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PHALARIS

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Originally appearing in Volume V21, Page 345 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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PHALARIS , See also:

tyrant of Acragas (See also:Agrigentum) in See also:Sicily, c. 570—554 B.C. He was entrusted with the See also:building of the See also:temple of See also:Zeus Atabyrius in the citadel, and took See also:advantage of his position to make himself See also:despot (See also:Aristotle, Politics, v. 10). Under his See also:rule Agrigentum seems to have attained considerable prosperity. He supplied the See also:city with See also:water, adorned it with See also:fine buildings, and strengthened it with walls. On the See also:northern See also:coast of the See also:island the See also:people of See also:Himera elected him See also:general with See also:absolute See also:power, in spite of the warnings of the poet See also:Stesichorus (Aristotle, See also:Rhetoric, ii. 20). According to Suidas he succeeded in making himself See also:master of the whole of the island. He was at last overthrown in a general rising headed by See also:Telemachus, the ancestor of Theron (tyrant c. 488—472), and burned in his brazen See also:bull. After ages have held tip Phalaris to See also:infamy for his excessive See also:cruelty.

In his brazen bull, invented, it is said, by Perillus of See also:

Athens, the tyrant's victims were shut up and, a See also:fire being kindled beneath, were roasted alive, while their shrieks represented the bellowing of the bull. Perillus himself is said to have been the first victim. There is hardly See also:room to doubt that we have here a tradition of human See also:sacrifice in connexion with the See also:worship of the Phoenician See also:Baal (Zeus Atabyrius) such as prevailed at See also:Rhodes; when misfortune threatened Rhodes the brazen bulls in his temple bellowed. The Rhodians brought this worship to See also:Gela, which they founded See also:con-jointly with the Cretans, and from Gela it passed to Agrigentum. Human sacrifices to Baal were See also:common, and, though in See also:Phoenicia proper there is no See also:proof that the victims were burned alive, the Carthaginians had a brazen See also:image of Baal, from whose down-turned hands the See also:children slid into a See also:pit of fire; and the See also:story that See also:Minos had a brazen See also:man who pressed people to his glowing See also:breast points to similar See also:rites in See also:Crete, where the See also:child-devouring See also:Minotaur must certainly be connected with Baal and the favourite sacrifice to him of children. The story of the bull cannot be dismissed as pure invention. See also:Pindar (Pythia, i. 85), who lived less than a See also:century afterwards, expressly associates this See also:instrument of See also:torture with the name of the tyrant. There was certainly a brazen bull at Agrigentum, which was carried off by the Carthaginians to See also:Carthage, whence it was again taken by Scipio and restored to Agrigentum. In later times the tradition prevailed that Phalaris was a naturally humane man and a See also:patron of See also:philosophy and literature. He is so described in the declamations ascribed to See also:Lucian, and in the letters which See also:bear his own name. See also:Plutarch, too, though he takes the unfavourable view, mentions that the Sicilians gave to the severity of Phalaris the name of See also:justice and a hatred of See also:crime.

Phalaris may thus have been one of those men who combine justice and even humanity with religious fanaticism (Suidas, s.v.; Diod. Sic. ix. 20, 30, xiii. 90, xxxii. 25; See also:

Polybius vii. 7, xii. 25; See also:Cicero, De Qjjciis, ii. 7, iii. 6). The letters bearing the name of Phalaris (148 in number) are now chiefly remembered for the crushing exposure they received at the hands of See also:Richard See also:Bentley in his controversy with the Hon. See also:Charles See also:Boyle, who had published an edition of them in 1695. The first edition of Bentley's Dissertation on Phalaris appeared in 1697, and the second edition, replying to the See also:answer which Boyle published in 1698, came out in 1699.

From the mention in the letters of towns (Phintia, Alaesa and Tauromenium) which did not exist in the See also:

time of Phalaris, from the imitations of authors (See also:Herodotus, See also:Democritus, See also:Euripides, See also:Callimachus) who wrote See also:long after he was dead, from the reference to tragedies, though tragedy was not yet invented in the lifetime of Phalaris, from the See also:dialect, which is not Dorian but See also:Attic, See also:nay, New or See also:Late Attic. as well as from absurdities in the See also:matter, and the entire See also:absence of any reference to them by any writer before See also:Stobaeus (c. A.D. 500), Bentley sufficiently proved that the letters were written by a sophist or rhetorician (possibly Adrianus of See also:Tyre, died c. A.D. 192) hundreds of years after the See also:death of Phalaris. Suidas admired the letters, which he thought genuine, and in See also:modern times, before their exposure by Bentley, they were thought highly of by some (e.g. See also:Sir See also:William Temple in his See also:Essay on See also:Ancient and Modern Learning), though others, as Politianus and See also:Erasmus, perceived that they were not by Phalaris. The latest edition of the Epistles is by R. Hercher, in Epistolographi graeci (1873), and of Bentley's Dissertation byW.See also:Wagner (with introduction and notes, 1883) ; see especially R. C. See also:Jebb, See also:Life of Bentley (1882).

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