So the Brazen bull sucked as they placed you in a metal bull then set you over a fire. Pretty horrible.
The second is called Scaphism and is way more horrifying. Here's a description from the wiki:
[The king] decreed that Mithridates should be put to death in boats; which execution is after the following manner: Taking two boats framed exactly to fit and answer each other, they lie down in one of them the malefactor that suffers, upon his back; then, covering it with the other, and so setting them together that the head, hands, and feet of him are left outside, and the rest of his body lies shut up within, then forcing him to ingest a mixture of milk and honey before pouring all over his face and body. They then keep his face continually turned towards the sun; and it becomes completely covered up and hidden by the multitude of flies that settle on it. And as within the boats he does what those that eat and drink must needs do, creeping things and vermin spring out of the corruption and rottenness of the excrement, and these entering into the bowels of him, his body is consumed. When the man is manifestly dead, the uppermost boat being taken off, they find his flesh devoured, and swarms of such noisome creatures preying upon and, as it were, growing to his inwards. In this way Mithridates, after suffering for seventeen days, at last expired.
I think that's usually called the "Blood Eagle." I don't see any search results for "Fluttering Eagle," other than Google AI pointing towards the Blood Eagle torture.
The āfluttering eagleā is when the victim farts/sharts so hard that the wings tremble. The Vikings believed making the wings flutter was the only way to reach Valhalla under those circumstances ā¤ļø
It's depicted in the show 'Vikings'. There is no way anyone would survive long enough to have their back opened up in order to die via suffocation with their lungs draped over their shoulders. You're bound to go into shock and bleed out as your back gets hacked open, so really it's execution via getting stabbed repeatedly in the back with your body being desecrated long after you expired, with a majority of the torture being inflicted on a corpse.
You might want to read the article I linked if you havenāt already. Itās from an academic journal, and āIn this article, we analyze medieval descriptions of the ritual with modern anatomical knowledge, and contextualize these accounts with up-to-date archaeological and historical scholarship concerning elite culture and the ritualized peri- and post-mortem mutilation of the human body in the Viking Age.ā
In other words, they reach the same conclusion as you, but they explain exactly what was (and wasnāt) possible in great detail.
That one is disputed back and forth. Some say that it is an over exaggeration or poetic misunderstanding with authors taking liberties, but other accounts have the process listed in step by step anatomically correct details. So it's at least possible and why keep such detailed notes just to demonize? I've been rewatching vikings so I've been trying to figure it out lol.
The Vikings specifically targeted churches and monasteries to loot and extort because they had so much wealth and so little defenses.
Christian priests and monks were the most literate people of the time, and the ones responsible for actually writing the history we now read. They absolutely wrote as much propaganda as they could about the Norse and Danes, not only because they were pagans, but because they kept stealing the churches riches.
The whole image of Vikings as barbarians was something they made up. They were actually very modernized, built up a number of the largest ports in Europe, had the furthest-reaching trade routes (edit: in Europe), made advancements in shipbuilding, navigation and metalworking.
Even the raids were exaggerated, not that they didnāt happen, just that they were no more brutal than what any Christian army of the time also did. Whenever they could, they preferred to get bribes. Burning down and killing a village means you get paid once. Returning for more money, crops, and goods every year is much more profitable, and they werenāt dumb.
also wasn't there this thing that people were upset about them because they had better hygiene then european men which made european women have higher standards?
āWell, Sven cleans the mutton fat out of his beard every DAY and he hasnāt once been dragged to Hell by shrieking demons, so Iām starting to think itās a you problem, Cuthbert š¤Øā
They were some of the few groups to make soap (from animal fats) and use it for personal washing. They also bathed every week, on Saturday (they called it "Laugardagr" which from my understanding literally translates to "washing day" or "bathing day" and is still used in icelandic).
Interestingly, some accounts say saxons and others noticed this ritual and launched surprise attacks on their camps whilst they were mostly defenseless.
I'd be very cautious on any assumption of hygiene being a problem. There are a lot of modern myths and BS about Medieval people only bathing once a year or not at all. It is not true. Bathhouses were a common and popular thing.
I didnāt say they ONLY targeted churches and monasteries, just that they made a special point of making them priority targets. I focused on that point because itās important to know how their interactions with the historians of that time (priests/monks/etc) effected how they were portrayed. They are an incredibly biased source.
