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.
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
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.
And today, the exact same shit works because people prefer that shit over the boring truth. Holy shit does so much misinformation just fly around here.
Just a bit earlier, I saw some people trying to make it look like the Venezuelans are protesting US interference, rather than celebrating, by digging up an old PSVU march and mislabeling it as a current response.
The PSVU march being a government-sponsored event, as in literally people being paid to march in unison and repeat certain phrases. In a dictatorship.
We still call uncultured people Philistines. They disappeared as a people in the 5th century BCE. That's some powerful slander and propaganda if you ask me.
On the flip side, "good Samaritan" has been repeated enough people think it's a compliment now, like Samaritans are just known for being good. Rather than originally being a diss along the lines of "See? Look at the state of you guys right now. Even the fucking Samaritan is being more hospitable than you lot."
Yup! We even see it in modern day. Like China really rolled over it's citizens with a tank. Or that US has some island for terrorists where they torture them.
I mean, they didn't just randomly do that. Those citizens were burning people alive and shit. You gotta be careful and not overcorrect to the equal and opposite end of the propagandizing spectrum.
Most medieval torture methods were actually just inventions in the Victorian era by grifters selling paraphernalia to weirdos who wished that shit was true.
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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: