The Brazen Bull

The brazen bull is a torture and execution device designed in ancient Greece by Perillos, a brass-founder, for Phalaris, the cruel tyrant of Agrigentum, Sicily, who ruled from about 570 to 554 BCE. Perillos cast a hollow brass bull that had a door on its side, allowing the condemned to be placed inside it. A fire lit beneath the bull would roast the victim alive. The device was designed so that the victim’s screams would sound like the bellowing of a bull. Who, ironically, was its first victim? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

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