ve always been. No, it turns out that humanity’s always been like this.

This new phenomenon has less to do with people being any worse than they were before and more to do with being able to keep track of more parts of the world than normal. I’m a Londoner born and bred, and in 2025, that means I’m a lot more capable of keeping up with things happening in the Sudan or the Congo than anyone in 1995, let alone someone in 1965. By the same token, though, this should mean that we could have a little more perspective about these things.

After all, we have the entire sum of human knowledge in our pockets. Sure, that’s mostly used for doom scrolling, but it also allows us to examine the past. It means we can look up Histories by Herodotus and analyse the story of Sisamnes, a royal judge active in the Persian empire during the reign of King Cambyses II. A corrupt man who pushed his luck too far and, if history is to be believed, paid for it dearly.

In a way so gory Eli Roth himself would blush.

What happened to Sisamnes?

The story goes that Sisamnes accepted a bribe to make a specific ruling in a case. Herodotus doesn’t record the specific case or what that ruling was, but in fairness to him, the real story is in what comes next. Cambyses II discovered the corruption of Sisamnes and sentenced him to death. Already one hell of a vengeance, but it’s never a great idea to make a mockery of what is supposedly the king’s justice.

Sisamnes wasn’t just sentenced to death, he was sentenced to be flayed alive, having his skin ripped from his body by burning hot blades, all the while screaming in an agony that couldn’t be ended fast enough. Would you believe it, the really disturbing shit is actually what happens next. According to the story, Sisamnes had a son called Otanes, who was keen to follow in his father’s footsteps as a judge. Sisamnes appointed him as his father’s succesor but in case watching his father’s brutal murder hadn’t taught him to conduct himself with honour at all times, his dad’s eventual fate absolutely would.

Sisamnes’ flesh was cut into strips, cured, then sewn onto the seat that Otanes would be conducting his judiciary duties from. Thus, Otanes spent his entire career sitting on a truly gruesome reminder that his father had taken his position for granted once, and that the same fate awaited him were he ever tempted to do so as well. It seemed to work, Otanes becoming a trusted advisor to Sisamnes and eventually, the supreme commander of Ionia, a territory that Sisamnes had conquered.

So, think of that next time you see a truly depressing story of human cruelty in the news. It’s nothing new. Joy.