EXECUTIONERS (True Crime) by Anne Williams, Phil Clarke, Liz Hardy Read Free Book Online

procedure easier to carry out. The prisoner’s chest was opened up, usually using a sharpened stone, and the heart was removed by the officiating priest. He then held it up above his head while it continued to beat, so that the crowd below could see it. Then he deposited the heart in a stone vessel which was held by another man who lay next to the sacrificial alter. The victim’s body was then decaptitated. On some occasions, the victim was shot through with arrows instead of having his heart ripped out. If the victim was a brave or important warrior, his dead body was then rolled down the steps of the temple to be devoured by the frenzied mob below. His skin was then taken and worn by shamen in further rituals.

Phalaris

     
    Some powerful men cast a shadow over history. In many circles, they are written about and spoken of as progressive, intellectual renaissance men who worked tirelessly towards technological advancement, and ultimately for the good of their people. They are sometimes even regarded as heroic figures in their nation’s past, but scratch the surface and you will quickly unearth a different story, one of violence and cruelty involving cannibalism, ritual killing, genocide, institutionalised child molestation and a whole host of other bloodthirsty and depraved acts.
    Occasionally the reverse happens. A historical figure we perceive to be a murderous maniac will be revealed as a secret opera fan or crochet addict. It is well known that Adolph Hitler was a vegetarian and a keen painter, and the reason we find this odd is because it’s so difficult to marry Adolph the evil tyrant with Adolph the vegetable-loving, watercolourist. In these cases, it is often difficult to decipher which is truth and which fiction, but it’s likely there are elements of truth in both versions.
     
    T HE  H ANNIBAL  L ECTAR  E FFECT
     
    Hannibal Lectar, the cannabilistic psychopath in Silence of the Lambs, is a fictional manifestation of one of these characters, made all the more terrifying and dangerous by his apparent sophistication and capacity for intellectual thought. Phalaris, the tyrant of Acragas, demonstrated the ‘Hannibal Lectar effect’. Like Adolph Hitler, Vlad the Impaler, Ivan the Terrible and Saddam Hussein, Phalaris was a wolf in sheep’s clothing – a monster disguised as a diplomat.
     
    P HALARIS:  T HE  D IPLOMAT
     
    Phalaris has been credited with some very significant achievements. He was entrusted with the building of the Temple of Zeus Polieus in the citadel of the city, and took advantage of this position to rise to power in this part of Sicily. According to a later story, told by Polyaenus, Phalaris actually armed his labourers, effectively turning them into an army that occupied the citadel. It is however true that, once under his leadership, the city of Acragas enjoyed relative prosperity. He single-handedly supplied the city with water by building an aquaduct, adorned it with other fine buildings and built defensive walls around Acragas in order to keep it safe from invaders. On the northern coast of the island he was elected general with absolute power – and by adopting an expansionist foreign policy (invading other Sicilian towns and cities) he eventually succeeded in making himself ruler of the whole island.
     
    P HALARIS:  T HE  M ONSTER 
     
    However, despite his many achievements, Phalaris has become infamous as the prototype evil dictator who, among other things, enjoyed feasting on the flesh of suckling babies. Of course, it is very possible that these rumours of cannibalism were the invention of political enemies of Phalaris, who were attempting to cast him as nothing more than a bloodthirsty barbarian. It is also possible that Phalaris himself encouraged others to think of him in this light – afterall it takes a brave man to willingly attack someone mad enough to eat human baby flesh! One thing is for sure – cannibal or not – Phalaris definitely seems to have had a