A man screams wildly as he is dragged up the acropolis steps by two soldiers and thrown
at the feet of King Phalaris.
The tyrant looks down at the weeping man and shakes his head.
The prisoner has done nothing wrong except speak out against the mad king of Akragas.
“You have been sentenced to death for your actions.
My rule shall not be questioned,” Phalaris says with disgust.
He points to a large metallic creature resting on a platform.
“Throw him in the bull,” Phalaris signals to the guards.
“I want to watch the beast come alive with the screams of this traitor.”
This is the story of one of the most barbaric and painful torture devices ever created,
the brazen bull.
There are accounts from ancient Greece and Rome describing the brazen bull being used
to execute prisoners in one of the cruelest ways possible.
A victim would be thrown into the statue, the door secured behind them.
Then a fire would be lit under the bronze bull, increasing the temperature inside to
unbearable levels.
The person within its belly would literally be cooked alive.
The victims of the brazen bull were not only put through unbearable amounts of pain for
long periods of time but their death was sometimes turned into a spectacle for the amusement
of others.
Before we get into the brutal history of the brazen bull and where it came from, let’s
examine the terrible nature of the device.
How did it work?
What would it be like to be inside the belly of this bronze statue when a fire was lit
underneath?
In a word: excruciating.
You would literally be roasted to death while your screams escaped through tubes of the
metal beast making your pleas for help sound like the bellowings of a bull.
But if you really want to know what it’s like to be tortured to death in the belly
of a brass beast, then let’s follow one unlucky man along his hypothetical journey
into a brazen bull.
Alexander lives in ancient Akragas, a city in what would one day become Sicily.
He is a young philosopher who has just finished his studies with one of the greatest academics
in the Greek Empire.
Alexander celebrates with a group of scholars; they drink wine and sing songs about ancient
heroes and odysseys.
He leaves the party ready to begin his journey to educate the masses.
But first, he meets up with the love of his life for a romantic evening.
He met Lyra while watching a play at the local amphitheater.
She was beautiful, intelligent, and witty.
The moment Alexander spoke to Lyra, he fell in love.
From then on, they spent every free moment together, and in a few days, Alexander planned
on asking Lyra to marry him.
Unfortunately, destiny had other plans for this Greek philosopher.
The next day Alexander walks through the city streets, talking to anyone who will listen.
His teachings have centered around equality and representation for every class of citizen
in the governing of Akragas.
Unfortunately, the rule of Phalaris, the tyrant controlling the city, has been a brutal one.
People’s rights have been stripped away; free speech has been all but eliminated by
the evil ruler.
Alexander knows that if he can gather enough support from the citizens of the city, there
could be change.
Alexander stands atop a marble bench, looking out at the people gathering in front of him.
He sees starving farmers and poor merchants, both of which have lost practically everything
to the greed of Phalaris.
Alexander shouts that equality is key and that all men should be able to think freely
and pursue their dreams without being hindered by a tyrant.
As he speaks, a group of soldiers pushes through the crowd.
The citizens of Akragas flee as Alexander is pulled from the bench and thrown to the
ground.
The guards begin to kick the philosopher repeatedly as they shout for the crowd to disperse.
Alexander gasps for oxygen, but with every blow, the air is pushed out of his lungs.
He feels like he is going to suffocate to death, but then the beating stops.
The guards pull Alexander to his feet and drag him towards the palace.
Alexander’s blood seeps onto the ground, leaving a red trail in the dirt as he is dragged
down the path to the palace steps.
The guards carry him up to the top of the acropolis where Phalaris awaits.
“I have heard you’re teachings, young Alexander, and I must admit, I am displeased
with the lies you have been spreading,” Phalaris says with a wicked smile.
Alexander tries to speak, but one of the soldiers punches him in the stomach before any words
can come out.
He doubles over in pain and falls to his knees.
“There is only one thing to be done with traitors who try to overthrow my rule,”
Phalaris continues.
“Throw him in the brazen bull.”
Alexander’s eyes open wide.
He opens his mouth to scream as one of the soldiers punches him in the face.
There will be no mercy.
Alexander’s vision blurs as he feels himself being lifted off the ground and dragged towards
the bronze bull waiting on the edge of the Acropolis.
It looks over the city like an evil sentry guarding a stolen treasure.
Alexander desperately tries to claw his way away from the soldiers, but their grips are
as strong as crocodile jaws.
They approach the brazen bull; the sun gleams off of its polished metal casing.
The brazen bull was only recently invented for the mad tyrant Phalaris, and very few
people have been unlucky enough to be locked inside of it.
Alexander sees his reflection in the polished metal and can’t help but notice the look
of terror on his own face.
The soldiers pull him closer and closer to the bronze beast.
They are only inches away when one of the guards reaches down and opens a hatch on the
side of the metal bull.
The door swings open.
