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--- phalaris:phalaris-the-source-material [2013/11/21 18:36] – [Plutarch: Concerning such whom God is Slow to Punish] frank
+++ phalaris:phalaris-the-source-material [2014/01/14 23:19] (current) – external edit 127.0.0.1
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 The sculptor Perilaus made a brazen bull for Phalaris the tyrant to use in punishing his own people, but he was himself the first to make trial of that terrible form of punishment. For, in general, those who plan an evil thing aimed at others are usually snared in their own devices. Const. Exc. 4, p. 286.
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 This Phalaris burned to death Perilaus, the well-known Attic worker in bronze, in the brazen bull. Perilaus had fashioned in bronze the contrivance of the bull, making small sounding pipes in the nostrils and fitting a door for an opening in the bull's side and this bull he brings as a present to Phalaris. And Phalaris welcomes the man with presents and gives orders that the contrivance be dedicated to the gods. Then that worker in bronze opens the side, the evil device of treachery, and says with inhuman savagery, “If you ever wish to punish some man, O Phalaris, shut him up within the bull and lay a fire beneath it; by his groanings the bull will be thought to bellow and his cries of pain will give you pleasure as they come through the pipes in the nostrils.” When Phalaris learned of this scheme, he was filled with loathing of the man and says, “Come then, Perilaus, do you be the first to illustrate this; imitate those who will play the pipes and make clear to me the working of your device.” And as soon as Perilaus had crept in, to give an example, so he thought, of the sound of the pipes, Phalaris closes up the bull and heaps fire under it. But in order that the man's death might not pollute the work of bronze, he took him out, when half-dead, and hurled him down the cliffs. This tale about the bull is recounted by Lucian of Syria, by Diodorus, by Pindar, and countless others beside them. Tzetz. Hist. 1. 646-668.
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 Phalaris, seeing a multitude of doves being pursued by a single hawk, remarked, “Do you observe, sirs, how fear will make so great a multitude flee before a single pursuer? And yet if they should summon the courage to turn about, they would easily overcome their pursuer.” (But it was Phalaris himself who was falsifying; for the victory was won by courage and not by superiority of numbers.) And as a result of this speech Phalaris lost his dominion, as it is recorded in the section “On the Succession of Kings.” ((Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.))
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 ===== Aelian: Various History Book 2 =====
+{{:phalaris:pierre_woeiriot_phalaris.jpg?200 |}}
 **CHAP. IV.**
 Of the Friendship betwixt Chariton and Melanippus, and the Tyrant's mercy towards them.
 I will relate to you an action of Phalaris not agreeing with his disposition : for it expresseth a great humanity, and therefore seemeth not to sute with him. Chariton an Agrigentine loved Melanippus passionately, who was also an Agrigentine, of a sweet disposition and excellent form. Phalaris had injured this Melanippus in a certain business ; for he having brought an Action against a Favourite of Phalaris, the Tyrant commanded him to surcease the Suit : He not obeying, the Tyrant threatned him with death unless he submitted. So being compelled he gave over the cause, and the Judges under Phalaris null'd the proceedings ; which the young man taking ill, said he was wronged, and discovered his resentment thereof to his friend, praying him to joyn with him in a Plot against the Tyrant, intending also to ingage some other young men, whom he knew proper and ready for such an attempt. Chariton seeing him inraged and inflamed with fury, and knowing that none of the Citizens would joyn in the design through fear of the Tyrant, said that he also had formerly the same intention, and should ever be ready above all things to free his Country from Slavery ; but it was dangerous to communicate such things to many persons : wherefore he intreated Melanippus to consider it more deliberately, and to permit him to finde out an opportunity proper for the attempt. The young man yielded. Chariton thereupon undertook the whole business himself, not willing to engage his friend in it ; that if he were taken and discovered, he alone might bear the punishment, and his friend not share in the danger. He provided himself of a Falchion to assault the Tyrant when he should see a fit occasion. This could not be carried so privately, but that he was apprehended by the Guard, watchful of such things. Being carried to Prison, and tortured to make discovery of his Complices, he couragiously endured the torment. But this continuing a long time, Melanippus went to Phalaris, and confessed that he was not onely a Conspirator, but Author of the Treason. The King demanding the cause that moved him to it, he declared the whole business from the beginning ; how he was obstructed in his Suit, and that this was it which provoked him. The Tyrant wondering hereat set them both at liberty ; but commanded them immediately to depart, not onely out of all Cities belonging to the Agrigentines, but quite out of Sicily. Yet he allowed them to receive the full benefit of their estates. These and their friendships Pythia afterwards commended in these Verses:
