Mastigophori
μαστιγοφόροι
Mastigophori or MASTIGONOMI (μαστιγοφόροι or μαστιγονόμοι), the name of the lower police-officers in the Greek states, who carried into execution the corporal punishments inflicted by the higher magistrates. Thus Lycurgus assigned mastigophori to the Paedonomus at Sparta, who had the general superintendence of the education of the boys (Xen. Rep. Lac. 2.2, 4.6; Hellen. 3.11; Plut. Lyc. 17). In the theatre the mastigophori preserved order, and were stationed for this purpose in the orchestra, near the thymele (Schol. ad Plat. p. 99, Ruhnken; Lucian, Pisc. 33). In the Olympic games the ῥαβδοῦχοι performed the same duties. At Athens they were discharged by the public slaves, called bowmen (τοξόται), or Scythians (Σκύθαι). [DEMOSII]
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.