Envision a child taking care of his mother because she caught a cold while working in the fields to support her family. Now imagine her cries as she’s being taken away from him and sentenced to being publicly burnt alive as a punishment for being too sick to work. Scorching people alive was one of Vlad III’s most popular ways of chastising his people; piercing their bodies on stakes to suffer for days was his all-time favorite. Vlad III, prince of Wallachia, is one of the most notorious tyrants in all of human history because of his cruel, and often unreasonable, punishments. Born in late 1431, Vlad III, lived through a time when his family was trying to gain control of Wallachia, part of modern Romania. In attempt to do so, his father, Vlad II or Vlad Dracul, became a warrior in the Order of the Dragon, a group created to fight against the Islamic Ottoman Turks. In just a few years, Dracul conquered Wallachia, providing a life of royalty for his sons. However, Dracul soon betrayed the Order of the Dragon in favor of an alliance with the Turks – primarily because the Ottoman Empire was the most powerful force at the time. In fact, he practically gave away his sons as hostages to Sultan Murad II to prove that he would never turn against their empire. Vlad II’s precautions did little for him though. In 1447, he was assassinated by one of his own relatives, John Hunyadi, because of his sudden choice to support the Turks. As a teenager, Vlad III was told of his father’s death as well as finding out that one of his brothers was killed by men in Tîrgovişte, a nearby county. His vow for revenge quickly grew as he remained in Sultan Murad II’s possession.

Vlad III would not rest until his family members’ deaths were avenged. By killing Vlad II, the boyars from Tîrgovişte had taken over the throne. Fortunately, Vlad Dracul had kept an alliance with the Turks, so he received help from Pasha Mustafa Hassan’s Turkish cavalry. Together, Vlad III and Hassan managed to conquer Wallachia temporarily, but Hunyadi somehow appointed another man, Vladislav II, to the throne. As a last resort, Vlad III went as far as forming an alliance with Hunyadi in order to convince him in making him the next appointee to the throne. Long story, short: the plan didn’t work. Vlad III patiently waited until the year of 1456, when he killed Vladislav II, and finally became the new ruler of Wallachia. Now with a huge amount of power, Vlad III found the families of the murderous boyars and sentenced the healthy ones to work on building his new castle on the Argeş River until they died. The older family members were ashamedly impaled to death. It was just the beginning of his abuse of power.

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The fury that Vlad III accumulated while in the sultan’s possession was being relinquished. He wouldn’t even show an ounce of mercy to his newly acquired slaves. As they worked on constructing his castle, Vlad III tortured them by no longer treating them as human beings. During his six year tyranny, he made sure that no one would even think about breaking any laws because of his fear tactics. Those who refused to obey his every command were almost always penalized by death. These people “were skewered on a stake entering their body at the buttocks and exiting through the mouth…To exacerbate the torture, stakes were smoothed and lubricated so that death would come slowly…[their rotting bodies] left as a gruesome statement” (Gleeson 6). Even people who Vlad the Impaler saw on an everyday basis were not exempt from his heartless punishments. In the timeframe of a single day, he scouted the entire land for people that were sick, physically disabled, or born in a poor family. Soon after inviting them to a banquet in Tîrgovişte, he asked them if they’d like to never have the feeling of being hungry again. Not knowing he just asked a trick question, they excitedly answered yes. Before long, Vlad III had his men enclose the room and burn it down without a single survivor. His misuse of power didn’t end there, however. Other horrible punishments he ordered included killing children and elders for their uselessness, disemboweling his own mistress for a single lie, and even having women eat their own newborns. It was clear Vlad saw no limits in his supremacy.

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Vlad the Impaler would soon have his fear tactics backfire against him. Although the forest of impaled bodies around Wallachia worked its magic in scaring the Turks the first time they declared war, it would do little to overwhelm their massive army. Ironically, it turned out to be Radu, Vlad’s own brother, who would return to Wallachia to force him off the throne. While one would expect an immediate execution for the corrupt tyrant, Vlad was simply imprisoned (as he was when he was younger). While in jail, he still would find a way to impale living things; they would just happen to be small animals such as insects and mice instead of human beings this time. As a proverb claims, “He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword” (Proverb Quotes 1). One rumor has it that Vlad the Impaler was mistaken for a Turk during war and was decapitated, having his head publicly displayed on a long stick.