h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Or rather, they have it in for the eyes. Gnomon, can I just ask, what is it with the eye-gouging? Along with iconography, theology and the the comings and goings of successive attempts to break the walls, a recurrent theme throughout is eye-gouging! There must have been an awful ot of blind folk wandering about.

Yes, it's interesting.

In the early days, they used to do "nose-slicing" as well, but then one guy who had been deposed and sliced returned and ruled as Emperor again, proving that cutting off someone's nose didn't stop them from being Emperor. So this particular operation's popularity declined.

I suppose it was a way of totally debilitating a person without the stigma of murder being attached to the aggressor. Very unpleasant indeed. It really struck me as a gruesome theme reading all the entries this week.

I see that the "Cartoon History Of The Universe Iii " by Larry Gonick uses Byzantine Eye-Gouging as a running gag.

I was not aware of this but I've just looked it up on Amazon where there was a 'Seach Inside' option and I managed to read a few pages; very good it looked too.