The breaking wheel, also known as the Catherine wheel or simply the wheel, was a torture device used for capital punishment in the Middle Ages and early modern times for public execution by bludgeoning to death. It was used during the Middle Ages and was still in use into the 19th century.
Read more about Breaking Wheel: Description and Uses, Metaphorical Uses, Coats of Arms With Catherine Wheels, Gallery
Famous quotes containing the words breaking and/or wheel:
“Freedom is poetry, taking liberties with words, breaking the rules of normal speech, violating common sense. Freedom is violence.”
—Norman O. Brown (b. 1913)
“Of the wheel as it rolls unrelentingly over
A cow plodding through car-traffic on a street in Iasi,
And over the haunts of Robert Pinsky’s mother and father
And wife and children and his sweet self”
—Robert Pinsky (b. 1940)