The man who designed one of history’s "most painful" torture devices ended up becoming its very first victim in one of humanities most twisted tales of irony.
History is full of horrific methods of punishment, but few are as terrifying or as twisted as the Brazen Bull.
The gruesome torture device, which had other names such as the Bronze Bull or the Bull of Phalaris, originated in ancient Greece around 600–560 BCE and was created by a man named Perilaus of Athens.
According to All That's Interesting, he pitched the invention to Phalaris, the tyrant ruler of the Sicilian colony of Akragas (modern-day Agrigento), as a form of execution that was both punishing and theatrical.
Crafted entirely out of bronze, the bull was hollow and big enough to fit a person inside. Once sealed, a fire would be lit beneath the statue, causing the metal to heat and roast the prisoner alive.
But the most disturbing feature of the Brazen Bull was its design: the inside had a system of tubes that converted the victim’s agonized screams into the eerie sound of a bull's roar.
According to the historian Diodorus Siculus, Perilaus proudly demonstrated the sound system to Phalaris by climbing into the bull, but the tyrant, repulsed by the idea, ordered the device to be tested on its own creator.
“If you ever wish to punish some man, O Phalaris,” Perilaus reportedly said, “shut him up within the bull and lay a fire beneath it; by his groanings the bull will be thought to bellow and his cries of pain will give you pleasure as they come through the pipes in the nostrils.”
Some accounts claim Phalaris lit the fire while Perilaus was still inside and had him removed just before death, only to execute him more traditionally by throwing him off a hill.
Others say he was burned alive, meeting the same cruel fate intended for the tyrant’s enemies.
Cicero, the Roman philosopher and politician, later cited the bull as evidence of Phalaris’ unmatched cruelty: "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.”
The device has allegedly been referenced in several ancient texts, including those by Pindar and Lucretius, and Cicero used it as a metaphor for tyranny in his political speeches.
Despite these mentions, modern historians continue to debate whether the Brazen Bull ever truly existed. There’s no archaeological evidence to support the bull’s existence, and it hasn’t appeared in known ancient art.
Still, the story has all the hallmarks of classical myth: poetic justice, irony, and the horrifying consequences of unchecked cruelty.
As grim as it is, the narrative ends with a dark sense of balance - according to some versions, the people of Akragas eventually rose up against Phalaris and executed him in the very Brazen Bull he used to torment others.