Sisamnes

The Judgment of Cambyses by Gerard David

Sisamnes was, according to Herodotus's Histories, a corrupt royal judge active in the Persian empire during the reign of Cambyses II of Persia. When Cambyses learned that Sisamnes had accepted a bribe to influence a verdict, he had him promptly arrested and sentenced him to be flayed alive. He had the skin of the flayed Sisamnes cut into leather strips. Cambyses then appointed Otanes, the son of the condemned Sisamnes, as his father's judicial successor. In order to remind Otanes what happens to corrupt judges and not forget the importance of judicial integrity, Cambyses ordered that the new judge's chair be draped in the leather strips made from the skin of the flayed Sisamnes.[1] Otanes later became a satrap in Ionia.[2] Cambyses warned Otanes to continually keep in mind the source of the leather of the chair upon which he would be seated to deliberate and deliver his judgment.[3] The story was also referred to by the first century Latin author Valerius Maximus in his Factorum ac dictorum memorabilium libri IX (The nine books of memorable deeds and sayings).[4] Whereas in Herodotus' version Sisamnes' skin is cut into strips, Maximus has the skin stretched across the chair.[5]

  1. ^ Georges Martyn, Cambyses aan de Vlaamse kust, in Pro Memorie. Bijdragen tot de rechtsgeschiedenis der Nederlanden, jaargang 14 (2012), afl. 1, pp. 126-136 (in Dutch)
  2. ^ Perseus Under Philologic: Hdt. 5.25.1. Archived from the original on 2020-03-10. Retrieved 2019-01-13.
  3. ^ Anuradha Gobin, Representing the Criminal Body in the City: Knowledge, Publics and Power in the Seventeenth-Century Dutch Republic, Department of Art History and Communication Studies, McGill University, Montreal, September 2013, A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
  4. ^ Valerius Maximus. Memorable Doings and Sayings, Volume II: Books 6-9. Edited and translated by D. R. Shackleton Bailey. Loeb Classical Library 493. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000
  5. ^ Claes Jacobsz. van der Heck, Het oordeel van Cambyses Archived 2021-12-30 at the Wayback Machine, at the Stedelijk Museum, Alkmaar