‘So much for what I had to say to you in my own behalf: it is true and just and, I flatter myself, merits praise rather than hatred. As for my gift, it is time you heard where and how I got this bull. I did not order it of the sculptor myself—I hope I may never be so insane as to want such things!—but there was a man in our town called Perilaus, a good metal-worker but a bad man, Completely missing my point of view, this fellow thought to do me a favour by inventing a new punishment, imagining that I wanted to punish people in any and every way. So he made the bull and came to me with it, a very beautiful thing to look at and a very close copy of nature; motion and voice were all it needed to make it seem actually alive. At the sight of it I cried out at once: “The thing is good enough for Apollo; we must send the bull to the god!” But Perilaus at my elbow said: “What if you knew the trick of it and the purpose it serves?” . With that he opened the bull’s back and said: “If you wish to punish anyone, make him get into this contrivance and lock him up; then attach these flutes to the nose of the bull and have a fire lighted underneath. The man will groan and shriek in the grip of unremitting pain, and his voice will make you the sweetest possible music on the flutes, piping dolefully and lowing piteously; so that while he is punished you are entertained by having flutes played to you.”

When I heard this I was disgusted with the wicked ingenuity of the fellow and hated the idea of the contrivance, so I gave him a punishment that fitted, his crime. “Come now, Perilaus,” said I, “if this is not mere empty boasting, show us the real nature of the invention by getting into it yourself and imitating people crying out, so that we may know whether the music you speak of ig really made on the flutes.” Perilaus complied, and when he was inside, I locked him up and had a fire kindled underneath, saying: “Take the reward you deserve for your wonderful invention, and as you are our music-master, play the first tune yourself!” So he, indeed, got his deserts by thus having the enjoyment of his own ingenuity. But I had the fellow taken out while he -was still alive and breathing, that he might not pollute the work by dying in it; then I had him thrown over a cliff to lie unburied, and after purifying the bull, sent it to you to be dedicated to the god. I also had the whole story inscribed on it—my name as the - giver; that of Perilaus, the maker; his idea; my justice; the apt punishment; the songs of the clever metal-worker and the first trial of the music.

‘You will do what is right, men of Delphi, if you offer sacrifice in my behalf with my ambassadors, and if you set the bull up in a fair place in the temple-close, that all may know how I deal with bad men and how I requite their extravagant inclinations toward wickedness. Indeed, this affair of itself is enough to show my character: Perilaus was punished, the bull was dedicated without being kept to pipe when others were punished and without having played any other tune than the bellowings of its maker, and his case sufficed me to try the invention and put an end to that uninspired, inhyman music. At present, this is what I offer the god, but I shall make many other gifts as soon as he permits me to dispense with punishments.’

This, men of Delphi, is the message from Phalaris, all of it true and everything just as‘ it took place. You would be justified in believing our testimony, as we know the facts and have never yet had the reputation of being untruthful. But if it is necessary to resort to entreaty on behalf of a man who has been wrongly thought wicked and has been compelled to punish people against his will, then we, the people of Acragas, Greeks of Dorian stock, beseech you to grant him access to the sanctuary, for he wishes to be your friend and is moved to confer many benefits on each and all of yon, both public and private. Take the bull then; dedicate it, and pray for Acragas and for Phalaris himself. Do not send us away unsuccessful or insult him or deprive the god of an offering at once most beautiful and most fitting.

I am neither an official representative of the people of Acragas, men of Delphi, nor a personal representative of Phalaris himself, and I have no private ground at all for good-will to him and no expectation of future friendship. But after listening to the reasonable and temperate story of the ambassadors who have come from him, I rise in the interests of religion, of our common good and, above all, of the dignity of Delphi to exhort you neither to insult a devout monarch nor to put away a gift already pledged to the god, especially as it will be for ever a memorial of three very significant things— beautiful workmanship, wicked inventiveness, and just punishment.