Polycrates of Samos

“ Herodotus tells the story of the Thalassokrat (Sea-king) Polycrates of Samos whose never-failing fortune so alarmed his friend and ally, the Pharaoh Amasis of Egypt, that he wrote to him begging him to sacrifice something he valued most highly to propitiate the fateful Nemesis, goddess of retribution. In obedience to this request Polycrates, with many regrets, threw from a boat his precious emerald ring into the sea far from the shore. Some few days afterwards a fisherman caught a fish so large and shapely that, thinking it a prize for the King, he took it to the palace of Polycrates. ”

“ Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos, and friend of Anacreon and art and literature generally; formed an alliance with Amasis, king of Egypt, who, struck with his prosperity, ascribed it to the envy of the gods, insinuating that they intended his ruin thereby, and advised him, in order to avert his impending doom, to throw the most valuable of his possessions into the sea, upon which he threw a signet ring of great price and beauty, to find it again in the mouth of a fish a fisherman had sold him ”

“ And Alexis, in the third book of his Samian Annals, says that "Samos was adorned by Polycrates with the productions of many other cities; as he imported Molossian and Lacedæmonian dogs, and goats from Scyros and Naxos, and sheep from Miletus and Attica. He also," says he, "sent for artists, promising them enormous wages. But before he became tyrant, having prepared a number of costly couches and goblets, he allowed any one the use of them who was preparing any marriage-feast or extraordinary entertainment." ”

“ Beside the political and commercial pre-eminence which he conferred upon Samos, Polycrates adorned the city with public works on a large scale-an aqueduct, a mole and a temple of Hera (see Samos; Aqueducts) . The splendour of his palace is attested by the proposal of the Roman emperor Caligula to rebuild it. Foreign artists worked for him at high wages; from Athens he brought Democedes, the greatest physician of the age, at an exceptional salary. ”

“ What fun! Why, at this moment no one would presume to meet their eyes; from such a height do they look down on the rest of mankind. Who would believe that before long one of them will be a captive, and the other have his head in a bottle of blood?—But who is that in the purple robe, Hermes?—the one with the diadem? His cook has just been cleaning a fish, and is now handing him a ring,—“in yonder sea-girt isle”; “’tis, sure, some king.”
Her.Ha, ha! A parody, this time.—That is Polycrates, tyrant of Samos. ”

“ The people of Samos were at first governed by kings, and afterwards the form of their government became democratical and oligarchical. Samos was in its most flourishing situation under Polycrates, who had made himself absolute there. The Samians assisted the Greeks against the Persians, when Xerxes invaded Europe, and were reduced under the power of Athens, after a revolt, by Pericles, B.C. 441. They were afterwards subdued by Eumenes king of Pergamus, and were restored to their ancient liberty by Augustus. Under Vespasian, Samos became a Roman province. ”

“ Perhaps the centre of Ionic art and culture was, however, the island of Samos, but I doubt not the fame of its Samian wine has carried its name further than the exploits of its warriors, the works of its artists, or the thoughts of its philosophers. It was the birthplace of Pythagoras; it was once governed by Polycrates; there for a time Antony and Cleopatra established their court of love and luxury. ”

“ When called to Athens he received one hundred minæ (£350 or $1750) , until Polycrates of Samos gave him two talents. In like manner, no doubt, practitioners in many other arts were paid by the state; as, for example, architects at Rhodes and Cyzicus, and certainly in every place of importance. For it cannot be supposed that all architects, particularly those invited from foreign countries, would have exercised their art, as several did at Athens, for daily wages. ”

“ From Thrace, while yet in his youth, he withdrew to the island of Sa’mos whose tyrant, Polyc’rates, was a munificent patron of literature and art. Amid the gayety of the Samian court, the witty and pleasure-loving poet found a congenial home, Polycrates making him an intimate companion and confiding to him important state secrets. But the ruler of Samos was treacherously put to death by a Persian satrap; about which time, Anacreon was invited to Athens by the tyrant Hipparchus, who sent his royal trireme to bring his poet-laureate across the Ægean. ”

