THE MOST BRUTAL EXECUTION METHODS FROM THE ANCIENT WORLD....

 


As the old saying goes, there is more than one way to skin a cat. What about skinning a human? It turns out that in the ancient world there were quite a few ways to execute condemned men and women (skinning being one of them). Here we look at 8 of the most macabre methods for dispatching people in antiquity.

Arguably the most famous figure of Ancient Greece is the Athenian Socrates (470-399 BC), executed in old age by being commanded to drink hemlock.

 This method of indirect execution was typical of the capital punishment dished out to Athenian citizens. They could be banished into a wilderness to die of exposure or thrown into a chasm to die of their injuries. (Although slaves tended to be beaten to death with clubs).

One Greek ruler is alleged to have used something far more sinister, however. In the sixth century BC, Phalaris, the tyrant of Akragas in Sicily, was presented with a device made by the Attic sculptor Perillos. This was known as ‘the brazen bull’. Made entirely of bronze and the size of a real bull, the condemned was placed inside the hollow bull via a small door at the back. A great fire would be lit underneath, and the unfortunate fellow inside would be slowly roasted alive. The brazen bull had a system of pipes inside which converted the screams of the burning victim into ‘mooing’ from the bull’s mouth.

Even the notoriously cruel tyrant Phalaris was shocked by the device and thought it appropriate to test the bull by throwing its inventor inside.

Phalaris also allegedly met his own end in the bronze barbie.


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