| Ear of Dionysius | |
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Origin |
Dionysius I of Syracuse |
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Type |
Human Ear |
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Effects |
Parabolic Hearing of Imprisoned People |
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Downsides |
None Identified |
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Activation |
Proximity to prisoners |
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Collected by |
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Section |
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Date of Collection |
12 July 2015 |
| [Source] | |
Origins[]
Dionysius I of Syracuse (432-367 BC) was a Greek tyrant of Syracuse who is known for conquering several cities in Sicily and southern Italy and making Syracuse the most powerful of Greece's Western colonies. He was regarded by the ancients as the worst kind of despot - cruel, suspicious, and vindictive.
According to legends, Dionysius I used a cave in Sicily, later called the "Ear of Dionysius" as a prisoner hold for political dissidents. The cave's acoustics were so good that he would stand at a specific focal point to hear the plans of his prisoners, or sometimes to hear their screams.
Effects[]
Imbued with Dionysius I's desire to hear his prisoners, his own ear became an artifact. Placing the ear within fifty feet of prisoners allows the user to hear perfectly what they are saying, no matter how quietly they whisper. Though how imprisoned a person is at any given time is subjective to individual and cultural interpretation, the artifact appears to adjust to the views of the user themselves. There are no recorded downsides of use.
History and Collection[]
Warehouse records first recorded this artifact during the time of Warehouse 3, when Tiberius Caesar used this artifact to eavesdrop on his sex slaves during his exile on Capri. The Warehouse could not access Tiberius at this time, so instead focused on trying to find the origin of this artifact. A Regent in Sicily was able to discover that Dionysius I's son, known as Dionysius II of Syracuse, cut off his father's ear after his death as a memento. He discovered after some time that the Ear was able to listen in on prisoners, and the son used this throughout his rule. The Regent believed that the son's wish to be like his father, combined with the legends of his father's "ear" created this artifact.
After Tiberius's death, the Warehouse tried to collect the artifacts from his exile, but discovered that they had all disappeared. The Ear fell off the radar, reappearing several centuries later during the Warehouse's time in Byzantine, and again during their time in China. However, the Ear remained in Europe, and because the effects were considered "minimal", the Warehouse never took the time to collect it.
After centuries of inactivity, the artifact appeared in Venezuela in June 2015. Agents Megan Wilcoxson and Felix Draco were sent to collect it from a prison called Vista Hermosa, considered one of the worst in the country. While there, they managed to collect two more artifacts, although by the time they left they had ignited a prison riot.