A Brief History Of Punishment In Ancient Persia Although the Persians are often seen as the kings of creative punishment, in reality across the ancient world, there was similar brutality in all civilizations. Ancient Persia has seen brutal punishments like Scaphism, Flaying, curicifiction etc. Unfortunately, the Ancient Persians just weren’t that big on writing stuff down. Which means we have to rely on historical accounts written hundreds of years later.