Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/397

 PHALARIS, DESPOT OF AGRIGEXTUM. 37g and the few and vague statements which we find respecting it, merely show us that it was a period of extortion and cruelty, even beyond the ordinary license of Grecian despots. The reality of the hollow bull of brass, which Phalaris was accus- tomed to heat in order to shut up his victims in it and burn them, appears to be better authenticated than the nature of the story would lead us to presume : for it is not only noticed by Pindar, but even the actual instrument of this torture, the 'brazen bull itself, 2 which had been taken away from Agrigentum as a trophy by the Carthaginians when they captured the town, was restored by the Romans, on the subjugation of Carthage, to its original domicile. Phalaris is said to have acquired the supreme command, by undertaking the task of building a great temple 3 to Zeus Polieus on the citadel rock ; a pretence whereby he was enabled to assemble and arm a number of workmen and devofed partisans, whom he employed, at the festival of the Thesmophoria, to put down the authorities. He afterwards disarmed the citizens by a stratagem, and committed cruelties which rendered him so abhorred, that a sudden rising of the people, headed by Telema- chus (ancestor of the subsequent despot, Thero), overthrew and The letters of Bentley against Boyle, discussing the pretended Epistles of Phalaris. full of acuteness and learning, though beyond measure ex- cursive, are quite sufficient to teach us that little can be safely asserted about Phalaris. His date is very imperfectly ascertained. Compare Bent- ley, pp. 82, 83. and Seyfert, Akragas und sein Gebiet, p. 60 : the latter as- signs the reign of Phalaris to the years 570-554 B.C. It is surprising to see Seyfert citing the letters of the pseudo-Phalaris as an authority, after the exposure of Bentley. xii, 25 ; Diodor. xiii, 99 ; Cicero cont. Verr. iv, 33. The contradiction of Timseus is noway sufficient to make us doubt the authenticity of the Btory. Ebert (2eAtuv, part ii, pp. 41-84, Konigsberg, 1829) collects all the authorities about the bull of Phalaris. He believes the matter of fact substantially. Aristotle (Rhetoric, ii, 20) tells a story of the fable, whereby Stiisichorus the poet dissuaded the inhabitants of Himera from granting a guard to Phalaris: Conon (Narrat. 42 ap. Photium) recounts the same story with the name of Hiero substituted for that of Phalaris. But it is not likely that either the one or the other could ever have been in such relations wi h the citizens of Himera. Compare Polybius, vii, 7, 2. Polvaen. v, 1, 1 ; Cicero de Officiis, ii, 7.
 * Pindar. Pyth. 1 ad fin, with the Scholia, p. 310, ed. Boeckh ; Polyb.