Fustuarium

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Fustuarium (a Latin abstraction from the Latin fustis, a branch or rod) was a Roman military form of execution by cudgeling (clubbing), which was imitated by later armies.

Since laxness on guard duty or desertion could endanger the entire corps and even the Roman state, a slacking soldier was liable to be found as unworthy of the uniform, stripped, and beaten to death with sticks by his comrades, whose trust he had betrayed, as a collective exercise of ultimate discipline against what could be considered as passive equivalents of high treason. The excruciating effects on the condemned are comparable to running the gauntlet, compare also to breaking on the wheel.

Cudgelling (or running the gauntlet) was also used as punishment for such vilified crimes as theft (especially from comrades) and or to certain captured enemies.

It could also be applied to every tenth man of a whole unit as a mode of decimation, which was reportedly rather done by sword.