The Brazen Bull: Worst Punishment In History
A bronze bull designed to make death slow and unbearable
Throughout human history, there have been many tyrants who used torture and executions as pressure tools with which to instill fear and terror to citizens or to those who went against their ideas and tried to oppose them or their regimes.
What does a tyrant do with a beautiful bronze statue?
This statue hides something dark and horrible, although it may not seem so at first glance. This statue beautifully carved in bronze doesn’t look like a killing machine, not a Machiavellian torture device, however, it is. I’m sorry to tell you that no matter how beautiful you find this statue of a bronze bull, what you are seeing is a horrible torture machine horrible, as lethal as the man who commissioned it to be made.
The Brazen Bull was invented by Perillos of Athens between 570 and 554 BC. This bull was an instrument of torture during the reign of Phalaris, a tyrant of Acragas, in Sicily. Phalaris was the one who commissioned the construction of this instrument of torture.
Phalaris was known for eating newborn babies
Perillos designed the hollow bull, with a fire below. The victims were burned alive, and the smoke escaped through the nose of the bull, which was filled with incense to Fight the stench of burned meat.
This illustration shows the interior of the Brazen Bull
Supposedly from inside the bull to the outside, there were some tubes that distorted the sound of the screams of the victim and made it sound like the roar of a bull. When the burning ended, bones were collected to make bracelets, that Phalaris used to wear.
To test the sound device, Phalaris pushed Perillos into his own creation and lit the fire. Phalaris released the inventor of the bull before he died. Then he proceeded to kill him by throwing him down a steep hill.
In the end, Phalaris himself was roasted by his bronze bull, when the city was overthrown by Telemachus in 554 BC.
The Brazen Bull was not unique in history. As with many other things of the Greeks, the Romans adopted and used it to torture Christians. It is speculated that some famous Christians like St. Eustace and Saint Antipas were killed by the Bronze Bull.