“ Its navy not only protected it from invasion, but ruled supreme in Aegean waters. The city was beautified with public works, and its school of sculptors, metal-workers and engineers achieved high repute (see below) . After Polycrates' death Samos suffered a severe blow when the Persians conquered and partly depopulated the island. It had regained much of its power when in 499 it joined the general revolt of the Ionians against Persia; but owing to its long-standing jealousy of Miletus it rendered indifferent service ”

“ It was this Polycrates then, prosperous in all things, against whom the Lacedemonians were making an expedition, being invited by those Samians who afterwards settled at Kydonia in Crete, to come to their assistance. Now Polycrates had sent an envoy to Cambyses the son of Cyrus without the knowledge of the Samians, as he was gathering an army to go against Egypt, and had asked him to send to him in Samos and to ask for an armed force. ”

“ In the island of Samos, so recently conquered by Darius, were the best engineers in Greece. After the construction of the great temple of Hera had been begun, the Samians had found various opportunities of exercising their skill. A long and difficult acqueduct, and breakwaters for the protection of the harbour, had been partly begun and partly carried out before the reign of Polycrates; the building of the palace, the strong fortifications, and, above all, the great docks and harbour-works, which Polycrates set on foot, had given yet further practice to the Samians. ”

“ But it is far from [45] likely that it is a statue of the philosopher Pythagoras. It is true he was a native of Samos, remarkable for his unusual beauty, and skilled beyond all men in harping and all manner of music, and living at the period when Polycrates was lord of Samos. But the philosopher was far from being a favourite of this tyrant. Indeed Pythagoras fled secretly from the island at the very beginning of the tyrant's reign. ”

“ Then while in Crete he went down into the cave of Ida with Epimenides; he also entered the Egyptian sanctuaries, [3] and was told their secret lore concerning the gods. After that he returned to Samos to find his country under the tyranny of Polycrates; so he sailed away to Croton in Italy, and there he laid down a constitution for the Italian Greeks, and he and his followers were held in great estimation ”

“ However, they sent a force to Samos to support the exiles; and Polycrates is said to have bribed them to return with leaden money gilt over. The existence of the story is singularly illustrative of the avarice as well as the gullibility of this people.
But the doom of Polycrates could only be deferred. Towards the end of the reign of Cambyses, he was unfortunate enough to excite the cupidity of Creates, the Persian satrap of Sardis, who proceeded to set a trap for him. Orœtes said that he feared the covetousness of Cambyses, and offered to deposit all his treasure with Polycrates. ”

“ If people are happier or more fortunate than they deserve to be, she always, either in this life or in Hades, gives them enough misery at last, until they are just as happy or unhappy as they deserve to be, and neither less nor more; and if they seem less happy or less fortunate than they deserve, she makes it up to them in the end. She is often so strangely slow in coming, that she has been called lame. But she always comes at last: if she is slow, she is sure.
There was once a king of the island of Samos, named Polycrates, who was famous for his marvelous good fortune. ”

“ The Lacedemonians then had come with a great armament and were besieging Samos; and having made an attack upon the wall, they occupied the tower which stands by the sea in the suburb of the city, but afterwards when Polycrates came up to the rescue with a large body they were driven away from it. Meanwhile by the upper tower which is upon the ridge of the mountain there had come out to the fight the foreign mercenaries and many of the Samians themselves, and these stood their ground against the Lacedemonians for a short while and then began to fly backwards ”

“ The Samians who had fought against Polycrates, when they knew that the Lacedaemonians were about to forsake them, left Samos themselves, and sailed to Siphnos. They happened to be in want of money; and the Siphnians at that time were at the height of their greatness, no islanders having so much wealth as they. There were mines of gold and silver in their country, and of so rich a yield, that from a tithe of the ores the Siphnians furnished out a treasury at Delphi which was on a par with the grandest there. What the mines yielded was divided year by year among the citizens. ”

