Discover the “Brazen Bull,” the Ancient Greek Torture Machine That Doubled as a Musical Instrument

His­to­ry is replete with bru­tal­ly imag­i­na­tive tor­ture and exe­cu­tion tech­niques. The list of cru­el­ties includes cru­ci­fix­ion, where vic­tims were left to die on the cross; the rack, where tor­tur­ers would place the vic­tim on a wood­en frame to be slow­ly pulled apart; and hang­ing, draw­ing, and quartering—the offi­cial Eng­lish pun­ish­ment for high trea­son from 1351 to 1870—where men would be drawn by horse to their place of exe­cu­tion, hung until near-death, and then emas­cu­lat­ed and dis­em­bow­eled before being decap­i­tat­ed and cut into quar­ters. The most intri­cate­ly sadis­tic form of tor­ture, how­ev­er, orig­i­nat­ed with the Greek tyrant Phalaris.

Phalaris, the despot of Acra­gas (now Agri­gen­to, in Sici­ly), was infa­mous for his cal­lous­ness and reput­ed­ly “devoured” suck­ling infants. The video above describes how Phalaris, keep­ing to his char­ac­ter, asked the crafts­man Per­i­laus to con­struct a bronze bull for the exe­cu­tion of crim­i­nals. The bull housed a hol­low cham­ber where vic­tims were deposit­ed through a trap­door. A fire was kin­dled beneath the bull, turn­ing the stat­ue into an oven.

As Phalaris sup­pos­ed­ly admit­ted him­self, the most sav­age aspect of this brazen mon­stros­i­ty was its musi­cal nature:

A coun­try­man of my own, one Per­i­laus, an admirable artist, but a man of evil dis­po­si­tion, had so far mis­tak­en my char­ac­ter as to think that he could win my regard by the inven­tion of a new form of tor­ture; the love of tor­ture, he thought, was my rul­ing pas­sion… He opened the back of the ani­mal, and con­tin­ued: “When you are mind­ed to pun­ish any one, shut him up in this recep­ta­cle, apply these pipes to the nos­trils of the bull, and order a fire to be kin­dled beneath. The occu­pant will shriek and roar in unremit­ting agony; and his cries will come to you through the pipes as the ten­der­est, most pathet­ic, most melo­di­ous of bel­low­ings. Your vic­tim will be pun­ished, and you will enjoy the music.”

It is doubt­ful that the tyrant so known for his bar­barism would cringe at this nov­el­ty; nev­er­the­less, Phalaris claims to have been sick­ened by Per­i­laus’ clev­er­ness:

‘His words revolt­ed me. I loathed the thought of such inge­nious cru­el­ty, and resolved to pun­ish the arti­fi­cer in kind. “If this is any­thing more than an emp­ty boast, Per­i­laus,” I said to him, “if your art can real­ly pro­duce this effect, get inside your­self, and pre­tend to roar; and we will see whether the pipes will make such music as you describe.” He con­sent­ed; and when he was inside I closed the aper­ture, and ordered a fire to be kin­dled. “Receive,” I cried, “the due reward of your won­drous art: let the music-mas­ter be the first to play.”

Upon hear­ing Per­i­laus’ shrieks, the con­tent tyrant removed the crafts­man from bull, and then threw him off of a cliff. “Mis­tak­en my char­ac­ter,” indeed.

Ilia Blin­d­er­man is a Mon­tre­al-based cul­ture and sci­ence writer. Fol­low him at @iliablinderman.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ancient Greek Pun­ish­ments: The Retro Video Game

What Ancient Greek Music Sound­ed Like: Hear a Recon­struc­tion That is ‘100% Accu­rate’

Hear Homer’s Ili­ad Read in the Orig­i­nal Ancient Greek

The His­to­ry of West­ern Archi­tec­ture: From Ancient Greece to Roco­co (A Free Online Course)