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| Photo taken by John Angel |
The Brazen Bull is also known as the Bronze Bull, Sicilian Bull, or Bull of Phalaris. It's a torture and execution device designed and allegedly used in ancient Greece between 570 to 554 BC by Perolaus of Athens. It's debated if this device actually existed though.
The bull was said to be hollow and made entirely of bronze with a door on one side. The bull is said to be the size of an actual bull and had an acoustic apparatus to convert screams into the sound of a bull. The condemned would be placed into the bull and a fire would be set underneath to heat the metal. The person inside would be roasted inside.
It's said that criminals were executed publically using the bull. This was to help make examples of them.
It's said that Phalaris, the tyrant of Akragas (now Agrigento) in Sicily, was to use the device. He was known to be extremely cruel and asked Perilous to design it. He also asked it to be designed where the smoke rice in spicy clouds of incense. When showing the device to Phalaris he said along the lines of "His screams will come to you through the pipes as the tenderest, most pathetic, most melodious of bellowings." This description would disgust Phalaris.
Instead of giving Perilaus a reward, he asked him to get into the bull and test it out. Perilous would climb in willingly thinking that he was purely showing Phalaris how it would work. The door would be immediately locked and the fire set so he can hear the sound of his screams and his death. Some stories state that before Perilous could die from being baked alive the door was opened. Phalaris would take him to a hill and threw him off killing him.
It's also said that Phalaris was also killed by Telemachus in the Brazen Bull.
Wikipedia
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