Overview
- Mirror, Daily Star and Daily Record published fresh Dec. 25 pieces that repackage long-circulating accounts of the brazen bull without presenting new evidence.
- The articles describe a hollow bronze sculpture heated by a fire below, with head ducts that purportedly altered cries to resemble a bull’s roar, and claim victims could remain conscious for up to 10 minutes.
- They repeat the legend that an Athenian craftsman, Perilaus, created the device around 6 BC for the Sicilian tyrant Phalaris, who allegedly tested it on its maker.
- The retellings include stories that Phalaris later used the bull on enemies and was eventually executed in it himself after being overthrown in 554 BC.
- Christian traditions cited in the coverage attribute brazen bull martyrdoms to Saint Eustace under Hadrian, Saint Antipas under Domitian in 92 CE, and Pelagia of Tarsus under Diocletian in 287 CE, while historians question how often the device was genuinely used.