Alexander is about to be thrown inside when Phalaris gives the command to halt.
For a moment, Alexander thinks that he will be spared.
The cruel ruler walks up to Alexander and pulls a knife from his belt.
“Hold his mouth open,” the king hisses.
The soldiers tilt Alexander’s head back and force his jaws apart.
Phalaris reaches into his victim’s mouth and pulls out his tongue.
He uses his knife to cut it off.
Alexander chokes on the blood pouring from his mouth.
He tries to yell for help, but it feels like he is underwater.
He spits at Phalaris, covering him in blood.
It’s Alexander’s last act of defiance before being tortured by the malicious king.
Phalaris only smiles as Alexander’s blood drips down his face.
“Carry on,” he says.
The soldiers shove Alexander into the opening of the brazen bull and slam the door shut.
The first thing he notices is the smell of burnt flesh.
Although the brazen bull has only claimed a few victims, the stench of cooked skin is
unbearable.
Alexander is now trapped within the rancid underbelly of the bull.
The door closes behind him, silencing his screams.
As he inhales to let out another shout, the putrid smell of burnt flesh fills his nostrils.
He throws up all over the inside of the torture chamber.
It’s pitch black inside besides the little bit of light coming in through the cracks
where the door had swung shut.
Alexander preys to every god he can think of, begging for mercy.
All he was trying to do was make the city a better place; now, the evil tyrant that
has caused so much pain for its citizens has condemned him to the worst death imaginable.
From the outside of the metal bull, Alexander can hear the muffled voices of the soldiers
talking to Phalaris.
The ruler of Akragas taps on the side of the metal bull and puts his face against its warm
exterior.
“You will not die fast, and you will not die well, young philosopher.
Take the time while you are being cooked alive to think about all of the mistakes you’ve
made by speaking out against me.”
Phalaris steps away from the brazen bull.
“Burn him,” he says to his soldiers.
They begin piling dried sticks and logs underneath the bronze bull.
The sounds of Alexander pounding from the inside are little more than dull thuds.
Then he hears a sound that signals the beginning of the end of his life.
The crackling of the wood as it catches fire echos through the chamber.
He weeps as thoughts of his beloved Lyra race through his head.
He left her that very morning with the intention of asking her to be his wife later that day
under their favorite fig tree.
Now she will be left wondering what happened to him as his body burns to dust.
The heat inside of the brazen bull begins to rise.
At first, it’s just the bottom of the chamber that heats up.
Alexander lifts his hands and knees off of the metal, alternating between each side of
his body.
Every time his skin touches the metal, it sizzles.
The temperature inside of the brazen bull rises higher and higher.
Phalaris has gathered his closest advisors and friends to watch the spectacle that will
occur as Alexander is roasted alive inside of the brazen bull.
Perilaus of Athens only just invented this new torture device, so most have yet to see
it in action.
It was a gift from the now deceased sculpture to the mad king.
Phalaris himself has witnessed what the brazen bull can do and heard the sounds that a screaming
victim from within will make, but he wants to show it off to others in his circle, just
to be sure that they don’t get any ideas of double-crossing him.
Alexander can barely tolerate the heat anymore.
The fire rages underneath the brazen bull.
He can no longer touch any of the sides of the bronze statue without being burnt.
He begins to rock back and forth as he howls in agony.
The entire bronze statue shifts slightly as Alexander throws his weight against the sides
of the bull.
His shrieks escape through the series of tubes contained within the statue.
His voice is distorted to sound like the snorting and grunting of a real bull.
Phalaris claps his hands in glee as smoke begins pouring out of the nostrils of the
brazen bull.
Before the smoke is released from the statue, it passes through chambers filled with incense
to counteract the stench of burning flesh.
Alexander wails as he is cooked alive.
It could be hours until the heat inside of the statue kills him.
As time passes, he can no longer move.
The nerve endings in his skin have all been destroyed.
His flesh bubbles with third-degree burns.
All Alexander can think about is his beloved Lyra.
Would she still love him if she saw him like this?
Skin and muscle begins to fall off his bones as it is now completely cooked.
Alexander lays in the belly of the brazen bull, praying for death when the gods finally
answer his pleadings.
After much too long, he succumbs to the burns and leaves the mortal realm to join his ancestors
in whatever existence comes after this one.
After several more hours, the door to the brazen bull is pulled open.
The soldiers sweep out the charred remains of the young philosopher and separate the
bones from whatever else remains.
Phalaris sorts through Alexander’s bones, looking for just the right ones.
He pulls them out, careful not to burn his fingers, and fastens them together with a
piece of string.
He ties the bones to his wrist and smiles at his new piece of jewelry.
This horrifying story is what victims of a brazen bull would have to go through before
the torture device killed them.
Anyone who was thrown into this torture device did not have a happy ending to their life.
This was even true for the man who was said to have created the brazen bull.
