#intellectualpursuits

[wa-omeoew]

[evans101]

Brilliant evening at the Dunedin Chinese Garden Scholar’s Talk and Book Launch as part of the Ten Year Celebrations. Very informed and interactive audience asking questions and sharing historical information. A very Dunedin event! #lovewhereyoulive #dunedinchinesegarden #tenyearanniversary #dcg10years #intellectualpursuits #educatedaudiences #dunnerstunner #naefilter A beautiful evening, but my, that wind is chilly . . . (at The Dunedin Chinese Garden) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bnao9hpDrVG/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=scyi760y3qwu

[eveningsongcommonplace-blog-blog]

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

Aristotle, Metaphysics

[professorcromwell]

"Short lecture on the Brazen Bull otherwise known as the Sicilian or the Bronze bull"

“This particular device is said to have been invented in Ancient Greece by a metal-worker named Perillos of Athens under the rule of Phalaris, the tyrant of Agrigentum, Sicily with a reputation for immense cruelty. The device was merely a large and hollow bronze piece shaped in the likeness of a bull with one door for loading. The victim would be placed inside the hollowed out area and a fire would be lit underneath of the bull, roasting the victim alive. There are some stories that claimed that the inside of one such bull was more complex, containing a series of tubes that caused the victim's pained cries to sound like the low bellow of an angered bull. Some accounts say that when explaining this tubed system, Perillos had boasted that the screams of the victims would “come to you through the pipes as the tenderest, most pathetic, most melodious of bellowings." Phalaris, filled with disdain for such a crude description, ordered that Perillos be the first to try out the system, forcing him inside and roasting him only long enough to be satisfied with the claim before removing him from the bull, only to later throw him off a hill-top. Legends say that Phalaris received his karmic retribution as it is said that Telemachus, the man that overthrew his reign, had him executed by means of the Bull.

The existence of this device was collaborated by the theft of one such bull by the Carthaginians led by Scipio the Elder in 200 BC. Later, after the annihilation of Carthage, Scipio the Younger returned the Bull along with other lifted artifacts to the various Sicilian cities in 146 BC.

Most notable among the other victims of the bull would be Saint Eustace and later Saint Atipas in 92 AD. Although the Catholic church deemed the martyrdom of Saint Eustace to be “completely fabulous”, discounting this method as the true execution method used. The last recorded victim was Burdunellus, executed for being a Roman usurper in 497 AD by king Alfric II.”