Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Equuleus

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

EQUUL'EUS. Literally, a young horse, or colt; whence transferred, in a special sense, to a wooden machine upon which slaves were placed to extract evidence from them by torture. (Cic. Mil. 21. Quint. Curt. vi. 10.) The ancient writers have not left any description by which the exact nature of this contrivance can be ascertained; and their artists never depicted scenes calculated to awaken painful emotions. But the expressions used to describe the treatment of the sufferer — in equuleo; or, in equuleum impositus — lead to the conjecture that it was something in the nature of the crux, and the punishment a sort of impalement; the criminal being made to sit bare on a sharp point, with heavy weights attached to his arms and legs, in order to increase the natural pressure of the body, as shown by the annexed engraving (Equuleus/1.1), which represents an instrument of punishment formerly used at Mirandola, in the north of Italy, and which, in confirmation of the suggestion, was called by the same name, the colt, il cavaletto.

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  Equuleus/1.1