Ancient Justice Was Absolutely Unhinged — The Absolutely Unhinged Series, Book 3

Somebody stole your goat. What happens next?

In Babylon, you both jump in the river, and whoever floats is lying. In Athens, five hundred and one jurors vote with bronze discs while a water clock runs. In Rome, if the thief is your father, the penalty is a leather sack, a dog, a rooster, a viper, and a monkey. In Persia, the judge who takes a bribe is skinned, and his hide is stretched over the chair his son will sit in.

Ancient Justice Was Absolutely Unhinged is a guided tour of crime and punishment in the ancient world, from the oldest law code on earth (it isn't Hammurabi's) to the courts of Rome, China, India, and Persia.

Inside you'll find:

• The Athenian court that tried a statue for murder
• The Egyptian village where a god's statue nodded to deliver verdicts
• The Chinese emperor who made your whole family guilty
• The Hittite fine for stealing a beehive
• Rome's paid informers and professional accusers
• The first recorded autopsy and the earliest detectives
• The ordeals by fire, water, and poison that decided guilt for three thousand years
• A final chapter on the "facts" about ancient justice that everyone believes and that are not true

Over 400 strange but true facts. Where historians disagree, the book says so. Where a story is legend, it's labeled legend, because the truth is already unbelievable.

Book 3 of The Absolutely Unhinged Series.