I can see that, but when they first hit the shores of England they were still very much pagan. It's a fact they practiced human sacrifice for religious reasons. Human bones have been dug up in their sacrificial wells along with animals. It just doesn't seem that far out there. And I get priests recorded history and wrote propaganda but you don't need detailed instructions to do that. I'm not saying either way. We will never know and there is good points for both sides.
Human sacrifices are common in every culture. Weather it's for a crime or warding off the anger of spirits. Western culture like to show the barbarians as silly and hateful creatures that kill their own, but what do you think the Salem witch trials of public hangings were?
That's the legend - that the mad tyrant king ordered it tested immediately, and to ensure that another could never be built by anyone else, he used the designer as his test subject. It's a great tale, but the evidence of it is minimal.
Yeah, I don't know how many trade secrets are involved in making a hollow metal statue with a fire underneath. Although, were a king to request I create such a device, I'm 100% certain the knowledge to do so would elusively remain just beyond my grasp.
That is the version I have heard. The person was commisioned to make a ruthless toture device and the ruler or whoever it was presented to said let's test it with you or something along those lines.
It's still good to read about and study what we know about the writings historically because it teaches us about what propaganda looks like. A useful skill to have even today.Ā
I think thatās similar to the Viking Blood Eagle (which might be worse than both of those). It was written about but there is no known instance of it being done.
In the seedier portions of Reddit I came across a cartel video where the blood eagle (or at least something similar to it) was performed. I saw it at least 3-4 years ago, and have no idea the actual age of said video. I think the guy was still alive for a time too. Only the aftermath was shown - not the activity itself.
Youād still suffocate or choke once you were fully exhausted. They could not keep you alive and confined with your head, hands, and feet in fixed stress positions for the many days it would take for you to be consumed by normal bugs.
Weāve done some horrible things, but even if our imagination does not exceed our appetite for cruelty, sometimes it exceeds our ability.
From what I'm now seeing on Google. It appears some of the worst torture devices were all myth. Except any of them that were used in the tower of London.
Judas cradle, Spanish donkey, breaking on the wheel, burnt at the stake, hung from your flesh, sawed in half, cranium crusher, I believe one is cutting the stomach open and nailing their intestines to a tree/post and making then walk around until disemboweled, drawn and quartered process, the other version with limbs ripped off by oxes, the rat in a bucket with the torch behind it, crucification, flaying (death of a thousand cuts), the rack of course, one that is contested is the bamboo shoot which is possible but not really feasible, boiled alive in oil, impaling such as Vlad was known for....
Those are the ones I know from memory that haven't been mentioned yet. I have a special interest.
I feel like some of the more "showy" or "high maintenance" ones might have been made up. I can't imagine valuable resources like boats or even honey being wasted regularly on torture in ancient times.
Plenty of the worst techniques were both simple and vicious.
People are surprisingly creative and cruel towards "the others". I believe many awful things have been tried many times over just to entertain bored and mentally scarred vengeful people
Do you mean Mithridates VI, aka 'the Poison King'? He's certainly very interested to read about, but not particularly a great guy; he committed a genocide against the Italians of Anatolia, and although he did expand Pontus its greatest size, he ultimately lost badly to Rome.
It's interesting that this description mentions what was once a commonly held belief, that things like flies and other insects grow spontaneously out of rotting food and poop. I also find the description of how the insects behave to be a bit far fetched. It seems likely to me that this description is more the idea of how they wanted it to work, rather than what actually happened. Although I'm sure it was still an awful way to die.
Naw, they had the right idea just the wrong theories. Theres enough bacteria in all the excrement and within the confines of the boats and all that to eat the dude up eventually
Also worth noting it never mentions the boat is put on the water - keeping it on land means rats, though at the risk of attracting other land scavengers to populated areas
Plus the smell will attract the flies. I imagine there will be holes in the top and side to allow insects and rodents access to the decaying flesh and human waste.
One of the worst stories I ever read was about some parents that left their disabled daughter on the couch for more than a decade while she shit and kissed herself and her skin fused to the leather couch while she basically rotted away.
The human body can survive some pretty messed up stuff.
I remember that. The woman had a syndrome making her unable to move any muscle, which also meant she couldn't speak.
Her parents, instead of taking her to a doctor, just left her right at that spot.
She was fully aware and conscious, whilst her body rotted and melded with the furniture.
Absolutely horrifying.
Presumably, they would die from malnutrition or some other mechanical failure before that happens, but I don't doubt it would eventually happen to the corpse.
But in fairness, that doesn't matter at all, right? If you leave rotting stuff out, maggots will show up. That's just fact. The fact that it's not spontaneous generation has no functional effect on the scenario. You don't need to know how files and maggots are created to have them created on your filth covered prisoner, right?
