THE BRAZEN BULL

Otherwise called the Sicilian Bull, it was composed in antiquated Greece. A strong bit of metal was cast with an entryway as an afterthought that could be opened and hooked. The casualty would be set inside the bull and a flame set underneath it until the metal turned out to be truly yellow as it was warmed. The casualty would then be gradually cooked to death all while shouting in horrifying torment. The bull was intentionally intended to open up these shouts and make them sound like the howling of a bull.The brazen bull, bronze bull, or Sicilian bull, was a torture and execution device designed in ancient Greece. According to Diodorus Siculus, recounting the story in Bibliotheca historica, Perillos of Athens invented and proposed it to Phalaris, the tyrant of Akragas, Sicily, as a new means of executing criminals. The bull was made entirely of bronze, hollow, with a door in one side. The bull was in the form and size of an actual bull and had an acoustic apparatus that converted screams into the sound of a bull. The condemned were locked in the device, and a fire was set under it, heating the metal until the person inside roasted to death.Phalaris commanded that the bull be designed in such a way that its smoke rose in spicy clouds of incense.[citation needed] The head of the bull was designed with a complex system of tubes and stops so that the prisoner's screams were converted into sounds like the bellowing of an infuriated bull. According to legend, when the bull was reopened, the victim's scorched bones "shone like jewels and were made into bracelets.