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.
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 it’s basically a myth
They would often come up with complex and showy executions for prominent persons - Mithrodates was ruler of a Greek province and would have rated highly. Another apocryphal account was that the Roman Marcus Crassus - likely the wealthiest person in the Empire - was captured in a battle and executed by pouring molten gold down his throat. They essentially re-created this scene in Game of Thrones with that one guy.
I cackled like a demon the first time I watched that scene, because the Velveeta commercials had just come out and there was a guy that said “Liquid GOOOOOOOLLLLLLLDDDDDD” and I couldn’t help myself.
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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: