2 Maccabees 13:3–8

Menelaus also attached himself to them and, making loud pretences of patriotism, abetted Antiochus—not that he cared for the safety of the fatherland, but because he thought he would be appointed to office. But the King of kings stirred the anger of Antiochus against the scoundrel, and, learning from Lysias that he was responsible for all the troubles, he ordered him to be taken to Beroea and put to death there in the local fashion. For at Beroea there is a tower, fifty cubits high, filled with ⁽hot⁽ ashes, and a revolving contrivance which drops the victim sheer into the ashes. To this they bring any one who is guilty of sacrilege or other heinous crimes, and they all push him on, to meet his doom. By such a fate it befell that Menelaus, the law-breaker, died, not even getting a grave in earth. And this was perfectly just. Many a sin had he committed against the altar, whose fire and ashes were holy; by ashes, then, he got his death.