person
Phalaris
also: bull of Phalaris
Phalaris, tyrant of Acragas (Agrigentum) c. 570-554 BC, the standing Greek paradigm of unbridled cruelty, famous for the bronze bull in which his victims were roasted alive. Cicero invokes him as the type of the cruel tyrant at Verr. 2.4.73 (where Scipio Aemilianus restored the bull to the Acragantines) and Verr. 2.5.145.
Reading notes
- On the Ends of Good and Evil §5.85 in the bull of Phalaris
Phalaris, tyrant of Acragas, roasted his victims alive in a hollow bronze bull. The 'bull of Phalaris' is the standard ancient image of extreme physical torment, used to test the Stoic claim about happiness.
- Against Verres, Second Hearing, Book IV §73 bull of Phalaris
The bronze bull of Phalaris, tyrant of Acragas in the 6th century BC, in which men were roasted alive (their cries imitating a bull's bellowing); carried off by Carthage and restored by Scipio Aemilianus to the Agrigentines after 146 BC. Cicero records Scipio's mot: a fitting monument of both their old cruelty and Roman gentleness.