There’s a gruesome explanation as to why a torture device, often dubbed history’s ‘most painful’, was designed in a very specific way.
When it comes to crime and punishment, several historical civilisations did not hold back when it came to inventing painful and degrading ways to kill anyone who fell foul of the law.
Tales of grim execution devices which crushed, burnt of boiled it’s victims alive can be found to have existed in various civilisations – but have you heard of the one which involved roasted a condemned soul alive while their screams were transformed into animal cries?
Watch a simulation of how it worked below:
Named the ‘Brazen Bull‘ – but also referred to as the bronze bull, Sicilian bull, or bull of Phalaris – was created in ancient Greece, approximately 600-560 BCE and appears in numerous ancient texts.
The contraption was made out of bronze and built to resemble the animal. A door on one side would allow the condemned to climb inside while a fire was lit inside – leading to the individual to roast to death as the metal heated up around them.
Pretty grim, right?
Perhaps one of the more chilling anecdotes about the Brazen Bull was that the device’s very own inventor would meet his fate inside the contraption.
It’s believed a man named Perilaus of Athens had created the contraption and proposed it as a method of torture and/or execution to Phalaris, the tyrant of the Sicilian state of Akragas.
Little did he know he would soon meet his fate trapped inside the bull’s bronze innards.
The device was designed to deliver a particularly gruesome death (DiscoveryWorld)
It’s not exactly known what led Perilaus to justify being roasted to death, however Phalaris was rumoured to be a cannibal that ate newborn babies, which would suggest he wasn’t the most rational of people.
One particularly chilling feature of the Brazen Bull included the addition of apparatus which meant a prisoners screams would not only be amplified, but transformed into a sound which resembled the bellowing of a bull through an internal system of tubes and stops.
Presumably so Phalaris could sit back and enjoy watching another human be slowly and brutally cooked alive.
The bull is specifically designed to turn the prisoner’s screams into the bellowing of a bull (DiscoveryWorld)
While we may never know the extent of whether or not the Brazen Bull was actually a real torture device the story, if it is to be believed, does have a fairly satisfying ending.
Allegedly fed-up of being ruled over by a tyrant, the people of Akragas (now Agrigento) rose up and deposed Phalaris, ultimately chucking him in the Brazen Bull for good measure.
