Brazen bull

The brazen bull, or the Sicilian bull, is an execution/torture device designed in ancient Greece.

Perillos of Athens, a brass-founder [http://www.medievality.com/brazen-bull.html] , proposed to Phalaris, the tyrant of Akragas, Sicily, the invention of a new means for executing criminals; accordingly, he cast a bull, made entirely of brass, hollow, with a door in the side. The condemned were shut in the bull and a fire was set under it, heating the metal until it became "yellow hot" and causing the person inside to roast to death. So that 'nothing unseemly might spoil his feasting', Phalaris commanded that the bull be designed in such a way that its smoke rose in spicy clouds of incense. The head of the ox 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. It is also said that when the bull was reopened, the scorched bones of the remains shone like jewels and were made into bracelets.

Phalaris commended the invention, and ordered its horn sound system to be tested by Perillos himself. When Perillos entered, he was immediately locked in, and the fire 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 Romans were recorded as having used this torture device to kill some Christian martyrs, notably Saint Eustace, who, according to Christian tradition, was roasted in a brazen bull with his wife and children by the Emperor Hadrian, and Saint Antipas, Bishop of Pergamum during the persecutions of Emperor Domitian, and the first martyr in Asia Minor, roasted to death in a brazen bull in c.92; his tomb became a site of supposed miracles.

Another Christian martyr, Saint Pelagia of Tarsus, is said to have been burned in a brazen bull in 287 by the Emperor Diocletian.

The satirist Lucian, in the 2nd century A.D., is said to have given the first detailed description of the creation and use of the Brazen Bull.

The bull is mentioned in Dante's Inferno. [cite book|title=The reader's handbook of allusions, references, plots and stories|author=Ebenezer Cobham Brewer]

External links

*cite web|url=http://www.nndb.com/people/837/000097546/|title=Phalaris|publisher=nndb.com|accessdate=2007-06-12

References