A brutal simulation of one of the cruelest forms of capital punishment has left viewers in tears.
The history of the torture method dates back to the Roman empire, when it was used as a punishment for a certain group of women.
Known as immurement, it was sometimes used as a form of imprisonment for female priests who broke their vows.
The Vestal Virgins were a class of priestesses who followed a strict vow of celibacy, fully committing themselves to Vesta, the goddess of home and family.
The historic torture method was truly terrifying (Wikimedia Commons)
However, if the priestess broke her vow, she would be punished by immurement, which involves enclosing a person within small walls, and effectively entombing them alive.
This could sometimes be in a wooden box, a locked coffin, or even bricked walls.
YouTuber Zack D. Films – who has shared a horrifying simulation of the torture method – explained: “The process starts by enclosing a person within a wall, leaving no exits.
YouTuber Zack D. Films has shared a horrifying simulation of the torture method (YouTube/Zack D. Films)
“Unlike being buried alive, you wouldn’t die from lack of air.
“In some cases, the person was given just enough food and water to survive for years.”
The simulation is an animation of a woman being stuck in a brick-layered box, being fed tiny amounts of food, just enough to stay alive, while in suffering.
“Prolonging the agony and isolation, victims were sometimes forced to stand upright, unable to sit or rest,” Zack added.
“Their legs swelling from the lack of movement.
“Many died slowly, completely isolated, left to suffer until the end.”
According to ‘Vestal Virgins: Chaste keepers of the flame’, the order was present for around 1000 years, though this hasn’t been verified.
Viewers were horrified by Zack’s video, with one person commenting: “Whoever designed this is an absolute monster.”
Another added: “This is so terrifying. The animation of the guy crying pretty much showed how bad this punishment was.”
A third person wrote: “Dude the animation on this was so good that when he started crying, I felt bad.”
A fourth thought what we were all thinking, penning: “This is heart-breaking. I cannot fathom how horrific people treated other living humans in the past it makes me feel so bad.”
Someone else also said: “This punishment is brutal! I would even try to protect my enemies from this!”
While cultures across history practiced this punishment, immurement is obviously no longer a thing.
Featured Image Credit: YouTube/Zack D. Films/Wikimedia Commons
Topics: History, YouTube
This might be the most painful and worst torture devices ever created – and its inventor was eventually tortured using the same method.
This story may be the cautionary tale behind the invention, but it also highlights one thing and it’s the fact that humans have come up with numerous ways to kill and punish each other.
You’d like to think that everyone had a clean mind, but some are twisted enough to conjure these torturous methods.
And this simulation shows just how brutal the method was, and the man at fault is named Perilaus of Athens, an inventor in Ancient Greece, who created the ‘Brazen Bull’ about in approximately 600-560 BCE.
The terrifying invention was a huge bronze structure shaped like a bull in the size of one, with a catch on its back and a pipe to breath out of the bull’s mouth.
Perilaus created the Brazen Bull with the idea of putting someone inside, lighting a fire below the belly of the bull and effectively cooking the victim like a Christmas turkey.
As they would struggle to breath in there, a pipe is attached to the bull’s mouth on the inside, with any screams transformed into the sound of a bull while letting out steam.
It’s fitting then that the creator thought that the creation should belong to Phalaris, the tyrant of the Sicilian state of Akragas.
Victims are ruthlessly trapped inside the metal structure. (DiscoveryWorld)
It was rumoured that Phalaris was a cannibal that ate newborn babies – so either he was a sick man who actually did that, or people disliked him enough to create the story.
Although it is unknown if the tyrant paid Perileus to create the torture device for him, but it was something that the inventor and most people thought the tyrannical leader would enjoy.
But this is the story of how the inventor himself fell victim to his own creation, as it turns out that doing something for a tyrant doesn’t mean that you’re necessarily on his good side.
Phalaris asked Perileus to get in the bull to test if they could hear the screams, but he instead locked him inside, lighting a fire under the bull to make him the first victim.
Poetic, really.
Luckily though, Phalaris spared him from being cooked alive by letting him out before he died – how thoughtful.
Screams from the victim sound like bull noises from the outside. (DiscoveryWorld)
That’s not to say though, that the tyrant wasn’t going to murder the inventor.
He instead gave Perileus a ticket to hell by throwing him off a hill to his gruesome death.
Phalaris loved the Brazen Bull, using it until his downfall in 554 BC, as he particularly enjoyed how the bull rocked back and forth as the person inside tries to escape.
He did later pay the price though, as when he was overthrown, the public put him in the Brazen Bull and gave him a taste of his own medicine.
Featured Image Credit: DiscoveryWorld
Topics: History, Weird, Community