Phalaris(Greek:Φάλαρις) was thetyrantof Akragas (nowAgrigento) inSicilyinMagna Graecia,from approximately 570 to 554 BC.
| Phalaris | |
|---|---|
| Tyrant | c. 570–554 BC |
| Died | 554 BC Agrigento,Magna Graecia,Italy |
| Religion | Ancient Greek |
History
editPhalaris was renowned for his excessive cruelty. Among his alleged atrocities iscannibalism:he was said to have eaten suckling babies.[1]
Another expression of his sadistic brutality is that he supposedly ordered a sculptor named Perilaus to make him abrazen hollow bull.The bull could hold a man and was used as an execution machine. The condemned person was placed inside, then the bull was closed and a fire lit underneath. The sculpture was made in such a way that, while the condemned met a horrible death in the burning furnace, their cries were said to sound like the bellowing of a bull.
Phalaris was entrusted with the building of the temple ofZeus Atabyriusin thecitadeland took advantage of his position to make himself despot.[2]Under his rule, Agrigentum seemed to have attained considerable prosperity. He supplied the city with water, adorned it with fine buildings, and strengthened it with walls. On the northern coast of the island, the people ofHimeraelected himgeneralwith absolute power, in spite of the warnings of thepoetStesichorus.[3]According to theSudahe succeeded in making himself master of the whole of the island.
He was at last overthrown in a general uprising headed byTelemachus,the ancestor ofTheron of Acragas(tyrant c. 488–472 BC), and burned in his own brazen bull.Pindar,who lived less than a century afterwards, expressly associates this instrument oftorturewith the name of the tyrant,[4]while Lucian mentions it in two satirical dialogues, "Phalaris A" and "Phalaris B", he wrote about the tyrant.
There was certainly a brazen bull at Agrigentum that was carried off by the Carthaginians toCarthage.This is said to have been later taken byScipio Africanusand restored to Agrigentum circa 200 BC. However, it is more likely that it wasScipio Aemilianuswho returned this bull and other stolen works of art to the original Sicilian cities, after his total destruction of Carthage circa 146 BC, which ended theThird Punic War.[citation needed]
Literary rehabilitation
editDespite his alleged cruelties, Phalaris gained in medieval times a certain literary fame as the supposed author of an epistolary corpus.[5]In 1699,Richard Bentleypublished an influentialDissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris,in which he proved that the epistles were misattributed and had actually been written around the 2nd century AD.[6][7]
References
edit- ^Tatian."Address to the Greeks".New Advent.ch. 34.Retrieved11 August2023.
- ^Aristotle,Politics,v. 10
- ^Aristotle,Rhetoric,ii. 20
- ^Pindar,Pythian 1
- ^A digitised 1706 translation of the Epistlesat archive.org. Retrieved 14 March 2024.
- ^"Epistles of Phalaris".Oxford Reference.Retrieved18 March2024.
- ^'Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris',archive.org. Retrieved 14 March 2024.
Sources
edit- This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain:Chisholm, Hugh,ed. (1911). "Phalaris".Encyclopædia Britannica.Vol. 21 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 345.
External links
edit- Phalaris,Livius.org
- Phalarisin theDictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology,ed.William Smith(archived version)
- Phalaris I&Phalaris IIby Lucian atLucian of Samosata Project
- Phalaris – The Source Material(references by ancient authors)