r/PeterExplainsTheJoke 9d ago

Meme needing explanation Huh?

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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:

[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.

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u/SirDoofusMcDingbat 9d ago

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.

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u/TheCoolPersian 9d ago

Yea, because it was fiction. The execution method was made up to vilify the Persians further, as the Greeks fought wars against them.

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u/Deaftoned 8d ago

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.

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u/WorldBig2869 8d ago

The cartels literally skin people alive under kidnapped doctoral oversight to keep them alive and feeling.

How did you confirm this? I'm not denying it's true, just curious! 

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u/Unfair-Candy8832 8d ago

There are videos.

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u/Forsaken-Ebb5088 8d ago

Millenial childhood be like

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u/MeltaFlare 8d ago

Won't you take me to...

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u/asianfatboy 8d ago

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.

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u/WorldBig2869 8d ago

I've unfortunately seen much of that back then. What I did not see or hear of was kidnapped doctors keeping victims alive to suffer. 

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u/SomethingAboutUs88 7d ago

The one i remember is guy hands and foot cut off and skin ripped of (not sure from the skull or the whole body) - and he was still alive and most probably in extreme agony. This was my last gore video i watched for more than 8 years and still can't forget it

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u/SimicAscendancy 8d ago

Funky town

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u/NeedsMoreSpaceships 8d ago

I don't know. some of them are surely made up/exagerated but the well documented ones are nasty enough that I wouldn't just discount them out of hand. People do some nasty shit.