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-Chapter XXXV
+**Chapter XXXV**
 "HAPPY the man who now to my sacred dwelling approacheth,
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 'Finally, Proteus arrives in Greece; and what does he do there? He makes himself offensive in Elis; he instigates Greece to revolt against Rome; he finds a man of enlarged views and established character, a public benefactor in general, and in particular the originator of the water-supply to Olympia, which saved that great assembly from perishing of thirst–and he has nothing but hard words for him; “Greece is demoralized,” he cries; “the spectators of the games should have done without water, ay, and died if need be,”–and so many of them would have done, from the violence of the epidemics then raging in consequence of the drought. And all the time Proteus was drinking of that very water! At this there was a general rush to stone him, which pretty nearly succeeded; it was all our magnanimous friend could do, for the time being, to find salvation at the altar of Zeus. He spent the four following years in composing a speech, which he delivered in public at the next Olympic games; it consisted of encomiums on the donor of the water-supply and explanations of his flight on the former occasion. But by this time people had lost all curiosity about him; his prestige was quite gone; everything fell flat, and he could devise no more novelties for the amazement of chance-comers, nor elicit the admiration and applause for which he had always so passionately longed. Hence this last bold venture of the funeral-pyre. So long ago as the last Olympic Games he published his intention of cremating himself at the next. That is what all this mystification is about, this digging of pits we hear of, and collecting of firewood; these glowing accounts of fortitude hereafter to be shown. Now, in the first place, it seems to me that a man has no business to run away from life: he ought to wait till his time comes. But if nothing else will serve, if positively he must away still there is no need of pyres and such-like solemn paraphernalia: there are plenty of ways of dying without this; let him choose one of them, and have done with it. Or if a fiery end is so attractively Heraclean, what was to prevent his quietly selecting some well-wooded mountain top, and doing his cremation all by himself, with Theagenes or somebody to play Philoctetes to his Heracles? But no; he must roast in full concourse, at Olympia, as it might be on a stage; and, so help me Heracles, he is not far out, if justice is to be done on all parricides and unbelievers. Nay, if we look at it that way, this is but dilatory work: he might have been packed into Phalaris's bull years ago, and he would have had no more than his deserts,–a mouthful of flame and sudden death is too good for him. For by all I can learn burning is the quickest of deaths; a man has but to open his mouth, and all is over. ((SOURCE: The Works of Lucian of Samosata. Translated by Fowler, H W and F G. Oxford: The Clarendon Press. 1905. ))
+===== Titian: Address to the Greeks =====
+**Chapter 34 - Ridicule of the Statues Erected by the Greeks**
+Worthy of very great honour, certainly, was the tyrant Phalaris, who devoured sucklings, and accordingly is exhibited by the workmanship of Polystratus the Ambraciot, even to this day, as a very wonderful man! The Agrigentines dreaded to look on that countenance of his, because of his cannibalism; but people of culture now make it their boast that they behold him in his statue! Is it not shameful that fratricide is honoured by you who look on the statues of Polynices and Eteocles, and that you have not rather buried them with their maker Pythagoras? Destroy these memorials of iniquity! Why should I contemplate with admiration the figure of the woman who bore thirty children, merely for the sake of the artist Periclymenus? One ought to turn away with disgust from one who bore off the fruits of great incontinence, and whom the Romans compared to a sow, which also on a like account, they say, was deemed worthy of a mystic worship. Ares committed adultery with Aphrodite, and Andron made an image of their offspring Harmonia. Sophron, who committed to writing trifles and absurdities, was more celebrated for his skill in casting metals, of which specimens exist even now. And not only have his tales kept the fabulist Aesop in everlasting remembrance, but also the plastic art of Aristodemus has increased his celebrity. How is it then that you, who have so many poetesses whose productions are mere trash, and innumerable courtezans, and worthless men, are not ashamed to slander the reputation of our women? What care I to know that Euanthe gave birth to an infant in the Peripatus, or to gape with wonder at the art of Callistratus, or to fix my gaze on the Neaera of Calliades? For she was a courtezan. Lais was a prostitute, and Turnus made her a monument of prostitution. Why are you not ashamed of the fornication of Hephaestion, even though Philo has represented him very artistically? And for what reason do you honour the hermaphrodite Ganymede by Leochares, as if you possessed something admirable? Praxiteles even made a statue of a woman with the stain of impurity upon it. It behoved you, repudiating everything of this kind, to seek what is truly worthy of attention, and not to turn with disgust from our mode of life while receiving with approval the shameful productions of Philaenis and Elephantis. ((http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/tatian-address.html))