Torture methods have existed since the beginning of time. We hear about things like the Iron Chair or The Rack in popular culture – some have even heard of the Judas Cradle. But the Brazen Bull takes torture to a whole new level.
The Brazen Bull, also known as the Bull of Phalaris, is believed to have been designed around 560 BC in ancient Greece as a new means of executing criminals. The Brazen Bull was in the form and size of an actual bull, made entirely of bronze. The designer, Perilaus, was the court sculptor to Phalaris, the tyrant of Akragas.
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.
The bull, solid, had a door one one side, where the condemned would enter. Once inside, the door would be locked and a fire lit below it. The bronze would heat, and not only burn the victim, but also roast them to death.
According to Diodorus Siculus, recounting the story in Bibliotheca historica, when Perilaus presented it to Phalaris saying, “His screams will come to you through the pipes as the tenderest, most pathetic, most melodious of bellowings.”
He was asked to demonstrate his meaning. Thinking he would be rewarded he climbed in, but was caught off guard when Phalaris shut the door and lit the fire.
Before Perilaus could die, it is said that Phalaris opened the door and took him away. He took him to the top of a hill, which he then threw him off of, killing him.
Some stories claim that when he was overthrown by Telemachus, the ancestor of Theron, he was himself, killed inside the Brazen Bull.
Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and Academic skeptic. He recalled the bull as fact, and as proof of a cruel ruler’s viciousness in his series of speeches In Verrum. “… which was that noble bull, which that most cruel of all tyrants, Phalaris, is said to have had, into which he was accustomed to put men for punishment, and to put fire under.”
Cicero is known to use the symbol of the Brazen Bull to represent Phalaris’ cruelty, and used his speech to paint Phalaris as a villain.
Some stories profess that once the fire had burned out, and the bull had cooled, the door would be unlocked and opened to reveal the charred body of the condemned. The victim’s bones “shone like jewels and were made into bracelets.”
While there is speculation as to whether the device ever actually existed, the Romans have claimed to have used it to kill some Christians, notably Saint Eustace, who was roasted in the bull along with his wife and children by Emperor Hadrian.
The Catholic Church discounts the story of Saint Eustace’s martyrdom as “completely false.”
The same is said of Saint Antipas, Bishop of Pergamon during the persecutions of Emperor Domitian, roasted to death in 92 AD
Two hundred years later, in 287 AD, it is said that Pelagia of Tarsus, another Christian, was burned by the Emperor Diocletian.
Yet another 200 years later, according to the Chronica caesaraugustana, Burdunellus, a Roman usurper, was roasted by King Alaric II in 497 AD.
You can find the Brazen Bull in popular culture, in books, movies, and even video games. In the movie, Saw 3D, the bull is used to kill the wife of the protagonist, who is revealed to have made money from books and interviews in which he lied about surviving one of Jigsaw’s traps.
In the video game, Assassin’s Creed: Origins, you will find the bull referred to as a torture tool in use in Ancient Egypt. In the following game, Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, the bull can be seen in a cave. Then, in Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, the bull is briefly referred to as a “bronze bull.”
What do you think? Was the Brazen Bull a real torture device, or something made up to make history that much darker?