{Scourged} (phragell(9373)as). The Latin verb _flagellare_.
Pilate apparently lost interest in Jesus when he discovered that
he had no friends in the crowd. The religious leaders had been
eager to get Jesus condemned before many of the Galilean crowd
friendly to Jesus came into the city. They had apparently
succeeded. The scourging before the crucifixion was a brutal
Roman custom. The scourging was part of the capital punishment.
Deissmann (_Light from the Ancient East_, p. 269) quotes a
Florentine papyrus of the year 85 A.D. wherein G. Septimius
Vegetus, governor of Egypt, says of a certain Phibion: "Thou
hadst been worthy of scourging ... but I will give thee to the
people."