Commentary Inf XXVII 7-15

This simile is derived either from various histories (Pietro di Dante mentions Orosius and Valerius Maximus [DDP Pietro1.Inf.XXVII.7-12]) or from Ovid (Ars am. I.653-656). The ancient tyrant of Agrigento (in Sicily), Phalaris, had the Athenian Perillus construct for him a brazen bull in which he could roast his victims alive. Their screams were transformed into what resembled the bellowings of a bull. Once the instrument of torture was finished, Phalaris ordered that Perillus be its first victim, thus testing his handicraft. It worked. Ovid's moral to the story (Ars. am. I.655-656) seems to be echoed in Dante's verse 8: 'there is no law more just than that the craftsman of death should die by his own handicraft.'

For studies of this simile see Lans.1976.1 and Cook.1976.1, the latter pointing to an inverse parallel, found in the Golden Legend, to the martyred St. Eustace.