The breaking wheel or execution wheel, also known as the Catherine wheel or simply the Wheel, was a torture method used for public execution primarily in Europe from antiquity through Middle Ages into the early modern period by breaking a criminal's bones and/or bludgeoning them to death. The practice was abolished in Bavaria in 1813 and in the Electorate of Hesse in 1836: the last known execution by the "Wheel" took place in Prussia in 1841. In the Holy Roman Empire, it was a "mirror punishment" for highwaymen and street thieves but was also set out in the Sachsenspiegel for murder and arson that...

"Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?" is a quotation from Alexander Pope's "Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot" of January 1735. It alludes to "breaking on the wheel", a form of torture in which victims had their long bones broken by an iron bar while tied to a Catherine wheel. The quotation is used to suggest someone is "[employing] superabundant effort in the accomplishment of a small matter".The quotation is sometimes misquoted with "on" in place of "upon". == Pope's satire == The line "Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?" forms line 308 of the "Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot" in which Alexander Pope responded...