“Ye therefore, who seek in science a means to satisfy your passions, pause in this fatal way: you will find nothing but madness or death.”
This is the meaning of the vulgar tradition that the devil ends sooner or later by strangling sorcerers.
Eliphas Levi, Transcendental Magic
Also…
“We have said that impassioned ecstasy may produce the same results as absolute superiority, and this is true as to the issue but not as to the direction of magical operations. Passion projects the Astral Light forcibly and impresses unforeseen movements on the Universal Agent, but it cannot curb with the facility that it impels, and then its destiny resembles that of Hippolytus dragged by his own horses, or Phalaris victimized himself by the instrument of torture which he had invented for others. Human volition realized by action is like a cannon-ball and recedes before no obstacle. It either passes through it or is buried in it; but if it advance with patience and perseverance, it is never lost; it is like the wave which returns incessantly and wears away iron in the end.
Eliphas Levi
Naturally, that brings us to the brazen bull aka the bronze bull.
The brazen bull, also known as the bronze bull, Sicilian bull, or bull of Phalaris, was a torture and execution device designed in ancient Greece. According to Diodorus Siculus, recounting the story in Bibliotheca historica, Perilaus (or Perillus) of Athens invented and proposed it to Phalaris, the tyrant of Akragas, Sicily, as a new means of executing criminals. The bull was said to be hollow and made entirely out of bronze with a door in one side. According to legends, the brazen bull was designed in the form and size of an actual bull and had an acoustic apparatus that converted screams into the sound of a bull. The condemned were locked inside the device, and a fire was set under it, heating the metal until the person inside was roasted to death. Pindar, who lived less than a century afterwards, expressly associates this instrument of torture with the name of the tyrant Phalaris.
- Diehl & Donnelly 2008, p. 37
- Biblioteca Historica, IX, 18–19
- Diehl & Donnelly 2008, p. 39
- Pindar, Pythian 1
Creation of the brazen bull for Phalaris
The head of the bull was designed with a system of tubes and stops so that the prisoner’s screams were converted into sounds like the bellowing of an infuriated bull. Phalaris is said to have commanded that the bull be designed in such a way that its smoke rose in spicy clouds of incense. According to legend, when the bull was reopened after a body was charred, the victim’s scorched bones then “shone like jewels and were made into bracelets.”
- “Brazen Bull: The ancient Greek torture death machine”. GHD. Retrieved 2021-12-25.
- Thompson 2008, p. 30
Stories allege after finishing construction on the execution device, Perilaus said to Phalaris: “His screams will come to you through the pipes as the tenderest, most pathetic, most melodious of bellowings.” Perilaus believed he would receive a reward for his invention. Instead, Phalaris, who was disgusted by these words, ordered its horn sound system to be tested by Perilaus himself, tricking him into getting in the bull. When Perilaus entered, he was immediately locked in and the fire was set, so that Phalaris could hear the sound of his screams. Before Perilaus could die, Phalaris opened the door and took him away. After freeing him from the bull, Phalaris is then said to have taken Perilaus to the top of a hill and thrown him off, killing him. Phalaris himself is claimed to have been killed in the brazen bull when he was overthrown by Telemachus, the ancestor of Theron.
- “Phalaris | tyrant of Acragas | Britannica”. www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2021-12-25.
Persecution of early Christians
The Romans have been claimed to have used this torture device to kill 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 first martyr in Asia Minor, who was roasted to death in a brazen bull in AD 92. The device is claimed to have still been in use two centuries later, when another Christian, Pelagia of Tarsus, is said to have been burned in one in AD 287 by the Emperor Diocletian.
Phalaris History
Phalaris was renowned for his excessive cruelty. Among his alleged atrocities is cannibalism: he was said to have eaten suckling babies.
Phalaris was entrusted with the building of the temple of Zeus Atabyrius in the citadel and took advantage of his position to make himself despot. Under his rule, Agrigentum seemed to have attained considerable prosperity. He supplied the city with water, adorned it with fine buildings, and strengthened it with walls. On the northern coast of the island, the people of Himera elected him general with absolute power, in spite of the warnings of the poet Stesichorus. According to the Suda he succeeded in making himself master of the whole of the island. He was at last overthrown in a general uprising headed by Telemachus, the ancestor of Theron of Acragas (tyrant c. 488–472 BC), and burned in his own brazen bull.
- Tatian. “Tatian’s Address to the Greeks”, Chapter XXXIV.
- Aristotle, Politics, v. 10
- Aristotle, Rhetoric, ii. 20
Pindar, who lived less than a century afterwards, expressly associates this instrument of torture with the name of the tyrant.
- Pindar, Pythian 1
There was certainly a brazen bull at Agrigentum that was carried off by the Carthaginians to Carthage. This is said to have been later taken by Scipio the Elder and restored to Agrigentum circa 200 BC. However, it is more likely that it was Scipio the Younger who returned this bull and other stolen works of art to the original Sicilian cities, after his total destruction of Carthage circa 146 BC, which ended the Third Punic War.[citation needed]
Literary rehabilitation
Some four centuries after his death,[citation needed] Phalaris was the object of a literary reinvention whereby he came to be seen as a humane leader who was a patron of philosophy and literature. This new reputation was due to a paradoxical defence of his character attributed to Lucian, and to his supposed authorship of an epistolary corpus. In 1699, Richard Bentley published a famous Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris in which he proved that the epistles were spurious.
- Lucian’s original text at Perseus.
- A digitised 1706 translation of the Epistles at archive.org.
- Text at archive.org.
See also
References
Notes
- Diehl & Donnelly 2008, p. 37
- Biblioteca Historica, IX, 18–19
- Diehl & Donnelly 2008, p. 39
- Pindar, Pythian 1
- “Brazen Bull: The ancient Greek torture death machine”. GHD. Retrieved 2021-12-25.
- Thompson 2008, p. 30
- “Phalaris | tyrant of Acragas | Britannica”. www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2021-12-25.
- Tatian. “Tatian’s Address to the Greeks”, Chapter XXXIV.
- Aristotle, Politics, v. 10
- Aristotle, Rhetoric, ii. 20
- Pindar, Pythian 1
- Lucian’s original text at Perseus.
- A digitised 1706 translation of the Epistles at archive.org.
- Text at archive.org.
Sources
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). “Phalaris“. Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 21 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 345.
Bibliography
- 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
- Livius, Phalaris of Acragas by Jona Lendering
- Phalaris in the Dictionary of Greek & Roman Biography & Mythology, ed. Wm. Smith
- Phalaris I & Phalaris II by Lucian at Lucian of Samosata Project
- Phalaris – The Source Material – References by ancient authors
Media related to Bronze Bull at Wikimedia Commons