“ Such are the two reasons alleged for the death of Polycrates; it is open to all to believe which they please. What is certain is that Oroetes, while residing at Magnesia on the Maeander, sent a Lydian, by name Myrsus, the son of Gyges, with a message to Polycrates at Samos, well knowing what that monarch designed. ”

“ After these things, king Darius took Samos, first of all the cities, either Grecian or barbarian, and for the following reason. When Cambyses, son of Cyrus, invaded Egypt, many Greeks resorted thither; some, as one may conjecture, on account of trade; others, to serve as soldiers; others, to view the country. Of these, the last was Syloson, son of Æaces, brother to Polycrates, and an exile from Samos. The following piece of good luck befel this Syloson: having put on a scarlet cloak, he walked in the streets of Memphis ”

“ The punishment of excessive and unbroken prosperity was assigned by the Greeks to the goddess Nemesis. The idea of too great a career of success exciting the anger of the gods is common throughout the whole of ancient literature. A well-known instance is the story of Polykrates of Samos, as told by Herodotus. Amasis the king of Egypt, observing the unbroken good fortune of Polykrates, advised him voluntarily to sacrifice some of his treasures. ”

“ Through the traders, who followed the fortunate Kolxus to the far west, and these pirate ships, Samos will become the richest of islands and Polykrates the most powerful of men, unless, as your father says, the gods become envious of such unchanging good fortune and prepare him a sudden and speedy downfall. ”

“ We need make no remark upon the story, that Periklês was induced to take the side of Milêtus against Samos, by the fact that Aspasia was a native of Milêtus. Nor is it at all more credible that the satrap Pissuthnês, from good-will towards Samos, offered Periklês ten thousand golden staters as an inducement to spare Samos. It may perhaps be true however, that the Samian oligarchy, and those wealthy men whose children were likely to be taken as hostages, tried the effect of large bribes upon the mind of Periklês, to prevail upon him not to alter the government. ”

“ The departure of Periklês, however, so much weakened the Athenian fleet off Samos, that the Samians, suddenly sailing out of their harbor in an opportune moment, at the instigation and under the command of one of their most eminent citizens, the philosopher Melissus,—surprised and ruined the blockading squadron, and gained a victory over the remaining fleet, before the ships could be fairly got out to sea. ”

“ Plutarch, it is true, accuses her of instigating a troublesome and dangerous but finally successful war against Samos, but, as he himself shows later, this was necessitated by the naval hostility of the Samians, which threatened the overseas trade of Athens, upon which all the prosperity of the republic depended.
Men’s ambitions are apt to reflect the standards of their intimates. Pericles was content, at any rate, to serve as a leader in Athens rather than to dominate as a tyrant. ”

“ There is another story, that the Samians from Egypt defeated Polycrates; but to my thinking this is untrue; for if they were able to master Polycrates by themselves, they had no need of inviting the Lacedaemonians. Nay, moreover, it is not even reasonable to suppose that he, who had a great army of hired soldiers and bowmen of his own, was worsted by a few men like the returning Samians. Polycrates took the children and wives of the townsmen who were subject to him and shut them up in the arsenal, with intent to burn them and the arsenal too if their men should desert to the returned Samians. ”

“ The Athenian populace remained quiet, though sorely against its will, because of the terror inspired by the oligarchs, for no small number of citizens who had opposed the Four Hundred had been put to death; but the men of Samos, as soon as they heard the news, were indignant, and wished at once to sail to Peiraeus. They sent at once for Alkibiades, elected him their general, and bade him lead them on to crush this new despotism. Alkibiades on this occasion acted like a really great commander, and not at all as one would expect of a man who had suddenly been raised to power by popular favour. ”

“ As soon as Phanes heard this he warned the doomed men, who at once, instead of sailing to join the Persian forces, returned to Samos and attempted to overthrow Polykrates. They were defeated, however, on land, and escaped to Sparta to ask help against the tyrant. ”