What we know about the brazen bull of ancient times comes mostly from the writings of Greek
historians.
Diodorus Siculus mentioned it in his Bibliotheca Historica, which tells us that Perilaus of
Athens invented the brazen bull for Phalaris as a way to execute criminals.
The Bibliotheca Historica was completed sometime around 36 B.C.E., which was several hundred
years after Phalaris and Perilaus lived.
As the story goes, Phalaris the tyrant, was amazed and loved the concept of the brazen
bull, but he had doubts about if it would actually work.
Being the awful guy that he was, he asked Peilaus to climb inside and shout into the
tubes so that he could hear what the contraption would sound like when a victim was inside.
When Perilaus climbed into the brazen bull, Phalaris slammed the door shut behind him.
He did not just want a mock demonstration; he wanted the real thing.
He ordered his men to build a fire underneath the brazen bull while its inventor was inside.
The flames rose, and with them, the temperature inside of the bronze bull did as well.
Perilaus began to scream at the top of his lungs; he was being cooked alive in the very
bronze bull that he had created.
Here he was, a great sculptor that had made a magnificent contraption for his king, and
now he was going to die.
The sculpture slammed his body against the sides of the torture device.
The bull rocked back and forth, giving it the illusion of being alive.
When Perilaus screamed, the tubes within the bull turned his human shrieks into the sounds
of a bull.
Phalaris was impressed.
He loved his new execution device.
Before Perilaus died from being cooked alive, Phalaris opened the hatch to the brazen bull
and pulled him out.
He praised Perilaus on what a good job he had done as the inventor lay on the ground
in agony, smoke rising from the melting skin on his body.
It’s not entirely clear what happened next, but some accounts state that rather than letting
the brazen bull kill Perilaus, Phalaris brought him to the top of a nearby hill and threw
him off of it.
This seems like an odd choice as if Phalaris wanted to kill the sculpture, all he had to
do was leave him in the brazen bull, but as you can probably tell, Phalaris was a monster
and may have had no rational reason for his actions.
Regardless of how the brazen bull actually came about or if Phalaris really did kill
its inventor, the fact remains that the torture device creates one of the most painful experiences
anyone can go through.
Being slowly cooked alive comes with all kinds of nasty consequences.
Even without the fact that you are stuck all alone in a dark chamber while people outside
laugh with glee as your screams are turned into the sounds of a bull, this device would
be a terrible way to go.
The anticipation of what was to come would instantly send the body into a panic.
It would become hard to breathe, not because there wasn’t enough oxygen in the brazen
bull but because the victim would become hysterical.
Once the fire was lit, it would only take a few moments for the bottom of the bull to
become too hot to touch.
But since there would be nowhere for the victim to go, they would immediately begin burning
whatever part of the body was in contact with the metal statue.
The inside of the brass bull likely reached somewhere around 600 degrees Fahrenheit, which
wouldn’t be hot enough to cause someone to burst into flames, but would certainly
be hot enough to cook them alive.
Like any type of meat that is cooked in an oven, the muscles and cells begin to denature,
and the body releases liquid.
If cooked for long enough at a lower temperature, someone's muscles could literally slide off
their bones.
This is why the brazen bull was such a terrible torture method.
The victim could remain alive for hours if the fire was controlled.
They would be in agony the entire time until their body finally couldn’t take anymore,
and they died from extreme dehydration or organ failure.
It would be the severe burns and the blistering of the skin and muscles that would cause the
most painful part of the brazen bull experience.
Over time the brazen bull came to be known by other names such as the bronze bull, Sicilian
bull, or bull of Phalaris.
After it fell out of favor with the Greeks, the brazen bull was said to be used by the
Romans.
This was during the turn of the century when Christianity was spreading throughout Europe
and the Middle East.
The Romans threw Christian dissidents into the brazen bull and cooked them alive to make
an example of them and show what happened to Christians in a Roman Empire.
Both Saint Antipas, who can be invoked to help ease the pain of toothaches, and Saint
Eustace, who was a pagan Roman general that converted to Christianity, were executed via
brazen bull.
Saint Eustace had a family he was forced to separate from for several years as he hid
from the Roman authorities who were after him.
He eventually returned home only to be captured and cooked alive inside of a brazen bull.
The worst part was that the Romans also put Eustace’s family in the belly of the bull
with him, and they were all roasted together.
Ironically, when we go back and look at the writings of ancient Greek historians, there
are some stories that state Phalaris himself was roasted alive inside one of his own brazen
bulls.
Perhaps the people of the city of Akragas had become so fed up with their tyrant ruler
that they revolted, removed him from power, and threw him into one of these torture devices.
This would have been a fitting end for an evil tyrant who had been so eager to use the
brazen bull on others.
Now watch “Evil Punishments Designed to be Worse Than Death.”
Or check out “The Sea Water Torture - Nazi Camp Experiments.”