Phalʹaris

The brazen bull of Phalʹaris. Perillos, a brass-founder of Athens, proposed to Phalʹaris, Tyrant of Agrigentum, to invent for him a new species of punishment; accordingly, he cast a brazen bull, with a door in the side. The victim was shut up in the bull and roasted to death, but the throat of the engine was so contrived that the groans of the sufferer resembled the bellowings of a mad bull. Phalʹaris commended the invention, and ordered its merits to be tested by Perillos himself.

The epistles of Phalʹaris. Certain letters said to have been written by Phalʹaris, Tyrant of Agrigenʹtum, in Sicily. Boyle maintained them to be genuine, Bentley affirmed that they were forgeries. No doubt Bentley is right.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

Phalʹaris

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