Note 58 — SCENE II.
Reading edition
As the Sicilian did his brazen bull.] The brazen bull, an ingenious instrument of torture, invented by Perillus, and presented to Phalaris, the tyrant of Agrigentum, was fatal both to its author and its owner. Phalaris made the first experiment of its powers upon Perillus; and when the people, exasperated by his cruelties, eventually rose against him, the tyrant suffered death by its means himself.