Perillos being forced into the

brazen bull that he built for

Phalaris.
Brazen bull
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The brazen bull, bronze bull, or Sicilian bull,
was a torture and execution device designed in
ancient Greece.
[1]
Its inventor, metal-worker
Perillos of Athens, proposed it to Phalaris, the
tyrant of Akragas, Sicily, as a new means of
executing criminals.
[citation needed]
The bull was
made entirely of bronze, hollow, with a door in one
side.
[2]
The condemned were locked in the bull,
and a re was set under it, heating the metal until
the person inside roasted to death.
Contents
1 Reign of Phalaris
2 Possible link to Carthaginian Sacrice
3 Carthaginian capture and Roman
restoration
4 Roman persecution of Christians
5 Visigothic kingdom of Toulouse
6 See also
7 References
8 External links
Reign of Phalaris
Phalaris commanded that the bull be designed in such a way that its smoke rose
in spicy clouds of incense.
[citation needed]
The head of the bull was designed with a
complex system of tubes and stops so that the prisoner's screams were converted
into sounds like the bellowing of an infuriated bull. According to legend, when the
bull was reopened, the victim's scorched bones "shone like jewels and were made
into bracelets."
[3]
Perillos said to Phalaris: "[His screams] will come to you through the pipes as the
tenderest, most pathetic, most melodious of bellowings." Disgusted by these
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The brazen bull (left)
depicted on an old engraving
words, Phalaris ordered its horn sound system to
be tested on Perillos himself. When Perillos
entered, he was immediately locked in, and the re
was set, so that Phalaris could hear the sound of
his screams. Before Perillos could die, Phalaris
opened the door and took him away. Perillos
believed he would receive a reward for his
invention; instead, after freeing him from the bull,
Phalaris threw him from the top of a hill, killing
him. Phalaris himself is said to have been killed in
the brazen bull when he was overthrown by
Telemachus, the ancestor of Theron.
[citation needed]
Possible link to Carthaginian
Sacrice
Scholars link the design of the Brazen Bull to statues of Moloch (often noted as a
misnomer for Chronus or Ba'al) in which infants were sacriced alive within a
bronze, calf-headed statue of the deity by being placed on the hands of the statue
and sliding down into the bronze furnace.
[4]
The noises of the child's screams
were often drowned out by drumming and dancing, since the sacricial altars did
not have the pipes system that the Brazen Bull had (see Tophet). The practices of
the city of Tophet are also cited by scholars to be the inspiration for the Brazen
Bull because of Akragas' Carthaginian roots.
[5]
The story of the bull cannot be dismissed as pure invention. Pindar, who lived less
than a century afterwards, expressly associates this instrument of torture with the
name of the tyrant.
[6]
Carthaginian capture and Roman restoration
Roman persecution of Christians
The Romans were reputed to have used this torture device to kill some Jews, as
well as some Christians, notably Saint Eustace, who, according to Christian
tradition, was roasted in a brazen bull with his wife and children by Emperor
Hadrian. The same happened to Saint Antipas, Bishop of Pergamon during the
persecutions of Emperor Domitian and the rst martyr in Asia Minor, who was
roasted to death in a brazen bull in AD 92.
[7]
The device was still in use two
centuries later, when another Christian, Pelagia of Tarsus, is said to have been
burned in one in 287 by the Emperor Diocletian.
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Saint Antipas being
roasted alive in a
Brazen bull at
Pergamon.
The Catholic Church discounts the story of Saint
Eustace's martyrdom as "completely fabulous".
[8]
Visigothic kingdom of Toulouse
According to the Chronica caesaraugustana,
Burdunellus, a Roman usurper, was roasted in a brazen
bull by the king Alaric II in 497.
See also
Iron maiden (torture)
Torture chamber
References
Notes
^ Diehl & Donnelly 2008, p. 37 1.
^ Diehl & Donnelly 2008, p. 39 2.
^ Thompson 2008, p. 30 3.
^ Rundin, John S. (Fall 2004). "Pozo Moro, child sacrice, and the Greek legendary
tradition" (http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA254014762&v=2.1&
u=txshracd2488&it=r&p=AONE&
sw=w&asid=c07edf30e2f808cd34fc8a61749329f2). Journal of Biblical Literature
(Society of Biblical Literature) 123 (3): 425+. doi:10.2307/3268041 (http://dx.doi.org
/10.2307%2F3268041). Retrieved October 25, 2013.
4.
^ Bohak, Gideon (January 2000). "Classica Et Rabbinica I: the Bull of Phalaris and the
Tophet" (http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/10.1163/157006300x00107).
Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman period
(BRILL) 31 (1): 203 216. doi:10.1163/157006300X00107 (http://dx.doi.org
/10.1163%2F157006300X00107). Retrieved October 25, 2013.
5.
^ Pindar, Pythian 1 6.
^ The Seat of Satan: Ancient Pergamum (http://www.cbn.com/700club/features
/churchhistory/pergamon/ez28_seat_of_satan_part_1.aspx)
7.
^ "Martyrologium Romanum" (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2001 ISBN 88-209-7210-7) 8.
Bibliography
Brazen bull - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Brazen...
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Francesco Ferdinandi, The
Martyrdom of St. Eustace. Behind
the main altar at the Church of
Sant'Eustachio, Rome, this
painting follows the narrative in
the Golden Legend: For refusing
to sacrice to the gods, Saint
Eustace and his wife and sons are
to be enclosed in a Brazen bull
which will be heated till they die.
Diehl, Daniel; Donnelly, Mark P. (2008), The
Big Book of Pain: Punishment and Torture
Through History, The History Press,
ISBN 978-0-7509-4583-7
Thompson, Irene (2008), The A to Z of
Punishment and Torture: From Amputations to
Zero Tolerance, Book Guild Publishing,
ISBN 978-1-84624-203-8
External links
Media related to Bronze Bull at Wikimedia
Commons
Phalaris (http://www.nndb.com/people
/837/000097546/)
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Categories: Ancient instruments of torture
European instruments of torture
Execution equipment Execution methods
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