Phalaris

was a famous tyrant of Agrigentum, in Sicily, who having made himself master of that city about 571A.C. exercised the most unheard of cruelties, and caused a brazen bull to be formed, in which those whom he condemned were to be burnt alive. When Perillus, the author of the cruel invention, demanded his reward, Phalaris ordered him to be the first person put to death in the machine. The people of Agrigentum at length rose, and burnt Phalaris himself in it, 563 A. C. We have some letters to this tyrant under the name of Abaris, with the answers, which occasioned the memorable controversy between Bentley and Boyle, to whose articles we refer for the particulars of it. These letters were printed at the Sorbonne about 1470, 4to; at Trevisa, 1471, 4to; and Oxford, 1718, 8vo; and the controversy itself has been translated at large into Latin, and republished, with the epistles by Lennep, 1777, 4to. ²