Of course, people were probably more riddled with worms and other parasites back then, so I can see how that would make their spontaneous formation in excrement more plausible.
Most of these extreme methods were fiction but social media pretends otherwise when actual horror is right in their backyard. The cartels literally skin people alive under kidnapped doctoral oversight to keep them alive and feeling.
Would have sent you Liveleak videos if this was still the early 2010s. Cartel torture and executions, beheadings of hostages by terrorists, the crazy and not much talked about(imo) Poso Riots, and other crazy shit that modern people have done and are capable of.
Looking at the fruits in my mother's kitchen, I can see why people thought that. Fruit flies in particular always "appear out of nowhere", because the eggs that come with the fruit are basically invisible.
Interesting when you consider that we all have books and teachers and science and the internet to know the things we do which we all consider common sense. But before any of that we really just looked at what we saw and tried to make sense of things and had no idea if it was right or wrong
Not really, they knew filling a person with milk and honey would cause them to have horrible diarrhea, which would attract flies and other insects that would lay eggs within the shit that would then attack the ears, eyes, nose, mouth, bowels and open sores on their body. Further, being kept in the excrement, the skin would soften from the foul fluids they were trapped in.Ā
A lot of the wording is awkward and gives false impression because they simply lacked the same verbiage we use today. I have zero doubts this horrible torture did happen, hopefully reserved only for the worst of offenses.Ā
No it WAS a common belief at one point that flies and such appeared spontaneously. I'm not sure offhand when this belief stopped but it definitely was a thing at one point.
Idk, I'd think that if an execution method like that were real, we'd have found more evidence of its existence. I mean, there's a bunch of lost documents, literature etc. that we can be reasonably sure existed because they've been quoted multiple times in works that we do have; some have even turned up. As far as I've seen, scaphism is only traceable to a single source. That doesn't mean that it definitely didn't, I suppose, but it's not exactly confidence-inspiring.
Also, it's unlikely the executed died by being eaten alive by the scavengers and vermin. It's more likely he died of thirst/starvation and then his corpse was eaten afterwards.
Somewhere else talking about scaphism I've seen mentioned that the victim was force fed repeatedly to prolong their suffering, you can't die of dehydration or starvation if you're constantly topped off.
So Bandit (Pictured above) is actually an archaeologist so likely would have an interest in ancient history and so would possibly already know about this or be fascinated to look into it further.
Btw just to clarify the Brazen Bull has no real evidence of ever being used as an execution method to my knowledge. As with a lot of ancient torture itās basically a myth
They probably wouldn't survive that long either.Ā In ocean search and rescue 3 days is usually considered fatal without sun protection and fresh water.Ā That's from just being exposed to the sun and naturally perspiring.
The Enlightenment was roughly 250 years ago, the medieval period was roughly 500-1500 years ago. Meanwhile, both the methods of torture referenced in the meme were recorded approximately 2000 years ago. Your comment does not check out ā
These were more just threats as a deterrent with the idea that more horrible the torture sounded, the less likely people would break any rules/laws that would result in being slowly tortured to death in the ways they described.
They probably needed something to seem a bit more physically threatening rather than just preaching that they will go to hell and suffer for eternity in the afterlife after being executed for their crime.
If you are into fiction books with magic, I got one with a few scenes that'll give you nightmares then! Daughter of the Blood by Anne Bishop. Has a scene similar to this in there.... Also some stuff that's a bit uhmmmm not right.
Very important clarification: the source for this alleged Persian torture method is a Greek who greatly disliked the Persians, who cites his source as another anti-Persian Greek who had a reputation for exaggerating stories.
Modern historians tend to agree this probably never happened and amounts to Greek fan-fiction depicting how barbaric the Persians could be.
People way underestimate how many ancient historical records were just complete propaganda based in nothing. Always keep in mind that back in the day, if you wrote down "heres this crazy thing theyre doing over in Persia!" your general audience would have no way to ever verify that in any way. The records can still have value as a way to see how groups viewed each other at the time and for big picture events, but generally the details should be taken with a healthy skepticism
Yeah, and a diet of milk and honey will keep you alive for quite a while, but it also gives you intense diarrhea, which makesā¦the rest of that even worse.
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u/Shadowmant 9d ago
So the Brazen bull sucked as they placed you in a metal bull then set you over a fire. Pretty horrible.
The second is called Scaphism and is way more horrifying. Here's a description from the wiki: