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Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Brazen Bull Benefiting from Bowdlerization

From Wikipedia, on the subject of the Brazen Bull, a certain instrument of torture, but made more accessible by me with the addition of God-blessed ellipses and bracketed insertions:
An execution device designed in ancient Greece. Perillos of Athens, a brass-founder, proposed… the invention of a new means for executing criminals; accordingly, he cast a bull, made entirely of brass, hollow, with a door in the side. The condemned were shut in the bull and a fire was set under it, heating the metal until it became “yellow hot” and causing the person inside to roast to death. [Furthermore] the bull [was] designed in such a way that its smoke rose in spicy clouds of incense [and so that] tubes and stops [converted] the prisoner's screams [into] sounds like the bellowing of an infuriated bull.
An illustration, if even my truncated explanation of the monstrosity wasn’t enough:


Read the above link if you like, but believe me that I provided the best bits here. Thank the ellipses and brackets.

Awful things, elsewhere:

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